Marginalised sections of the people and marginal communities have suffered for countless decades; in the past fifty years of independence their lot has not improved significantly, as ground realities reveal. The poorest of the poor continue to be exploited and oppressed and for the pittance of daily bread they pay a heavy price in terms of constant hunger, malnourished offspring, bondage to avaricious landowners, children harnessed to the plough and abandoned to hazardous trades, uncertain future and a life-span that has not increased in real time over the past five decades. In this background, the materials brought together in the present publication serve to highlight the cross-sections of marginal sections of the population and the quality of life, or lack of it, that constitute the large proportion of the Indian masses, that 50 per cent that lives below the poverty line. The articles, papers, extracts and reviews are drawn from a representative range of sources and cover such subjects as : historical perspectives on disparities; exploitation of women and children; rural labour and poverty; deprivation and homelessness case studies; caste hierarchy and social inequities; access to food, and aspects of poverty alleviation. The articles and papers are intended as choice readings in any curriculum for social scientists, development planners and students of society and social evils. These materials will help to fill the current gap in focussed and definitive literature on the subject.
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