Rebels from the Mud Houses : Dalits and the Making of the Maoist Revolution in Bihar 9781138099555, 9780203740798

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Rebels From the Mud Houses Dalits and the Making of the Maoist Revolution in Bihar George J. Kunnath

Rebels from the Mud Houses

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

Rebels from the Mud Houses Dalits and the Making of the Maoist Revolution in Bihar

by

George J. Kunnath

ROUTLEDGE

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 George J. Kunnath and Social Science Press The right of George J. Kunnath to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Bhutan) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-09955-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-74079-8 (ebk) Typeset in Plantin 10/12 by Eleven Arts, Delhi 110 035

SOCIAL SCIENCE

PRESS

for Ammachi my mother—Mariamma Joseph Kunnath— for her undying faith in possibilities

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Contents

Tables and Illustrations Foreword Acknowledgements Abbreviations Glossary 1. Introduction: Maoist Revolution in Perspective

viii ix xiii xv xvii 1

2. Submerged Violences: Dalits, Landlessness, and Subordination in Bihar

18

3. From the Mud Houses of Dumari: Revolutionary Murmurings and Dalit Militancy

70

4. Bonded Labourer to Maoist Guerrilla: Life Story of a Dalit Revolutionary

108

5. Negotiating Powers: Dalits and Shifting Mobilizations

135

6. Production and Reproduction of Violence: State, Senas and Maoists

171

7. Conclusions: An Anthropology of Revolution

213

Bibliography

219

Index

237

Tables and Illustrations

Tables 2.1 Major Caste Groups in Bihar 2.2 Percentage of Distribution of Caste and Class Categories in South Bihar 2.3 Electoral Performance by Caste 2.4 Distribution of Landless and Landholders among Dalits in Dumari 2.5 Distribution of Dalit Workers in Dumari 2.6 Distribution of Dalit Workers in Bihar 2.7 Number and Percentage of Literates among Dalits in Dumari 2.8 Number and Percentage of Literates among Dalits in Bihar 6.1 Major Caste Senas in Bihar 6.2 Massacres by the Ranveer Sena 6.3 Open Front Organizations of the Maoist Parties in Bihar

56 183 185 201

Illustrations 2.1 Dalit Labourers in Dumari 2.2 A Ravidasi Woman (chamain) in Dumari 2.3 Dalit Woman Walks the Fire 2.4 Musahar Women Scavenging through Rotten Potatoes 3.1 Men Assembled in One Place 3.2 Gathered Women and Children 5.1 People Waiting at One Place 5.2 Ravidas Jayanti in Dumari 5.3 Statue of Baba Chuharmal 5.4 Dalit Men and Women at Charadih 6.1 Martyr Memorials for Slain Dalit Labourers 6.2 Dalits still support the Maoist Party

41 43 52 60 103 103 145 157 161 163 187 207

22 23 35 37 37 38 56

Foreword

IN THE MIDST OF INDIA’ S RAPID TRANSITION TO THE STATUS OF AN ECONOMIC

superpower, there can be few issues more urgently in need of understanding than the conditions facing exploited Dalits in India’s poorest districts, and the world of armed Maoist activists who operate among them. This book addresses both these issues head on in what in several respects is a ground-breaking study of poverty, caste and insurgency. It offers something particularly important—a close-up ethnographic view of the complex relationships involved in violent struggles that is today so easily and so often over-simplified in media and public debate. At one point in its long journey into being, this book became a doctoral thesis at SOAS (University of London) which I was privileged to supervise. This was not an ordinary thesis; its roots went deep drawing on George Kunnath’s many years of social work in rural Bihar with the Patna Jesuits. It was on this foundation of social action that Kunnath build a remarkable research project. Doctoral research did not take Kunnath away from those embattled in a struggle for survival and for dignity, but closer to them, turning the Jesuit ‘option for the poor and oppressed’ into a living alongside, which is what this book relates. Kunnath has placed on himself the moral burden of the witness, which is to write, and write truthfully, taking account of different incompatible points of view (oppressors as well as oppressed), observing culpabilities and implications honestly. This means the descriptions are vivid and the conclusions surprising, perhaps unsettling. The empathy involved in the Rebels from the Mud Houses accepts complexity and contradiction. In the end, Kunnath’s loyalty is not to any ideology, or political position, or strategy of intervention, or even to any existing theoretical position;

x

Foreword

it is to those groups who suffer indignity and seek emancipation in whose lives he has shared. This too is not an easy stance. Kunnath acknowledges the tensions between engagement and disengagement, field and desk. The everyday dilemmas of anthropological research are starkly revealed in this witnessing through writing. Rebels from the Mud Houses is written, as it were, from within a Dalit community, with empathetic connection to its fears and aspirations, its memories of militancy and massacre. The book begins behind the mud walls and thatched roofs of Dalit labourers, and never loses touch with this perspective. It offers a vivid analytical account of grinding poverty, brutal power and injustice, and the fraught struggle against economic and social subordination through a Maoist movement. But Kunnath’s is not an armchair debate on armed struggle. His close-up account cannot shy away from the harshness of violence, its consequences and its tragedy. Listening to the stories from within the communities of landless Dalit labourers, who in the 1980s harboured or joined Maoist guerrillas embattled with retaliatory landlord armies, we see that their appraisal of these revolutionary organisations is astute. If poverty and exploitation is experienced in caste-specific terms, so it seems is the Maoist revolution in the Magadh region of Bihar. This book tells us many things about such revolutionary movements, and especially that they are not amenable to most available explanatory models. The account straddles long-term historical processes and the intimacies of the personal lives of activists born of deep mutual trust between Kunnath and his hosts. We will learn how the militancy in Bihar is rooted in a long history of exploitation and caste oppression, but is also the product of critical events; how it unfolds in the life-history of individuals. Because this is a profoundly human account—anthropological in the best sense—it is open to the idiosyncrasies, the contradictions, and contingencies of everyday life. Kunnath offers a particularly compelling story of rise and fall. He traces the both the mobilisation of Dalit labourers within a revolutionary Maoist movement revealing the anguish, the hopes and the compulsions involved, but also their subsequent demobilisation. Dalit labourers have opened up to him to reveal their disappointments and anxieties in relation to armed struggle, and the state and extrastate intimidation and violence that it unleashed. Kunnath is loyal both to the hopeful visions of change and to crushing disillusionment.

Foreword

xi

The story is one in which a Maoist movement ruptures oppressive relations so as to allow extremely subjugated Dalit labourers to claim dignity and development; but then the Maoist organisation itself becomes an object of criticism since it is experienced as failing to address caste-specific grievances or development needs. Caste inequality is reproduced even with organisations as radical as the Maoist movement. The Dalits mobilised by these rebels thus need to seek out dignifying religion, caste associations and folk heroes. The result in the pages that follow is a remarkably insightful account of the unexpected intersection between armed struggle and Dalit religious movements. This book is the hard won fruit of difficult research, born of close and trusting relationships and open enquiry. It tells us what makes landless Dalit labourers take up arms against upper caste landowners, and what happens when they do. It opens a space for understanding in a fraught situation; and nowhere is such space more needed than in the gridlock of violent conflict in regions of continuing impoverishment. David Mosse London, August 2011

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Acknowledgements

NO ENTHNOGRAPHIC WORK IS EVER THE PRODUCT OF ONE PERSON’S EFFORTS,

and certainly mine is no different. I am grateful to many people for their help, both direct and indirect, in writing this book. In particular, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor David Mosse, for his continued encouragement and invaluable suggestions during this work. It has been a very enriching learning experience working with him. I feel deeply indebted to him for his academic accompaniment during this period. I extend my thanks to Dr Caroline Osella, Dr Alpa Shah and Professor Harry West who have at some point gone through my work and provided valuable suggestions. My special thanks to Professors Stuart Corbridge and David Gellner for their comments and suggestions towards the publication of this book. I am grateful to all the staff and students of the Anthropology Department at SOAS, University of London. In an atmosphere of appreciation and freedom, I was able to pursue my research in the department. I thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments have greatly helped in the revision of this book. My special thanks to Esha Béteille and Meenakshi Chawla of Social Science Press, New Delhi, for their tireless efforts in getting this book published. It has been a pleasure working with them. I want to express my deep feelings of gratitude to Julie Gaunt and Antonie Kraemer for going through the entire typescript and making valuable corrections. I also extend my thanks to Jonathan Pattenden, Angela Amoy, Lali Rajan, Rajan Mookken, Scaria Mammootil, Shweta Sachdeva, Anna Portisch, Junie Wadhawan, Sangeeta Patel, Abhishek Amar and Saurabh Gupta for going through bits and pieces

xiv

Acknowledgements

of my work. I am grateful to Sieijish Dominic for his help with maps and figures, and Maria Molina for her assistance with indexing. During my time as a research student, I have been lucky enough to have been surrounded by wonderful friends. I remember them here with feelings of appreciation for all their help—Lekshmi Nair, Satoshi Miyamura, Gopa Kumar, Asima Sheikh, Keiko Okawa, Jasmine Subasat, Monica Mottin, Emma Flatt, Ilana Van Wyk, Atsuko Negami, Iqbal Sevea, and Saloni Gupta. My special thanks to Paul Hamill, Pat Riordan and my many friends at Copleston House who always encouraged and welcomed me with warmth. I express my deep feelings of appreciation for the financial support I received from the Ford International Fellowship Programme (IFP), the British Jesuit Province, the Charles Wallace India Trust, the Gilchrist Educational Trust; Northbrook Society, the Central Research Fund (CRF), the SOAS Additional Fieldwork Fund and the SOAS Hardship Fund. I remember with deep feelings of gratitude the people of Dumari village in Bihar among whom I lived for sixteen months during my ethnographic field work. I am especially grateful to Rajubhai, my friend and guide in the field. I remember his entire family with affection and gratitude. I am grateful to the Maoist activists who trusted me and allowed me to move freely and talk to people in their areas of influence. I especially remember my mother, brothers and sisters for their love and support. My special thanks to Prashant Pius for his encouragement all along this research. Finally, I am grateful to the Jesuits in Patna who taught me to make a preferential option in favour of the poor and the oppressed. This book is a product of that commitment.

Abbreviations

BMP BPP BSP CPI CPI (ML) Liberation CPI (ML) PW CPI (Maoist) CPI (ML) CPI (M) CRPF DM HRW IPF MCC MKSP

MKSS OBC PUCL PUDR SC ST

Bihar Military Police Bihar People’s Party Bahujan Samaj Party Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Liberation Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) People’s War Communist Party of India (Maoist) Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Communist Party of India (Marxist) Central Reserve Police Force District Magistrate Human Rights Watch Indian People’s Front Maoist Communist Centre Mazdur Kisan Sangram Parishad; the new name after MKSS was banned by the state in 1986 (a peasant organization of the People’s War) Mazddur Kisan Sangram Samiti Other Backward Castes People’s Union for Civil Liberties People’s Union for Democratic Rights Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribes

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Glossary

Aarthik Nakebandi Ahar Andolan Arahar Bandua Bataidari Bhakti Bigha Chutta mazdur Dasta Harijan

Harwaha Izzat Jajman-paunia Janadalat Jayanti Kamia Katta Kesari Kisan Lagua mazdur

Economic blockade/boycott Irrigation tank Social movement Pond Bonded labourer Sharecropping arrangement A Hindu spiritual tradition laying stress on devotion Measure of land equivalent to one-third of an acre Casual/free labourer Armed squad Children of God, a term used by Mahatma Gandhi for members of the ‘Untouchable’ castes Ploughman Honour, dignity Patron-client People’s Court Birth anniversary Bonded labourer Unit of measurement of land one-twentieth of a bigha A coarse grain unsuited for human consumption Generic term for landowning peasants Attached labourer, contracted to a landlord on a yearly basis

xviii

Glossary

Lal Salaam Lal sarkar Lal Sena Malik Mazdur Pyne Samajik Nakebandi Samanth Samanthi vichar Sangathan Sarkar Tola/toli Ugravadi Varg sangharsh

Red Salute Maoist state/realm/reign Red Army; referring to the Maoist squad Owner, landlord, proprietor Labourer Canal, indigenous irrigation system Social blockade/boycott Feudal lord Feudal mindset Organization, collective Lord, master, government Settlement, hamlet Extremist Class struggle

1

Introduction Maoist Revolution in Perspective

ONE EVENING IN JANUARY 2003, AS I WAS WALKING THROUGH A NARROW

alley amidst the mud houses of Dalit labourers in a village I shall call Dumari, Munari Das,1 a 60-year-old Dalit labourer, called out to me from his doorway. He led me inside his house, which was typical of most other Dalit houses in Dumari. In stark contrast to the two-storied pukka (brick walls and concrete roof) houses of the Kurmis—the landowning Backward Castes2—Dalit houses have mud walls and thatched roofs, and stand less than 10 feet tall, with no more than two rooms. The rooms have no windows, but each has a small hole carved in the mud wall to let in air and light and which, during winter months, can be plugged with rags or hay. While my eyes were still adjusting to the darkness inside the room, Munari Das said: This is the matti ka ghar [mud house] in which I fed and sheltered the comrades for more than 15 years.They would come to my house at midnight. I would then go around different houses and shops in the village to collect rice, wheat, potato, spices and other provisions to prepare food for them. Once, a shop owner refused to oblige. So immediately I put up a notice in the village telling the labourers not to buy anything from his shop. The boycott was total. It was our party and we cared for and sheltered the comrades in our houses. It was from here that the kranti [revolution] spread to the whole of Bihar.3 1 The names appearing in this book have been changed in order to protect the identities of my research participants. 2 A detailed analysis of caste configurations and class relations in Dumari village will be undertaken in chapter two. 3 Munari Das spoke in a mixture of Magahi/Magadhi (the local dialect of the region) and Hindi. Translation is mine.

2

Rebels from the Mud Houses

Munari Das, a Dalit labourer of Dumari village in Jehanabad district, Bihar was referring to the Naxalite guerrillas as ‘comrades’. Since its inception in the 1960s, the Naxalite Movement—a Maoistinspired peasant struggle—has been a platform for militant Dalit assertions against caste and class oppression in many states of India. In Bihar, especially in the Bhojpur and Magadh regions, landless Dalit labourers and poor peasants took up arms against the upper and Backward Caste landowners. In retaliation, the landlords formed their own private armies and the state unleashed a repressive police regime, creating in Bihar, and especially in Jehanabad district, a climate of violence which has led to the region becoming known as ‘the killing fields’. I lived among landless Dalit families in Dumari village for 16 months in 2002–03. In this book I examine the everyday world of Dalits—their articulations of self and community—shaped in the midst of the Maoist armed struggle and the ever increasing violence in Bihar. Central to this work is the analysis of Dalit experiences and encounters—‘Untouchability’, landlessness, sexual abuse of Dalit

Nepal

Uttar Pradesh

West Bengal

Jharkhand

Map 1.1: Magadh Region in Bihar

Introduction

3

women by upper caste landowners and Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement. And, in giving centrality to ‘Dalitness’ in this book, I choose to position the term ‘Dalit’ as a central concept of analysis. Categories such as landless peasants, labouring classes, rural proletariat, for instance, despite providing a concise portrait of Dalit existence, potentially exclude their caste-specific experience of subordination. In making a distinction between proletarian and Dalit consciousness, Oommen writes: ‘If proletarian consciousness is essentially rooted in material deprivations, the Dalit consciousness is a complex and compound consciousness which encapsulates deprivations stemming from inhuman conditions of material existence, powerlessness and ideological hegemony’ (1990: 256). The book will explore this very specificity of Dalit consciousness and political action stemming from such consciousness. The term Dalit in this book, then, refers to the former ‘Untouchable’ castes, which in administrative parlance are termed the Scheduled Castes (SCs).4 The term Scheduled Caste was first used by the British in the Government of India Act, 1935. Prior to this, Depressed Classes was a collective term for those castes, which were placed at the bottom of the Hindu social order and considered avarna (outside the varna System) and achchut or ‘Untouchable’ (Shah 2001: 18). Mahatma Gandhi introduced the word harijan—people of God—to refer to this category of people. The Congress Party popularized this term and many people from the SC communities also referred to themselves as harijans (ibid.: 20). However, the adoption of this term in no way raised their social status; rather it carried a pejorative meaning.5 In contrast, Dalit is a term Dalit activists themselves adopted as an expression of their rising political awareness and activism. The word mirrors their experience of being deliberately ‘broken and ground down’ by those above them in the social hierarchy. The term conveys an inherent denial of pollution, karma and caste hierarchy (Zelliot 2001: 267). Although the word came to be used in the 1930s 4 Article 341 of the Indian Constitution authorizes the President of India to include certain castes as SCs or STs for various administrative and electoral purposes as well as for extending the benefits of the policy of affirmative action to these communities (Shah 2001). 5 Gandhi borrowed this term from Narasinh Mehta, a seventeenth-century Bhakti poet who used it in reference to the children of Devdasis (temple dancers who were also often forced into prostitution) (Shah 2001). Dalit activists found the term insulting because of the pejorative meaning attached to it.

4

Rebels from the Mud Houses

as a Marathi translation of ‘Depressed Classes’, it gained political meaning and popularity in the 1970s through the campaigns of the Dalit Panthers in Maharashtra.6 In the 1973 manifesto of the Dalit Panthers, the referents of this term included SCs, Scheduled Tribes (STs), landless labourers, poor peasant women and exploited minorities (Omvedt 1995: 72).Thus the term encompassed a broader category of people who were economically and socially marginalized. However, in common parlance, the term has come to be associated with the former ‘Untouchables’. The specific meanings—‘crushed’, ‘split open’, ‘trampled upon’ as given in many dictionaries—echo their experience more than that of any other social group. In this work, by Dalit I refer to the people of the SC communities who had been (and in some sense, still are) treated as ‘Untouchables’ by caste Hindus. However, the term Dalit is not treated here as an undifferentiated category. Reference will be made to various Dalit castes highlighting the specificities of their exploitation and their responses and strategies in the context of the Maoist Movement. Before entering into a discussion on the specificities of this research, my use of the concept of revolution needs some explanation here. I draw on Tilly’s (1978) conceptualization of revolution in order to illustrate the use of the term in relation to the Maoist Movement. Tilly insists that any conceptualization of revolution must look for two basic criteria. First, revolutionary ‘actors and actions’ should be ‘based on an oppressed class’, and the revolutionary organization must have ‘a comprehensive programme of social transformation in view’. Second, revolution should involve a ‘transfer of power’ (1978: 189). For Tilly, this represents a transfer of state power specifically, achieved through ‘armed struggle in the course of which at least two distinct power blocs make incompatible claims to control the state, and some significant portion of the population subject to the state’s jurisdiction acquiesces in the claims of each bloc’ (Tilly 1989: 3).7 How does this conceptualization apply in relation to the discussion 6 The Dalit Panthers was a militant organization formed by Dalit activists in Maharashtra in the 1970s.The name, with its insurrectionist symbolism, was borrowed from the Black Panthers of the United States (Omvedt 1995). 7 A stricter and narrower conceptualization of revolution is given by Huntington. He writes: ‘A revolution is a rapid, fundamental, and violent domestic change in the dominant values and myths of a society, in its political institutions, social structure, leadership, and government activity and policies. Revolutions are thus to be distinguished from insurrections, rebellions, revolts, coups, and wars of independence’ (Huntington 1968: 264 in Tilly 1978: 193).

Introduction

5

of the Maoist revolution in Bihar? The Maoist programme given in the constitution of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) might put the discussion into perspective: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is the consolidated political vanguard of the Indian proletariat. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the ideological basis guiding its thinking in all the spheres of its activities. Immediate aim or programme of the Communist Party is to carry on and complete the new democratic revolution in India as a part of the world proletarian revolution by overthrowing the semi-colonial, semi-feudal system under neo-colonial form of indirect rule, exploitation and control and the three targets of our revolution—imperialism, feudalism and comprador big bourgeoisie. The ultimate aim or maximum programme of the party is the establishment of communist society. This New Democratic Revolution will be carried out and completed through armed agrarian revolutionary war i.e. the Protracted People’s War with area wise seizure of power remaining as its central task.The Protracted People’s War will be carried out by encircling the cities from the countryside and thereby finally capturing them (CPI (Maoist) 2004: 5).

Thus, consistent with Tilly’s definition of a revolution, the Maoist programme and the revolution discussed in this book involves a comprehensive programme of social transformation, seizure of state power through armed struggle and the participation of a significant segment of marginalized population in this struggle. I present the Maoist Movement as an ongoing revolution, as the key elements—seizure of state power and social transformation—remain to be accomplished. However, Tilly’s broader conception of the outcome of revolution, as ‘a displacement of one set of power holders by another’ (1978: 193) may be applied to the Maoist ‘base areas’ where the Movement has displaced the entrenched classes and set up its own parallel state. I shall discuss such revolutionary outcomes in later chapters. This study of the everyday world of the landless Dalit labourers in the context of armed violence raises a number of significant questions that resonate with the concerns raised by anthropologists investigating peasant revolutions elsewhere in the world. 8 Are 8 The concept of peasant is defined varyingly. Scholars of revolution (Wolf 1969, 2001; Migdal 1974; Paige 1975; Scott 1976, 1977a, 1979) at the very minimum agree that the peasants are rural cultivators. Some studies emphasize peasant communities as having specific social and cultural practices while others highlight their subordination to the rural non-cultivating landed elite. In this study, due to Dalit dependency on land for a living and their subordination to the rural landed classes, I examine Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement under the rubric of peasant revolution.

6

Rebels from the Mud Houses

Dalits, for instance, caught ‘between two fires’; trapped between ‘revolutionary and counter-revolutionary’ violence? This is a theme that, following the publication of David Stoll’s Between Two Armies: In the Ixil Towns of Guatemala (1993), has gained currency in some anthropological literature on peasant revolutions. Stoll argues that the peasants in revolutionary contexts are ‘rebels against their will [...] coerced by the guerrillas as well as the army’ (1993: xi). Hence he refers to them as victims of ‘dual violence’ (ibid.: 20). This conceptualization of peasants and revolution calls for serious research and reassessment in the context of the ‘killing fields’ of Bihar. Evidence collected in the form of Munari Das’s statement just quoted and many such testimonies, which form the core of the book, implies that Dalits are not the victims of ‘dual violence’. I argue that if we categorize them as people caught between ‘two fires’ we deprive them of the voice to which they are entitled, and undermine the numerous ways in which they resist oppression and create political spaces for themselves. In this work, therefore, I explore the multiple voices, memories and practices of Dalits who live and fight in the ‘fields under fire’. I contend that in the context of the Maoist Revolution, there is a movement among Dalits from relative quiescence to a mobilization and armed resistance, and to demobilization and a cautious management of agrarian tensions. Munari Das and scores of other Dalit labourers in Dumari are not ‘rebels against their will’; they engage in the Maoist Movement in a variety of ways—as party cadres, guerrilla fighters, loyal suppliers of food and shelter, and as both active and passive members of a host of revolutionary organizations. Moving beyond the ‘two fires’ theme, this book, therefore, raises and attempts to answer several key questions: Why did Dalits join the Maoist Movement? Did all Dalit castes support the Maoists? Was there any particular Dalit caste(s) at the forefront of the struggle? Did they rebel against the landlords because of the external assistance given by the Maoist party? How did Dalits in Dumari (compared to Dalits from other villages) become catalysts in this mobilization? What did they achieve through the struggle? What reasons do they give for their current state of demobilization? In examining these questions, I will engage with various studies on peasant revolutions,9 9 The literature on peasant revolutions examined in this book includes the works of Wolf (1969, 2001), Migdal (1974), Paige (1975), Scott (1976, 1977a, 1977b, 1979, 1985, 1990), Popkin (1979) and Skocpol (1979, 1982, 1994).

Introduction

7

some of which highlight the nuances of peasants and revolution that Stoll’s work fails to acknowledge. As such, I will draw on some of the more salient theoretical insights of these studies to explore the position of Dalits in relation to the Maoist Movement in Bihar. Asking which peasants are most prone to rebel and why, Wolf (1969) argues that the peasants who are likely to initiate a rebellion are smallholders or tenants who live in communal villages outside direct control of the landlords. The poor and the landless peasants, he maintains, who depend on the landlords for their livelihood are unlikely initiators of rebellion, unless they receive external help. Their poverty and vulnerability to repression hinder their involvement in revolutionary activities. According to Wolf, therefore, ‘the decisive factor in making a peasant rebellion possible lies in the relation of the peasantry to the field of power which surrounds it’ (1969: 290). Scott, like Wolf, identifies the category of peasants who are most prone to revolt as small time landholders in the villages. But while Wolf argues that it is the material and organizational advantages of the small holders that underlie their insurrectionary capacities, Scott emphasizes the cultural and social autonomy that makes them capable of resisting ‘the impact of hegemony [that the] ruling elite normally exercise’ (1977a: 271). This autonomy is made possible by their village and kin-based social networks, which promote local, communal solidarity. Peasants are likely to rebel, Scott argues, when they experience the impact of capitalist market relations in the countryside, for those relations tend to breakdown age-old systems of patron-client relations of reciprocity, which protect them from market risks.10 He thinks that the situation of immigrant workers and landless day labourers, ‘may well seem more appropriate to strictly socialist ideas, but their social organization makes them less culturally cohesive and hence less resistant to hegemony’ (ibid.: 289). In contrast to the position taken by Wolf and Scott, Paige (1975) argues that smallholding peasants are normally conservative and quiescent. He claims that landless wage earners and sharecroppers are more likely to become revolutionaries. He reasons that hired 10 Scott underlines the peasant ‘moral economy’ based on his argument that that peasants ‘live in small, relatively homogenous villages’ (1977b: 4) and that the core of their identity is formed by communal norms, beliefs and histories (1979: 101). Therefore, their cultural practices such as reciprocity and communal landholdings are typical ways by which they provide subsistence insurance during times of dearth (1976: 5).

8

Rebels from the Mud Houses

labourers, working on farms under more-or-less uniform contracts, are able to make common cause against landlords. Moreover, they risk no significant assets in a rebellion. In contrast, landholding peasants are less likely to rebel as they are isolated and mutually competitive over land and water rights. They are less likely to take risks as many of them are dependent on large landowners for marketing or other services and, therefore, do not want to turn against them. Wolf, Scott and Paige ‘alike tend to envisage revolutions as “made by” class forces’ (Skocpol 1982: 369). They do not pay much attention to the role of revolutionary organizations and their analysis seems to claim that agrarian class relations themselves give birth to revolutionary movements. Perhaps even more than Wolf and Paige, Scott emphasizes the ‘spontaneous’ and ‘autonomous’ actions of the peasantry that ‘created revolutionary situations’ and ‘mobilized its would-be leadership’ (1977a: 295–6).11 Migdal’s (1974) work, contrastingly, highlights another component of peasant revolution— the centrality of political organizations. He argues that peasant participation in revolution is made possible by a revolutionary leadership and organization which are ‘capable of absorbing peasants and then expanding power through their recruitment’ (1974: 232). Unlike Scott, Migdal claims that: ‘Revolutionary movements are created by the impetus of those from outside the peasant class’ (ibid.). He thinks that since the peasants possess relatively few of the resources, such as expertise and education, associated with organization building, their participation in ‘revolutionary organizations is preceded by the development of an organizational superstructure by students, intellectuals, and disaffected members of the middle class’ (ibid.). Popkin (1979), meanwhile, introduces a different perspective on peasant rebellion. He criticizes the moral economy interpretation, best represented in the writings of Scott and also to some extent in Wolf (1969), and counters it with a political economy argument. His contention is that whether peasants choose to rebel or join in any form of collective action revolves largely around individual cost-benefit assessments of what will most improve their minimum 11

Scott maintains that outside leadership and revolutionary organization might undercut the revolutionary spirit of the peasants. He writes: ‘[...] one would expect that the more organized, the more hierarchical, and the more institutionalized a peasant [...] movement becomes [...], the more likely it will become woven into the established tapestry of power’ (1977a: 296).

Introduction

9

subsistence level—action or inaction. Popkin writes that the ‘peasant is primarily concerned with the welfare and security of self and family’ (1979: 31), and consequently, ‘whether a self-interested peasant will or will not contribute to a collective action depends on individual—not group—benefits’ (ibid.: 251–2). In Popkin’s analysis peasants are best understood as individuals ‘seeking to stabilize and secure their own existence’ (ibid.: 88). Therefore, he claims, rebellions are positive efforts spurred by the ‘cost benefit calculations about the expected return on his own inputs’ (ibid.: 259), which each individual peasant makes before actively committing to the revolutionary movement. Skocpol (1979, 1994) while granting that landless wage earners and smallholders may both become rebels, introduces the significance of macro-structural relations, both domestic and international, into the debates surrounding the occurrence of revolutions. Through the analysis of revolutions in France, Russia and China, she challenges the idea that the actions of revolutionary groups brought down old regimes in these countries. Instead, she argues that internal structural weaknesses of these regimes as well as international pressures led to their collapse. In her book States and Social Revolutions (1979), Skocpol points out that state organizations—and especially the administrative and coercive organizations that make up the core of all imperial and national states—should be at the centre of all attempts to define and explain social revolutions. She claims that social revolutions cannot happen without a breakdown of the administrative and coercive powers of the old regime. Further, beyond the domestic scene, she brings into focus ‘international and world historical contexts’ in providing valid explanations of the ‘outbreak, conflicts, and outcomes of social revolutions’ (1994: 7). She highlights the importance of analyzing geopolitical, global economic and transnational cultural influences in the making of revolutions. Thus Skocpol’s focus on social and political structures that produce peasant insurrections undermines the claims that revolutionaries and revolutionary organizations are solely responsible for peasant revolutions (ibid.: 6). How do these studies of peasant revolution help in the interpretation of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement? As Wolf and Scott argued, and as I shall discuss later, the initial impetus for revolt against the landowners in Dumari came from the smallholders of the Kurmi caste. However, it was the landless Dalit labourers—who apparently possessed neither the material resources

10

Rebels from the Mud Houses

which Wolf suggested were an indispensable catalyst for action, nor the cultural and organizational autonomy which Scott proposed as an essential condition for revolution—who were at the forefront of the struggle against the landowning upper and middle castes. It is here that Paige’s contribution to the debate resonates most strongly. Just as Paige pointed out, in Dumari, Dalit labourers with their shared experience of being at the bottom of caste hierarchy, landlessness, ‘Untouchability’ and exploitation were ‘structurally inclined’ to a state of solidarity with one another, and to give ‘deliberate support’ to the Maoist Movement. Their shared ‘class reality’, however, did not give rise to spontaneous revolution. The centrality Migdal gives to the role of the revolutionary organization is, therefore, crucial in understanding Dalit mobilization under the leadership of the Maoist Movement, and will be discussed at length in different chapters of this book. Popkin’s conceptualization of the ‘rational peasant’, meanwhile, can also be applied in relation to Dalit revolutionaries, but in a partial sense; it might be said that the Dalits took part in the struggle against the Kurmi landowners with the definite aim of gaining certain advantages. The evidence from Dumari, however, does not support Popkin’s proposition of a ‘calculative’ Dalit peasant making ‘individual cost-benefit’ estimates before plunging himself or herself into the Maoist struggle. Instead, abstract emotive considerations of outrage, revenge and class hostilities based on shared standards of what is just and humane seem crucial to understanding Dalit mobilization. Skocpol’s work on macro structural relations, especially the role of the state also provides a useful contribution to the analysis of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement. The state in Bihar was perceived as ‘weak’ in the context of the caste and class war waged by both the Maoists and the private armies of the landed classes in the 1980s. This apparent ‘weakness’ of the regime is crucial in understanding Dalit engagement in the Maoist struggle and is critically examined later in the book. In the wake of this plurality of explanatory frameworks, and in acknowledgement of the inability of any single theory to explain peasant revolutions, I situate my arguments close to those of Wickham-Crowley: ‘[...] we may encounter a plurality of social conditions that can produce revolutionary peasantries, and not a unique one unearthed by Paige, Scott, Popkin, or Skocpol alone’ (1992: 93). I follow a framework of ‘extended case method’ (Burawoy

Introduction

11

1998: 5),12 which while exploring the everyday world of Dalits and its links with wider networks of power relations, critically engages with, as well as builds on existing theories of peasant revolution. In this sense, I argue that the distinctiveness of this research is characterized by its commitment to ‘the local’ combined with its ‘attentiveness to the epistemological and political issues’ which have origins beyond the boundaries of the ‘limited area’ of this study (Gupta & Ferguson 1997: 39). Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘social field’,13 I shall examine the everyday world of the Dalits as arenas of struggle. According to Bourdieu, a field is a social space of conflict in which agents compete to establish ‘monopoly over the species of capital effective in it’; the possession of which determine their dominant or subordinate positions in the field (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992: 17, 97). Unlike Marx’s concept, Bourdieu’s idea of capital includes not only economic but also various other forms of power. He presents four generic forms of capital for which actors compete in the field—economic (money and property), cultural (knowledge and skills achieved through education, cultural goods and services), social (acquaintances and networks), and symbolic capital (forms of legitimation) (Bourdieu 1997, 2000). Although particular configurations of capitals determine the dominant and subordinate positions of social agents, which are reproduced over time through their practices, Bourdieu’s notions of field and agents are not static categories. Constant struggles and strategic actions carried out by agents in order to acquire different capitals shape and reshape the social field (Bourdieu 1997). By highlighting this dynamic interactions between field, capital and practice, Bourdieu, attempts to transcend the structure–agency dichotomy. He argues against conceptualizing human action either as a ‘direct, unmediated 12 Burawoy writes: ‘The extended case method applies reflexive science to ethnography in order to extract the general from the unique, to move from the “micro” to the “macro”, and to connect the present to the past in anticipation of the future, all by building on pre-existing theory’ (1998: 5). 13 Bourdieu defines field as: ‘a network, or configuration, of objective relations between positions. These positions are objectively defined, in their existence and in the determinations they impose upon their occupants, agents or institutions, by their present and potential situation (situs) in the structure of the distribution of species of power (or capital) whose possession commands access to the specific profits that are at stake in the field, as well as by their objective relation to other positions (domination, subordination, homology, etc.)’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992: 97).

12

Rebels from the Mud Houses

response to external factors’ (micro or macro structural relations) or produced by ‘internal factors’ (conscious intentions and calculations of social agents). Bourdieu, thus, attempts to integrate ‘micro and macro, voluntarist and determinist dimensions of human activity [...] into a single conceptual movement rather than isolated as mutually exclusive forms of explanation’ (Swartz: 1997: 8–9). Following Bourdieu’s theory of social field, I argue that external factors such as weakness of regime (Skocpol 1979, 1994), economic contradictions (Paige 1975), the decisive role of revolutionary organizations (Migdal 1974) or internal agency related arguments such as rational (Popkin 1979) and voluntarist human actions (Scott 1976, 1977a) in themselves are inadequate to explain the Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement, their symbolic actions, and caste and class mobilizations. My work, while arguing against the mutually exclusive structure-driven or agency-led explanations for peasant revolutions presented by political scientists, attempts to connect structure and agency in a dialectical relationship, thus making a case for an anthropological approach to the study of revolution. In order to explore the various concerns raised in the above discussion regarding Dalit revolutionary agency, and also to introduce a historical perspective which allows for attention to change, I have structured this book around Tarrow’s framework of ‘protest cycle’ (1989).14 According to Tarrow, the ‘protest cycle’ develops when conflicts in a society are deep and can be generalized, and when new political opportunities appear for groups within and outside the polity. A heightened phase of conflict and contention is then followed by a period of withdrawal by protesters due to ‘exhaustion, repression, and reform’, leading to the end of the ‘cycle’ (ibid.: 25–6). The concept of ‘protest cycle’ thus implies a period of high level of mobilization followed by a phase of demobilization. Drawing on this model, from chapters two to six, I examine various factors leading to the heightened phase of Dalit mobilization of the 1980s and the relatively demobilized period since the late 1990s. In chapter two, I examine the structural roots of armed struggle in the Magadh region, particularly in Dumari village. I argue that Dalit 14 Tarrow’s definition of ‘protest as the use of disruptive collective action aimed at institutions, elites, authorities, or other groups, on behalf of the collective goals of the actors or of those they claim to represent’ (1989: 8), is a good reflection of Dalit mobilization as described in this book.

Introduction

13

experiences of structural violence—landlessness, ‘Untouchability’, hunger, illiteracy, infant mortality, sexual abuse and other forms of socio-political deprivations—created the conditions for the rise of a revolutionary movement and Dalit mobilization. I explore these ‘submerged violences’ in the context of colonial and postcolonial agrarian relations, religious discourses and folk media, and their role in the shaping of Dalit subjectivities. Since Dalits are not an undifferentiated category, I highlight the differences among the Dalit castes in relation to their experience of structural violence. This chapter also discusses the position of Dalit women in a climate of violence and discrimination. I also examine how the rise of the middle castes in the 1970s further marginalized the Dalits, eventually leading to open confrontations between the rural elite and the landless labourers. In chapter three, I discuss the first stirrings of the Maoist Movement from the mud houses of Dumari in the 1980s. First, I present the centrality of the role played by the revolutionary party in the Dalit mobilizations. Second, I narrate the Dalit memories of struggle, suffering and violence and the meanings they give to the events and actions of the 1980s. This chapter also focuses on how Dalit articulations of self and community are constituted in the act of remembering and narrating, which are examined as ‘agentive moments’ producing new Dalit consciousness and identities. Focusing on the struggle in the village, I present the contrasting images presented by the Dalits and landowning classes in their recollection of events, and argue that the conflicting collective memories of these communities are the product of their differential locations in the structures of power. By presenting case studies, I examine the emerging Dalit leadership and shifting power relations in Dumari. The Dalit revolutionary agency described in this chapter defies the thesis that Dalits are caught ‘between two fires’, and instead highlights their multiple strategies of belonging and adaptation in the face of shifting power relations. The life story of a Dalit Maoist is narrated in chapter four, whom I call Rajubhai and whose dwelling became my home during the ethnographic fieldwork. His story further highlights the nuances of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement and the shifting power relations in the village. The presentation of his life journey from being a bonded labourer in a landed household to becoming a Maoist guerrilla further explores the question of why Dalits rebelled,

14

Rebels from the Mud Houses

and the dynamic connection between Dalit experience of structural violence and the role of the revolutionary party in the production of revolutionary subjectivity. I also discuss his family life in the context of the Maoist armed struggle, his shifting caste and class consciousness and his transformation into an ‘organic intellectual’ in a Gramscian sense. His life story provides significant insights into the achievements and contradictions of the Maoist Movement in the Magadh region. In chapter five, I continue the discussion on Dalit agency. This section explores Dalit counter-hegemonic voices, silences and idioms of protest and thus accounts for the factors leading to Dalit demobilization. The first part of this chapter primarily focuses on Dalit capacity to object not only to the landlords but also to the Maoist organization itself. I present the Dalit critique of the Maoist struggle, their perceptions of how the Movement in its rise to power has neglected Dalit interests. A case study of a Maoist people’s court illustrates the strategies employed by Dalit labourers in demonstrating their protest against their own organization. In the second part, I discuss how Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement has enhanced their capacity to act collectively as a class on the one hand, and on the other, to express themselves through the idioms of their own caste identities with each Dalit caste asserting itself through a reinvention of its specific identities, histories and legends. The central focus of this chapter, then, is an analysis of the multiple ways in which individuals and communities expressed their agency and their ‘capacity to object’ to hegemonic interests. In chapter six, I explore emerging social formations in the context of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence in Bihar, and their impact on the everyday Dalit world. The three formations I discuss in this section are the state, caste militias and the Maoist Movement. First I investigate the multiple ways in which the coercive state is produced and how the caste and class interests of state actors play a crucial role in the practices of governance in Bihar. Second, I focus on the formation of the caste senas/militias, their nexus with state agencies and its impact on the production and patterns of violence in rural Bihar. Third, I discuss the transformations within the Maoist Movement itself; how, while resisting the state, the Movement set up its own parallel state in rural Bihar. In the context of the protracted Maoist ‘people’s war’ I examine the strenuous relationship between armed struggle and mass mobilization. Finally,

Introduction

15

I examine how violence has become a mode through which the relationship between the contending forces is articulated, with serious consequences for everyday life in rural Bihar. In the concluding section of this book, I sum up various phases and political processes of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement in the Magadh region and for this, I revisit Tarrow’s concept of the ‘protest cycle’. I highlight the contributions of this work in relation to the existing literature on peasant revolutions and point out, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of social fields as arenas of struggle, how my work makes a case for a more nuanced perspective on peasant revolutions, by integrating notions of social structure and human agency rather than relying solely on deterministic social models. In this book, the privileging of a Dalit perspective over others is an ethical choice. Before my ethnographic research in Jehanabad, as a member of the Jesuit Social Action team, I had worked among Dalits for several years in Bihar, both as a literacy worker and as coordinator for adult education programmes. During the course of my undergraduate and postgraduate studies, I had spent many summer months in Dalit villages in rural Bihar, working for literacy and health campaigns. And during this research in Jehanabad, I lived in a Dalit village for over a year. During all these years of living and working with Dalits, I had come to share their anguish and aspirations, at least in some way. After that sharing and ‘witnessing’, not speaking and not acting against oppressive structural arrangements and power relations could only be considered unethical. Scheper-Hughes in her eloquent ethnography of the everyday violence in a Brazilian shanty town, writes: The act of witnessing is what lends our work its moral (at times its almost theological) character. So-called participant observation has a way of drawing the ethnographer into spaces of human life where she or he might really prefer not to go at all and once there doesn’t know how to go about getting out except through writing, which draws others there as well, making them party to the act of witnessing (1992: xii).

Being an anthropologist in the midst of human suffering, for me, is in itself a call for human liberation. Anthropological commitment may involve witnessing through writing (Scheper-Hughes 1992, Taussig 1987) or working for the promotion of health, education and better means of livelihood for research participants (Falla 1994; Farmer 2003) or, as in my case which I shall describe later,

16

Rebels from the Mud Houses

supporting Dalit activists in their political struggle and witnessing it through writing. Ethnography produced out of an engagement with the struggles of the oppressed peoples could and should be used as a tool for critical reflection because it has the potential to disturb as well as to inspire. Mosse, in his insider’s account of the practice of an internationally funded development programme, points out that ‘text’ is not ‘separate from action’, it is ‘performative’ and its very effectiveness lies in ‘its capacity to disturb ruling representations; its potential to affect reputations and materiality [...]’ (2005: xii).15 I am aware that a work with its avowed empathy for Dalit cause and commitment to portraying Dalit perspectives and experiences might run the risk of ethnographic mimesis—a mere reproduction of Dalit voices without subjecting these data to a rigorous analytical and interpretative process. In order to address this concern with ethnographic mimesis, this story although told from a Dalit perspective, engages with multiple voices and experiences of Dalits, who are themselves a multi-layered category, as well as non-Dalits. This engagement with plurality of voices provides a nuanced understanding of the complex reality of the field of inquiry. Further, from an analytical perspective, my work engages critically with a wide range of literature and theoretical positions. The story of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement presented here is both distinctive and at the same time familiar in relation to peasant revolutions elsewhere. Therefore, as I indicated earlier, I develop my story linking what I describe in this book to the findings of other researchers and literature on peasants, poverty, subordination and struggle. Privileging the Dalit perspective is, therefore, neither a mere reproduction of Dalit voices nor a relinquishment of the process of critical re-examination and reinterpretation. Most significantly, this story narrated from the vantage point of Dalits, then, as Gupta and Ferguson propose, ‘forges links between different knowledges that are possible from different locations’ and traces ‘possible alliances and common purposes between them’ (Gupta & Ferguson 15

This very orientation of Mosse’s book Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice (2005) has courted controversy and produced objections especially from those who held managerial positions in the Department for International Development (DFID)-funded project in which Mosse worked as consultant from 1990–98 and around which he builds up his critique of development practice. In a recent article (Mosse 2006), he eloquently explains the position he has taken in the book.

Introduction

17

1997: 39), producing anthropological knowledge which is situated and relational. Finally and most significantly, this book is about a relationship— the relationship between the researcher and his research participants. During this research especially in Jehanabad, in being there with Dalits, I forged a special bond with them through our shared experiences of want, fear, uncertainty and also of joy, strength and yearnings for a better tomorrow. Even in this removed location while I am writing this book, the sense of belonging and shared aspiration reinforce an experience of being here with my research participants, which Mosse (2006: 937) so well described as the continuing relationships of ‘field and desk’ mutually influencing each other. Therefore in being with Dalits at this crucial moment of their history, I feel a great responsibility to tell their story and as such, this is the ethnography of a community struggling to carve out a political space for themselves in the midst of growing violence. I engage with a problem which is not only of paramount significance for anthropological research but also for the Dalits themselves. This research and the sharing of its results through narration, then, as Flyvbjerg (2001) has suggested, is an attempt to ‘make social science matter’ not only for the academia but also for the wider society.

