Showing papers on "Caste published in 2003"

Why Dowry Payments Declined with Modernization in Europe but Are Rising in India

Abstract: In contrast to most dowry‐oriented societies in which payments have declined with modernization, those in India have undergone significant inflation over the last five decades This paper explains the difference between these two experiences by focusing on the role played by caste The theoretical model contrasts caste‐ and non‐caste‐based societies: in the former, there exists an inherited component to status (caste) that is independent of wealth, and in the latter, wealth is the primary determinant of status Modernization is assumed to involve two components: increasing average wealth and increasing wealth dispersion within status (or caste) groups The paper shows that, in caste‐based societies, the increases in wealth dispersion that accompany modernization necessarily lead to increases in dowry payments, whereas in non‐caste‐based societies, increased dispersion has no real effect on dowry payments and increasing average wealth causes the payments to decline

The Success of India's Democracy

Abstract: List of contributors Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Atul Kohli Part I. Historical Origins: 2. Indian democracy: the historical inheritance Sumit Sarkar Part II. Political Institutions and Democratic Consolidation: 3. India's federal design and multicultural national construction Jyotirindra Dasgupta 4. Center-state relations James Manor 5. Making local government work Subrata K. Mitra 6. Redoing the constitutional design: from an interventionist to a regulatory state Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 7. The dialectics of Hindu nationalism Amrita Basu: Part III. Social Demands and Democratic Deepening 8. The struggle for equality: caste in Indian politics Myron Weiner 9. Sharing the spoils: group equity, development and democracy Pranab Bardhan 10. Social movement politics in India: institutions, interest, and identities Mary Katzenstein, Smitu Kothari, and Uday Mehta Bibliography Index.

Worker caste polymorphism has a genetic basis in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants

Abstract: Division of labor is fundamental to the success of all societies. The most striking examples are the physically polymorphic worker castes in social insects with clear morphological adaptations to different roles. These polymorphic worker castes have previously been thought to be a classic example of nongentically controlled polymorphism, being mediated entirely by environmental cues. Here we show that worker caste development in the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior has a significant genetic component. Individuals of different patrilines within the same colony differ in their propensities to develop into minor or major workers. The mechanism appears to be plastic, with caste destiny resulting from interplay between nurture and nature. Unlike the few other recently discovered examples of a genetic influence on caste determination, the present result does not relate to any rare or exceptional circumstances, such as interspecific hybridization. The results suggest that a significant role of genetics may have been overlooked in our understanding of other complex polymorphisms of social insects.

Complex hybrid origin of genetic caste determination in harvester ants

Abstract: Caste differentiation and division of labour are the hallmarks of insect societies and at the root of their ecological success. Kin selection predicts that caste determination should result from environmentally induced differences in gene expression, a prediction largely supported by empirical data. However, two exceptional cases of genetically determined caste differentiation have recently been found in harvester ants. Here we show that genetic caste determination evolved in these populations after complex hybridization events. We identified four distinct genetic lineages, each consisting of unique blends of the genomes of the parental species, presumably Pogonomyrmex barbatus and P. rugosus. Crosses between lineages H1 and H2 and between J1 and J2 give rise to workers, whereas queens develop from within-lineage matings. Although historical gene flow is evident, genetic exchange among lineages and between lineages and the parental species no longer occurs. This unusual system of caste determination seems to be evolutionarily stable.

India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India

Abstract: Contents: I: Congress Domination and Conservative Democracy - The Ideological Roots of Indian Democracy's Social Deficit - Discourses and Practices - Congress: Party of the Intelligentsia or of the Notables? -The Co-option of Scheduled Caste Leaders and the 'Coalition of Extremes' - Indira Gandhi and the Aborted Reform of Congress - II: The Second Age of Indian Democracy - From Reluctant to Compelling Caste-Based Affirmative Action - Two Strategies: Quota Politics and Kisan Politics - The Janata Dal and the Empowerment of the Low Castes - The BSP: Not Just a Dalit Party - The Upper Castes' Political Resilience: Congress and the BJP Coping with the Mandal Commission.

