Showing papers on "Caste published in 2005"

History, social divisions, and public goods in rural india

Abstract: We examine the influence of three historically important sources of social divisions on the availability of public goods in rural India: colonial power, landowner-peasant relations as determined by the land tenure system and social fragmentation based on the Hindu caste system and the presence of sizable religious minorities. Using data on public goods from 1991, we find that regions that were under British colonial power in the pre-independence period and those where agrarian power was concentrated in the hands of landlords have lower access to these goods as do areas with high levels of social fragmentation. (JEL: H41, P16)

Vidya, Veda, and Varna: The influence of religion and caste on education in rural India

Abstract: This paper argues that Vidya (education), Veda (religion) and Varna (caste) are inter-linked in India. It examines whether, and to what extent, the enrolment of children at school in India is influenced by community norms such as those of religion (Hindu or Muslim) or caste (Scheduled or non-Scheduled). The econometric estimates are based on unit record data from a survey of 33,000 rural households, in 1,765 villages, from 16 states of India. The equation for the likelihood of being enrolled at school is estimated separately for boys and for girls and, in each of the equations, all of the slope coefficients are allowed to differ according to whether the children are Hindu, Muslim or Scheduled Caste. The main findings are that the size of the religion or caste effect depends on the non-community circumstances in which the children are placed. Under favourable circumstances (for example, when parents are literate), the size of the community effect is negligible. Under less favourable circumstances, the size...

Caste, Inequality, and Poverty in India

Abstract: This paper analyses inequality and poverty in India within the context of caste-based discrimination. It does so by decomposing the difference between (caste) Hindu and Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) households in: their average household incomes; their probabilities of being in different income percentiles; their probabilities of being at different levels of poverty into: "a discrimination effect", which stems from the fact that a household's income level, into which its (income-generating) profile translates, depends on whether it is SC/ST; an "attributes (or residual) effect" which stems from the fact that there are systematic differences between SC/ST and Hindu households in their (income-generating) profiles. The results, based on unit record data for 28,922 households, showed that at least one-third of the average income/probability differences between Hindu and SC/ST households was due to the "unequal treatment" of the latter.

Caste, Inequality, and Poverty in India

Abstract: This paper analyses inequality and poverty in India within the context of caste-based discrimination. It does so by decomposing the difference between (caste) Hindu and Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) households in: their average household incomes; their probabilities of being in different income percentiles; their probabilities of being at different levels of poverty into: a “discrimination effect”, which stems from the fact that a household’s income level, into which its (income-generating) profile translates, depends on whether it is SC/ST; an “attributes (or residual) effect” which stems from the fact that there are systematic differences between SC/ST and Hindu households in their (income-generating) profiles. The results, based on unit record data for 28,922 households, showed that at least one-third of the average income/probability differences between Hindu and SC/ST households was due to the “unequal treatment” of the latter.

Consuming Globalization: Youth and Gender in Kerala, India

Abstract: This article examines how new, globally-inflected patterns of consumption among young people in the state of Kerala, India are configured in relation to a specifically postcolonial cultural politics of gender, class, and caste, rooted in the colonialist and nationalist projects. Rather than focus on the presence or absence of agency and/or resistance within consuming practices, the article elucidates the cultural-political terrain into which consumption as an objectified field of practice is inserted. By paying attention to this terrain, it becomes possible to examine the contradictions of consumption for young women and men who are both objects of commoditization and subjects of consumption. The article locates consumption within larger discursive domains, at both the national and regional level, which contest the meaning of globalization in ways that produce and circulate highly gendered constructions of consumer agency. Drawing on ethnographic material on gender, youth, and consumption in Kerala, the article traces the intersecting gender, class, and caste terrain that underlies this field of consumption. Negotiating the space of consumption under new conditions of globalization entails traversing a gendered terrain of masculinities and femininities in ways that reveal the link among youth, consumption, and globalization to be a fraught and contradictory.

Moral economies of a translocal village: Obligation and shame among South Indian transnational migrants

Abstract: In this article, we develop the concept of the translocal village as a subset of transnationalism to describe the highly circumscribed social relations that often emerge from small-scale translocalized rural villages. In the article we explore the translocal dimensions of a rural South Indian village in Tamil Nadu as a case study to advance this theoretical position. Like all transnational communities involved in the production of locality, identity and social viability, Soorapallam villagers and fellow Musuguntha Vellalar caste members now based in Singapore maintain strong social and cultural ties with their village. However, what is most interesting about this community is that its involvement in translocal practices is determined by a moral economy of obligations and responsibilities based on caste membership, which, in turn, is regulated by regimes of affect and policed through the gaze of fellow translocals. We will demonstrate the specific ways in which this moral economy is reproduced and maintained across distance.