2

Submerged Violences Dalits, Landlessness, and Subordination in Bihar

Introduction ON 1 DECEMBER 1997, 61 DALITS WERE MASSACRED BY THE RANVEER SENA,

an upper-caste militia in Lakshmanpur-Bathe, a small village in Jehanabad district. This was the largest ever massacre of Dalits in the state. During the attack, 28 Dalits suffered serious injuries and six minor girls were raped. This incident is one of the 90 massacres that have taken place in Bihar since 1970 and bears witness to the increasing violence against Dalits perpetrated by dominant castes.1 However, the massacres, rapes and physical assaults are just a partial story of the violence the Dalits suffer. There is a whole realm of everyday actions and societal arrangements which although they seem ‘normal’ or ‘harmless’ in reality injure those not privileged by the status quo. These are the submerged, or deeply embedded, forms of structural violence, which include hunger, unemployment, illiteracy, diseases, landlessness, ‘Untouchability’, infant mortality, sexual abuse and various other discriminations (Scheper-Hughes 1992; Kleinman 2000; Farmer 1997, 2003). These ‘everyday violences’ are seldom mentioned in the reports on violence against Dalits. In this chapter, I examine the Dalit experience of violence, which is deeply embedded in the unequal agrarian relations, socio-cultural beliefs, practices and institutions of rural Bihar, and its durable effects on Dalit agency. The overall aim of this chapter is to explore the conditions which led to Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement in the 1980s. 1 The details of these massacres have received wide coverage (Chaudhuri 1997a; Desai & Jha 1997; Louis 2002).

Submerged Violences

19

And as I mentioned in the introduction to this book, it is the deeplyfelt structural factors which play a significant role in the development of a ‘protest cycle’ (Tarrow 1989, 1994). Here I examine the deeply entrenched structural cleavages between Dalits on the one hand and upper and middle castes on the other. An exploration of the durable effects of power and dominance on Dalit articulations of self and community forms the central concern of this chapter. The story presented here is distinctive and at the same time, bears similarity to the Dalit situation in other parts of the country. Therefore, I will try to develop this chapter linking what I describe here to the findings of other researchers and literature on Dalits, poverty and subordination. This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part is a historical overview of the socio-economic mechanisms and processes that perpetuated and still aggravate Dalit subordination in colonial and postcolonial Bihar. I explore the dynamic link between land ownership, caste status, political networks, employment and other socio-cultural and economic aspects underpinning power and dominance in rural Bihar. I explore how colonial agrarian policies and the zamindari system of land rights established the historical context and structural configurations in which the upper caste landlords established an enduring dominance in Bihar. They further consolidated their power and dominance in postcolonial Bihar. This period, especially after the 1960s, also witnessed the rise to power and dominance of the upper layers of the middle castes, especially the Kurmi, Koeri and Yadav communities, leading to a further intensification of Dalit exploitation. As Dalits are not an ‘undifferentiated mass’, this analysis also pays attention to the specificities of Dalit experiences by presenting the case of the Musahar caste, one of the most marginalized Dalit communities in the state. I also analyze the role of the dominant discourses, focusing on religion and folk media, in the subjugation of Dalits. In the second part of this chapter, through the case study of Dumari village, I contextualize the everyday Dalit world through my own ethnographic encounters. I examine the durable effects of power and dominance on Dalit communities, particularly on Musahars and Dalit women. Of particular interest here is an exploration of inter-caste relations among Dalit communities and the processes by which these communities reproduced idioms of dominance and

20

Rebels from the Mud Houses

subordination in their everyday relations, both within the family sphere and outside it. However, this emphasis on the structural conditions of oppression is not in any sense intended to undermine the notion of Dalit agency. From a narrative point of view, it is a deliberate attempt to explore the conditions of Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement. Most significantly, in the third part of this chapter, therefore, I try to address the dilemma of either emphasizing the structural effects on human agency or seeing acquiescence in a broader framework of resistance. Favouring one approach to the exclusion of the other runs the risk of either reducing the agency of Dalits or romanticizing resistance without taking into consideration the effects of poverty and oppression on human agency. Therefore, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ (1977, 2000, 2001) and Gramsci’s notion of ‘contradictory consciousness’ (1998 [1971]), which provide a framework for understanding structural conditions of oppression as well as human capacity to challenge them, I explore both Dalit compliance and struggle. The rise of the Maoist Movement in the 1980s therefore has to be located in the context of Dalit articulations of self and community within durable structures of poverty and oppression.

Landlessness, Caste and Subordination: Structural Roots of Violence In rural Bihar, as in many other states of India, power and dominance have been predominantly linked to people’s rights over land, water and other resources, naturalized in caste hierarchies. Dynamic expressions of power are also linked to political affiliations, networks, patronage, numerical strength of caste groups and government employment. I shall refer to some of these elements shortly. Since nearly 95 per cent of the population in Bihar live in rural areas, of which 85 per cent depend on agriculture for their livelihoods (Census of India 2001), differential access to land and its resources play a significant role in underpinning rural power relations. As Myrdal, writing of poverty in India, states: ‘To own land is the highest mark of esteem; to perform manual [labour] is the lowest’ (1992: 1057). Ownership of land gives access to power and opportunities, and the lack of it condemns one to a life of manual labour. Perhaps

Submerged Violences

21

the idea that ‘land is to rule’2 is truer in Bihar than in any other agrarian setting in India. The land owner or titleholder has control over people who work his land in minute and manifold ways, some of which become clearer as this chapter unfolds. The ownership of land influences economic, political, social and cultural relations in rural Bihar (Yang 1998). Correspondingly, landlessness means not only material poverty but also a lack of political power and social prestige (Mendelsohn & Vicziany 1998). Rural dominance linked to the ownership of land is often naturalized in caste hierarchies.3 The upper castes, which form around 14 per cent of the state population, enjoy much greater dominance in Bihar than their number would suggest. Their numerical weakness is more than compensated by their economic power, social prestige and ritual status (Roy 1970). In ritual matters, Brahmins enjoy the primary position, followed by Bhumihars and Rajputs. Likewise, they also own a major part of the land, and dominate the economic, political and social life of the state. The Kayasthas, although below the three other upper castes in ritual status, are level with them due to their achievements in educational and administrative fields. At the opposite end of the hierarchy, Dalits, who constitute 15 per cent of the population, in their near total landlessness have been effectively forestalled from participating in the decision making process in rural Bihar. This has also led to their lack of influence, especially at local government level, including a lack of representation among police and welfare officials (Mendelsohn & Vicziany 1998). A caste-wise breakup of the population is given in Table 2.1. The linkages between landownership and caste hierarchies in Bihar have prompted many scholars (Blair 1980; Frankel 1989; Prasad 1991, 1994) to focus on the agrarian classes and certain broad 2 Neal in his essay Land is to Rule (1969: 3–15) urges the readers to look beyond ‘land as land’ to people’s beliefs and practices around land. In other words he emphasizes the need to understand economic as well as cultural and political elements inherent in the ownership of land in rural areas. 3 Srinivas (1987) identifies numerical strength, economic and political power, ritual status, as well as western education and occupation as the criteria for identifying a dominant caste in a village. However, more frequently, the elements of dominance are distributed among different castes. But when a caste enjoys one form of dominance, it is able to acquire other forms as well. For instance, a caste which is numerically strong and wealthy has better chance to move up in the ritual hierarchy through sanskritization.

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Rebels from the Mud Houses

Table 2.1: Major Caste Groups in Bihar Category Twice-Born Castes

Upper Shudras (Upper Backward Castes)

Lower Shudras (Lower Backward Castes)

Muslims Scheduled Castes (Dalits) Scheduled Tribes Total

Caste Group

Per cent of Total Population

Brahmin Bhumihar Rajput Kayasth Bania Yadav Kurmi Koeri Barhi Dhanuk Kahar Kandu Kumhar Lohar Mallah Nai Tatwa Teli Other Shudras (less than 1% each)

4.7 2.9 4.2 1.2 0.6 11.0 3.6 4.1 1.0 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.3 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.6 2.8 16.0 12.5 14.1 9.1 100

Source: Adapted from Blair 1979: 54

patterns regarding their social composition.5 Blair (1980) notes that landlords and rich peasants belong to the upper castes; the middle and poor peasantry primarily hail from the upper and the lower layers of the Backward Castes, and the landless labourers mostly belong 4 The caste-wise percentage of population given in this table refers to the statistics of undivided Bihar. After the creation of Jharkhand in 2000, the only variation in the percentage of population is in relation to the Scheduled Tribes, which according to the latest census stands at 0.9 per cent in Bihar (Census of India 2001). 5 On the basis of ownership of land or lack of it as well as around the criterion of self employment or hired labour, various agrarian class combinations have been

Submerged Violences

23

Table 2.2: Percentage of Distribution of Caste and Class Categories in South Bihar Class Divisions Landlord-cum-Rich Peasant Middle Peasant Poor Middle Peasant Poor Peasant (i.e. Agricultural Labour) All

Upper Castes

Upper Backward Castes

95.70 1.23 1.23

36.40 19.79 16.96

1.84 100

26.35 100

Other Backward Castes

Dalits

All

4.24 7.63 3.69

2.67 2.68 2.02

31.52 8.11 7.53

84.74 100

92.64 100

52.84 100

Source: Prasad 1994: 180

to the Dalit castes and also to some sections of the lower rung of the Backward Castes. Similarly, Frankel (1989) observes that big landlords among the Hindus belong to Brahmin, Bhumihar and Rajput castes. However, she claims that the majority of the high caste households, as well as upper status Muslims, are small landlords. The most numerous members of the middle peasants belong to the Yadav caste, followed by the Kurmi and Koiri (also spelt as Koeri) castes. Some Yadavs, Kurmis and Koeris whose holdings are too small to provide subsistence also work as agricultural labourers. The bulk of the agricultural labourers, however, come from Dalit castes such as the Chamar (henceforth I shall refer to this caste as Ravidasi),6 Dusadh, Musahar and others. Prasad (1991, 1994) draws up the same classification in relation to South Bihar. According to him, more than 95 per cent of the upper castes as well as 36 per cent of the Yadav, Kurmi and Koeri castes belong to the landlord cum rich peasant worked out by many other scholars. For Thorner (1956), proprietors (malik), working peasants (kisan), and labourers (mazdoor); for Béteille (1974), landlords, owner cultivators, tenants, sharecroppers and labourers; for Mencher (1974), landless poor peasants, middle peasants, rich farmers, capitalist farmers, traditional landlords and intermediary class of large landholders; for Harriss (1977), capitalist farmers, rich peasants, independent middle peasants and poor peasants; and for Dhanagare (1983), landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants and landless labourers, all these categories form some of the prominent agrarian classes in India. 6 The educated members of this caste find the name ‘Chamar’ derogatory. They prefer to be called Ravidasis, after Sant Ravidas, a fifteenth century poet-saint from the Chamar caste.

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class (Table 2.2). This class is characterized by an aversion to manual labour. The bulk of the middle and poor middle peasantry also hails from theYadav, Kurmi, Koeri castes (Upper Backward Castes). They work in their own fields but deem it below their dignity to work for others as labourers. Only 1.84 per cent of the upper caste population are landless peasants. In contrast about 92.64 per cent of Dalits7 and other lower castes are landless labourers (Table 2.2). However, it is important to specify that the exercise of power in relation to land and landownership is influenced by the quality of land—irrigated, un-irrigated—types of crops cultivated and access to market. Mosse (2003) highlights the importance of water without which land has no productive or symbolic significance. In South Bihar, the wide spread indigenous irrigation system of ahar (drainage tanks) and pyne (canals) makes this region conducive to wet paddy cultivation. However, due to the arduous nature of wet paddy cultivation, historically there has been a growing tendency even among small landowners to withdraw from agricultural work as soon as their economic circumstances made it possible (and also due to caste factors), and have the land cultivated by labourers (Béteille 1987).8 This onerous work is forced upon the landless Dalit labourers and the landowners in this area employ extreme measures in order to extract maximum work from the Dalit labourers and suppress any labour protest. Both these factors I shall discuss in later chapters. Although rights over land and its resources still play a pivotal role in power relations in rural Bihar, there is a need to highlight changing patterns of dominance, which is not always based on land. Gupta in his ethnography of a village in Uttar Pradesh identifies the shift from patronage to brokerage as the ‘changing basis of the reproduction of relations of domination at the village level’ (1998: 146). Mosse elaborates this point in the following words: ‘land-based forms of patronage and dependence [...] are progressively weakening for 7

In Bihar, only 8.15 per cent of Dalit households own land. In terms of the area, they own just 4.5 per cent of the total land area of 1,10,67,607 hectares, that is, 4,98,829 hectares. Among Dalits who own land, 90 per cent own less than 1 hectare (Louis 2002:104). 8 Wet paddy cultivation being more arduous than wheat cultivation, Béteille (1987) points out that in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala (where generally the former type is predominant), even small landowners have their land cultivated by others; while in Punjab and Haryana where wheat is cultivated, self cultivation is the general practice among the small holders.

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various reasons (the decline in agriculture, land ceiling and tenancy legislation among them), and upper class/castes have switched to brokerage; that is to say mediating links with state and private development institutions (banks, Block offices for the provision of credit, government schemes, housing, employment, electricity connections, or public works contracts)’ (2007: 22). Further, dominance is also linked to political participation. The numerical strength of certain caste groups plays a crucial role in enhancing their power and dominance through representational politics. Later in the chapter, I shall discuss the role of political participation and access to employment in the rising power of the middle castes in Bihar, especially in relation to the Yadavs and Kurmis. Whether there has been any positive change in the status of Dalits as an outcome of representational politics or state intervention in the remote villages of Bihar is debatable. Blair (1979: 16) points out that a few representatives from these communities might win elections from time to time, but for all the rest, the political arena was a place Dalits could not enter in a meaningful way. I shall demonstrate in later chapters, that through their participation in the Maoist Movement, at least in Dumari, Dalits became significant actors in the changing power relations. Corbridge and Harriss, while critiquing the ‘argument that the poor will be empowered only by community-based or anti-state social movements (or by voluntary groups or NGOs)’, argue that the ‘citizens’ movements are most effective where they put pressure on the state’ to work for the poor (2000: 202–03). Since the Maoist Movement is an anti-state movement, Dalit participation in the Movement may not in a direct sense exert pressure on the state to intervene in favour of the poor. But Dalit mobilizations under this Movement have enhanced Dalit awareness and determination to struggle for greater political and economic rights. I shall argue in later chapters that Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement on the one hand, and Dalits joining in electoral politics and their caste specific mobilizations on the other, although apparently ‘contradictory’, essentially represent Dalit strategic struggles for material and symbolic resources, and as such they play a significant role in changing power relations in Bihar.

Agrarian Relations in Colonial Bihar Subordination and exploitation of Dalits and other lower castes was historically inherent in the land ownership patterns and agrarian

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relations defined by the zamindari system.9 The hierarchy of interest in land, which corresponded to a hierarchy of caste and class, came to be established during the Mughal period (Hasan 1969). The Rajputs,10 Bhumihars and Brahmins were the big landlords of the area, entrusted with the responsibility of rent collection, and were expected to quell any rebellion against the central authority of the Mughal rule (Cohn 1969; Frankel 1989). Local rajas and chiefs, who belonged to these castes, maintained their internal independence during most of the Mughal period. The situation of the tenants and peasants was harsh. The landless labourers lived in the worst conditions (Hasan 1969). After the English East India Company acquired the diwani of Bengal from the Mughal Emperor in 1765, the Company established its political authority and gained control over the economic resources of Bengal province. In order to establish a uniform pattern of tax collection for the appropriation of agricultural surplus through rent, the Company introduced the Permanent Settlement in 1793. Land, which belonged to the state, was now permanently settled in favour of the zamindars. The Settlement firmly established a hierarchy around land. Jannuzi (1974), in his seminal study on agrarian relations in Bihar, identifies the state at the apex of this hierarchy. Below the state were the zamindars, tenure-holders,11 and under-tenure-holders, or raiyat12 (those who had power to collect rent). At the base of this 9 The term gained currency during the Mughal period and denoted various holders of hereditary interests who were entrusted with the responsibility of the collection of land revenue. The zamindars in the Mughal empire could be classified into three broad categories: a) the autonomous chieftains, b) the intermediary zamindars; and c) the primary zamindars. The first category represented hereditary autonomous rulers of territories. The second category was entrusted with the collection of revenue from the primary zamindars and paid this to the imperial treasury or to the chieftains, or in some cases kept it for themselves. The third category was, for all practical purposes, holders of proprietary rights over agricultural as well as habitational land (Hasan 1969: 18). 10 Quoting the revenue records from Ain-i-Akbari, probably compiled by Abul Fazl in Akabar’s court, Cohn asserts that 50 to 65 per cent of the landholdings might have been under the control of the Rajputs (1969: 56–7). 11 A tenure-holder is ‘primarily a person who has acquired from a proprietor or from another tenure-holder, a right to hold land for the purpose of collecting rents or bringing it under cultivation by establishing tenants on it, and includes also the successors-in-interest of persons who have acquired such a right’ (Agricultural Legislation in India, VI cited in Jannuzi 1974: 11). 12 Raiyat is defined as ‘primarily a person who has acquired from a proprietor or from another tenure holder a right to hold land for the purpose of cultivating it by

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The State of Bihar (the ‘super landlord’) The Zamindar (legally, a The Tenure-holder (acting as an ‘proprietor’ but acting as an intermediary of the state in the intermediary of the state in the collection of rent from the collection of rent from tenants) tenants) The Occupancy Raiyat (a rentThe Non-occupancy Raiyat (rentpaying holder of land having the paying holder of land not having right of occupancy on the land the right of occupancy on land held by him) temporarily in his possession) The Under-raiyat (a rent-paying holder of land having temporary possession of a holding under a raiyat) The Muzdur (a wage labourer having no right in land)

Fig. 2.1: Hierarchy of Interests in Land Source: Jannuzi (1974:11)

hierarchy were the peasants with limited rights to land, and the landless labourers who had no right to land (Figure 2.1). The zamindars were not an undifferentiated class. Raja, Maharaja, landlords, and smaller landholders labelled as maliks were all lumped together in this category (Yang 1989: 7). The management of the estate was carried out through a set of officials and ‘middlemen’. Even an average landlord had many of these men at his disposal (Das 1983: 26).13 Invariably, all of them belonged to the upper castes. Similarly, within the class of tenants, there was differentiation. The upper layers of the tenantry were mostly comprised of the upper castes. Perhaps there were fewer Brahmins and Kayasthas compared to the Bhumihars and the Rajputs. Some high status Muslims were himself, or by members of his family or by hired servants or with the aid of partners, and includes also the successors-in-interest of persons who have acquired such a right’ (ibid.). 13 Even an average landlord maintained an elaborate establishment, consisting of a dewan or fotedars (money changers), dufturries (record keepers), peyadas (messengers), and sipahis (constables). Besides these, the zamindar also maintained a gomastha (agent), and patwaris (assessors) at the village level for actual rent collection and assessment (Das 1983: 26).

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also included in this category (Roy 1970: 231).14 The intermediary tenant holders similarly belonged to these castes. The majority of tenant-cultivators came from among the Yadav, Kurmi, and Koeri castes. The Dalits and other lower castes formed the category of labourer (Frankel 1989). The Permanent Settlement fixed the revenue demand at ninetenths of what the zamindars were assumed to collect from their tenants.15 The remaining one-tenth was left to the zamindars as remuneration for collecting rents (Jannuzi 1974; Das 1983). The tenants were left at the mercy of the zamindars, as the Permanent Settlement offered little protection to the actual cultivators or labourers.16 The zamindars extracted much higher rents from the tenants and the records they themselves maintained ‘were obviously tailored to hide these figures’ (Das 1983: 36–7). They made a clear distinction between the high caste and the low caste tenants and granted unequal terms of tenure depending on the tenants’ caste status. Grierson, in his work Bihar Peasant Life (1920: 319) notes that the high caste tenants—‘Brahmans, Kayasths, Rajputs and Musalmans’—were assessed at a reduced rate17 or even exempted from some types of rents.18 Further, the low caste tenants and labourers had to do begar (forced unpaid labour) in the landlords’ fields, which the upper castes were exempted from (Frankel 1989: 62). Grierson gives the following locally prevalent proverb, which highlights the caste biases in the treatment of low caste (rar jati) tenants. Kaeth kichhu lelen delen, Barahman khiyaulen. Dhan pan paniyaulen, au rar jati latiyaulen 14 The landowning Muslims hailed from the Saiyads, Shaikhs, and Pathan groups. They are believed to be descendants of either the Muslim nobility or Rajput converts (Ali 1978: 30–2). 15 The custom required that the produce would be divided 50–50 between the landlords and the tenants. But often the landlord and his staff took 9/16 or even 10/16. The rents were either paid in kind (bhaoli) or in cash (nagdi) (Gupta 1982). 16 It is only in the Bihar Tenancy Act of 1885 that the right of the tenant got some recognition in law (Das 1983: 23). 17 In certain cases, Grierson (1920: 328) points out, the rent was not charged on the land but on the crops actually grown and the class of the tenants, whether high caste (surphan) or low caste (raiyan), the former having a lower rent to pay than the latter. 18 The high caste tenants did not have to pay biyadani (sadiyat or sadiyana), a fee the low caste tenants had to pay to the landlord during the marriage of their daughters (Grierson 1920: 319).

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‘A Kayasth does what you want on payment, a Brahman on being fed, paddy and betel on being watered, but a low caste man on being kicked’ (1920: 328). The most ‘kicked about’ in this hierarchy of interests in land were undoubtedly the ‘Untouchables’, who survived solely through selling their labour. They accounted for about 9 per cent of the population at the beginning of the 1900s and lived in appalling conditions during the colonial regime (Frankel 1989: 60). Various reports and statements made by the British administrators of the period reveal the condition of this agrarian underclass (Hunter 1877; O’ Malley 1936).19 Their landlessness and complete dependence on the landed classes had transformed them into a class of agricultural slaves. Their slavery was based on and reproduced by a mechanism of credit and debt centred on kamia-malik (labourer-landlord) relations. By extending small loans to the labourers in times of distress, marriage, etc., the landlords ensured the control over the kamia’s labour until the repayment of the debt was complete (Prakash 1990). At the same time, the conditions of the debt repayment were formulated in such a way that the labourer would never be able to pay it back. For instance, the repayment was fixed for a certain day in jyth (JulyAugust), a time of seasonal scarcity (Mukherji 1961). The bondage thus incurred was carried on to the next generation. The debt of the father, after his death, was inherited by his son. This bondage subjected the Dalit labourers to a ‘system of restrictions: restrictions on their movements, their labour, and their persons’ (Prakash 1990:1). The landlords even had the power to sell them as slaves. William Ward, a Serampore missionary, speaks of the nineteenth century slave market at Sonepur, near Patna: ‘A boy fetched Rs 3 whereas a girl cost Rs 2 only. Indeed they were cheaper if compared with the price of other items on sale there: a milch cow sold for Rs 5 and calf one year old 8 annas, a pair of good bullocks, Rs 8 and a bull Rs 4, a milch buffalo Rs 20’ (Ward 1818: 152–3). Although living in a state of such penury and slavery, the Dalits along with other lower caste peasants were still forced to pay 19 Hunter in his A Statistical Account of Bengal,Vol. XII, gives an account narrated by S.C. Bailey in 1873, who was then the Commissioner of Patna Division: ‘In Gaya, the agricultural labourer lives really from hand to mouth, and is worse off, perhaps, than anywhere else in the Division. He is generally paid in grain. Two to three seers of some coarse grain, representing money value of less than two pence, and this eaten as Sattu with water twice daily (if fortunate) suffices to support life and enable him to work’ (1877: 73).

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numerous illegal exactions or abwabs20 to the landlords. In 1935, an inquiry conducted by the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha, had recorded 44 types of abwabs and maltreatment in Gaya district alone (Gupta 1982: 185). The poor peasantry had to pay when the zamindar’s wife conceived (petpiravan), when his wife was blessed with an offspring (janmavan), when he bought an elephant (hathiyavan), when he bought a car (motoravan) (Das 1983: 44–5). The zamindars bought agricultural, dairy and other produce from the peasants at belowmarket prices. They also charged taxes on grazing lands, ponds and rivers (Barik 2006: 14). These exactions were so numerous that one British observer comments: ‘In fact the Indian landlord seems to consider that resident of his village should pay for permission to any conceivable action, even for eating, drinking and sleeping’ (Porter cited in Das 1983: 44). The end result of these innumerable exactions was the intensification of rural exploitation through rent mechanisms which in turn landed the peasantry in a permanent state of indebtedness. To sum up the above discussion, I reiterate some implications of the zamindari system in Bihar which resonate with the current analyses of colonial agrarian relations. There was an intensification of exploitation because of the changes introduced by the colonial rulers in laws regarding landownership and taxation (Washbrook 1981; Bayly 1988).The Permanent Settlement led to the growth of landlordism in Bihar and the ‘relegation of cultivator-owners to the status of tenantsat-will’ (Robb 1988: 349). The landlords could prosecute the tenants in courts and seize their personal property, including standing crops, in case the tenants failed to meet the taxation demands. They could also evict the tenants whenever they wanted. The landlords had the power to own and sell the labourers.They imposed on the tenants and the labourers numerous exactions. The demands were so high that poor peasants were trapped in debt and bondage; debt thus acting as a mechanism of control and coercion (Robb 1988: 338; Prakash 1990). The colonial policies also led to a ‘polarization among the tenants between the rich and the poor (sharecroppers and semi-landless labourers)’ (Robb 1988: 349). As described above, caste identities 20 Abwab was a type of ‘gift’ which the peasants were forced to ‘give’ to the zamindars (Barik 2006). Barik cites the Collector of Champaran on why the peasants paid abwab: ‘Long custom, traditional homage to zamindars and a desire to live in amity with them explain acquiescence of the tenants to these demands of the landlords’ (cited in Barik 2006: 13).

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of the tenants played a crucial role in this polarization as upper caste tenants were favourably treated by the landlords. Further, Bayly’s assertion that fiscal policies of the colonial state contributed to the sendentarization of formerly mobile pastoral groups into settled agricultural communities, a process which he calls ‘peasantization’ (Bayly 1988: 144–5), had significant implications for agrarian relations in South Bihar. The colonial obsession to fix people down to a territory and to expand agricultural production for the purposes of revenue and tax collection (ibid.) may have led to the systematic settling of large populations of agricultural workers in the Magadh region, making them a cheaply available labour pool at the mercy of landowning classes. Most significantly, this process of ‘peasantization’ had implications for the formation of caste identities. Drawing on Bayly, O’ Hanlon claims that the emergence of a ‘more settled and homogenous peasant society’ and the ‘increased pressure on land’ led to a process of exclusion and subordination of potential competitors among agricultural communities (1989: 99). More rigid laws and practices of exclusion and inclusion based around caste and religion thus came to be firmly established. More than the British ‘inventing caste or religious identities’ (cf. Dirks 2001) the colonial policies, as Corbridge and Harriss claim: ‘did much to harden these identities in the seventy or eighty years before Independence’ (2000: 8). As a result, the existing power structures within the villages were further reinforced, thus firmly establishing the enduring dominance of upper castes in Bihar.

Postcolonial Bihar and Politics of Dominance The colonial agrarian relations witnessed both continuity and change in postcolonial Bihar. The exploitation of the poor and landless peasants only intensified even long after the abolition of the zamindari system in 1953 and the enactment of numerous land reform laws.21 The zamindari class made every effort to block or delay the passing 21

Numerous land reform laws have been passed in Bihar: The Minimum Wages Act, 1948; The Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950; Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1954; The Bihar Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation Act, 1956; The Bihar Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling Area and Acquisition of Surplus Land) Act 1961; Bihar Privileged Persons Homestead Tenancy Act, 1974; Bihar Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Class and Denotified Tribes Debt Relief Act, 1974; The Bihar Money Lenders Act, 1974; and various other ordinances (Louis 2002: 102). Jannuzi (1974: 69–128) provides a detailed analysis of these land reform measures.

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of land reform laws.22 Due to the hostility of the landlords, the efforts to update land records in the villages took almost nine years following the abolition of the zamindari (Das 1983: 200; Frankel 1989: 90–1). They further demonstrated their power by delaying the passage of the land ceiling bill from 1955–61. When it was finally passed, due to their political influence23 the landlords ensured that the Bihar Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling Areas and Acquisition of Surplus Land) Act ‘was studded with every possible loophole to scuttle effective implementation’ (Frankel 1989: 91). The Act was issued to the landlords only in 1965 and this ten year period allowed them to arrange partition of land among family members, to organize benami transfers (fictitious transfers),24 and to alter land records in collusion with the local revenue administration. A review of the land transfers conducted during this period points out that 4,00,000 to 5,00,000 acres of surplus land were hidden through fictitious transfers alone (Ojha 1977: 122). In spite of the limit set by the Land Ceiling Act, the landlords therefore managed to retain extensive areas of land. Beyond the stipulated ceiling limits,25 a landlord could retain homestead land up to 10 acres, and up to 15 acres for growing fodder. He could transfer his excess land to his children, and also retain land if he claimed that he had promised that acreage to the Bhoodan (land-gift) movement.26 Further, if a landlord had a licensed sugar-cane farm, he 22 The zamindar lobby challenged the legality of the attempted land reforms laws in the Patna High Court and Supreme Court in the period between 1947–52. Such petitions in the court delayed the passing of these laws (Frankel 1989: 90; Das 1983: 188). 23 Das (1983: 184ff) gives a detailed account of the influence wielded by the zamindars in the Legislative Assembly in Bihar and their efforts at turning every stone in order to stall or water down land reform measures. Rajendra Prasad, the then President of India, whose family held a small zamindari in Bihar, ‘tried to delay the zamindari abolition for as long as possible [...]’ (ibid.: 193). 24 Louis (2002: 102) mentions that benami transfers were made in the name of gods and goddesses, and in some cases even animals. The Mahant of Bodh Gaya Math had land transferred in the name of a dog called Mothi. 25 The Act classified land into five categories depending on the quality of the land and the availability of irrigation facilities as well set the limit as to the number of acres one person could hold: 20 acres for Class I; 30 for Class II; 40 for Class III; 50 for Class IV; and 60 acres for Class V (Jannuzi 1974: 77–8). 26 The Bhoodan Movement was started by Vinobha Bhave in 1951. He appealed to the landlords to donate land to the landless (Jannuzi 1974:93–128). The Movement’s impact was always in doubt (Das 1983). The records from the Ministry of Revenue and Land Reform, Bihar, claim that up to March 1998, 16,64,874 acres of land

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was exempted from the provisions of the ceiling laws.Within the limit of his land ceiling, a landlord was allowed to reclaim land from his tenants for ‘personal cultivation’.27 This permitted landlords to evict thousands of tenants who had no receipts to prove their occupancy claims. Such evictions reduced many tenants to landless labourers (Jannuzi 1974: 78–83). The landlords, therefore, were able to circumvent land reform measures and retain land and dominance. However, the greatest beneficiaries of the abolition of the zamindari and the introduction of the various land reform legislation in the 1950s were members of a substantial class of medium sized owner cultivators, many of whom belonged to the upper layers of Backward Castes, mostly the Yadav, Kurmi and Koiri. They gained additional land as a result of partitions, transfers and sales of surplus land by the zamindars. It is estimated that during this period, ‘control over at least 10 per cent of the land passed into the hands of the middle peasantry’ from the landlords (Prasad 1979: 483). In some areas in Patna and Gaya, Muslim landowners made ‘distress sale[s]’ of land due to communal violence in their villages and moved to the relative safety of the cities. The Kurmis often purchased this land (Louis 2002: 101–02). It has been observed that by the end of 1970s, for every one acre of land in the hands of the upper caste landlords in Bihar, the middle castes owned two-thirds of an acre (Prasad 1979: 483). Moreover, after cornering the benefits of the first wave of agrarian legislation, this emerging class of the middle peasantry took the lead in blocking all subsequent attempts at reform designed to benefit the marginal farmers and the landless labourers (Jain 1996). They also became the beneficiaries of new agricultural technologies introduced during the Green Revolution.28 They achieved higher was collected, and 7,23,995 acres (43.49 per cent) was distributed among 5,78,227 people. However, 9, 40,879 acres (56.51 per cent) of the total land collected was found unfit for distribution (Louis 2002: 106). 27 Jannuzi (1974: 79) cites the provisions of the Ceiling Act for ‘Personal cultivation’ as ‘cultivation by a raiyat himself or the members of his family or by servants or hired labourers on fixed wages payable in cash or kind but not in crop-share under his personal supervision or the supervision of any member of his family’. 28 From the 1960s onwards, the state introduced a number of initiatives to bring about prosperity in the agrarian sector. Some of these initiatives included Agricultural Extension and Community Development schemes, an Intensive Area Development programme (IADP), a Small Farmers Development Agency (SFDA), and a Droughtprone Area Programme (DPAP).These schemes also improved agricultural technology,

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intensity of cropping and also took up modern practices of dairy farming. Due to this increased economic power and the advantage of their numerical strength, they began to acquire political power, which until then had been exercised by the upper castes only (Prasad 1980; Jeffrey & Lerche 2001). In Bihar, where caste and politics have been so tightly interconnected, the state Legislative Assembly is the place to look for evidence of the rise of the middle peasantry (Blair 1980). Despite the upper caste orientation of the Bihar Congress, by 1963 the upper stratum of the middle castes rose to a position of dominance in its assembly membership. In 1963, the Congress chief minister K.B. Sahay, in a bid to bolster his position, entered into an alliance with the Yadav leader Ram Lakhan Singh. Consequently, the share of the Yadavs, Kurmis and Koeris in the 1963 state ministry increased to 20 per cent from less than 10 per cent. And from then on until 1980, their representation in the Congress government never went below 20 per cent (Frankel 1989). But the upper castes still had a representation of 29 per cent as compared to the 23.5 per cent of the Kurmi-Koeri-Yadav combined. A dramatic change in dominance came during the Janata regime, in the Karpoori Thakur ministry of 1977, in which the Backward Caste share increased to as much as 38 per cent (Blair 1980). Backward Caste dominance in Bihar politics was characterized by the dominance of the Yadavs. By 1967, they had emerged as the second largest group in the Bihar assembly, next to the Rajputs. By 1977, they comprised 21 per cent of the legislature, which is almost twice their proportion of the population (Blair 1980). The following years saw a further increase in the political might of the Yadavs, so much so that by the 1980 assembly elections, they constituted the largest single caste group in the Bihar Assembly, a position they have since retained. In March 1985, as many as 41 Yadavs were elected to the state Assembly (Frankel 1989: 119). The Yadav dominance in Bihar continued with the emergence of Laloo Prasad Yadav in the 1990s. In the 12th Assembly elections in 2000, his party, Rashtrya Janata Dal (RJD), fielded 102 Yadavs out of the 298 seats it contested and 38 of them were successful. The irrigation facilities, the wide of use of chemical fertilizers, and the introduction High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of seeds. The middle peasantry greatly benefited from this package for the modernization of agriculture (Das 1983: 216 ff).

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Table 2.3: Electoral Performance by Caste Castes

RJD CON BJP SAM JD CPI CPM CPI BSP JMM Oth Total (U) (ML) er

Upper castes 23 Yadavs 38 Backward 19 Dalits 26 Tribals 0 Muslims 17 Total 123

6 1 1 2 6 7 23

23 8 14 8 14 0 67

10 7 0 8 18 3 3 3 1 0 2 0 34 21

2 – 2 2 0 0 6

2 0 0 0 0 0 2

1 0 2 2 0 1 6

0 – 1 3 0 1 5

0 – 2 2 7 1 12

17 91 – 55 6 68 1 50 1 29 0 31 25 324

Source: Louis, 2000a: 980

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) allotted 13 seats to the Yadavs, and 8 of them won. Out of 324 assembly seats, the Backward Castes won 123 seats. The Yadvas alone took a share of 55 seats (Table 2.3). The Yadav dominance in Bihar politics was demonstrated by the fact that during last two decades, there have been four chief ministers from this caste community (Louis 2000a). The Yadav domination was resented by others in the Backward Caste camp. In 1994 the Kurmis staged a major protest against the Yadav rule in Bihar and formed the Samata Party for representing their interests. The upper castes too, were said to be drawn towards the Samata Party, though it was headed by a Kurmi leader (Jain 1996). The Samata Party in alliance with the BJP won the assembly elections in 2005. Presently (September 2009) the state is governed by this alliance, headed by a Chief Minister who belongs to the Kurmi caste. To sum up this section, the conflict of interest within the ranks of the upper layers of Backward Castes not withstanding, their economic and political fortunes are on the rise in Bihar. Their gradual displacement of the large landowners is one of the most significant developments in postcolonial Bihar (Rudolph & Rudolph 1987). They have emerged as the principal spokesmen of agrarian interests. Like the upper caste landholders, this emerging group of the middle peasantry employs agricultural labour on a large scale. Their rise to power has further contributed to the worsening situation of the Dalits. In some villages, they are even more aggressive and exploitative in their relations with the Dalit labourers than the upper

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caste landowners.29 The majority of the Dalit labourers continue to remain landless and trapped in a system of informal bondage.30 Their situation is examined below through the case study of Dumari village, which highlights the principal contradiction between the landowning Kurmis and the landless Dalits.

Dumari Village: Mirroring Wider Dalit Experiences Dumari village in Jehanabad district can be considered a microcosm that represents the wider Dalit experience of structural violence in Bihar. The dominant caste in Dumari as in various other villages of this district is the Kurmi. Some of the elements that made a caste dominant in a village—numerical strength, economic power, political patronage, ritual status, education and occupation (cf. Srinivas 1987)—could easily be identified in relation to the Kurmis here.There are 118 Kurmi households which together own more than 95 per cent of the total land in the village.31 According to some of my Kurmi and Dalit respondents, there are 7 households which own land in excess of 40 bighas.32 The average holding among the Kurmis is between 5 and 10 bighas.There are no landless households among the Kurmis. Those with small holdings enter into sharecropping arrangements.33 With a high school in the village since the late 1970s, many Kurmis have gained access to education and 29 This neo-rich agrarian class has carried out many massacres of the Dalit labourers. In some places, they have joined hands with the upper-caste landowners against the agricultural labourers. All these factors will be analyzed in detail in later chapters. 30 This system ensures a number of benefits for the landowning classes such as the availability of cheap labour, better terms for leasing out land, and benefits obtained through distress sales. Homestead land is also doled out to poor peasants to enforce informal bondage (Prasad 1975). 31 According to the Revenue Record office in Jehanabad, the village has just under 1000 bigha of cultivable land, making it one of the biggest villages in the district, in terms of the land under the area of one village. 32 Bigha, a unit of land in various parts of India, varies in size from one region to another. It is generally less than an acre (0.4 hectare). During the colonial rule, bigha was standardized as 0.13 hectare or 0.33 acre. It is often interpreted as being 1/3 of an acre. 33 Due to the history of hostilities between the Dalits and the Kurmis, it was unsafe for me to conduct household survey among the Kurmis. I was staying with the Dalits and the Kurmis identified me with the Dalit interests. I have gathered the data on Kurmi landholdings basically from my Dalit respondents and some Kurmi sympathizers of the Maoist Movement in the village. Hence I am aware of the possible biases in this representation.

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government employment. In the absence of a large number of Bhumihars or Rajputs in the village, in ritual status too, the Kurmis are at the top of the village caste hierarchy. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the Kurmis thus acquired socio-economic and political dominance in Dumari through their land ownership, high ritual status, numerical strength, education and employment in government services. In contrast, the majority of Dalits in Dumari are landless. Out of a total of 134 Dalit households comprising five Dalit castes in the village—Ravidasi, Dusadh, Musahar, Dhobi and Dom—only 22 (16.41 per cent) own any land (Table 2.4). And none of them have more than one acre.Their holdings mostly consist of five or six kattha.34 Table 2.4: Distribution of Landless and Landholders among Dalits in Dumari Dalits castes

Households

Ravidasi Musahar Dusadh Dhobi Dom

69 28 27 6 4

Landless (%)

Landholdings (%) (less than 1 acre)

Landholdings (%) (1 to 2 acres)

86.06 100.00 74.08 – 100.00

13.04 – 25.92 100.00 –

– – – – –

Total (%) 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Table 2.5: Distribution of Dalit Workers in Dumari Dalits castes Ravidasi Musahar Dusadh Dhobi Dom35

Total Workers

Agricultural Labourers (%)

Cultivators (%)

186 74 68 18 9

83.88 93.24 76.47 16.66 None

4.30 None 5.90 33.34 None

Other workers (%) 11.82 6.76 17.63 50.00 100.00

Total (%) 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Source: Household Survey in Dumari, 2003. 34 A kattha or katta is a unit of land which equals 1/20 of a bigha. Like the bigha, the kattha also varies in size from one region to another. It generally equals about 338 square meters or 442 square yards. 35 Only the Doms in Dumari are engaged in any kind of household (cottage) industry. They make baskets with bamboos—the traditional caste occupation of this caste. In Dumari they do not work as agricultural labourers.

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A caste-wise breakdown of the percentage of landless and landholders among the Dalits in the village is given in Table 2.4, based on a study which I carried out. Among the 310 workers I surveyed, 290 (90 per cent) earn a living as agricultural labourers (Table 2.5). Many are also bound to the landlords for one agricultural season or more, the conditions of which will be examined later. The Dumari statistics reflect the Dalit situation in Bihar in general with regard to patterns of landownership and agricultural labour. In the state, just 8.15 per cent of Dalit households own any land and 90 per cent of them have holdings less than 1 acre (Louis 2002:104). Among the category of workers, agricultural labourers constitute the highest proportion among Dalits with 77.6 per cent (Census of India 2001). Just as the data from Dumari reveal, in Bihar as a whole, only 7. 9 per cent of the Dalits are cultivators (ibid.). Table 2.6 highlights the percentagewise distribution of workers among five Dalit castes in Bihar, the same castes which constitute the Dalit population in Dumari. At the state level too, as in Dumari, the Musahars have amongst themselves the highest proportion of agricultural labourers. This high percentage of landless agricultural labourers among Dalit castes demonstrates their dependence on landowning castes and their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse.

Relations of Dominance and Subordination Dalit attitudes towards the Kurmis have been shaped by their experience of Kurmi exploitation. A majority of them have to work for the Kurmi maliks in Dumari to make a living. Although there are not many big landlords in the village, the Dalits often refer to Table 2.6: Distribution of Dalit Workers in Bihar Caste

Ravidasi Dusadh Musahar Dhobi Dom

Agricultural labourers (%)

Cultivators (%)

80.2 75.9 92.5 48.1 26.03

7.9 10.3 2.7 14.8 2.44

Source: Census of India 2001.

