Paper short abstract:

Caste, generally bracketed under the umbrella of exclusion, is enacted in remote Himalayan regions through forced inclusion. Efforts of a group of performing folk artistes from the Kolta community and their attempt to break barriers of caste, while media and communication flows emerge as the non-intentional actors, are analyzed here.

Paper long abstract:

Until the 20th century, the vast yet remote regions known as Jaunsar, Bāwar, Bangān, Simla Hills, and parts of Rawain, in the Western Himalayas in India, along the headwaters of the Tons River were ruled from temple-fortresses by divine kings, the four Mahāsu brothers being the predominant deities. The cult of Mahasu stands out as volatile and intransigent, monopolised by high-caste, headhunting Hindu Rajputs, proudly independent of their neighbouring kingdoms and colonial powers. Local inhabitants continue to insist on their cultural autonomy, living by the ritual regime prescribed by their divine king, even post assimilation into a secular nation state. Of the social boundaries prescribed by Mahāsu's ritual, caste restrictions on the lowest Kolta caste were perhaps the most impregnable social boundaries. The paper deals with temple ritual of the divine king and cult god Mahāsu, in the remote mountain valleys of the recently formed state of Uttarakhand in India, where a secular and egalitarian legal system clashes with the divine king's ritual dispensation in matters of caste. As media flows reach the god's realm, the cult is rendered increasingly self-reflexive, largely through the agency of a troupe performing folk dances headed by a man from the Kolta community. As folk dancers and the god's officialdom are forced into a situation where adopting a reformist stance is the only option, the god apparently relents, only to reveal it as a tactical retreat, a ploy to stamp the hegemony of caste.