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Annotated
Bibliography of Selected Works Relevant to Anti-Untouchability Movements in
Nepal
Compiled by Laurie
Ann Vasily
This annotated bibliography
is by no means exhaustive of the academic and popular press literature
available on these subjects. Rather it
is an initial attempt to identify and annotate some academic resources both
broadly and specifically relevant to anti-untouchability social movements in
Nepal.
Literature describing Dalit and untouchable social
movements in India and Nepal have similar broad themes: examination of origins of untouchability,
assertions of identities, honoring of Dalit resistance, and a focus on the
importance of political leaders. In the
English-language sources available in North American libraries, the vast
majority of literature focuses on Indian Dalit Movements.
Deliege, R. (1992).
“Replication and Consensus: Untouchability, Caste and Ideology in India.” Man
27: 155-173.
Deliege addresses the
issues of replication and consensus among India's untouchable caste as espoused
in Moffat's, "An Untouchable Community of South India." Deliege argues against Moffat's claim that
untouchable groups replicate upper-caste Brahmin ideology and traditions in
their intracaste relationships and his claim that this replication implies
consensual agreement with Brahmin ideology and hence, collusion in their own
oppression. Deliege describes his own
ethnographic research with untouchable groups and claims that the untouchables
with whom he worked did not view themselves as the Brahmins did, degraded and
impure.
Deliege, R. (1993). “The
Myths of the Origin of the Indian Untouchables.” Man 28: 533-549.
Deliege counters Weber's
claim that the Indian untouchables refer to Hindu orthodoxy to accept their
designation as impure. He provides
(some myths with two versions) five examples that he gathered from Paraiyar,
Pallar, and Koonar groups as well as commenting on Valaiyar, Chamar, Bhangi and
Mahar myths (collected by Gough, Berreman, Moffatt, Molund, and Mosse). He concludes that there is a high degree of
ideological consistency across the various myths in that there these myths
indicate a place for untouchables within Hindu caste ideology, but that their
position is not immutably imposed by god, but is rather changeable. He also notes that knowledge about the myths
is not widespread or daily meaningful for the majority of untouchable with whom
he interacted, and claims that the influence of democratic ideas has resulted
in untouchables more strongly viewing their position as unfair.
Mitra, S. K. (1994). Caste,
Democracy and the Politics of Community Formation in India. Contextualising
Caste. M. Searle-Chatterjee and U. Sharma. Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishers:
48-71.
Mitra suggests in this
article that caste has an important and useful role in Indian identity
formation, in that actors can use caste to forward their own interests. He makes his argument by focusing on
competitive politics, positive discrimination, and the market economy. He argues that caste consciousness and the
social action taken on the basis of that consciousness directly challenges
essentializing notions of caste as immutable.
Searle-Chatterjee, M. and
U. Sharma (1994). Introduction. Contextualising Caste. M.
Searle-Chatterjee and U. Sharma. Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishers: 1-24.
In this introduction to
their edited volume, Searle-Chatterjee and Sharma both provide an overview of
what is to be found in the book and discuss: using Dumont as a point of
departure for renewed theorizing about caste; caste and the denial of agency;
the challenges inherent in periodization; comparisons between caste and peasant
societies; using the case of the untouchable as a test for social theories and
democracy; and relationships between caste, class and family.
Shukra, A. (1994). Caste -
A Personal Perspective. Contextualising Caste: Post-Dumontian Approaches.
M. Searle-Chatterjee and U. Sharma. Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishers: 169-178.
Shukra (a psuedonym) describes his personal identity
development as a Dalit growing up in India as well as castism behavior he has
experienced in the UK. He contends that
caste ideology is far more flexible than is generally acknowledged in the
literature on caste and calls for better understanding of culture, history, and
social relations as experienced by dalits.
Yagati, C. R. (1999).
Change in Nomenclature: A Historical Note. Dalits: Assertion for Identity.
A. Pinto. New Delhi, Indian Social Institute: 84-95.
Yagati traces the emergence of
untouchability and the various terms used to refer to people in the untouchable
castes.
Franco, F., I. Macwan, et al. (2000). The Silken Swing: The Cultural
Universe of Dalit Women. Calcutta, Stree.
Sob, D. (1997). “Utpidan Bhitra Dalit Mahilaa.” Studies in
Nepali History and Society 2(2): 348-353.
Durga Sob, executive
director of the Dalit Mahila Sangha, takes a Marxist approach in her analysis
of the dual oppression experienced by Nepali Dalit women. Herself a Dalit woman from Western Nepal,
she raises issues for Dalit women from societal discrimination, economic
exploitation, lack of educational opportunities, lack of political
representation, to poor health and gender discrimination. She also briefly discusses the manner in
which Dalit women are exploited and underrepresented within the feminist
movement in Nepal.