Other Workers (Including household Industry) (%) 11.9 13.8 4.8 37.1 71.53

Total (%)

100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

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their Kurmi employers as zamindar or malik. In this region, these are generic terms used for all the landowning classes who employ the landless Dalits as labourers. The use of the term zamindar, therefore, is not always related to the size of holdings but rather to the landowner’s power to employ labourers. Dalit labourers, among themselves and their sympathizers, refer to their maliks as samant (feudal lords). They refer to the aggressive and intimidatory attitude of the maliks in relation to the labourers and in particular to Dalit women as samanti vichar (feudal mentality). When I asked one of my Dalit respondents which caste he considered the most oppressive, he first replied: ‘The Brahmins. The Brahmin boys never greet even elderly harijans’. But after some reflection he added: ‘The Kurmis are the most oppressive caste. When you do battiah (sharecropping) with the upper castes, they take into account the fertilizer and water used by the sharecroppers and accordingly allow them to take a larger share of the produce. But the Kurmis never do this.’36 He quoted a saying prevalent among the Dalits to emphasize his point: ‘kurmi ke panjahri mein sinh hei’ (‘the Kurmis have horns by their side, literally in their ribs’). The saying implies that the friendliness of the Kurmi is merely a façade, as they might stab you when you are locked in an embrace with them. In Dumari, as in most other villages of the Magadh region, there are two types of agricultural labour—lagua mazdur (attached labourers) and chutta mazdur (free labourers). The lagua labourers, or harvaha (ploughmen) as they are also called (involving only men; women mostly work for the same landlords to whom their men are bound by these contracts), are bound to a landlord on a one-year contract. This contract is different from the type of bonded labour which existed earlier and to which I made reference above.37 However, the mechanism of entering into this type of contract mostly depends on the same process as the earlier one. The landlord advances a loan to the labourers and thus secures their services (including those of their households) for one agricultural season. Fresh debts keep accumulating to meet consumption needs and as 36

Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in March 2003. In spite of its legal abolition, bonded labour continues to exist in Bihar. It first came to light during the National Emergency period (1975–7). Initially 602 cases of bonded labour were reported in Palamu, then part of the undivided Bihar. Soon the number swelled to 11,000, eventually reaching 4,00,000 across the state. Those bonded are mostly from Dalit communities, particularly Musahars (Bhushan 2002). 37

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expenses incurred through sickness, marriage or emergencies. The labourers who live in such ‘chronic deficit’38 often continue to be attached to the same landlord for a number of years. They are paid two and a half kilos of rice or wheat per day as wages, and are also given a small plot of land each for cultivation, usually one katta per bigha of the land owned by the landlord. In Dumari, my Dalit neighbour Rajesh illustrated an extreme case of lagua bondage. Rajesh was 45 years old, married, and lived with his wife, two married sons and their wives in a little hut beside mine. For more than 10 years, he had been working as a harvaha for a Bhumihar malik in the village. I had many conversations with him on his life as a harvaha. Along with working in the landlord’s agricultural field, he also had to do domestic chores at the orders of his malikini (malik’s wife). He fetched water, washed the courtyard, cut firewood, fed the cattle and cleaned the cowshed. He referred to his malikini as deviji (goddess) because according to him, she was always doing puja (worship) of one deity or another. He told me that the Bhumihar family was very particular about the rules of purity and pollution. They fed Rajesh, but kept a separate plate for him. Rajesh said he had no problem with such discrimination. He described another incident in the following way: ‘Once when I went to work in the morning, malikini threw a whole bucket of water on me. She heard from someone that I had liquor and meat during the previous night. So she thought I was unclean.’ Rajesh was laughing when he said this and he had no apparent complaints about the incident. One morning when I was inside my house in Dumari, I heard the Bhumihar malik shouting at Rajesh’s doorstep. Rajesh was sick and had not gone for work that day. He pleaded for sick leave. Malik blamed his drinking habits for his sickness. He also told him that even when he was sick, he should go and report or else he would lose his work. Poor Rajesh had no choice but to follow the malik’s orders and go for work even with a high fever. That evening Rajesh came home drunk and angry. He told me that he was quitting his work. 38 Prasad (1979) uses this term to describe the condition of agricultural labourers in Bihar, who are perpetually in debt. The debt is accumulated in the following manner: the harvahas borrow grain from landlords to meet consumption needs. They are charged very high interest rates. For every 10 kilos of grain borrowed, they have to return 15 kilos (interview with Dalit labourers in Dumari).

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Next morning, however, he was back at the malik’s house fetching water for malikini and running errands for her. Rajesh’s may be an extreme case of kamia-malik relationship in Dumari. But his case also shows that such practices of servitude still exist and demonstrates the power of the upper castes, even upper caste women, over lower caste men. It is worth highlighting here that in villages everywhere, domestic chores are carried out by women. In this instance, the harvaha was forced to do domestic work, which other villagers consider degrading. As a harvaha, Rajesh has no power to choose any one type of work over others. He just has to follow orders. The malik had given him six kattas of land to cultivate. He also brought home the leftover food from the malik’s house every evening. Rajesh seemed to have accepted the life of a kamia and as far as I could learn from him, he never tried any alternative means of livelihood.

Illustration 2.1: Dalit Labourers in Dumari. Some of the landowners in the village owned tractors which were rented out to other landowners. Dalit men were hired for ploughing with cattle and women for transplanting paddy.

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The second category of agricultural labour—chutta mazdur (free labourers)—is hired on a casual basis. In Dumari, such workers are paid three kilos of anaj (grain), either wheat or rice, depending on the season.39 During the harvest, labourers are paid one out of every 12 bundles of wheat or paddy they harvest. They also have to carry the harvested paddy or wheat to the landlord’s kalihan (threshing yard). Women are also hired as casual labourers and paid the same amount as men. Dalits in Dumari said that before the ladaai, that is the ‘battle’ or struggle in the 1980s against the Kurmi landowners in the village under the Maoist Movement—the wage was sava ser kachi (three-quarters of a measure) of kesari. Kesari is a coarse grain with no nutritional value and unsuitable for human consumption. The kachi is a type of measurement weighed against stones of approximate weight. Earlier during the harvest (that is, before the ‘battle’), the wage used to be one out of sixteen bundles.40 Nowadays, especially during the paddy transplanting season, breakfast made of sattu, a type of food prepared with ground and roasted wheat or pulses, is given to the labourers. Some Dalits recalled that earlier the mazdur was given kesari ka sattu (sattu made of kesari) and the malik (landlord) ate bhoot ka sattu (the much sought-after sattu made of chickpeas). Now the sattu given to the labourers is made of mixed grain, mostly wheat and chickpeas. Due to the prevalence of low agricultural wages, most of the Dalit labourers in the village are trapped in debt. When I was in Dumari, one kilo of rice in the village shop cost Rs 6. The daily wage of three kilos of rice thus amounted to a total of Rs 18 in cash. Officially, the minimum wage for agricultural labour in Bihar during 2002–03 was fixed at Rs 41.41 In an average Dalit household in Dumari, there are always more than five mouths to feed. Often, with rice being the only staple food, one day’s wage is hardly enough to feed the whole family for a day. The labourers also have to sell a portion of the grain to meet other consumption needs. The daily wage of one or more persons in the household is never sufficient to meet the schooling, medical and various other expenses 39

There are slight variations in wages in the different districts of Bihar. In Rohtas, it is normally four kilos of rice or wheat per day. In the districts of Patna, Jehanabad, and Gaya wages vary from two to four kilos. 40 This was termed the lodha system, which meant after bundling 16 bundles of harvested paddy or wheat, the labourers were allowed to take one bundle that could fit in when both hands were stretched around. This was abolished after the Maoist struggle in the 1980s. This information was collected from several different interviews. People always referred to the wages before the ‘battle’ and after. 41 Report on the Working of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 for the year 2002.

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of the family. As a result, most of the Dalit households have to take loans from moneylenders or landlords. Of course it is advantageous for the landlords to pay the labourers in kind. First, it protects them from market fluctuations on the price of their produce. Second, it is a more convenient way of paying as the landowners do not have to sell their land-produce in order to pay cash (Thapar-Björkert 2004). Together with the malik-mazdoor relations, another institution that governs rural life is the jajmani relations, a village-based tradition of exchange of goods and services. In the Magadh region it is called jajman-paunia42 (also jajman-kamin) relations. The jajmans are the

Illustration 2.2: A Ravidasi Woman (chamain) in Dumari. A chamain works as a midwife and beats drums at the birth of a child in upper caste households as part of the jajman-paunia relations. She is getting ready for work and will be paid in kind, mostly paddy or wheat, and sometimes old sarees. 42 An online Hindi dictionary gives the meaning of jajman and pauni. Jajman is: ‘A person who institutes the performance of a sacrifice, employs priests for the purpose, and pays the expenses of it; a customer, a client, one who has a right to certain services. Pauni are ‘The recipients of presents at marriages, people of low caste (such as barbers, shoe-makers)’ (http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/platts/. Accessed on 3 March 2007).

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dominant cultivating castes of the village, who pay in grain for the services rendered by the paunia or kamin (from Barber, Ravidasi, Dhobi, and Kahar castes). In Dumari, the jajmani exchanges both reflect and reinforce the existing hierarchy and power relations. The pauni castes often have to carry out caste-specific menial jobs for the Kurmi and other dominant castes. The Ravidasis have to perform the ‘unclean’ job of removing the dead cattle, and the Ravidasi women (chamain), who work as village midwives, have to handle the ‘impurities’ associated with childbirth. The Dhobis have to wash ‘impure clothes’ from Kurmi households where death or childbirth has occurred. The Kahar women are employed to do the ‘low work’ of removing used leaf plates during ceremonial meals. The experience of a Thakur family in Dumari highlights the oppressive dimensions inherent in the jajmani relations. The Thakurs work as village barbers.43 They also work as messengers for jajmans on occasions of marriage, funeral meals (shradh) and various other ceremonial meals (bhoj). They carry the jajman’s invitations for such ceremonies to his relatives and friends in far away villages. This is called angya dena (to invite). They are also sent to invite people within the village. On the night of the bhoj, just before the food is served, they move around neighbourhoods with a second round of invitation called bieje dena, calling out ‘bieje parle ho’ (food is served). The following is an account given by Sivji Thakur regarding his duties as pauni: As a paunia, I have to give bieje at night [often the bhoj is held around midnight]. Sometimes I have to move around different tolas [settlements] four or five times, waking up those who had been given angya earlier, always calling out ‘bieje parle ho’. Unless I did that several times, people do not wake up in the middle of the night. And if the invited people do not arrive in time, the Kurmis would beat me up. My chacha [uncle] was twice beaten up by Panna Singh. The first time, it was for failing to invite some people during the shradh [memorial] ceremony of his father. On another occasion, during a marriage bhoj, he was beaten up for inviting the harijans of Dumari and the neighbouring village at the same time. Therefore there was no place for them to eat together. Calling out bieje is the worst part of being a paunia. I have done bieje even around 4 o’ clock in the morning. I am doing it just 43 The Thakurs or Nai belong to the lower stratum of the Backward Castes. There are six households of the Thakurs in Dumari, and three of them do services for the jajmani castes. They serve not only in Dumari but also in some neighbouring villages.

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because I live in this village. One Thakur gave up this job completely when he got a government employment. My family still does the paunia work as we have no other choice. Even if the Chamars tell us to invite people for their bhoj, we will do it. But they never come to us. Doing the paunia work is our khethi [‘cultivation’, meaning source of living].44

As pauni, Sivji and his father serve 30 Kurmi households in Dumari and all the households of the Yadavs in the neighbouring village. From these households, he receives 15 kilos of grain (8 kilos of paddy and 7 kilos of wheat) annually. Along with the pauni services he renders for the dominant castes, he also works as a barber for Dalits and other castes in the village. He and his father conduct marriage and funeral rituals for the lower castes, as the Brahmin priests refuse to go to ‘untouchable’ households. In some cases, in the Kurmi households, they assist the Brahmin priests in conducting marriage and other rituals. Like most villages in India, in Dumari, relations of dominance and subordination are often expressed through the idioms of purity and pollution. What is significant here is that purity and power cannot be separated while examining caste based discrimination (Dirks 1987; Raheja 1988; Mosse 1994). In my interviews with Dalits, they identified common sites in which practices of purity/impurity underpinned the Kurmi-Dalit relations in the village. As labourers they all shared a common experience of being served food in plates kept separate for Dalits in Kurmi households. Earlier, while narrating Rajesh’s story, I mentioned this practice. But unlike Rajesh many Dalit labourers resented this practice; and I shall refer to their stories while discussing the Maoist struggle in the village. The village bhoj is yet another site where the practices associated with purity/impurity constantly reinforce caste hierarchies. Only when the Kurmis and other upper castes have eaten are the Dalits served food. Regarding eating arrangements, Sivji Thakur gave the following explanation: During the bhoj in the Kurmi households, first Kurmis and other upper caste men eat. After them, the Sonars, Telis and the Dusadhs are served food. Then comes the turn of the Chamars. The Musahars and the Doms are never invited as they are considered the most unclean of all castes in the 44 Sivji Thakur and his family were very kind to me during my stay in Dumari. I was invited to their house many times for meals. These excerpts are from my conversations with him.

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village due to their unclean eating habits. After all the invited guests have eaten, the paunia [referring to himself], is given food to take away. After this, the Musahars and Doms are also given the leftover food.

In spite of caste discrimination in serving food, there is a great interest in and anticipation of bhoj in Kurmi households among Dalits. Dalit women, who are never invited, also show an interest and enquire about the food served. On the tenth day (dasva) of a death, kachi (rice and vegetables) is served, which is not much of an attraction. On the day of shradh (the twelfth day after the death), pakki-puri (puri served with sweet dishes such as bundia or jilebi) is served which everyone looks forward to. Those who are not invited go for mangan (begging for food). Although the Doms and the Musahars are often associated with mangan, the Musahars in Dumari have now stopped ‘begging for food’ at the Kurmi bhoj ceremonies, a change which I shall discuss in chapter three. During my stay in Dumari, I was invited, along with the members of the Dalit family I lived with, to the Kurmi households for bhoj. From what I had heard about the bhoj ceremonies from my Dalit informants, I was hesitant to attend for fear of being subjected to discriminatory practices associated with caste, such as waiting outside until after all the upper castes had eaten. However, my anthropological curiosity took precedence over my apprehensions, and I decided to experience a bhoj in a Kurmi household. On this occasion, the bhoj was held during the shradh ceremony of the mother of a landlord for whom Rajubhai used to work. A few days before the shradh, I was given angya by Sivji Thakur. On the day of the ceremony, Sivji came to the harijan tola calling out ‘bieje parle ho’. It was already close to midnight. When we reached the landlord’s house, the last group of Kurmis were still eating on the terrace. The Dusadhs and the Chamars were waiting outside for their turn. When those on the terrace came down, we went up. I saw a woman removing the used leaf plates. I was told that she was the kaharni (woman of the Kahar caste). Kahar women are employed as maidservants in Kurmi and upper caste households. We sat in a circle. I recognized one or two Kurmi faces among the predominantly Dalit group eating with me. I made a comment to Rajubhai regarding this and he replied that earlier this would never have happened. The food included puri, bundia, baigan (brinjal/eggplant), aloodham (potato curry), and aam ka acchar (mango pickle). At the end, curd (yogurt) and sugar was served as dessert. Immediately after the meal, everyone left, leaving

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their plates for the kaharni to remove. As we were leaving, I saw some Doms waiting for mangan outside. Dalits told me about other caste-based discriminatory practices that were prevalent in the village until the beginning of the Maoist struggle in the 1980s. They said that they were not allowed to sit on a katia (cot) when a Kurmi landlord passed by. For them, the most humiliating aspect of this practice was when their relatives visited the village as even they had to get up if the malik passed by. The Dalits were not allowed to wear watches or sandals. It was part of an unwritten restriction that they were not supposed to own animals. If they did, they were stolen. The Kurmis also punished Dalits for plucking chana saag (chickpea leaves which are often served with rice). My neighbour said that his wife was fined Rs 20 for plucking chana saag. Although some of these discriminations are no longer prevalent, the Dalit experience of being at the bottom of the caste hierarchy and their landlessness still make them doubly vulnerable. They have to depend on the Kurmi land not only for their own food, but also for fodder for the few cattle they still owned, and even to attend to the call of nature. The Kurmis once even created a desperate situation for the Dalits by preventing them from using their fields for the latter purposes.45 The spatial arrangement of the village itself is another marker of Dalit subordination (Figure 2.2). The Dalits live in the southern periphery of the village. The Kurmis and other upper castes live in the centre and in the north of the village. The road leading to the village ends at the north side and only small alleyways lead to the dakhin tola (the southern settlement/quarter). The dakhin tola is synonymous with the Dalit settlement in every village and such spatial expressions of subordination are prevalent all over rural Bihar and many other states in India (Moffatt 1979; Daniel 1984; Deliege 1992).46 I quizzed many Dalits on their perceptions of this arrangement and received various responses. Some people said that it had been like this ‘since the beginning’. An elderly man from the Dusadh community claimed that since ‘cholera always came from the 45

Excerpts from my interview with Ramender Das in Dumari, in April 2003. In Tamil Nadu for instance, the upper caste and Dalit settlements are known by different names. Uur is the upper caste area of the village, while ceeri or colony is where the Dalit live (Moffat 1979; Daniel 1984). Further, upper castes impose various restrictions and exclusions on Dalits in relation to accessing the upper caste settlement. 46

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Fig. 2.2: Caste-wise Spatial Structuring of Households in Dumari south, the Dalits were forced to live there’.47 Others reasoned that as people are usually buried or cremated with their head placed in the direction of the south, since Yama, the God of Death comes from there, the south is considered inauspicious. One Dalit respondent gave an explanation similar to the one I had heard from my Kurmi informants in Dumari, pointing out that the direction in which the wind blew in this region is usually easterly or westerly and rarely southerly or northerly. Therefore, according to him, by placing Dalits on the south side of the village, there was little danger of the ‘polluting’ air blowing from the Dalit settlement to the upper caste section of the village.48

Gendered Violences: Dalit Women’s Subordination, Home and Away Dalit women occupy the most marginal position in a caste-classgender oriented system of economic and political domination, status hierarchy and ‘Untouchability’. Paradoxically, they appear 47

Interview with Dukhan Dusadh in Dumari in January 2003. Interview with Krishna Das in Dumari in January 2003.

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to be more independent in comparison with women of the Kurmi, Yadav or upper castes. Unlike them, Dalit women are not confined to their households. They work together with their men and play a significant role in the running of the family. Their ‘independence’, however, makes them more vulnerable to sexual abuse and appropriation of their labour by the upper castes. They are often forced into caste-defined menial occupations. In jajmani relations, as I mentioned above, the Ravidasi women are called to perform ‘unclean’ duties associated with childbirth and pre-natal care in the Kurmi households.49 Although their services are essential in rural life, Ravidasi women are treated with disdain due to their ‘impure’ profession. A Ravidasi woman who worked as a village midwife had this harrowing experience to narrate. She said: Once, I was accompanying a Dusadh woman to hospital in her advanced stage of pregnancy. We got into the bus going from Dumari to Jehanabad town. But the passengers, mostly Kurmi men, forced us out of the bus. The badjan [upper caste people] were afraid that she would give birth in the bus and they did not want to get polluted by the childbirth. We had to hire an auto rickshaw to go to the hospital, paying Rs 40.50

As already mentioned, the Kahar women have to remove the leaf plates after the bhoj ceremonies. They are also employed as domestic servants in the Kurmi households. Further, although Dalit women do the most difficult work of transplanting paddy in knee-deep fields of mud, unlike their male counter parts, they are not given food. Earlier in Dumari, and still in some villages, women were paid lower wages than the male agricultural labourers. Before the Maoist struggle, the sexual exploitation of Dalit women by dominant caste men in 49 The Ravidasi women mostly ‘inherited’ the jajmani services which their mothers used to perform. The number of households in which they performed these services varied. Sometimes they also ‘sold’ their households (the rights to jajmani services) to other chamain. One of the Ravidasi women I interviewed said that she did jajmani work in 25 households of the Kurmis and Yadavs spread out in four villages. She earned 20 kilos of grain for assisting in the delivery and Rs 20 for narkatna (cutting the umbilical cord). For applying oil on the baby, she got 1 kilo of rice daily, for 7 days. Whenever, she ‘visited’ her jajman’s household, she usually got one kilo of rice (interview with a Ravidasi midwife in Dumari in February 2003). 50 This interview was conducted in March 2003 with a Ravidasi woman who lived close to my house in Dumari. She told me that five Ravidasi women in the village were often called to assist at childbirths (prasavati lena). They were paid 20 kilos of grain for the birth of a boy and 10 kilos for a girl. Some times they were also given old sarees of the malikini.

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this region was a normal occurrence. There were customs like the dola, which forced Dalit brides to spend their wedding nights with the local malik. My Dalit informants told me that in Dumari, there were many incidents of rape of Dalit women by Kurmi landowners.51 Even now, Dalit women working in the landlord’s fields are often subjected to sexual abuse. A young Dusadh woman confided to me that she felt very intimidated by the landlords when she worked in their fields. The women labourers are often taunted and harassed by the landowners and upper caste youth. Due to their low position in the social hierarchy, economic dependence and prevalent cultural stereotypes which characterize them as ‘women with low morality’, Dalit women become victims of exploitation, abuse and ridicule (Velaskar 1998: 54). This type of cultural construction is particularly applied to Musahar women. In Dumari I heard many stories of landlords keeping rakhel (mistresses) in the Musahar tola. Even within Dalit households, women have to bear many injustices. They have to combine responsibility for childcare and household work with the exacting demands of agricultural labour. Young women are often discriminated against for various reasons. I talked to a Dusadh woman in her late twenties who has six daughters. She told me that she intended to have one more child, hoping for a son this time, as her mother-in-law and husband blamed her for ‘giving birth only to girls’. Another girl, who had been childless during four years of marriage, was ridiculed in the village. In quarrels with family members or other women in the village she was often accused of being ‘barren’. When it came to surgery for birth control, it was always women, not men, who were forced to undergo it. Indeed, both men and women claimed that vasectomy would make men kamjor (weak). In Dumari I never heard women married into Dalit households being called by their own names. Even after many years of marriage they were still known by the name of their natal villages. The women are simply called Belkarawali (from Belkara village), Bakarawali (from Bakara), or Pakudwali (from Pakud). I had a long conversation with my neighbour, who was called Bakarawali, on issues concerning Dalit women’s position. It went as follows: George (G): Why are women in their in-laws’ house called by their village name and not by their own personal names? 51 Sexual abuse of Dalit women was one of the many reasons why the Dalits joined the Maoist struggle. I shall discuss this in chapters three and four.

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Bakarawali (B): It is always like that in the sasural (parent-in-law’s house). G: But why? B: Father-in-law, husband’s elder brother, etc are in the house. So it is not good to be called by my name. In my house, everyone calls me by my name. G: What is your name? B: (no reply) G: What do you call your husband? B: Raju’s father [Raju is her son]. G: What did you call him before Raju was born? B: Aji [a common expression used by women to address their husbands], or ‘please call him,’ and so on. G: What does Raju’s father call you? B: Bakarawali or Raju’s mummy. He never calls me by my name. G: Do you work as a labourer? B:Yes. Tomorrow I am transplanting paddy for Choudhuriji [Her father-inlaw works as harvaha for him]. G: How much do you earn? B: Three kilos of rice or wheat. G: Do you keep your wages for yourself? B: No, everything is given to the house. I don’t keep anything for myself G: Why don’t you keep some of your earnings for yourself? B: When there is a guarjian [guardian] in the house, why should I keep money for myself? G: What about your personal expenses such as to purchase cloths, bangles, oil, soap and so on? B: Even for that I do not keep anything. G: Who does the shopping for you? B: Raju’s father or my in-laws. I am not allowed to go to the shop. My motherin-law thinks that I will sell the grain—ghar bechkar bhagegi [will run away after selling the house]—so I am not supposed to go to the shop. G: Do you miss Raju’s father as he is in Gujarat now? B: Yes. Now there is nobody to buy me soap, surf [detergent] and oil. Otherwise he used to buy all these things. G: Then how do you manage now? B: I bring these items when I visit my parents’ house. G: Do you prefer sons or daughters? B: I like to have only boys. G: Why? B: They will bring their earnings. And we do not have to give dowry. G: What do you say about women who have no children? B: Childless women become target of ridicule within her family and among neighbours. G: Whose fault is it that she does not conceive, wife’s or husband’s?

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B: It is the problem of the woman as she has got the womb. So she should produce. G: If only girls are born who is to be blamed—husband or wife? B: Nobody is to be blamed. It is the bhagwan (God) who gives children. So why blame anyone? G: What will happen if people prefer only boys? B: A time will come when there are very few girls and then the boys will start giving dowry to the girls (laughing). G: Do people in the village abort female foetus? B: Yes it is done. G: How do people here carry out sex determination? B: The villagers go to the doctor for tests. Then medicine is taken for abortion. Sometimes, even after birth, girl children are killed. Saravan [a Ravidasi labourer in the village] killed his child.

The Bakarawali’s comments reflect the situation and opinions of Dalit women in general. Like her, many women spoke of the prevalence of abortion of female foetuses and female infanticide in

Illustration 2.3: Dalit Woman Walks the Fire. In religious rituals, it is women who walk through fire and observe fast and penance for the welfare of their men and families. This ritual was organized among the Dusadh community in a village near Dumari.

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Dumari. They pointed out that the dowry is the major reason for the prevalence of such incidences. In one Dalit household, a woman was said to have been murdered over the issue of dowry. The villagers told me that the girl was constantly harassed by her mother-in-law, husband and his brother to bring more money from her parents. Her husband was attracted to another woman who had a government job in Jehanabad town. Fearing that his wife would place obstacles in his second marriage, the family together murdered the girl. Then they tried to spread the story that the girl died of prolonged illness. On the complaint of the girl’s relatives, the police arrested her husband and in-laws. However, all of them were later released after they had made some ‘compromises’ with the relatives of the murdered woman.52 What emerges from the above discussion is that the intensity of Dalit women’s exploitation is very different from the oppression women from upper castes suffer—a factor to which feminist theorizing pays increasing attention today (cf. Mohanty 1991, 2003). Dalit women’s exploitation within Dalit households might in some sense reflect the experience of rural women in general, that is, the patriarchal control over women’s labour and sexuality, especially their reproductive capacities. But the specificity of Dalit women’s subordination is linked to their location at the bottom of caste, class and gender hierarchies (Velaskar 1998; Rao 2003).They are vulnerable, therefore, to multiple forms of subjugation as women, as Dalit women who are targets of upper caste exploitation and as Dalit women performing stigmatised labour, as in the case of Chamar and Kahar women. Further, the category of ‘Dalit women’ is of course not homogeneous. There is a wide spectrum of difference among them, as I shall demonstrate in the next section regarding Musahar women in terms of their status within the Dalit community and their access to resources.

Diversity in Dalit Experience: Story of the Musahars The Dalits are not an ‘undifferentiated mass’. Although the discussion above reflects the general conditions of Dalit castes in Dumari and more widely in Bihar, the effects of structural violence are greater on 52

This event was a big scandal among the Dalits in Dumari. I visited the house many times and everyone in the household reiterated the story that the girl died of illness. But other villagers narrated the story of murder.

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certain Dalit communities than others. For instance, the Doms and the Musahars suffer greater subordination than the Dusadhs, Ravidasis and the Dhobis in Dumari. The Doms are constantly accused of being thieves. In the past, some of them had been brutally killed accused as thieves.53 In this section, while continuing to explore Dalit marginalization, I examine the specificity of the Musahar experience. In Dumari, they form the second largest Dalit group, while in Bihar, they come third. They live in a state of chronic poverty.54 I consider it significant to explore the specificity of their experience as they are one of the most deprived communities, and yet they have formed a significant part of the rank and file of the Maoist Movement since the 1980s. In chapter three, I shall explore their participation in the Maoist Movement and discuss this in relation to the questions raised in the introduction, especially in reference to Wolf, Scott and others who hold the view that the landless and the marginal peasants are unlikely to rise in rebellion due to their dependence on landowners. There is little documentation on the history of the Musahars apart from a few limited observations, mostly prepared by the British anthropologist-administrators (Nesfield 1888; Risley 1891; Russell & Hiralal 1916; Hutton 1946). These analytical sketches portray the Musahars as a fragment of a Dravidian tribe, recently and imperfectly absorbed into the Hindu caste system. Risley traces their origin to the Bhuiya tribe of Chota Nagapur (in some parts of Bihar they are still known as Bhuiyas). He argues that while moving from the Chota Nagpur hills in South Bihar towards the north Bihar plains, ‘a small number [of Bhuiyas] successfully established themselves in Hazaribagh [...],’ and others, travelling further to the north, ‘fell under the domination of Hindus in Bihar, and were reduced to the servile status which the Musahars now occupy’ (Risley 1891: 111). 53 In May 1999, Pudena Dom was caught by villagers near Jehanabad accused of committing robbery. They chopped off his right hand. In 1993, Baliram Dom, who was accused of theft, was burnt alive with dry palm leaves (kagda) tied around him by the villagers of a village near Dumari. Daaru Dom was shot dead by police in 2001 when he tried to escape after committing a robbery (Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in December 2003). 54 In the documents of the Manchester-based Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), ‘Chronically poor people are those who experience deprivation over many years, often over their entire lives, and who sometimes pass poverty on to their children. Many of the chronically poor die prematurely from health problems that are easily preventable. Such poverty is hard to reverse’ (http://www.chronicpoverty. org/about/what_is_chronic_poverty.html. Accessed on 20 March 2007).

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The very name of the community itself is considered derogatory by the non-Musahars (and even by some Musahars themselves). Risley argues that the ‘Hindu masters’ might have named the community ‘Musahars’ due to its ‘non-Aryan and unclean habit of eating field mice’ (Risley 1891: 112). He further adds that from Vedic times to the present day, the tendency among the ‘Aryan colonists’ had been to give depreciatory names to the original inhabitants due to an aversion for their food habits (ibid.). Nesfield also links the origin of the name to the food habits of the community. He suggests that ‘Mushera’ derived from masu (flesh) and hera (seeker), a more comprehensive term than rat catcher (Nesfield cited in Risley 1891: 112). Other names given to the Musahars included banmanush (forest dweller), banraj (king of the forest), and maskhan (flesh eater) (ibid.). Little do we find in these constructions about what the Musahars call themselves. Risley mentions that although the use of term ‘Musahar’ by the Hindus was intended to be derogatory, it had become accepted by the Musahars themselves (ibid.). It is, however, uncertain whether the name reinforces their eating habit or vice versa. The Musahars still eat rats. And they are still ridiculed for this. Together with the name, various other folk expressions and sayings prevalent among the dominant castes further reinforce a negative image of the Musahars. From Dumari and other villages in Bihar, I collected many such expressions. Many of them ridicule the Musahars over their preoccupation with the daily meal: labani bhar dhan mein Bhuiya baurana or kotila bhar madua mein Musahar baurayalahak (‘Musahars get overwhelmed with a little grain’) or as Bhuiya kitene door dekhta hai, thali utana (‘the Bhuiyas cannot think beyond their plates’). Other renderings portray them as unreliable people: Musahar ka thaht math par (‘the Musahar’s roof is on his head’, meaning the Musahars cannot be entrusted with any responsibility because they are always on the run); Musahar jan aur kaubutar dhan (the Musahar labourers are likened to ‘pigeons who fly to anywhere in search of grain’. ‘There is no sense of loyalty in them’). Yet other expressions speak of the Musahars as ‘stupid’: kuthe ki poonch aur Musahar ki soch barabar (‘no amount of effort can change the Musahars. Their thinking is like the dog’s tail, which can never be straightened’); Meddahk ko sardi nahin hoti, Musahar ki baithak nahin hoti (‘as the frogs never catch cold, similarly the Musahars can never hold a meeting’); Musahar ko samjhana aur Kalkatha paidel jana barabar (‘It takes as long to walk to Calcutta

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[from Dumari which is around 500 miles] as it does to get a Musahar understand’). Similarly, the proverbs and myths prevalent in this region reinforce the image of Musahars as ‘lower beings’ and thus reproduce upper caste dominance. These dominant discourses are so effective that the Musahars seem to have internalised them and often refer to themselves through these dominant renderings (cf. Raheja 1996).55 For instance, in Dumari as well as Bihar in general, Musahars have the lowest literacy rate (Tables 2.7 and 2.8). I did not see Musahar parents making any efforts to send their children to school. They often asked me: ‘Musahar ka bachcha padkar daroga banega?’ (‘By going to school, will the Musahar child become a police inspector?’). Table 2.7: Number and Percentage of Literates among Dalits in Dumari Dalit Castes

Number of Literates Male Female Total

Percentage of Literates (%) Male Female Total

Ravidasi Dusadh Musahar Dhobi Dom

134 55 11 24 0

28.03 24.66 6.87 45.28 0

47 29 0 13 0

181 84 11 37 0

9.83 13.00 0 24.53 0

37.86 37.66 6.87 69.81 0

Source: Household Survey in Dumari, 2003

Table 2.8: Number and Percentage of Literates among Dalits in Bihar Dalit Castes Ravidasi Dusadh Musahar Dhobi Dom

Number of Literates Male Female Total 766525 758568 114986 156899 14657

255497 1022022 273831 1032399 30282 145268 68606 225505 4647 19304

Percentage of Literates (%) Male Female Total 18.74 18.82 5.44 24.23 9.43

6.24 6.79 1.43 10.59 2.99

24.98 25.62 6.87 34.82 12.42

Source: Census of India 2001 55 Such an assertion is problematic as it negates the agency of people who are subjected to exploitation. I shall return to this discussion later.

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The Musahars expressed their feelings of irony and helplessness through this question. On further inquiry, they told me that their children are often ridiculed at the village school by other students and teachers.56 Thanks to the state government’s housing scheme Indira Awas Yojna, the Musahars in Dumari have a roof over their heads. Both men and women work as labourers in the fields owned by the Kurmis. Out of 35 male agricultural workers, 30 are attached labourers. Two families rear pigs, one owning four and the other five. Although this brings a bit of extra income, the other castes in the village despise the Musahars for keeping pigs. None of the Musahars in Dumari earn a living from any household industry. If brewing and selling daaru (local liquor)57 could be called a cottage industry, then yes, three Musahar families make a living out of it and for this, they are constantly in trouble with the police and the Maoists. In the evenings, whenever I moved about the Musahar section of the village, I saw Kurmis from Dumari and Yadavs from the nearby village drinking. Other Dalit castes accused the Musahars of bringing the Dalit tola into disrepute with daaru and with the fights that came with the drunken visitors loitering around. Thus the Musahar association with daaru seemed to tarnish the community further as it became a pretext for their ‘Othering’ by non Dalits as well as other Dalit communities (cf. Froerer 2006).58 Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ may provide an explanation to this process of reproduction of the idioms of subordination in Musahar life. According to Bourdieu (1977: 127), ‘symbolic violence’ is the imposition by a dominant group of systems of domination through symbolism and customs in such a way that 56

In some places in Bihar, in the worst cases, Dalit parents even have to ask permission from landlords for sending their children to school. Mendelsohn and Vicziany refer to the story of Jitan Ram Manjhi, the Musahar politician from Bihar. Seeing his son’s interest in learning, Jitan Ram’s father approached the Bhumihar landlord to whom he was bonded for the permission for his son’s schooling. The response was a sound thrashing for the presumptuousness of even asking (1998). 57 Often the Musahars only sell liquor in Dumari. The comparatively wealthy Yadavs brew local liquor in large scale and sell it to the Musahars for Rs 10 a bottle, and the latter after adding water, sell it in the village for Rs 15. 58 Froerer (2006) discusses how because of the sale of local liquor by Christian Oraons in Chhattisgarh, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization, constructs them as the ‘threatening “Other”’ to be contained and isolated in order to protect Hindu interests.

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these systems are experienced as legitimate. This legitimization conceals the power relations, contributing to their systematic reproduction. This is achieved through a process which Bourdieu calls ‘misrecognition’, through which power relations are perceived in a manner that render them legitimate in the eye of those immersed in them. Consequently, social, political and economic indicators of inequality such as higher infant mortality, illiteracy, lack of political representation, landlessness, and other avoidable differences among groups are not perceived as violence but as ‘natural’ and even as part of a ‘divinely ordered’ scheme. I shall return to this discussion later. Like illiteracy, the high rate of infant mortality among the Musahars needs consideration. In Dumari, the infant mortality is high among the Dalits in general, but it is highest among the Musahars. Every Musahar family in this village has experienced the loss of one or several children due to illness or malnutrition. Among the Musahar households that I surveyed, out of 125 live births, 40 children had died in infancy.The Musahars, living in extreme poverty and lacking resources for health and hygiene, could do little to stop their children from dying. They seemed to have accepted this as yet another aspect of their everyday existence. The Musahars, especially Musahar mothers, had developed a kind of indifference as a coping mechanism. In Dumari, I heard many Musahar women pointing towards a sickly child saying: ye mua jai (‘this child will die’). Here one cannot miss the striking parallel with Scheper-Hughes’ (1992) ethnography of a Brazilian shanty town. In the context of extreme poverty and high infant mortality, Scheper-Hughes observes that the mother’s indifference to child death is a tactic for survival, a rational response, a kind of psychological numbing to make adult life bearable. Mothers delay forming an emotional attachment to their children, waiting to see if they would survive. This tendency makes sense as a triage tactic but also means the neglect of the most vulnerable child, turning his or her death into a self-fulfilling prophecy—ye mua jai. Scheper-Hughes writes: ‘In a world of great uncertainty about life and death, it makes no sense to put any one person—not a parent, not a husband or lover, and certainly not a sickly toddler or fragile infant—at the centre of anything’ (1992: 403). For the Musahars, in their everyday struggles to survive, issues such as illiteracy and infant mortality are not considered high priorities to be addressed.These categories remain ‘unnamed’ and ‘unrecognized’ structures of violence.

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Musahar women bore the brunt of poverty. In Jehanabad town, I often came across Musahar women doing the rounds of scavenging—picking rotten potatoes and vegetables discarded from cold storages and vegetable markets, collecting dead chicks and rotten eggs from poultry farms, gathering chicken entrails, skin and legs from the poultry shops and even sifting through cow-dung for undigested grain—for daily survival.59 Child marriage, although on the decline, is still prevalent. Girls are married off at an early age so that they do not fall prey to the sexual designs of upper caste men. In one village, I noticed that young girls always remained dirty and unkempt. On inquiring, I was told that this was a tactic to ward off the sexual advances of upper caste youth. The precariousness and vulnerability of Musahar everyday life is often transformed into fear.60 Once in Dumari, while I was talking to a Musahar woman, three policemen were walking towards the village. Hurriedly getting into her house, she confided to me that whenever she saw a policeman in uniform, to use her own words here: mera kaleja fail ho jata hai (meaning her fear amounts to having a heart attack). In September 2002, I visited Damoga–Khagidia village in Jehanabad district, where eleven people—six Ravidasis and five Musahars—were killed by the Yadavas in 1988. After visiting the families of the Ravidasi victims, I wanted to visit the relatives of the Musahars killed. I was told that the entire Musahar population of the village had fled after the massacre. The Musahars’ fear and vulnerability seem to be linked to their social isolation, including the spatial isolation they experience. As described earlier, the Dalits live at the southern end of the village, and the Musahar dwelling is further south, even isolated from other Dalit communities. Although they live within the boundary of a village, they are never a part of its official social milieu. The marginalization of the Musahars is also manifested in the community’s lack of representation in the political corridors of power in the state. The Musahars, despite being the third largest Dalit group in Bihar, after the Chamars and the Dusadhs, had only three representatives in the Bihar Legislative Assembly after the 2000 elections. In contrast, the Dusadhs with 12 members and the Chamars with 10 were better represented in the 59

I have been invited to many of these meals during my stay in the village. Several times, I have also been served rat with my plate of rice. 60 Balvig (1990) observes that for those who have few resources and are at the periphery of society, basic existential insecurity is easily transformed into fear.

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Illustration 2.4: MusaharWomen Scavenging through Rotten Potatoes. The poorest of the poor in rural Bihar, the Musahars lived a precarious existence. However, they were in the forefront of the Maoist struggle in Jehanabad in the 1980s.

Assembly.61 After the Assembly elections in November 2005, the number of the Musahar representatives increased to seven. In the same election the number of Dusadh representatives increased to seventeen, and the Chamar representation decreased to eight.62 In a caste-centred politics where the numerical strength of a caste is very significant, it might have been a strategic move on the part of the state to separate the Musahars from the Bhuiyas. For instance, until the 1961 census, they were counted together. If the Bhuiyas, numbering 568,403 (Census of India 2001), were to be counted with the Musahars, whose population is 2,112,136 (ibid.), together they would constitute 20 per cent of the Dalit population, giving them more bargaining power in the realm of representational politics. To conclude this section, the Dalit experiences of poverty and domination are deeply embedded in the unequal distribution of 61 The numbers have been obtained in an interview with Dr Jose Kananaikal, the director of the Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti, in April 2003. His organization was working among the Dalits in every district of Bihar. 62 Telephone interview with a Dalit political activist in Patna in March 2007.

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land and other natural resources as well as socio-cultural practices and institutions, Dalit landlessness, chronic debt and their lack of political representation; their experience of caste and its principles of hierarchy, purity and pollution, the spatial structuring of village, and an infinite number of other norms of control all operate as subtle mechanisms of their subjugation (cf. Foucault 1991: 221).63 Consequently, in some instances, the Dalits seem to internalize and reproduce the very idioms of their subordination. In the next section, I address the question of Dalit compliance in the context of their poverty and oppression.

Compliance or Resistance? Integrative Frameworks of Bourdieu and Gramsci The experience of structural violence as experienced by Musahars and other Dalit groups described above raises certain significant questions regarding such portrayals. Does this narration not run the risk of objectifying Dalits in terms of their sufferings and disadvantages which mutes other aspects of their lives—the hopes, the loves, the ambitions; can a group be so defined by their subordination that it seems that they lack the full range of human creativity? There are two aspects to these questions. First, as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, I have employed a selective approach to explore structural violence as experienced by Dalits and how their experiences created the conditions for their mobilization under the Maoist Movement. Far from denying agency, this work in fact, as I shall demonstrate in later chapters, is an affirmation of Dalit multiple voices. Second, my portrayal of structural violence addresses a deeper dilemma—‘a classic double bind’, as Scheper-Hughes calls it (1992: 533) which one encounters in the analysis of oppression and resistance. According to ScheperHughes either we can emphasize the power of oppression, but in doing so, we risk reducing the subjectivity and agency of people as victims; or like Scott (1985) and others we can focus on everyday 63 Foucault talks about the creation of ‘docile bodies’ through ‘the infinitely minute web of panoptic techniques’ (1991: 224) or disciplines of ‘subtle calculated technology of subjection’ (ibid.: 221). He observes that discipline neutralizes ‘the effects of counter-power [...] agitations, revolts, spontaneous organizations, coalitions—anything that may establish horizontal conjunctions’ (ibid.: 219).

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forms of resistance, tactics and coping mechanisms—‘the weapons of the weak’—but run the risk of romanticizing human suffering, or trivializing the effects of poverty on the human spirit and will, and thereby fail to hold the perpetrators of oppression morally accountable (ibid.). My approach is to transcend this dilemma by acknowledging the durable effects of poverty and oppression on Dalit agency as well as the Dalit capacities to challenge them. Both these aspects characterize the everyday Dalit world in Dumari. I explain below how Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ and Gramsci’s notion of ‘contradictory consciousness’ could be useful analytical tools to explore both the impact of durable structures of oppression on Dalit lives and how at the same time they express their agency in manifold ways in everyday situations. Bourdieu attempts to explain how the ‘the most intolerable conditions of existence can so often be perceived as acceptable and even natural’ (2001: 1) by those who live in such conditions. In addressing this concern, he wants to ‘move beyond the forced choice between constraint (by force) and consent (to reasons), between mechanical coercion and voluntary, free, deliberate even calculated submission’ (ibid.: 37). As the way forward, Bourdieu proposes the notion of ‘symbolic violence’: ‘... imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition (more precisely, misrecognition), recognition, or even feeling’ (ibid.: 1–2). I referred to the concept of symbolic violence earlier in this chapter in order to describe how Musahars reproduce dominant discourses in their everyday life. According to Bourdieu, the submission of the dominated groups is not a ‘voluntary servitude’ and their ‘complicity is not granted by a conscious, deliberate act; it is itself the effect of power, which is durably inscribed in the bodies of the dominated, in the form of schemes of perceptions and dispositions’ (Bourdieu 2000: 170–1). The term by which Bourdieu calls these internalized structures, schemes of perceptions and actions common to members of a group is habitus (Bourdieu 1977: 86).The habitus generate people’s practices which while reproducing the relations of domination, also changes them. As mentioned in the introduction to this book, this is a dynamic process because social agents who occupy the stratified social spaces or ‘fields’ are constantly engaged in struggle for unequally distributed resources or capitals—economic, cultural, and symbolic. Echoing this idea, Willis writes: ‘Social agents are not passive bearers of

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ideology, but active appropriators who reproduce existing structures only through struggle, contestation and partial penetration of those structures’ (1977: 175). Thus Musahars and other Dalits, in their day-to-day struggles for survival within the structures of domination, accept, modify and resist the dominant interests. Gramsci’s notion of ‘contradictory consciousness’ is similarly underpinned by these ideas of subordination and contestation. Gramsci (1998 [1971]) views subaltern consciousness as a contradictory realm of ideas and behaviour in which accommodation and resistance exist in constant tension. He writes: ‘The active man in the mass [...] One might almost say that he has two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his activity and which in reality unites him with all his fellow-workers in the practical transformation of the real world;64 and one, superficially explicit or verbal, which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed’ (1998 [1971]: 333). It is at this second level of consciousness that Gramsci locates ‘consent’ which informs his concept of hegemony.65 The dominant classes control not only the means of physical production but the means of symbolic production as well. Their control over the material forces of production is replicated, at the level of ideas, in their control over the ideological sectors of society—culture, religion, education and the media—in a manner that allows them to disseminate those values that reinforce their dominance. As a result, dominance is achieved not so much through sanctions and coercion as by the consent and passive compliance of subordinate groups (ibid.: 12–13). Bourdieu and Gramsci thus provide a conceptual framework for understanding aspects of both compliance and resistance among Dalit groups. In terms of compliance, the effects of poverty and powerlessness linked to Dalit landlessness, caste discrimination, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation are ‘durably inscribed’ and ‘uncritically absorbed’ into the life world of the Dalits. As a consequence, Dalits sometimes reproduce dominant values and norms by which they themselves are discriminated against. Earlier I described instances of these in relation to Musahars. In many villages in the Magadh region, I have observed Dalits refer to 64

This aspect of consciousness, according to Gramsci, is not yet fully developed, but contains a sense of emancipatory agency (Gutmann 1996). 65 The concept of hegemony is not without its ambiguity and its interpretations have also differed with its each application (Crehan 2002).

