Paper short abstract:

This paper argues how collusion of capital with caste reshapes modern Indian cities. Ethnographic evidence from Ahmedabad, an ‘investor friendly’ ‘Smart City’ in neoliberal times, reveals that caste boundaries are sustained through enormous investments in developing caste specific neighbourhoods.

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores how capital colludes with caste, religion, and migration to reshape modern Indian cities by strengthening social cleavages not just along the lines of class but the creation of caste based ghettoised spaces. The western Indian city of Ahmedabad aspires to be a global city that caters to an aspirational middle class. It is being developed as a 'Smart City', which claims to be 'citizen centric and investor friendly'. The paper focuses on the city's neighbourhood of Chandkheda which is a historically Dalit (former untouchable caste) ghetto in the periphery of the city, where millions of rupees are being invested in building Dalit only housing estates for Dalits across classes. Using ethnographic evidence it argues that informal practices such as autonomous forms of governance in neighbourhoods, (vigilantes, self-management etc.) encourage intolerance and produce homogeneous populations and play a greater role in shaping urban life rather than capital alone.

Paper short abstract:

Instead of asking whether the Latin Catholics of Kerala can be labelled a caste, the paper extracts hierarchical structures among the Latin Catholics and argues that hierarchy is valued in the community, as in Indian caste society in general.

Paper long abstract:

The Latin Catholics of Kerala, who were converted by Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century, are accorded a certain position in the local Hindu caste hierarchy and stand in hierarchical relation to other Christian communities, such as the Syrian Christians. Internally, they are divided into two hierarchically ordered groups, the so-called Five Hundreds and Seven Hundreds, who belong to different parishes and dioceses, are said to come from different caste backgrounds and, in the past and partly today, restrict intermarriage.

Can we call the community of the Latin Catholics a caste, though they obviously lack ideas of purity and pollution? Do we find caste-like structures among the Latin Catholics, but no castes - and what would be the difference?

In his controversially discussed Homo Hierarchicus, Louis Dumont also raises these questions. While he deals with them in rather general terms, others address them on the basis of more detailed ethnographic studies of specific Christian communities.

In contrast these works, I would like to leave these mainly definitional questions aside and attempt to extract hierarchical structures as such within the Latin Catholic community. I argue that hierarchy, independent of whether the Latin Catholics can or should be labelled a caste, is valued in the community, as in Indian caste society in general and that, while the relevance of caste may diminish today, hierarchy persists.

Paper short abstract:

The mechanisms of power and oppression still governing Indian society can be deciphered by analyzing and confronting the testimonies of both Dalits and non-Dalits. This paper endeavours to present the outcome of an oral history enquiry among both groups in rural Tamil Nadu.

Paper long abstract:

Caste needs to be considered as a relational category. Decontextualizing it or taking it as a separate entity disconnected from others, would not be representative of the way(s) caste is experienced on a day-to-day basis. The mechanisms of power and oppression governing Indian society can thus only be understood by analyzing and confronting the testimonies of both Dalits, the main victims of the system, and non-Dalits, the main perpetrators of these mechanisms.

I conducted interviews with Dalits of the Cakkiliyar caste and non-Dalits in various areas of rural Tamil Nadu over the course of several months (during my doctoral and postdoctoral research). During fieldwork, the line of enquiry centered on understanding the perceptions and memories that dalit and non-dalit witnesses had of the (ongoing) process of Dalit emancipation. Particular importance was given to the diversity of perceptions existing within each group, and to their divergence. Having them engage with their past through oral history and orality generated interesting insights regarding contemporary practices of caste and their justification (or rejection), as well as highlighting emerging challenges both for the present and the future in Dalit and non-Dalit minds.

In a sense therefore, Dalits and non-Dalits were invited to take part in an indirect face-to-face that involved confronting the memories and perceptions of each group regarding the changes taking place in the villages and dalit colonies with those of the other. If not organized artificially, such a dialogue between these two sections of the population would never occur. My role, as mediator, was to reflect each one's idea, like a mirror.