‘We are Like the Living Dead’: Farmer Suicides in Maharashtra, Western India

Abstract: Findings presented here about farmer suicides in Amravati and Yavatmal districts, Maharashtra, are evaluated in relation to Durkheimian theory, which attributes such acts to an historically specific combination of social and economic causes. Lower and middle caste peasant smallholders found themselves trapped between enhanced aspirations generated by land reform and other post-1947 measures, and the reality of neoliberalism (rising debt, declining income). Suicides among large and medium farmers belonging to the higher castes in Maharashtra were occasioned by failures in business, trade and politics. Such cases are consistent with the argument put forward by Durkheim, that suicide is an effect of individualization, a process of socio-economic ‘estrangement’ from agrarian communities experienced by rural producers in the context of rapid economic growth.

Caste and Politics: Identity Over System

Abstract: To integrate conceptually the relationship between caste and politics, one must appreciate that the pure ritual hierarchy operates only when backed by wealth and power. In fact, there are multiple hierarchies in the caste order because each caste overvalues itself in relation to others. This can be gauged from their origin tales, which, without exception, claim an exalted past regardless of the actual status a caste occupies on the ground. With the breakdown of the closed village economy and the rise of democratic politics, the competitive element embedded in caste has come to the fore. This has resulted in the collapse of the caste system but also in the rise of caste identities.

Gender, caste, and economic inequalities and marital violence in rural South India.

Abstract: We conducted a survey to examine the relationships among gender, caste, and economic inequalities and marital violence among women in rural South India. Thirty-four percent of 397 women reported having ever been hit, forced to have sex by their husbands, or both. Women belonging to lower caste, poorer households, having greater economic autonomy, and whose husbands consumed alcohol were more likely to report violence. In multivariate analyses, indicators of women's economic autonomy and husbands' alcohol consumption were significantly associated with violence, independent of caste and economic status, which highlights the need to address the links between gender inequalities and marital violence.

Do Structural Inequalities Contribute to Marital Violence? Ethnographic Evidence From Rural South India

Abstract: Ethnographic research was conducted in rural communities in Karnataka State, South India, to explore the contexts in which marital violence occurs and the relationships between structural inequalities (gender, caste, and class inequalities) and marital violence. Research highlighted that (a) marital violence is intimately linked to experiences of gender, caste, and class inequalities; (b) women's ability to resist violence hinges on access to economic and social resources; and (c) health care providers need to be actively involved in responding to violence. This study demonstrates the urgent need for violence prevention initiatives, particularly those that address the contribution of structural inequalities.

