Caste and democratization in postcolonial India: an ethnographic examination of lower caste politics in Bihar

Witsoe, Jeffrey

doi:10.1080/13510347.2011.593327

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…These layers forge a social system based on order and hierarchy. Though scholars disagree on the extent to which these three elements are coterminous in describing caste, there is a broad consensus that caste is not a bounded rigid system, and historically had a greater fluidity than colonial accounts and surveys of South Asian caste systems allowed (Das, 2014;Fuller, 1996;Shinde, 2016;Waldrop, 2004;Witsoe, 2012). In post-Independence India, the fluidity of caste identities are now overlaid with a layer of state administration and ordering with categories of 'Scheduled Tribe' (ST), 'Scheduled Caste' (SC) and 'Other Backward Classes' (OBC) in resource-based opposition to 'Forward Castes' (Das, 2014).…”

Section: Names As Label and Signifiermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In post-Independence India, the fluidity of caste identities are now overlaid with a layer of state administration and ordering with categories of 'Scheduled Tribe' (ST), 'Scheduled Caste' (SC) and 'Other Backward Classes' (OBC) in resource-based opposition to 'Forward Castes' (Das, 2014). These latest caste identities have taken on new meaning linked to securing greater advantages and privileges, and have produced practices of caste consolidation and/or construction in a (re)politicisation of caste so that groups can secure access to caste-based quotas, reservations and affirmative action policies (see Shinde, 2016 andWitsoe, 2012). At the same time, caste and its meaning is also being reworked through processes of urbanisation (discussed below) and practices termed 'Sanskritisation'.…”

Section: Names As Label and Signifiermentioning

confidence: 99%

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What is in a name? How caste names affect the production of situated knowledge

Patel

2017

Gender, Place & Culture

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Patel, Desai, Kothari … to those literate in the workings of caste these names describe a network and its power in relation to other networks, they infer the rules of engagement within and between network members, and they ascribe a geographical terrain to home. In research, rules of behaviour and assumptions of place that are coded into names can affect access to respondents, their disclosure of data and subsequent claims to validity. This paper explores the coded expectations of knowledge embedded in a name as seen by someone (me) fairly illiterate in the workings of caste by utilising the principle of Bourdieu's doxaa 'pre-reflexive intuitive knowledge' (Deer, 2012, 115)to untangle and explore the effect of names on the production of partial and situated knowledge. Drawing on fieldwork in Gujarat, India, I analyse reflexive accounts through the lenses of feminist geographers and critical race scholars to illustrate the effects of being unknowingly and unwillingly placed into a social hierarchy of power in the field, introduce the idea of 'us-ing' (an opposite of othering) to describe researcherrespondent relations, and explore how readers might interpret the presence or absence of data and claims to validity. These accounts make visible the effects of positionality on knowledge production in ways that speak to feminist-postcolonial research, and specifically to feminist researchers of colour conducting research away from 'home'.

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Section: Names As Label and Signifiermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Names As Label and Signifiermentioning

confidence: 99%

What is in a name? How caste names affect the production of situated knowledge

Patel

2017

Gender, Place & Culture

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“…Such practices contributed to the institutionalization of petty corruption with officials feeling more or less secure under a system dominated by influential middlemen closely connected to the ruling party. The power of the local bureaucracy was curtailed at the cost of strengthening democratically elected local bodies or panchayats (Witsoe, ). The ruling party coined the slogan Vikas nahin samman chahiye , which can be translated as ‘Respect first, development later’ (cited in Desai, : 70).…”

Section: Background: Caste Dynamics Civil Society and Governance Refmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Grassroots Mobilization of the Poorest Reduce Corruption? A Tale of Governance Reforms and Struggle against Petty Corruption in Bihar, India

Verma¹,

Gupta²,

Birner³

2017

Development and Change

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The rural poor in India have long experienced corruption, exclusion from welfare schemes and the denial of rights. Critical accounts of development policy and practice advocate the need for pro‐poor governance reforms as well as effective mobilization of the poor for exercising their rights and entitlements. However, there is a dearth of empirical work which examines the following questions. What are the dynamics of such mobilization strategies in the environment of pro‐poor governance reforms? How do they affect local power relations from the perspective of the poorest social groups? And what are the challenges involved in sustaining struggles led by civil society organizations on behalf of the poorest and against petty corruption? This article addresses these questions in the context of a grassroots mobilization of Musahars (a Dalit caste group) in Bihar, one of the poorest provinces in India, which has recently initiated pro‐poor governance reforms. It explains what has or hasn't worked (and why) for the Musahars, in terms of their dealings with public officials. The authors argue that pro‐poor governance reforms and welfare schemes on their own are not sufficient; both grassroots mobilization and political will of the ruling dispensation are also necessary.

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“…Following the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report in 1990, many political parties representing the lower castes and Dalit groups becoming politically successful (Narayan, 2004). In this backdrop, use of violence to establish dominance of the higher castes have become ubiquitous (Witsoe, 2012).. Political representation and ethnic inequality also affect ethnic violence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Cycles and Caste Violence in India

Roy,

Mukherjee

2023

Preprint

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In presence of ethnic voting, violence is often used in India to dissuade ethnic minorities from voting. In this paper, we examine if violence against disadvantaged castes follows a pattern during an electoral cycle. More specifically, we want to see if crimes against the Scheduled Caste population in India is affected by it’s proximity to state assembly elections. For this we construct a district level panel of 466 districts, spread across 18 states from2007 to 2021 on crime and elections in India. Our baseline specification exploits a fixed effects model and finds that election years are marked by a statistically significant fall in caste violence, which is quite high in the year preceding the election. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect is significantly enhanced in districts with a history of caste politics, especially where caste parties have more political power. Our findings also support the claim that an increase in political power leads to a greater degree of confrontation and conflict rather than its prevention.

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Caste and democratization in postcolonial India: an ethnographic examination of lower caste politics in Bihar

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

What is in a name? How caste names affect the production of situated knowledge

What is in a name? How caste names affect the production of situated knowledge

Can Grassroots Mobilization of the Poorest Reduce Corruption? A Tale of Governance Reforms and Struggle against Petty Corruption in Bihar, India

Electoral Cycles and Caste Violence in India

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