Gendering caste through a feminist lens

Abstract: Examining the crucial linkages between caste and gender, undertaken, perhaps, for the first time, Uma Chakravarti unmasks the mystique of consensus in the workings of the caste system to reveal the underlying violence and coercion that perpetuate a severely hierarchical and unequal society. The subordination of women and the control of female sexuality are crucial to the maintenance of the caste system, creating what feminist scholars have termed brahmanical patriarchy. She discusses the range of patriarchal practices within the larger framework of sexuality, labour and access to material resources, and also focuses on the centrality of endogamous marriages that maintain the system. Erudite yet accessible, this book enables the reader to understand the interface of gender and caste and to participate in its critical analysis.

Caste fate conflict in swarm-founding social hymenoptera: an inclusive fitness analysis.

Abstract: A caste system in which females develop into morphologically distinct queens or workers has evolved independently in ants, wasps and bees. Although such reproductive division of labour may benefit the colony it is also a source of conflict because individual immature females can benefit from developing into a queen in order to gain greater direct reproduction. Here we present a formal inclusive fitness analysis of caste fate conflict appropriate for swarm-founding social Hymenoptera. Three major conclusions are reached: (1) when caste is self-determined, many females should selfishly choose to become queens and the resulting depletion of the workforce can substantially reduce colony productivity; (2) greater relatedness among colony members reduces this excess queen production; (3) if workers can prevent excess queen production at low cost by controlled feeding, a transition to nutritional caste determination should occur. These predictions generalize results derived earlier using an allele-frequency model [Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. (2001) 50: 467] and are supported by observed levels of queen production in various taxa, especially stingless bees, where caste can be either individually or nutritionally controlled.

Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft, and Caste in Colonial Mexico

Abstract: Through an examination of caste in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mexico, Hall of Mirrors explores the construction of hierarchy and difference in a Spanish colonial setting. Laura A. Lewis describes how the meanings attached to the categories of Spanish, Indian, black, mulatto, and mestizo were generated within that setting, as she shows how the cultural politics of caste produced a system of fluid and relational designations that simultaneously facilitated and undermined Spanish governance. Using judicial records from a variety of colonial courts, Lewis highlights the ethnographic details of legal proceedings as she demonstrates how Indians, in particular, came to be the masters of witchcraft, a domain of power that drew on gendered and hegemonic caste distinctions to complicate the colonial hierarchy. She also reveals the ways in which blacks, mulattoes, and mestizos mediated between Spaniards and Indians, alternatively reinforcing Spanish authority and challenging it through alliances with Indians. Bringing to life colonial subjects as they testified about their experiences, Hall of Mirrors discloses a series of contradictions that complicate easy distinctions between subalterns and elites, resistance and power.

Regional modernities : the cultural politics of development in India

Abstract: This collection of essays by leading social scientists focuses on development in India to explore the emergence of "regional modernities" in ways that are distinct from a so-called global modernity and its myriad local variations. "Regional," for the authors, incorporates the state and other subnational and supranational social and political formations that are more or less salient depending on the social networks and development projects under consideration. In particular, the concept of region allows the assessment of large-scale ethnic, religious, social, and geo-political formations as they mediate oversimplified binary oppositions of colonial or postcolonial power and local incorporation or resistance. Individual essays present case studies of development across India, considering the role of class, caste, gender, and ethnic and political identities in their interactions with government forces. They investigate the binding of diverse groups through large projects such as dam building and offer rich ethnographic accounts of tree farmers, entrepreneurs, government officials, women in Gandhian ashrams, slum dwellers, and atomic scientists.