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themselves by the same terms which the upper castes use to degrade them—that is, they view themselves as the upper castes view them. Some Dalit parents call their children achut (‘Untouchable’), suvar ke bachche (‘descendants of pigs’), nich (‘degraded’) and so forth. Some even name their children Dukhan, (the sorrowful), Sukhali (the dried), Marnichiya (the dead-like), Bhudhu (the stupid), Phenki or Pheku, (the thrown away), Sadali (the rotten). I never came across such names among the upper or middle caste communities. Dalits seem to transfer their experience of a ‘systematic negation of their personhood’ to the generations after them, which result in the creation of a collective ‘colonized personality’ (cf. Fanon 1988: 250). In Dumari, as Moffatt (1979) has pointed out in relation to Tamil Nadu,66 different Dalit castes seemed to ‘replicate’ among themselves the idioms of caste by which they were excluded by the upper castes (I shall discuss the arguments relating to the counter-cultural rejection of the caste system shortly). In Dumari, some Dalit castes, just like upper castes, employ idioms of purity and impurity to measure the status of each caste group. As I indicated earlier, Kurmis never invite Doms and Musahars to their bhoj ceremonies because of their ‘unclean’ eating habits.The Dusadhs and Chamars tend to look down on Musahars and Doms. My Dusadh and Chamar neighbours often expressed their ‘mild displeasure’ whenever I was invited to eat in the Dom or Musahar households. Like the Kurmis in the village, they too hold the view that Musahars and Doms are ‘unclean’. As I observed earlier, Musahar dwellings are placed south of other Dalit settlements, another sign which indicates their low status among Dalit groups. Dusadhs further claimed that Chamars and Dhobis had lower status than themselves due to their engagement with unclean professions. There appears to be an apparent ‘consensus’ among Dalits with regard to the general features of the caste system, especially in matters relating to purity and impurity. The question of replication and reproduction cannot be viewed in isolation to the second element which Bourdieu and Gramsci highlight—struggle and resistance. In India, Dalit struggles for 66 Moffatt through his study of ‘Untouchable’ communities in Endavur, Tamil Nadu, claims that the ‘Untouchables’ live in ‘cultural consensus’ with generally accepted principles of caste system; they ‘replicate’ among themselves the principles of hierarchy, purity/impurity and various other norms associated with the system (1979: 3, 98).

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dignity and protest against caste oppression took various forms in different times and places. Deliege (1991) in his critique of Moffatt’s position provides evidence of Dalit counter-cultural rejection of the caste system. He, like many others (Gough 1973; Mencher 1974; Berreman 1979), argues for the existence of a distinct Dalit culture represented in their origin myths, songs and egalitarianism, and which rejects upper caste norms and practices. Dalit struggles and protests were further expressed in various socioreligious and political movements of the twentieth century. The Satnami Movement among the Chamars in Chattishgarh (Fuchs 1965), Ad Dharam Movement in the Punjab (Juergensmeyer 1982, Khare 1984), Dalit conversions to Buddhism (Zelliot 2001) and Christianity (Mosse 1994); their adherence to egalitarian sects like Kabir-panth (Lorenzen 1996), were part of their struggles for symbolic and material resources.They clearly affirm the argument for Dalit agency in the face of the durable effects of caste dominance and exploitation. In north and south Bihar, Dalits sometimes joined the larger resistance of the peasantry, expressed in periodic riots and which often culminated into sustained agrarian movements, especially in the period following World War I (Das 1983: 57). The Champaran Satyagraha led by Gandhi in 1917 took up the tenant grievances against the large Indigo planters (ibid.: 59ff).67 The Kisan Sabha, founded by Swami Sahajanand Saraswati in 1927, soon became the most powerful organization representing the interests of the exploited cultivators (Das 1983; Frankel 1989).68 The Sathi Farm struggles, 67

Gandhi began the Champaran Satyagraha in 1917 on behalf of the tenantry who were forced to cultivate indigo in their holdings, provide forced labour to the factories and pay abwabs. Gandhi’s efforts were successful in stopping the indigo cultivation. The tenants who benefited from this agitation were the upper caste Hindus and upper status Muslims. They became free to cultivate sugar-cane in their holdings and make big profits from their holdings. Champaran Satyagraha did not end the exploitation of the lower tenantry and the labourers. For them one kind of exploitation was replaced with another. Hence a saying prevalent in Champaran was Nilhe gaye, milhe aaye (the indigo planters have gone and in their place (sugar) mill owners have come (Das 1983: 59ff). 68 Initially, Swami Sahajanand’s efforts were aimed at establishing the Bhumihars as true Brahmins. But gradually he took up the grievances of the tenants who were exploited by the big landlords and the caste questions initially raised by the Bhumihars later took the content of a class struggle. He established the Kisan Sabha in Patna district in 1927. It became Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha in 1929, and in 1936, became a national organization with the name All India Kisan Sabha. Many members of the

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again in Champaran district in the 1950s, were organized efforts by tenants to reclaim the land illegally appropriated by the landlords (Das 1983).69 Further, the various land reform measures introduced by the government, as well as the Bhoodan initiatives, were in response to the growing agrarian unrest in the countryside (Jannuzi 1974; Louis 2002). Dalits were not, however, the main protagonists of these agrarian movements. These were led by the middle peasantry and predominantly tried to address the grievances of the middle peasants and advance their interests. But these struggles definitely contributed to Dalit mobilization under the Naxalite Movement in the 1970s and the 1980s (Hauser 2004). In the early 1900s, the formation of caste associations became yet another platform for different caste groups to strengthen their specific caste identities, to put forward their political demands and to raise their caste status (Rudolph & Rudolph 1967; Frankel 1989). Among the Dalits, the first to form a caste association was the Dusadh community, who formed the Dusadh Sabha in 1911. Like the Kurmi, Koeri and Yadav castes, the Dusadh community used its caste association to make their claims for kshatriya status (Pinch 1996). The Ravidasis followed suit, with the formation of the Ravidas Sabha in 1928 under the leadership of Jagjivan Ram, who later became the most recognized leader from the Dalit community (Frankel 1989).70 Here again the impact of Dalit caste associations in raising Dalit status is debatable. Blair (1979: 16) claims that caste mobilizations proved beneficial mainly for the upper and middle castes, and not Dalit and other lower castes. However, it cannot be denied that even Dalits caste organizations became a potential platform for their political participation after Independence. I shall middle castes also joined the movement. This organization led many struggles on their behalf. At the height of its popularity in the 1930s it had a membership of 250,000 people spread out in many districts of Bihar (Das 1983; Frankel 1989: 81). 69 It was the first major agrarian movement in Bihar after independence. In 1942, the Congress government appointed B. B. Verma, an important Congress leader and landholder, as the first Indian Manager of the Bettiah Raj. But he transferred over 350 acres of Sathi farm land in favour of the Shahi brothers—Ram Prasad Shahi and Ram Rekha Prasad Shahi, who were already big landowners. After 1947, the tenants organized themselves against this transfer. The struggle continued for almost 10 years (Das 1983: 223–5). 70 Jagjivan Ram retuned as a member of the parliament from the Sasaram constituency from 1952–82. He served as a minister in various governments. He was also appointed Deputy Prime Minister in the Janata government in 1977.

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discuss in chapter five the contemporary significance of caste-specific mobilizations among Dalits in the Magadh region. Further, there is a whole realm of Dalit tactics and strategies which are covert and subtle, but speaks volumes about Dalit protest against caste and class oppression. They come under the category of what Scott calls ‘everyday forms of peasant resistance—the prosaic but constant struggle between the peasantry and those who seek to extract labour, food, taxes, rents and interests from them [...]’ (1985: 29).71 This daily struggle consists of what he calls the ‘the ordinary weapons of the relatively powerless groups: foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage and so forth’ (ibid.). Scott, on another occasion, calls them the ‘hidden transcripts’ which represent a critique of power spoken behind the back of the dominant’ (1990: xii). Rajesh, my neighbour in Dumari, who works as a laugua mazdur, and who I thought was the most ‘submissive’ Dalit labourer in Dumari, told me that often, irked by his malikini’s taunts of his ‘impurities’, he used to spit in the water in which he washed their plates. There are numerous other ways in which Dalits express their resentment in ‘hidden transcripts’.72 Although Scott develops his theory of everyday forms of resistance in contrast to the idea of ‘durable effects’ of power and dominance leading to Dalit ‘internalization of dominant structures’, I argue against seeing on the one hand covert and overt struggles and on the other compliance to domination as mutually exclusive paradigms for understanding Dalit agency. In this regard, Mosse points out that: ‘The idea that the dominated have a false sense of their own interests, or the contrary view that acquiescence is a tactical move within a broad orientation of resistance [as described by Scott], has generated much rather fruitless debate. It makes little sense to try to choose between consent and dissent’, because our ‘perceptions, 71 Scott disagrees with Gramsci. He argues that the concept of hegemony overlooks ‘the necessity of routine and pragmatic submission to the ‘compulsions of economic relations as well as the realities of coercion’ (Scott 1985: 317). Scott also contends that the concept of hegemony ignores the extent to which most subordinate classes are able, on the basis of their daily material experience, to penetrate and demystify the dominant ideology (ibid.). 72 In looking at Dalits or any oppressed community, Goffman’s (1959) distinction between back stage and front stage interactions are useful. In the front stage interactions with the landlords, the Dalits might appear to be submissive and docile. But out of sight, they ridicule the upper castes and their belief systems.

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judgements and actions are always made within “structures of choices” that are already constituted socially’ (2007: 30). Bourdieu’s notion of ‘sybmolic violence’ and Gramsci’s idea of ‘contradictory consciousness’, therefore, provide an inclusive approach that enbles us to examine both the effect of Dalit socialization within the structures of domination and their constant struggles for material and symbolic resources.

Conclusion In conclusion, let me draw together some of the arguments raised in this chapter. The overall aim of the chapter has been to provide a background for understanding the preconditions for subsequent Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement. The second aim has been to develop an analytical framework that integrates the structural effects of power and dominance on the Dalit life-world on the one hand and Dalit protest actions and self assertions on the other, rather than seeing them as alternative paradigms. With this in view, I have examined the historical trajectories of deeply embedded structural cleavages between landless Dalits and landowning upper and middle castes in the Magadh region. First, I have attempted to demonstrate how the colonial agrarian policies and the zamindari system of land rights established the historical context and structural configurations in which the upper castes established an enduring dominance in Bihar. Second, I have argued that postcolonial Bihar witnessed both continuity and change. The period immediately after Independence witnessed a further consolidation of upper caste power and dominance. The decades after the 1960s saw the political and economic ascendancy of the middle castes, especially the Yadav, Kurmi and Koeri communities. The poverty and exploitation of the Dalits, however, only intensified during this period. Third, by focusing on Dumari village, I have examined the durable effects of power and dominance on Dalits in general and in particular on the Musahar community, and the process by which they reproduced idioms of dominance and subordination in their everyday relations within the family and outside. Lastly, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ and Gramsci’s notion of ‘contradictory consciousness’, I have tried to go beyond the misplaced emphasis on structure or agency, consensus or dissensus, in order to explore the Dalit life-world as a site of

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both submission and struggle. Prolonged exposures to structural inequalities of power lead to internalization of dominant values. But as Williams argues: ‘No mode of production, and therefore no dominant society or order of society, and therefore no dominant culture, in reality exhausts all human practice, human energy and human intention’ (2005:43). It is within this context of dynamic tension between effects of structural cleavages and Dalit aspirations for change that I locate the rise of the Maoist Movement in the 1980s. The Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement, then, rather than a radical break with the past, can be considered as a continuation of Dalit struggles for material and symbolic resources within the stratified ‘social spaces’ or ‘fields’, which over time may lead to the very transformation of these ‘spaces’.

3

From the Mud Houses of Dumari Revolutionary Murmurings and Dalit Militancy

Introduction IN THIS CHAPTER, I RETURN TO MUNARI DAS’ STORY OF THE MITTI KA GHAR

and kranti—the ‘mud houses’ of Dalits and the beginnings of the Maoist revolution in Dumari in 1980. It is significant to note that Dumari, like most other villages in the region, was not strategically conducive to guerrilla warfare as we might normally understand it. There were no jungles or mountains for the guerrillas to retreat to in order to recoup. The village was situated in the plains, surrounded by paddy fields. The structural cleavages and relations of dominance and subordination between the landed classes and the labourers discussed in the previous chapter were no different in Dumari from other villages in the region; yet it was in this village that the collective mobilization of Dalits under the influence of the Maoist leadership was born, and its influence soon spread to the whole of the region. In this chapter, I explore the beginnings of the Dalit struggle against the landed classes in this village, its specificities and its impact on the everyday world of Dalits. The contents of this chapter, following Tarrow’s notion of ‘protest cycle’, highlight the heightened phase of conflict and contention in the village. The ‘protest cycle’ begins, as Tarrow points out, with the ‘conventional patterns of conflicts’ centred on existing structural cleavages (1989: 8). In the case of Dumari, as I discussed in chapter two, conflicts were inherent in people’s unequal rights over land, water and other resources, which were naturalized in caste hierarchies and various other markers of power and dominance in the village. Along with these factors, Tarrow contends, we need to examine people’s actions, motivations, decisions and the range

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of opportunities that are available to them in order to explain all the actions that take place within the ‘protest cycle’, in particular its transformation into a phase of heightened conflict (ibid.). The rise of the Maoist Movement, I argue, played a crucial role in influencing these factors and the transformation of the ‘conventional patterns of conflict’ into an intense phase of Dalit mobilization and armed violence. I develop my arguments based on a number of interviews that I conducted, mainly with two groups of people in Dumari: First, those who had lived through the violent events of the 1980s, participated in them and who now had sufficient time to reflect systematically on those events; and second, others, especially those who were born after the struggle, but who were inducted into its ‘collective memory’ through the oral traditions of remembering and narration maintained by the village elders. In drawing on their memory and collective narratives, I examine some methodological issues involved in such story telling, especially in relation to the ‘official’ memory and the ‘popular’ memory of the struggle prevalent among both Dalits and Kurmis (cf. Foucault 1977; Bloch 1998; Misztal 2003). My main concern in this chapter is to highlight the heightened phase of Dalit mobilization. In relation to this period, the general Dalit narrative, in spite of the suffering and violence, was appreciative of the role of the Maoist Movement. This, however, does not mean that Dalit memory was wholly unified in relation to the Maoist Movement. I shall examine Dalit critique of the Movement in later chapters, especially in chapter five when I discuss the phase of demobilization associated with the ‘protest cycle’. What this chapter discusses, then, can be set out in the following manner. First, I explore the beginnings of Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement in Dumari in the 1980s and contextualize this in the historical setting of Dalit collective assertions in rural Bihar. Second, I present the contrasting narratives of Dalits and the landowning classes regarding the struggle in the village and the meanings they attributed to the events and actions associated with it. While the Dalit version emphasized the rise of the Maoist Movement in the village as representing their struggle against exploitation; the landowning communities denied the existence of any injustice and associated the growth of the Maoist Movement to internal caste feuds among the Kurmis. I argue that these narratives are shaped by each group’s location within the structures of power in the village.

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Third, I trace the Dalit memories of the events of the 1980s—their collective actions against the Kurmi exploitation, the outbreak of violence, the arrival of the Bhumi Sena, the killings, and the Dalit exile from the village. I argue that Dalit articulations of self and community are constituted in the act of remembering and narrating their experience of struggle, violence and suffering. I examine these political acts of ‘recalling’ as ‘agentive moments’, producing new Dalit consciousness and identities. Fourth, I argue that the above events set in motion an ongoing struggle for hegemony and counterhegemony in the village. I examine some factors which signified a change in the power relations—the emerging Dalit leadership, village committees and the participation of some of the most marginalized Dalit castes in the decision-making process. In the concluding section of this chapter, I reflect on two processes at work in Dumari; the first relates to the practice of hegemony and counter-hegemony; the second involves Dalit participation in the revolutionary struggle and the role of the Maoist organization. In relation to the first, I locate the power struggles in the village within Bourdieu’s notion of ‘social fields’, to which I referred in the introduction to this book. Regarding the second process, in highlighting the role of Dalits, especially the Musahars in the revolutionary struggle, I revisit some literature on peasant revolutions discussed in the introduction (Wolf 1969, 2001; Migdal 1974; Paige 1975; Scott 1977a, 1979; Stoll 1993). In doing so I argue that the Dalit revolutionary agency described in this chapter counters Stoll’s claim that peasants in revolutionary situations are victims of ‘dual violence’ and ‘rebels against their will’ (1993: xi, 20).

Revolutionary Beginnings: The Maoist Party and Dalit Militancy During the colonial and postcolonial era, the agrarian history of Bihar was characterized by unrest involving the repressive forces of the landlords and state on the one hand; and the resistance of the marginal peasants and agricultural labourers on the other. From the mid-1960s, however, the struggle became more acute and widespread, and took the now familiar form of the Naxalite Movement. The origins of the Movement, involving armed struggle and rural guerrillas, and modelled after the Maoist ideology and strategies can be traced back to the peasant revolt at Naxalbari village

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(hence the name Naxalite Movement) in the Siliguri subdivision of West Bengal in 1967. In this area, the ‘tribal’ peasants under the local leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) forcibly appropriated land on some tea plantations. This radical action by the local leadership, however, resulted in a split within the Party, leading to the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), or CPI (ML) by members who were in favour of a more militant line, especially on agrarian reforms (Sen 1982), and with this formation the Maoist Movement in India was born.1 The Movement spread to various parts of the country during the 1970s, a process that has been chronicled by numerous observers, both in relation to India generally (Sengupta 1972; Dasgupta 1974; Roy 1975; Sen, Panda & Lahiri 1978; Banerjee 1980; Ray 1988) and in terms of its particular role in Bihar (Mukherjee & Yadav 1980, 1982; CPI (ML) Document 1986; Wilson 1999; Louis 2002; Bhatia 2000, 2005a; Kunnath 2006, 2009). The Maoist armed struggle was organized around the ideology that the agrarian sector in India was still ‘semi-feudal’ and ‘semicolonial’ (Ray 1988: 177–203), dominated by landlords with vast, economically unproductive holdings. This landlord class was tainted in two particular ways. First, the landlords in India were seen as the local representatives of foreign capital.2 Second, these proprietors were deemed to be interested only in rental income extracted from sharecropping and/or bonded labour through semi-feudal relations of caste and class oppression. 3 It was against these dominant 1 In ideological and strategic terms, the birth of the Maoist Movement in India was influenced by the Sino-Soviet split in the mid-1960s. The more radical elements within the Communist Party of India (CPI) sought to distance themselves from the reformist Moscow-oriented character of the party, thus forming the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or in short CPI (M) with a Beijing orientation. Later the split within the CPI (M) and the formation of CPI (ML) followed due to the question of armed struggle. Henceforth the CPI (ML) claimed to follow the path of Maoist China (Ghosh 1974; Roy 1975). 2 According to the CPI (M-L) programme of 1970, its object was ‘the complete overthrow of the rule (in the Indian countryside) by the big feudal landlord classes, the agents and lackeys of US Imperialism’ (Roy 1975: 271). In other words, the economic backwardness of the agrarian sector was seen as a product of ‘semi-colonial’ foreign domination mediated by ‘semi-feudal’ landlordism. 3 The literature on bonded labour in rural India is vast, and the debate about this form of employment (whether such relations are coercive, a specifically feudal form of exploitation, and compatible with capitalism) is correspondingly wide-ranging. For a recent overview of this debate see Brass (1999, 2002a).

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landed classes that the Maoist ‘people’s war’ was to be waged by a United Front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary groups engaged in the armed struggle under a Marxist, Leninist and Maoist ideology. In Bihar, the three main revolutionary groups operating under the above ideology were the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. Along with the struggle against the landed classes, these groups often engaged in fratricidal wars, with mainly poor peasants becoming victims of such violence. In October 2004, however, after prolonged negotiations, the MCCI and the CPI (ML) People’s War came together to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist).4 My interactions mainly took place with the activists of the CPI (ML) People’s War, who were earlier members of the CPI (ML) Party Unity. The Party Unity merged with the CPI (ML) People’s War in 1998. In this book, therefore, unless otherwise indicated, I mention the Maoist Party with reference to the CPI (ML) Party Unity and the CPI (ML) People’s War. A detailed account of the activities and interactions of this organization will be discussed later, as my fieldwork was conducted mainly among its activists and sympathizers. Both the People’s War and MCCI upheld the path of armed struggle and were banned by the Indian state. The Liberation, although it had been engaged in armed struggle earlier, had at the time of my research shifted its activities to parliamentary politics.5 South Bihar remains the stronghold of these three organizations (map 3.1).6 The social base of these groups largely consists of 4 The Annual Report of the Ministry of Home affairs points out that this merger has added a new dimension to the Naxal scenario in India with its aim of ‘carving out a Compact Revolutionary Zone (CRZ), spreading from Nepal through Bihar and Dandakarnya region of Madhya Pradesh [...] together with the Communist Party of Nepal’. The Report says that the ‘Naxalites have an assessed strength of 9,300 hard-core underground cadres. They hold around 6,500 regular weapons besides a large number of unlicensed country-made arms’ (Ministry of Home Affairs 2004–05: 3). 5 The Liberation first contested in the elections through its frontal organization Indian People’s Front (IPF) in 1985. Since the 1995 assembly elections, it has registered itself as CPI (ML) Liberation with the Election Commission and contests elections in this name (Bhatia 2005a). 6 The organizational histories and working of these groups are detailed by Bhatia (2000, 2005a) and Louis (2002).

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Map 3.1: South Bihar: The Maoist Heartlands7 (of the 1980 and the 1990s) landless labourers and marginal peasants. In caste terms these could be identified as the Dalit and intermediate castes. However, they also have some supporters among the higher castes and classes, who incidentally often occupy positions of leadership within the organizations (Bhatia 2005a: 1537–38). The Naxalite struggles are waged around the issues of land rights, minimum wages, izzat (dignity), and sexual abuse of Dalit women. They organize wage strikes, economic blockades, people’s courts and armed actions (including the ‘annihilation’ of oppressive landlords). Due to the influence of the Maoist ideology, rural Bihar has witnessed an unprecedented mobilization of marginal peasants and landless labourers against the landowning classes since the 1970s. To counter this grassroots challenge, the landowning classes created their own caste sena (militia). By the 1980s, every landed 7 Before the partition of Bihar in 2000 this region was known as Central Bihar. After Jharkhand was separated from Bihar, the region is located in the south part of the state.

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caste in Bihar had a sena. The senas operated mainly in South Bihar, the heartland of the Maoist struggle. The Kurmi caste formed the Bhumi Sena in 1980. In Dumari, as I shall discuss later, it was against this sena that the Dalits battled, resulting in the loss of many lives. There were other caste senas, too, such as the Lorik Sena of the Yadavs, the Ganga Sena and the Sunlight Sena of the Rajputs. Most dreaded of all, however, was the Ranveer Sena formed by the Bhumihar caste in 1994. In the first five years of its formation, Ranveer Sena was responsible for some 26 massacres, killing 247 people, mostly Dalits (PUDR Report 1999; Louis 2002). During the last three decades of violence, many senas have been decimated by the Maoist armed squads. However, the Ranveer Sena remained the most feared of all the private armies of the landed classes. State agencies, especially the police, state ministers and politicians have been accused of aligning with the Ranveer Sena, in order to suppress the peasant resistance (Human Rights Watch 1999; Louis 2002). I shall discuss this state-sena nexus in chapter six. The Maoists first arrived in Dumari in 1979 on the invitation of a young man from the Kurmi caste who had previously been a member of the Socialist Party.8 He arranged a secret meeting with the Maoist activists and some Kurmi and Dalit youth in Dumari. Initially they met in the paddy fields outside the village under the cover of darkness.They were afraid of the Kurmi landlords. Gradually the venue of these meetings shifted to the dark, windowless mud houses of the Dalits in Dumari. The growing Dalit mobilization under the influences of the Maoist ideology eventually led to open confrontation between the Kurmis and Dalits. ‘The revolutionary murmurings in the mud houses of Dumari,’ said one of my research participants, ‘were then transformed into the roars of guns and the battles for izzat (dignity) and equality.’9 In this section, I explore various factors which led to the spread of the Maoist Movement in the village. One of the leaders who rallied the Dalit labourers in Dumari to the Maoist cause pointed out a few factors which, according to 8 This information regarding the beginnings of the Maoist Movement in Dumari was gathered from the Kurmi leader who himself had invited the Maoists to Dumari. I interviewed him in Jehanabad in July 2003. For several years, he worked with the Mazdur Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS), a peasant organization of the CPI (ML) Party Unity. 9 Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in January 2003.

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him, played a significant role in Dalit mobilization in the village.10 He claimed that the increasing social cleavage between the Kurmis and Dalits was very visible in Dumari, perhaps even more so than in other villages. None of the Kurmis in this village were landless whereas the majority of the Dalits had no land at all. Further, compared to other villages, a high percentage of the Kurmis from Dumari held government jobs; among them were three engineers, some clerks and several government teachers. A steady income from stable jobs allowed them to invest more money in the cultivation of their land. Availability of new technologies, irrigation facilities, high yielding seeds and chemical fertilizers, improved agriculture and brought increased prosperity to the Kurmis—the effects of the Green Revolution which I discussed in the previous chapter in relation to the rise of the middle castes. However, there was no corresponding improvement in the situation of the Dalit labourers, nor were they treated better by their maliks. The same leader also ascribed the success of the Maoist mobilization to demographic factors. He voiced the opinion that because Dumari was one of the largest villages in Jehanabad, with a population of more than 5000 people (a large proportion of whom were landless Dalits), there was a distinct sense of solidarity and confidence to be found in numbers under the influence of the Maoist organization. The Dalit mobilization in Dumari, however, needs to be examined in the context of its historical setting—the rising incidence of peasant uprisings in South Bihar. Before the arrival of the Maoists in Bihar there were other actors who mobilized the peasantry around the issues of land, wages, and social oppression. Although it is beyond the scope of this book to give a detailed history of these struggles, I give a brief account of them in order to situate Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement.

Beyond Dumari: Dalit Uprisings In the last chapter, I made reference to the work of Swami Sahajanand and the Kisan Sabha among tenant cultivators before Independence. After Independence, the Socialist Party in Bihar took up agrarian issues and made inroads into rural areas. Although this party mainly represented the socio-economic aspirations of the 10 Interview with Dr Vinayan, who was the founding president of the MKSS, in July 2003.

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middle peasantry, it tried to win over the landless Dalit labourers with its proposed campaigns under the slogans of ‘land to the tiller’ and ‘abolition of caste system’ (Louis 2002: 137). The Socialist Party’s growing appeal among the poor peasantry contributed to its electoral success, and in the 1952 general elections, the party won the Jehanabad parliamentary seat (Gupta 1994: 203). Although its campaigns raised a glimmer of hope among Dalits, the party did not produce any concrete plans for the active redistribution of land among the landless or for the abolition of the caste system. Moreover, because the landowning Backward Castes comprised the party’s main support base it was anxious not to antagonize them by campaigning for the interests of landless labourers which in many villages were in direct collision with those of the middle peasantry (Louis 2002: 137–8). However, it is worth noting, in relation to the situation in Dumari, that the man who invited the Maoists to the village was originally a member of the Socialist Party. The Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)), meanwhile, filled this void and took up the concerns of agricultural labourers—the implementation of a minimum wage, redistribution of surplus land, and the abolition of ‘Untouchability’ (Desai 1986). This earned the CPI a large base of mass popular support in South Bihar. In the 1970s, the Khet Kisan Mazdoor Union (KMU)—the peasant organization of the CPI—worked in the villages of Gaya and Jehanabad (PUDR 1990) and led significant struggles for the rights of bataidars (sharecroppers) to wage raises and to the independent ownership of homestead land (CPI (ML) Document 1986: 23). Although it does not seem that the CPI initiated any particular struggles in Dumari during that period,11 I met a 70-year-old Dalit labourer in the village who had been an active member of the CPI. He told me that he had taken part in many strikes organized by the party in Jehanabad and that when the Maoists came to the village, he had actively participated in the struggles organized by them.12 In relation to the question of Dalit mobilization, it has since been pointed out, however, that the CPI did not effectively take up the question of ‘Untouchability’ and the caste-specific oppression of Dalits. Like those of the Socialist Party, the leadership and cadres of the CPI hailed from the middle 11

Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in May 2003. Interview with Jamuna Das in Dumari in May 2003.

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castes. Consequently, Dalit concerns remained peripheral in the CPI’s campaigns (Louis 2002). Another important agitation, although not directly connected to the Dalits in Dumari, influenced the Dalit awakening in general. This mobilization was initiated by the Chatra-Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, an organization of students and youth inspired by Jaya Prakash Narayan, in Gaya District.13 In 1978, the Vahini organized a movement for the redistribution of the surplus land illegally held by the mahant (headman) of the Shankaracharya math (temple) in Gaya. The math owned more than 12,000 acres of land in different part of the district. The survey conducted by the Vahini members revealed that 17 out of the 18 trusts under which the math’s land was registered did not actually exist. All the earnings from the land were siphoned off by the mahant. The math, meanwhile, extracted forced labour and controlled the labourers through its own private kutcheries (courts) and henchmen (PUDR 1990: 209). In retaliation, the Vahini, by 1979, had organized workers—mostly belonging to the Dalit castes—in no less than 40 villages in Gaya district. These labourers refused to work for the math and prevented the mahant from hiring workers from other villages. The Vahini then forcibly harvested the standing crops and distributed the harvest among the workers (Louis 2002: 143, PUDR 1990: 209). In spite of severe acts of repression perpetrated by the police, the Vahini succeeded in redistributing more than 1000 acres of land among the landless labourers and also initiated various forms of collective farming in the land seized from the math (PUDR 1990: 210). Over and above such achievements, though, one of the main contributions of the Vahini was the mobilization of Dalits, especially the most marginalized among them—the Musahars, the Bhuiyas, and women (Louis 2002: 145). The first peasant struggle in Bihar under the influence of the Maoist ideology began in 1968 in the Musahari Block of Muzaffarpur district. Here, Kisan Sangram Samitis (peasant organizations) were formed by local leaders who had been inspired by the Naxalbari uprisings in West Bengal. In Musahari, the Bhumihars were the dominant landowners and the labourers lived in exploitative 13 Jaya Prakash Narayan, or JP as he was popularly known, was a political leader of national stature and the proponent of sampoorna kranti (total revolution)—a programme of structural transformation in Bihar.

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conditions, earning a daily wage of 1 to 1.5 kilos of paddy or coarse grain. The Kisan Samiti mobilized the labourers around issues of land redistribution, minimum wage and caste discrimination. In an effort to gain results through direct action, labourers in Gangapur village forcibly harvested crops belonging to the landlords (Louis 2002: 149–50). In the ensuing struggle, the peasant guerrillas killed six landlords, burned records of debts maintained by the money lenders, and returned to their owners ornaments and properties which some of the villagers had mortgaged to the landlords (Louis 2002: 149). Although the peasant struggle in Musahari was swiftly suppressed by the state, the Maoist Movement soon resurfaced in different villages throughout Bihar. The Maoist Movement picked up momentum in South Bihar with the peasant struggles in Ekwari village of Bhojpur district in 1971 and, thereafter, in the Punpun and Masaurhi blocks in Patna district. Unlike previous agrarian struggles under the Kisan Sabha, the Socialist Party and the CPI, the main protagonists were now the Dalit landless labourers and smallholding peasants who belonged to other lower castes. Although both these parties undeniably contributed to the general awakening of revolutionary consciousness among Dalits, they neglected the caste-specific experiences of exploitation of the Dalit communities. The failure of the Left movement to engage with caste is of course a wider phenomenon and it had been the reason for the decline of the Communist parties in many states (Juergensmeyer1982; Omvedt 1995). The Maoists, on the other hand, gave centrality to the Dalit experience of ‘Untouchability’, the sexual of abuse of Dalit women, and social oppression, as well as issues of land and labour (PUDR 1990; Gupta 1994; Louis 2002). Consequently, the last part of the decade of the 1970s witnessed a remarkable rise in the militancy of Dalit struggles across South Bihar.

Maoists in Dumari: Party Unity and Dalit Mobilization The Maoist activists who came to Dumari in 1979 belonged to the CPI (ML) Party Unity, which was formed in Garwah in Palamu in November 1978. This party was formed by some Maoist leaders, who while serving prison sentence in Bihar during the national emergency (1975–77) discussed the plans to review, revitalize and

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unify the old CPI (ML), which had split into various factions after the death of Charu Mazumdar in 1972.14 The Party Unity adopted three resolutions which had far reaching implications for the Maoist Movement in Dumari and other villages in Bihar. First, while upholding the ideological and political programmes of the erstwhile CPI (ML), and its commitment to armed revolution, it tried to address the short comings of the old party. The Party Unity now paid greater attention to building a mass movement—an aspect which was neglected by Mazumdar—by creating organizations of students, trade unions and peasants. Second, the new party adhered to the ‘annihilation line’ of the old CPI (ML), but rejected Mazumdar’s emphasis on the ‘battle of annihilation’ as class struggle (cf. Mazumdar 1970). This resolution adopted annihilation as ‘one of the forms of struggle’ along with various other forms (CPI (Maoist) 2004–05: 63). In Jehanabad, the party followed a policy of ‘selective annihilation’ by targeting the most oppressive landlords, and placed greater emphasis on building mass organizations based on the popular support of the landless labourers and marginal peasants, while the party itself remained an underground organization.15 Third, as mentioned above, the party sought to unify the various factions of the erstwhile CPI (ML). The ‘unity line’ advocated by the party, however, distanced itself from the ‘right deviationist’ and ‘left opportunist tendencies’ (ibid.). While the former, on the plea of rectifying the past mistakes shunned the ‘revolutionary essence of the Naxalbari and the CPI (ML)’; the latter continued to adhere to the old ‘annihilation line’ without any modifications (ibid.). The Party Unity entered into unity talks with those organizations which took initiatives to rectify the past mistakes and develop practices focused on resolutions one and two. Its first merger was with the Communist Krantikari Sangathan of 14 Along with the process of internal splits, the Maoist Movement demonstrated a history of merger, which also had a profound impact on revolutionary struggle in India. Splits and mergers continue to inform the running and organization of the Maoist Movement to this day. The Party Unity merged with the Andhra based CPI (ML) People’s War Group forming CPI (ML) People’s War in 1998. As mentioned earlier, in October 2004, the CPI (ML) People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) came together to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist). 15 This move away from the political-tactical line of annihilation of the class enemy as a solution to the agrarian problem to a policy of ‘selective annihilation’ of oppressive landlords guided the activities of the Party Unity in Bihar (interview with the founder president of MKSS cited in Louis 2002: 182).

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Aurangabad in 1980. The new formation was now called the CPI (ML) Unity Organization. In 1982, with another merger, this time with the Central Organizing Committee (COC), the party reverted to its old name, the CPI (ML) Party Unity.16 In the following decade, several small organizations continued to join the Party Unity, which, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, merged with the CPI (ML) People’s War in 1998. With the emphasis on building a strong mass movement in the villages of Bihar, the Party Unity formed the Mazdur Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS) in 1980, to represent peasants and landless agricultural labourers.17 The MKSS played a significant role in mobilizing Dalit labourers in Dumari by explicitly addressing those issues which directly affected them. The organization’s programme included campaigns aiming to i) lower the land ceiling area; ii) seize and redistribute among the landless peasants land in excess of the ceiling area; including government, gair mazurua (common) and bhoodan land in the possession of the landlords; iii) effectively implement bataidari (sharecropping) laws; iv) eliminate usury, begari (forced labour) and bonded labour; v) demand housing schemes, safe drinking water, health care provision and other essential services from the government; vi) ensure regular employment and the enforcement of a minimum wages; vii) end all forms of oppression against women and ensure equal wages for equal work; and viii) organize a rakshadal (defence force) to protect the vulnerable and marginalized against theft, abduction, rape and other feudal atrocities (MKSS Report, 1987: 16–21). In practice, the MKSS organized mass demonstrations and strike actions, as well as the economic and social boycott of oppressive landlords in various villages. In some villages, the Party Unity supported these mass campaigns through the mobilization of its armed squads.18 The MKSS commanded the allegiance of a majority of Dalits in the region and most took part in its mass actions, while some even joined the Maoist armed squads. In Dumari, people often referred to the MKSS and the Party Unity as Sangathan 16

Interview with the Maoist leaders during the fieldwork period in 2002–03. The information on the MKSS was provided by Dr Vinayan, the founding president of the organization, in my interview with him in July 2003, as well as from other sources (MKSS Report 1987; PUCL 1990). 18 In chapter six, I shall discuss in detail the strained relations between the Maoist emphasis on mass mobilization on the one hand, and the centrality of armed struggle on the other. 17

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(organization/collective). Later in this chapter, I shall discuss the role of the Maoist organizations in the making of Dalit revolutionary subjectivity in Dumari, and the events which unfolded in the early 1980s during the Maoist-led Dalit struggle which resulted in the death of 34 people and the exile of 150 families from the village.

Conflicting Narratives: Kurmi and Dalit Versions of Struggle As I began to piece together the stories of the struggle in Dumari, I came across two contrasting narratives. The Kurmis in Dumari and the neighbouring villages narrated a tale very different from that which the Dalits shared. The Kurmi version generally mirrored the views of the landowners in their community and also reflected the opinions of other upper caste landowners. The Dalit narrative similarly represented, apart from their own, the viewpoints of some Kurmi and other upper caste people, most of whom were supporters of or activists in the Maoist Movement. At the end of this section, I shall make some observations regarding these contrasting perspectives. The Kurmi version of the struggle asserted that Dalits were not oppressed by the landowners in Dumari. They maintained that the kisan (landowning peasants) and the mazdur (labourers) lived together peacefully. The animosity and violence between the two groups, they stated, began only when the Maoists arrived on the scene in 1980. They reiterated the argument that the Maoists had come to the village not due to caste or class oppression but because of the infighting among the Kurmis in Dumari. According to them, there were two factions among the Kurmis, one of which had brought the Naxalites to the village in order to establish their supremacy. This version of events was crystallized in one of the main slogans used by the Kurmis during the height of the struggle: mazdur kisan bhai bhaiNaxali beech main kahanse aayi (‘the landowners and the labourers are brothers; how did the Naxalites come between them’)? Their claim was that the kisans looked after the welfare of their mazdurs.19 A Kurmi landlord from a village near Dumari gave the following characteristic account of the struggle: 19 I gathered this version from many interviews conducted among the Kurmi and upper caste landowners in Dumari and neighbouring villages during the fieldwork.

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The Sangathan established itself in my village, as it did in Dumari, due to the infighting among the Kurmis. Then we brought the Bhumi Sena [caste militia of the Kurmis] to counter the Maoists. I am a Kurmi and I was also in the Bhumi Sena. We are very strong kisans. We believe in jiski lathi uski bhains [‘who wields the stick, owns the buffalo; he who has the muscle power has the control’]. We fought the Sangathan. Bullets flew. Gradually Bhumi Sena began to retreat and Lal Sena [red army, referring to the Maoist armed squads] began to gain ground. When the Bhumi Sena surrendered in Dumari, we also surrendered in our village. We have to cultivate our land. We want to live together with the mazdurs. The Bhumi Sena got finished. When the power was with the Bhumi Sena we went with it. Then came the Lal Sena, so we joined it. Tomorrow the power of the Babhans [referring to the Ranveer Sena of the Bhumihars] might prevail, and then we would join them. We have no other alternative. We are kisans. We need labourers to work in our land. We cannot run away from our land. Our children are studying here. We have to make compromises. We want to live in peace.20

In the average upper caste perceptions, the Maoists were labelled anything from aatankvadi (terrorist) and ugravadi (extremist) to mudi katwa (head choppers) or chhe inch chhote karne wale (those who reduce the body by six inches by chopping the head). One Kurmi landlord in Dumari, whose two brothers were killed in the struggle, said that the village today was known for the ‘Naxalite terrorism’ and the destruction it had caused. He told me: ‘Many lives were lost here. The life of a whole generation was destroyed. I wanted to get a government job. But in the midst of all the violence and killings, it was impossible to pursue my dream.’21 I could feel a deep sense of bitterness and hidden anger in his voice as he reasserted his opinion that none had been willing to speak out against the Maoists not because they supported them but out of fear. The upper caste youth who were born after the violent struggles of the 1980s shared the same views as their elders. One evening, while travelling to Dumari on a bus, I was sitting beside a Bhumihar youth who had just started his undergraduate studies. I asked him about the Maoists. He said they were associated with the lower castes and pointed out that the Maoists claimed to give justice to the harijans. But, he argued, there was no injustice done to them in Dumari and 20 Interview with a Kurmi landlord who had been a member of the Bhumi Sena and had fought the Maoists in the early 1980s, in December 2002. 21 Interview with a Kurmi landowner in Dumari in January 2003.

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he could not see any reason for the presence of the Maoist Movement in the village. Other young men I met in the Kurmi tola (settlement) of the village shared the same views. They said there was no caste or class struggle in the village. They asked why, if it was a class struggle between the Kurmis and the harijans, were Kurmis killing Kurmis? According to them the Maoists had taken advantage of the internal feuds among the Kurmis to establish their bharchsav (supremacy) in the region. In contrast to the dominant caste narratives, the Dalit version concerning the events of 1980s emphasized the Dalit protest against social and economic oppression by the landlords.22 None of the Dalits I interviewed ever mentioned the factional feuds among the Kurmis as the reason for the arrival of the Maoists in the village and the subsequent outbreak of violence. For them, the Maoist Movement represented their struggle for izzat, land and better wages. They recalled every event leading to their mobilization against the Kurmi landowners—the arrival of the Maoists, the secret meetings, mass demonstrations and strike actions, the subsequent outbreak of violence, their exile from Dumari and their eventual return to the village. They proudly claimed their Sangathan had defeated the Kurmis in Dumari. In their perception of events, the Maoists were achhe log (good people), garibon ke hitkari (working for the poor); they were krantikari (revolutionaries). A former member of the MKSS who, as I mentioned earlier, was the man who invited the Maoists to Dumari, while supporting the Dalit version of the events, rejected the Kurmi narrative. He claimed that the arrival and growth of the Maoist Movement in Dumari had nothing do with factional feuds among the Kurmis. He said he invited the Maoists to Dumari because there were some very oppressive landlords in the village who were exploiting both Dalits and poorer members of their own caste. He pointed out that when the Maoists took up the issue of Dalit oppression in Dumari, every Kurmi household in the village barring 12, came together against the Sangathan. The battle-lines were clearly drawn between the Kurmis on the one hand, and the Dalit labourers and marginal peasants on the other.23 22 The Dalit narrative derives from the many interviews I conducted with the Dalits in Dumari and neighbouring villages in a period spanning 2002–03. 23 Interview with a former leader of the MKSS from the Kurmi caste, in Jehanabad in June 2003.

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What follows from the above discussion is that both the landowning Kurmis and the landless Dalits (although sometimes these representations went beyond caste identities) seemed to uphold a separate ‘official’ memory or a standardized and generally accepted account of the dramatic period (cf. Bloch 1998: 118).24 This ‘official’ version of the story narrated by each group represents a collective memory which reinforced the two groups’ oppositional identities (cf. Halbwachs cited in Misztel 2003: 51). Drawing on Wertsch (2002), I argue that collective memory represents a particular perspective on historical events held by one particular social group.25 The contrasting memories of the Kurmis and Dalits therefore highlight their differential locations in Dumari’s structures of power. The Kurmi and Dalit interpretations of the events of early 1980s were shaped by their experiences and interests—one trying to retain their dominance, the other challenging it. The Kurmi narrative negated any element of Dalit resistance against them, while for the Dalits and their supporters, these events marked the struggle for izzat and equality in relation to their landlords. In order to maintain and justify their domination, the upper caste groups often denied the prevalence of injustice in their spheres of influence. They, as observed in chapter two, did not acknowledge the Dalit experience of oppression and violence arising out of unequal societal ordering as injustice or structural violence (cf. Bourdieu 1977; Scheper-Hughes 1992; Kleinman 2000; Farmer, 1997, 2003). They attributed the beginnings of violence in the village to the arrival of the Maoists. Further, in denying any element of Dalit resistance in the events of the 1980s, the Kurmis negated the capacity of the mazdur to challenge the malik. In contrast, the Dalits in their collective memory of the struggle emphasized their resistance against the Kurmis and their victory over them. I shall return to this point later. The Dalit collective memory is further explored in the next section.

