PI: Dr Akhil Alha
Associated Academic Staff: Ms Nancy Yadav (for 6 Months)
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: ICSSR
Time Period: 29 December 2024 to 28 December 2026

Brief Description

India’s gig economy is expanding rapidly, often celebrated for job creation amid jobless growth. However, this study questions whether caste and gender—central to exclusion in India’s labour market—continue to shape outcomes in the gig economy. Does platform-based, algorithm-driven work diminish identity-based discrimination, or replicate it in new forms?

Methodology

The study focuses on geographically tethered gig workers across four cities—Delhi-NCR, Jaipur, Bangalore, and Hyderabad—covering workers engaged with platforms like Uber, Zomato, and Urban Company. A total of 400 interviews will be conducted, split between Dalit and non-Dalit workers, and including 100 women. Sampling will draw from platform databases and snowball techniques, where needed. The study uses a mixed-method approach combining surveys and qualitative interviews.

Preliminary Findings

Preliminary literature and media reports suggest caste and gender may still shape access to work, client behavior, and earnings in the gig economy. For Dalits and women, algorithmic work may offer flexibility but not full emancipation. Social hierarchies may persist under new technological wraps.

Tentative Contributions

The study addresses a critical research gap by foregrounding caste and gender in gig economy debates. It aims to produce policy-relevant insights for inclusive labour reforms and social protection, especially as the gig sector expands under new labour codes.

PI: Dr Sourindra Mohan Ghosh
Associated Academic Staff: Dr. Dhiman Debsarma, Ms.Ramandeep Kaur, Mr.Gitesh Sinha
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: Collective Good Foundation
Time Period: September 2023 to December 2024

PI: Prof Govind Kelkar
Associated Academic Staff: Dr.Poornima M, Field staff & Praveen Bharadwaj
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: RLS South Asia
Time Period: February to December 2023

Brief Description

This study explores the intersection of patriarchal belief systems and evolving capitalist relations in the indigenous societies of Northeast India, with a focus on ritual attacks and witch-hunting practices. The research examines how cultural anxieties, often linked to economic changes and power realignments, are projected onto women and marginalised individuals through acts of symbolic and physical violence. The practice of witch-branding and ritual persecution remains a persistent form of social control in many tribal societies, even as these communities undergo rapid social transformation. The study focuses on five states—Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Tripura—to understand the contextual factors behind these practices and to trace shifts in traditional belief systems. Specifically, it aims to (1) investigate the belief structures that legitimise witch violence and (2) explore how these beliefs are evolving at the nexus of patriarchy and capitalist change. The ultimate goal is to inform strategies that challenge these regressive norms and promote dignity, equality, and justice for women and marginalised groups. The study adopted a mixed methodology, beginning with a systematic literature review using Google Scholar to identify peer-reviewed and grey literature on witch-related violence, gendered superstitions, and cultural transitions in five North-eastern states of India. Following the review, qualitative fieldwork was conducted in five communities—one each in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Tripura—selected for their ethnic diversity and exposure to modernisation and capitalist transitions. Field data were gathered through community dialogues, interviews with local leaders, women, youth, and ritual practitioners, as well as participatory observations.

The findings reveal that, despite women’s vital economic and spiritual roles, they remain largely excluded from ritual spaces and are socialised to uphold patriarchal systems. Cultural gatekeeping by dominant local elites, particularly in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, has reinforced structural violence, including branding and exclusion. The study identified five key drivers of witch-hunting and ritual violence: reassertion of male control over land and property, blaming women for illness and misfortune, fear of social weakening due to witches, jealousy over relative wealth, and women’s visible assertion of autonomy. In Meitei society in Manipur, women are increasingly silenced by rising male dominance over resources and decision-making, despite their historical influence. This normalisation of exclusion reflects a deep-rooted patriarchal determinism.

The study recommends sustained interventions to transform patriarchal mindsets and promote scientific and rights-based thinking. Legal safeguards must be strengthened, and communities should be mobilised to dismantle the authority of ritual enforcers. Local healthcare services should be decentralised and gender-responsive. Most critically, women’s capabilities must be expanded through education, land rights, and access to new technologies. Empowering women economically and socially is essential for dismantling oppressive norms and enabling inclusive, equitable development.