Das, B. (May 21, 2001).
Dalit Discrimination and Empowerment. On Line.
Available at: http://www.imadr.org/project/Dalit/article.html
This is a WWW site on the web. Das is apparently the Moderator of
"Dalit Solidarity Peoples," which is apparently part of the
International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)
in India. This article is a broad
overview of the major historical and contemporary issues within Dalit
discourse. He discusses historical
perspectives on the development of the varna system, Gandhi's stance toward
untouchability, and present political organizing efforts.
These pieces can be
generally categorized as examinations of the specific socio-economic,
political, and leadership issues that fostered development of Dalit social
movements in differing areas of South Asia.
They identify the ideologies confronted by non-Brahman and Dalit social
movements as Aryan religious-based ideologies and racial-based colonial
ideologies. They also explore the
important question of who was exploited/oppressed by whom in what way.
Omvedt, G. (1994). Dalits
and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial
India. New Delhi, Sage Publications.
This is a richly
researched book on Dalit social movements in India written from an historical
materialist perspective. The ten
chapters are: Towards a historical
materialist analysis of the origins and development of caste; Caste, region,
and colonialism: The context of Dalit revolt; Emergence of the Dalit movement,
1900-30: Nagpur, Hyderabad, Andhra, Mysore; Emergence of the Dalit movement,
1900-30: Bombay Presidency; The turning point, 1930-36: Ambedkar, Gandhi, the
Marxists; The years of radicalism: Bombay Presidency, 1936-42; 'Ambedkarism:'
The theory of Dalit liberation; Mysore, 1930-56: The politics of Ram-Raj;
Andhra and Hyderabad, 1930-46: Foundations of turmoil; Hyderabad and Andhra,
1946-56: Revolution, repression and recuperation. Omvedt focuses on the role of ideology in forging organized
social movements by and for dalits.
There is quite a bit of useful information in this rich book, but a
particular strength is her exploration of cultural, socio-political,
geographic, and economic differences between various sites where movements were
most clearly organized historically. It
is unfortunate that the book ends with Ambedkar's death in 1956.
Zelliot, E. (1992). From
Untouchable to Dalit. New Delhi, Manohar.
With this compilation of
16 essays, Zelliott contributes to the historical record of Dalit political and
social movement. Her focus is primarily
on Maharasthra and on the leadership of B. R. Ambedkar, but she also discusses
religion as it relates to Dalit movements and the emergence of Dalit voice in
Indian literature
Historically and
contemporarily, the less radical Dalit movements and movements led by others on
the behalf of Dalits have been characterized as taking a reformist approach to
the Hindu caste system. Some of these
movements include the Bhakti devotional movements, and Gandhian and
Gandhian-inspired approaches to social reform.
Zelliott, E. (1992). Chokhamela and Eknath: Two Bhakti Modes of
Legitimacy for Modern Change. From Untouchable to Dalit. New Delhi,
Manohar: 3-32.
Zelliott traces the
import of two Bhakti saints, Chokhamela and Eknath, on Dalit social
movements. Her conclusion is that
Eknath is more often invoked by higher-caste Hindu reformers as an image of a
Bhakta sensitive to untouchable issues.
Chokhamela, on the other hand, was himself an untouchable and is more
often invoked by dalits themselves, especially in the early times of the Dalit
movements in the 1920s and 1930s. Since
Ambedkar's more radical Dalit movement, especially as a result of his personal
and political stance on conversion in the 1950s, the Bhakti tradition of Hindu
reform has often been rejected as it is not in line with Dalit movement
political aims.
While close to three
million Indian Dalits converted to Buddhism with Ambedkar’s conversion in 1956,
many also continue to convert to Christianity.
In doing so, they face oppression as a very small religious minority in
India. Documentation of Nepali
conversions to Christianity or Buddhism are unavailable.
Hinnappan, B. C. (May 21,
2001). Dalit Christians. On Line.
Available at: http://dalitchristians.com/
A WWW site without an
explicitly defined organizational sponsor, some of its useful pages include:
Dalit History, Dalit Reality, Christian Reality, Dalit Struggles, Dalit
Movement, Action, Resolutions, Press Room, Resources, Links, Discussion. It is a nice resource for Dalit Christian
information that focuses predominantly on Indian Dalit Christians. It does have some reference to Tamil
literature, but no broader South Asian connections.
Cameron, M. M. (1998). On
the Edge of the Auspicious: Gender and Caste in Nepal. Urbana, University
of Illinois Press.
