Summary of Readings:
Guha: Beyond Caste; Identity and Power in South Asia – Past and Present
Guha opens his book with the sociologist’s Surinder Jodhka’s observation that though the Western Orientalist’s classical conception of caste has been criticised it has never been replaced. I.e. ‘the ideological dimension of caste dominates academic and popular understanding’ while its political economy is neglected. Guha suggests that his book is meant to address this gap and it has two goals – present a new historically informed understanding of South Asian state and society. Second, provide a basis for comparative understanding of processes of ethnic politics.Here it is worthwhile to note that for Guha, building on Barth’s model, caste is ‘an ethnic group within a larger society which tends to marry endogamously and be ranked relative to others’. Barth, a political anthropologist was one of the first to suggest that ethnicity develops in mutual contact and not in isolation.Guha considers it futile to find a single unified rationale for caste, as it is a complex process of stratification and not a simple static hierarchy. He convincingly argues this through the course of his book based on the examples he presents, right from the early historic period (i.e. covering about 1000 years of South Asian socio-political history).His main arguments are that caste is not bound to religion (he shows this through examples of Muslim and Christian groups which maintain caste hierarchies, like the Parava community studied by Susan Bayly or the Goan community).Second that caste is ‘politically inflected’ i.e. it’s conceptualisation, possible transformation and sustenance is linked to both political power and economic motives. (He argues this through a number of examples at different scales of ‘political’ power starting with the micro-region or janapada, the village and the household – Chapters 2,3 and 4).Third, that caste is an ongoing process of stratification and not simple bounded hierarchy. He argues that in spite of a range of critiques it is still popularly believed that such an idea of caste came into existence in the colonial period. And that this was due to governmental importance given to enumeration and statistics. Guha disagrees with this formulation and based on examples he shows that enumeration was a feature of pre-colonial / early modern kingships as well and that the colonial period did not bring in a ‘rupture’. Rather the scale and level of enumeration changed in this period. In this context he considers that though Susan Bayly and Dirks played important roles in arguing for a link between colonial power and knowledge transformation of Indian society they failed to take this theorisation further by falling into what he calls the ‘Brahminical trap’. I.e. of attributing power to the Brahmins (or a cultural framing of caste) rather than forms of kingship (or a political framing of caste). Guha attempts to bring this up through the book through use of archival material that has not been looked at or neglected – what he calls non-standard areas and time periods.Chapter 1 notes how caste became key to identity. He argues this was because it has always been an instrument of state power – starting with the origin of the term caste from Portuguese and its link with purity and pollution from Portuguese society.Chapter 2 focuses on the micro-region or janapada (or people with territory) which could be considered the base unit for rule by kingship. He argues that tribes, castes and monarchies all co-existed and one did not lead to the other. I.e. he disagrees with the evolutionary model of social progress (as propounded by DD Kosambi and the American School of Anthropology for example).Chapters 3 similarly looks at the political and administrative lives but of villages. Here he compares the Jajaamani and Baluta systems of organising village life. The former i.e. a system of service and dependence on a patriarch has been considered the typical model pan-India and he convincingly argues otherwise by taking examples from Western India.In chapter 4 on households, Guha highlights the position that the household received in the governance structure both in colonial and precolonial times which continues till date as a means of legitimising their power and also securing financial benefits and thus is more important than the kinship. Through examples of kingly households, he elaborates on the generational aspect of the occupation and securing of loyalty and building alliances between families for political assertion. One of the ways through which household matters became important to the ruling elites was due to collection of taxes from the household dispute cases. This became not only an important revenue collection stream but also a way to secure ruling elites legitimacy in arbitration of family disputes. Thus household became an important cog in the political apparatus. In this chapter, Guha also points to the feature of loyalty and service associated with a particular household and children born to servants of the kingly household became ‘khanazad’, a common term to denote service and devotion. Exploitation of this loyalty became an important political strategy to win against the enemy. Guha also shows how political and matrimonial alliances made membership to a kinship socially constructed and fluid. An interesting aspect that is mentioned in this chapter is the inferior treatment of Euro-Asian Englishmen or British children who were born and brought up in India. This was done to discourage settlement of private Europeans in India which could have eventually undermined East India Company’s hold in the country.In chapter 5, Guha is pointing to some features which differentiated colonial period from before. He argues that although the modern bureaucracy has its roots in early modern era, it is the tenacity, persistence, and success that separates colonial regimes form before and its reach in the remotest possible places. Under colonial rule, practically everyone became their subject. Printing technology also played a huge role in it in disseminating state to the vast landscape. Census also, which has been in practice in precolonial eras, gained much prominence due to this and had a totalising impact on political landscape of the country. Such form of knowledge creation was essential to assert and