REVISIÓN DOCUMENTAL

Class is not the only form of hierarchisation in India. Caste, like class, operates as a form of identity as well as a system of ranking. Unlike class, however, one’s caste is immutable (although, as Bourdieu observed, class also tends to be inherited and might be less changeable in practice than in theory). Recent studies have explored the varying roles that caste plays in the lives of urban Indians, as well as the complex relationship between caste and class (Fuller & Narasimhan, 2006, 2008; Harriss, 2012; Deshpande, 2013; Subramanian, 2015; Dickey, 2016; Frøystad, 2006). Scholars have demonstrated that caste persists in the construction of urban identities and has a demonstrable correlation to class status (Upadhya, 2016a; Fernandes & Heller, 2006). However, participants in this study claimed that caste is no longer relevant to their identities. A thorough analysis of the important role of caste in India is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, in this section I provide a brief discussion of the significance of participants’ assertions that they did not know their caste identity because it ‘no longer matters’, resulting in the denial and misrepresentation of caste as well as the formation of ‘high-class-casteless’ identities.

During the interviews student participants were asked which caste and sub-caste they belong to. This question was asked at the end of the interview, when trust had been established after the student had often shared personal information about relationships, aspirations, and so on. This was a strategic deployment, given that caste is a sensitive topic in India. Parents were not asked about caste for the same reason. Many parents in the sample were conservative and the question would have been intrusive for a younger person to ask an elder (Schenk-Sandbergen, 1998; Miltiades, 2008). When students came to answer the question, many proffered that they did not know what their caste was or stated that it was not applicable to their religion, a response especially common among

Jains, Sindhis23, Christians and Zoroastrians. However, caste is by no means restricted to Hinduism and is present in all religions in India as a variety of systems of social stratification (Vaid, 2014; Deshpande, 2011; Koilparampil, 1982; Ahmad, 1978).

Other participants also gave answers that corresponded to a religion (e.g. ‘Hindu’) or community (e.g. ‘Gujarati’ or ‘Punjabi’), rather than caste (see table 2 below). For example, as Ridhima, 18, a prospective SoBo elite student explained when talking about her parents’ expectations around her marriage: “My parents would want me to marry someone from my own caste, from the Gujarati caste.” This would suggest that historical meanings of caste (or jāti24 in Hindi) have not been carried forward into the present generation in Mumbai, resulting in varied, and often uncertain, interpretations of what caste means. However, it should be noted that – as Ridhima’s comment suggests – caste endogamy remains an important feature in contemporary urban Indian marriage practices of the middle class and elite (for further discussion see Fuller & Narasimhan, 2008; Gilbertson, 2014a; Donner, 2016; De Neve, 2016; Béteille, 1991, 1996; see also Hirsch & Wardlow, 2006; Sabur, 2014; Still, 2011).

Table 2: Responses to ‘What is your caste?’

Response Prospective Students Returned Students

Specific caste or sub-caste 28% 20%

Unknown 35% 20%

Not applicable 12% 20%

Religion 20% 25%

Community/Region/Language 4% 15%

While some responses indicated that participants misunderstood what I intended when I asked about caste, others explained that caste is irrelevant to them. A common

23 _{As noted in Chapter Three, Sindhi is not a religion. Sindhis belong to an ethnic community and} can be Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. However, participants consistently recorded their religion as ‘Sindhi’ in the post-interview survey, which the data reported in this section is based.

24 _{Since collecting this data, I have learned that the Hindi words jāti or varna would have been a} better term to use when asking about caste, as caste has no good translation (see Dickey, 2016: 33-34; Jodhka & Prakash, 2016: 148-149; Deshpande, 2011: 21-3; see also Vaid, 2012, 2014; Srinivas, 2003 for summary and analysis of the complexities of varna and especially jāti in contemporary India). Using this term may have led to a different response from participants, however, the literature on castelessness discussed in this section suggests that the data presented here would likely be relatively unchanged had I used the term jāti or varna and not caste.

phrase was that they ‘don’t believe in caste’. Caste was seen as a rural issue that one leaves behind when they move to a metropolis:

I have asked [my parents] before actually, and even they don’t know. My great-grandfather moved to Mumbai, and I think after that they stopped worrying about caste. I think that most people in Mumbai are not concerned with caste – a lot of people don’t know what their caste is, because it doesn’t matter these days.

