Every society has its own set of norms, values, and traditions that shape how people live together. Some of these promote fairness and equality, while others quietly maintain exclusion. One such practice in India is the caste system which pushes certain people to the edges of the society, limiting their access to resources, opportunities, and social participation.
The caste system in India is a hierarchical practice that divides people into different groups. Each group has a fixed role, employment, and social status, defined merely by the family they are born into. This affects how people live, dine, marry, what kind of work they do, education, health, and well-being.
This system has been especially harmful to those from lower castes, commonly referred to as Dalits (a Hindi term meaning “oppressed”). According to the 2011 census, Dalits make up approximately 16.6% of India’s population. Dalits are a diverse set of people, so any effort being made for their upliftment should be according to their specific needs and situations. Although untouchability has long been illegal, caste-based discrimination is still presents and continues to inform the social structure of Indian society.
Some scholars suggest that regional and socioeconomic changes have reduced old divisions, other studies show how caste still strongly influences politics, social relationships, and cultural life, contributing to inequalities in income, status, and opportunities.
Addressing this problem requires not only legal reforms but also personal and social changes that restore dignity, strengthen communities, and rebuild social relations.
Psychology’s Blind Spot: Caste
While social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, and political science have long studied inequality, caste, and marginalization, Psychology has a different story. Much of psychological theory was developed in Western contexts, where individuals are seen as independent actors, unlike in India, where identity is closely linked to community. As a result, psychology often focuses on individual behaviour rather than the structural and historical forces like caste, class, and colonialism that shape people’s experiences.
This Western bias has created a gap between psychological research and the lived realities of Indian communities. According to many scholars, in Indian psychological research, caste was often seen as a nuisance variable to be ignored. Unlike the social sciences, which have sought to understand and challenge systems of inequality, Psychology in India has struggled to develop theories that reflect local histories, cultures, and struggles for dignity and justice.
Demarginalization and Decolonization
Recognizing this gap highlights a broader concern. The experiences of people in formerly colonized societies differ fundamentally from those of colonizers. Scholars argue that to truly understand these realities, knowledge and theory must be rooted in local contexts. This calls for rethinking ideas, methods, and ways of understanding culture, and for developing approaches that emerge from lived experiences rather than simply importing Western models.
Based on this understanding, Misra, Singh, and Mishra (2025) aim to explore-
- How can demarginalization be understood from a decolonial perspective?
- How can marginalization and demarginalization be understood in the Indian context?
- Further, given the diversity in the nature and processes of marginalization and demarginalization, what conceptual model can help address the various intersectional dynamics in these processes?
This paper examines the processes of marginalization and demarginalization, and proposes a conceptual model for understanding demarginalization.
To understand this better, let us first look at what these terms mean. Marginalization has been defined by Gatzweiler et al., (2011) as “an involuntary position and condition of an individual or group at the margins of social, political, economic, ecological, and biophysical systems, preventing them from accessing resources, assets, and services, restraining freedom of choice, and preventing the development of capabilities”.
While social sciences have studied these issues extensively, psychology has lagged because it largely relies on Western concepts. Western psychology emphasizes individual rights and independence, which does not fully capture societies like India, where identity is shaped by community and shared social realities. Here, the self is viewed in relation to society and context, and collective liberation, dignity, and the eradication of caste play a central role.
Collective or caste-based identity often becomes a key force for resistance and social change. Now, to remove marginalisation in such societies, the processes will be different. Most societies try to remove this marginalisation by helping the marginalised groups become part of the mainstream. This process is referred to as demarginalization, which includes the reduction of social, economic, and political barriers that limit disadvantaged people’s access to resources, opportunities, and rights.
Demarginalization is thus the process of moving from social, cultural, or psychological margins toward inclusion. To make this process meaningful, however, we must understand the specific needs, histories, and experiences of marginalized communities.