What Is Happening to Caste? A View from Some North Indian Villages

Abstract: The role of caste in indian politics is undergoing considerable change. Caste and patron-client links have been regarded traditionally as the building blocks of political organization in India (Brass 1994; Manor 1997; Migdal 1988; Kothari 1988; Weiner 1967), and vertical and horizontal mobilizations by patrons and caste leaders, respectively, have been important influences on political outcomes (Rudolph and Rudolph 1967). There are indications, however, that the influence of patronage and caste might have declined considerably in recent years:[National-level] survey data reveal some important facts that run counter to the conventional wisdom on voter behavior. … In 1996, 75 percent of the sample said they were not guided by anyone in their voting decision. … Of the 25 percent who sought advice, only 7 percent sought it from caste and community leaders … that is, less than 2 percent of the electorate got direct advice on how to vote from caste and community leaders. … The most important survey data show the change over time. In 1971, 51 percent of the respondents agreed that it was “important to vote the way your caste/community does” (30 percent disagreed), but in 1996 the percentages were reversed: 51 percent disagreed with that statement (29 percent agreed). … In 1998, “caste and community” was seen as an issue by only 5.5 percent of the respondents in one poll … and [it] ranked last of nine issues in another. All the evidence points to the fact that these respondents are correct: members of particular castes … can be found voting for every party. … It is less and less true that knowing the caste of a voter lets you reliably predict the party he or she will vote for.(Oldenburg 1999, 13–15, emphasis in original)

An obituary of caste as a system

Abstract: The Bhakti movement of medieval India was really pan-Indian and attracted a large number of men and women from the lower orders and it even crossed the religious divide between Hindus and Muslims. But it failed to make a dent on caste hierarchy. The moral to be drawn is that an ideological attack on caste which is not backed up or underpinned by a mode of social production ignoring or violating caste-based division of labour is totally inadequate. A combination of wholly new technologies, institutions based on new principles and a new ideology which includes democracy, equality and the idea of human dignity and self-respect has to be in operation for a considerable time to uproot the caste system. Such a combination of forces is today bringing about the destruction of the caste-based system of production in the villages and at the local level.

Grappling with Modernity India’s Respectable Classes and the Culture of Domestic Servitude

Abstract: This article explores the culture of servitude of Kolkata’s (formerly Calcutta) respectable classes against the backdrop of their project of modernity. In societies with long and unbroken histories...

Master-Servant relations and the domestic reproduction of caste in Northern India

Abstract: The relationship between upper or middle class families and their domestic servants is an understudied subject matter in the anthropology of India. This article argues that master-servant relations are more significant for the domestic reproduction of inequality than hitherto acknowledged. Most earlier studies have discussed this inequality in terms of class, but this article argues that master-servant relations also are flavoured by caste. The employment of servants is partly motivated by the masters' avoidance of defiling tasks and substances; servants are frequently appointed according to their caste specialization; and employers maintain considerable distance from untouchable servants. Upper and middle class children, then, are socialized into a tacit world-view in which caste and inequality are naturalized and taken for granted as a part of the social order.

Christians and Missionaries in India: Cross-Cultural Communication Since 1500

Abstract: The assumption that Christianity in India is nothing more than a European, western, or colonial imposition is open to challenge. Those who now think and write about India are often not aware that Christianity is a non-western religion, that in India this has always been so, and that there are now more Christians in Africa and Asia than in the West. Recognizing that more understanding of the separate histories and cultures of the many Christian communities in India will be needed before a truly comprehensive history of Christianity in India can be written, this volume addresses particular aspects of cultural contact, with special reference to caste, conversion, and colonialism. Subjects addressed range from Sanskrit grammar to populist Pentecostalism, Urdu polemics and Tamil poetry.

Reproductive skew and the origin of sterile castes.

Abstract: Reproductive skew theory has not heretofore formally addressed one of the most important questions in evolutionary biology: How can whole‐life sterile castes evolve? We construct a transactional skew model investigating under what conditions a subordinate in a multimember group is favored to develop into a morphologically specialized worker caste. Our model demonstrates that, contrary to former expectations, the ecological and genetic conditions favoring caste differentiation are far more restrictive than those favoring high skew. Caste differentiation cannot be selected in saturated, symmetrical relatedness groups unless the genetic relatedness among group members is extremely high. In contrast, it can be selected in the saturated, asymmetrical relatedness (parent‐offspring) groups with complete skew. If we also consider the future reproduction of subordinates, caste differentiation is possible only after the group size reaches a certain critical point. Most importantly, caste differentiation i...

Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy

Abstract: This paper addresses the question of how traditional institutions interact with the forces of globalization to shape the economic mobility and welfare of particular groups of individuals in the new economy. We explore the role of one such traditional institution--the caste system--in shaping career choices by gender in Bombay using new survey data on school enrollment and income over the past 20 years. Bombay's labor market was historically organized along rigid caste lines; such restrictions on mobility can be welfare enhancing when network externalities are present. But there was a dramatic change in the returns to different occupations in the 1990s. We find that male working class--lower caste--networks continue to channel boys into local language schools that lead to the traditional occupation, despite the fact that returns to non-traditional white collar occupations rose substantially, suggesting the possibility of a dynamic inefficiency. In contrast, lower caste girls, who historically had low labor market participation rates and so did not benefit from the network, are taking full advantage of the opportunities that became available in the new economy by switching rapidly to English schools. Thus, caste continues to play a particular role in shaping schooling choices in the new economy of the 1990s. But the overall increase in English schooling in recent years and the growing mismatch in education choices and hence occupational outcomes between boys and girls in the same caste, suggest that the remarkably resilient caste system might finally be starting to disintegrate.

HLA diversity among Nadars, a primitive Dravidian caste of South India.

Abstract: South India is one of the oldest geophysical regions mainly occupied by Dravidian language-speaking people. Here a random panel of 61 unrelated Nadar healthy individual from Tamil Nadu State were analyzed and compared with other populations of India and the world. HLA-A, B and C alleles frequencies and their haplotype frequencies were determined by high-resolution typing of genomic DNA. The analysis revealed that the Nadar caste of South India have several characters shared with East Asian populations consistent with the demographic history of South India, as well as specific features including several unique alleles such as A*03011, A*31011, B*15011, B*3501, B*51011, Cw*02022. In addition, haplotypes such as A*31011-Cw*02022-B*3501, A*03011-Cw*04011-B*4406 and A*2402101-Cw*04011-B*51011 are of high frequency in both these populations but are rare or absent in other populations of India and the world. The study suggests that a comparatively lesser degree of genetic admixture occurred between the South Indian and North Indian racial groups than that between South Indian and East Asian groups.

Poverty Among Social and Economic Groups In India in the Nineteen Nineties

Abstract: This paper examines the levels and changes in poverty indicators of the rural and urban population in India disaggregated by social and economic groups. The analysis is based on the comparable estimates of poverty on the mixed reference period computed from the unit record data for the 50 th (1993-94) and the 55 th (1999-2000) rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation. The issue is how far different social and economic groups shared the overall decline in poverty in the 1990s. Four poverty indicators are considered, namely, headcount ratio,the depth and severity measures (PGI and FGT*) as also the absolute size of the poor population. The social groups most vulnerable to poverty have been identified to be the scheduled caste households and the scheduled tribe households with both these groups having above average levels of poverty indicators in the rural and the urban population.Among the economic groups, the most vulnerable groups are the agricultural labour households (rural) and the casual labour households (urban) each having the highestlevels of the poverty indicators in their respective population segments. In terms of changes in poverty in the 1990s, it is found that while the scheduled caste and the agricultural labour (rural) and the casual labour (urban) households experienced declines in poverty on par with the total population, the scheduled tribe households fared badly in both the segments. A further disaggregated analysis brings out the consequences for poverty of combined social and economic vulnerabilities. The paper also presents poverty indicators adjusted for between-(economic and social) group disparity and discusses the implications of the empirical results for the design of a strategy for poverty reduction.