Ethnic and Caste Diversity: Implications for Development

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The Ethnicity of Caste

Abstract: The category of "caste" has had a long history both in and out of the Indian subcontinent, one that is frequently intertwined with that of "race." From H. H. Risley's use of late-nineteenth century European race science in anthropometric research, to Max Mueller's articulation of the Aryan theory of race and panAfricanist expressions of racial solidarity with the lower castes of India, caste has frequently been redefined and politicized by being drawn into wider discourses about race. Informed by this complex history, this essay asks how "race" and "caste" have come to serve as key metaphors of socio-political struggle, illuminating one-another and emerging as potent rhetorical strategies of social critique, particularly in India but increasingly also in more global contexts. I argue that Dalit groups in contemporary India move their concerns into global forums such as the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism by appropriating ideas about caste and religion that have long been used to mystify the local and "native" inhabitants-ideas that are themselves the subjects of established ethnographic critique. As such, this essay remains aware of the difficulties of bringing anthropological concerns to bear on analyses of on-going political struggle. [caste, race, ethnicity, India, Dalits, activism, globalization] From Race to Caste to Ethnicity It is February, Black History Month. An exhibit has been assembled by the campus' Multicultural and International Student Services Office, and it stands in the downstairs Atrium, inviting attention. I stop to look at what appears to be a somewhat jumbled collection of memorabilia, images, and some short biographies of prominent Black leaders. All nice, but nothing out of the ordinary, I am beginning to think, as I notice suddenly a photograph of the Indian guru Sri Satya Sai Baba set alongside information about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. The printed narrative accompanying the photograph is entitled "The Dravidians." I read in it that "the term Dravidians describes a large population of blacks, concentrated in various parts of India (mostly in the South)," that these blacks once created "one of the most culturally opulent civilizations in all of Asia," but that they now call themselves Dalit, or the "crushed and broken," having been "plagued and desecrated" by the Hindu faith and the "immoral atrocities of the caste system." Sai Baba, the narrative concludes, is a "Dravidian avatar," whose "teachings are followed by millions around the world." The piece is obviously an attempt to draw caste into a larger narrative about racial oppression, while simultaneously celebrating the (presumably) unacknowledged achievements of the oppressed caste group. Far more compelling than the narrative which makes this case, however, is the photograph of Sai Baba, who is perhaps as famous for his Ashram in Puttaparthi, as for his saffron attire and what would be for this context appropriately described as his "Afro." An inset carries a second photograph, this one of a young, dark-skinned woman, with a cloth wrapped and tucked around her torso in much the same way African women tie their wrappers. Her gaze is defiant-a sharp contrast to Sai Baba's compassionate demeanor-and her hair unkempt, but it, too, resembles an Afro. So juxtaposed, the two images are meant to serve as metonyms of the distinction and the destitution of "the Dravidians" respectively, while simultaneously establishing the undeniable kinship of India's lower castes to Africans and so also African-Americans: indeed, the kinship of caste to race. Certainly, such collapsing of caste into race is not a new phenomenon in Indian history. From H. H. Risley's use of late-nineteenth century European race science in anthropometric research aimed at categorizing and enumerating the castes of India, to Max Mueller's articulation of the Aryan theory of race, to the consequent development of Tamil/Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu, caste has frequently been redefined and politicized by being drawn into wider discourses about race (see Robb 1995). …

Children of the Father King: Youth, Authority, and Legal Minority in Colonial Lima

Abstract: Patriarchal law from Spain to the New World In a pioneering study of childhood in colonial Spanish America, Bianca Premo examines the lives of youths in the homes, schools, and institutions of the capital city of Lima, Peru. Situating these young lives within the frame-work of law and intellectual history from 1650 to 1820, Premo brings to light the colonial politics of childhood and challenges readers to view patriarchy as a system of power based on age, caste, and social class as much as gender. Although Spanish laws endowed elite men with an authority over children that mirrored and reinforced the monarch's legitimacy as a colonial "Father King," Premo finds that, in practice, Lima's young often grew up in the care of adults - such as women and slaves - who were subject to the patriarchal authority of others. During the Bourbon Reforms, city inhabitants of all castes and classes began to practice a "new politics of the child," challenging men and masters by employing Enlightenment principles of childhood. Thus the social transformations and political dislocations of the late eighteenth century occurred not only in elite circles and royal palaces, Premo concludes, but also in the humble households of a colonial city.

Fierce Gods: Inequality, Ritual, and the Politics of Dignity in a South Indian Village

Abstract: The importance of temple ritual in constituting political dominance in South India has been well documented. In this vivid and compelling study of caste and ritual in rural Tamilnadu, Diane P. Mines, focuses not only on the temples of the socially powerful, but even more so on the powerful temples of the socially weak. Drawing on phenomenological and existential anthropology, she argues that the village is a heterogeneous reality made and remade by its residents through their own activity. Exploring the intersection of politics, ritual, caste, and other forms of social inequality, this ethnography presents a new view of the village and argues for its reemergence as a unit of analysis. Diane P. Mines is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Appalachian State University and co-editor of "Everyday Life" in South Asia (IUP, 2002).

When schooling fails: Young men, education and low–caste politics in rural north India

Abstract: Scholarly discussions of formal education in the global South are increasingly moving away from a narrow focus on human capital to consider the meanings that people attach to ‘being educated’. This article advances current debates on the social construction of educational value in South Asia by examining how educated Chamar (Dalit) young men reflect on their education in the face of poor occupational outcomes. Since the 1960s, Dalits’ investment in formal education in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP) has seen a marked rise, in part through emulation of higher castes. The pro–Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has also been instrumental in promoting a vision of empowerment through formal education and entry into white–collar employment. Our research in rural Bijnor district suggests that the most recent generation of high school and college graduates amongst the Chamars has failed to find salaried employment. Some young men respond to this exclusion by reaffirming their faith in the BSP's model of progress and establ...

Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste

Abstract: Maharashtra between social reform and anti-Brahmin mobilization Ambedkar, son of a Mahar officer conceptualizing caste the better to destroy it contesting the political arena against Gandhi in search of an electoral strategy opposing power, or collaborating? architect of the Indian constitution conversion as a solution to Untouchability? the legacy of Ambedkar.

Carnal economies: the commodification of food and sex in Kathmandu.

Abstract: This article is not about Nepals current political scene nor is it about these new "dance restaurants" per se but about larger cultural trends in the commodification of food and sex. The question of why these new leisure venues were thriving in such a grim sociopolitical context is probably worth a study of its own. However I am interested in these new "Restaurants with Dance" more as a continuation of an earlier pattern in Kathmandu namely the frequent link between restaurants and prostitution. Since I first began doing research in the city in the late 1980s I had been perplexed by the fact that local restaurants were often associated with prostitution. This puzzle launched my inquiry into the commercialization of food and sex in Kathmandu. Initially I wondered why these two consumer services--in their modern market-driven manifestations--should have become so often intertwined on Kathmandu streets and in the imaginations of middle-class patrons. A search for comparative data soon made it clear that a close symbiotic relationship between prostitution and restaurants (and other similar public commercial venues) has in fact been a hallmark of emergent capitalist social economies for centuries worldwide (a topic that I consider in more detail later). Yet these same comparative studies often served to highlight by way of contrast the very different historical and cultural dynamics at work in the South Asian context. In a society in which food and sex are extraordinarily marked and regulated cultural categories (often through minutely determined rules regulating with whom one may share food and sexual relations) both the history and contemporary cultural experience of sexual and culinary exchange unfold as unique local manifestations of broader patterns of commodification and market formation. This article traces the South Asian cultural themes of commensality and endogamy in their local Nepali variants through the processes of cultural renegotiation that have accompanied the shift in Kathmandus middle-class culture from a moral economy of caste to a moral economy of class. Kathmandus new "Restaurants with Dance" are only the most recent development in the process whereby food and sex commensality and endogamy are brought in line with a new logic of social value based in new patterns of market-oriented social relations. (excerpt)

Working-class royalty: bees beat the caste system

Abstract: The struggle among social classes or castes is well known in humans. Here, we show that caste inequality similarly affects societies of ants, bees and wasps, where castes are morphologically distinct and workers have greatly reduced reproductive potential compared with queens. In social insects, an individual normally has no control over its own fate, whether queen or worker, as this is socially determined during rearing. Here, for the first time, we quantify a strategy for overcoming social control. In the stingless bee Schwarziana quadripunctata, some individuals reared in worker cells avoid a worker fate by developing into fully functional dwarf queens.

Debrahmanising History: Dominance and Resistance in Indian Society

Abstract: Preface Introduction Historical Roots of Brahmanic Dominance & Shramanic Resistance: Violence & Domination Underpin Vedic Ideology Buddhist India: Against Caste & Brahmanism: Buddha's Humanitarian Synthesis of Mind & Matter Medieval Mukti Movements of the Subaltern Saint-Poets: Social Resistance in Religious Idiom Colonialism & Birth of Vedic-Brahmanic Nationalism: Orientalism, Aryan Race Theory & Neo-Hinduism Phules Struggle Against Brahmanical Colonialism: Brahman Power & Oppression of the Time Emergence of Anti-Caste Radicalism Guru, Iyothee, Periyar, Acchutanand: Different Strategies, One Goal: Dynamics & Dimension of Egalitarian Emergence Epilogue: Institutionalised Discrimination from the Past to the 'Democratic' Present Index.

Middle-Class Mobilization and the Language of Orders in Urban Latin America: From Caste to Category in Early Twentieth-Century Lima

Abstract: Scholars have generally argued that the modern triumph of a language of class eclipsed collective identities rooted in older, more hierarchical conceptions of rank and estate. This article, drawing on the author’s previously published research on white-collar workers in twentieth-century Peru, comes to a radically different conclusion. Despite using what appeared to be an explicit and often combative discourse of class interest and class conflict, Peru’s white-collar workers justified their demands by emphasizing the difference between themselves and manual workers. Masquerading as class consciousness were many of the rhetorical tropes that had long legitimated the society of orders, including a presumption that social standing was an innate quality fixed at birth. Corporatist social legislation adopted in the 1920s reinforced the principle that white-collar and blue-collar workers were distinct species of human beings deserving of entirely different benefits. Unequal rights became enshrined in labor law.

