In India, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 completed its ten years in April 2023. However, this is a crucial time to review its effects, provisions, and the awareness about the Act, and how much it has percolated at the grassroots level. Consequently, we must pay attention to the voices from the margin in order to comprehend the situation and need to bring these voices to the center to point out the lacuna and challenges of the Act as well as strengthen the discourse around the sexual harassment of women at the workplace. The study based on empirical findings, focuses on experiences of women workers at a wholesale vegetable market in Pune1 and follows an ethnographic approach. The article argues that mainstream discourse on sexual harassment does not acknowledge experiences of women from the bottom of the socio-economic margins and it is a caste-blind gender discourse. Caste shapes women’s experiences of sexual harassment at workplace differently and sometimes to mitigate the risk, women apply different strategies and build alternative mechanisms to combat sexual harassment at the workplace.
{"title":"Narratives from the Margin: Sexual Harassment and Strategies of Resistance","authors":"Sandhya Balasaheb Gawali","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i2.603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i2.603","url":null,"abstract":"In India, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 completed its ten years in April 2023. However, this is a crucial time to review its effects, provisions, and the awareness about the Act, and how much it has percolated at the grassroots level. Consequently, we must pay attention to the voices from the margin in order to comprehend the situation and need to bring these voices to the center to point out the lacuna and challenges of the Act as well as strengthen the discourse around the sexual harassment of women at the workplace. The study based on empirical findings, focuses on experiences of women workers at a wholesale vegetable market in Pune1 and follows an ethnographic approach. The article argues that mainstream discourse on sexual harassment does not acknowledge experiences of women from the bottom of the socio-economic margins and it is a caste-blind gender discourse. Caste shapes women’s experiences of sexual harassment at workplace differently and sometimes to mitigate the risk, women apply different strategies and build alternative mechanisms to combat sexual harassment at the workplace.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136103841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dalits are the lowest social group in the Indian caste hierarchy, formerly known as ‘untouchables’. They have been subjected to centuries of discrimination, violence and continue to face widespread social exclusion and economic deprivation. In rural areas, Dalits are often forced to live in segregated quarters and are denied access to common resources such as wells, temples, schools and land. They are often forced to do the most menial and degrading work, such as manual scavenging and cleaning toilets. This exclusion and humiliation are rooted in their lack of access to socio-economic capital, namely, land. As the world’s primary source of wealth, land plays a significant role in the life of rural communities, transforming into a socio-economic reality. Dalits are historically landless; in this outbreak, they participated in various land movements to access land. Landless Dalits and other agricultural labourers fought alongside peasants for better wages, land ownership and to end the practice of forced labour. However, Dalit struggles always remain subordinate to peasant struggles. In this context, this study examines Haryana’s rarely documented and majorly unknown Dalit land movement that took place in 1973 at Bir Sunarwala village of the Jhajjar district of Haryana. Additionally, this study seeks to highlight the significance of the Bir Sunarwala land movement within the broader framework of the Dalit movements in India.
{"title":"The Bir Sunarwala: An Uncharted Dalit Land Movement of Haryana, India","authors":"Anand Mehra","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i2.681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i2.681","url":null,"abstract":"Dalits are the lowest social group in the Indian caste hierarchy, formerly known as ‘untouchables’. They have been subjected to centuries of discrimination, violence and continue to face widespread social exclusion and economic deprivation. In rural areas, Dalits are often forced to live in segregated quarters and are denied access to common resources such as wells, temples, schools and land. They are often forced to do the most menial and degrading work, such as manual scavenging and cleaning toilets. This exclusion and humiliation are rooted in their lack of access to socio-economic capital, namely, land. As the world’s primary source of wealth, land plays a significant role in the life of rural communities, transforming into a socio-economic reality. Dalits are historically landless; in this outbreak, they participated in various land movements to access land. Landless Dalits and other agricultural labourers fought alongside peasants for better wages, land ownership and to end the practice of forced labour. However, Dalit struggles always remain subordinate to peasant struggles. In this context, this study examines Haryana’s rarely documented and majorly unknown Dalit land movement that took place in 1973 at Bir Sunarwala village of the Jhajjar district of Haryana. Additionally, this study seeks to highlight the significance of the Bir Sunarwala land movement within the broader framework of the Dalit movements in India.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136022839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the academic field, debates in the discipline of history largely contest whether the people whose narratives are absent in the dominant archives of knowledge, including Dalits, can be considered as devoid of history. Such contestations raise queries about the ways in which these groups form a sense of their past. In this light, can we consider cultural forms of narrative as reliable and ‘valid’ means to form an understanding of past, and to what extent? Can the cultural narrative forms, particularly autobiographical accounts, be utilized to reflect on the past of these communities? What methodologies does such an approach demand, and what challenges does it pose? This paper shall grapple with these intriguing inquiries. It attempts to position Dalit autobiographies and their utility in locating the sense of their past and in the larger knowledge production. This paper fundamentally proposes that Dalit autobiographies can lend crucial insights into the history of Dalit communities and beyond. These autobiographies can provide a perspective ‘from below’ and contribute to understanding how Dalits made sense of their past into narratives. I argue that Dalit articulation of their life experiences in the form of autobiographies not only rupture the assumptions of a singular past but also foregrounds the multiplicities and specificities to their everyday experiences.