24 Rather than seeing one as the dominant (or official) and the other as popular or counter memory (cf. Foucault1977), in the context of Dumari, I view the Kurmi and Dalit memories as two ‘official’ narratives. 25 Wertsch illustrates this point by contrasting the Russian memory of World War II with that of the American memory. Russian memory emphasizes the Russian contribution over other nations in the defeat of Nazi Germany. A similar point is made by Swedenburg (1995) in his study of the Palestinian revolt of 1936–39 which highlights competing claims on the collective memory of this revolt.

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Memories of a Revolt in Dumari In the Dalit collective memory, the incident that triggered the open confrontation in Dumari occurred in May 1981 when the labourers called for a strike at the brick kiln owned by Munna Singh, a Kurmi landlord in Dumari. He had a notorious reputation among Dalits and had been accused of raping two Dalit women as well as ill treating the labourers. My research participants claimed that he was a person of samanthi vichar (feudal attitudes and behaviour).26 Prior to the strike action,—Dalits had demanded a wage rise from Rs 10 to Rs 25 for every 1000 bricks they made. This was the maximum number one person could make in a day. On Munna Singh’s refusal, the MKSS mobilized the labourers into strike action. In response, Singh brought labourers from other villages and employed gunmen to ensure that the work at the brick kiln was not interrupted. When the Dalits from Dumari protested and tried to stop the labourers from working, the gunmen opened fire. The armed Maoist activists, including both Kurmi and Dalit youths, returned fire from the mud houses of Dalits. In the ensuing gun battle, a Kurmi landlord who was part of Munna Singh’s entourage was injured. As he was being taken to the hospital, the Maoists killed him and hung his head on a tree at the entrance of the village. The first blood was thus shed in Dumari and this marked the beginning of a series of killings in the village.27 Just a month before the strike action and the murder at the brick kiln, in April 1981, the MKSS had organized a mashal julus (torchlight procession) in Jehanabad. Nearly 1000 men and women labourers from a number of villages, including a large number from Dumari, had marched from one village to another carrying torches and traditional weapons. Many of them later recalled their favourite slogan, which they chanted during the procession, as: jote boye kate dhan, khet ka malik wahi kisan (‘those who till, sow and harvest, they are the owners of the land’). Dalits who took part in the mashal julus claimed that the procession was a significant show of strength which boosted their confidence while at the same time unnerving 26 In chapter two, I defined samanti vichar as an aggressive and intimidatory attitude of the landlords in relation to Dalit labourers and in particular towards Dalit women. Due to the Maoist influence in the village, terms such as samant (feudal) and samanti vichar became part of the everyday Dalit language. 27 Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in September 2002.

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the Kurmis and other landowning castes in the region. Many of them said that this was the first time they had come together as a group to protest. In November 1981, the Maoist activists killed Munna Singh, the brick kiln owner. Killing him was part of the Maoist policy of ‘selective annihilation’ targeting the most oppressive landlords in the region. This policy, according to a Dalit Maoist activist, increased the confidence of Dalit labourers in the Maoist Movement. 28 Subsequently, and in spite of the police repression and the Kurmi retaliation, the Dalits from Dumari actively took part in various programmes of the MKSS. Many Dalit activists were consequently killed by the police and the landlords. In July 1982, in a village in Karpi block, the police lathi-charged (attacking with batons) a gathering of one thousand people demanding better wages. In the ensuing mélee, a Musahar labourer from Dumari who was trying to escape through the upper caste tola was beaten to death by the landlords. In August the same year, three Dalit activists were hacked to death by the Rajput landlords in a village in Gaya. Once again one of the victims was a Musahar from Dumari. These killings, however, did not deter the spread of Dalit militancy in the region. In another village close to Dumari, the labourers defied a ban on Dalits grazing their cattle in the fields owned by the Kurmi landlords. In a subsequent exchange of fire, the Maoists shot dead a Kurmi landlord.29 The Kurmi landowners, alarmed by the killings of prominent landlords and the widespread incidence of strike actions, seizures of surplus land, and campaigns for fishing rights by Dalit labourers, formed the Bhumi Sena in 1982 in the Punpun–Masaurhi area of Patna district.30 This caste militia collected arms from the landlords and recruited the Kurmi youth. It tried to gather the support of the Kurmi caste by making the following appeal: ‘The life, liberty and property of the Kurmis are at stake. What remains in our life if there is no prestige and dignity?’ (CPI (ML) Document 1986: 74). The Bhumi Sena raised the following war cry: Naxaliyon ki ek dawai, chhah inch chotta kar do bhai (‘One remedy for the Naxalites, cut 28

Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in September 2002. Ibid. 30 Even before the Bhumi Sena was formed, the Kurmis organized Kisan Suraksha Samiti (Association for the Protection of Peasants) in 1978–79 in Patna district, with an armed wing called Kurmi Reserve Police. In the face of increased Dalit assertion, it changed its nomenclature into the Bhumi Sena (CPI(ML) Document 1986: 73–4; PUCL Bulletin 1990: 54). 29

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them down by six inches/decapitate them’) (Louis 2002: 167). The Sena operated in Patna, Jehanabad, Nalanada and Nawada districts. Over a period of four years (1982–85), the Bhumi Sena murdered 65 people, set ablaze 216 houses, and drove 325 families out of 13 villages in the Punpun, Naubatapur and Masaurhi blocks alone. It targeted not only Dalit labourers but also members of the Kurmi caste who were part of the Maoist Movement. All Kurmi households were forced to give protection money and food to the Bhumi Sena (CPI (ML) Document 1986: 75). Immediately after its formation, the Bhumi Sena arrived in Dumari to take on the Maoist challenge. With the exception of twelve Kurmi households, who were either poor and sympathized with the Maoists, or had suffered some oppression at the hands of dominant landlords in the village, all the Kurmis rallied against the Maoists and their sympathizers.31 By the end of 1982, the violence perpetrated by the Bhumi Sena forced 136 Dalit and twelve Kurmi households to leave Dumari. In the Dalit tola, only the Doms, six Dusadh and two Dhobi households stayed behind. Some Dalits said that they left because the Sangathan asked them to, so that its armed squads would be able to fight the Bhumi Sena without putting the Dalits in danger.32 Whether the Sangathan had asked them to leave or they left out of fear of the Kurmis, this mass exodus stands as the most significant landmark in the Dalit collective memory in Dumari.

Experience of an Exile: Indelible Memories of Suffering and Struggle The Dalits in Dumari referred to the exile as bhaged (being on the run). In their memory, no other single event had left such an indelible mark, and the bhaged functioned as a temporal referral point for age, marriage, death, birth and other events. Often I heard Dalits say: ‘My son was born during the bhaged’; ‘I was ten years old when the bhaged began’; or ‘I got married the year after we returned to the village’. Moreover, the bhaged, and the events associated with the exile, brought about a change in village relations, especially between Dalits 31 Interview with a Kurmi sympathizer of the Maoist Movement in Dumari in January 2003 whose family was forced to go into exile. His house was then demolished by the Bhumi Sena. 32 Interview with a Dalit leader, Krishna Das, in Dumari in September 2002.

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and the Kurmis. As such it had a deep impact on Dalit involvement in the Maoist Movement and also on their collective identity. Even after 20 years, memories of the exile continued to influence Dalit consciousness and their self-awareness as a political community. Das refers to such events as ‘critical events’ which institute ‘new modes of action’ and redefine ‘traditional categories’ (1995: 6). From a Dalit point of view, the experience of the bhaged and the Maoist struggle in Dumari could be considered ‘critical events’, which initiated new modalities of action and a reformulation of caste and class relations in the village. But before I discuss the implications of this event for Dalit relations, I present the details of the exile as narrated by my Dalit informants. With the Bhumi Sena camped in Dumari, Dalits began to flee the village by the end of 1982. The police camp established in the village immediately after the murder of Munna Singh marked an alliance, or ‘friendly relation’, between the police and the Bhumi Sena which forced the Maoists underground, leaving Dalits in the village feeling unsafe and vulnerable.33 The mass exodus from Dumari, however, only began in earnest after the Sena murdered a Dalit leader from the Ravidasi community in January 1983. Just before he was killed, Sena activists had surrounded the village school with the intention of killing all Dalit children attending the school. Because the village was not far from the school, the people heard the commotion around the school building. The Dalit leader ran to the school where his two sons were studying in grades 10 and 6. As he approached the school, he was surrounded and shot dead.34 The Bhumi Sena then killed a shop keeper from the Bania caste.35 He had no connection with the Sangathan but he owned a shop in the Dalit tola of Dumari. His body was dumped in a well. Many Dalit respondents recalled this period as when the Sena went on a rampage. Its activists wanted to kill everyone living in the Dalit tola. They raped Dalit women. They also carried away goats from Dalit houses.36 Kailash Dhobi, an elderly Dalit man, bitterly recalled that the policemen stationed 33

Interview with Kailash Dhobi in Dumari in June 2003. Interview with the widow of the murdered Dalit leader in Dumari in October 2002. 35 The Bania caste belongs to the lower end of the Backward Caste hierarchy and is engaged in business. 36 These were details I collected from various interviews conducted in Dumari. 34

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in the village did nothing to protect them from the violence. He said that the police simply asked Dalits to run away from the village if they wanted to save their lives.37 The exile represented a rupture in Dalit life and a stripping of their assets. Kailash Dhobi narrated his loss in the following words: My son who was just 8 years old was beaten by the Bhumi Sena thugs. We left the village immediately. The Sena then stole 25 mann [one mann is 40 kilos] of rice from my house.They carried away the clothes which my Muslim customers from the neighbouring village had given for washing. They [Sena activists] sold my two buffalos, one calf and two bulls. When I retuned after 19 months, there was not a single door or any household utensil left in my house. The Kurmis had taken away everything.38

In Dumari, I heard many such torrid tales of loss. Krishna Das from the Ravidasi caste, who had actively participated in the MKSS, said: When the bhaged began, I sold 8 katta of land for a throwaway price. I never wanted to come back to the village. Even in Punpun [in Patna district] where I took shelter with my family, I could not get out of the house to work for the fear of the Bhumi Sena. My wife was forced to earn for the family. Those were really difficult times. We were very scared and returned only after four years, while most others returned after two years.39

Krishna Das’s wife also shared her story with me: The Bhumi Sena activists kept a gun at my face. They were asking for the whereabouts of my husband who was playing a very active role in the struggle. When the killings began in the village, he had to leave. The children and I stayed behind for a while. When I told them that I did not know his whereabouts, they threatened to shoot me. I was shivering with fear. Then one of the Kurmis from the village came there and persuaded the Bhumi Sena to let me go. I was quite surprised that he did that, even after his brothers were killed by the Sangathan. After this incident, I took the children and fled [from Dumari]. When we came back, there was not a single tile on the roof of our house. They [the Kurmis] had taken away all, 37

Interview with Kailash Dhobi in Dumari in August 2003. Ibid. 39 Interview with Krishna Das in Dumari in December 2002. 38

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which we had purchased for Rs 5000. Two doors and a few beams from the roof were also missing.40

I also had many conversations with Ganesh Sahu of the Bania caste on the topic of ladaai (struggle) and the bhaged. He owned five bighas of land and a grocery shop in the village and shared the following experience: From my caste, only I had to flee as I was friendly with the Dalit activists of the village. I lost property worth more than one lakh [hundred thousand] rupees. There was some jewellery in my locker which I could not take away as there was no time before I left. When I returned after two years I saw the locker was cut open and jewellery missing. I feel so angry even now when I recall my suffering and loss. I wanted the ladaai to continue at that time. I want to fight again.41

In the course of my research I also spoke to the Kurmis who were sympathetic to the Sangathan and also to those who had been against this organization during the initial days of struggle and exile. Like Dalits, the Kurmi families who were sympathetic to the Sangathan had to flee Dumari. The Bhumi Sena then destroyed their houses and appropriated their properties.42 One Kurmi man who had nothing to do with the Sangathan at the time of the ladaai said: Bhumi Sena activists were very demanding.They always wanted special food. We had to prepare chicken and other special dishes for them. They used to say: ‘We are sacrificing our lives to protect you. So why can’t you care for us?’ They used to stay together and drink in the evenings. When all the Dalit women had run away from the village, they began to make advances at the Kurmi women.43

During the period of the Bhumi Sena’s presence in the village, one Kurmi girl committed suicide. Dalits and some Kurmis told me that the girl ended her life because she had been raped and consequently fallen pregnant at the hands of a Bhumi Sena activist. In the absence of Dalit labourers, they also forced the Kurmi women to work in the field, especially in tasks which involved transplanting and harvesting 40

Interview with Krishna Das’s wife in Dumari in December 2002. I conducted many interviews with Ganesh Sahu in Dumari in 2002 and 2003. 42 Interview with a Kurmi sympathizer of the Maoist Party in December 2002, whose family had to run away from Dumari. 43 Interview with a Kurmi man in Dumari in October 2002. 41

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paddy; tasks usually carried out by women labourers from Dalit communities.44 The Kurmi landowners also employed the Doms, who had remained in the village during the bhaged, as labourers, and the Sena activists used them to carry away the valuable items such as doors, bricks, tiles and wooden beams from Dalit houses. The Doms appropriated for themselves utensils and other household items. Every Dalit in Dumari remembered the complicity of the Doms with the Bhumi Sena; one Dalit woman, whose husband was killed by the Bhumi Sena, expressed her dislike for the Doms in the following words: ‘None of them left the village during the ladaai. They were brewing liquor for the Bhumi Sena and carrying out their orders of vandalism’.45 Many Dalits levelled similar complaints at the Doms who did not take part in the ladaai against the Kurmis. When I spoke to the Doms about the exile period and their reasons for remaining in Dumari, however, they claimed that they had no place to go and so they stayed. They also said that they were too kamjor (weak) to fight the Kurmis. But the other Dalit castes in the village claimed that the Doms and the Kurmis shared a dubious association. It was considered an open secret in the village that the Doms were involved in theft. An MKSS activist who had spent time in Dumari before the struggle told me that during moonless nights, the Doms used to venture out into the neighbouring towns and villages to carry out acts of robbery. Some people in the village used to wait for the Doms to return with the ‘spoils of their misadventure’ which often ranged from household utensils to cloths and expensive watches. Once one of them broke into a watch shop in Jehanabad town and got away with a case full of watches. Only Kurmis could buy watches or other expensive stolen items from the Doms, as only they had money.46 Therefore, some of my Dalit informants told me that they were not surprised that the Doms preferred their Kurmi masters to the Maoists who came with the slogan of ‘land to the tiller’; and the Doms did not work in the fields anyway. 44

From my interviews with Dalits and the Kurmis in Dumari. Interview with the widow of the Dalit man killed by the Bhumi Sena in Dumari, in October 2002. 46 Interview with a political activist in Dumari in January 2003. In chapter two (footnote 53), I referred to incidences in which some Doms from Dumari were killed because they were accused of theft. 45

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Maoist Response to Bhumi Sena With both Bhumi Sena activists and the police patrolling Dumari, the Maoists were forced to go underground to regroup. The armed squads of the Party Unity adopted a twin strategy of killing Bhumi Sena members and imposing aarthik nakebandi (economic blockade) on the landlords who supported the Sena. In Dumari alone the Maoist guerrillas killed more than sixteen Bhumi Sena activists.47 The economic blockade consisted of labourers and share-croppers boycotting the landlords on the one hand, and the MKSS members burning the standing crops of Sena leaders on the other. One night in Dumari, the Maoist cadres burned the entire harvest which the Kurmis had stored in the village kalihan (threshing floor). According to my Dalit informants, it was this incident which finally broke the Kurmi resolve to fight the Maoists in Dumari. They agreed to surrender and abide by the Maoist terms and conditions.The Kurmis agreed to cease all support for the Bhumi Sena. A public meeting was held in the mango grove just outside the village in November 1984 during which the Kurmis put in writing that they would not fight the Sangathan again. They surrendered all their weapons and handed over nine rifles to the Sangathan. The Sangathan then imposed fines ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 100,000 on some Kurmi landlords, depending on the level of their complicity with the Bhumi Sena. In total the activists and supporters of the Bhumi Sena paid a fine of Rs 13, 68,000.48 After the surrender, the Sangathan sent word around different places asking Dalits to come back. Some returned immediately and others waited to see if there was any further violence. One Dalit woman said that Dalits were brought back to the village with security escorts provided by the local administration who also allocated them some food-grain. She said: ‘The Kurmis were unhappy that harijans had come back. They said, “the harijans have caused the death of our sons”. We were very frightened’.49 The sight of the total destruction of their houses shocked those who returned. The mud walls of Dalit houses had collapsed and wooden doors, tiles, and furniture were missing. Whatever was left of the mud houses was overrun with wild grass and dead leaves and 47

Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in October 2002. Collated from many responses I collected in Dumari. 49 Interview with the widow of the Dalit leader killed by the Bhumi Sena in October 2002. 48

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the people had to rebuild their houses from scratch. The Sangathan took a survey of the losses and there was some half-hearted talk of demanding compensation from the Kurmis. Krishna Das said: People were afraid to ask for the compensation. We wanted to live in peace. We wanted a guarantee for our safety. If they try to trouble us again, we will fight for compensation. Otherwise I am not bothered. We had land and property here. It seems the Sangathan also made some compromises. After the murder of Munna Singh, the Kurmis had implicated 32 Dalits in the murder. The Sangathan put pressure on the Kurmis to withdraw their names and that of others who were implicated in different cases. Due to such compromises, no further claim for compensation was raised.50

Reflections on Bhaged To sum up, a few observations can be made on the Dalit experience of the bhaged in Dumari. Edward Said in his essay Reflections on Exile writes: ‘Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted’ (2001: 173). Said’s observation regarding the experience of Palestinian exiles is in many ways true for exiled people everywhere. When I reached Dumari in 2002, nearly 20 years had passed since the Dalit experience of exile but the intensity of that experience had yet to be surmounted by any other event in the village. The presence of this past event, therefore, was felt to a lesser or a greater degree in nearly all aspects of Dalit life; their relations among themselves (different Dalit groups) and with non-Dalits were built around the memories of the exile (cf. Bloch 1998: 109). The experience of exile appears to have constituted a kind of ‘liminal’ experience for Dalits in Dumari. On one hand, it symbolized a rupture in the everyday life of Dalits and a stripping away of personal assets. On the other hand, the exile created a new Dalit consciousness and identity. In this sense, the exile constituted an ‘agentive moment’ for the Dalit community (cf. Daniel 1996: 192). According to Daniel, when a crisis or rupture of a great magnitude occurs in the everyday world, the prevailing meaning systems fail to provide sufficient mechanisms for coping. As a result, new meaning 50

Interview with Krishna Das in Dumari in December 2002.

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systems emerge—constituting an agentive moment—when people develop radically ‘new habits that lead in radically new directions’ (ibid.). An essential feature of this ‘agentive moment’ in relation to the Dalit exile and return was the act of remembering and naming. Even after an interval of 20 years, when Dalits narrated these events to me they named the victims of the Bhumi Sena and Kurmi perpetrators and their accomplices as well as those who had fought against them. They also named every loss they had suffered. They shared their experiences of pain, fear and anxiety. This process arguably marked the construction of a new Dalit subjectivity and identity as a political community. Associated with the emergence of this new consciousness and political formation was the process of constructing a series of dualisms (Das 1995) inherent in the Dalit acts of remembering and naming. In Dumari, the existing dualisms of the Kurmis and Dalits, the landowners and the landless labourers, became even more intensely political in the context of struggle and exile. After their return, Dalits constructed their collective identity on the basis of who had been forced into bhaged and who had stayed in the village; as well as who had struggled against the Kurmis and the Bhumi Sena and who had cooperated with them, even if it was only by passively remaining in Dumari during the bhaged. The experience of exile also enabled Dalits to transcend some of the earlier Kurmi-Dalit dualisms as those Kurmis who were sympathizers or activists of the Sangathan and therefore forced into exile by the Bhumi Sena became friends of the Dalits. On the other hand, despite being Dalits, the Doms had stayed put during the exile and had been employed by the Bhumi Sena, and thus came to be excluded from this new political community. The widow of the Dalit leader killed by the Bhumi Sena, who had said that ‘only a harijan can understand the pain of harijan’, for instance, disliked the Doms who were also harijans. The reason she gave was that they had remained in the village and worked for the Kurmis during the period of exile.51 The political significance of events associated with the exile also centred on the Dalit memory of the defeat of the Bhumi Sena and the surrender of the Kurmis. Every Dalit I met in Dumari and the neighbouring villages remembered and relished the surrender of the mighty Kurmis before ‘their Sangathan’. They used the English word 51

Interview with the widow of the Dalit leader in Dumari in October 2002.

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surrender, but they pronounced it as salander in their conversations. Krishna Das narrated the surrender in the following words: The flood of guns from the Sangathan scared the Kurmis so much that they salandered. There was a public gathering at night to mark the Kurmi salander to our party. We had more than a thousand guns there. That broke their nerve. They realized that all the Kurmis would be killed. When the Kurmis in Dumari salandered, the Kurmis in the entire region followed suit. They then wanted to join the Sangathan to save themselves.52

His wife added that the Sangathan had completely burned the harvested paddy which the Kurmis had stored in the kalihan, giving the Kurmis no choice but to ‘salander to the Sangathan’.53 I observed their joy and excitement in talking about the surrender even 20 years after the event. Contrastingly, the Kurmi youths I spoke to in Dumari, did not refer to the events of 1984 as ‘surrender’; instead they used the word samjhautha (understanding). They said that the Kurmis and the Sangathan reached an ‘understanding through negotiations’. They denied that the Kurmis ‘surrendered’. They claimed that the Kurmis had disapproved of the behaviour of the Bhumi Sena and hence they themselves had asked them to leave. In this denial, the Kurmis refused to acknowledge that their dominance or prestige had in any way been challenged or eroded by the events of the 1980s. The contrasting perspectives of Dalits and Kurmis regarding ‘surrender’ can be located, as I observed earlier in this chapter, in the differences in their structural locations. Falla writing about the Mayan memory of violence in Guatemala observes that memory cannot be analysed without taking into account the power structures within which people, sectors, social classes, ethnic groups, lineages and extended kin groups operate at a given moment (1997: 827). It was from a position of dominance that the Kurmis spoke of samjhauta rather than surrender. For the Dalits, however, the memories of exile and return were closely linked to their experience of landlessness, Kurmi domination, and their participation in the Maoist struggle. In their act of remembering and narrating, the Dalits created a ‘counterpublic’ (cf. Fraser 1992) in which they constructed, circulated, and 52

Interview with Krishna Das in Dumari in December 2002. Interview with Krishna Das’ wife in Dumari in December 2002.

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reinforced the counter-discourses of their oppositional identities and class interests. Along with ‘what is remembered’, then, is equally significant ‘what is obliterated’ (cf. Bloch 1998: 81). The Kurmi attempts to ‘obliterate’ popular Dalit memory in the village could be interpreted along the lines of what Langer calls ‘masking the humiliated memories’ (1991: 77).

Contesting Power: Dalits and Changing Power Relations The events of the 1980s set in motion an ongoing struggle for hegemony and counter-hegemony. Although the initial Dalit assertions of their emerging political consciousness resulted in failure and exile, their experiences and memories drove them into greater mobilizations and collective assertions.54 After their return from exile, Dalits openly contested the Kurmi hegemony and the Sangathan became a major player in the region. In Dumari, due to the active role of some Dalit leaders and supporters of the Sangathan, Dalits for the first time became significant actors in the changing power relations. It took a while, however, for the ordinary Dalit man and woman in the village to comprehend the impact of the struggle on everyday relations of dominance and subordination. Rajubhai pointed out an interesting instance of this slow response: After the return [from the bhaged], the Sangathan had set the wages at 3 kilos of paddy or wheat, replacing the earlier daily wage of sava ser kachi of kesari. Fearing a Kurmi backlash, some labourers, however, were too scared to accept the increased wages. They continued to work for sava ser kachi. Then the Sangathan had to step in not only with the assurance that there would not be any Kurmi retaliation but also employ threat of force to make them accept higher wages.55 54 In narrating this apparent failure, the Dalits of Dumari reminded me of the protagonists of the novel The Disinherited (1982) by Jack Conroy, a leading voice in the proletarian literary movement of the 1930s. In the novel, the main protagonist remembers the failure of the strikes organized by his father. But those memories drive him and others to organize very successful class mobilizations of factory workers in the America of the 1930s. 55 Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in October 2002.

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Other initiatives were also set in motion by the Sangathan, for instance, along with the increase in wages, the rules governing sharecropping were modified. The village ponds now came directly under the control of the Sangathan. Fish was to be distributed equally. More significantly, the sexual abuse of Dalit women and other instances of caste discrimination came to an end. Many of these changes will be discussed in detail in the next three chapters, but in the following section I will examine those factors which demonstrated the changing power relations in Dumari.

Emerging Dalit Leadership in Dumari During the course of the struggle, a Dalit leadership emerged in Dumari that challenged the Kurmi dominance in the village. Pradeep Das, a leader from the Ravidasi community, handled the terms of the Kurmi surrender in 1984. He died before I did fieldwork in Dumari. Rajubhai, whose story I shall narrate in the next chapter, was commanding a Maoist armed squad during the exile period. After the bhaged, he became the head of the village committee organized by the Sangathan and handled various disputes between the Kurmis and Dalits. Shanti Devi, meanwhile, a woman from the Musahar caste, became a driving force in organizing Dalit women. I had many conversations with Shanti Devi. This diminutive, articulate musaharin (Musahar woman) in her fifties at the time of my fieldwork, addressed large crowds in village meetings. She also aroused a lot of curiosity among the villagers. In the early 1980s, it was rare for village women, let alone a woman from the Musahar caste, to give speeches from a political stage. Shanti Devi told me that she was the only woman activist at that time, and that because of her, many women joined the Sangathan.56 She was active in the organization for ten years. She also worked as an MKSS activist in Palamu for six months. She said: ‘When the laadai began in Dumari, I joined the Sangathan. Until then I knew nothing about politics. The Maoist leaders trained me in the krantikari rajniti (revolutionary politics). Once I was arrested while leading a demonstration. A policeman caught my hand. I shouted at him to take his hands off me.’ 57 Shanti Devi sang two krantikari songs on my request; the first exhorted Dalit 56

Interviews with Shanti Devi and Rajubhai in Dumari in September 2002. Interview with Shanti Devi in September 2002.

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women not to be submissive in their in-laws’ homes; the second was in memory of her mentor in the revolutionary struggle—comrade Krishna Singh who was killed by the Rajput landlords in Palamu in June 1984. Her melodious rendition in Magahi was very touching. These are the opening lines of her song: For the sake of his people, he sacrificed his life He has gone away leaving us, Comrade Krishna Bhaiya for his people sacrificed his life He has gone away leaving us, He left his brothers, sisters, son; he gave up everything, the whole Hindustan He has gone away leaving us, For the service of his people, he went to Palamu He has gone away leaving us.58

The role played by Shanti Devi, Pradeep Das, Rajbubhai, and many other Dalit leaders and activists challenges the assertions made in the literature on peasant revolution (cf. Wolf 1969, 2001; Scott 1977a, 1979) that the extremely poor sections of the peasantry are incapable of playing a leading role in revolutionary struggle. In the concluding section of this chapter, I shall critically examine such assumptions and demonstrate that even after the struggle, the Dalit leadership in Dumari played a crucial role in influencing Dalit politics and identity.

Village Committee: A Symbol of Shifting Power Relations Along with the emergence of a Dalit leadership, another factor that symbolized the shifting power relations in the region following the struggle in the 1980s was the organization of village committees by the Sangathan. The majority of the committee members was from the Dalit and the lower castes. In Dumari, ten out of the fifteen members of the village committee belonged to Dalit castes, including three Dalit women. Rajubhai was the head of the village committee which handled local disputes and grievances for several years, and under his leadership, even Kurmis now appeared before the committee either as the accused or as victims of a dispute. Here 58

Ibid.

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I examine some of the cases which the village committee handled in Dumari. One case concerned Ganesh Sahu, who had sold his land for a very low price during the exile, and now approached the village committee with a request to reclaim his land. He said: The circumstances of the exile forced me to sell the land for a paltry sum to a Yadav from the neighbouring village. I was on the run and I was afraid I would lose everything I owned in Dumari. In the fear and frenzy of the time, although I took the full payment from him, the land was not registered. When I returned after the bhaged, I wanted my land back. After discussing the issue, the village committee asked me to submit a petition to the Sangathan explaining the circumstances under which I had to sell the land. Then I approached the Yadav with the money he had paid. He, however, refused to take back the money or return the land. The Sangathan then advised me to cultivate the land. I gave the money to the Sangathan. After a while, he took the money. And that settled the matter. 59

Before the ladaai, the sexual abuse of Dalit and other lower caste women by the Kurmi landlords was seldom challenged. Now the village committee addressed issues of sexual harassment. Rajubhai narrated to me an incident he handled as the head of the village committee: In 1999, as the head of the village committee, I had to deal with a complaint lodged by a working class widow from the Kahar caste whose daughter was sexually assaulted by a Kurmi man. I convened the janadalat [people’s court]. The Dalits and the Kurmis were present, the latter because one of their caste-men was being put on trial. In spite of some Kurmi protests, the people decided that the girl should slap him five times with her chappals [sandals]. They also decided that his head be shaved of hair and chuna [lime powder] applied, and that he be made to run five times round the village. This public shaming of the offender, however, had to be abandoned as the police arrived in the village before punishment was carried out. Yet I managed to have the girl slap the accused five times with her chappals. He then asked her pardon with folded hands.

A similar incident occurred in 2001 when some Kurmi youth put up a provocative banner in front of the shop owned by Ganesh Sahu. He said he was always the target of harassment by the Kurmis 59

Interview with Ganesh Sahu in Dumari in October 2003.

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because they resented his economic prosperity as well as his support for the Sangathan and his close interaction with the Dalits. The banner hung on the shop front read yeh Rajabazaar hey; yahan subkuch milta hey (‘This is Rajabazaar; Everything is available here’). Ganesh Sahu had three teenage daughters. He felt deeply insulted by the sexual connotations of the banner. He complained to the parents of the boys. The youth involved, however, refused to accept the blame. The matter was then referred to the village committee. A meeting was called. The entire village gathered in the mango grove at the outskirts of the village. It was the Kurmi versus the rest of the village. Many women also attended the meeting. The Kurmi boys were forced to apologize to Sahu and to all those gathered at the meeting. Ganesh Sahu told me that this had been a big blow to the Kurmi pride.60 Members of the Kurmi caste also approached the Dalit dominated village committee to settle their own family disputes. One woman from the Kurmi caste, whose husband—a member of the Bhumi Sena—was killed by the Maoists during the initial days of the struggle, came to the committee because she had been refused her share of land by her husband’s brother. Rajubhai took up her case. He met her husband’s brother and persuaded him to part with the land on her behalf.61 The Kurmis also approached the village committee to redress their grievances in relation to Dalits. While I was in Dumari, there was a fight between two women in the village, one of them a Dalit and the other a Kurmi. Mahesh, the Dalit woman’s son was working for a Kurmi family. After work, his malikin (the landlady) gave him some chuvida (flattened rice flakes). In the evening, he fell sick. His family assumed that he had fallen sick because he had eaten the food given to him by the malikin. His mother rushed to the Kurmi house that night and showered abusive words on the Kurmi woman. She accused her of being a dain (witch) and trying to kill her son. They also exchanged blows. The Kurmi woman then petitioned the village committee for redress. However, no meeting was called to settle this issue until I left the village. The ladaai thus signified a change in the relations of domination and subordination in Dumari. For instance, a Dalit woman 60

Interviews with Ganesh Sahu and Rajubhai in Dumari in January 2003. Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in February 2003.

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Illustration 3.1: Men Assembled in One Place.

Illustration 3.2: Gathered Women and Children. Illustrations 3.1 and 3.2: Under the leadership of the village committees, men, women and children gathered to settle disputes. With the ascendency of the Maoist Movement, the village committees now took over the functions of the traditional village panchayats and became symbols of changing power relations. The majority of the members of village committees hailed from Dalit castes. Dalit women were also elected as committee members.

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accusing a Kurmi woman of being a dain in public, and even more, her going to a Kurmi household’s doorstep and showering abuse on and exchanging blows with the inhabitants, would have been unimaginable before the struggle. The village committee had wrested from the Kurmi landowners some of their power to punish and make decisions on village matters.

Conclusion In the concluding section, I reflect on two processes at work in Dumari. The first relates to the practice of hegemony and counterhegemony; the second involves Dalit participation in the revolutionary struggle and the role of the Maoist organization. On the question of hegemony and counter-hegemony, Williams writes: A lived hegemony is always a process [...] It does not passively exist as a form of dominance. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged [...] We have then to add to the concept of hegemony, the concepts of counter hegemony and alternative hegemony [...]’ (1977: 112–13).

This idea of contestation is highlighted in Bourdieu’s concept of ‘social fields’. The concept of ‘field’ designates an arena of struggle where there is resistance to dominance (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992: 102). In the previous chapter, I discussed Dalit strategic actions and struggles even in the context of durable effects of power and dominance on Dalit life-world. Even before the rise of the Maoist Movement in the village, many Dalits expressed resentment against Kurmi domination in subtle and covert ways. I referred to this form of contestation by referring to Scott’s concept of the ‘weapons of the weak’—numerous forms of ‘everyday resistance’ and ‘hidden transcripts’ (1985, 1990). With the rise of the Maoist Movement, however, the social field’s parameters for struggle had shifted from covert to open conflict, with new social institutions such as the village committees being established, illustrating how the power structures of the ‘field’ had changed. The mashal julus and the strike action at the brick kiln are good examples of the changing form of Dalit resistance. A unique feature of these actions was that they brought together on a common platform of struggle not only Dalits and

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Kurmis who supported the Maoist Movement but also Dalits who themselves belonged to different castes. Another phase in the process of contestation of hegemony occurred in Dumari when the Kurmis ‘surrendered’ after a prolonged period of armed conflict and violence. In the wake of this surrender, the village committee under the control of a Dalit leadership became the symbol of shifting power relations in the village. Even Kurmi offenders now had to appear before the village committee as it exercised its power to punish them. An elderly Dalit labourer who was a member of the Sangathan told me: ‘Immediately after the defeat of the Bhumi Sena and the Kurmi surrender, they [the Kurmis] were lying low for a while. But now they are trying to re-assert. But times have changed. We are not going to accept their supremacy anymore.’62 Dalits interpreted various issues which the village committee dealt with as evidence of Kurmi aggression, and of their continued efforts to re-establish their supremacy in the village. In Dumari, as the above quote from Williams indicated, hegemony is thus constantly contested, in ways that have shifted from covert to open, in and through the everyday relations of the Dalits and the Kurmis. My second observation relates to Dalit participation in a revolutionary movement and the role of the revolutionary organization in Dalit mobilization. Although the initial impetus for establishing the Maoist organization in Dumari came from a few younger Kurmis, the actual struggle against the landowners was carried out by Dalits. This role assumed by the landless labourers in a revolutionary organization questions the theoretical assumptions of both Wolf (1969, 2001) and Scott (1977a, 1979), who contend that peasants with small holdings are the primary actors in revolutionary contexts. Wolf claims: ‘It is usually the middle peasants, who work their own land with the labour of their own family, who are the prime movers to rebellion. Only they possess the degree of autonomy required to initiate political action and to become viable allies for “outside agitators”’ (2001: 235). Scott holds the view that the cultural and social autonomy that the landholding peasants possess makes them capable of resisting the ‘the impact of hegemony [that the] ruling elite normally exercise’ (1977a: 271).The participation of the landless Dalit labourers in 62

Interview with Rajinder Das in Dumari in June 2003.

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the Maoist Movement, therefore, negates the assumptions of Wolf and Scott. What is more significant is that the Musahars, who are often considered the most marginalized among Dalits, were in the forefront of the struggle in Dumari. Shanti Devi organized women not only in Dumari but also in other villages. The first ‘martyrs’ of the Party Unity were three Musahar youths, and one of them hailed from Dumari.63 A Kurmi member of the Maoist armed squad told me that it was among the Musahars, due to ‘their fierce loyalty to the Sangathan’, that that the revolutionary activists felt the most secure from the police and the caste senas.64 There is a famous story prevalent among Dalits in this region about how the Musahars of Dumari saved the members of an armed Maoist squad from a police raid. In the early phase of the armed struggle, the police had surrounded the Dalit quarters of Dumari upon receiving a tip-off that the Maoists were staying in the village. The Musahars protected their comrades by hiding them in the bukhor (pigsty). I inspected some bukhors in the Musahar tola (settlement). They are built adjacent to the Musahar dwellings and are about two feet high and three or four feet in width and length. Each bukhor has a small opening with a wooden door and are filled with pig dung and mud and the stench is unbearable. No policeman ever thought of putting his head inside a filthy bukhor in search of the Maoists. The Musahars narrated this story with pride at demonstrating their ingenuity and commitment to the Maoist Movement. In this regard, the Musahar agency was expressed as ‘protectors’ too. The central role played by the Maoist organization in the Dalit mobilization equally undermines the views that the ‘spontaneous’ or ‘autonomous’ actions of peasants (cf. Scott 1977a: 295–6), and/or the existing cleavages inherent to class relations themselves (Wolf 1969; Paige 1975) give birth to revolutionary struggle. People’s experiences of structural violence do not necessarily lead them into revolutionary action. In his book The History of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky writes: ‘In reality the mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection; if it were, the masses would be always in revolt’ (Trotsky 2000 [1930]: v). Evidence from Dumari 63

Interview with the mother of the killed activist in Dumari in October 2002. Interview with a member of the Maoist armed squad in April 2003.

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demonstrates that it was the combination of Dalit experience of structural violence, the dynamic role of the Maoist organization and most significantly Dalit motivations, decisions and actions which produced the revolutionary uprisings of the 1980s. What is certain is that Dalit participation in the struggle negates any suggestion that the Dalits are ‘rebels against their will’ (cf. Stoll 1993: xi) and the life story of a Dalit Maoist guerrilla, narrated in the next chapter, will further demonstrate the significance, specificity and agency of Dalit revolutionary subjectivity.

4

Bonded Labourer to Maoist Guerrilla Life Story of a Dalit Revolutionary

Introduction I INTRODUCED RAJUBHAI, THE DALIT MAOIST LEADER FROM DUMARI, IN THE

introduction to this book and mentioned how his dwelling became my home during the fieldwork in Dumari. In the subsequent chapters, I have drawn greatly from his insights in my analysis of structural violence and the genesis as well as the spread of the Maoist Movement in Bihar. In this chapter, while I continue to explore the themes raised in previous chapters, I present a closer portrait of Rajubhai—the Dalit and the Maoist. I narrate his life journey from a bonded labourer in a Kurmi household to a Maoist guerrilla; his family life in the context of armed struggle; his shifting caste and class consciousness; and his emergence as an ‘organic intellectual’. This then is the story of the making of Rajubhai, the revolutionary subject. This is also a continuation of the exploration of the theme of why peasants rebel, and of the dynamic connection between deprivation and political experience, which formed the focus of analysis in the previous two chapters. In a sense, Rajubhai’s life story becomes a means to understand the achievements and contradictions of the Maoist inspired agency and ideology which has evolved through three decades of revolutionary struggle in Bihar. I met Rajubhai during my first visit to his village Dumari in September 2002. He was sitting with more than a hundred people, mostly Dalit villagers, who had gathered in Dumari for a village meeting. My contact from the Maoist party introduced him as netaji (leader). However, in a torn vest and faded yellow dhoti, he was wholly unlike the Indian netas who paraded themselves in their

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trademark kurta pajama. I sat beside him on a bundle of straw in the village square and began a conversation; the first of many. He said his name was Raju, he was around 48 years old, married, had six children and belonged to a Dalit community.1 Like numerous other Dalits in the region, he was a landless agricultural labourer who joined the Maoists in the late 1970s. Unlike many, however, he rose to prominence in the Movement. For various reasons, he later withdrew from active involvement. I would learn more about him and the Maoist Movement as I stayed in his dwelling for more than a year during my ethnographic fieldwork. We developed a close friendship, and I began to address him as Rajubhai (bhai meaning brother) with affection and respect. Rajubhai invited his friends and former comrades in the Movement to his house so that I could interview them, and in the course of research fieldwork, I also spent many hours talking to him, not just about the Maoist Movement and his participation in it, but also about caste and class relations, as well as many other topics of mutual interest. What emerged from these discussions is the complex and sometimes contradictory picture—presented here—of what it meant to be a rural Dalit Maoist in Bihar in the 1980s and the 1990s.

Narrating a Maoist’s Life Story: Some Thoughts on Representation In the introduction to the book, I discussed my methodological positioning in relation to the production of this ethnography. Here I also want to highlight issues that are specific to Rajubhai’s life story narrative. First, Rajubhai’s story, as presented here, is the product of collaboration between Rajubhai and myself—the subject telling his story and the researcher recording, organizing and editing it (cf. Davies 1992). My collaboration with Rajubhai was made possible not only by the mutual trust and friendship we developed during my stay in his house, but also, at a deeper level, by our shared vision 1 In keeping with my policy of maintaining the anonymity of my research subjects, I am withholding information about Rajubhai’s caste as he was a key player in the armed struggle in the 1980s. An earlier version of Rajubhai’s life story was published in the Journal of Peasant Studies (Kunnath 2006).

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for the liberation of the oppressed classes and our belief in class struggle as a means to that end.2 Accordingly, Rajubhai shared his memories, experiences and reflections within the context of the resistance struggles initiated by the Maoist Movement. About this kind of exchange, Patai writes: ‘Memory itself is no doubt generated and structured in specific ways by the opportunity to tell one’s life story and the circumstances of the situation in which it occurs. At another moment in one’s life, or faced with a different interlocutor, quite a different story, with a different emphasis, is likely to emerge’ (1988: 9). Second, this narrative comprises a number of voices—that of Rajubhai himself, of others who participated in the telling (of his story), as well as that of the ethnographer. To this end, I have pieced together my many interviews and informal conversations with Rajubhai on the one hand, and on the other, those with his wife, other family members, fellow villagers and former comrades in arms. I have supplemented these sources with the data gathered from close observation of his interactions within the family and the village over a period of one year.The central dynamic of this narrative, thus, evolved out of Rajubhai’s life experiences, often told in the first person and interspersed with my observations and reflections. Finally, and most significantly, I want to discuss how the figure of Rajubhai the Dalit Maoist can help illustrate aspects of Dalit experiences of oppression and struggle. Unlike in Shotstak’s (1981) ethnography of the !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert, in which her main character, Nisa, is represented principally as the token of a type, the !Kung,3 I do not present Rajubhai as the token of a type, the Dalit. Not all Dalit men in Jehanabad joined the Maoist Movement or became the commanders of its armed squads. At the same time, however, his story did embody a common set of Dalit experiences—that is to say, of Dalit exploitation and resistance in rural Bihar. Although the account of his life does not strictly fall into the genre of testimonio, which is essentially a first person narrative 2 There was, however, an important difference too. Whereas he had been an active member of the Maoist Movement, I was just an academic committed to telling the story of the struggles of the oppressed classes. 3 Marjorie Shostak in her book Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman (1981) tells the story of !Kung women through the depiction of one woman in particular, known by the pseudonym Nisa. Nisa becomes the representative figure of the !Kung women.

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(Beverley 1992), the story of Rajubhai is nevertheless akin to the meaning and purpose of testimonio literature.4 In support of this argument, I cite the opening lines from ‘I Rigoberta Menchu’, the celebrated testimony of a Guatemalan woman. Menchu says: My name is Rigoberta Menchu. I am 23 years old. This is my testimony. I did not learn it from a book and I didn’t learn it alone. I’d like to stress that it is not my life, it is also the testimony of my people... My story is the story of all poor Guatemalans. My personal experience is the reality of a whole people (Menchu and Burgos-Debray, 1984: 1).5

In many ways, Rajubhai’s story was similar to that of Rigoberta Menchu, a testimony that represented Dalit anger, anguish and aspirations. His voice, like hers, was thus a combination of ‘self’ and ‘other’. On the one hand, it evoked an absent polyphony of other voices, experiences and lives. On the other, it was also an affirmation of individual selfhood (the specificity of the subject who spoke). It was therefore a voice that chronicled individual growth and transformation, but that was also rooted within a group or class situation, marked by marginalization, oppression and struggle (Beverly 1992). Therefore, this narration of Rajubhai’s life story throws significant light on the everyday Dalit life shaped in the midst of exploitative caste and class relations, protest movements and violence in Bihar.

