Using NFHS-3 data, the authors demonstrate that Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe children experience significantly worse health and nutrition outcomes than higher caste groups — even when poverty and education are accounted for.
The article points toward caste-based discrimination and exclusion as key structural factors affecting access to public health services, immunisation, and food security schemes. It challenges development frameworks that treat inequality as purely economic, foregrounding caste as a determinant of health injustice.