¹ The names of people and places have been changed to protect anonymity.

² The value of land in this area fluctuates but in 2007 one acre of irrigated land allegedly rose to almost one crore (ten million rupees). Its value is in part due to its proximity to two market towns and a city.

³ For more on segregation see, Deliège, Robert, The Untouchables of India (Oxford: Berg, 1999)Google Scholar; Gorringe, Hugo, Untouchable Citizens: Dalit Movements and Democratisation in Tamil Nadu (London, New Delhi: Sage, 2005)Google Scholar; Mines, Diane, Fierce Gods: Inequality, Ritual and the Politics of Dignity in a South Indian Village (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

⁴ In Andhra Pradesh, Kammas and Reddys vie for dominance; in Nampalli, Kammas are the dominant caste.

⁵ Omvedt, Gail, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India (New Delhi: Sage, 1994), pp. 114–125Google Scholar.

⁶ Srinivasulu, K., ‘Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra Pradesh: Mapping Differential Regional Trajectories’, Working Paper 179 (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2002)Google Scholar.

⁷ Still, Clarinda, ‘From Militant Rejection to Pragmatic Consensus: Caste among Madigas in Andhra Pradesh’, Journal of South Asian Development, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2009), pp. 7–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ (cf. Ciotti, Manuela, ‘In the Past We Were a Bit “Chamar”: Education as a Self and Community Engineering Process in Northern India’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2006), pp. 899–916Google Scholar; Jeffrey, Craig, Jeffery, Patricia and Jeffery, Roger, Degrees without Freedom?: Education, Masculinities, and Unemployment in North India (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2008Google Scholar.

⁹ Parry, Jonathan P. ‘Lords of Labour: Working and Shirking in Bhilai’, in Parry, Jonathan P., Breman, Jan and Kapadia, Karin (eds). The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour (New Delhi, London: Sage Publications: 1999), pp. 107–140, esp. p. 112Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Page, Elspeth, ‘Negotiation and Compromise: Gender and Government Elementary Education’, in Chopra, Radhika and Jeffery, Patricia (eds) Educational Regimes in Contemporary India (New Delhi, London: Sage: 2005), pp. 178–196, esp. p. 179Google Scholar.

¹¹ For example, Nambissan, Geetha, ‘Equity in Education? Schooling of Dalit Children in India’, in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 13, No. 16 (1996), pp. 1011–1024Google Scholar; Athreya, Venkatesh and Chunkath, Sheela Rani, ‘Tackling Female Infanticide in Tamil Nadu: Social Mobilization in Dharmapuri 1997–1999’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 35, No. 49 (26 December, 2000), pp. 4345–4348Google Scholar; Seenarine, Moses, Education and Empowerment among Dalit Untouchable Women: Voices from the Subaltern, (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

¹² Sen, Amartya, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 2000)Google Scholar.

¹³ See also Bénéï, Veronique, Schooling Passions: Nation, History and Language in Contemporary Western India, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Jeffery, Roger and Basu, Amrita (eds.), Girls Schooling, Women's Autonomy and Fertility Change in South Asia (New Delhi: Sage, 1996)Google Scholar; Levinson, Bradley A., Douglas E. Foley and Dorothy C. Holland (eds.), The Cultural Production of the Educated Person: Critical Ethnographies of Schooling and Local Practice (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), p. 1.

¹⁴ Kapadia, Karin, ‘Introduction: The Politics of Identity, Social Inequalities and Economic Growth’, in Kapadia, Karin (ed.), The Violence of Development: The Politics of Identity, Gender and Social Inequalities in India (New Delhi: Kali for Women: 2002), pp. 1–40Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Kapadia (2002), p. 4.

¹⁶ Researchers estimate that every year roughly 900,000 female babies are eliminated through abortion, infanticide or neglect; there are tens of millions of ‘missing’ females in India (Sen, Amartya, ‘More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing’. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 37, No. 20 (20 December, 1990)Google Scholar; Miller, Barbara, ‘Female Labour Participation and Female Seclusion in Rural India: a Regional View’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 30, No. 4 (1982), pp. 777–94Google Scholar. Manmohan Singh has proposed an increase in the penalties for female foeticide (Ramdeep Ramesh, Thursday 24^th April, 2008, The Guardian).

¹⁷ Dyson, Tim and Moore, Mick, ‘On Kinship Structure, Female Autonomy, and Demographic Behaviour in India’, in Population and Development Review, Vol. 9. No. 1 (1983), pp. 35–60Google Scholar; Agnihotri, Satish B., Sex Ratio Patterns in the Indian Population: A Fresh Exploration (London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000)Google Scholar; Agnihotri, Satish B., ‘Declining Infant and Child Mortality in India: How do Girl Children Fare’, in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 3 (20 January, 2001), pp. 228–233Google Scholar; Agnihotri, Satish B., ‘High Female Literacy, Low Child Population: Is there a Threshold Effect?’ in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 37, No. 39 (28 September, 2002), pp. 4054–4059Google Scholar; Agnihotri, Satish B., ‘Survival of the Girl Child: Tunnelling Out of the Chakravyuha’, in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 38, No. 41 (11 October, 2003), pp. 4351–4360Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Harriss-White, Barbara, and Nillesen, Paul H. L., ‘Life Chances: Development and Female Disadvantage’, in Harriss-White, Barbara. and Janakarajan, S. (eds.). Rural India Facing the 21^st Century: Essays on Long term Village Change and Recent Development Policy (London: Anthem Press: 2004), pp. 328–348, esp. 329Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Agnihotri calls this the ‘prosperity effect’ (2000, 2003).

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid. p. 330.

²² Miller, Barbara, The Endangered Sex: Neglect of Female Children in Rural North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 203Google Scholar; Agnihotri 2001, 2003; Harriss-White and Nillesen (2004).

²³ Berreman, Gerald, ‘Sanskritization as Female Oppression in India’, in Miller, Barbara. D. (ed.), Sex and Gender Hierarchies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1993), pp. 366–392Google Scholar.

²⁴ Kapadia, Karin, Siva and Her Sisters: Gender, Caste and Class in Rural South India (San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Berreman (1993), pp. 372–378.

²⁶ Ibid: p. 370.

²⁷ Kapadia (1995), p. 253.

²⁸ Ibid: p. 251.

²⁹ While Berreman and Kapadia both assume a transition from an original equality to modern inequality, it is possible (though unverifiable) that Dalits have always held patriarchal values but simply lacked the means to institute them.

³⁰ Pitt-Rivers, Julian, ‘Honour and Social Status’, in Peristiany, John G., (ed.), Honour and Shame. The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson: 1965), pp. 21–77Google Scholar; Peristiany, John G., ‘Introduction’, in Peristiany, John G. (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965), pp. 9–18Google Scholar; Papanek, Hanna, ‘Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter’, in Papanek, Hanna and Minault, Gail (eds), Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Delhi: Chanakya Publications: 1982), pp. 1–53Google Scholar; Sharma, Ursula, Women's Work, Class and the Urban Household: a Study of Shimla, North India (London: Tavistock, 1986)Google Scholar; Gilmore, David, ‘Introduction: The Shame of Dishonour’, in Gilmore, David (ed.), Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean (Washington DC: American Anthropological Association: 1987), pp. 2–21Google Scholar; Mandelbaum, David, Women's Seclusion and Men's Honor (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Peristiany, John G. and Pitt-Rivers, Julian (eds), Honour and Grace in Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Miller, Barbara (ed.), Sex and Gender Hierarchies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Wadley, Susan, Struggling with Destiny in Karimpur 1925–1984, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 230Google Scholar.

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³² Although he does not focus on gender, Gorringe's analysis of Dalit honour is helpful here. Gorringe, Hugo, ‘Banal Violence’? The Everyday Underpinnings of Collective Violence’, in Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Vol. 13. No. 2 (2006), pp. 237–260CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Cf. Anandhi, S., Jeyaranjan, J. and Krishnan, R., ‘Work, Caste and Competing Masculinities: Notes from a Tamil Village’, in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 37, No. 43 (26 October, 2002), pp. 4397–4406Google Scholar.

³⁴ Boserup, Esther, Women's Role in Economic Development (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970)Google Scholar; Rosaldo, Michelle. Z. ‘Woman, Culture and Society: A Theoretical Overview’, in Rosaldo, Michelle Z. and Lamphere, Louise (eds), Woman, Culture and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press: 1974), pp. 17–42Google Scholar; Omvedt, Gail, ‘Women and Rural Revolt in India’ in Journal of Peasant Studies Vol. 5, No. 3 (1978), pp. 370–403Google Scholar.

³⁵ Searle-Chatterjee, Mary, Reversible Sex Roles: The Special Case of the Benares Sweepers (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981), p. 101Google Scholar; Gough, Kathleen, ‘Brahman Kinship in a Tamil Village’, in Uberoi, Patricia (ed.), Family, Kinship and Marriage in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press: 1993), pp. 146–175, esp. p. 173Google Scholar; Deliège, Robert, The World of Untouchables: The Paraiyars of Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 231–233Google Scholar.

³⁶ Kapadia, Karin and Lerche, Jens, ‘Introduction’, in Byres, Terence J., Kapadia, Karin and Lerche, Jens (eds), Rural Labour Relations in India (London: Frank Cass: 1999)Google Scholar.

³⁷ This is not to say they are always able to repel men's advances. More generally, rape, harassment and sexual exploitation of Dalit women are well-known features of Dalit oppression.

³⁸ This has historical significance. In the past, Dalit women were forbidden to wear blouses and jewellery and men could not wear shoes through the uru. Defying these injunctions would be taken as a sign of insubordination. These rules cannot be enforced today but some old women are not in the habit of wearing blouses and prefer to cover themselves with just the sari.