Paper short abstract:

Paper de-bunks the myth of looking at Muslims as single and monolithic group. It interrogates the workings of caste among Muslims and persisting hierarchies within. It provides an ethnographic profile of Dalit Muslim castes and examines the pervasive hierarchies & forms of discrimination.

Paper long abstract:

There has been an attempt to represent Muslims as a single, monolithic, homogenous group. These kinds of representations have been facing serious challenge in recent times due to the emergence of the perspective of understanding Muslim society from below/its margins. The paper de-bunks the myth of representing Muslims as homogenous. It interrogates the 'mainstream' Muslim politics which reflects upper caste-driven symbolic/emotive/identity politics.

The paper interrogates the contemporary workings of caste among Muslims and persisting hierarchies within. It focuses on lived realities of Muslim communities and narratives of assertions from within. It reflects on the processes that marginalize Dalit Muslims. There has been assertions, growing consciousness, democratization and political mobilization of Dalit Muslims. The paper attempts to provide an empirical understanding of caste among Muslim community in Bihar.

Dalit Muslim movement in Bihar developed as a counter-hegemonic force in Indian Muslim politics; it consistently critiques the social and religious articulation of Ashraf dominance.

The paper attempts to provide an ethnographic profile of Dalit Muslim castes/communities. It examines the problem of inequality, pervasive hierarchies, humiliation and discrimination faced by the Dalit Muslims in India. It studies the various forms of discrimination, stigma, social distance, structures of domination and untouchability faced by them and their relationship with the changing social structure. The paper also studies their customs, rituals, beliefs and other cultural practices.

It also critically engages with the question 'Why did the State not recognize Dalit Muslims?'. It contests Presidential Order of 1950 which excludes them from the purview of Scheduled Castes.

Paper short abstract:

While caste is underexplored in studies of Bengali middle class, contemporary life narratives establish the opposite. Here I demonstrate that the presence of caste in the public sphere is not due to interventions by marginalised castes but is woven into ways in which middle classness is constituted.

Paper long abstract:

Caste remains underexplored in Bengal especially in relation to the post-Partition middle class. Yet, from the late 19th century till the Partition in 1947 caste in Bengal had a strong visibility particularly in middle class spaces. The question therefore naturally arises is what could have happened to caste in post-Partition West Bengal. Did Partition and communist mobilisations 'resolve' the question of caste in Bengal as has been argued by Bandyopadhyay (2011) and Chatterjee (1997) for instance? Contemporary middle class life narratives I have taken provide contested understandings of middle class and middle classness. These contestations not only facilitate the 'casteing' of Bengali middle class; they help us locate practices of caste and their intersections with other hierarchies and forms of distinction. They thereby allow us to study the production and reproduction of the middle class, the meanings attributed to becoming middle class and the different registers on which middle class identifications take place. In this paper I contend that the process(es) of becoming middle class is simultaneously a story of becoming caste/d. Description and analysis generated from contemporary data are mapped onto questions of history, the ways in which caste in public space gets to be positioned and articulated and the content that is given to it. Through these I attend to a historical and systematic exclusion of caste as a vector of analysis for Bengal. Such mappings make us look afresh at larger processes of history as well as everyday and systemic aspects of being middle class.

Paper short abstract:

Opposition to the inclusion of caste in the Equality Act 2010, rests on a key premiss, challenged in the paper that caste is dying in the UK. The alleged deficits of credibility, evidence and concept are addressed to argue that caste is not dying in the UK.

Paper long abstract:

For several years now, community reports, academic research papers and Government sponsored reports, including the last one led by this author for the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, show evidence of caste based prejudice and discrimination. Yet the opposition to the inclusion of caste in the Equality Act 2010, denies that caste discrimination exists in the UK. The opposition, mainly from some Hindu and Sikh organisations, rests amongst other things on three distinct but interconnected claims. First a 'credibility' claim, second, an 'evidential' claim, and third a 'conceptual' claim. This paper responds to each of these. The credibility claim proceeds by discrediting community reports as lacking 'academic' credibility. The paper argues that standpoint epistemology is useful in appreciating the credibility of the incidents of caste based discrimination in community reports. The victims' perspective must be privileged. The evidential claim demands more information about how much caste discrimination there is, whilst assuming that caste cannot be defined. As such it is a muddled claim. The conceptual claim makes the generalisation that any definition of caste would be inadequate because caste is a 'colonial construct' which has distorted a non-hierarchical and benign Jati identity, while assuming that caste is dying. This last claim is challenged by arguing that however it has come to be, caste now is a basis of self-identity. Qualitative research suggests that caste is not dying in the UK.