– Ashish, male, 18, suburban striver prospective student

If somebody asked me what caste I am, I kind of know what answer to give, but do I know what it means? No. Not really. … I think people are just not bothered these days. I think some of it might have started because the whole casteism thing is taboo, or at least it’s more prevalent in the villages – over there, that thing is given importance. In the cities, nobody cares.

– Jigisha, female, 28, suburban striver returned student

Ashish and Jigisha’s comments suggest that they perceive caste as something that families shed when they move to, or live in, cities. For them, caste is an issue pervasive in rural India, symbolic of a ‘backwards’ society that exists in relative isolation. Therefore, not knowing your caste – or professing to not know – is a token of one’s modernity. A family that does not ascribe to the caste system seeks to construct themselves as inherently egalitarian and forward-thinking. Caste is thereby confined to the ‘history’ of India. However, this denial of the relevance of caste also silences an issue that is far from erased or irrelevant in contemporary urban India.

Scholars have observed that ‘castelessness’ is central to higher caste identities and that higher castes tend also to be higher class (Fernandes & Heller, 2006; Subramanian, 2015; Jodhka, 2016; Upadhya, 2016a). Deshpande (2013: 33) argues that the upper-castes construct a project of ‘castelessness’ by turning their ‘caste capital’ into ‘modern capital’, which renders caste invisible because this logic now “runs with the grain of dominant common sense.” Class statuses are secure because caste has already yielded its benefits, and so caste is “a ladder that can safely be kicked away” by the elite (Deshpande, 2013: 32). Upadhya (2016a: 273) similarly contends that caste continues to be reproduced within the middle class, precisely through the “vociferous denial” of caste. Subramanian also argues that the denial of caste within the upper classes results in a “postcolonial

present … in which non-elites have caste while elites have class and other more ‘cosmopolitan’ affiliations” (2015: 296).

The data collected in this study reflects these findings, wherein individuals of high class status privilege their taste, cultural superiority and cosmopolitanism as key components of their identity, rather than their caste status. However, this attitude towards caste denies the fact that most participants are upper-middle class or elite today because caste allowed their ancestors to be successful in business or in their professional career. As the fieldwork progressed, I began to mention to participants that many previous interviewees were not able to state their caste. Anirudh, 26, a returned student from a SoBo elite family, was visibly irritated by Indian society’s silencing of the issue: “I mean, if you give me their surnames, I will tell you what their castes are! And they know. Everybody knows what their caste is. They’re just in denial.”

The issue of denial and high-class-castelessness is evident in the non-responses that participants gave to questions about their caste identities. However, on the rare occasion when elite respondents did speak about caste identities, they also revealed a similar denial of the importance of caste status. For example, Nimit, 25, a wealthy returned student from a SoBo elite family, who belongs to the high-ranked Brahmin caste, explained that he knows his caste but it is not meaningful to him:

I can tell you what kind of Brahmins my family is, because for whatever reason we have kept that knowledge alive – why, I can't figure. Nobody celebrates it. … I would honestly think that the caste system, certainly in cities like Bombay, has been supplanted by wealth and socio-economic status, as opposed to historical ‘blood purity’.

This is an example of how the upper classes silence the issue of caste by privileging the role of class in social stratification. As Harriss (2012: n.p.) argues, caste “entails an ideology that explains and legitimates the material differences of class and power relations”, which means that caste remains significant in the acquisition of cultural capital. In Nimit’s instance, ‘historical blood purity’ has been usurped by access to forms of capital that higher castes are more readily able to access than lower castes (see Vaid, 2012; Harriss-White, 2003; Deshpande, 2011; Jodhka & Newman, 2010).