A Brief History of India

Abstract: With nearly 1 billion citizens, India is the second most populous nation in the world, and its society is characterized by the juxtaposition of both ancient and modern practices. While most people are familiar with certain parts of Indian history and culture, the roots of its contemporary culture, ethnic conflicts, and political moves are not always well understood in the West. "A Brief History of India" offers an accessible, reliable introduction to this vast nation admired for its spiritual traditions (Hinduism and Buddhism both originated here), its peaceful struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi, and its vibrant culture - from Bollywood and spicy cuisine to classical music and world-renowned authors. Covering approximately 5,000 years of Indian history, from the prehistoric Indus Valley Civilization to its current conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir, "A Brief History of India" is a detailed, chronological narrative of the events, people, and social and cultural movements of this fascinating country. Coverage includes: Caste, Kings, and the Hindu World Order, Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement, Constructing the Nation, Bollywood and Beyond, and, India at the Turn of the Century.

Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System

Abstract: 1: Maharashtra, between social reform and anti-brahmin mobilization2: Ambedkar, son of a Mahar soldier3: Analysing and ethnicizing caste (to eradicate it more effectively)4: In the political arena, against Gandhi5: In quest of an electoral strategy6: To oppose or to collaborate?: Ambedkar's pragmatism and resilience7: Shaping the Indian constitution8: The "solution" of conversion9: Impact and relevance of Ambedkar todayConclusionChronology

Democratic Mobilisation through Quotas: Experiences in India and Germany

Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of quotas on the mobilisation of politically under-represented groups. This topic was analysed through two case studies of women in local politics in India and Germany. Gender quotas have changed the political landscape in both countries to a considerable degree. Firstly, most of the women interviewed in both countries began their political careers without political ambitions. Secondly, many female politicians enhanced their (feeling of) competence only during incumbency. Thirdly, once active in politics, most of the interviewees developed political ambitions. The last and by no means least important fact about the mobilisational capacity of quotas is that they not only change the political representation in terms of gender, but also in respect to class, caste, social and educational background.

Dowry--a deep-rooted cause of violence against women in India.

Abstract: The world has entered the new millenium but it is a harsh reality that the woman in India has long been ill-treated in our male-dominated society. She is deprived of her independent identity and is looked upon as a commodity. She is not only robbed of her dignity and pride by way of seduction by the men outside, but also may become a victim of cruelty by her saviours, within the four walls of her own house. However, her trauma does not end here, it may even go to the extent of forcing her to commit suicide or she may be burnt to death for various reasons, including that of dowry. This type of violence transgresses the boundaries of caste, class, region or religion and is prevalent in almost all societies in India. The system of dowry is a social practice which on its own has claimed the lives of scores of women--both young and old, and has made life a virtual hell for many more. Unfortunately, education among women has not produced a reformative effect on their social outlook, nor encouraged any change in them conducive to social upliftment. Those parents who prefer not to take dowry for their well-qualified and settled male children, are in fact considered 'strange' by the society and doubts about 'the respectability of the groom's family' are usually raised. The present study makes an in-depth review of the dowry system in India and analyses the reasons which have demonized dowry into its present commercialized and institutionalized form.

Opportunity is not everything

Abstract: We experimentally investigate in village India how belief systems that hierarchize social groups affect the groups’ responses to economic opportunities. Earlier we found that making caste salient hurt low caste performance both absolutely and relative to the high caste's. To examine the possible role of mistrust, we manipulate the scope for discretion in rewarding performance. When offered a gamble in which success mechanically triggers rewards, making caste salient has no significant effect. Instead, it is in the case with scope for discretion that making caste salient creates a large caste gap in the proportion of subjects who refuse the gamble.

Opportunity is Not Everything: How Belief Systems and Mistrust Shape Responses to Economic Incentives

Abstract: We experimentally investigate in village India how belief systems that hierarchize social groups affect the groups' responses to economic opportunities. Earlier we found that making caste salient hurt low caste performance both absolutely and relative to the high caste's. To examine the possible role of mistrust, we manipulate the scope for discretion in rewarding performance. When offered a gamble in which success mechanically triggers rewards, making caste salient has no significant effect. Instead, it is in the case with scope for discretion that making caste salient creates a large caste gap in the proportion of subjects who refuse the gamble.