Patronage and ‘community’: the role of a Tamil ‘village’ festival in the integration of a town

Abstract: Focusing on the festival of 'village' goddesses in two small towns in Tamilnadu, South India, the article investigates how the urban organization of temples and festivals reflects characteristics of the organization of similar festivals in villages, whilst at the same time the 'acts of patronage' of wealthy local industrialists increasingly shape the nature of the 'community' generated at festival and other times. Building on idioms of village community and pre-colonial kingship models, industrialists are central to the formation of a sense of community which transcends the borders of caste and class. It is argued that the formation of community boundaries cannot be understood outside the context of the wider social and economic relationships and, in this case, the labour relations which lie at the heart of South Indian textile industries

Political Sociology of Poverty in India: Between Politics of Poverty and Poverty of Politics

Abstract: Political sociology of poverty requires an analysis of the relationship between the political, economic and socio-cultural actors, institutions and processes in the context of poverty. It assumes that poverty is a complex and cumulative consequence of power relations over a period of time between groups within a region and between regions in the modern world system. This paper on political sociology of poverty in India is based upon the assumption that a) the caste system and economic inequality complement each other in the case of the poorer sections of Indian society, b) Indian society has experienced complexities in identification of class system due to the manifold gradations of social rank, which have evolved in the form of caste and tribe along with quasireligious settings of deprivation, c) the colonial and post-colonial polity have been organized around the recognition of nebulous coexistence of 'caste' and 'class' principles in the approach of state and political community towards the weaker sections of the society.

“I’d Rather Go to School in the South”: How Boston’s School Desegregation Complicates the Civil Rights Paradigm

Abstract: From Mississippi to Massachusetts, unequal schooling was a crucial battleground of the black freedom struggles that followed WWII. Understood as one of the primary ways that a racial caste system was perpetuated in America, civil rights activists across the nation saw schools as the front line for racial justice. Analyzing school struggles outside of the South, then, is a critical site for exploring and expanding the civil rights narrative. Indeed, the nature of school segregation and the variety of tactics community members used to challenge it reveal the commonalties between the racial landscapes of Northern and Southern cities and the struggles to change them across the United States. At the same time, the particular ways that Northern segregation operated and the tools whites used to defend it meant that Northern activists had to prove that segregation actually existed, was harmful, and was enacted deliberately by the state. Because Northern segregation was not usually defended as segregation, scholars have often marginalized these civil rights struggles for educational equality, casting white resistance more sympathetically as a movement against busing to protect neighborhood schools. Within this paradigm, it becomes nearly impossible to understand how a black teenager living in Boston in 1974 would wish to be going to school in the South.

Another people of India project: Colonial and national anthropology

Abstract: In a bookstore in delhi, a salesman, apprised of my interest in lower-caste politics, handed me a tome about the officially listed Dalit, or untouchable, groups, The Scheduled Castes (Singh 1995). The first thing to strike me was the cover, a glossy photograph of a presumably Scheduled Caste woman with her back against a tall stone wall, surrounded by her four grubby kids. She is beaming. The second thing to strike me was the title of this new series, of which this was the second volume. The series, by the central government's Anthropological Survey of India, was called the People of India, a name that had been used for several rather notorious colonial ethnographic projects. Intrigued, I began to examine this most recent avatar of the People of India.

Social And Political Change In Uttar Pradesh: European Perspectives

Abstract: Preface Uttar Pradesh: Into the Twenty-first Century Development Priorities: Views from Below in UP A Uniform Customary Code?: Marital Breakdown & Women's Economic Entitlements in Rural Bijnor Responses to Modernity: Female Education, Gender Relations & Regional Identity in the Hills of Uttar Pradesh Divided We Stand: Identity & Protest in the Demand for a Separate Hill State in the UP Hills The BJP & the Rise of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh Hamlet, Village & Region: Caste & Class Differences between Low-Caste Mobilization in East & West UP Modelling Institutional Fate: The Case of a Farmers' Movement in Uttar Pradesh Soft States, Hard Bargains: Rich Farmers, Class Reproduction & the Local State in Rural North India The Newspapers of Lucknow: Journalism & Modernity Creative Television in the Siti of Varanasi: Television & Public Spheres in the Satellite Era Bibliography Index.