Following the literature on high-class-castelessness, this thesis takes the position that caste remains a crucial but largely unspoken factor that underpins class status in urban India (Desai & Dubey, 2012; Frøystad, 2006, 2010; Vaid, 2012, 2014; Jodhka, 2016). However, the overall silence on caste from participants limits the capacity of this thesis to integrate caste into the analysis in the following chapters. While I acknowledge that this is a limitation in the discussion, I follow the assertions of several scholars who state that, while caste is relevant, the study of class is arguably a better approach to understanding contemporary urban Indian societies. For instance, Sara Dickey (2000: 464) argues that, “class, which is more mutable than caste and derives more directly from both economic and social standing, has become one of the most potent idioms of identity, rank, and political power in contemporary India, particularly in urban areas.” This thesis seeks to study class without a significant focus on caste, not because caste is unimportant, but because class is a rich subject that is deeply embedded in how young people in Mumbai experience international education.

CONCLUSION

This chapter has explored how class statuses and differences are imagined by participants in Mumbai, which underpins the ‘localised micro-categories of class’ concept that I put forward in this thesis. This chapter makes a contribution towards understanding how the upper-middle class and elite conceptualise class in urban India and how they perceive and negotiate class boundaries, which makes an important addition to the literature on class in India that has tended to ignore the relatively elite. In identifying class boundaries, respondents often described class as a relational project and tended to position themselves as part of the upper-middle class. Respondents justified their ‘middleness’ by distancing themselves from the very elite (the Ambani family was often a reference point), who they saw as synonymous with excess and immorality. This reflects existing literature that finds a widespread desirability to belong to the middle – even when one’s capital objectively places them outside the middle.

Two localised micro-categories of class emerged from the analysis of class boundaries – SoBo elites and suburban strivers – both of which belong to the relatively elite segment of Indian society. Although this categorisation is not absolute and some participants did not fit neatly into either category, there were clear trends in the ways that

each group was made distinct by the capital that members possess, or are imagined to possess. The SoBo elite reside in South Mumbai, which is where most of Mumbai’s ‘old money’ families live and is therefore assumed to be the domain of the wealthy. The SoBo elite also tend to have successful family businesses, speak ‘norm-providing’ English in a certain manner that denotes their status, and spend money or consume products that mark their elite status. This group is imagined to possess high economic capital as well as high cultural capital and therefore belong to the elite segment of Mumbai society.

On the other hand, suburban strivers reside in the suburbs and represented Mumbai’s ‘new money’. Living in the suburbs was considered to be less sophisticated and less desirable than residing in South Mumbai. Members of the suburban striver group typically belonged to families who occupied professional positions with salaried incomes. This group often sought to distance themselves from the SoBo elite, though not too much. They marked these differences by noting that they choose to speak English differently, and choose to spend their money differently. The implication being that the suburban strivers imagined their position as distinct from the SoBo elite, but not inferior. This is similar to findings in the literature in which middle-class people distinguish themselves from the elite by asserting their superior morality, ‘simplicity’ and measured consumption (Nisbett, 2007; van Wessel, 2004; McGuire, 2011).

This chapter found that, while economic capital provides access to other forms of capital and can theoretically facilitate upward social mobility, participants skilfully construct socio-economic and cultural boundaries that mark lines of distinction between various relatively elite identities. For young people in Mumbai, economic capital forms the basis of access to resources, but how an individual – and their peer group – is able to mobilise these resources is crucial to how others evaluate their class status. In discussing these markers of class distinction, this chapter has established the foundations of participants’ understandings of class that will be carried through the rest of this thesis. In the chapter that follows, the localised micro-categories of class laid out in this chapter will inform my discussion about the international education industry in Mumbai. In later empirical chapters, these localised micro-categories of class will also be pivotal when considering how the SoBo elite and suburban strivers differently and unevenly experience both the pre-departure and post-study phases of life in relation to international education.