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Caste and Other Ascriptive Identities in South Asia: A Historical and Comparative Review
Sponsored by South Asia Council
Organizer: Sumit Guha, Rutgers University
Chair: David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University
Discussant: Sumit Guha, Rutgers University
Discussions about the political significance of caste are coeval with the birth of modern Indology. Denunciations of the system began earlier and still continue. With few exceptions, Indian nationalists saw the institution as fundamentally inimical to the modern democratic state. Yet students of Indian politics still grapple with the riddle of how caste and democracy have survived and flourished side by side. But not only have they done so, ascriptive identities have become more, and not less prominent in recent years even as class politics has receded into the background. Students of politics are concerned with where these developments are going: historians are concerned with where they have come from. The two sets of answers are organically connected to each other. A dialogue between specialists will yield insights valuable to both and enable us to move toward a dynamic understanding of the relation between contingency, power and social structure. Given the protean diversity of South Asia, it is also prudent for the dialogue to cover as wide a geographical and linguistic range as possible. This panel will begin such a conversation. It will include historians of medieval and modern India and Sri Lanka and of the Pakistan Panjab as well as social scientists who work on contemporary north India and Nepal.
The Paradoxical Place of Caste/Biradari in 20th Century Elections
David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University
The It is one of the ironies of India’s modern history that elections, which are legally predicated on the image of the free, autonomous voter, and caste, which is predicated on ascription, have grown in tandem in political significance. This paper will focus specifically on the Punjab in the first half of the 20th century to analyze this paradox. It is the argument of the paper that this phenomenon has largely been the result of contradictions in the ideological foundations of the colonial state, and, in particular, its application of the “rule of law.” Biradari politics, which have, of course, an old history, have expanded as a form of adaptation to the legal structure of the state. But the contradictions between biradari politics and the legal structuring of elections have hardly gone unnoticed. The paper will examine also the considerable argument that the expansion of biradari politics have occasioned within the context of democratic politics. The tensions between the politics of ascriptive loyalties and of individual autonomy have in fact constituted much in the structure of electoral politics, both in India and in Pakistan.
Ascriptive Identitites in Modern Sri Lanka
John D. Rogers, Association for Asian Studies, Inc.
Sri Lanka has had little role in recent debates on the role of colonial categories of knowledge in identity formation in modern South Asia. There seem to be two main reasons for its absence. First, given the dominance of British India in the region, scholars have tended to equate “colonialism” with the particular policies pursued there. Sri Lanka, which was administered through the Colonial Office, not the India Office, developed an administrative tradition distinct from that of British India. Attitudes towards “caste” and “religion” differed. Second, the questions asked about the history of identity in South Asia have been shaped by the politics of post-Independence India, such as the emergence of Hindu nationalism and the politics of caste reservation. These trends in historiography are understandable from the standpoint of Indian national history, but by definition they exclude comparative evidence that might generate insights about the general process of identity formation. They may also obscure regional differences within India. This paper will survey the history of ascriptive identities in modern Sri Lanka, with special attention to their relationship with colonial categories of knowledge and with similarities and differences with mainland South Asia. Its focus will be on the complicated and changing relationship between the key categories of caste, religion, race, and nationality. It will argue that a South Asia wide approach to ascriptive identities that focuses on regional politics and social structures can provide insights that are hidden by India-centric approaches.
From Vertical Integration to Horizontal Conflict: Caste Identity and Politics in Contemporary India.
Dipankar Gupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Even though caste politics is sometimes seen as a novelty, the caste order has never been without political overtones. There was always a struggle for power, but because of the closed nature of the village economy dominance could not be easily challenged. At first glance, this gave the impression that subaltern castes ideologically acquiesced in their own subjugation. If caste based vertical integration of the village order is coming apart today it is because the rural economy is threatened from within. As landholdings have declined in size on account of demographic pressure, there is little scope for employment in the agrarian sector. This has loosened the hold that dominant communities formerly exercised over the village poor and this has brought caste competition out in the open. Vertical integration has been replaced by horizontal conflict as each caste competes against others for greater material and political resources. This paper will examine this transformation, one that tells us more of the phenomenology of caste and also helps us to look over our shoulder and re-examine the certitudes of history.
Transforming Identities in Nepal: From Caste to Indigeneity and Race
Susan Hangen, Ramapo College of New Jersey
This paper examines the transformation of identity among Nepal's marginalized ethnic groups. After a democratic revolution reestablished a democratic political system in 1990, these ethnic groups increasingly asserted that they are not members of caste groups. Caste was long the hegemonic form of identity in Nepal, as the caste system was upheld in the state's legal framework starting in 1854. While the state removed references to caste in its 1963 legal code, caste continued to structure social interactions and influence identity claims. Prior to 1990, ethnic groups often sought to raise their status by claiming high caste ancestry, thus conforming to the process of Sanskritization observed throughout South Asia. However, after 1990, ethnic groups rejected caste identity, defining themselves as indigenous nationalities and/or members of a Mongol race. This paper argues that this transformation in identity is related to not only to the lack of state recognition of caste but also to the increasing importance of the transnational context for people who make political claims based upon identities. Both race and indigeneity are globally recognized and politically salient identities. The waning of appeals to caste identity reflects the fact that caste has remained a parochial form of identity, existing within South Asia and in South Asian communities abroad. The paper will also demonstrate that while anti-caste rhetoric is prevalent in contemporary Nepal, caste beliefs continue to be upheld in social practice, and structure the relationships between groups of people.