retain power both in colonial and pre-colonial times, however, the colonial census project became important part of south Asian identity creation. Through various historical cases, Guha showcases the various methods used by precolonial rulers in an attempt to gather as much and as correct information as much possible since this was in integral part of maintaining power and control. Guha also mentions that this crucial information gathering exercise created certain elites who had the skill of collecting this information and thus power which changed land ownership in some places where these record keepers using their exclusive knowledge and skill base would eventually become the owners of the land. Guha also mentioned that these enumerations were mainly done for money and force, both important political tools. It was important for the precolonial rulers to know their sources of income, and also who were part of their military as also others since political alliances could be won or lost based on the social structure of the military. On the caste and ethnicity front, what this enumeration did was create caste specific categories for tax collection where the tax rates depended on affiliation to the ruling ethnicity, own calibre to cultivate, aggression, and violent tactics adopted by tenants; and caste categorisation became the basis for revenue collection which in turn fixed the identities of people. Guha also elaborates on the issues of colonial information gathering enterprise where (wild tribes) which could not be put under the varna system and also needed to be dealt separately, and this information was also contingent on the knowledge and skill of the British officers in charge and the regions surveyed.Chapter 6 takes the discussion further into the colonial period and showcases the influence of market on the social and political landscape. Urban life was beginning to take shape which retained a more corporate life different than the village. Although caste hierarchies were visible and getting reinforced, anti-caste movements also started to take form in this period. Guha also highlights the discord between the East India Company and the British military and strategies adopted by them to remain in power. The company invoked the emotion of serving mother country and was able to influence Englishmen serving under local rulers to avoid the coup, the British military, on the other hand, used local alliances to overthrow the company.Many caste groups came to prominence in the early 20th century with the changing political scene in the country and to assert themselves. This was the volatile period when electoral politics was taking shape in the country and various caste groups made alliances with each other to gather populous momentum for political gain.
Dirks: The invention of caste: Civil society in colonial India
Dirks challenges the Western Orientalist view of ‘Oriental Despotism’ – that the State (pre-modern and pre-colonial) overwhelmingly intervenes in peoples’ lives such that they are left with little or no choice but to act in a predetermined manner – by reviewing the construction of caste as a category. This is because caste is seen as central or key to understanding South Asian and Indian Society, such that the Western Orientalist definition of the category, as unchanging hereditary tradition that binds one to particular roles based on religious sanction, dominates.In this paper Dirks looks at colonial processes of enumeration, mapping, counting, through the example of Colin McKenzie’s ethnographic and cartographic work in the 1800s. Based on McKenzie’s work he shows that although such processes of enumeration may seem objective and neutral they are anything but. He thus effectively argues that politics as ‘power’ has always been a part of culture and cultural categories like ‘caste’. And that Indian sociology and anthropology need to let go of the ‘ghost of colonial sociology’ as subscribed to by Dumont and Weber.Dirk’s paper links with Guha’s book in that Guha defends Dirk’s view of power as always part and parcel in the making of culture and tradition. However Guha considers that Dirks over ascribes the power of colonial discourses and practices in such making and rupturing of pre-modern / pre-colonial Indian society.
Fuller: Caste
Fuller begins the chapter by defining caste which he understand as a homogeneous, endogamous unit which falls in a hierarchical order and remains constant for a person and is hereditary and occupation specific. He then emphasis that such form of caste system is changing in modern India where occupations are not rigidly followed on caste lines and due to much political movement to erase the caste based discrimination, the hierarchical system has also broken down, however, caste is increasingly gaining increasing prominence in electoral politics. Fuller then argues that in the first century of British rule caste system was much more fluid, less hierarchical, and less central to society and the rigidity and centrality that we see in caste system today is a product of British Raj. Fuller also questions “village studies” conducted between 1950s and 1970s which instead of seeing villages as a historical product, essentialised them as “traditional” villages with “traditional” caste system, timeless in nature. Fuller then explained Dumont’s structuralist approach while explaining Indian caste system and his concept of purity and pollution to describe the Hindu varna system. Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus, although highly influential, was also criticised heavily for its excessive focus on “traditional;” hierarchy and Brahminical religious ideology. Although, Fuller also criticised the critiques of Dumont citing that they didn’t fully understand Dumont’s affiliation to Brahminical religious ideology. Fuller takes the discussion further in contemporary India and mentions that where caste has become more rigid today, it is also fading away from many spheres, especially public and urban life. Fuller also analyses caste in non-Hindus and concludes that it cannot be generalised and that internal divisions in non-Hindus depend upon the political factors. Fuller examines the caste coming to the forefront of political claims post-independence in the form of reservations which has made caste and religion central to Indian politics.