³⁹ Their body language dramatically changes in the presence of the landlords and in their employers’ houses, however.

⁴⁰ Cf. Srinivas, M. N., ‘Some Reflections on Dowry’, in Basu, Srimati (ed.), Dowry and Inheritance (London, New York: Zed Books, 2005). pp. 3–14, esp. p. 5Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Den Uyl (1995), p. 196; Deliège (1997), p. 224.

⁴² See also Jacobson, Doranne and Wadley, Susan, Women in India: Two Perspectives (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999), p. 55Google Scholar.

⁴³ This is on average about Rs. 40, depending on the season, demand for labour and type of work.

⁴⁴ State initiative: Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas.

⁴⁵ Jeffery, Patricia and Jeffery, Roger, ‘What's the Benefit of Being Educated? Women's Autonomy and Fertility Outcomes in Bijnor’, in Jeffery, Roger and Basu, Amrita (eds), Girls Schooling, Women's Autonomy and Fertility Change in South Asia (New Delhi: Sage: 1996), pp. 150–183, esp. 157Google Scholar; Drèze, Jean and Sen, Amartya. K., India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995Google Scholar).

⁴⁶ Cited in Fuller, Christopher J. and Narasimhan, Haripriya, ‘Companionate Marriage in India: the Changing Marriage System in a Middle-Class Brahman Subcaste’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2008), pp. 736–754, esp. p. 740CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁴⁸ Sweeney, Jacqueline and Lucy Naish ‘We Can Think But We Can't Do’: Does Increased Education Lead to Greater Autonomy for Young Women?: The Aspirations of Young Female College Students in Coimbatore, Southern India and Societal Constraints’, Edinburgh Papers in South Asian Studies, Number 15, (Unpublished paper, 2001). Mukhopadhyay and Seymour (1994), p. 12; Bagwe, Anjali, Of Woman Caste: the Experience of Gender in Rural India (Calcutta: Stree, 1995), p. 189Google Scholar; Bennett, Lynne, Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters: Social and Symbolic Roles of High Caste Women in Nepal (Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point, 2002), p. 235Google Scholar; Seymour, Susan, Women, Family and Childcare in India: A World in Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 179–203Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Donner, Henrike, ‘Committed Mothers and Well-Adjusted Children: Privatisation, Early-Years Education and Motherhood in Calcutta’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2006), pp. 371–395Google Scholar; Fuller, Christopher J. and Narasimhan, Haripriya, ‘Information Technology Professionals and the New-Rich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras)’, in Modern Asian Studies Vol. 41, No. 1 (2007), pp. 121–150Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Here ‘kin’ refers to actual cross-cousins (MBD or FZD) as well as more distantly related classificatory cross-cousins.

⁵¹ Kapadia (1995).

⁵² For more on cross-cousin marriage, see Trawick's useful review and analysis. Trawick, Margaret, Notes on Love in a Tamil Family (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 117–186Google Scholar.

⁵³ See also Gough (1993); Kapadia (1995).

⁵⁴ Papanek, Hanna, ‘Family Status Production: The ‘Work’ and ‘Non-Work’ of Women’, Signs, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1979), pp. 775–781CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Cf. Parry, Jonathan P. ‘The Marital History of a ‘Thumb Impression Man’, in Arnold, David and Blackburn, Stuart (eds), Telling Lives: South Asian Life Histories (Delhi, Bangalore: Permanent Black: 2004), pp. 281–318Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ See also Kapadia (1995), p. 252; Harriss-White and Nillesen (2004), p. 333.

⁵⁷ Osella, Caroline and Osella, Filipo, ‘Friendship and Flirting: Micro-Politics in Kerala, South India’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1998) pp. 189–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁸ Of films viewed during fieldwork, examples include ‘Shankar Dada MBBS’, ‘Mass’, ‘Shiva’; see also Dwyer, Rachel, All You Want Is Money, All You Need Is Love: Sexuality And Romance In Modern India (London: Cassell, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Corbridge, Stuart, Glynn Williams, Srivastava, Manoj and Véron, René, Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 102Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Cf. Ciotti (2006); Jeffery, Jeffery and Jeffrey (2008).

⁶¹ Anandhi, S., Jeyaranjan, J. and R, Krishnan, ‘Masculinity and Domestic Violence in a Tamil Nadu Village’, in Men, Masculinity and Domestic Violence In India: Summary Report Of Four Studies. (Washington: International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), 2002)Google Scholar. http://www.icrw.org/docs/DV_India_Report4_52002.pdf. Accessed 27 July, 2010.

⁶² Chowdhry, Prem, ‘First Our Jobs Then Our Girls’: The Dominant Caste Perceptions on the ‘Rising’ Dalits’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2009), pp. 437–479, esp. p. 438)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶³ Hugo Gorringe (2006).

⁶⁴ Kapadia (1995) and Berreman (1993).

⁶⁵ Kapadia (1995, 2002).

⁶⁶ Jeffery, Patricia, Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah (London: Zed Press, 2000), p. 174Google Scholar.