Affirmative Action: Perspectives from the United States, India and Brazil

Abstract: Introduction This is a critical time for affirmative action policies. While we are aware of the pending US Supreme Court decision in the cases of Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger involving the University of Michigan, few realize that the governments of India and Brazil are confronted with similar legal issues. Although the application of affirmative action policies differs in the three countries, the challenges and opposition encountered by each country are remarkably similar. Each government conceived their policies originally as a vehicle to rectify the historical injustices encountered as a result of racial or caste status. Now those same countries are experiencing Supreme Court challenges to their legality. For this reason, a comparison of the experiences in the three countries is very enlightening. The University of Michigan argues that it has a responsibility and obligation to determine the factors that add value to the educational experience, and a racially diverse student body is one such factor. Furthermore, the university maintains that affirmative measures must be taken to achieve racial diversity. While the Michigan case centers on affirmative action policies in higher educational institutions, the decision will likely affect the implementation of affirmative action in education, employment and government contracting. The Brazilian government is currently grappling with similar issues. To correct its legacy of slavery and racial inequality the new government, which assumed power on January 1, 2003, has begun implementing goals for Afro-Brazilians in government jobs, contracting and university admissions. The Justice Minister, Marcio Thomas Bastos recently stated, "This country has an enormous debt because of the iniquity that was slavery in Brazil" (Rohter 2003). Just as in the United States, the Brazilian Supreme Court has been asked to rule on the constitutionality of racial quotas in university admissions. India's affirmative action policies have been referred to by many scholars as compensatory discrimination. While the country's constitutional provisions against castes and in favor of reservations for the outcasts of society have not been fully implemented, these policies have recently come under legal assault. Further, their implementation has caused conflicts between the caste hierarchy and the outcasts or untouchables that occupy positions below the caste system. Like Blacks during the era of Jim Crow segregation in the South, the untouchables (known as Dalits) live in highly oppressive and demeaning conditions. India's affirmative action policies are intended to be inclusive and compensate Dalits and indigenous peoples (known as Scheduled Tribes) for centuries of past injustices and repression and offset the disabilities currently suffered by those in the underprivileged classes. Brazil and India differ from the United States in that the imperative for affirmative action is grounded in the principle of restitution for the centuries of slavery, benign racial neglect and caste oppression. In the United States, affirmative action policies were originally implemented to rectify the country's legacy of racial oppression. Goals were enacted in higher education, employment and government contracting. However, over the years the opponents of affirmative action have been successful at characterizing goals as quotas and waging legal guerilla warfare on goal-based programs through the court system. Having successfully characterized goals as quotas, they next attacked the constitutionality of quotas and persuaded the U.S. Courts to ban such practices. Bit by bit, they were successful at getting fundamental remedies ruled unconstitutional. The courts have now virtually banned the application of goals in education and employment and in most government contracting programs. However, preference programs based on race are still permitted. Now opponents have persuaded the Courts to apply the legal principle of "strict scrutiny" to test the constitutionality of all racial preferences. …

White without soap: philanthropy, caste and exclusion in colonial Victoria, 1835-1888: a political economy of race

Abstract: The thesis focuses on the way that the Kulin were reduced from potential citizens to 'savages' by racial science. Settler fantasies about infanticide played a crucial role in this transformation.

Equality and Universality: Essays in Social and Political Theory

Abstract: This collection of essays reflects the author's thinking on the inequalities that exist in democratic societies. The essays examine the different forms of inequality and also the limits to the persuit of equality. While the focus is primarily on India, a general and comparative method for discussion is also adopted. The essays draw from the author's substantial work on class, status and caste as also on those concerning justice and equality.

Dalits in India

Abstract: Dalits or the downtrodden are the weakest among the weaker sections of our society. For thousands of years, their condition has been unchanged, to a great extent, despite all progress and development at various levels. In our social fabric, for centuries, the caste identities have surfaced as an important force in contemporary politics. These inequalities and exploitation by the society at large, encouraged by our ancient caste systems, needs to be eradicated. This thought has stimulated fresh thinking in academic circles on the question of the essence of caste. In spite of various theories and different views on Dalits or the Schedules Castes, as this group in termed as constitutionally, it is an agreed point that this neglected lot in our society deserves genuine attention and concern of politicians and intellectuals. This work, comprehensive and exhaustive in its form, is a practical reaction from an awakened author and a concerned social activist. This book is a valuable addition to the 'not so rich' literature on this subject.