Basically Cameron's dissertation
crafted into a book, there are eight chapters and an introduction: Situating
low-caste women; Patronage, land and farming; Labor in the Himalayas; Low-caste
women's Artisan and Domestic work; Narratives of honor and sexuality;
Demystifying the gift: Low-caste marriage and kinship; Bearing the Jat:
Childbirth and motherhood; Reconfiguring gender through caste. The main contributions of her work are in
documenting the multiple dimensions of oppression for low-caste women and in
making space for low caste women's agency.
In terms of understanding Dalit struggles for liberation, her work falls
in the broadly defined category of everyday resistance. In pp. 47-51 she links her work with Scott
(Weapons of the Weak) Haynes & Prakash (Contesting Power), but she does not
link her work at all to Dalit social movements. Another strength of the work is its acknowledgement of the
complexities and interrelatedness of gendered and caste-d behavior.
Gellner, D. N. and D.
Quigley, Eds. (1999). Contested Hierarchies: A Collaborative Ethnography of
Caste among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley. Calcutta, Oxford University
Press.
In this edited volume,
Gellner and Quigley provide a forum for discussion of caste among Newars,
predominantly of the Kathmandu Valley.
The ten chapters include:
"Introduction" by David Gellner, "Buddhist Merchants in
Kathmandu: The Asian Twah Market and Uray Social Organization" by Todd T.
Lewis; "Sresthas: Heterogeneity among Hindu Patron Lineages" by
Declan Quigley; "Caste and Kinship in a Newar Village" by Hiroshi
Ishii; "Urban Peasants: The Maharjans (Jyapu) of Kathmandu and
Lalitpur" by David Gellner and Rajendra Pradhan; "The Social
Organization of Rajopadhyaya Brahmans" by Gerard Toffin; "Sakyas and
Vajracharyas: From Holy Order to Quasi-Ethnic Group" by David Gellner;
"The Citrakars: caste of Painters and Mask-Makers" by Gerard Toffin;
"Low Castes in Lalitpur" by David Gellner; and "Conclusion:
Caste Organization and the Ancient City" by Declan Quigley. .
Himalayan Research Bulletin
(1997). Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 2047 (1990), Asian Studies at
University of Texas, Austin. 2001.
A translation of the full text of the 1990 Nepali
Constitution and all of its Articles.
Parish, S. M. (1996). Hierarchy
and Its Discontents: Culture and the Politics of Consciousness in Caste
Society. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.
In a highly readable and
engaging style, Parish provides this ethnography of Newars from Bhaktapur in
Nepal. The nine chapter books includes:
introduction; god-chariots in a garden of castes; equality and hierarchy;
constructing hierarchy: India as 'other'; ambivalences; holism and necessity:
conflicting versions of caste life; the Indian untouchable's critique of
culture; conclusion: the politics of consciousness; postscript: the problem of
power.
Barnett, S., L. Fruzzetti,
et al. (1976). “Hierarchy Purified: Notes on Dumont and His Critics.” Journal
of Asian Studies XXXV(4): 627-638.
The authors discuss six
major areas of critique of Homo Hierarchicus, including: the
transactional theory of caste (Marriott and Inden’s critique), the exploitation
theory of caste (Mencher’s critique), the stratification theory of caste
(Berreman, Kroeber); the production theory of caste (Marxist approaches as
articulated by Beteille and Meillassoux), and whether or not Muslims have a
caste system. They assert that the
mediational form between the west and the east – that of the contrast between hierarchical
holism and egalitarian individualism – should not be dismissed as easily as his
critics seem to want.
Berreman, G. D. (1960).
“Caste in India and the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 66(2): 120-127.
In this article, Berreman
makes his classic case for the comparison between the Hindu caste system in
India and issues of race in the US. He
also defines caste as a "hierarchy of endogamous divisions in which
membership is hereditary and permanent"
(p. 120). The significance of
this definition is its lack of reference to ideological homogeneity among
people of differing caste, which contrasts with the views of Dumont and is
followers. Although this article
appeared before Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus, it stands as a critique of Dumont's
totalizing notion that all Hindu actors accept and replicate Hindu caste
ideology in their behavior.
Beteille, A. (1986).
“Individualism and Equality.” Current Anthropology 27(2): 121-129.
Beteille forwards the
notion that anthropologists need to reconsider the dichotomies of
individualism/hierarchy and equality/inequality. Although he notes its siginificant contributions, he critiques
Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus for its lack of relevance for contemporary Indian
social and political issues. He also
critiques Homo Equalis on the contention that it has more to do with
individualism than equality per se, and his lack of discussion of Simmel's
"individualism of inequality" (in sociological terms, a move from
ascriptive inequality, or individualism of equality, to inequality based on achievement,
or individualism of inequality).
