Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T04:52:21.164Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dalit Revolution? New Politicians in Uttar Pradesh, India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2008

Craig Jeffrey ,
Patricia Jeffery  and
Roger Jeffery
Get access

Abstract

This paper uses recent field research to challenge the widely held view that a “Dalit revolution” is occurring in North India. Drawing on two years' ethnographic research in a village in western Uttar Pradesh, the authors uncover the growing importance of a generation of local political activists among Dalits (former untouchables) while also showing that these young men have not been able to effect a broad structural transformation at the local level. The authors use this case to identify a need for further research on South Asian political change that links party political transformation to questions of local level social practice and subaltern consciousness.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , November 2008 , pp. 1365 - 1396
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of references

Ahluwalia, Montek S. 2001. “State Level Performance under Economic Reforms in India.” Working Paper No. 96, Center for Research on Economic Development and Policy Reform, Stanford University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atlas.ti. 2000. The Knowledge Workbench. Ver. 4.1. Berlin: Thomas Muhr, Scientific Software Development.Google Scholar
Bailey, Frederick G. 1957. Caste and the Economic Frontier: A Village in Highland Orissa. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Baru, Rama V. 1998. Private Health Care in India: Social Characteristics and Trends. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Béteille, André. 1992. The Backward Classes in Contemporary India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research in the Sociology of Education, ed. Richardson, John G., 241–58. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 1985. Caste, Faction and Party in Indian Politics. Vol. I, Faction and Party. New Delhi: Chanakya Publications.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 1997. Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandrashekhar, C. P., and Ghosh, Jayati 2002. The Market That Failed: A Decade of Neoliberal Economic Reforms in India. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Chowdhry, Prem. 2007. Contentious Marriages, Eloping Couples: Gender, Caste, and Patriarchy in Northern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard. 1954. “The Camars of Senapur: A Study of the Changing Status of a Depressed Caste.” Ph.D. diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Coleman, James S. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Corbridge, Stuart, and Harriss, John 2000. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism, and Popular Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Corbridge, Stuart, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava, and Véron, René 2005. Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in Rural North India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1998. On Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Drèze, Jean, and Gazdar, Haris. 1997. “Uttar Pradesh: the Burden of Inertia.” In Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives, ed. Drèze, Jean and Sen, Amartya, 33–128. Delhi: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dube, Siddharth. 1998. In the Land of Poverty: Memoirs of an Indian Family, 1947–1997. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Duncan, Ian. 1997. “Agricultural Innovation and Political Change in North India: The Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh.” Journal of Peasant Studies 24 (4): 246–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, Ian. 1999. “Dalits and Politics in Rural North India: The Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh.” Journal of Peasant Studies 27 (1): 35–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Ben. 2001. Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Froystad, Kathinka. 2005. Blended Boundaries: Caste, Class and Shifting Faces of “Hinduness” in a North Indian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1991. Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gooptu, Nandini. 1993. “Caste, Deprivation and Politics: The Untouchables in U.P. Towns in the Early Twentieth Century.” In Dalit Movements and the Meaning of Labour in India, ed. Robb, Peter, 277–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Ed. and trans. Hoare, Quintin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell. London: Lawrence & Wishart.Google Scholar
Gupta, Akhil. 1998. Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Gupta, Dipankar. 1997. Rivalry and Brotherhood: Politics in the Life of Farmers in Northern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas B. 1996. “Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu Nationalism, Violence, and the Exorcism of the Muslim ‘Other.’” Critique of Anthropology 16 (2): 137–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harriss, John. 2002. Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital. London: Anthem.Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya. 1989. “Power and Mobilisation: Patterns of Resilience and Change in UP Politics.” In Dominance and Power in Modern India: Decline of a Social Order, ed. Frankel, Francine R. and Rao, M. S. A., 133–203. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya. 1998. Quest for Power: Oppositional Movements and Post-Congress Politics in Uttar Pradesh. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasan, Zoya. 2001. “Transfer of Power? Politics of Mass Mobilisation in UP.” Economic and Political Weekly, November 24, 1377–98.Google Scholar
Heller, Patrick. 2000. “Degrees of Democracy: Some Comparative Lessons from India.” World Politics 52:484–519.Google Scholar
The Hindu. 2007. “Mayawati Sacks 7,400 More Police Recruits.” October 1.Google Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2003. India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Low Castes in North Indian Politics. Delhi: Permanent Black.Google Scholar