From Grazing Fields to Battlefields: The Unfolding of Rajubhai’s Life As a next step in the narration of Rajubhai’s story, I want to highlight the significance of the context in which his life story unfolded. Feminist writers using a form of autobiographical narrative to explore their life experiences point out that context ‘reveals the range of experience and expectations within which the actors live, and provides a vital perspective from which to interpret their ways of navigating the weave of relationships and structures which constitute 4

It should be noted that the concept of testimonio is problematic, as the exchange between Brass (2002a) and Beverley (2004) has pointed out. 5 Stoll’s (1999) controversial ‘exposition’ of Rigoberta Menchu and Smith’s (1999) critique of his position have further opened up the debate on the representative nature of Menchu’s testimony.

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their worlds’ (Personal Narrative Group 1989: 19). Rajubhai’s life unfolded in the context of—and was accordingly structured by—the Kurmi domination in Dumari, the Dalit landlessness and their consequent economic dependency on the Kurmi landowners. I discussed in chapter two the social cleavages which existed between the landowning Kurmis and the landless Dalits. My focus here is to portray the events and experiences that left an indelible mark on Rajubhai’s political consciousness and shaped the future course of his life. He began his story by recalling his childhood memories, but of course only after expressing facetious resentment at my insistence in putting questions to him.6 Saathiji (comrade) you are very insistent. Let me try to remember the old days. After settling in Dumari in the early 1960s, my father had started working as a labourer bonded to a Kurmi landlord. All the Dalit labourers were bonded to the Kurmis or other upper caste landlords in this region. When I was a little fellow like him (pointing to his ten-year-old son), I also started working for the same landlord to whom my father was bonded. He sent me to graze cattle for a monthly salary of Rs 25. I was given food. I had to eat from a separate plate kept for the labourers. At that time, I did not think of it as an oppressive practice, though today I consider it very abhorrent. Now I will not eat in such houses anymore. I resented the salary of Rs 25 a month. I had to graze cattle from morning till evening, no matter what the weather was. I also could not bear the abusive words from the landlord. Once, when I expressed resentment, he threw a whole bucket of cow dung at me, which I had just filled. I felt very angry and humiliated. But what could have I done at that time? I still went on working for him. There was no other alternative. All of us were constantly subjected to humiliation, overwork and abusive words. None of us ever spoke back. I also saw so many other forms of atyachar (oppression). But remaining silent was the best option.

Rajubhai continued: For me, however, silence became ever more painful with each atrocity I suffered or I witnessed others suffer in Dumari. One noon, when I was returning from the field, I saw Munna Singh, the most oppressive Kurmi landlord in Dumari, coming out of a house after raping a Dalit woman. Her husband was away working in the field. Munna Singh threatened me with death if I ever opened my mouth about it. I kept silent again. I was afraid, and also I did not want others to know the shame the woman experienced. At that time, I thought keeping quiet about it was the best way of protecting 6 All the interviews with Rajubhai were carried out during the sixteen-month ethnographic fieldwork period in Dumari and surrounding villages in 2002–03.

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her izzat (dignity). Munna Singh and other Kurmi landlords had raped many Dalit women. Many of us knew about all these things, although we never spoke about such incidents. But this time I could bear it no longer. With the arrival of the Maoists, things began to change. Silence gave way to struggle.

Rajubhai then recounted his involvement in the beginnings of the Maoist Movement in Dumari: In the initial stages of the Sangathan in Dumari, I attended all the night meetings held in the paddy fields. I was at the forefront of mobilizing resistance against Munna Singh. We organized strike actions and mashaal julus. Between 1980–83, the Sangathan killed many oppressive landlords including Munna Singh. When the clashes became more intense in Dumari, the Sangathan asked me to leave the village and take the responsibility of mass mobilization in other villages. I became the commander of a Maoist armed squad. We fought pitched battles with the Bhumi Sena and defeated its activists in different villages.

Rajubhai continued recounting his story: The atrocities unleashed by the Bhumi Sena in Dumari forced a mass exodus of the labourers from the village. My wife and three children were also on the run. I was away with the Maoist squad. Once I bumped into them in one village. My eldest son was so scared that he clung to me, pleading with me not to leave them again. I cried with them. It was a very difficult moment. I could not continue with the party activities at the same time as my family was on the run. I needed money to support them. I also had some disagreement with the Sangathan on the question of honorarium paid to the squad members. Those who left their land and joined the squads were paid more. They were mostly from the Kurmi and Yadav castes. The landless in the squad were naturally the Dalits, and they received less payment. I could not stand this discrimination in the Sangathan, which professed its commitment to the landless labourers. So I left the squad in order to look after my wife and children.

I wanted to know the extent to which his life was exposed to danger, both from the Kurmi landowners and the police, especially after he left the dasta. Rajubhai was rather philosophical in his answer. He said: ‘if you have been a Maoist once, you probably will live in danger always.’ However, after his return to the village, there was no immediate danger because the Kurmis in Dumari in the aftermath of all the violence, the defeat of the Bhumi Sena and faced with the growing supremacy of the Sangathan, wanted no

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more trouble. Moreover, he said no Kurmi family in Dumari had any personal enmity towards him because when he had joined the dasta the Sangathan had sent him to work far away from Dumari for the safety of his family. Regarding danger from the police, he said that after he left the dasta, a sipahi (constable) from his caste, who was also a distant relative, informed him that his name was in the police records. Through his help, Rajubhai managed to have this record removed. He said that although he had not been involved in any armed or ‘underground’ activity of the Sangathan for many years, he was well aware that potential dangers still loomed. To this point I shall return later as Rajubhai was constantly negotiating his own and his family’s safety.

Rajubhai: Family Man and Revolutionary When talking about his decision to quit the squad, Rajubhai jokingly accused his wife of putting pressure on him to leave the Movement. She retorted fiercely: ‘But for the pleadings and prayers of the children and me, you would already be dead, with a bullet from either the police or the Ranveer Sena.’ Stating that there was always tension and anxiety while he was with the squad, she told those present: ‘Whenever, I heard some news about police encounters with the Naxalites, or about murder, I used to panic so much that my health deteriorated steadily.’ Rajubhai agreed, adding that his wife used to be very beautiful: ‘Her haalat [appearance/general condition] is the effect of anxiety generated by my involvement with the Naxalite Movement.’ At this stage I asked him to tell me more about his marriage and family in the context of his participation in the Maoist Movement. His wife protested, stating that there was no need to say anything about the marriage. Nevertheless, Rajubhai continued: I got married before the winds of change and violence began to blow across Jehanabad. My marriage was quite revolutionary. Her first husband left her for some reason. Then I fell in love with her. She was very beautiful. If I had not married her, perhaps she would have remained unmarried. In our caste seldom does a man marry a woman who has been married once before. It was revolutionary, because it was a love match and, moreover, both of us were from the same village. It was our custom that the elders bring the proposals. In my case, I myself initiated this marriage proposal. Saathiji, you go around and find out for yourself. To date mine is the only case of a love match in Dumari.

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‘The most difficult years of my marriage,’ Rajubhai went on, were during the period when Bhumi Sena came to the village. Being an active member of the Sangathan, it would have been too dangerous for me to stay in the village at that time. So the Party assigned me to another area, with the additional responsibility of commanding an armed squad. I had to leave my wife and three children; the eldest of them was just five years old. With the Bhumi Sena activists patrolling the Dalit tola day and night, I had no chance of coming to see my wife and children. Since the Sena activists knew that I was actively involved in the Sangathan, they were harassing my family all the time. It was a nightmare for my wife and children. The Kurmis did not employ any labourers then. Dalits were also not allowed to enter the Kurmi fields. It was impossible for them to get out of their tola as the fields owned by the Kurmis surrounded it. So there was a mass exodus of the landless peasants from Dumari in 1982. We lived in exile for eighteen months. It was only after the Maoist triumph over the Bhumi Sena in 1984 that our families returned to Dumari. I stopped going with the squad. But after the return, the Sangathan appointed me as the head of the village committee. My main job was to assist the Sangathan in re-settling the Dalits in Dumari and negotiating peace with the Kurmis.

As a participant observer of Dalit everyday life in Dumari, I could say with some confidence that Rajubhai was different from many other Dalit men in the village. During my one-year stay in his dwelling, there was not a single incident of wife-beating, which is significant given that domestic violence was common in almost every Dalit household in Dumari. He held his wife in high esteem, and consulted her on all matters relating to the family. Although she was very scared about the risks he ran as a result of his involvement in the Sangathan, she often spoke to me proudly about his contribution to the cause of poor peasants in his capacity as a Maoist leader. She said that it was because of his position in the Sangathan that they were able to live with dignity in Dumari. Rajubhai, unlike most other Dalit men in the villages, cared for the education of his children. His eldest son passed the matriculation examination, and the second son studied up to class eight. The younger children were still at school, including the youngest girl. He was most insistent that his children attend school on a regular basis, and told me that he was willing to spend any amount of money to educate his daughter. The value of education was, he said, something he came to realize when commanding the dasta, and he outlined his journey into literacy in the following manner:

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I never went to school. While in the Movement I used to move from village to village, creating awareness about the need to fight against oppression. Songs were a good medium and I was a good singer. Once when I finished singing, a comrade who had just joined the team asked me to write that song for him. But when I did not oblige, he felt offended and accused me of being rather selfish in not sharing the lyrics. I felt very ashamed of myself. I could not write it down for him because I was illiterate. I did not want my companions to know this fact. That day I made up my mind to change, and within the next few months I taught myself to read and write. Literacy then gave me a passport to Marxist literature. I do not want my children to go through the same shame I had experienced.

His children were very articulate. The eldest daughter was married, and had come to the maaike (mother’s house) for the birth of her child. Her husband was away in Delhi working as a labourer at a construction site. She said her in-laws treated her with respect and never harassed her because they knew that her father was a Naxalite, and they were very scared of him. She said proudly: ‘I told them that if they harass me, my Bapuji would come and put a bullet into their heads.’ However, his eldest son, who was also married and living in the same house with his wife and child, was not very happy with his father’s Maoist legacy. He said that his father had devoted his whole life to the Movement, but that the Sangathan had given him nothing in return. He made a reference to an incident in which three Kurmi landlords had sent threats to his father. He said the Sangathan should have expressed its gratitude for all that he had done, and apprehended the culprits who were trying to target his father. But it did nothing. One day, he said, all of them would be shot dead because of his father’s Maoist leanings. When I arrived in Dumari, another of his sons was away in Gujarat, also working as a construction labourer. At the end of my fieldwork stay there, Rajubhai sent two more of his sons away to Gujarat, saying he wanted the children to get out of Dumari. He nevertheless joked about this, insisting that all his sons were being sent away from Dumari in order that none of them should become Naxalites. In reality, he was very concerned about the increasing violence in the region. To him, the drudgery in Gujarat was better than the dependency on the Kurmi landlords in Dumari. Whenever people from the village travelled to Gujarat, Rajubhai and his spouse would always take the opportunity of sending food parcels to their

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children. Their sons occasionally sent money remittances by the same means; through villagers returning to Dumari.7 For Rajubhai, therefore, the family was his priority. One day while I was there, the local secretary of the CPI (ML) People’s War asked Rajubhai’s eldest son to deliver a letter to a person in the neighbouring village who had been summoned to appear before the people’s court. That night, Rajubhai was furious with his son for agreeing to run the errand on behalf of the Sangathan. The person summoned by the Sangathan, he said, came from a village where the CPI (ML) Liberation (its rivalry with the People’s War was noted earlier) held sway. What Rajubhai feared most was that someone from that village might identify the messenger as his son, with all that such recognition would entail. His own loyalty and commitment to the party was one thing, he insisted, but he did not want his children getting involved in the Naxalite activities that might invite retaliation by a rival group. The area was notorious for fierce rivalry between the (CPI ML) Liberation, CPI (ML) People’s War and the Ranveer Sena, each of which regarded even those who were merely supporters and sympathisers of another group as enemies. It was, in short, a situation that required all Rajubhai’s skill to keep both his family and himself safe.

Land and Labour, Pride and Shame Though ‘land to the tiller’ was the mobilizing slogan of the Sangathan, Rajubhai—who once commanded one of its armed squads—was himself still landless.Yet he worked tirelessly for the Maoist land-grab campaigns, and had been instrumental in the distribution of land obtained in this manner among the landless labourers. However, owning a plot of land still remained a dream for him. Landless he might be, Rajubhai noted, but he refused to be bonded to any Kurmi landlords in Dumari. In chapter two, I outlined the practice of debt bondage, an integral element of agrarian production relations in the Magadh region and the oppression which it entailed. Rajubhai 7 His sons would also phone from Gujarat, calls going to the telephone located in the village shop. A boy from the latter would run to inform Rajubhai and his wife about the call, for which errand he was paid Rs 2. They would then go to the shop and await a second call.

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said: ‘After all that I have learned, and taught in the Sangathan about human dignity and freedom, I could not even imagine myself attached as a bandua (bonded labourer) to any Kurmi landlord in Dumari or elsewhere. Even if it means going hungry, I want to keep my dignity.’ Instead of working as an ‘attached’ or ‘casual’ labourer, Rajubhai entered into another production relation with the Kurmis in Dumari. He cultivated two acres of land leased from its owner through a practice called manki—a sharecropping relation (or rent-in-kind). Sharecropping is common throughout rural Bihar, and entails a contract lasting one year between a landowner and the tenant who wanted to cultivate the land. Rent is payable after each harvest, when the landlord receives 11 mann (one mann = 40 kilos) of grain (6 mann of wheat and 5 of paddy) for every acre cultivated. All the cultivating costs were covered by the cultivator. If the harvest suffered due to flood or drought, the product was divided equally between sharecropper and landowner. However, if the surrounding fields had a better harvest yield than the peasant who had entered into a manki contract, the sharecropper was bound to deliver the amount of rentin-kind stipulated in the contract. These sharecropping contracts were oral, not paper-based. Kurmi landowners usually never entered into manki contracts with the Dalits in Dumari, but Rajubhai was an exception to this rule. Rajubhai also cultivated a small plot of five kattas adjacent to his dwelling, leased to him in another type of contract called patta—a form of cash rent. This arrangement, too, lasted for no more than a single year, and involved the payment to the owner of land between Rs 2000 to Rs 3000, depending on the irrigation facilities on the land. On this smallholding, Rajubhai cultivated rice, wheat and vegetables on a seasonal rotation. That piece of land, he informed me, was something that he longed to buy. However hard he worked, he added sadly, he would never be able to save enough money to purchase that holding. He said he did not even have sufficient money to rent it on a patta basis for the following year. Occasionally Rajubhai and members of his family worked for Channa Singh, with whom he had the manki contract. Their arrangement did not possess the usual outward appearances of the landlord/labourer (malik/mazdur) relation. During the paddy transplantation season, Channa Singh used to come to Rajubhai’s

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house many times a day, always pleading with him to work in his fields. According to Rajubhai, this was because the days of issuing orders and abuses were gone. One particular day I saw Channa Singh helping Rajubhai to cut fodder for the latter’s buffalo. That was a sight never before seen in Dumari—a Kurmi helping a Dalit with manual labour. Rajubhai only laboured for him when he had completed his other work. Unlike other landless labourers, Rajubhai appeared to have some autonomy in his labour relations with the Kurmi landlord. Here I like to contrast this example with the arguments raised by Wolf (1969) and Scott (1977a)—discussed in the introduction—regarding economic and cultural autonomy as the precondition for peasant involvement in revolutionary action. Rajubhai’s relations with the landlord seem to suggest that autonomy is the result not the precondition of militant activism. Even with produce from both the manki and the patta land, Rajubhai barely managed to feed his large family. However, they never starved, at least not during the year while I was there. They worked through the entire agricultural cycle to obtain a quantity of grain (mostly paddy) that for them functioned both as food (usevalue) and money (exchange-value). Whenever his young grandson had to be taken to the village doctor, his daughters needed their tuition fees paid, or salt and spices had to be bought for the kitchen (or tea and sugar, for his anthropologist comrade), it was necessary for him to sell his precious anaaj (grain). There was never any cash in the dwelling. Two meals—rice and daal—were eaten daily, one in the morning and one at night. For those who remained hungry, there were always some leafy vegetables, mostly gathered from nearby fields. In an absolute sense, and rather obviously, Rajubhai was poor; but compared to other Dalits in the village he seemed better-off. Although his dwelling was thatched, it nevertheless had brick walls. Five years ago, he had received Rs 17,000 under the Indira Awas Scheme so that he could improve his habitation, but part of that money was diverted to cover the cost of hospital treatment for his son. In this kind of economic situation, I could not but express concern at becoming a financial burden to the family. So after the first week spent as a guest under his roof, I approached Rajubhai with some money to pay for my board and lodging. He indicated that he felt very offended, adding that:

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I have not yet reached such a level of misery that I have to take money from a comrade who is staying in my house. You are the guest of the Sangathan, so you are my guest, too. I am indebted to the Sangathan for all that I am.

I felt ashamed, and decided to return his generosity in kind. It was winter, and on some days it was extremely cold in the village, the temperature dipping below zero. And with no hot water or other heating facilities, life for peasant families became quite difficult during the winter. Since the family of Rajubhai possessed no warm clothing, I purchased these—together with blankets—on my next trip to Patna, the capital of Bihar. All were then given to bhabhi, and the following morning everyone in the family was wearing new warm clothes. Encouraged by this, I purchased two more blankets. But this time—very politely—Rajubhai expressed his displeasure, saying: Saathiji, please don’t do this anymore. All the villagers might think that I am keeping you in my house because I am receiving a lot of benefits from you. Regarding the blanket you gave last time, some people were asking about it. I had to tell them that I gave you Rs 100 to buy the blanket from Patna.

This was an unexpected reaction, as prior to this fieldwork I had stayed in a number of Dalit villages in Bihar. On those occasions, Dalits who were poor often used to approach me with a request for money. But Rajubhai, though very similar to them in terms of poverty and landlessness, nevertheless possessed a very different outlook. No experience of deprivation could rob him of his Maoist pride and dignity. During my year long association with him, I was inspired by his many such characteristics. I can undoubtedly assert that these together with the characteristics I am going to describe in the next section, made Rajubhai a very endearing and effective leader of the Maoist Movement in Jehanabad.

A Leader from Dalit Ranks: Rajubhai as ‘Organic Intellectual’ Rajubhai was a working class activist intellectual who played a crucial role in the Maoist Movement in its initial phase in Jehanabad. This claim, however, raises a number of questions that require addressing. The first and most obvious is: how is it possible to categorize Rajubhai as an activist intellectual when he had never been to school or received any formal education, let alone produced any texts

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outlining strategies for working class struggle? To this, my proposed answer is that Rajubhai was, indeed, an intellectual, but in the very specific sense defined by Gramsci (1998 [1971]), who characterized intellectuals in terms of their educative and organizational role, their socio-economic background, and their political agency. According to Gramsci, ‘all men are intellectuals’ in so far as they think, but ‘not all men in society have the function of intellectuals’ (1998: 9). For Gramsci, then, intellectuals are those who exercise ‘an organizational function in the wide sense, whether in the field of production or in that of culture, or in that of political administration’ (ibid.: 97). His definition thus broadens the category of intellectual to include not only ‘thinkers’ but also civil servants, political leaders, clerics, managers, technocrats, and so on. Gramsci identified every class—dominant and subordinate—as possessing within its ranks two kinds of intellectual: the ‘traditional’ and the ‘organic’.8 Unlike the former, whose role is merely to transmit ideas compatible with current authority (in other words, to reproduce existing relations of dominance), the latter challenges them and in an important sense advances the ideology that either establishes or destroys the rule of a particular class. The application of the label ‘organic intellectual’ to Rajubhai, however, raises a second question about whether—and why—it is wholly accurate to place him within such a category. There is, on the face of it, a contradiction between the fact that Maoists waged an armed struggle and the Gramscian concept of ‘hegemony’ that informs his notion of an ‘organic intellectual’. As elaborated by Gramsci (1998: 5–23), the main role of an ‘organic intellectual’ who emerges from the ranks of ‘those below’—and especially from the peasantry—is to persuade, not to enforce. By contrast, armed struggle replaces persuasion with force. Insofar as the Maoist object is to enforce their authority over their political opponents, this corresponds to the abandonment of consent, and is consequently the negation of hegemony. Seen thus, the categorization of Rajubhai as an ‘organic intellectual’ would appear to be problematic. However, on closer inspection, this is not so. 8 Gramsci (1998) contrasts the role and position of the ‘organic intellectual’—an authentic voice of and participant in grassroots agency—with that of what he terms ‘traditional intellectual’. Although some of the latter may have emerged from the ranks of the rural poor, therefore, in doing so they shed this identity in part or in whole, and become the ‘other’ of their socio-economic roots.

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In order to sustain the argument that Rajubhai was an ‘organic intellectual’, it is necessary to clarify exactly what this means. Hence there is a need to distinguish between the different kinds of audience addressed by this ‘representative voice’. On the one hand, the ‘organic intellectual’ seeks external consent; that is, from political opponents, for class-specific policies and programmes that are against their interests and favour those of the intellectual’s own class.9 Clearly, this would be inapplicable in the case of Maoists, who are not—and never have been—in the business of gaining the consent of members of the landlord class in Bihar. On the other hand, an organic intellectual also seeks to establish an internal hegemony: that is, through his activities, generate an ideological cohesiveness within his class together with an awareness of its political direction. In a Marxian sense, an organic intellectual contributes to—and perhaps even makes possible—the transformation from a ‘class-in-itself ’ to a ‘class-for-itself ’ (Marx 1963: 145). It is in this latter sense that Rajubhai could be said to be an organic intellectual of the Bihar peasantry. I shall soon present evidence about this in relation to Rajubhai’s work. There is another sense as well in which it can be said that Rajubhai represented an ‘organic intellectual’. It is noticeable that, in the case of India, there is no shortage of accounts written by or about those on the political left, describing in some detail how they joined the ranks of the Communist Party, and how they acquired political consciousness and influence.10 The account presented here, by contrast, is not of this kind; rather it is the story of a villager which in the normal course of events would remain untold—and thus unheard—outside his or her own particular milieu. It is also in this regard, therefore, that Rajubhai’s narrative is that of an ‘organic intellectual’—someone whose political efficacy not only operates at the rural grassroots but is also made available to a wider audience through ethnographic writings. 9 When Gramsci used the term ‘organic intellectual’ to describe the agency of a ‘permanent persuader’ which resulted in the hegemonic domination by working class discourse over that of traditional intellectuals (priests, doctors, lawyers, scientists, technicians, etc.), he was referring to this external role (1998: 10). 10 Good examples are the accounts by Krishnan (1971) of the founder of the Communist Movement in Kerala, by Murugesan and Subramanyam (1975) of ‘the father of Communism in the South’, and by Namboodiripad (1976) of his own leftwards path.

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As a landless Dalit labourer in what was, in caste and class terms, a highly stratified agrarian society, and as a Maoist leader, Rajubhai was instrumental in initiating transformation envisaged by the concept of internal hegemony. He played a vital role in transforming the caste feelings of Dalits into a consciousness of class. In the numerous songs he composed and sang at various village meetings, Rajubhai urged agricultural labourers to go beyond their particular caste identities and affiliation, and instead, to forge themselves into a class based on their common experience of landlessness, oppression and untouchability. In other words, he sought to persuade them not just to see themselves as Dalit workers, but also to act together on the basis of this identity. During the 1980s, Dalit labourers for the first time in the history of the region waged a collective struggle against the landed classes. It was in the context of this agrarian struggle that the Maoist Movement placed before the landless Dalits new possibilities. These included the notions of ‘land to the tiller’, higher wages for agricultural work, and an end to the oppressive practices of bonded labour, caste abuse and exploitation. Rajubhai did not spare any effort in pursuing these objectives, designed to usher in a new social order. As the commander of a Maoist armed squad, he led labourers in many jameen kabja andolan (land grab campaigns), and then saw to it that the captured land was redistributed among the landless. He also organized janadalat (people’s courts), where oppressive landlords were tried by labourers, who also decided on the punishment. For the first time in their lives, Dalits experienced overt power over the landlords. After Rajubhai withdrew from the armed squad, he was elected head of the village committee set up by the Maoists. In that capacity, he set about fostering a class unity among the rural poor, an identity they made use of in their struggles against the dominant Kurmis. He settled disputes, not just between landless Dalits and landowning Kurmis, but also those arising within the ranks of Dalits themselves. In the course of our interviews, he recounted a number of these incidents. In chapter three, I referred to some of the disputes that Rajubhai handled when he was the head of the village committee. It is relevant to recall some of them here: Rajubhai was instrumental in Ganesh Sahu regaining his land which he was forced to sell during the outbreak of violence; he conducted janadalats to address the sexual harassment cases involving the Kurmi men in the village; he also organized meetings to address the

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grievances of Dalit labourers. Rajubhai remained head of the village committee for 15 years from 1985–2000 and during that period the village committee, as I discussed in chapter three, became a symbol of shifting power relations in the village. In the previous chapter, I also called attention to the villagers’ concern with the brewing and selling of liquor by the Musahars in the village. The consumption of alcohol led to frequent outbursts of fighting, and also sometimes to the abuse of women. On various occasions, Rajubhai took the lead in organizing anti-liquor campaigns in the village. At his behest, the local squad of Maoists twice destroyed the vessels used in brewing alcohol, and also imposed a fine on those involved in its distillation. However, the party was unable to eradicate it completely. Rajubhai himself frequently expressed anger and frustration at the Sangathan’s lack of commitment for solving this problem. Because of a fight between a Dusadh boy and the Musahars, Rajubhai became so enraged that he broke the liquor containers belonging to two Musahar women. In order to have evidence for this action, he asked me to take photographs of the women with their containers before he broke them, and then warned them of further consequences if they continued to brew and sell alcohol. In this, however, Rajubhai appeared to be fighting a lone battle.11 Significantly, Rajubhai’s leadership also extended beyond the boundaries of purely working class concerns. As the head of the village committee, he was approached by the landowning Kurmis and asked to settle disputes among the Kurmis themselves. In chapter three, I cited the incident of a Kurmi woman who, having been prevented from having her share of land by her husband’s brother, received justice through Rajubhai’s intervention. In the Gramscian sense, therefore, Rajubhai had emerged as a working class intellectual in the context of the Maoist Movement, 11

This attempt by Rajubhai to eradicate alcohol production and consumption is not a moral stance driven by a puritanical zeal on the part of Maoists. The sad reality of excessive alcohol consumption in rural areas of the so-called Third World is well known, but the economic and social problems linked to this are not always made clear. Brewing in the domestic unit is frequently depicted in much of the anthropological literature—see, for example, the volume edited by Douglas (1987)—as no more than an income-generating form of informal-sector economic activity, a benign type of petty trade that empowers women from poor peasant households. What is not said quite so often is that many women in rural areas attribute family poverty to expenditure by men on drinking, in furtherance of which the latter sometimes incur debts and enter bonded labour relations (da Corta and Venkateshwarlu 1999: 107ff.).

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to which he was ‘organically bound’ as a ‘collective intellectual of the proletariat’ in Jehanabad (cf. Femia 1981: 133). At the same time, however, because of his rootedness in the rural working class, he was critical of the Movement whenever it failed to represent the aspirations of landless peasants. He pointed out that during the past two decades the Maoist Party had done nothing to raise the level of agricultural wages. Nor had its slogan ‘land to the tiller’ been realized in the course of this twenty-year period. Rajubhai was also critical of the fact that landed classes were joining the party. He said: Earlier the party fought to defend the interests of the working class. Now it is admitting men from those classes against which we fought and sacrificed many lives. As a result, now we are feeling neglected.

In the manner of a true ‘organic intellectual’, Rajubhai was critical of party policy where and when this diverged from the interests of poor peasants and agricultural labour, from whose ranks he himself had emerged, and in the ranks of which he still remained. For the Dalits in the area, especially those in Dumari, Rajubhai was the focus of political mobilization. Many Dalits in the village pointed out that in the event of Rajubhai joining another (rival) Marxist-Leninist group in the region, they too would shift their allegiances, and go along with him. Yet he continued to be loyal to the Sangathan, on behalf of which he worked hard, but not uncritically.

Class Consciousness and its Contradictions As I have noted in the previous sections, Rajubhai shared with other Dalits a common set of experiences: landlessness, untouchability, oppression and poverty. According to E.P. Thompson, it was these common experiences historically that informed grassroots agency, linking consciousness of class to struggle based on such identity. Hence the following—now classic—view about the process of working class formation, although about nineteenth century England, has a more general application: ‘By class I understand an historical phenomenon, unifying a number of disparate and seemingly unconnected events, both in the raw material of experience and in consciousness. I emphasise that it is an historical phenomenon. I do not see class as a “structure”, nor even as a “category”, but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human

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relationships’ (Thompson 1963: 9, emphasis in the original).12 What is important about this view is that, conceptually, it breaks with the long-dominant sociological notion of ‘class’ as a static (ahistorical) structure, and converts this into a dynamic whereby class is a process of becoming, based not just on ‘being’ (what-one-is) but on consciousness (what-one-perceives-oneself-as-being). The centrality of consciousness to Thompson’s dynamic notion of class is itself reinforced by two additional factors: it is a transformation that is not only undertaken by those at the grassroots, but also one guided by politics. This much is evident from the following description: ‘There is a sense in which we may describe popular radicalism in these years as an intellectual culture. The articulate consciousness of the self-taught was above all a political consciousness [...] The towns, and even the villages, hummed with the energy of the autodidact. Given the elementary techniques of literacy, labourers, artisans, shopkeepers and clerks and schoolmasters, proceeded to instruct themselves, severally or in groups’ (Thompson 1963: 711–12, emphasis in the original). These words (‘autodidact’, ‘elementary techniques of literacy’) accurately describe the kind of process Rajubhai was undertaking in rural Bihar, and also underscore the core meaning of what Gramsci understood by the concept ‘organic intellectual’. Such forms of political consciousness ‘from below’, however, do not by themselves determine what Marxists interpret as consciousness of class. For the latter to be present, an additional historical factor is deemed necessary: participation by the grassroots in a political party that is revolutionary. It is only when this latter condition is met that consciousness is said by Marxist theory to be that of class. Thus, for example, Luka´cs (1971) differentiates between elementary and imputed consciousness. Whereas the former encompasses the ‘actually-existing’ oppositional discourse of subordinate socioeconomic categories unconnected with class, dissent which is ‘contingent’ and may arise at any historical conjuncture, the latter by contrast is an historically necessary discourse for (or ‘appropriate’ to) the empowerment of a specific class at a particular conjuncture. In his 12 Elsewhere Thompson makes the same point slightly differently: ‘Class eventuates as men and women live their productive relations, and as they experience their determinate situations, within the ensemble of social relations, with their inherited culture and expectations, and as they handle these experiences in cultural ways’ (Thompson 1978: 150).

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1967 preface to the English edition, Luka´cs argues that his analysis is no different from that of Lenin, who made a similar distinction between a spontaneously emerging trade union consciousnesses and one of class, the latter being brought to workers by a socialist party.13 The importance of these divergent forms (actual, ascribed) will become apparent below, when considering the contradictory aspects of Rajubhai’s political consciousness.

The Language of Class An attempt to develop a non-static sociological theory about a dynamic relation between class and consciousness was made by Leggett (1964: 228), who argued for a connection based on a ‘cumulative series of mental states, running from class verbalizations to scepticism and militancy to egalitarianism’. According to Leggett, although utterances indicate the extent to which individual workers discuss issues in terms of class, consciousness of class does not require that they do so consistently. This is precisely what Rajubhai did in the course of interviews with me, where his descriptions of everyday relations were occasionally, but not constantly, couched explicitly in terms of class. An example of this occurred during our first conversation, when he made the following statement: The struggle in Dumari began on 23 May 1981 [his recollection of the exact date took me by surprise]. There was no zamindari here. But the mentality of the kisans was that of big zamindars. The Sangathan began here because of the oppression by the kisans. They paid the labourers just sava ser kesari as a daily wage. They were very rude to us, and abused us often. After the struggle, the wage level was raised to 3 kilos of grain. Now things are better. We sit together, and sometimes eat together too. 13 As Lenin (1961: 349ff.) pointed out, many grassroots components of ‘popular culture’—religion, nationalism, and racism among them—are backward-looking, and the task of politicization by external/urban influences (intellectuals, trade unions, political parties) is precisely to challenge and then change such ideas. Whether Marx himself advocated such primary importance being placed on the party in the development of class consciousness is unclear. In The Poverty of Philosophy (Marx 1963: 145) he observed: ‘Economic conditions had in the first place transformed the mass of the people into workers. The domination of capital created the common situation and common interests of this class. Thus this mass is already a class in relation to capital, but not a yet a class for itself. In the struggle, of which we have only indicated a few phases, this mass united and forms itself into a class for itself. The interests which it defends become class interests’. The inference is that the proletariat would develop a consciousness of class by itself, simply through the process of class struggle.

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His language made clear references to class, as the following instances confirm. Dalits commonly referred to themselves as harijans, as did non-Dalits; however, the latter referred to Dalits as harijans in a derogatory sense, identifying them as the lowest components in the caste hierarchy. Having taught himself Marxist theory, Rajubhai analysed what it meant to be a Dalit in terms of production relations. Thus he employed the term mazdur varg (working class) when speaking about Dalits. He also referred to them as the shoshit varg (oppressed classes), or as bhoomiheen mazdur (landless labourers). Conversely, he spoke of the landowning upper castes as shoshak varg (oppressor classes) or samanthi (feudal lords). When talking of the relationships linking Dalits to Kurmis, he deployed words such as malik/mazdur (landowner/worker), bandua (bonded labourer), and harwahi (ploughman). In his utterances, caste terms were replaced with class categories. For Rajubhai, resistance waged by Dalits against the Kurmis was nothing less than varg sangharsh (class struggle). Of particular interest is the fact that Rajubhai used this same language—of class—in his criticisms of the Sangathan for its current shift in priorities. He said: When the Sangathan came here, it began among the mazdur varg. The cadres used to sleep and eat in the mud houses of the mazdur. It fought for the issues of the working classes—land and wages, as well as against social abuses, exploitation and the sexual abuse of women. But now that the Sangathan has got a foothold here, its ambition has grown into one of capturing state power. So they have started taking in people from the dominant castes, against whom we fought previously. As a result of the entry of the landowning castes into the Sangathan, it is hesitant to raise the issues of land and wages. For the last twenty years, wages have remained the same: 3 kilos of paddy for a day’s work. The working class is no longer a priority for the Sangathan.

The second category used by Leggett in his analysis of the link between consciousness and class is ‘scepticism’, which encompasses the belief that wealth is distributed within the community so as to primarily benefit the middle class. Since land was the main source of wealth in rural Bihar, Rajubhai was highly critical of the fact that it was all in the hands of the upper and middle classes, while Dalits remained what they had always been—landless agricultural labourers. Of particular interest was the connection he made between landlessness and landowners, drawing out the dependence

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of the latter on the former. From this stemmed his scepticism about landowner commitment to reform, particularly as this involved property. Pointing to the land just outside his front door that he was cultivating on a patta contract (see above), he observed: The working classes would never be able to buy land from the landowning castes. They wanted us to remain always landless, so that we are always available as cheaper labour for them.

The third criterion invoked by Leggett is ‘militancy’, or the desire on the part of those exhibiting consciousness of class to involve themselves in action with a view to realize objectives in furtherance of this identity. A commander of an armed squad of Maoists, Rajubhai believed in the necessity and efficacy of armed struggle. As long as inequalities continued, in his opinion, there was no alternative to armed struggle. This militancy, however, did not translate into mindless violence: revolution, he said, did not consist of cutting throats. Here Rajubhai was making an oblique reference to the way the Maoists have been labelled as moodi katuwa (those who cut off the heads) or chah inch chota karnewala (shortening someone by six inches). These terms, which border on black humour, are themselves part of the language of class struggle, since they refer the listener to the decapitations that were part of the Maoist ‘annihilation policy’ during the early days of the conflict in Bihar. The final category used by Leggett is ‘egalitarianism’, which identifies the redistribution of wealth as a desirable outcome of agency and consciousness of class. Not only had Rajubhai always advocated the redistribution of land among the landless, but a fundamental commitment to what might be termed an ‘everyday egalitarianism’ was important to him. This he shared with me during my first interviews with him, when he talked about his unhappiness at the unequal distribution of fish caught from the village ponds. On this subject, he observed: Once the Sangathan became strong in Dumari, it supervised the fishing and the distribution of fish among all the families. Now just a few Kurmis and Chamars come together and catch all the fish.

This sense of egalitarianism was not limited to an equal distribution of resources. He emphasized that there should also be equality in work, noting that it was always the Dalits who worked the land. The upper castes never muddied their hands, he said, a

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criticism that was applied by him especially to upper caste women. This he contrasted with the division of labour at the bottom of the rural hierarchy, where Dalit men and women did all the menial jobs. In his view true egalitarianism would exist only when upper caste men and women worked in the fields alongside other caste groups. To bring this about, Rajubhai suggested, the Sangathan should raise the wage rates so high that the Kurmi men and women would eventually be compelled to work in their own fields. Women from these landowning families should also be employed in paddy transplantation and harvesting. Working alongside labourers, he thought, would not only break their feudal attitudes but also create a sense of equality among all rural inhabitants.

Countervailing Hegemonies: Reproduction of Caste As a working class activist, the consciousness of class exhibited by Rajubhai clearly went far beyond the ‘mental state’ that Leggett constructed in his analysis. But it is also important to note the presence of some apparent ‘contradictions’ within this seemingly uniform domain of class consciousness, and it is to these that I now turn. ‘Contradictions’ manifested themselves in numerous episodes, which in themselves were apparently insignificant. Of particular interest is the way traditional religious beliefs persisted, and in an important sense formed a parallel discourse that shadowed the materialist consciousness of Maoism. Thus, for example, one night Rajubhai’s grandson was very ill, and cried incessantly. His response was to take the child, along with its father and mother, to a village exorcist in the middle of the night. The following morning, I asked Rajubhai whether he believed in the power of the exorcist to cure the child. It was a question that he preferred not to answer, and intellectually the issue remained unresolved. During March 2003, I, along with Rajubhai, his wife and a few other villagers from Dumari, went to Calcutta to participate in a demonstration organized by Maoist front organizations to protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq. Before the protest march, Rajubhai had been heavily involved in mobilizing the people for the demonstration. As the event was approaching, he said proudly: ‘Many villagers from Dumari are planning to go to Calcutta this time. They are joining the Party demonstration after a long gap because my

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wife and I are going now’. For many villagers, an added incentive was, of course, the prospect of free travel to a big city. On arriving in Calcutta, however, instead of joining the demonstration, Rajubhai and the people who accompanied him from Dumari headed straight for the temple of goddess Kali on the banks of the Ganges. There they had a ‘holy dip’ in the river, and then worshipped in the temple. Later that evening, when I met up with him, he was very apologetic, saying it was the women in the group who had compelled him to accompany them to the Kali mandir. During my stay in the village, Rajubhai’s father died. In keeping with standard Hindu practice, and together with all the male members in the family, he shaved the hair off his head. Rajubhai was also scrupulous in following all the funeral rituals of his caste and religion. He took the body of his father all the way to Patna, for cremation on the bank of the river Ganges. In order to pay the cost of carrying out this funeral ceremony in Patna, it was necessary for him to borrow money. When asked why he did not cremate his father in the village itself—a less expensive option—his reply was that ‘it is a matter of prestige to cremate the dead on the banks of Ganga in Patna’. Rather than the usual Dalit practice of cremating their dead on the banks of a small stream on the outskirts of the village, therefore, Rajubhai insisted on following the upper caste custom of cremating the dead by the Ganges in Patna. Clearly the persistence of such traditional practices in a Maoist as politically aware as Rajubhai clearly is open to a number of conflicting explanations. On the one hand, a classic Marxist approach might categorize this situation as evidence of ‘false consciousness’, and thus for the continuing absence of a consciousness that was authentically one of class. Alternatively, a non-Marxist perspective associated either with the subaltern studies framework (Guha 1982–89) or with resistance theory (Scott 1976; 1985; 1990) would seek to recast such beliefs and practices associated with caste or religion in a positive light. That is, as an empowering reassertion of cultural ‘otherness’ on the part of poor peasants and agricultural labourers, thereby validating their own subaltern identity in relation to landowning upper castes.14 For this reason, traditional practices and/or beliefs 14 Hence the view (Scott 1976: 236) that ‘[f]olk religion may undergo a transformation that places it in sharp opposition to the religious and social doctrines of the elite’.

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should be seen not as ‘false consciousness’, and thus politically conservative, but rather as progressive. Departing somewhat from both these interpretations, and writing about the conflict between the Miskitu Indians and the Sandinista State in Nicaragua, Hale (1994: 204–05) argues as follows: that ‘the very definition of “necessity” at a given moment is the product of prior struggles, which help to determine what protagonists in a resistance movement perceive as their own limitations. When subordinated ethnic group members conclude that a negotiated accommodation of structural inequity is the only alternative (i.e., necessary), we must at least consider the possibility that such a conclusion reflects the prior impact of hegemony on their reasoning’. In other words, grassroots accommodation—as reflected in a continued adherence by those at the rural grassroots to existing traditions—may indeed be conservative, but this is what a long history of enduring struggles (and defeats) teaches poor peasants and workers. Similar to Hale’s argument, but with a different emphasis, I argue that we need to go beyond the concepts of ‘false consciousness’ or seeing ‘acquiescence within in a broader framework of resistance’—a point I discussed in chapter two—in order to understand the apparent ‘contradictions’ in Rajubhai’s class consciousness. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’, it may be argued that experience of durable effects of dominant structures might lead to their internalization and subsequent reproduction. Bourdieu uses the term habitus to refer to a set of internalized structures, schemes of perceptions and actions (Bourdieu 1977: 86) which operate ‘below the level’ of conscious decision making and the ‘controls of the will’ (2001: 37). Rajubhai’s ‘complicity’ with upper caste norms is not, therefore, a ‘conscious, deliberate act; it is itself the effect of power, which is durably inscribed’ into his life-world, ‘in the form of schemes of perceptions and dispositions’ (Bourdieu 2000: 171). At the same time, Bourdieu also argues that the habitus generate people’s practices which while reproducing the relations of domination, also changes them. Therefore, as discussed in chapter two, both compliance and resistance characterize the life-world of the dominated. Gramsci’s notion of ‘contradictory consciousness’ is similarly underpinned by these ideas of subordination and contestation (1998). Drawing on this idea I shall sum up various points discussed in this chapter.