Paper short abstract:

This historical and sociological study of a business community-Aggarwal in Delhi shows their concerted efforts at urban reproduction and identity formation post the 1940s through a variety of sources in the city of Delhi.

Paper long abstract:

Traditional business communities like the Jewish lobby in America with their established networks of credit occupy influential positions in the society. In India most of the successful business houses hail from particular castes that are strongly intra-related. Business communities pride themselves in their capacity to travel and adapt to different cultures. An important aspect of this adaptation is to remake one's communitarian identity by entwining one's capital in the day to day management of the city and state affairs.

This historical and sociological study of one such business community-Aggarwals in Delhi shows their concerted efforts at community unification, assertion and history writing/inventing as they urbanize post the 1940s. The sources used in this study are interviews with members of the Aggarwal caste associations, politicians, philanthropists speeches made at contemporary Aggarwal events in Delhi and analysis of Hindi Aggarwal journal (Yuva Aggarwal) over the last two decades.

The Aggarwals project themselves as the rightful sons of the Indian nation, who should be at the helm of state affairs. Their claim to prominence hinges not just on their economic might but couching it within the 'moral' of being patrons of the entire nation that allows them to seamless stitch Aggarwal Capital-Hinduism-Indian nation. Hence, contribution to the independence movement (Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai), defense of Hinduism (cow protection movement, Ramleelas in Delhi), philanthropic acts (schools and temples), and endogamous marriages (public matrimony events called Parichay Sammelans) play a critical role in processes of urban reproduction and identity formation.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is an attempt to understand the (framing of) meaning in the debates on ontology of caste with reference to the idea of experience in general and my own experiences as a Dalit activist in particular.

Paper long abstract:

Caste is debated and talked in both particular and general terms. How do we decide the meaning in the debates on ontology of caste, through experience or theory? Meaning could be ascending or descending, the former being positive and the latter negative. The experiences of caste has both demeaning and well-being experiences. The demeaning experience speaks of the ascending meaning, which in turn speaks for the 'annihilation of caste' i.e. Ambedkar's meaning is ascending. The well-being speaks descending meaning which doesn't speak for the annihilation of caste i.e. Gandhi's meaning is descending. The descending meaning speaks only the phenomenon of caste implicating the phenomena which is artificial. However the ascending meaning speaks the archaeology of caste implicating the need for annihilation. The archaeology intends a meaning framing the analysis which indicates a resolution.

Those understanding the meaning in the theory of caste, though not experienced, will head towards annihilation. In the recent past there is a misrepresentation of the meaning in the experiences of caste discrimination. For example documenting the lives and experiences of most marginalized Dalits never sees light. How does the 'meaning' reflect and realize caste? Is reason grounded in the experiences of caste? With these few questions and ideas this paper is an attempt to understand the (framing of) meaning in the debates on ontology of caste with reference to the idea of experience in general and my own experiences as a Dalit activist in particular.

Paper short abstract:

Exploring the emotional terrain of groups in Goa, especially with regard to Konkani the official language of the state, demonstrates how caste and practices of untouchability are central to citizenship experiences. What one encounters in Goa, is not an egalitarian polity, but a casteist polity.

Paper long abstract:

Running counter to impressions that caste is not a serious issue in Goa, this paper will demonstrate how caste, is in fact at the centre of the citizenship experience of Goans.

Following decades of struggle subsequent to Goa's integration into the Indian Union, in 1986 Konkani was finally recognised as the official language of Goa. However, rather than acknowledge the diversity of the Konkani language, written both in the Roman and Nagari scripts, the Official Language Act recognised Konkani as written in the latter script alone. In the manner in which this law was then implemented, it was not merely a script that was privileged, but Antruzi, a dialect associated with the Hindu Saraswat brahmin caste. These linguistic choices ensured that the figure of the ideal citizen subject, the Konkani munis or Konkani person, was recognised as embodied in the figure of the Hindu Saraswat brahmin.