Jeffery, Patricia, and Jeffery, Roger 2008. “Money Itself Discriminates: Obstetric Emergencies in a Time of Liberalisation.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 41 (1): 59–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffery, Roger, and Jeffery, Patricia 1997. Population, Gender, and Politics: Demographic Change in Rural North India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffery, Roger, Jeffery, Patricia and Jeffrey, Craig 2005. “Social Inequality and the Privatisation of Secondary Schooling in North India.” In Educational Regimes in India, ed. Chopra, Radhika and Jeffery, Patricia, 41–61. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Jeffery, Roger, and Lerche, Jens, eds. 2003. Social and Political Change in Uttar Pradesh: European Perspectives. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig. 2000. “Democratisation without Representation? The Power and Political Strategies of a Rural Elite in North India.” Political Geography 19 (8): 1013–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig. 2001. “A Fist Is Stronger Than Five Fingers: Caste and Dominance in Rural North India” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25 (2): 217–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig. 2002. “Caste, Class and Clientelism: A Political Economy of Everyday Corruption in Rural North India,” Economic Geography 78 (1): 21–42.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig, Jeffery, Patricia, and Jeffery, Roger 2008. Degrees without Freedom? Education, Masculinities, and Unemployment in North India. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kakar, Sudhir. 1989. The Colours of Violence. New Delhi: Viking.Google Scholar
Khare, R. S. 1984. The Untouchable as Himself: Ideology, Identity and Pragmatism among the Lucknow Chamars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kingdon, Geeta, and Muzammil, Mohammad 2003. The Political Economy of Education in India: Teacher Politics in Uttar Pradesh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kohli, Atul, ed. 2001. The Success of India's Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krishna, Anirudh. 2003. “What Is Happening to Caste? A View from Some North Indian Villages.” Journal of Asian Studies 62 (4): 1171–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krishna, Anirudh. 2004. Active Social Capital: Tracing the Roots of Development and Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto, and Mouffe, Chantal 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lerche, Jens. 1995. “Is Bonded Labour a Bound Category? Reconceptualising Agrarian Conflict in India.” Journal of Peasant Studies 22 (3): 484–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerche, Jens. 1999. “Politics of the Poor: Agricultural Labourers and Political Transformations in Uttar Pradesh.” In Rural Labour Relations in India, ed. Byres, Terence J., Kapadia, Karin, and Lerche, Jens, 182–241. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Li, Tania. 2005. “Beyond the State and Failed Schemes.” American Anthropologist 107 (3): 383–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieten, G. Kristoffel. 1996. “Panchayats in Western Uttar Pradesh: ‘Namesake’ Members.” Economic and Political Weekly, September 28, 2700–2705.Google Scholar
Lieten, G. Kristoffel. and Srivastava, Ravi 1999. Unequal Partners: Power Relations, Devolution and Development in Uttar Pradesh. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Lynch, Owen M. 1969. The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a City of India. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, David G. 1970. Society in India. 2 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, Oliver. 1993. “The Transformation of Authority in Rural India.” Modern Asian Studies 27 (4): 805–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelsohn, Oliver, and Vicziany, Marika 1998. The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty, and the State in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mooij, Jos, and Dev, S. M 2002. “Social Sector Priorities: An Analysis of Budgets and Expenditures” Institute of Development Studies, IDS Working Paper No. 164, University of Sussex, Brighton.Google Scholar
Nevill, H. H. 1922. Meerut—A Gazetteer. Lucknow: Government Branch Press.Google Scholar
Office of the Registrar General. 2001. Census of India. Census Hand Book.Google Scholar
Omvedt, Gail. 1995. Dalit Visions. The Anti-Caste Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity. Hyderabad: Orient Longman.Google Scholar
Pai, Sudha. 2000. “New Social and Political Movements of Dalits: A Study of Meerut District.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 34 (2): 189–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pai, Sudha. 2002. Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: The Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Pai, Sudha, and Singh, Jagpal 1997. “Politicisation of Dalits and Most Backward Castes: Study of Social Conflict and Political Preferences in Four Villages of Meerut District.” Economic and Political Weekly, June 7, 1356–61.Google Scholar
Pant, Niranjan. 2004. “Trends in Groundwater Irrigation in Western and Eastern U.P.” Economic and Political Weekly, July 31, 3463–68.Google Scholar
Parry, Jonathan P. 1999. “Two Cheers for Reservation: the Satnamis and the Steel Plant.” In Institutions and Inequalities, ed. Guha, Ramachandran and Parry, Jonathan P., 128–69. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert, with Leonardi, R., and Nanetti., R. Y. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ram, Jagjivan. 1980. Caste Challenge in India. New Delhi: Vision Books.Google Scholar
Robinson, Marguerite. 1988. Local Politics: The Law of the Fishes—Development through Political Change in Medak District, Andhra Pradesh (South India). Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing the State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Abhijit. 1997. “Structural Adjustment and Rural Poverty: Variables that Really Matter.” In Growth, Employment and Poverty: Change and Continuity in Rural India, ed. Chadha, G. K. and Sharma, A. N., 78–110. New Delhi: Vikas.Google Scholar
Shankar, Kripa. 2001. UP on the Financial Brink: State Government's Budget 2001–2002. Economic and Political Weekly, May 19, 1677–80.Google Scholar
Singh, Ajit K. 2000. UP: Budgetary Illusions and Reality. Economic and Political Weekly, April 17, 561–63.Google Scholar
Singh, Jagpal. 1992. Capitalism and Dependence: Agrarian Politics in Western Uttar Pradesh, 1951–1991. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Srinivas, M. N. 1955. “The Social System of a Mysore Village.” In Village India, ed. Marriott, M., 1–35. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Varshney, Ashutosh. 2000. “Is India Becoming More Democratic?” Journal of Asian Studies 59 (1): 3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1956. “Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico.” American Anthropologist 58 (6): 1065–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. 2002. World Development Indicators. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar