Dalit Employee : A Sociological Study of Inter-Personal Relations at Work Place

Contents: Foreword. 1. Introduction. 2. The field and its profile. 3. The profile of the Dalit employee. 4. Career organization of Dalit Employees. 5. Interpersonal relations at workplace. 6. Attitudes and perceptions of Dalit Employees.

“The book is about interpersonal relations of Dalit employees with the non-Dalit employees as obtained in the perceptual reality of the Dalits working in the formal organizations covered in the Public, semipublic and private, semiprivate, co-operative and local body institutions in Hubli-dharwad Urban agglomeration limits situated in the backward region of north Karnataka in India. In this explorative analysis, efforts are made primarily to establish how Dalit employees feel accommodated in the modern complex work organizations amidst a host of employees, employers and executive bosses from the upper caste background in whose association the Dalits have never worked historically. The onset of British rule coupled with westernization, industrialization and urbanization provided new vistas to the Dalits to start coming in to the mainstream of the Society. Emergence of independent India, with having its own constitutional provisions for participation of all castes and creeds in its nation building process, has further facilitated the traditionally deprived section of population in their genuine contribution towards it. The Constitutional Policy of Protective Discrimination in the form of reservations to provide social justice has really helped Dalits in having carved a space in public life for themselves. However, these are schisms still prevailing as the traditional Hindu behavioral patterns linger in the deep seated psyche of the society. The present study is an attempt to empirically showcase this through the views of 300 sampled Dalit employees.

The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter being introduction to the subject of enquiry, the second and third chapters present the descriptive details about the field and the sample. The fourth chapter in about the career organization of the Dalit employees, while the fifth chapter deals with the perceived interpersonal relations of Dalit employees at workplace. The sixth chapter provides an analysis of attitudes and perceptions pertains to a score of aspects of worklife, workorganization, career, co-worker, community, and the whole gamut of things that surround both their work and community life. In the seventh chapter, a summary of the study with the conclusions derived and suggestions postulated are provided. The book should be of an interest to industrial sociologists, industrial, psychologists and organizational behavior experts.”