Exploring the emotional terrain of the citizenship experiences of groups in Goa I will argue that through these linguistic choices it is not merely caste that is at the centre of citizenship experiences but in fact untouchability itself. Given that languages are not abstract forms but actively embodied practices I will demonstrate, how in this caste-Hindu centric polity, it is the lower-caste Catholic that is at the bottom of the pile, given that their linguistic forms and cultural productions are marked as impure and hence untouchable. What one encounters in Goa, therefore, is not an egalitarian polity, but a casteist polity.

Paper short abstract:

The paper conceptually approaches the actual operation of caste in rural West Bengal through looking at the representative politics of a non-party political formation - Matua Mahasangha and its modes of interactions with the formal world of party-politics.

Paper long abstract:

Caste in West Bengal is a much neglected topic in the study of Indian politics. Due to the overwhelming presence and unchallenged authority of the urban, upper-caste bhadralok in all avenues of public life in the state, the Dalit question has been tactfully suppressed by the former all throughout. The situation however has changed in the recent past.

This paper intends to understand this change in the politics of caste through an ethnographic study on the role of a non-party political organization of the Dalits - the Matua Mahasangha (MM) in contemporary rural West Bengal. The rural politics of the state, which was virtually controlled by the 'party' in the past, has entered a new phase since the last days of the longstanding Left Front regime. The earlier political legitimacy enjoyed by the party at the grassroots level in the rural areas has now been replaced by a host of non-party political formations. MM, which is the central religious organization of the Matuas who are almost exclusively Dalits, is one such politically influential rural institution, capable of influencing the state election scene. Drawing upon the ethnographic case studies the paper shall explore the fashion in which MM has mobilized the Dalits on an autonomous political line, the actual operation of caste in these processes of interest articulation and practices of mobilization and modes of interactions with the world of party politics.

Paper short abstract:

This paper, built upon secondary data sources, tries to analyse how caste-identities are consolidated and contested among students in Indian Universities. It also seeks to open up a dialogue on possible links between such caste-discourses and resulting psychological distress.

Paper long abstract:

Even as academic scholarship increasingly downplays caste as a social factor of interaction in urban contexts in India, newer ways of social identity consolidation continue to orient caste-hierarchies. In the context of modern urban and inclusive spaces of higher education, interestingly, caste-identities are often articulated under the garb of castelessness (Subramanian, 2015; Deshpande, 2006). 'Merit' is used as an effective trope to assert inherent capabilities (and vice-versa) of some caste groups, usually translating into downright humiliation and exclusion of those deemed as 'lacking merit'. Additionally, identity-politics across the caste-spectrum rather just at the ends lends all the more complexity to campus caste-dynamics.

This paper analyses, from secondary data sources, various mechanisms of identity-consolidation and perpetuation among students in higher education institutions of India. It also tries to build upon these processes of reification of identities to understand how resulting humiliation and exclusion for those at the receiving end of 'merit-debates' lead to long term adverse psychological impact resulting in distress. Paper draws its data from popular media reports, student blogs and social networking forums, published and unpublished literature on caste-discourses in Indian campuses as well as contemporary research on caste's outreach in modern education. The analysis presented forms the basis of an ongoing ethnographic inquiry on caste in modern educational spaces in India.

References

Deshpande, S. (2006) Exclusive Inequalities: Merit, Caste and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education. EPW. 41(24):2438-2444.

Subramanian, A. (2015) Making Merit: Indian Institutes of Technology and Social Life of Caste. Comparative-Studies in Society and History. 57(2):291-322.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is an attempt to think about the futures of caste with feet firmly in the present and the past.

Paper long abstract:

The paper works with a guarded suggestion that the 'lives' of caste could be undergoing major transformations in the present. Accordingly, that some of the certainties that the critical caste scholarship holds on to today may be constraining us to see its futures. Taking Ambedkar's The Annihilation of Caste as the revolutionary manifesto for modern times, the paper seeks to ask what are we to make of his project today, and to see what could be the new avatars of caste in the foreseeable future.