Enhancing capabilities through microfinance interventions among indigenous people in Narmada district: A study using the human development capability approach framework.
- South Asian Journal of Socio-Political Studies
- 25(1), Jul-Dec, 2024: p.28-32
Marginalisation and deprivation of indigenous people is graded and many layered. The tribal regions have been subject to many a type of coercions. Sometimes development agenda does not respect the achievements of people and therefore plans and policies fail to address the freedom of the indigenous in terms of what Sen would like to put forward. This has further led to manifold deprivations like that of land and property entitlement, political and social freedoms. Ultimately leading to greater levels of poverty and inequality. The microfinance movement helped this phenomenon to a large extent in the South Asian region. The capability approach (CA) (Sen, 1984) is an important lens to review what microfinance has been able to do for the indigenous people in a tiny tribal village of Gujarat, India. The present paper examines socio-economic impact of microfinance (MF) on the indigenous people and initiatives in enhancing capabilities among these indigenous people. Credit creates economic power, which quickly translates into social power. When credit institutions and banks make rules that favour a distinct section of the population, that section increases both its economic and its social status. Banks often reject poor as unworthy of credit and because of this, banks have imposed a financial apartheid and gotten away with it (Yunus, 1999). Therefore, the role of microcredit assumes great significance in creating plausible capabilities. Institutions play a vital role in connecting capabilities and enhancing the freedoms available to a developing society (Drèze and Sen, 2002). In the light of this, it would be pertinent to check whether indigenous residents from a village in a developing country like India have been benefitted and enhanced the dimensions listed in Nussbaum's central list of functional capabilities (2000)- Reproduced