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Conclusion Gramsci (1998 [1971]) views subaltern consciousness as a contradictory realm of ideas and behaviour in which accommodation and resistance exists in constant tension. Gramsci locates the ideas of struggle in the worker’s awareness of his ‘interests’ and his ability to ‘unite himself with his fellow-workers in the practical transformation of the world’ (1998: 333). As a landless Dalit agricultural labourer, Rajubhai embodied and, thus to a certain extent, represented the collective identity and aspirations of poor peasants and landless labourers in the area. Like them, he sought to transcend the oppressive structures and relations of exploitation (caste, bonded labour, tenancy, low wages, rape and abuse of women, landowner violence against workers, murder and beatings at the hands of police) that were common to the experience of ‘being a Dalit’ in Dumari village. To this end, Rajubhai conducted a protracted war on two fronts. On the one hand, he led an external conflict against the landowning upper castes, their militias, and the state. He was also critical of the official Maoist policy to accept erstwhile opponents—landowning peasants—as party members, thereby diluting its programme. On the other, Rajubhai simultaneously conducted an internal struggle, to challenge and then recast the existing hegemony operating within the Dalit ranks. Accordingly, he fought to shift the language (and thus the meaning) of agrarian conflict from caste to class, and distributed any land acquired in the course of battle to workers. He also strongly opposed many aspects of Dalit community (alcohol production/consumption, wife beating) that were incompatible with a politically progressive outlook. Rajubhai was, in short, a classic example of an ‘organic intellectual’ as envisaged by Gramsci. Gramsci locates the second element—acquiescence to domination—in beliefs and practices inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed (1998: 333), a similar point just discussed in relation to Bourdieu. Rajubhai, although opposed to the caste system, seemed to ‘accept’ and ascribe to some of its practices. In this sense his imitation of upper caste funeral rites during the cremation of his father or reliance on village exorcist to find a cure for his grandchild, to some extent indicated this ‘accommodatory’ behaviour. This element of contradiction extends to the Maoist Movement itself. On the one hand, there are undeniable achievements and

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successes, not least in the fact that the Maoists can strike at will anywhere in Bihar. This power was recently demonstrated by the Maoist jailbreak in Jehanabad.15 Not only does their war against oppressive landowners and the state (especially the police) continue, but Maoists have managed to roll back powerful upper caste militias. Moreover, they have in the main succeeded in organizing grassroots resistance by poor peasants and landless labourers. It is important, however, not to over-estimate both the extent and the durability of these achievements. In the Maoist Movement, Rajubhai invoked janadalats and village committees as effective programmes of local empowerment, and he himself conducted many such meetings where erring landowners were punished. Yet the element of contradiction still surfaces. Although potentially a powerful process of village justice, the actual punishment (slapping with a sandal) meted out in the case of the sexual assault of a lower caste woman by an upper caste male aggressor suggests that the punitive role of janadalats is symbolic only. As such, it is an insufficient deterrent to prevent this kind of incident from recurring (I shall discuss further the role of janadalats in chapters five and six). The reason for this is not difficult to discern: as long as the power and dominance of the landlords in rural Bihar remain unexpropriated, they will continue to be able to abuse their power, the local existence of parallel Maoist institutions notwithstanding. Rajubhai’s story simply highlights the contradictions in the ideology and practice of Maoism within just such a context, where the power and dominance of upper caste landowners—although challenged—is still largely intact. Rajubhai’s story as presented here thus underlines on the one hand, the strengths and shortcomings of the Maoist Movement, and on the other, represents the growing political consciousness and aspirations of the Dalit communities. This second aspect forms the central focus of analysis in the next chapter.

15 On 13 November 2005, nearly one thousand cadres and supporters of the CPI (Maoist) stormed Jehanabad jail, freeing many of their comrades imprisoned there, including the area commander Ajay Kanu. The jailbreak also resulted in the escape of more than 389 prisoners, and the seizure of police weapons. The Maoists also killed two leaders of the Ranveer Sena, and took many others hostage. As a propaganda victory, this episode is unsurpassed: it made front page news in every leading daily in India. For details, see Bhatia (2005b), Louis (2005) and Ramamkrishnan (2005).

5

Negotiating Powers Dalits and Shifting Mobilizations

Introduction FOUR DALIT VILLAGERS AND I ENGAGED IN A CONVERSATION ON VILLAGE

politics in early March 2003, on a wooden cot in Rajubhai’s front room. During the course of my stay in Rajubhai’s house, it had become a regular practice for Dalit labourers to gather at his house to talk about various things. On that occasion, we discussed the forthcoming anti-war demonstration in Calcutta scheduled for 22 March. Many villagers from Dumari were planning to go to Calcutta for the demonstration. One of them recalled, rather nostalgically, the demonstrations organized by the Sangathan in the early 1980s. He described how men, women and children from Dumari had enthusiastically taken part in every one of them. But his tone changed as he contrasted those demonstrations with the prevailing situation. ‘Comrade, you have been with us for almost a year,’ he said to me, ‘you surely have observed that not many people from Dumari go for demonstrations and meetings now. We are not happy with the way the Sangathan is going about things’. The above anecdote is indicative of another stage in the Dalit ‘protest cycle’—demobilization. In the previous chapters I discussed the various aspects involved in Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement. In this chapter I examine the reasons Dalits gave for their demobilization. Tarrow points out that the process of demobilization begins because of ‘exhaustion, repression, and reform’ (1989: 26). He adds that people retreat from their collective protest action when ‘their demands are satisfied, when they become tired of the risks and costs, and when it become too dangerous to go out on the streets’ (ibid.). He further emphasizes that the ‘cycles of protest produce

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counter-movements, violence, and political backlash, new repressive strategies, and thence demobilization’ (1989: 9). In the next chapter, I shall explore the backlash associated with counter-movements and state repression. In this chapter, however, along with some of the factors which Tarrow highlights, I shall point out other reasons which led Dalits to demobilize. It is important to note at this point that while Dalits demobilized in relation to the Maoist Movement, they were engaged in other types of mobilization, especially in relation to Dalit caste identities. I shall argue that in the context of Dumari, the two processes are not mutually exclusive, but are interlinked; that the ‘protest cycle’ has not ended in a definitive way, contrary to what Tarrow’s theory would suggest. This chapter, then, is divided into two parts. In the first part I examine the Dalit critique of the Maoist Movement and their reasons for demobilization. In contrast to the heightened phase of Dalit mobilization described in chapter three, where I discussed how Dalits in large numbers actively supported the Sangathan, after almost two decades, they now expressed their growing feelings of alienation from it. Compared to the 1980s, the Sangathan had now grown in strength and openly expressed its burgeoning ambitions for state power. During this period, the Party had also recruited a large number of people from the middle castes. Dalits were particularly unhappy about this inclusive policy of the Sangathan especially since in the earlier phase of Dalit mobilization, the Sangathan had been specifically committed to the Dalit struggle against the middle castes, particularly the Kurmis in Dumari. Dalit perspectives on the middle castes joining the Party, therefore, play a significant role which must be explored. The Dalit alienation was further accentuated by the Sangathan’s failure to meet their rising socio-economic aspirations. This did not mean, however, that the Dalits completely moved away from the Sangathan; there was simply an ambivalence in their support of it. In such a context, the changing manifestations of Dalit agency in relation to the Maoist Movement were now articulated in turn through active support, virulent critique, or even passivity and silence. In this section, I examine a series of incidents that contributed to this transformation in Dalit dispositions in Dumari. I present a case study of a janadalat which I attended to demonstrate this change in Dalit attitudes, and I explore the articulations of Dalit agency in relation to various ‘power blocs’—the Maoists and the landlords—in the region.

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If there was a Dalit demobilization in relation to the Maoist Movement in the 1990s, there were more mobilizations in other spheres of Dalit life. In the second part of this chapter, I examine Dalit assertions around their own caste identities. First, I examine the Dalit adherence to Kabir-panth, a bhakti (devotion) movement based on anti-caste and egalitarian ideologies. Second, I explore the ways in which the youth from the Ravidasi and Dusadh castes mobilized their men and women by organizing socio-religious festivals and melas (fairs) around the revered heroes of their respective castes as well as through reinterpreting their caste histories, myths and legends. In the light of evidence from Dumari, I examine the changing contours of the caste system in the context of electoral politics and the policy of affirmative action. The caste-specific identity assertions of Dalits, however, need not be seen in opposition to or as an alternative to the Maoist Movement. They are, I argue, mutually influencing mobilizations. This chapter will demonstrate that both caste mobilizations and Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement represent multiple ways in which the Dalits expressed their agency and their growing ‘capacity to object’ to and negotiate power and dominance. These are also, as Bourdieu’s (1992, 2000) idea of ‘social fields’ would suggest, Dalit attempts to maximize their positions in the ‘field’ in relation to the distribution of various capitals, including economic, political, social and symbolic resources. Thus the evidence presented in this chapter, as in the earlier chapters, further challenges Stoll’s (1993) claim discussed in the introduction to this book, that the peasants in a revolutionary context are victims of ‘dual violence’ perpetuated by the state and the revolutionaries. In relation to the Dalits in the Magadh region, this chapter further demonstrates their agentive role—even in the midst of growing violence—in the changing dynamics of power relations.

Negotiating the Sangathan: Dalits and the ‘Capacity to Object’ One of my concerns as an anthropologist conducting an engaged research was whether the Dalits would feel free to air their critical views on the Maoist Movement if they perceived me as having contacts within the the Sangathan. However, as I listened to the Dalit narrations in Dumari, such fears turned out to be unfounded.

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In the previous chapter, I referred to a Dalit critique of the Sangathan expressed by Rajubhai. He was giving vent to the growing awareness among Dalits of the failures of the Maoist Movement in relation to their interests. In my many interviews with the Dalits in Dumari, they also told me the various reasons for their discontent. The first issue centred on the matter of compensation for the damages they had suffered during their exile in the 1980s, which I discussed in detail in chapter three. After the defeat of the Bhumi Sena, one of the surrender clauses included payment of compensation to Dalits. At that time the Sangathan had made an assessment of the damages. However, the question of compensation had not been pursued further because, in a gesture of compromise, the Kurmis withdrew the cases they had filed against the Dalits. One of my informants pointed out that the Sangathan collected a fine of Rs 13,68,000 and seized nine rifles from the Kurmis who had been accomplices to the Bhumi Sena activities. He said that the Sangathan could have kept the rifles, but the money should have been used to compensate the Dalit losses.1 Many Dalits said that in numerous ways they felt neglected by the Sangathan. They argued that after the initial struggle and success against the Kurmis, the Sangathan did nothing to raise wages, which for the last twenty years had remained a dismal 3 kilos of rice or wheat, which fetched only Rs 18 in the village market. They pointed out that the minimum wages should have been at least 5 kilos of grain, which would have marginally improved their economic condition. They also expressed their disappointment with the lack of development in the region. An educated Dalit man pointed out that the Sangathan completely neglected education, and that they should have put pressure on the teachers, local government and parents to provide better education in the villages. He said that the Maoist Party never used its power and influence to stop corruption at the Panchayat or Block level. The local government officials and middlemen took 50 per cent commission from the various financial schemes extended to the poor peasants. Interestingly, he revealed that the Sangathan itself took ‘commissions’, even from the projects sanctioned for village development, such as building roads, schools and community centres.2 Ganga Das, a Dalit labourer aged 60 years, confronted me with the following statement: 1

Interview with Surender Das, a Ravidasi youth in Dumari in January 2003. Interview with Basant Das in October 2002 in Dumari. Similar concerns have also been raised in the studies on the Maoist Movement by Bhatia (2006) and Shah (2006). 2

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You have stayed in this village for almost a year now. What have you done for us? The Sangathan has been here for a little longer and except during the initial period of struggle, it has done nothing for us. But in spite of this neglect we do not want to leave the Sangathan because our village is its birthplace. The IPF [CPI (ML) Liberation] makes every effort to intervene in our village affairs, even promising better wages, to get a foothold here. But we refuse. We tell them to consult the Sangathan. If the Kurmis went into one organization and we into another, there will be fighting again. We do not want any more bloodshed. 3

The above statement in many ways summed up the present attitude of the Dalits in Dumari towards the Maoist Movement. There were other issues too which contributed to the rising discontent among the Dalits. In the 1980s, they had joined the Maoist Movement to resist Kurmi domination. But due to the increasing Kurmi involvement in the Movement the Dalits now expressed their sense of alienation from the Sangathan. They claimed that the Kurmis joined the Party not due to any ideological commitment to the poor peasants, but to re-establish their dominance in the region. Dalits accused the Sangathan of now protecting the Kurmi interests.They were unhappy that the Kurmis occupied positions of leadership in the organization while the Dalits continued to serve as foot-soldiers. Rajinder Das, a middle aged Dalit labourer in Dumari, said: Now nobody is sure about the politics of the Sangathan. Earlier it was very clear to everyone that the Sangathan belonged to the harijans and it worked for the harijans. The class identity of the Sangathan was very clear then. When it fought against the Kurmis, we knew the Sangathan was with us. Now the Sangathan might kill us also. It does not want to annoy the Kurmis by raising the issues of labour, wages and land re-distribution any more. The Kurmis do not give mani-bataia [sharecropping] to us. They have decided in their meetings to give mani-bataia only to their own caste members. Even the Kurmi man who has only one bigha of land, takes 10 bigha as bataia and keeps a harijans as harvaha (a bonded labourer). The Sangathan does nothing about it. And because of all these reasons, courageous Dalit leaders like Rajubhai are no more very active in the Movement and Dalits in general have become non-cooperative.4

Similar sentiments were expressed by many other Dalits. An elderly Dalit woman belonging to the Dusadh caste from a neighbouring 3

Interview with Ganga Das in June 2003 in Dumari. Interview with Rajinder Das in Dumari in June 2003.

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village, who held membership of the Maoist Party,5 was critical of the Maoist dasta (armed squads) who often stayed and ate in the Kurmi households. She said the Dalits in her village felt much neglected. She was very kind to me whenever I visited her and I called her chachi (aunty), just like everybody else did. I heard from some people the legendary stories about her participation in the struggle against the Bhumi Sena in the 1980s. Once in a nearby village, when the Maoist cadres had engaged Bhumi Sena activists in a gun battle, chachi had moved on all fours to bring food and water to her comrades. Now chachi was greatly saddened by some Maoist cadres’ attachments to the comforts offered by the wealthy Kurmi landlords. And this was a common complaint I heard from many Dalits in the region. Rajubhai was rather reserved in expressing his criticism in this regard. He said: ‘It is okay if they stay and eat with the Kurmis. But at least they should come to visit us.’ Then referring to me he added: ‘It is after a long time someone from the Sangathan has come to the Dalit tola and even spend time with the Doms. We are happy that you are staying with us.’6 One evening, my friend Gola Paswan came in drunk and appearing unusually courageous. He announced: ‘The Sangathan has become the party of the badjan [big people, in reference to the Kurmis]. I had predicted that it would happen. Now the Kurmis have become so arrogant again that ve aasman main dhoti sukhatha hai’ (‘they dry clothes in the sky’, a saying that referred to someone’s arrogance). Gola went on to claim that the Kurmis were not faithful to the Sangathan, even though they might give food and shelter to the comrades. They could also act as informers to the police, after all they had mobile phones and could call the police anytime. ‘That is why’, he pointed out, ‘the Sangathan has lost more men and weapons in recent years.’ His anger and frustration were palpable. ‘Till yesterday we were fighting the Kurmis. And today all of them are in our organization.’7 Rajubhai once introduced me to Murari Singh, one of his former comrades in arms. Murari Singh hailed from a different village and belonged to the Bind community, a Lower Backward Caste group. He was a member of the armed dasta from 1980–85. Murari Singh 5

The Party membership was given only to the select few who have proved their loyalty and commitment over a long period of time. 6 Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in January 2003. 7 Interview with Gola Paswan in Dumari in May 2003.

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corroborated what I had heard from various sources. ‘Earlier the labourers were totally with the Sangathan. Now they do not feel at home in the organization because the party workers stay and eat with the rich. All the leadership is from that class.’ I asked him why he left the dasta. He replied: The dasta members from the kisan (landowning peasant) families were given more remuneration and I was given less. The Sangathan held the view that the landless labourers are given remuneration according to the wages they received. Whereas the squad members from the landowning classes were given remuneration in accordance with the income they would have received from their land. I protested that it violated the principle of equality which the party professed. Since I did not receive a positive response, I withdrew from the dasta.8 There are also caste feelings within the Sangathan now. Recently, Manish Pandey [of Bhumihar caste] in my village, who is a supporter of the Sangathan, sexually assaulted a Musahar woman. But the Sangathan took no action against him. However, if a person from the landless class had done something of that sort against an upper caste woman, the party would have taken immediate action against him. Moreover, these days the accused persons approach their caste men in the party to sort out their problems.

Murari Singh told me he talked openly to me because I had come through the Party contacts; but had I been a local activist, he would not have been so frank. He told me that I could be objective because I was not from Bihar. Then he asked me what he could do to revive the Party. He added that he was always thinking about it. He asserted that Dalits were still faithful to the Party and would never join another Maoist organization. They were aware that if the Sangathan disintegrated, the old rule of the landlords would be back again.9 Rajubhai and Rajinder both agreed that the Sangathan had failed to prepare Dalits to take responsibility for themselves. Further, they pointed out, it should have included the poor and the landless peasants when formulating policies for the inclusion of the middle caste peasants such as the Kurmis into the Maoist Movement. It should also have trained Dalits for leadership in the Party. The village committees should have been managed more effectively. Now there was too much dependency on the Party for everything. 8 Occasionally, some kind of remuneration was given to cadres in the erstwhile Party Unity in the 1980s. But this practice was stopped when the Party merged with the CPI (ML) PW in 1998. 9 The interview with Murari Singh was conducted in Rajubhai’s house in Dumari in June 2003.

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People’s initiatives had taken a back seat. They said everyone blamed the Party for everything that went wrong in the region. They gave the example of the Musahars selling liquor in Dumari (discussed in earlier chapters) and the Sangathan’s failure to solve the problem. They also pointed out that many labourers were unhappy that in the villages under the influence of CPI (ML) Liberation, the agricultural wages have been raised to 5 kilos of grain. In Dumari, they wanted the Sangathan to take steps to raise wages. One major incident that adversely affected the Dalit commitment to the Sangathan in Dumari was the killing of Subhash Sahu in 1991 by a Maoist dasta. He was a local leader of the Sangathan during the struggle in the 1980s and had played a significant role in the resettlement of Dalits after the bhaged (exile). However, due to the differences with the Party leadership, he left the Sangathan soon after. Then he joined the Bihar People’s Party (BPP), dominated by Bhumihars. For the Dalits, however, he remained a champion of their cause. A Dalit narrated an instance when Subhash Sahu had helped a labourer. The labourer in question had bought a necklace from a jeweller in Jehanabad town for his daughter’s wedding. Soon after, the necklace was found to be a fake and the labourer demanded that the shopkeeper replace it. When the shopkeeper refused, the labourer approached Subhash Sahu for help. Subhash threatened the shopkeeper with dire consequences—in Jehanabad, such issues are resolved by physical violence or the threat of it—and the necklace was immediately exchanged for a genuine one. Dalits pointed out that the Sangathan had killed Subhash not for any ideological reasons but because his business interests happened to clash with those of a Maoist leader’s brother. They said that after killing him, the Sangathan feared Dalits would desert the organization. But they claimed that despite the fact that they would not forgive Subhash’s murder, they remained loyal to the Sangathan,. Another reason for Dalit discontent in Dumari was the issue of building a samuhik bhawan (community hall) for the Dalits in the village. The owner of the land adjacent to the one on which the hall was to be built, protested and approached the local area commander of the Sangathan with the intention of preventing its construction. Since they were friends, the latter intervened against the samuhik bhawan and threatened to blow up the bhawan if it were built on the proposed land. The Dalits then approached the higher leadership

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of the Sangathan and got the necessary approval. They complained, however, that the Sangathan was now demanding a ‘commission’ of Rs 10,000 from the money sanctioned for the project by the local government. They were deeply unhappy that the Sangathan was making such claims on project money earmarked for the landless peasants. There were other reasons too, for their increasing discontentment with the Sangathan. For some years, Dalits explained, the Sangathan had put a ban on fishing in the village arahar (pond). This was not a popular decision. In the previous chapter, I referred to Rajubhai’s criticism of this decision. Before the struggle, the local administration used to allocate the use of ponds to the village contractors who would then employ Dalits to catch fish. The fish were then sold to the villagers at discounted prices. When the Sangathan began to spread its influence in the area in the late 1980s, the fishing rights came under its control. My Dalit informants said that at that time, its policy was good. It sold some fish; the rest was equally distributed among the villagers. But now the Sangathan did not exercise any control over the ponds in Dumari and the fish were caught and sold by some people, mostly Kurmis. Dalits were very unhappy with the present practice. Contrary to commonly held belief among people in nearby cities like Patna, the Dalits in Dumari were clearly not afraid to air their critical opinions on the Maoist Movement.10 This Dalit capacity to challenge those in positions of power was recent and in striking contrast to their earlier silent acceptance of landlord domination. Through their participation in the Maoist struggles, they had openly resisted the Kurmi oppression and as I now observed, they exhibited a growing ‘capacity to object’, if I may borrow the term from Latour (2000), to the Kurmi landowners as well as the Maoists. I must hastily add here, that although the concept in Latour (2000: 116) and also in Mosse (2005, 2006) refers to the creation of a situation by the researchers in which their subjects of study are ‘able to object to what is said about them’, the same might also be applicable here. Their experience of collective struggle in the Maoist Movement had enabled the Dalits to critically engage with the Maoists themselves. Their critique of the Sangathan clearly shows that the Dalits were ‘capable’ of raising ‘their own questions in their own terms’ and not 10 Academicians and social workers with whom I interacted in Patna often held the view that in the villages people are afraid to speak against the Maoists.

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in those of the Maoist Movement whose interests they did not always share (cf. Latour 2000: 116). The discussion of the following case study extends the analysis by exploring another dimension of this capacity of the Dalits to object, which on this occasion was expressed not in words but through silence.

Janadalat of a Murder Accused: Silence as Strategic The following case study of a janadalat clearly demonstrates the agency of Dalit actors to protect their interests and express their critical consciousness. The janadalat was held in June 2003 in a village in Jehanabad block. The date had been announced earlier, but the location had been kept secret. We were told to assemble in a particular village and along with Rajubhai and a few other villagers from Dumari, I reached the designated village around 12 noon.Then, with the others who had gathered there, we were led in a procession by the Party activists to the place where the janadalat was to be held. The people were carrying the red banners and flags of the Mazdur Kisan Sangram Parishad (MKSP), the mass organization of the CPI (ML) People’s War in Bihar. I noticed more processions from different directions, all moving towards a mango grove amidst the paddy fields, which I learned was to be the venue of the janadalat. When our group reached the venue, I realized that there could have been no better place than this mango grove to conduct a meeting on a scorching June afternoon. There were already more than 200 people resting under the tall, lush mango trees. My friends said that an armed Maoist dasta had been stationed in the nearby village which was just a quarter of a mile away, to handle any emergency situation. The Area Secretary of the MKSP was also waiting in that village. In the mango grove too, I was told, some members of the armed squad were present, although ostensibly carrying no weapons. By the time the meeting began at 1.30 pm, more than 300 people were present and the atmosphere was one of anxious anticipation. The majority of the people assembled there appeared to be from Dalit or lower caste backgrounds many of whom I had met either in my visits to the villages in the region or in meetings and demonstrations organized by the Sangathan. They greeted me with lal salaam—red salute. Most of them were in lungis and vests, typical working class attire in rural Bihar. Some also wore kurtha and dhoti, and these, I was told, were Rajput landlords from the village of the accused. I noticed a young man in jeans and a chequered shirt. Someone from Dumari told me that he was the accused, that he

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belonged to the Rajput caste and was a soldier in the Indian Army. I was totally intrigued. A solider of the Indian Army being tried in a Maoist janadalat!

The Case History During the Holi festival in 1996, a murder was committed in a village not far from Dumari. Both the murdered and the accused belonged to the Rajput caste and hailed from the same village. The crime was said to have been centred on a love triangle involving a Rajput girl. The murder, however, acquired a political hue due to other factors. Except for victim’s family, which supported the CPI (ML) People’s War, all the other families in the village were supporters of the CPI (ML) Liberation. Hence, the People’s War decided to take up the case. The accused boy ran away from the village and later joined the Indian Army. At the time of janadalat, he was deployed in Kashmir, fighting Islamic militancy. The Sangathan imposed an economic and social blockade on the family of the accused as well as a fine of Rs 50,000. For almost five years, the family tried to resist the

Illustration 5.1: People Waiting at One Place. People waiting at one place to be told the location where the janadalat will be held. The exact venue is revealed only at the last moment to avoid any trouble.

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sanctions. Finally, however, like most other upper caste landowners in the region, they ‘surrendered’ before the Sangathan. They paid the fine. The janadalat was then arranged to coincide with the accused man’s annual leave from the Army. A number of his relatives and villagers, as well as a few others from different villages in the region who supported the CPI (ML) Liberation, attended the janadalat where the rivalry between the Liberation and the People’s War would be played out. No one from the victim’s family, however, came for the meeting. There was tension in the air. People were seated in a circle with the accused, his relatives and supporters occupying one area. I sat a little away, leaning against a mango tree, facing the accused. The local Maoist leaders sat in front of me. One of them, in charge of this janadalat, addressed every one with a lal salaam and asked the people to elect someone to preside over the meeting. A person from theYadav caste was elected. He then asked the accused to sit in the middle of the circle and explained the charges against him. The young man said he would truthfully answer all the questions asked of him. The chairperson also asked people from the village of the accused to speak up and bear witness to what they knew of the incident. The elder brother of the accused spoke first. He said his brother was innocent and complained that the family had nevertheless been forced to pay the fine. He stated that they were farmers and that the economic and social boycott had completely crippled them; due to the financial problems it had created, it was impossible to arrange marriages for his two sisters. Next, the father and uncle of the accused reiterated that the boy had been falsely implicated in the murder case. People from his village also said the same thing. Then people from other villages were asked to express their opinion. No one said anything contrary to what had been said so far. Then a vote was taken. The chairman asked all those who considered the accused innocent to raise their hands. Almost everyone in the assembly appeared to raise their hands, the Rajputs from his village first, and others later. So when those who considered him guilty were asked, in turn, to raise their hands, and no one responded. After the vote, the relatives and supporters of the accused became bolder. Someone from his village said: ‘Now that the people have passed their verdict, the Sangathan must return the fine.’ Another person said the Party should pay compensation for the losses the

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family had suffered due to the unjust imposition of economic sanctions. Some people were angry that no one from the family of the victim was present at the janadalat. They said the victim’s family should be responsible for paying back the Rs 50,000 fine as they had made the false accusation. At this point many villagers had already started to leave the meeting and the person who was presiding read out the verdict: ‘This janadalat has found the accused innocent and no punishment is awarded.’ The Maoist leaders then gathered in one corner. I joined them. They were aware that the meeting had got out of their control and this was certainly not the outcome they had expected. We then walked to the nearby village where the Area Secretary and armed dasta were stationed. The Secretary had already been informed of the outcome. He was furious. He pointed out that the higher leadership of the Sangathan had entrusted them with the task of punishing the accused in public as the Party’s investigation had already established him guilty. That was why it had imposed the fine and sanctions. He said that those who conducted the janadalat gave in because they were intimidated by the upper caste power and the influence of the CPI (ML) Liberation.

Dynamics of the Meeting: A Dalit Perspective When the relatives and supporters of the accused asserted that he was innocent, the others in the janadalat followed suit. I observed that no one took a stand against the dominant Rajputs. In my view, this janadalat had been an opportunity for the landless peasants to take a stand against the upper caste landlords.Yet the poor peasants and Dalits simply went along with the dominant opinion. I felt that they seemed to lack the agency to express a different opinion. On further inquiry, however, I learned that there was more to the situation than what had been said, and what appeared to have gone unspoken, during the proceedings of the janadalat. Many Dalits to whom I spoke on the way back pointed out that the Sangathan had failed in this instance. They said that the incident had occurred six years ago and that there was no way all the people gathered there were in a position to declare whether the accused was innocent or guilty. The people who came from his village were his own relatives or supporters while no one from the victim’s family was present to narrate the other side of the story. In such a situation it was the

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responsibility of the party leaders conducting the proceedings to present evidence for or against the accused, which they had failed to do. Therefore, Dalits said, they were not interested in taking a stand. They further explained that they were generally unhappy with the way the Sangathan had been conducting various affairs in the region, and that this janadalat was a clear illustration of that. So they had seized this as an opportunity to register their protest against the Sangathan by letting it down in a public meeting. Dalits had other reasons too for remaining silent in the janadalat. Some of them said that this was a janadalat to settle disputes between the Rajputs, who were the upper caste landowners. Therefore, they were not interested in the outcome. Generally, the Sangathan organized janadalats to settle conflicts involving the landless Dalits and the upper caste landlords. This time, though they attended the janadalat to respect the call given by the Sangathan, they had no stake in it. Hence they decided to remain silent. From a Dalit point of view, another dynamic of the janadalat centred on the Dalit negotiation of the fierce rivalry between the CPI (ML) People’s War and CPI (ML) Liberation in the region. The accused, his relatives and his villagers who came for the janadalat were all supporters of the Liberation. The Dalit supporters of the Sangathan did not want to take a stand against the accused that would bring them into conflict with the Liberation members and supporters in the region. In choosing to remain silent or by going along with the dominant opinion, they were in fact negotiating their own safety. One of the local leaders of the People’s War, who belonged to the Dalit community, confidentially disclosed the reason for his silence in the janadalat to Rajubhai. He just said: ‘humko marvage?’ (‘Do you want me killed?’). His silence was a conscious choice. Rajubhai also said that he too remained silent to avoid being targeted by the Liberation supporters. Some others said the uncle of the accused, apart from being a supporter of the Liberation, was an influential local doctor and therefore, they did not want to be in his bad books by speaking against his nephew. In the previous section, I recounted the Dalit voices in Dumari that expressed a critique of the Maoist Movement. I summed up that section, using Latour’s (2000) notion of the ‘capacity to object’ as a Dalit expression of their empowerment. In the case of the janadalat just narrated, it was through silence that they expressed their capacity to object. What I suggest is that silence, although often associated

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with powerlessness, in this particular instance, was a tool of Dalit enablement. In line with de Certeau’s (1984) observation, the Dalit silence at the janadalat might be seen as a tactic of resistance used to manoeuvre within constraining spaces and thus subvert the logics and practices of the dominant interests; in this particular case, mostly the Maoist leadership. Further, the Dalit silence at the janadalat could be interpreted as a strategy for survival (cf. Scott 1990; White 1998; Daniel 2000).11 Commenting on the strategic responses of subaltern groups in the face of domination, Scott observes: ‘Ideological resistance is disguised, muted and veiled for safety’s sake’ (1990:137). In the context of my overall narrative in this book, the Dalit response in relation to the janadalat throws up a significant point for analysis. In this incident there appears to be a return to covert action by Dalits from what had been overt acts of struggle, especially during the conflicts of the 1980s and subsequently expressed in Dalit collective actions. The significant point here is not to view overt or covert action in isolation. These forms occur together, alternate and transform themselves into each other (Gutmann 1993). What is important is to locate each action in its specific historic context— actors involved, location, circumstances, rewards, implications. In this particular case, the accused belonged to the upper caste, landowning Rajputs, supported by the armed power of the CPI (ML) Liberation, which in this region was engaged in a fierce battle with the CPI (ML) People’s War for supremacy. In such a situation, the Dalits who came to the janadalat as supporters of the People’s War did not want to be ‘targeted’ by the Rajputs and the Liberation for ‘speaking out’. In his study of violence in Sri Lanka, Daniel (2000) points out that the struggle to survive in zones of oppression depends on an ability to hide and not to be seen. Most significantly, the Dalits who came to the janadalat had their own long-standing grievances against their own Sangathan which organized this people’s court. Dalit silence, then, in this context of extreme violence is a strategic form of invisibility; but it is also an expression of their agency even in the midst of domination and violence, not an absence of voice or passivity. 11 Regarding the need for such an interpretation, Scott writes: ‘the realities of power for subordinated groups mean that much of their political action requires interpretation precisely because it is intended to be cryptic and opaque’ (1990: 137).

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A Caste of Their Own: Dalit Assertions of Caste Identities In chapter three I pointed out that the distinction between the Maoists and other political parties in South Bihar was that the Maoists were able to adopt a pro-Dalit caste approach and deal with the caste nature of oppression. I also discussed the subsequent Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement. Earlier in this chapter, I alluded to the Dalit experience of alienation from the Movement in relation to the inclusive policy of the Maoists towards the middle castes. Dalits became all the more aware of it in the 1990s, especially in the wake of a large number of people from the landowning Kurmi caste joining the Sangathan. As noted earlier, the principal contradiction that existed in Dumari and other villages in this region was between the landowning Kurmis and the landless Dalits. Now with Kurmis joining the Sangathan, Dalits said that their interests—demand for higher wages, land redistribution, equal rights over village common resources—became less of a priority for the Party. Since agrarian relations of dominance and subordination were often naturalized in and mediated through caste hierarchies, Dalits experienced the shift in Maoist policy and priorities in caste-specific terms of neglect. A simultaneous product of this experience and awareness was a gradual process of Dalit demobilization in relation to the Maoist Movement and a mobilization centred around their own caste-specific identities. As Oommen observes: ‘It is logical to expect that a collectivity subjected to multiple deprivations will protest first against those disabilities which it perceives to be most inhuman and unbearable’ (1984: 47). Since it was within the realm of the caste system that the Dalits experienced such dehumanizing disability, it was logical that caste should become the rallying point around which mobilizations and identity formations took place.12 This became all the more true in Dumari as Dalits now perceived the Sangathan as not addressing their caste-specific experience of exploitation as it did earlier. Reinterpreting the Dalit histories and myths, organizing festivals, melas, and worship in honour of Dalit legendary figures, a tendency which was becoming part of Dalit mobilization elsewhere in India (Juergensmeyer 1982; Gooptu 1993; Mosse 1994; Zelliot 2001; 12

This becomes all the more true especially if other disadvantages are reduced (or are seen to be reduced) and yet caste discrimination continues.

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Lorenzen 2004), now became significant for the Dalit assertions of caste identity in Dumari. The Ravidasi and the Dusadh were the Dalit castes at the forefront of these caste-specific mobilizations.13 In this section, I examine the Dalit adherence to the Kabir-panth, the celebration of Sant Ravidas Jayanti, and the glorification of Chuharmal, a Dusadh caste hero. Once again returning to Bourdieu’s notion of ‘social fields’ in this analysis, I argue that we must not view Dalit caste-specific affiliations as contradictory formations in relation to the Maoist Movement; but these represented, in parallel to Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement, Dalit attempts to acquire various forms of ‘capital’ for gaining status and power in a ‘stratified social space’ (cf. Bourdieu 1992). In this sense, in Dumari, Dalit adherence to the Maoist Movement and their caste mobilizations were mutually constituted and constitutive formations.

Kabir-panth: Bhakti as Identity and Protest Many Dalits in Dumari and other villages in Bihar, some of whom actively supported the Maoist Movement, were adherents of the Kabir-panth, a socio-religious ideology inspired by the medieval poet-saint Sant Kabir. In popular and literary imaginings, Kabir has been ‘portrayed as a religious and social reformer who sought a spiritual reconciliation and purification of Islam and Hinduism, as well as the propounder of an exalted mystical religion of the heart which aimed to do away with vulgar exterior rites and noxious social practices and prejudices’ (Lorenzen 1987a: 284). However, not much is known about Kabir, the man. He is believed to have been born either in 1448 or 1450 and to have died in 1518 or 1520. He hailed from a Muslim family of weavers in Banares (ibid.: 287). According to tradition, along with Raidas (Ravidas) of the Chamar caste, he launched a movement of bhakti (devotion) to an impersonal (nirguna) Supreme God, who was beyond all anthropomorphic representation. This movement became known as that of the sants or nirguni bhakti (Lorenzen 2004: 34). The ideological message of Kabir, which represented an explicit attack against discriminatory practices associated with the caste 13

The Musahars, although they represented a substantial percentage of the Dalit population in Dumari, were not mobilized according to caste lines. But elsewhere in Bihar, especially in Patna, they too had formed their own caste associations and organized celebrations around Ma Sabari, believed to be a Musahar ancestor mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana.

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system, attracted mostly people from the lower castes (Lorenzen 2004). Adherence to the Panth seemed to offer to them a greater dignity through rejection of the caste system, and a positive status and self image, certainly in their own eyes and in some cases, in the eyes of others as well. The social and religious message of the Panth was orally transmitted through kathas (stories), bhajans (devotional songs) and dohas (verses) (ibid.: 17). In the Magadh region, the membership of the Kabir-panth was largely constituted of people from the Ravidasi, Dusadh, Pasi and Musahar castes. In Dumari, four families belonging to the Ravidasi caste were followers of the Kabir-panth. I talked to Vijay Das,14 a 33-year-old follower of the Panth whose father, while being a Kabir-panthi (follower), was also an active supporter of the Sangathan. The other three families were also Maoist sympathizers. One of them was a member of the village committee set up by the Sangathan. Responding to my query of how the Kabir-panthis reconciled being sympathizers or even active members of the Sangathan while simultaneously following the ways of the Panth, Vijay Das explained that the Kabir-panth had been active in the region long before the Sangathan got established. The Panth’s egalitarian and anti-caste ideology, in fact, inspired many Dalits to join the Sangathan in the fight against upper caste domination. Therefore, he said, they felt no contradiction in professing their loyalty to both the Panth and the Sangathan. Vijay told me that his father, while being a follower of the Panth, was also in the forefront of the Sangathan’s struggle against the Kurmi landowners in Dumari, and for this reason, the Bhumi Sena had completely destroyed their house during the bhaged. Talking about the transmission of egalitarian ideologies, he pointed out that just as the Sangathan organized meetings and demonstrations to inculcate its message among the Dalits, the Kabir-panth tried to spread its ideologies among the lower castes through katha and bhajan sessions organized by the sadhus (priests) of the Panth. Vijay Das said the Kabir-panth had its own rituals and priests. He showed me his necklace with a single bead of tulsi wood and said that this was the sign of those initiated into the Panth. The Kabir-panthis did not worship any Hindu gods or goddesses or venerate any statues. In matters of marriage, he explained that the Kabir-panthis only married among themselves, but from their own 14

The interview with Vijay Das, a young graduate from the Chamar caste, was conducted in Dumari in March 2003.

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caste. All his brothers and sisters, and he himself, were married to followers of the Panth. In some instances, he said, marriages were arranged with people who were not Panthis but they were often later converted to the Panth. He cited the example of another Ravidasi youth in Dumari who had married outside the religion, but whose wife later converted. The Panthi weddings were solemnized by their own priests and, Vijay said, it was central to the Panthic tradition to abstain from meat and alcohol consumption. Regarding the Panth’s emphasis on vegetarianism and abstention from alcohol, Lorenzen, who has carried out detailed studies of the Kabir-panth observes: ‘From a Hindu point of view the consumption of alcohol and meat are degrading and polluting practices. Low castes that wish to secure a higher socio-religious status in the eyes of the other castes have little other option than to abandon them’ (1987a: 301–02). In another article he elaborates: ‘[...] this can legitimately be considered an example of sanskritization in the direction of caste Hinduism’ (1987b: 267).15 However, when I presented Vijay Das with the proposition that the Panthis were imitating the upper castes in the practice of vegetarianism, he countered me with the following statement: ‘The Kabir-panth’s prohibition of meat and alcohol has nothing to do with imitating the upper castes. In fact these days more people from upper castes eat meat and drink daaru (alcohol) than the Dalits do. We do not eat meat because we do not want to destroy another life. We respect all life’. To sum up, the Kabir-panthis in Dumari and other villages in the Magadh region did not perceive any contradiction in simultaneously following the ideologies of the Maoist Movement and the Kabir-panth. For many of them these were complementary, both perceived as ideologies of egalitarianism and protest against caste discrimination.16 However, as Lorenzen (1987a; 1987b) has suggested and my own observations indicate, the Dalit aspirations for higher status and respect in a caste society motivated many of them to seek an alternative identity in and through the Panth. Their strict adherence to the Panth’s prohibitions on meat and alcohol, then, 15 Sachchidananda in his book The Harijan Elite observes that under the influence of the Kabir-panth a large number of harijan villagers changed their food habits in order to achieve higher social status and acceptance in Hindu society (1977: 123). 16 This was also the opinion expressed by Rajinder Das, the Kabir-panthi and member of the village committee organized by the Sangathan in Dumari. The same view was also expressed by Vijay Das’s father.

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seemed to serve as a badge of identity that distinguished them from other members of their own caste as those seeking a higher status in the caste hierarchy. In the concluding section of this chapter, I will discuss further the Kabir-panth in relation to various alternative identity assertions made by the Dalits.

In Search of Respect: Rallying around Sant Ravidas In Dumari, the Ravidasis were in the forefront of the struggles organized by the Maoists in the 1980s, and later they were also the Dalit community which most actively organized themselves around their caste identity. The Ravidasis being the largest Dalit caste in Dumari, their numerical strength seemed to have contributed to their becoming a dominant Dalit voice in the village.17 Ganesh Das, a 27-year-old Ravidasi youth who was taking a lead in organizing his caste fellows, narrated the history of the Ravidasi assertions in Dumari as a caste community.18 Ganesh Das said that it was in the late 1990s that the Ravidasis in Dumari started to organize themselves as a caste group. He told me that their caste mobilization coincided with their feelings of discontentment with the Maoist policies in the village. However, he recalled that their caste assertion was directly triggered by the refusal of Brahmin pandits (priests) to officiate at the Ravidasi weddings. Previously an old Brahmin pandit who was seldom called upon to conduct the ceremonies at upper caste households used to perform marriage rituals for Dalits. After his death, however, it became impossible to get a pandit as none of them would come to the Dalit tola. When there had been a marriage in the Ravidasi community, they had even travelled to other villages seeking a pandit. One pandit eventually agreed but he demanded Rs 500. After much begging and bargaining, he came for Rs 250. Ganesh explained that after this wedding, the Ravidasis organized a meeting and as a community decided to shun all the Brahmin priests and invite only gurus from their own caste to conduct marriage ceremonies. 17 In chapter two, I enumerated the results of the village household census in Dumari; the Ravidasis constituted 478 persons, while the Dusadhs 223 and the Musahars 160 persons. Numerical strength is one of the criteria for a caste becoming dominant in a village (cf. Srinivas 1987). 18 Ganesh Das had completed his BA at Jehanabad College. I had many conversations with him during the course of my stay in Dumari.

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Another catalyst for the Ravidasi protest, Ganesh recalled, centred on bhoj ceremonies in the village, which I discussed in chapter two. Earlier when Dalits used to be invited to the Kurmi households for bhoj, they had had to remove their own leaf plates after the meal. The upper caste invitees, however, never had to remove their plates, as the Kahar women who were employed in the Kurmi households carried out that ‘degrading’ task. The Ravidasis felt insulted and protested in a caste-specific way. They refused to perform the castecentred services they traditionally rendered to the upper castes in the village, such as removing dead animals or Ravidasi women assisting at childbirths. Ganesh said their protest had been successful and no Dalits in Dumari now had to remove their leaf plates when invited to the upper caste households for bhoj. Ganesh Das said that he was inspired by the successful struggles being carried out by the Ravidasis around the country, especially in Uttar Pradesh (UP). He told me that he had attended many meetings of the Ravidas Mahasabha in Patna and realized the need to draw inspiration from within his own caste history for the protest against caste discrimination. Ganesh had then tried to motivate his own community in Dumari to rally around Sant Ravidas, a venerated saint from their own caste. He quoted a doha (verse) famously attributed to Sant Ravidas: mann changa tho katauthi mein ganga (‘if the mind is pure, God can be encountered in the “polluted” water used for washing the animal skin’). In North India, the Ravidasi identity built around Sant Ravidas has a long history. Briggs in his book The Chamars (1920: 210) mentions that in the early 1900s, the number of those who followed the teachings of Ravidas began to increase. Ravidas is believed to have been born at Banares in the late fifteenth century, and belonged to the ‘Untouchable’ community of leatherworkers (Chamars). He was a contemporary of Kabir, a devotional poet. They pioneered the cult of bhakti (devotion) to convey social and religious messages. In the early twentieth century, the bhakti movement gained prominence among the Dalits in the urban centres of UP (Gooptu 1993; Schaller 1996; Lorenzen 1996, 2004). Gooptu comments: ‘That the idiom of their self assertion took the form of bhakti is not surprising, for bhakti encapsulated a message of social equality of all castes. It was a way of worshipping God through devotion and personal communion, in which one’s caste was eliminated or became irrelevant, as all were considered to be equal in the eyes of God’ (1993: 282).

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The Dalit revival, then, especially that of the Ravidasis which centred on the revered figure of Sant Ravidas, began in the early twentieth Century. The Ad Dharam (primal religion) movement which started in the Punjab in 1925 drew religious and cultural inspiration from the fifteenth century Chamar saint (Juergensmeyer 1982). Around the same time in Uttar Pradesh, Swami Achutanand (1879–1933), who was a Dalit himself, made Ravidas the flagstaff of his movement (Khare 1984; Gooptu 1993; Bellwinkel-Schempp 2007). His efforts included building small Ravidas temples in harijan mohallas (localities), installing statues of the saint and introducing the Ravidas julus (procession) on the occasion of Ravidas Jayanti (birthday). The julus was a ‘blend of political demonstration and temple ritual’. Accompanied by drum beating and singing, it became the site of public Dalit assertion (Bellwinkel-Schempp 2007: 2178). The Chamar community, especially in UP and Bihar, has adopted the saint’s name as its caste name and in many villages call themselves Ravidasis (cf. Cohn 1956: 59). Thus, this explicit identification with Ravidas became an integral part of the community’s self assertion. As in Uttar Pradesh, in Bihar too, statues and temples dedicated to Ravidas became commonplace.Taking note of the growing popularity of Ravidas Jayanti celebrations in the state, the government of Laloo Prasad Yadav declared Ravidas Jayanti a state holiday.19 According to Ganesh Das, in Dumari the celebration of Ravidas Jayanti started in 1998. He explained that gradually it became so famous that people from neighbouring and even far away villages would come to attend the function in Dumari. He narrated the beginnings, and the progression of the Ravidas Jayanti celebrations in his village in the following words: We wanted to remember our ancestor. At first we were just seven young men who took the initiative to begin this celebration. We formed a trust—Sant Ravidas Jayanti Samiti—for organizing the celebration. At that time, we collected a chanda (donation) of Rs 5 from every Ravidasi household in Dumari and Rs 2 from other Dalit households. Only 20 people gave chanda. We could not afford to buy a statue of the Sant. So we purchased a picture of the saint and framed it. We then kept the picture on a chair decorated with a saree. We performed some rituals and sung bhajans and kirtans (devotional songs). The people wanted some entertainment programmes that would last through the night. So we hired a TV and VCR and showed Ramayan [a popular TV serial]. Only Dalits attended the celebration then. 19

Interview with Basant Das, a graduate student from Dumari, in October 2002.