Krupa and Priya
Guha: Beyond Caste; Identity and Power in South Asia – Past and Present
Guha opens his book with the sociologist’s Surinder Jodhka’s observation that though the Western Orientalist’s classical conception of caste has been criticised it has never been replaced. I.e. ‘the ideological dimension of caste dominates academic and popular understanding’ while its political economy is neglected. Guha suggests that his book is meant to address this gap and it has two goals – present a new historically informed understanding of South Asian state and society. Second, provide a basis for comparative understanding of processes of ethnic politics.Here it is worthwhile to note that for Guha, building on Barth’s model, caste is ‘an ethnic group within a larger society which tends to marry endogamously and be ranked relative to others’. Barth, a political anthropologist was one of the first to suggest that ethnicity develops in mutual contact and not in isolation.Guha considers it futile to find a single unified rationale for caste, as it is a complex process of stratification and not a simple static hierarchy. He convincingly argues this through the course of his book based on the examples he presents, right from the early historic period (i.e. covering about 1000 years of South Asian socio-political history).His main arguments are that caste is not bound to religion (he shows this through examples of Muslim and Christian groups which maintain caste hierarchies, like the Parava community studied by Susan Bayly or the Goan community).Second that caste is ‘politically inflected’ i.e. it’s conceptualisation, possible transformation and sustenance is linked to both political power and economic motives. (He argues this through a number of examples at different scales of ‘political’ power starting with the micro-region or janapada, the village and the household – Chapters 2,3 and 4).Third, that caste is an ongoing process of stratification and not simple bounded hierarchy. He argues that in spite of a range of critiques it is still popularly believed that such an idea of caste came into existence in the colonial period. And that this was due to governmental importance given to enumeration and statistics. Guha disagrees with this formulation and based on examples he shows that enumeration was a feature of pre-colonial / early modern kingships as well and that the colonial period did not bring in a ‘rupture’. Rather the scale and level of enumeration changed in this period. In this context he considers that though Susan Bayly and Dirks played important roles in arguing for a link between colonial power and knowledge transformation of Indian society they failed to take this theorisation further by falling into what he calls the ‘Brahminical trap’. I.e. of attributing power to the Brahmins (or a cultural framing of caste) rather than forms of kingship (or a political framing of caste). Guha attempts to bring this up through the book through use of archival material that has not been looked at or neglected – what he calls non-standard areas and time periods.Chapter 1 notes how caste became key to identity. He argues this was because it has always been an instrument of state power – starting with the origin of the term caste from Portuguese and its link with purity and pollution from Portuguese society.Chapter 2 focuses on the micro-region or janapada (or people with territory) which could be considered the base unit for rule by kingship. He argues that tribes, castes and monarchies all co-existed and one did not lead to the other. I.e. he disagrees with the evolutionary model of social progress (as propounded by DD Kosambi and the American School of Anthropology for example).Chapters 3 similarly looks at the political and administrative lives but of villages. Here he compares the Jajaamani and Baluta systems of organising village life. The former i.e. a system of service and dependence on a patriarch has been considered the typical model pan-India and he convincingly argues otherwise by taking examples from Western India.In chapter 4 on households, Guha highlights the position that the household received in the governance structure both in colonial and precolonial times which continues till date as a means of legitimising their power and also securing financial benefits and thus is more important than the kinship. Through examples of kingly households, he elaborates on the generational aspect of the occupation and securing of loyalty and building alliances between families for political assertion. One of the ways through which household matters became important to the ruling elites was due to collection of taxes from the household dispute cases. This became not only an important revenue collection stream but also a way to secure ruling elites legitimacy in arbitration of family disputes. Thus household became an important cog in the political apparatus. In this chapter, Guha also points to the feature of loyalty and service associated with a particular household and children born to servants of the kingly household became ‘khanazad’, a common term to denote service and devotion. Exploitation of this loyalty became an important political strategy to win against the enemy. Guha also shows how political and matrimonial alliances made membership to a kinship socially constructed and fluid. An interesting aspect that is mentioned in this chapter is the inferior treatment of Euro-Asian Englishmen or British children who were born and brought up in India. This was done to discourage settlement of private Europeans in India which could have eventually undermined East India Company’s hold in the country.In chapter 5, Guha is pointing to some features which differentiated colonial period from before. He argues that although the modern bureaucracy has its roots in early modern era, it is the tenacity, persistence, and success that separates colonial regimes form before and its reach in the remotest possible places. Under colonial rule, practically everyone became their subject. Printing technology also played a huge role in it in disseminating state to the vast landscape. Census also, which has been in practice in precolonial eras, gained much prominence due to this and had a totalising impact on political landscape of the country. Such form of knowledge creation was essential to assert and retain power both in colonial and