Beteille uses an argument based on Indian Constitutional provisions for
the individual rights over and above group rights to assert that even within
what has been deemed a hierarchical society are legal provisions for equality.
Beteille, A. (1990). “Race,
Caste and Gender.” Man 25(3):
489-504.
Beteille compares race
and caste in order to make the larger argument that comparative studies of
India and western social systems need not be superficial or misleading, but
rather can be fruitful if one keeps in mind that the comparison is on an
abstract level, not on the level of actuality.
Dumont, L. (1970). Homo
Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System. Chicago, IL, University of
Chicago Press.
Dumont's influential work
here is focused on understanding the manner in which the Indian caste system
functions around the concept of hierarchy.
In the twelve chapters of the book, Dumont discusses: the history of
ideas about caste; the concepts of purity and impurity not as elements in a
system, but as a structure; the relationship between hierarchy and 'varna'; the
division of labor in the caste system; the regulation of marriage; rules
concerning food and contact; power and territory; caste government; the roles
of renouncers; a comparison of caste with non-Hindu social organizational
systems; and a discussion of contemporary trends in the evolution of caste
systems.
Quigley, D. (1994). Is a
Theory of Caste Still Possible? Contextualising Caste. M.
Searle-Chatterjee and U. Sharma. Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishers:
25-48.
Quigley contends that
theories of caste are important and criticizes the trend away from theorizing
toward ethnographic description. He
discusses the differences between sociologically based stratification understandings
of caste and anthropological understandings.
He differs from Dumont and sides with Hocart in asserting that caste
centers on kingship relations and functions in place where there is some degree
of centralisation.
Sharma, U. (1994). Berreman
Revisited: Caste and the Comparative Method. Contextualising Caste. M.
Searle-Chatterjee and U. Sharma. Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishers: 72-91.
Sharma makes the argument
that cross-cultural comparison is a useful tool by revisiting some of Gerald
Berreman’s earlier work on the comparisons between race in the US and caste in
India.
Berreman, G. D. (1981).
Social Inequality: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Social Inequality: Comparative
and Developmental Approaches. G. D. Berreman. New York, Academic Press: 3-40.
In this chapter,
Berreman puts forth a typology for a comparative study of stratification. He makes distinctions between three sets of
concepts: status and class, intrinsic and extrinsic criteria (for membership in
a particular group), groups and categories, before discussing what he terms
'the residual categories' of sex, age, stigmatization, and servitude. He counter functionalist approaches to
stratification in asserting that stratification is not "an inevitable
feature of the human condition" (p. 35).
Fischer, C. S., M. Hout, et
al. (2001). Inequality by Design. Social Stratification: Class, Race and
Gender in Sociological Perspective. D. B. Grusky. Boulder, CO, Westview
Press: 73-76.
The authors critique
the functionalist theory of inequality, which maintains that inequality is
inevitable because of its functional importance with the argument that systems
of inequality are designed and maintained by those in power in order to retain
their dominance in the social order.
Giddens, A. (2001 (1973)).
The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies. Social Stratification: Class,
Race and Gender in Sociological Perspective. D. B. Grusky. Boulder, CO,
Westview Press: 152-161.
David Grusky
reprints this Giddens article in his 900-page volume on social
stratification. He makes connections
between Weber's concept of 'status group' and the commonly referred to 'social
class,' and notes Weber's differences from Marx on theories of class. He notes that an important area for more
theorizing is the bridge between economic class and social class. He then makes the point that the
structuration of class is determined by social mobility.
Grusky, D. B. (2001). The
Past, Present, and Future of Social Inequality. Social Stratification:
Class, Race and Gender in Sociological Perspective. D. B. Grusky. Boulder,
CO, Westview Press: 3-51.
A broad overview of
stratification theories, concepts, forms, and sources. He discusses Marxist, post-Marxist,
Weberian, post-Weberian, Durkheim and post-Durkheimian, elite studies, and
gradational studies. Grusky then
outlines mobility analysis, processes of stratification, and structural
analyses, discusses modern uses of stratification theory (including: market
research, postmodern analysis, reproduction theory, and structuration
theory). He concludes with a discussion
of ascriptive processes and the future of stratification.
Levine, R. F. (1998).
Introduction. Social Class and Stratification: Classic Statements and
Theoretical Debates. R. F. Levine. Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, Inc.: 1-9.
In this introductory
chapter, Levine sets the stage for the ensuing chapters on Marxist, Weberian,
and non-class forms of inequality. She
provides an overview of the basic tenets of Marx's and Weber's theories and
explains the fundamental differences between them. She then briefly discusses the authors in this edited volume who
address race and gender as important categories of sociological relevance not
adequately addressed by Marx or Weber.