{"title":"Utilizing Dalit Autobiographies in History","authors":"None Jatin","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i2.626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i2.626","url":null,"abstract":"In the academic field, debates in the discipline of history largely contest whether the people whose narratives are absent in the dominant archives of knowledge, including Dalits, can be considered as devoid of history. Such contestations raise queries about the ways in which these groups form a sense of their past. In this light, can we consider cultural forms of narrative as reliable and ‘valid’ means to form an understanding of past, and to what extent? Can the cultural narrative forms, particularly autobiographical accounts, be utilized to reflect on the past of these communities? What methodologies does such an approach demand, and what challenges does it pose? This paper shall grapple with these intriguing inquiries. It attempts to position Dalit autobiographies and their utility in locating the sense of their past and in the larger knowledge production. This paper fundamentally proposes that Dalit autobiographies can lend crucial insights into the history of Dalit communities and beyond. These autobiographies can provide a perspective ‘from below’ and contribute to understanding how Dalits made sense of their past into narratives. I argue that Dalit articulation of their life experiences in the form of autobiographies not only rupture the assumptions of a singular past but also foregrounds the multiplicities and specificities to their everyday experiences.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136102878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The modern anti-caste consciousness has deep roots in medieval bhakti traditions in India. The Bhakti saints like Basavanna, Kabir, Ravidas, Vemana, and Pothuluri Veerabrahmam have contributed towards democratizing the spiritual sphere. The radical bhakti traditions shaped new value systems, cultural practices, language, and other art forms and proposed a new egalitarian society. The tendency of locating subaltern saints within the spiritual domain does not capture the radical visions of an egalitarian society which are articulated in their songs, poems, thoughts, and practice. This article is an attempt to document and analyze the radical visions of Vemana and Pothuluri Veerabrahmam and other thinkers in the Telugu-speaking region. The article draws on both published works and fieldwork work which was conducted in the year 2022.
{"title":"Democratizing Spiritual Sphere: Radical Bhakti Traditions in the Telugu-Speaking Region in India","authors":"Chandraiah Gopani","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i2.680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i2.680","url":null,"abstract":"The modern anti-caste consciousness has deep roots in medieval bhakti traditions in India. The Bhakti saints like Basavanna, Kabir, Ravidas, Vemana, and Pothuluri Veerabrahmam have contributed towards democratizing the spiritual sphere. The radical bhakti traditions shaped new value systems, cultural practices, language, and other art forms and proposed a new egalitarian society. The tendency of locating subaltern saints within the spiritual domain does not capture the radical visions of an egalitarian society which are articulated in their songs, poems, thoughts, and practice. This article is an attempt to document and analyze the radical visions of Vemana and Pothuluri Veerabrahmam and other thinkers in the Telugu-speaking region. The article draws on both published works and fieldwork work which was conducted in the year 2022.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136104640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite India’s constitutional dream to achieve equity and justice, caste still remains an issue of concern. Especially in the context of education, reports indicate a disparity in access and participation across gender, caste and other parameters (Hickey & Stratton, 2007). The prevalence of caste-based discrimination across universities and Dalit student suicides continue to be widely reported (Anderson, 2016; Niazi, 2022; Shantha, 2023; Nair, 2023). While the University Grants Commission, especially Mandal Commission and the Thorat Committee have placed certain recommendations, many universities fall short of implementing the same and even if they do, they don’t percolate to an informed student/ faculty/ administration policy (Sitlhou, 2017). Lack of a well-defined policy, its implementation and the disconnect between curriculum and pedagogy has resulted in an erasure of the discourse on caste within higher education institutions. Furthermore, the disconnect has promoted a sense of alienation in educational institutions wherein some students graduate from school or universities without any exposure to caste as a social problem and some students face humiliation routinely. This project is an autoethnographic study of classrooms in a private university in Bangalore to understand the gaps that emerge from the disconnect between curriculum, pedagogy and comprehension of students about caste and present an alternative pedagogical paradigm that is situated, participatory, historical and critical.
