Articles by Victor S D Souza

Distribution An Analysis of Communal Tension in Punjab Victor S D'Souza There is accumulating evidence to show that with economic growth in Punjab the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Yet politics in Punjab is articulated more along religious than along class lines.

Myrdal provides many perceptive leads to an understanding of the nature of poverty and inequalities among these nations,, though he does not attempt any systematic theory. According to him, "low average income inequality and social stratification are causally interrelated''. He maintains: "Inequality of social status is not only made more rigid and permanent by low levels of income . . but itself tends to perpetuate its major cause'' (Myrdal 1968, 569 italics added). Insofar as inequality of status is a reflection of inequality of income, it is obvious that status differences and income differences an? correlated. . But what is distinctive in Myrdal's argument is that, among the societies under reference, inequality of status is an independent variable and that inequality of income is a dependent one. When development takes place, resulting in an overall increase in income, the additional income is distributed according to the inequality of status

men sacrifice these roles to an extent in the interest of sheer survival, but they devote greater attention to the roles and cease working as soon as they can afford to do so. Ester Boserup herself describes, and indeed bemoans, the plight of Asian and African working women : "The woman of the Asian plantation has a double job, as housewife and as full time labourer ... while the men are at leisure when work in the plantation is over" (p 78), In my own field studies 6 among village women of Rajas- than, I found that working women of both agricultural and non-agricultural households expressed a strong desire to be able to afford the leisure of preparing two hot meals and looking after the health and personal hygiemneeds of their children, as could the high-caste higher-income group women of the area who were not working. It was observed further that, women of the non-agricultural group, in which both men and women were workers in a cement factory, withdrew from work as soon as the husband or one of the sons became a permanent worker with higher wages in the factory.