This is where decolonial thinking becomes essential. It urges us to question Western frameworks that treat all societies as the same and instead build knowledge from local histories, cultures, and struggles. In psychology, this means moving away from imported ideas and developing approaches that reflect how people in India actually live and experience the world.
Caste Does Not Equal Race: The Uniqueness of Demarginalization in India
In the Indian context, this becomes especially important when studying caste. When Western ideas are directly copied — for example, when caste is treated like race, Psychology fails to capture the unique nature of Indian inequality. A decolonial approach instead encourages researchers to focus on context-specific experiences of marginalization and develop responses that suit the diverse realities of Indian communities.
From this view, demarginalization means more than just helping people gain access to rights or jobs. It means questioning and changing the systems built through history, politics, and culture that keep certain groups excluded. It ask us to look at how power, culture, and knowledge work together to shape people’s lives, not just jobs or rights, but also how they see themselves.
Such conversations have been a part of Indian society and academia for a long time. Among them, Gandhi and Ambedkar stand out for offering two powerful yet contrasting visions of what an inclusive India could look like. Gandhi looked at demarginalization from a moral and spiritual point of view. He believed that change must come from within society. He spoke strongly against untouchability, promoted ahimsa (nonviolence), and believed in the spiritual equality and dignity of all people.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a key architect of the Indian Constitution, believed that real equality required changing the system itself. As a Dalit himself, he had faced discrimination firsthand and saw how social reform alone could not break caste. He fought for legal rights, affirmative action, education, and political participation for marginalized groups.
Gandhi and Ambedkar worked toward the same goal in different ways. While Gandhi worked bottom up to bring change within oneself, Ambedkar followed a top-down approach by bringing structural changes through constitutional reforms, education, and political representation of the marginalised communities.
By examining how marginalization has developed in India, this paper seeks a context-based approach to promoting inclusion. It explores social, structural, and psychological aspects of exclusion and reflects on the potential and limitations of psychology in addressing these issues. Drawing on India’s history and culture, and combining the contributions of Gandhi and Ambedkar, the paper proposes a conceptual model of the processes of marginalization and demarginalization of Dalits in India.
The model explains that marginalization occurs at multiple levels: individual, community, and structural. At the individual level, people may feel excluded or discriminated against, which can threaten their sense of identity. At the community level, entire groups may be sidelined or overlooked due to social norms, prejudice, or lack of resources. Structurally, discrimination is embedded in laws, policies, and institutions, creating barriers that prevent marginalized groups from accessing opportunities and rights.
Now it becomes clear how all these levels interact; therefore, for an effective solution, demarginalization also needs to operate at multiple levels.
For this, Gandhi’s and Ambedkar’s ideas need to be combined following both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Top-down efforts like government policies, legal protections, and affirmative action, create structural change by enforcing equality and providing resources to marginalized groups. Bottom-up efforts such as social movements, community-based programs, and local initiatives, empower people directly, build leadership, and strengthen participation.
A feedback loop between the state, civil society, and marginalised communities helps improve the development, implementation, and revision of policies as needed. It’s important because the top-down (government and laws) and bottom-up (community action) efforts work together and affect each other within a larger social system.
The model suggests that change should happen at local, state, and national levels through programs that build leadership, empowerment, and community participation, while also creating policies that amplify the voices of marginalized groups in public spaces and decision-making processes. By combining psychological, social, and structural perspectives, it explains how exclusion operates across systems, communities, and individual lives. The goal, therefore, is not just economic upliftment, but also social equality and justice.
This model serves as a key example in social psychology of how real change can be achieved by looking beyond the individual and situating people within their social, cultural, and structural contexts.
Researcher Contact Info-
Purnima Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India
Email: [email protected]
Ayushi Jolly
Ayushi Jolly is a PhD Candidate in Social Psychology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her research aims to foster a more holistic understanding of the human psyche that acknowledges the intricate interconnections between individual lives and the broader societal tapestry. She is dedicated to restoring the 'social' in social psychology.
Outside the academic sphere, she relishes the joy of travel and trekking and finds