Dalit entrepreneurs get their own business magazine

The Dalit Enterprise, a magazine that aims to celebrate the success of Dalit businessmen and motivate more people from the community to become entrepreneurs, was launched on Friday.

The magazine will be on the same lines as the Black Enterprise, which was launched in the US in 1970, and became the first publication ever devoted to African-American entrepreneurs and corporate executives.

“As Dalit businessmen, our problems are very specific and need to be highlighted specifically. We need to celebrate our success stories and also bring out the problems faced by the community’s businessmen when they try to enter the Indian market. The aim is to at least have 100 dalit billionaires in India. When people talk about Dalit empowerment, people just talk about ghareebi hatao, its time to talk about ameeri badhao now,” says Chandra Bhan Prasad, a Dalit entrepreneur and author, who will be the editor of the magazine.

Owing to caste-based discrimination, lack of capital, and technical knowledge, these minority businessmen have been effectively kept out of the Indian marketplace, even though more are opting to become entrepreneurs now.

Today, the country has many Dalit entrepreneurs, working across sectors, and some Dalit billionaires as well (now estimated at around 50). The Dalit Enterprise, according to Prasad, will celebrate this. India has around 200 million Dalits, according to the 2011 census.

The magazine was launched at a seminar on Tender & Banking Reforms for Dalit/Adivasi Entrepreneurs, by the Center for the Study of Caste and Capitalism (CSCC), a Delhi based think tank, in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

As of now, the 100-page monthly magazine will not be available on the stands but circulated to members of CII. The first edition, which will be available online in a week, will profile 18 Dalit entrepreneurs as well as highlight some problems faced by the community.