As noted in the theoretical framework chapter, disasters have been treated as opportunities for change by complexity theorists such as Rosenthal. They have long also been treated as effectors of social change dynamics in society (Prince, 1920). Bates et al argued that disasters put stress on social systems and force it to adapt, making some of these changes permanent and leading to “new forms of contact, cooperation and conflict between existing groups and organizations” (Bates & Peacock, 1987 p312). In the context of Hurricane Andrew in Miami, USA in 1992, Morrow and Peacock observe a change in social networks and processes: some positive such as emergence of new community groups and some negative such as increased racial segregation. They suggest:
“the relationship between disasters and social change is an intriguing, albeit complex, one. There can be no denying that a natural disaster, particularly one of the magnitude of Hurricane Andrew, alters in dramatic fashion the biophysical environment ... Adaptation and change were required and inevitable” (Morrow & Peacock, 1997 p. 226).
The migration of the flood and erosion-affected communities in the researched villages could be seen as one such as adaptive strategy. Yet such a strategy can also set in motion other social changes such as contestations around social identity and assertions of equality rights: as the following narratives will show.
One of the migrants from the thakur caste was Virsingh who started to go to Jeevakpur, in Delhi for casual labour work. Aged 40, he came from a landed family and said that they had earlier lived a life of sukun (happy and prosperous) but now he had lost most of his land due to erosion. He explained to me in a matter of fact way why he went to Delhi for labour work. Virsingh stated:
“I started going to Delhi in the last two-three years. Seeing that I did not have enough money to support my family, I was forced to run away for work somewhere. So I went to Delhi. In Delhi those with money live in comfort. And all that the labour party, lower class people earn; spend a large part of it on the cost of living there. At the most I have been able to save about 1000-1200 rupees [20-25$] per month to send back home.” (Virsingh October 2008).
While Virsingh identified himself with the labouring classes of the city, which also included those from his village who belonged to either the intermediate castes or the scheduled castes, the same understanding about Virsingh was not shared by those migrating and belonging to either the intermediate or scheduled castes. Laxman, a male,
190 aged 36, from a former untouchable caste, contests Virsingh‟s claim that he has come to Delhi in search of casual labour for survival. Instead he argues:
“Even those who have money are aware that their money will dry up one day. So they go out, work and ensure that it sustains. All the thakurs who work in Delhi like us have money … Their lands and money from it may have dried up, but that does not mean that they don‟t have money. They will come back to the village and give the earned money in the form of karja [credit on interest] and make interest out of it. Now that his [Virsingh‟s] lands are eroded he makes “profit” from elsewhere; has to do hard labour work” (Laxman, December 2008).
My respondents from both the scheduled caste and from intermediate castes insisted that the migrating thakurs had enough money of their own and in the case of some households they insisted that the thakurs were only going to play jua (playing cards with money) or drink daru (liquor) in the city: that is in pursuit of pleasure and not for basic needs like themselves. In other words, although migrating to Delhi and doing similar physical hard work, the narratives of those from scheduled castes and intermediate castes dis-identified themselves from the migrating thakurs and insisted that the purpose of their migrating was in some ways unwholesome. Such negative attributions to the behaviour of the members of the upper castes who were migrating to Delhi is in tune with the general critique of the immoral behaviour of the upper castes by members of the intermediate and scheduled castes: as discussed in the earlier empirical chapter on Disasters, social natures and the subaltern.
Alongside such a critique of upper-caste behaviour were also assertions by the scheduled castes and intermediate castes questioning the caste-based supremacy asserted by the upper castes, which referred them as those belonging to an inferior caste by terming all of them as “suds”. For example, Manasram a male, aged 28 years with marginal land holdings after erosion and of an intermediate gudiya caste, asserted “They (thakur) work like any of us in Delhi. If they are “superior” to us, why do they do work similar to us”? In other words, as noted in the earlier section, the worry and anxiety of the thakurs that in doing casual labour like other castes, they would lose caste honour and thus their symbolic capital such as prestige and status in the society seemed to be taking effect in the light of the assertion by Manasram. Such assertions of Manasram perceiving a loss of symbolic capital of the dominant thakurs also needs to be assessed alongside other developments in the village over the years, which led to a perceived increase in the dignity and therefore the
191 symbolic capital of both scheduled castes and intermediate castes: thus setting a stage for such assertions within a broader context.
Education amongst the scheduled castes has been one such prime mover of the changed context. For example, Bhawani, a male aged 30, whose family‟s traditional work was cleaning the carcass of a dead animal in the village (the work of a chamar caste) and had studied up to intermediate levels in school. He asserted “I am not afraid of these thakurs and so they don‟t say anything to me, but will continue to ill-treat those who are afraid of them. They don‟t say anything to me if I pass through their fields but will make bad remarks to others”. Thus education in itself gave Bhawani a sense of self esteem and pride which in turn had changed his relation with the upper castes. Secondly the ascendency of Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a woman belonging to a former untouchable caste has also contributed to the sense of dignity of the scheduled castes in the village. Bhawani‟s brother Puram, aged 35 who is active in local village party politics and a staunch supporter of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati asserted:
“the fear of the reprisal from the upper castes lessened as Government became stronger … They [upper caste] say it is the Government of Mayawati who has given badhava [importance] to us. But she has not given us any importance. All that she has done is to change the pages of history by saying that we [former untouchables] too have rights. And since then we have been asserting our rights and we are heard in the Government” (Puram, December 2008).