pre-colonial times, however, the colonial census project became important part of south Asian identity creation. Through various historical cases, Guha showcases the various methods used by precolonial rulers in an attempt to gather as much and as correct information as much possible since this was in integral part of maintaining power and control. Guha also mentions that this crucial information gathering exercise created certain elites who had the skill of collecting this information and thus power which changed land ownership in some places where these record keepers using their exclusive knowledge and skill base would eventually become the owners of the land. Guha also mentioned that these enumerations were mainly done for money and force, both important political tools. It was important for the precolonial rulers to know their sources of income, and also who were part of their military as also others since political alliances could be won or lost based on the social structure of the military. On the caste and ethnicity front, what this enumeration did was create caste specific categories for tax collection where the tax rates depended on affiliation to the ruling ethnicity, own calibre to cultivate, aggression, and violent tactics adopted by tenants; and caste categorisation became the basis for revenue collection which in turn fixed the identities of people. Guha also elaborates on the issues of colonial information gathering enterprise where (wild tribes) which could not be put under the varna system and also needed to be dealt separately, and this information was also contingent on the knowledge and skill of the British officers in charge and the regions surveyed.Chapter 6 takes the discussion further into the colonial period and showcases the influence of market on the social and political landscape. Urban life was beginning to take shape which retained a more corporate life different than the village. Although caste hierarchies were visible and getting reinforced, anti-caste movements also started to take form in this period. Guha also highlights the discord between the East India Company and the British military and strategies adopted by them to remain in power. The company invoked the emotion of serving mother country and was able to influence Englishmen serving under local rulers to avoid the coup, the British military, on the other hand, used local alliances to overthrow the company.Many caste groups came to prominence in the early 20th century with the changing political scene in the country and to assert themselves. This was the volatile period when electoral politics was taking shape in the country and various caste groups made alliances with each other to gather populous momentum for political gain.
Dirks: The invention of caste: Civil society in colonial India
Dirks challenges the Western Orientalist view of ‘Oriental Despotism’ – that the State (pre-modern and pre-colonial) overwhelmingly intervenes in peoples’ lives such that they are left with little or no choice but to act in a predetermined manner – by reviewing the construction of caste as a category. This is because caste is seen as central or key to understanding South Asian and Indian Society, such that the Western Orientalist definition of the category, as unchanging hereditary tradition that binds one to particular roles based on religious sanction, dominates.In this paper Dirks looks at colonial processes of enumeration, mapping, counting, through the example of Colin McKenzie’s ethnographic and cartographic work in the 1800s. Based on McKenzie’s work he shows that although such processes of enumeration may seem objective and neutral they are anything but. He thus effectively argues that politics as ‘power’ has always been a part of culture and cultural categories like ‘caste’. And that Indian sociology and anthropology need to let go of the ‘ghost of colonial sociology’ as subscribed to by Dumont and Weber.Dirk’s paper links with Guha’s book in that Guha defends Dirk’s view of power as always part and parcel in the making of culture and tradition. However Guha considers that Dirks over ascribes the power of colonial discourses and practices in such making and rupturing of pre-modern / pre-colonial Indian society.
Fuller: Caste
Fuller begins the chapter by defining caste which he understand as a homogeneous, endogamous unit which falls in a hierarchical order and remains constant for a person and is hereditary and occupation specific. He then emphasis that such form of caste system is changing in modern India where occupations are not rigidly followed on caste lines and due to much political movement to erase the caste based discrimination, the hierarchical system has also broken down, however, caste is increasingly gaining increasing prominence in electoral politics. Fuller then argues that in the first century of British rule caste system was much more fluid, less hierarchical, and less central to society and the rigidity and centrality that we see in caste system today is a product of British Raj. Fuller also questions “village studies” conducted between 1950s and 1970s which instead of seeing villages as a historical product, essentialised them as “traditional” villages with “traditional” caste system, timeless in nature. Fuller then explained Dumont’s structuralist approach while explaining Indian caste system and his concept of purity and pollution to describe the Hindu varna system. Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus, although highly influential, was also criticised heavily for its excessive focus on “traditional;” hierarchy and Brahminical religious ideology. Although, Fuller also criticised the critiques of Dumont citing that they didn’t fully understand Dumont’s affiliation to Brahminical religious ideology. Fuller takes the discussion further in contemporary India and mentions that where caste has become more rigid today, it is also fading away from many spheres, especially public and urban life. Fuller also analyses caste in non-Hindus and concludes that it cannot be generalised and that internal divisions in non-Hindus depend upon the political factors. Fuller examines the caste coming to the forefront of political claims post-independence in the form of reservations which has made caste and religion central to Indian politics.
Krupa and Priya
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