PI: Prof Govind Kelkar
Associated Academic Staff: Dr.Jagritee Ghosh, Ms. Gazania, Dr.Aparajita Sharma
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: RLS South Asia
Time Period: June to December 2022

Brief Description

Official police records in India now list ‘witch persecution’ as a cause of killing and list an average of 150 killings per year from 2001 to 2012. NGOs and social scientists active in opposing witch violence pointed out that this is an underestimation since many killings may be shown as due to property disputes. In India most of those accused are women with 10 to 13 per cent reported cases of men. Several states in India responded by enacting anti-witch persecution laws in the years 2000 onwards. The objective of the study was to examine belief systems that underlies violence against women in the form of witch hunting in the context of Meghaiaya and Nagaland; and to explore their nexus with capitalist trajectories. Case Study Method was used.

The Findings are the person or families who are well off, strangers and person who do not have strong familial relations with those residing in the village are often targeted as witch, Pre-colonial and Pre-Christianity systems and values of social equality have turned into tools of control and manipulation of the masses of women and men and the socio-economic structural transformations are gendered processes, embedding in them the malcontents of modernity of targeting women as witches. It is to be noted that women have played an important influential role in challenging masculine prerogatives.

Recommendations are Policy and social actions required to eventually end witch persecution and witch hunt practices are

1. Two simultaneous policy measures are required to minimise and eventually end the practice of belief in witch craft and the justification of violence related to such a belief. First is the introduction of decentralised health care facilities in rural and indigenous areas. Second a policy change in the belief about the existence of witches and witchcraft practice also needed. Norms related to such belief can change.
2. The existence of witches, the thlen keepers and the tiger-men are said to be part of a belief system of many indigenous peoples. We have a limited understanding of beliefs that result directly from the nature of human consciousness and actions.

What is needed more than ever is the deeper research in the archaeology of indigenous cultures and learning from history of countries where beliefs, norms and practices of witch hunts have been eliminated.

PI: Prof Govind Kelkar
Associated Academic Staff: Dr.Aparajita Sharma, Mr.Parveen Bhardwaj
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: RLS South Asia
Time Period: July to December 2021

Brief Description

Official police records in India now list ‘witch persecution’ as a cause of killing and list an average of 150 killings per year from 2001 to 2012. NGOs and social scientists active in opposing witch violence pointed out that this is an underestimation since many killings may be shown as due to property disputes. In India most of those accused are women with 10 to 13 per cent reported cases of men. Several states in India responded by enacting anti-witch persecution laws in the years 2000 onwards. These states included Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Tripura and Rajasthan. The objective of the stuidy was to understand the belief systems that underlie the witch violence; and to explore the specific directions of change in these belief systems at the nexus of capitalist trajectories. Case study method was used.

The findings were in the current economic transformation, we notice a paradox of increased hegemonic masculinity and women’s increased struggles against this hegemonic masculinity. Rather than carrying witch hunts as a way to oppose the system of accumulation, a preferable option suggested by women and the concerned thinkers are that a better option would be the state instituted enforceable measures for new forms of rights-based approach to embrace dignity and equality of women.

The study recommends building community awareness against the culture of social existence of witches, setting up a decentralised gender-responsive healthcare infrastructure with attention to reproductive concerns of women and girls and endemic fever, malaria etc., bringing in change in the primary school textbooks, with stories that there is nothing like witchcraft and witches. So, the new generation of youth can groom with an egalitarian, gender-sensitive culture, building capabilities of indigenous women and girls, with attention to human rights-respecting culture and scientific thinking, as well as new production technologies and gender-responsive egalitarian relations. These capability building efforts are to be accompanied by women’s unmediated rights to land and property, making women economically independent and enabling them empowered with dignity and freedom of decision making.

PI: Dr Poornima M,
Associated Academic Staff: Ms Ramandeep Kaur, Ms Jaya Lakshmi Nair, Dr Anitha
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd.
Time Period: May 2019 to July 2020

Brief Description

This study evaluates the Stree Swabhiman initiative, which focuses on awareness on menstrual health, bio-degradable sanitary napkin production, and employment for rural women. Objectives include assessing awareness efforts, affordability of pads, and the program’s impact on behavior and employment. Conducted from June 2019 to June 2020, the study utilized surveys, interviews, and focus groups with 600 respondents across six states. Findings indicate low community awareness, high costs of pads compared to commercial options, and insufficient use of free pads. Recommendations include improving community attitudes and behaviour towards use of sanitary napkins, using cost-effective machinery, training both men and boys, and enhancing WASH facilities.

PIs: Prof Ashok Pankaj, Prof Imrana Qadeer and Prof K B Saxena
Associated Academic Staff: Dr. P M Arathi, Mr Sourindra Mohan Ghosh, Dr Ashwani Jhadhav
Ms Antora Borah, Ms Tarika, Ms Ramandeep Kaur, Ms Jaya Lekshmi Nair
Funding Agency/s OR Institution/s: Care India and Nutrition International
Time Period: February 2018 to May 2019

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