{"title":"Un‘casting’ Universities: Examining the Intersections of Inclusive Curriculum and Dalit Pedagogies in a Private University in Bangalore, India","authors":"Rolla Das","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i1.428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i1.428","url":null,"abstract":"Despite India’s constitutional dream to achieve equity and justice, caste still remains an issue of concern. Especially in the context of education, reports indicate a disparity in access and participation across gender, caste and other parameters (Hickey & Stratton, 2007). The prevalence of caste-based discrimination across universities and Dalit student suicides continue to be widely reported (Anderson, 2016; Niazi, 2022; Shantha, 2023; Nair, 2023). While the University Grants Commission, especially Mandal Commission and the Thorat Committee have placed certain recommendations, many universities fall short of implementing the same and even if they do, they don’t percolate to an informed student/ faculty/ administration policy (Sitlhou, 2017). Lack of a well-defined policy, its implementation and the disconnect between curriculum and pedagogy has resulted in an erasure of the discourse on caste within higher education institutions. Furthermore, the disconnect has promoted a sense of alienation in educational institutions wherein some students graduate from school or universities without any exposure to caste as a social problem and some students face humiliation routinely. This project is an autoethnographic study of classrooms in a private university in Bangalore to understand the gaps that emerge from the disconnect between curriculum, pedagogy and comprehension of students about caste and present an alternative pedagogical paradigm that is situated, participatory, historical and critical.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43715715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the link between education policy and the social reproduction of caste, with a special focus on the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). It traces the shape of exclusion that Bahujan schoolchildren experience in the Indian school system by attempting to analyse, and build a coherent understanding of, caste-based exclusion in the sphere of school education. The article is organised in two parts, both of which use the NEP 2020 as an anchor to study the nature of educational inequality. The first part maps the outer contours of educational inequality, engaging with the issue of unequal access to schooling. The inner contours of educational inequality, that is, the internal processes of schooling that engender exclusion, are examined subsequently. At the kernel of this study is the complex relationship between education and power. In essence, the present article delineates the myriad ways through which the NEP 2020 contributes to the processes of social reproduction, particularly the mechanisms through which it conduces to the hegemony of historically privileged caste groups in the society.
{"title":"The The Exclusion of Bahujan Schoolchildren: An Anti-Caste Critique of the National Education Policy 2020, India","authors":"Y. Singh","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i1.411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i1.411","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the link between education policy and the social reproduction of caste, with a special focus on the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). It traces the shape of exclusion that Bahujan schoolchildren experience in the Indian school system by attempting to analyse, and build a coherent understanding of, caste-based exclusion in the sphere of school education. The article is organised in two parts, both of which use the NEP 2020 as an anchor to study the nature of educational inequality. The first part maps the outer contours of educational inequality, engaging with the issue of unequal access to schooling. The inner contours of educational inequality, that is, the internal processes of schooling that engender exclusion, are examined subsequently. At the kernel of this study is the complex relationship between education and power. In essence, the present article delineates the myriad ways through which the NEP 2020 contributes to the processes of social reproduction, particularly the mechanisms through which it conduces to the hegemony of historically privileged caste groups in the society.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46523322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This reader is a compilation of eighteen essays written by academics, feminists and scholar-activists from a Dalit Feminist Perspective. The editors Sunaina Arya and Aakash Singh Rathore, introduces the book by theorizing Dalit feminism underpinning its ontology and epistemology. Critiquing the academic discourse of feminism which predominantly questions gender inequality on a single axis as a fight against patriarchy, Arya and Rathore pose the important question, ‘Why Dalit Feminist Theory?’. Although the dialogue on Dalit Feminist standpoints started during the 1990s, the core of the book lies in attempting to legitimize Dalit Feminist Theory due to the ubiquity of caste question in Indian society, which cannot be overlooked in any circumstances. Thus, the book revisits the Indian Feminist discourse for feminists to critique the gatekeeping that ‘upper caste’ privileged feminists did to represent the issues of all women by homogenizing the category of a woman based on a few percentages of upper caste women leaving out Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi and minority women who forms a much larger percentage in comparison. The book is an important read due to its critical engagement and initiation of a dialogue with Indian feminists to argue the need for Dalit Feminist Theory in reshaping Indian feminist discourse.