Indeed one of the common sayings of the upper as well as intermediate castes throughout my stay in the villages was that “Now it is their [scheduled caste] Government in power”, which showed the symbolic capital associated with being of the caste similar to that of the chief minister meaning a ruler, in this case, a person from a former untouchable caste.
Lastly, apart from the loss of symbolic capital of the thakurs, migration of the scheduled and intermediate castes to cities has also fractured their earlier dependency for survival on labour work from the landed dominant castes in the village. As Medha, aged 60 and belonging to a traditional chamar or a scheduled caste reminisced “My old man worked for the thakurs for 27 years for a pittance. Now my children refuse to do so. Now that my sons are older they migrate out for work and have now started to earn some money. Only after that we have been able to eat and live well” (Medha, November 2008). In other words the loss of symbolic capital of the dominant castes has not only been accompanied by an increased sense of dignity, and thereby an increase of symbolic capital, on the part of
192 scheduled caste but also by the changed material conditions of socio-economic dependency on the traditional upper castes.
Alongside this changed socio-economic dependency and perceived symbolic capital associated with different castes are changes in the behaviour of those belonging to the scheduled castes, which show a transgression of certain codes of behaviour associated with caste supremacy. For example, some of my scheduled caste respondents stated that unlike previously, now, whenever thakurs passed by or spoke to them, they would remain seated on their cots: something unthinkable about 20 years ago. All my scheduled caste respondents had a story to tell which included some act of violence – beating their fathers or them when children – for violating such codes such as always standing in front of the thakurs. Such situations of blatant open violence and discrimination have changed as of now in these villages. Other common code transgressions included the wearing of smart clothes or possessing consumer items such as mobile phones – symbolic of wealth and well-being. Other minor ones included moving about on motorcycles by those who had moved up the socio-economic ladder mainly due to a government job. Such symbolic transgressions have also been observed by Osella et al in the context of scheduled caste persons who have new wealth to their villages in Kerala after migrating to Gulf countries (Osella & Osella, 2004). Given this, I suggest that although constitutionally, untouchability and caste-based discrimination in public spheres are abolished, the assertion and realisation of these equality rights can only be assessed through the changes in the historical relations of dominance and subordination between traditionally excluded or marginalised castes and dominant ones. The above narratives tell us a story of the researched villages undergoing transitions or experiencing social changes on these counts. On the one hand, to some extent the patron-client relations and general dominance of the wealthy upper caste and classes continued as shown and discussed in the empirical chapter “In heterogenous times: disaster response in post-colonial India”. On the other hand, the above narratives also tell us a story of social change or of villages in transition, which at least partly, if not wholly, can be attributed to the erosion and floods. Thus as a result of the disaster, there was a decrease of the symbolic capital of the dominant upper castes of the village accompanied by a decrease in the material dependency of the scheduled and intermediate castes on the upper castes.
Gupta (2000) points to the different strategies used by marginalised caste groups to discredit the ideology of caste-based supremacy. Gupta distinguishes between two forms of stratification: an open system based for example on wealth where vertical mobility is
193 possible; and a closed system, in which are notions of race, caste and sex ascribed to different social groups constitute a system of differentiation based on a hierarchical value. Gupta argues that protests against a closed system of stratification such as caste emphasize differences, because such systems produce hierarchy as a result of power and the suppression of voices, rather than as a result of ideological consent (Gupta, 2000). For example, Gupta shows that one of the strategies used by the so-called „low castes‟ is to question the inferiority imposed on them by the upper castes and to claim a superiority of their own castes. In particular Gupta‟s research found that some of the „low castes‟ argued that the origin of their caste was not „inferior‟ and as such contested and discredited the claims of upper-castes supremacy who similarly mobilised on the basis of caste origin.
In my researched villages, while certain intermediate castes such as gudiyas asserted an overt caste pride and superiority by claiming that they had served Rama, the mythical Hindu god84, for the scheduled castes and most of the other intermediate castes, the contestation of caste supremacy took the form of discrediting the moral uprightness of the upper castes. Here, in the researched villages the discourse around labour (that upper caste too are doing the same kind of labour) or are using the labour wages in immoral ways (liquor, jua, karja) was used by the scheduled and intermediate castes to discredit the caste based supremacy asserted by those of higher castes. This contestation of the supremacy of a caste-based identity is important as the upper castes have used this ideology of supremacy to subjugate and perpetuate their domination in all other fields of life: social, economic and political (Dumont, 1998; Sharma, 1999; Gupta, 2000). The contestation of caste-based supremacy is therefore an important indicator of the social change dynamics in rural India which at least can partly be attributed to the disaster and its effects. In the last chapter we saw the discourse about dominant castes being taught a lesson by the River Ghagra: that is through kataan due to their immoral ways of amassing wealth. Such discourses also add to the general discourse used by the scheduled castes and intermediate castes to question the caste-based supremacy asserted by the dominant castes.
Alongside these contestations, however, continue other ideas associated with caste based supremacy: namely, ideas of the purity and pollution of different castes and apportioned
84 The gudiyas claimed that when Rama, the mythical Hindu god was sent to exile by his evil stepmother, he
had to cross the river. At that time, the gudiyas had taken him from one shore to another and had washed his feet (guds) earning them the name gudiyas. As a result they maintain that gudiya‟s right over the river crossing is still recognised and are not expected to pay any tarai (or levy) whenever they cross the River Ghagra by boat in the area.
194 practices of eating and drinking water amongst castes in the researched villages. All caste groups practiced eating and drinking water from households of different castes according to the degree to which they considered the caste to be either pure or polluted. The upper castes such as brahmans and thakurs claimed that all caste groups ate cooked food and drank water in their houses, claiming a purer caste status. Some intermediate castes such as gudiyas and luniyas also claimed that all castes ate pucca food (fried food) and drank water in their houses. Only the scheduled castes were the outcasts in the practices of food sharing, in the sense that no person from another caste would accept water or cooked food from them, although raw paddy or agricultural produce or resources could be exchanged. Similarly, no Hindu, (including outcast scheduled castes) or Muslim household ate cooked food or drank water from each-other‟s house; here also, raw paddy and agricultural produce could be exchanged. Simultaneously, cooked food and water were given by the upper and intermediate castes to the scheduled castes, in different contexts (for example social ceremonies), in separate cups and plates. The village well was, however, used commonly by all including the scheduled castes, with each household bringing their own vessel to draw out water. Sociological literature on caste argues that upper-caste practices around eating and drinking are linked with their claims of higher-caste status, power and prestige Dumont, (1998), Gupta (2000), Sharma (1999). However this does not mean that scheduled or intermediate castes accepted upper-caste claims of their being inferior (Deliege, 1992), Gupta (2000) on account of these practices. Nevertheless eating and drinking practices with their discriminatory values and their links with ritual purity are ways in which upper castes try to maintain their symbolic hierarchy within the caste society.
In the researched villages, as noted earlier, the migrants to cities included scheduled castes, intermediate castes and also now the upper caste thakurs and brahmans. In particular, migration to Delhi in Jeevakpur included respondents from all the above castes. However, visits to this location showed that their staying conditions were congested: with 5-10 men staying together in a small single room, and that practices of eating and drinking water across the castes – as practiced in their village – could not be maintained. The food was cooked communally way and water was drunk from the shared pots where it was stored. In the words of a migrant, Laxman, a former untouchable who in Delhi stayed with both intermediate caste groups and the upper caste thakurs in one room:
195 “How can we have discrimination over there? We have to stay in the same room ... When the food is cooked together, served together; or from my hand they take food or water or when they serve water to me and I drink the same, where is the discrimination? Then there is no discrimination” (Laxman, December 2008). Yet after the return to their village, the same practices of discriminatory eating and drinking practices continued amongst the migrants of different caste groups with some exceptions with those with whom they have developed the relations of bhav-vyavhar. Laxman says “If I have relation of bhav-vyavhar with them, then we may behave differently when in Bahraich [for example sharing of cooked food] or elsewhere away from the village. But here in the village, we will have to maintain the facade” (Laxman, December 2008). This same facade was maintained with me, when I asked anyone publicly about their eating and drinking practices in Delhi or in their villages. The public discourse was always that caste purity was preserved, even when they migrated to Delhi, by maintaining social distance implied in eating and drinking practices with certain castes: such as the former untouchables. Laxman‟s narrative in private and my own visit to their places of stay and work in Delhi suggested otherwise. Laxman shared with me why such public discourse was necessary “People are afraid that others in the village will say – look they stay and eat together. People are afraid of others (their caste members) in the village”. Thus the associated fear of caste repercussions and recriminations led to a shared public silence on the way they had to change their eating and drinking practices whilst living in the city. Amidst such public silences is also, however, some degree of mockery of the upper caste duplicity about behaviour patterns in relation to eating and drinking: for example, when it is asserted by the former untouchables that upper-caste men stealthily drink liquor from a shared glass: thus making all such transgressions of caste codes acceptable as long as they are beyond the public eye. Such mockery about upper-caste behaviour needs to be understood against the earlier discussion on the contestation by other castes of the claimed superiority of upper-castes. In another instance, Rukma, a woman, aged 50, a former untouchable sarcastically noted “during panchayat elections the thakur