aplica técnicas de limpieza y protección

The empirical chapter “In heterogeneous times: disaster response in post colonial India”; discussed the effects of floods and erosion, such as food insecurity, and how the mobilisation of bhav-vyavhar (emotional behaviour) in the patron-client relation (unequal reciprocal relations) helped poor people overcome acute food scarcity conditions after the disasters. In this section, I will discuss another normative dimension of bhav-vyavhar as local entitlement: namely, a reciprocal exchange which is equal. In this reciprocal

181 exchange which also has the affective dimension of friendship, similar quantities of the same item borrowed are returned at a later date. That is for example, if petty cash or certain amount of paddy is borrowed then the same is returned back after some time. Typically, the reciprocal exchange of equivalent goods was found amongst the poor people irrespective of their social status in the caste hierarchy. This section will explore the social meanings vested with these reciprocal normative actions and their significance in mobilising a wider social insurance against risks as well as their limits as local coping strategies.

Several women and men in the researched villages narrated that they had depended upon bhav-vyavhar to meet immediate contingencies of food or petty cash. As discussed in the empirical chapter on post-colonial India and disaster response, the analysis of MICRODIS survey data has revealed a high dependence on borrowing money – 61.9 percent of all respondents to cope with the effects of flooding and erosion. However, more significantly, almost half of all those who borrowed – namely 48.7 percent – had borrowed at nil percent interest. Respondents made a distinction between Karja and Udhaar. While Karja involves borrowing from a moneylender at the standard local market rate of interest of 10 percent or more, Udhaar involves borrowing to be returned without interest. These borrowings made at no interest were done through „bhav-vyavhar‟, and were instrumental in helping tide people over immediate shortages of cash or food after these disasters. Jumna, a woman aged 45 and one of the Muslim respondents, had taken cash from a Hindu resident of their village. As she explained:

“interests are taken by moneylenders. If I have a bhav-vyavhar with a person, then they will not take interest from me. They know that I am in a problem and will give me the cash I need. They also know that maybe someday they too will need my help. They say, spend this money, and when you can, return it back. This happens in full honesty by all sides involved” (Jumna, September 2008).

The important aspect of the above-stated equivalent transaction is its obligatory character. Since Marcel Mauss‟s work on gifts, there has been much analysis of reciprocal exchanges, with emphasis on the nature of these exchanges in any given society. Mauss says that:

“prestations” are “in theory voluntary, disinterested and spontaneous, but are in fact obligatory and interested. The form usually taken is that of the gift generously

182 offered; but the accompanying behaviour is formal pretence and social deception, while the transaction itself is based on obligation and economic self-interest” (Mauss, 1969 p. 1).

Others have built on this insight of Mauss, and suggested that such reciprocal exchanges involve an emotional connection, and are based on liberty or free-will as well as obligation (Raheja, 1988) (Coleman, 2004). Further, these exchanges build “solidarity” between individuals and members of that society, enabling stability (Mauss, 1969 p. 80).

Levi-Strauss suggests that all reciprocal exchange relationships are marked by a “bundle” of four attitudes, namely mutuality, reciprocity, rights and obligations (Levi-Strauss, 1963 p49). Further, the significance of the exchange does not lie in the value of the commodity that is exchanged, but rather in the social embeddedness of the social actors involved in the exchange (Mosko, 2000). These exchanges also signify personalised relations and can only be understood as a part of the social contexts that generate them. Now, the relations of bhav-vyavhar between equals do reflect an inter-personal dimension, and include all the characteristic bundle of attitudes outlined by Levi Strauss. More importantly, as suggested by works of Levi-Strauss, Mauss, and Mosko, these exchanges also contribute to the building of an embedded and extended social structure. Consider, for example, some of the situations in which bhav-vyavhar is invoked in the village. When several households faced scarcity immediately after the floods and erosion, their kinship relatives from other villages visited them. These fell into two categories: rishtedari (commonly called by villagers as kinship ties from matrilineal sides which included fathers or brothers, cousins of the women); or pattidari – (commonly called by villagers as kinship ties from patrilineal side) including distant cousins not staying in their villages). Kinship relatives were found to be visiting them to enquire after their welfare and also to bring agricultural produce; for example, paddy from their own fields. During these visits, the relations of bhav-vyavhar enabled the host families to borrow grain and cash to buy and cook food and extend due hospitality towards their visitors. As Suryakala, a woman aged 55 years, from an intermediate caste who had lost most of her lands in erosion, remarked: “For example, if I don‟t have enough foodgrains in my house, and I have visitors, guests, or rishtedar, then I will borrow and return it when I am able to purchase it from the market” (Suryakala, September 2008)

Thus the bhav-vyavhar also enabled families to maintain extended kinship ties and social relations, which were also found to be instrumental in enabling households to cope with

183 and recover from disasters. Often pattidari and rishtedari ties gave the much needed wider resources to the disaster-affected households to tide them over times of scarcity and difficulty. These included help to cope with marriage expenses, which had risen due to the destruction of crops by floods and erosion. Whilst home-grown food grains meant less reliance on market-bought grains which reduce the expenditure available for marriages or engagements; the destruction of home grown crops after floods meant that such social ceremonies were now even more expensive than in ordinary times. Pattidari as well as rishtedari play a crucial role in helping households meet marriage expenses. Nyota, a form of giving cash and other gifts by the pattidari and rishtedari relations during marriage was found prevalent among all castes. Like Mauss‟s gift, nyota gifts are like credits which are returned by the households receiving them – sometimes more than they had received but not less – whenever a marriage takes place in another‟s house. Further, pattidari, rishtedari and village ties play an important part in enabling the migration strategies of the disaster- affected people, as the next section will show. Thus the bhav-vyavhar of equivalence helps in not only tiding over immediate problems faced after disasters but enables maintenance of wider kinship and village ties and relations. These constitute a crucial safety net for households to meet certain social ceremonies, such as marriage, or to enable migration strategies during difficult times after the disasters.

In such bhav-vyavhar of equivalence, an emotional bonding is also considered necessary to sustain such relations: similar to the affective relations found in between the relations of bhav-vyavhar between unequal‟s discussed in post-colonial and disaster response empirical chapter. Such bonding is nurtured through informal visits to each other‟s houses and mutual help in solving difficulties faced in daily life. Women gave counselling to each other about their problems or exchanged clothes, or simple items like slippers: as when visiting rishtedari they did not have proper clothes or footwear. Further, women sharing a bhav-vyavhar also intervene in each other‟s domestic problems. Disasters sometimes lead to situations of acute mental stress and the bhav-vyavhar of equivalence helps people deal with them or cope with them in positive ways.

In other words, bhav-vyavhar is not done with random individuals but have a recognisable pattern. Such a relation of bhav-vyavhar of equivalence is between two individuals, who recognise such relationships of emotional bonding between them and make efforts to nurture and sustain them. This form of bhav-vyavhar is similar to what Sahlin‟s has called balanced reciprocity. While Sahlins (1965a and 1965b) emphasis is on social distance in

184 such transactions, this section emphasises that, as a social practice, bhav-vyavhar of equivalence enables, mobilises and builds wider and extended social solidarities, good will and emotional bonding, and alongside this, crucially from our perspective, also reduces risks and enables recovery from disasters. Yet, not-withstanding the bhav-vyavhar as an important coping strategy, several people were also found to have taken a karja (loan on interest) to deal with difficult times after floods and erosion.