{"title":"'Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader'","authors":"P. -","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i1.468","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i1.468","url":null,"abstract":"This reader is a compilation of eighteen essays written by academics, feminists and scholar-activists from a Dalit Feminist Perspective. The editors Sunaina Arya and Aakash Singh Rathore, introduces the book by theorizing Dalit feminism underpinning its ontology and epistemology. Critiquing the academic discourse of feminism which predominantly questions gender inequality on a single axis as a fight against patriarchy, Arya and Rathore pose the important question, ‘Why Dalit Feminist Theory?’. Although the dialogue on Dalit Feminist standpoints started during the 1990s, the core of the book lies in attempting to legitimize Dalit Feminist Theory due to the ubiquity of caste question in Indian society, which cannot be overlooked in any circumstances. Thus, the book revisits the Indian Feminist discourse for feminists to critique the gatekeeping that ‘upper caste’ privileged feminists did to represent the issues of all women by homogenizing the category of a woman based on a few percentages of upper caste women leaving out Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi and minority women who forms a much larger percentage in comparison. The book is an important read due to its critical engagement and initiation of a dialogue with Indian feminists to argue the need for Dalit Feminist Theory in reshaping Indian feminist discourse.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49186433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This issue, Latitudes of Marginality in India, presents new research that challenge mainstream doctrines and beliefs that buttress and stiffen attitudes limiting social and economic equity. The term ‘latitudinarian’ was used in theology to describe churchmen who relied upon reason to verify moral certainty rather than the orthodoxy of tradition. Used more broadly, latitudes allow for ideas from outside, new approaches to research, inclusivity, and forgotten voices. With this issue, J-Caste embarks on our fourth year of heterodox research with readers across countries in Asia, Europe, North America and elsewhere. We maintain the rigor of our peer-review process as well as our original open-access policy which eliminates all financial barriers to publish, subscribe, read, download, or forward articles. We take pride in publishing promising young academics alongside celebrated and established scholars. The lead article in this issue, Caste Identities and Structures of Threats: Stigma, Prejudice, and Social Representation in Indian Universities, breaks new ground into why universities in India are turning into places of social defeat for Dalit and Other Backward Classes (OBC) students. Based largely on qualitative data gathered by the authors, the article argues that the basis of caste discrimination and humiliation in universities is not the same as it exists in other social institutions. The authors offer insights as to how students evolve strategies for coping and ideas for how higher education can heal “the wounded (caste) psyche.” Two other articles in the issue address learning in Indian education. The Exclusion of Bahujan Schoolchildren: An Anti-Caste Critique of the National Education Policy 2020, India explores the nature of educational inequality with direct reference to the social reproduction of caste. Un‘casting’ Universities: Examining the Intersections of Inclusive Curriculum and Dalit Pedagogies in a Private University in Bangalore, India, in our Forum section, addresses the disconnect between curriculum and pedagogy which results in the “erasure of the discourse on caste,” and a deep and tragic alienation among some.
{"title":"Latitudes of Marginality in India","authors":"L. Simon","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i1.665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i1.665","url":null,"abstract":"This issue, Latitudes of Marginality in India, presents new research that challenge mainstream doctrines and beliefs that buttress and stiffen attitudes limiting social and economic equity. The term ‘latitudinarian’ was used in theology to describe churchmen who relied upon reason to verify moral certainty rather than the orthodoxy of tradition. Used more broadly, latitudes allow for ideas from outside, new approaches to research, inclusivity, and forgotten voices. With this issue, J-Caste embarks on our fourth year of heterodox research with readers across countries in Asia, Europe, North America and elsewhere. We maintain the rigor of our peer-review process as well as our original open-access policy which eliminates all financial barriers to publish, subscribe, read, download, or forward articles. We take pride in publishing promising young academics alongside celebrated and established scholars. The lead article in this issue, Caste Identities and Structures of Threats: Stigma, Prejudice, and Social Representation in Indian Universities, breaks new ground into why universities in India are turning into places of social defeat for Dalit and Other Backward Classes (OBC) students. Based largely on qualitative data gathered by the authors, the article argues that the basis of caste discrimination and humiliation in universities is not the same as it exists in other social institutions. The authors offer insights as to how students evolve strategies for coping and ideas for how higher education can heal “the wounded (caste) psyche.” Two other articles in the issue address learning in Indian education. The Exclusion of Bahujan Schoolchildren: An Anti-Caste Critique of the National Education Policy 2020, India explores the nature of educational inequality with direct reference to the social reproduction of caste. Un‘casting’ Universities: Examining the Intersections of Inclusive Curriculum and Dalit Pedagogies in a Private University in Bangalore, India, in our Forum section, addresses the disconnect between curriculum and pedagogy which results in the “erasure of the discourse on caste,” and a deep and tragic alienation among some.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48014101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Occupational competence and division of labour in India have historically been linked to social institutions of caste, class and gender. Labour related to sanitation and waste disposal has perpetually been assigned to the most backward caste groups. The reality of the caste system and the revulsion of upper caste groups from any physical contact with dirt and human waste, or with people dealing with waste and sewage, has had many implications for the state of sanitation and cleanliness in India. The national policy on sanitation and its flagship program the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), seems to ignore this caste reality and the conditions of people involved in waste and sanitation-related activities. SBM focuses on infrastructure building for ownership and access of toilets and not on dealing with sludge and sewage, conditions of sanitary workers and their rehabilitation. The technology used in the toilets being constructed, their sustainability, safety and retrofitting needs also requires critical assessment. Any policy for a sanitised India or Swachh Bharat will only be successful if it considers the notion of caste, of ritual pollution associated with human waste and dirt in India and removes the shackles of caste that have chained few marginal communities to such occupations, thereby making the enterprise of sanitation and cleaning in India truly egalitarian and democratic, in the sense of opportunities and participation.
{"title":"Sanitising India or Cementing Injustice? Scrutinising the Swachh Bharat Mission in India","authors":"S. Shekhar","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i1.418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i1.418","url":null,"abstract":"Occupational competence and division of labour in India have historically been linked to social institutions of caste, class and gender. Labour related to sanitation and waste disposal has perpetually been assigned to the most backward caste groups. The reality of the caste system and the revulsion of upper caste groups from any physical contact with dirt and human waste, or with people dealing with waste and sewage, has had many implications for the state of sanitation and cleanliness in India. The national policy on sanitation and its flagship program the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), seems to ignore this caste reality and the conditions of people involved in waste and sanitation-related activities. SBM focuses on infrastructure building for ownership and access of toilets and not on dealing with sludge and sewage, conditions of sanitary workers and their rehabilitation. The technology used in the toilets being constructed, their sustainability, safety and retrofitting needs also requires critical assessment. Any policy for a sanitised India or Swachh Bharat will only be successful if it considers the notion of caste, of ritual pollution associated with human waste and dirt in India and removes the shackles of caste that have chained few marginal communities to such occupations, thereby making the enterprise of sanitation and cleaning in India truly egalitarian and democratic, in the sense of opportunities and participation.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41657847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The caste system among Muslim society has long been an ignorant point of debate in academia. But in recent times it emerged as a thoughtful discourse. The sociological study finds that Muslim society of India is divided into three major social groups, Ashraf, Ajlaf, and Arzal. Most Muslims of India belong to the latter two groups. The present study is an attempt to give an insight into an Arzal caste known as Shekhra. Shekhra has an occupational history of bone picking. The article will discuss how the struggle for social recognition harmed their demand for redistributive justice (reservation). They have been included in the Central OBC and in EBC in Bihar. However, later, reservation has been denied because of their self-misrecognition as Sheikh Biradari. The study is an attempt to explore the reasons behind it and suggests the possible way to find a solution.
{"title":"Politics of Recognition and Caste among Muslims: A Study of Shekhra Biradari of Bihar, India","authors":"Tausif Ahmad","doi":"10.26812/caste.v4i1.401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v4i1.401","url":null,"abstract":"The caste system among Muslim society has long been an ignorant point of debate in academia. But in recent times it emerged as a thoughtful discourse. The sociological study finds that Muslim society of India is divided into three major social groups, Ashraf, Ajlaf, and Arzal. Most Muslims of India belong to the latter two groups. The present study is an attempt to give an insight into an Arzal caste known as Shekhra. Shekhra has an occupational history of bone picking. The article will discuss how the struggle for social recognition harmed their demand for redistributive justice (reservation). They have been included in the Central OBC and in EBC in Bihar. However, later, reservation has been denied because of their self-misrecognition as Sheikh Biradari. The study is an attempt to explore the reasons behind it and suggests the possible way to find a solution.","PeriodicalId":72535,"journal":{"name":"Caste (Waltham, Mass.)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43382553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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