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In the following year also, we kept the same picture for veneration. It was from the year 2000 that we started bringing a statue of Sant Ravidas. We invited some sadhus of the Kabir-panth for pravajan [religious discourse]. Instead of hiring TV and VCR, we now staged a social drama on the occasion. We ourselves directed and acted in the play. People also wanted launda nautch [a form of dance performed by a male dancer dressed as female]. Both the play and the launda nautch were a big hit with the people. Now even the Kurmi men and women began to attend the celebrations. Last year through chanda we collected Rs 5,600. The mukhya [of the panchayat] gave a big donation. We also invited local political leaders. For them it becomes an occasion to solicit our votes. And we use their influence for obtaining different favours for the Dalits, such as government loans, housing schemes, hand pumps for the Dalit tola and so forth. The candidates of different political parties who attended the Ravidas Jayanti celebrations in Dumari eventually won the elections.

During my stay in Dumari, I participated in the Ravidas Jayanti celebrations in February 2003. The major event of the

Illustration 5.2: Ravidas Jayanti in Dumari. Unlike the warrior god Chuharmal (see Illustration 5.3), Sant Ravidas is a devotional poet. He conveyed the powerful message of equality of all people. His memory is celebrated by the Ravidasis in their fight against caste system.

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occasion undoubtedly seemed to be the staging of a play. The youth began rehearsing for it about 45 days in advance. I attended a few rehearsals. The director and most of the cast belonged to the Ravidasi community. Some members of the cast also included youths from the Dhobi and Dusadh castes. But there were no participants from the Kurmis, Musahars or Doms. Every night they gathered at the dalaan in the Ravidasi tola for the rehearsal, which usually lasted until midnight. The play belonged to the Robin Hood genre—the bandit looting the rich and giving to the poor and they were thrilled that the play had all the ingredients needed—police, fights, dance, romance, murder—to keep the audience entertained throughout the night. On the day before the Ravidas Jayanti, the youths built a pandaal (platform) at the entrance to the Dalit tola to install the statue of Ravidas. They made arrangements with artists in Jehanabad town to make the statue. It was then brought to the village on a handpulled cart. As it reached the village, men, women and children gathered around it, myself included. Before installing the statue, they hung colourful sarees of Ravidasi women as curtains around the pandaal. On the morning of the actual celebration, Ganesh Das performed the puja. He burnt agarbathi (incense) and distributed prasad (offerings) to all the devotees. Till noon, mostly only children gathered around the pandaal as loudspeakers blasted Bollywood love songs. The atmosphere and the manner of worship resembled the puja celebrations of Hindu deities in Bihar. In appearance too, the statue resembled a Hindu god. In the afternoon, there was a public meeting. Just as Ganesh Das had explained, many local political leaders were present as distinguished guests. All of them gave long speeches on the significance of Sant Ravidas. Then they offered their chanda. The main attraction, however, was the entertainment programme which started in the early evening. By then the place was full and the atmosphere festive and I noticed many Kurmi men in the crowd. As night fell, the Kurmi women too came in large numbers. The curtain opened to great applause and the drama began. During the change of scenes, the crowds were entertained by launda nautch. People seemed to enjoy the launda nautch even more than the play. The programme lasted until the early hours of the morning with the crowds staying put throughout the night.

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Later Ganesh Das said: Through the Ravidas Jayanthi celebrations we have succeeded in creating some awareness in our community that Sant Ravidas is our ancestor. The celebrations have also created a community feeling among ourselves. Today everyone is aware that the great saint Ravidas was a Chamar. Even the Kurmis attend our celebrations. We feel a sense of pride in our ancestor. Now we have decided to erect a permanent statue of the Sant in Dumari.

Baba Chuharmal and the Celebration of Resistance Like Sant Ravidas in relation to the Ravidasi community, in the recent years the identity of the Dusadh community has been constructed around the growing popularity of its caste hero Raja Chuharmal. Unlike Sant Ravidas, however, Chuharmal was a warrior, who according to folk legends, killed hundreds of Bhumihar landlords.20 The legends glorifying Chuharmal are silent about the date of his birth. He is said to have been born in Anjani village in the Tal21 area of Mokama in Patna district. His father worked as a watchman in the fields of a Bhumihar zamindar. Chuharmal grew up to be a powerful wrestler and his fame spread throughout the region. The zamindar’s daughter, Reshma, was attracted to Chuharmal and wanted to marry him. He, however, refused. On being refused, Reshma accused Chuharmal of molesting her. Enraged by the audacity of the lower caste Dusadh, the zamindar sent his armed men to capture him. Chuharmal single-handedly defeated all of them. Then the zamindar himself, his son and a large army of the Bhumihars attacked him. Chuharmal, protected by the blessings of the Mother Goddess, killed all of them. It is said that he killed several hundred Bhumihars in that battle. His fame spread throughout Bihar. According to legend he never died but attained samadhi (union with God) in the depths of the River Ganga, regarded as a goddess by Hindus.22 20 Dusadh men and women in Dumari and other villages were very eager to talk to me about heroics of Raja Chuharmal. 21 Mokama Tal is a huge area of cultivable, but uninhabited land stretching along the cost of River Ganga in Mokama district. 22 This was the version narrated by the Dusadhs in Dumari and the organizers

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Chuharmal now occupied a significant position in the socioreligious world of the Dusadhs in Bihar and many villages were re-named Chuharmal Nagar. His statues became a common sight in the villages. In Dumari, every Dusadh household had a picture of Chuharmal adorning the walls. His image—a muscular figure, grasping a sword in the right hand and a shield in the left, accompanied by a lion—and the legendary feats associated with him, meshed seamlessly with the Dusadhs’ claim as a warrior caste (Servan-Schreiber 2003; Hauser 2004). 23 Many of my Dusadh respondents in Dumari and other villages claimed that they were originally Rajputs and they pointed to the martial exploits of Raja Chuharmal to prove this claim. The sustained efforts by the intellectuals and activists of the community to prove its Kshatriya origins (Sachchidanand 1977; Narayan 2001; Servan-Schreiber 2003),24 therefore, clearly had an impact on the imaginations of the ordinary members of the community.25 That the legendary warrior Chuharmal was assuming a central role in Dalit popular culture was reflected in the growing popularity of the Chuharmal mela (fair/festival) held every year in the month of Chaitya (April-May) in Charadih near Mokama. In his study of the Chuharmal mela, Narayan (2001) observes that the first published account of the fair appeared in 1935. It described a flag being flown from a bamboo pole, around which the worship of Chuharmal took place with great fanfare. There was no mention of the number of people gathered then. Another account in 1976 recorded that eight to nine thousand people took part in the celebration that year. A of the Chuharmal mela at Charadidh in April 2003. According to ServanSchreiber (2003: 299), in some folk versions sung by the Dusadh travelling singers, Chuharmal is remembered as a ‘deified bandit’ who ‘defies landlords by stealing their lands and cattle in order to improve the welfare of the poor Dusadh community’. 23 In the context of Tamil Nadu, Mines’ book Fierce Gods (2005) analyzes the use of warrior deities by Dalits in their struggles with upper castes. 24 There were contesting claims made by the Dusadhs, one group asserting that the community descended from Dushasana of Mahabharata and another claiming that it originated from the Gahlots Rajputs of Rajasthan (Narayan 2001). 25 Subordination as a case of ‘mistaken identity’ is a common theme emphasized in many Dalit caste-specific identity assertions (Lynch 1969; Deliege 1992; Mosse 1994).

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Illustration 5.3: Statue of Baba Chuharmal. The statue representing the powerful figure of Baba Chuharmal is a common sight in Bihar villages where Dusadhs have a substantial population. Even Hanuman and other Hindu deities are lesser gods in the presence of the Baba. Chuharmal has become the symbol of the Dusadh claim to ‘kshatriyahood’.

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report published in 1981 mentioned that almost one hundred thousand people visited the mela, and by 1998, the number of people attending the fair had tripled to more than three hundred thousand. In the 1990s, the mela acquired great political significance as politicians representing various political parties began to take advantage of the increasing popularity of Chuharmal among the lower castes (ibid.). Since the beginning of my stay in Dumari, the Dusadhs of the village had told me of the popularity of the Chuharmal mela and of their awe regarding its enormity. A Dusadh woman who had been to the mela in previous years said: ‘The whole world was queuing there to have a darshan [seeing the deity] of the Baba.’26 Some villagers had taken religious oaths to make offerings ‘at the feet of the Baba’ for favours received or for the future fulfilment of their wishes. There was a strong belief among them that any prayers made to Baba Chuharmal coupled with a darshan of the Baba at Charadih would have the desired effect. From Dumari it was mostly the Dusadh men and women who seemed to go for the Chuharmal mela, although I was told that some Ravidasis and Dhobis sent offerings to the Baba through their Dusadh neighbours. In April 2003, along with a group of four Dusadh women and two men, I went to Charadih in the Mokama tal where the mela was held. An elderly woman in our group wanted to make an offering of 5 kilos of paddy for having been blessed with a grandson while the others had their own reasons for making the journey. We travelled by bus to Patna and then took a train to Mokama. The Bihar government made transport free for the ‘pilgrims’ taking trains to Mokama for the mela. When we arrived in Mokama, I noticed the railway station was crowded with villagers from all over Bihar and other states; all heading for the mela. We took a bus to Charadih, which was 12 kilometres away from the station. It was midnight before we reached the mela site. The fair was held on 12 acres of land in the middle of the tal. The whole area was lit up by generators and there were hundreds of stalls. Many people were sleeping in the open fields. With my group from Dumari, I settled in one area for the night. 26

Interview with an elderly Dusadh woman in Dumari, February 2003.

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From the early hours of the morning, large crowds could be seen gathering at the mela site. Baba Chuharmal Smarak Samiti (Baba Chuharmal Memorial Trust) was over-seeing the arrangements and managing the crowds at the mela. Along with my companions from Dumari, I joined the long queue outside the small temple where Chuharmal’s statue was worshipped. On interacting with the devotees waiting for the darshan of the Baba, I learned that apart from the Dusadhs, thousands of people belonging other Dalit and Backward castes had also come for the mela. People were making various offerings at the statue. It was a tradition at Charadih to offer the first crops of the harvest season at the feet of the Baba (Narayan 2001). There were entertainment and food stalls everywhere. At various places, small groups of people gathered around Dusadh bhagats

Illustration 5.4: Dalit Men and Women at Charadih. Thousands of Dalit men and women queuing for a darshan of Baba Chuharmal at Charadih in 2003. Charadih is the Varanasi, the Vatican and the Mecca of the Dusadhs.

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(priests) wearing red loose knee-length trousers over their yellow dhotis. As spirit mediums of Chuharmal, they were performing various religious acts—blessing newborn babies, conducting healing rituals, exorcising the possessed, blessing newly married couples. At another site, many young men clad in langota (loin-cloth) were wrestling in the akhara (arena for wrestling)—a sport in which Chuharmal was invincible. I learned from the spectators that the annual wrestling competition was an integral part of the mela in which wrestlers from faraway villages took part. Regarding the wrestling event at the mela, Narayan comments: ‘People believe that this is the zone where the spirits of Baba Chuharmal pervades throughout the place’ (2001: 95–6). For the many participants I spoke to, both the performances of the bhagats and the wrestlers seemed to invoke the power of Chuharmal in a very special way. Around four in the afternoon, another type of ‘invocation’ of Chuharmal’s power began when a prominent political leader, Ramvilas Paswan, and other Dalit leaders of various political parties addressed the thousands of people gathered at the mela. Ramvilas Paswan, himself a Dusadh, glorified the legend of Chuharmal and his fight against the upper caste landlords of his time. He praised the heroic history of the Dusadh caste and their courageous stand against the upper caste dominance in Bihar. Paswan also used this platform to promote and solicit mass support for his organization the Dalit Sena. He made references to all that he had done for the Dalit community as a Dalit leader, and tried to project himself as the true heir to the legacy of Chuharmal. After Paswan’s speech, a leader from the Dusadh Mahasabha demanded that the government declare Charadih as a national tourist site, officially install the statue of Chuharmal in the state capital, and construct a park in his name in Chuharmal Nagar, near Patna. All the speeches seemed directed to appealing to the Dalit vote bank collected there for quite another reason. The process of ‘politicization’ of the Chuharmal mela began some years ago. Attempts by the politicians at getting mileage out of the growing popularity of Chuharmal in order to woo the Dalit voters started in an explicit way when Laloo Prasad Yadav, the then chief minister of Bihar, inaugurated the mela in 1995. He projected Chuharmal as the champion of the oppressed and elicited the Dalit support for his government’s stand on social justice. Laloo’s

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invocation: ‘O Pasi, Dusadh, Kalwar, Chamar, Dhamar brothers! Remember Baba Chuharmal and defeat these upper castes who think that king always takes birth from a Queen’s womb’ (cited in Narayan 2001: 81) had an instant impact on his Dalit audience. He succeeded in making the Chuharmal mela into a potent platform from which to propagate his party’s ideology and stay in power (Narayan 2001). The Chuharmal mela, however, became a contested space when politicians from different parties tried to appropriate the Chuharmal myth to capture the Dalit vote. In 1998, Laloo Prasad lost ground to his rival Ramvilas Paswan when Baba Chuharmal Smarak Samiti invited the latter to inaugurate the mela. Regarding this, Narayan cites a report that appeared in the Hindi daily Aaj on 12 April 1998: Former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has snatched the trump card today from the hands of the former Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal President Laloo Prasad. This was evident during the inauguration ceremony of Chuharmal festival. In the last few years, only Laloo Prasad used to inaugurate the Baba Chuharmal festival. This year Laloo Prasad was to inaugurate the festival, but at the last minute, Ram Vilas Paswan grabbed the opportunity: Thus Laloo Prasad lost one of the great opportunities to prove himself the patron of the poor and downtrodden and most vocal propagator of social justice (2001: 79–80).

Since 1998, it was Ramvilas Paswan who occupied centrestage at Charadih. The Dusadhs, particularly the organizers of the mela, played their political cards cleverly to get maximum advantages from the politicians and ministers who visited Charadih. When Paswan was invited to inaugurate the mela in 1998, ‘he promised five bighas of land for Chuharmal fair and two lakh rupees for erecting temples’ (Aaj 1 April 1998, cited in Narayan 2001: 81).27 The legend of Chuharmal, as his real life was believed to have been, thus continues to be the source of conflicting interests and power struggles (Beth 2005). In many places, the Bhumihars objected to the celebration of his memory in folk performances. They found such celebrations by the Dalits an insult to the Bhumihar caste. Many violent incidents occurred in villages where the play depicting Chuharmal’s exploits against the Bhumihars was staged (Narayan 27

I have not been able to verify whether this promise has been kept.

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2001: 25). At the same time, there had also been attempts by the Bhumihars to appropriate the legend of Chuharmal. Dr Baidyanth Sharma, a Bhumihar scholar, in his article published in a Hindi daily Aryavart on 7 December 1980, for instance, claimed that Chuharmal was a Bhumihar. According to Dr Sharma, Chuharmal’s real name was Chuhar Singh. He spent his life in spiritual activities, wrestling and serving the poor. Reshma, the girl who fell in love with him, was in fact a Muslim (cited in Narayan 2001: 46). Needless to say, the Dusadhs countered such attempts in their own writings (Narayan 2001: 46). In the midst of these celebrations, politicizations, claims and counter-claims, Chuharmal has now become a household name among the Dalits and other lower castes. The Dusadhs in particular have identified themselves with the warrior ethos of their caste hero and have become one of the most assertive Dalit castes in Bihar. The growing cult around Chuharmal in the region on the one hand emphasizes the Dusadh community’s attempts to achieve caste-specific recognition, and on the other, the martial ethos of the Dusadh assertion appears to have contributed to the Maoist armed struggle. Therefore, it had not been a mere coincidence that many commanders of the Maoist armed squads belonged to Dusadh caste. The Dusadhs I spoke to were proud that their caste members were leading the armed struggle from the front.

Conclusion In the first of part of this chapter, I discussed the growing disenchantment of the Dalits in Dumari with the Maoist Movement and the reasons for their current experience of alienation from it. In the second part, I presented the plurality of strategies, especially in relation to caste-specific identity and political mobilization adopted by the Dalits in negotiating dominance and power. In this concluding section, I present a theoretical engagement with both aspects of this ethnographic situation as experienced in Dumari and highlight their mutual linkages in the light of relevant literature. At the end I shall also discuss the increasing capacity of Dalits to ‘object’ as well as to ‘aspire’ in the context of these multiple mobilizations. A Dalit critique of the Maoist Movement in Dumari as presented

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here needs to be seen in relation to the wider Dalit experience of Marxist/Maoist ideologies in India. The predominantly materialist emphasis of Marxist approaches towards caste has failed to take on board the various complexities of the caste system (Omvedt 1994). In many Marxist works (Desai 1969; Nampoodaripad 1979; Gupta 1981), caste (super structure) is but a manifestation of class (the base structure). In other works (Kosambi 1956; Sharma 1958; Thapar 1984), the socio-economic and cultural roots of the caste system are explored. In yet another version of Marxism (Godelier 1977; Patil 1979; Omvedt 1982, 1994) caste is understood as an independent structure in constant interaction with the economic structure. In all these approaches, the Marxist emphasis on class identity which was supposed to define all the marginal peasants and landless Dalits as mazdur varg (working class), was experienced as exclusionary by the Dalit castes (cf. Gellner 2007: 1823) and insufficient to address their experience of ‘Untouchability’. In the face of the failure of mainstream Marxist parties to create a united front with Dalit and anti-caste movements, the Maoist Movement in the 1980s, as discussed earlier, tried to pay attention to the reality of caste, especially from the perspective of Dalits and lower castes. The action programme of the MKSS in the Magadh region, which I discussed in chapter three, tried to very specifically address the caste based exploitation in the villages. The result, as we have seen, was an en masse mobilization of the Dalits in Dumari under the banner of the MKSS in the 1980s. However, the Movement’s failure to address the caste specific grievances of Dalits in a sustained manner, especially in the aftermath of the inclusion of landowning middle castes in the Party, together with its failure to meet the rising economic, political and social aspirations of Dalits led to their current feelings of alienation. In such a context, Dalits who experienced ‘Untouchability’ in religious terms developed a counter-vision, as Dalits had done elsewhere, from a religious perspective (Juergensmayer 1982; Khare 1984; Mosse 1994). By organizing religious festivals in honour of their caste heroes like Sant Ravidas and Baba Chuharmal, educated Dalits both mobilized the men and women of their caste and asserted their caste identities. They expressed both piety and protest through the egalitarian religious visions of Kabir-panth. This is a key point

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in understanding Dalit collective assertions of their identities. The Dalit religious assertion, while it offered a critique of the materialist ideologies, also disproved Dumont’s (1980) theory of caste, which claimed that there was a disjuncture between religion and politics, status and power. Citing evidence from his fieldwork in Tamil Nadu, Mosse observes: ‘Religion and politics, purity and power were not separated in the conception of Harijan social subordination and dependence’ as ‘religious institutions were central to the exercise of dominance and control in the local political systems’ (1994: 68). In rejecting the Brahmin pandits and relying only on their own gurus, in adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, and in refusing to render caste-specific services to the upper castes, the Dalits in Dumari were manipulating those very institutions of subordination and control (cf. Mosse 1994) in order to negotiate higher status and respect. The Dalits, especially the elites among them, often contested their exclusion and marginality, as Gooptu comments: ‘in symbolic ways or through the assertion of some distinctive forms of identity and practice, which were historically derived, or newly constructed, or usually an amalgamation of both’ (2001: 421). In the case of Bihar and Dumari, the Dusadh community’s claim to Kshatriya origin is a clear example of this process. Various sources—gazetteers, colonial ethnographic studies, archaeological evidence, and reinterpretations of the names of cities and local places, folklores, songs—were quoted to emphasize the authenticity of this claim (Narayan 2004). The activists of Dusadh community used the legend of Chuharmal—his martial exploits against the landowning Bhumihars—to prove their Kshatriya credentials. Hobsbawm identifies such cases as ‘invented traditions’ which aim to establish social cohesion, as well as inculcate beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour among group members (1983: 9). The transformation of caste as an interest group in the context of democratic polity and the policy of positive affirmation has accentuated this process of identity assertion. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, sustained efforts by Dalit politicians and activists have catapulted the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), representing predominantly Dalit and lower caste voters, into power. In the post-Independence period, the Dalit political assertion which had begun in the early twentieth century with the Adi Hindu and bhakti movements (Khare 1984, Gooptu 1993; Schaller 1996; Bellwinkel-

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Schempp 2007) turned to the figure of Dr Ambedkar for inspiration. The 1980s and the 1990s then witnessed an unprecedented process of ‘Ambedkarization’ of Dalit politics which involved the installation of his statues, the organization of processions and melas in his name, the renaming of schools in his honour, the publication of literature, enactment of plays, and the popularization of the colloquial greetings of exchange ‘Jai Bhim’.28 After his death, his statues became a significant tool of political mobilization as ‘the little blue statues of Ambedkar wearing a three-piece suit and holding the Indian Constitution’ became a common sight in slums and villages (Jaul 2006: 178). It was reported that during her brief tenure as the Chief Minister in 1997, Mayawati installed 15,000 Ambedkar statues all over Utter Pradesh (Sethi 1997). Kanshi Ram, the founder of BSP, emphasized the importance of melas in Dalit politics in order to keep the memories of Dalit heroes alive and to rally the masses around these legendary figures for emancipatory action (Narayan 2001). Bihar is yet to witness Dalit political mobilization on the same scale as in Uttar Pradesh. However, as I have pointed out, mobilization around Ravidas Jayanti, Ambedkar and Chuharmal have already formed a significant dimension of Dalit imagination. In Dumari, the Dalits who followed the Kabir-panth and took part in Chuharmal and Ravidas celebrations were not only blind supporters of the Maoist Movement, but were willing to express their dissatisfaction with its current programmes and practices. But they were still as attracted to its egalitarian claims as they were to the anti-caste ideologies of their caste specific movements. As one of the followers of Kabir-panth remarked: ‘we want the Sangathan to remain in the village. In its absence, samants [feudal lords] will reign again.’ From my observation of the current situation in Dumari, I would like to point out that through the Maoist Movement, Dalits have acquired a certain level of freedom and dignity which allows them to fearlessly and unabashedly express their caste identities. Here I reiterate the argument I made in the last chapter in relation to the comparatively autonomous relations Rajubhai shared with his landlords. Autonomy, as Wolf (1969) and Scott (1977a, 1977b) argue, is not a pre-condition for revolutionary action, but an outcome 28 The greeting was derived from the first name of Ambedkar whose full name was Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.

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of peasant struggles. The degree of autonomy, although limited, has enhanced Dalit ‘capacity to object’—to express openly their views on the failure of the Maoist Movement. Further, such a disposition of basic freedom and dignity, now expressed and strengthened through caste-specific mobilizations, has also enabled Dalits to challenge the ‘adverse terms of recognition’29 reinforced on them through poverty and other restraining idioms of caste hierarchy (cf. Appadurai 2004: 66; Mosse 2007: 31). The Dalit multiple mobilizations, then, need to be contextualized in the plurality of strategies the Dalits employed to alter the conditions of their subordination in rural Bihar. A relative demobilization in one area does not signify the end of the ‘protest cycle’, but indicates a transformation in the nature of the ‘cycle’—a point to which I shall return in the conclusion of this book.

29 Appadurai defines ‘terms of recognition’ as ‘the conditions and constraints under which the poor negotiate with the very norms that frame their social lives’ (2004: 66).

6

Production and Reproduction of Violence State, Senas and Maoists

Introduction IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS I HAVE DISCUSSED DALIT EXPERIENCES OF

exploitation, their mobilization under the Maoist Movement and their caste-specific identity assertions, mostly focusing on Dumari village. In this chapter I will explore revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence in rural Bihar in the context of state practices, actions of caste militias (senas) and Maoist organizations. I argue that the practices of state actors, Maoists and the militias created the conditions for or produced violence; at the same time, these actors were themselves refashioned through this violence. To examine this mutually constitutive practice of violence among the state, sena, and the Maoists, this chapter is divided into four sections.The first section focuses on the state in Bihar. I examine the nature and function of the state in the context of agrarian violence in rural Bihar since the 1970s. My analysis highlights how the boundaries of the state are ‘porous’; how the caste, class and religious affiliations of the state actors underpin practices of governance and fashion state alliances with other actors. My primary concern in this section is to explore the ways in which Dalits experienced and responded to the state in rural Bihar. The second section focuses on the formation of caste senas in Bihar. I examine different perspectives on the rise of this politicomilitary formation and its linkages with state agencies, thus further demonstrating the ‘blurred boundaries’ of the state. I argue that the pattern and production of violence has changed due to the emergence of the senas. In examining the state and the sena I

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again return to Tarrow’s claim that the ‘cycles of protest produce counter-movements, violence, and political backlash, new repressive strategies, and thence demobilization’ (1989: 9). I study whether the counter-revolutionary violence produced by the state-sena nexus had adverse implications for Dalit mobilization within the Maoist Movement. In the third section, I examine the Maoist Movement, transformations within the organization, and how, in the process of resisting the state, the Movement set up a parallel state in rural Bihar. I also study the Maoist shadow state in relation to its ‘functions of governance’ and its effect on Dalit communities. In the fourth and the final section, in the context of the protracted Maoist ‘people’s war’, I examine the strenuous relationship between armed struggle and mass mobilization. I also argue that the pervasiveness of violence in Bihar is partially the product of a deeply embedded martial ethos in the culture and history of the region. I conclude this chapter by examining the ways in which violence has become a constituent force in social relations and its power in redefining and reshaping mutual relations between conflicting actors in rural Bihar.

Agrarian Violence and the Production of a Coercive State The two decades of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence since the beginning of the 1980s have not ‘weakened’ or ‘withered away’ the state in Bihar. In this section I examine the many ways through which the ‘state comes to be constructed’ (Gupta 1995: 377) in the ‘killing fields’, and the ways in which Dalits experience and perceive the state. During this period of agrarian violence, the state has penetrated the ‘minute texture of everyday life’ in rural Bihar in unprecedented ways (cf. ibid.: 375). I argue that the specific manifestation of the state that emerged in this context was the coercive or disciplinary state, which paid less attention to other aspects of governance such as development, empowerment or protection of the vulnerable sections of the society (cf. Corbridge et al. 2003a: 2378). The Dalit responses to the state in Bihar were varied. In Dumari and elsewhere in Jehanabad, I observed a simultaneous process of

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Dalits resisting the state as well as trying to use the state to their maximum advantage. Regarding the first process, Gellner observes: ‘States and resistance go together. Wherever there has been some form of state organization, there has been resistance to it’ (2002: 3). Dalit resistance to the state was deeply bound up with their experience of it. Corbridge et al. write: ‘poorer men and women have been forced to behave as supplicants to the individuals who are meant to serve them’ (2003a: 2388). Hours of waiting at Block Development offices, paying bribes to state officials and local fixers or middlemen (dalal) for certificates, pensions or loans have become their everyday experience of the state. The violence and terror that the police then unleashed upon them ensured total alienation from the state. It was no surprise, therefore, that Dalits found common ground with the Maoists in resisting the state. At the same time, however, as Fuller and Harriss (2001: 25) and Gellner (2002) point out, the poorer people were also ‘using the system’ as best as they could. Dalits, especially the educated among them, considered access to the state as being central to their empowerment. They developed manifold ways of negotiating with the state. My analysis of the production of the coercive state in the context of simultaneous processes of resistance and appropriation takes into account the recent scholarship on the state in South Asia (Gupta 1995; Fuller & Harriss 2001; Jeffrey & Lerche 2001; Gellner 2002; Randeria 2003, 2007; Corbridge et al. 2003a, 2003b, 2005) which rejects the Weberian notion of state as a rational organization independent of actors. Instead, my analysis emphasizes the ‘blurred boundaries’ between the state and society. It also highlights how the functioning of the state was influenced by the caste and class interests of the actors who represented the state organizations.

Police as Sarkar: A Gun-wielding State at the Doorstep The unprecedented penetration of the state in rural Bihar since the 1980s was based on the premise that the growing Maoist Movement was primarily a law and order problem and hence the solution was to be found in effective policing (PUCL 1990). Accordingly, Jehanabad, a subdivision of Gaya district, was made a police district (under police administration) in April 1986 to contain what the government

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described as the ‘growing extremist and Naxalite activities’ (ibid.: 47). The Arwal massacre of 19 April 1986 in which twenty-six landless labourers were shot dead by the police was the direct result of this policy.1 However, in the face of growing criticism of police high handedness and the state’s failure to implement land reform measures or development programmes, there was an apparent change in the government’s approach. While still continuing with its repressive measures against the Maoist Movement, the state in Bihar offered a ‘development package’ to wean the Dalits and marginal peasants away from the Movement. Accordingly a twin strategy of ‘carrot and stick’ or a programme of development and discipline, was launched under the code names ‘Operation Siddharth’ and ‘Rakshak’ in 1988. Both these operations were proclaimed by the state government as ‘Hope of the Hopeless’ (PUCL 1990: 67). The Operation Siddharth, adopting the Buddha’s first name to signify compassion for the poor and the needy, was launched from Jehanabad, which at the time was symbolically termed Shantipuram (abode of peace). It aimed to implement land reform laws and to distribute the bhoodan land among the landless in 25 blocks of Gaya, Aurangabad and Jehanabad districts, categorized as the ‘most extremist affected’ areas by the state administration. Its target further included implementation of statutory minimum wages and benefits such as fertilizers and seeds to marginal farmers. A sum of Rs 31 crore was allocated for the programme in the financial year 1988–89 (PUCL 1990). A report by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) claimed that in reality, however, Operation Siddharth was aimed at curbing the Maoist Movement; and its developmental activities were restricted to the construction of roads to enable easy police patrolling. Not surprisingly, its main beneficiaries were the contractors. It also sought to create a network of police informers by giving small contracts to some people from the lower caste communities (PUDR 1996: 40). 1 Human rights activists described the incident as another ‘Jalianwalabagh’—the infamous massacre site in Punjab where the British troops led by General Dyer massacred more than a thousand people in April 1919. Arwal, the place where the landless labourers had gathered for a meeting, resembled Jalianwalabagh, an open space enclosed on three sides by buildings with only one exit. In Arwal too, the police blocked the exit and fired at the unarmed villagers (Chaudhuri 1997b).

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The second operation, code-named Rakshak (protector), was directly aimed at suppressing the Maoist Movement. Jawans (soldiers) from the Bihar Military police (BMP), the Border Security Force (BSF), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Gujarat Armed Police (GAP) were deployed in Jehanabad and its adjacent areas in Patna, Nalanda and Gaya districts. According to a government report, ‘862 extremists’ were arrested between May 1988 and January 1989 (PUCL 1990: 66). The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) mentions a long list of atrocities committed by the police against the activists and sympathizers of the Maoist Movement, which included looting by police during the house searches and ‘third degree’ torture in police custody. The PUCL claims that between March and December 1988, 15 suspects were tortured to death in police custody. During the same period, 21 people were killed in police firings (ibid.: 67). The operations Siddharth and Rakshak were followed by many others—Task Force, Agnidoot, Devdoot, Flash, and Clean. They conferred unlimited powers on the police to carry out raids, search operations, kurki-japti (confiscation of property), torture and imprisonment of the suspected Maoists and their supporters (Louis 2002: 255). The police also staged ‘encounters’ with the alleged Maoists. The PUCL defines this specific form of police violence in the following manner: It initially implied an armed confrontation where fire was exchanged and in the ensuing shooting, people were killed. Since the seventies, it represents in most cases the taking into custody of an individual or a group, torture and subsequent murder. The death generally occurs as a result of brutal torture or a stage managed extermination in the appropriate area. An official press release then elaborately outlines a confrontation, an encounter where the police claim to have fired in ‘self-defence’ (Desai 1986: 457).

Elimination by ‘encounter’ or extra-judicial execution was a police strategy that started in Calcutta to counter the spread of the Naxalite Movement in the early 1970s and which eventually spread to other parts of India (Desai 1986: 457). B. D Ghosh, the then Principal Advisor to the state government in Bengal, told the Union Home Ministry that ‘it was not always possible to satisfy the requirements of the law courts’. He pleaded for ‘giving the police a free hand’ (ibid.: 457–8). This strategy was widely employed by the Andhra Pradesh police to fight the Maoists.

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In Bihar too, the police were accused of staging ‘encounters’ to eliminate the Maoist cadres.2 The account of an encounter narrated in the news magazine Frontline, which is given here, explains how this kind of state violence manifests itself. Most often, a prolonged torture session preceded the encounters, which, however, is not mentioned in this case. The alleged ‘encounter’ took place against the Party Unity cadres in April 1997, near Tikul village, about 100 km from Patna: The Deputy Superintendent of Police of Danapur, Arshad Zaman, said the encounter took place when the police were combing the area. In the clash on the banks of the Punpun, the police fired 380 rounds. ‘It was a gang of around 40,’ said Zaman. ‘Most of them escaped.’ Residents of nearby villages, however, said the extremists were killed after they surrendered. ‘I saw them putting down their weapons and raising their hands,’ a person from Tikul village said. ‘Then the police captured them and killed three of them at once and the remaining three at another [time]’ (Chaudhuri 1997b: 32).

Through ‘encounters’, both fake and real, the police succeeded in eliminating many peasant activists in Bihar. The PUDR claims: ‘Whereas earlier these were sporadic instances, they are now part of a state policy. This is evident from the increasing number of such incidents’ (1996: 42). The ‘encounters’, arrests, torture and raids demonstrated that in the Magadh region, the governance function of the state had been narrowed down mainly to policing. For most villagers, police camps were the most visible (spatial) markers of the state in rural Bihar. In Dumari, a police camp was established immediately after the struggle against the Kurmi landlords began in 1982. Many of my Dalit respondents said that the policemen posted in the village were ‘friendly’ with the Bhumi Sena activists who moved freely in the village brandishing weapons. Dalits said that the police asked them to flee the village if they wanted to save themselves from the sena violence. When I lived in Dumari, the camp had shifted to the village school nearby. It had 20 policemen, hailing mostly from the Northeastern states of India. Dalits generally avoided the camp for fear of the police. Just one year before my arrival in Dumari, a policeman tried to sexually assault a Dalit woman cutting grass in the fields outside the school. When the villagers protested, 2

PUDR in an investigative report titled ‘Encounters: A Report on Land Struggle in Bihar’ (1996), gives a detailed account of the incidents of ‘encounter’ deaths in Bihar.

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he was transferred from there. In relation to the Dalits’ fear of the police it is worth recalling here the statement made by a Musahar woman in Dumari to which I referred in chapter two. She had said: ‘Pulice ki vardi dekhte hi, mera kaleja fail ho jata hei’ (‘The moment I see a policeman in uniform, I get a heart attack’).3 In other villages too, schools were used to accommodate security forces, which had an adverse effect on the education in the region. In Jehanabad district alone, more than 42 primary and secondary schools had been converted into makeshift barracks for the armed forces. In some schools, the students were allowed to use only one or two rooms for the purpose of learning; the rest were used by the jawans of the CRPF. In Dumari, the Dalit children, especially girls, seldom went to school for fear of the police. The District Magistrate (DM) of Jehanabad defended the government’s decision to house the police in the village schools. He argued that priority had to be given to protecting people from the Maoist danger. However, as I shall discuss later, many Dalits were still massacred by the upper caste senas in the villages where the state had set up police camps. In spite of the large posse of security forces, the growing incidents of Dalit massacres and the subsequent failure of the state to follow up on its promised assistance, protection and development indicated that the state in Bihar failed in its functions of governance. This raises a very significant question: Did the state fail due to its weakness, as was commonly held, or did other factors play a role in this? In the following section, I examine the concept of ‘the cunning state’ introduced by Randeria (2003, 2007) in order to explain the state in the context of agrarian violence.

Retarded Development: A Weak State or a ‘Cunning’ State? As Corbridge et al. describe the Sahar Block in Bhojpur, in Jehanabad: ‘The state was sometimes present as an occupying army of soldiers and policemen. The developmental state in contrast, has faded from view’ (2005: 239).The Operation Siddharth, proclaimed as the ‘Hope of the Hopeless’, did not bring hope to the Dalits. An investigative study carried out by the PUCL pointed out that the District 3

Reaction of Santi Devi when she saw a group of policemen walking towards her village in March 2003.

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Magistrate of Jehanabad admitted that the programmes envisaged by the Siddharth could not be implemented, as the promised funds were not made available to the district administration. Moreover, the report claimed that it was impossible to implement land reforms as several plots of land, that the programme claimed would be set apart for redistributing among the landless, never actually existed (1990: 7). The government officials in general, however, blamed the Maoists for not allowing developmental programmes to be carried out in the rural areas. A report in the English daily The Pioneer (Upadhyay 2000) reflected the opinion of the officials in Gaya district where the MCC held sway in many villages. This report claimed that the present plight of the Magadh region was the direct fallout of the Maoist policy of extracting money from developmental works such as the construction of roads, canals, schools, etc. The same report quoted Amrit Lal Meena, the DM of Gaya: ‘Every time a contractor has taken up building the road, the MCC has issued a firmaan [order] to stop construction or pay exorbitant levy [...] in many cases, the cut [commission taken by the MCC] is so big that the contractor decided to give up the work itself’ (Upadhyay 2000: 5). The DM also iterated how the contractors themselves siphoned off huge amounts from the money sanctioned for various works: ‘The modus operandi is simple. The contractors take advance and refuse to complete the work by saying that the MCC or the PW [CPI (ML) People’s War] has vetoed against the construction. We are fighting dozens of cases to recoup such money’ (ibid.). In examining this ‘inability’ of the state in Bihar to perform its functions of governance, the concept of ‘cunning state’ introduced by Randeria (2003, 2007) becomes a useful analytical tool. She uses it in relation to the tactics employed by the Indian state in the context of its accountability to international donors on one hand, and to Indian citizens on the other; but the concept is equally relevant in explaining the projected ‘weakness’ of the state in Bihar. Cunning states, Randeria writes: ‘capitalize on their perceived weakness in order to render themselves unaccountable both to their citizens and to international institutions’ (2003: 28). She further clarifies the concept by drawing a distinction between the ‘weak states’ and the ‘cunning states’. The former, according to her, ‘are unable to discharge their obligations of justice because they lack the capabilities to successfully discipline and regulate non-state actors’ (ibid.). The

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latter, she says, ‘on the contrary, are in a position to negotiate the terms on which they share sovereignty in certain fields of policymaking while retaining control over others. They deny power only to deploy it in order to evade responsibility. They play on their perceived weakness to justify specific policy choices to citizens and to international donors’ (Randeria 2007: 6). By blaming the Maoists and the contractors, or by emphasizing its ‘helplessness’ in the absence of financial and other resources, the local state shied away from its responsibility for implementing developmental programmes. During Laloo PrasadYadav’s term as the Chief Minister during the 1990s, whenever a massacre occurred in Bihar, instead of examining the root causes of violence or the failure of state machinery, he blamed the opposition parties. He asserted that such incidents were part of a political conspiracy to defame his government (Chaudhuri 1997c). It was not that the state lacked the capacity to implement the developmental programmes or protect Dalits from upper caste violence—what the state lacked was the will to act. This is where Randeria’s distinction between the weak and the cunning state again becomes relevant in the context of Bihar. She says: ‘Weak states cannot protect their citizens whereas cunning states do not care to’ (2003: 34). In the absence of any concrete programmes of development, the ‘cunning state’ tried to acquire legitimacy through other means. Banerjee’s seminal work on the Naxalite Movement discusses how the state attempts to prevent the poor peasants from joining the Movement by offering them welfare schemes (1980: 369–72). In Jehanabad, for instance, the local state administration extended loans for purchasing cattle or investing in small businesses to the poorer sections of the population.With the few development schemes on the offer in Jehanabad, the Dalits on their part seized this opportunity to use the state to their advantage. The household survey in Dumari indicated that 34 per cent of the Dalit households took loans, ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 in a three-year period from 2000–03.4 From each of these households, the agents or dalals took a 10 to 20 per cent ‘cut’. None of the Dalits, however, complained about these ‘cuts’. They were content that they had to pay back only 50 per cent of the total loan, with an annual interest rate of 1 4 33 per cent of Ravidasi households, 37 per cent of the Dusadh, 25 per cent of the Musahar, and 50 per cent each of the Dhobi and Dom households had taken loans during this period.

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per cent. Nobody seemed to worry about how they were going to pay back even this 50 per cent and what would be the consequence of non-payment. For the moment everyone—Dalits, dalals, banks, district administration—seemed happy with the loan scheme. The Maoists were, however, critical that this was a government ploy to wean the Dalits away from the Movement. A local activist of the Party commented: ‘sarkar logon ke samne roti phenk rahi hei (the state is throwing morsels before the poor) in order to kill the people’s struggle’.5 The ‘cunning’ state seemed to legitimize its coercive presence in the region by rolling out money. Randeria’s idea of the ‘cunning state’, however, requires a more nuanced application. Her concept appears to attribute agency to ‘the state’ in an unproblematized way. In referring to the ‘blurred boundaries of the state’ (Gupta 1995), I had noted that the state does not think and act as a unity. The ‘cunningness of the state’ therefore needs to be analyzed in the context of the role of the state officials and their strategic interests. Gupta (1995), Harriss-White (2003), and Corbridge et al. (2003a, 2005) point out that the caste, class, political and religious background of the government officials need to be taken into account while examining the way the state functions. Corbridge et al. write: ‘The workings of local government can be expected to reflect these multiple positionalities and the understandings of governance to which they give rise’ (2003a: 2379). Since most of the top and even middle and lower layers of the state bureaucracy and police often belonged to the upper castes, or upper layers of the middle castes, they had their own caste, class and other interests which were reflected in the exercise of governance. I shall examine this point again while considering linkages between the state and the caste senas. To conclude, the production of a coercive state in Bihar was both an outcome as well as the source of the widening gap between different castes and classes. Drawing on Jeffrey & Lerche’s (2001) study of state and dominance in Uttar Pradesh, I argue that in Bihar, the emerging class of a rich middle peasantry consisting mainly of the Yadav, Kurmi, and Koeri castes played a crucial role in this particular type of state formation. Their access to forms of state power, including police, reproduced their class advantage. This class, though essentially antagonist to the entrenched upper castes, 5

Interview with Sunil Singh in Dumari in January 2003.

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had often colluded with them in suppressing any challenge to their dominance by the Dalits and lower castes, especially in the form of the Maoist Movement. This type of state formation is what Gramsci referred to as ‘passive revolution’, (1998[1971]: 105ff) a process by with the ruling power was restored through various alliances and re-alliances of the dominant classes.6 I shall revisit the concept of passive revolution while discussing the Maoist Movement’s alliance with the middle peasantry. In the next section, I examine how this ruling bloc remained in close connection with the caste senas in order to maintain its dominance in rural Bihar.

The Caste Senas: Rise of a Politico-Military Formation The emergence of senas (army/militia) was closely linked to the exercise of power and dominance in rural Bihar. Every landowning caste in the state formed a sena to maintain its dominance in the face of the growing challenge from agricultural labourers who belonged to Dalit castes (Table 6.1). With the formation of the senas, the pattern and nature of violence in rural Bihar underwent transformation. It was no longer an individual landlord exerting his power over the landless and marginal peasants through his lathaith (henchmen),7 but a well armed and organized militia representing the collective interests of the dominant castes. Often enjoying political and police patronage, the senas represented a very lethal formation of violence, with extreme consequences for Dalits. Out of 35 massacres committed by the caste senas in the last two decades, 31 directly targeted the Dalit communities, killing 276 Dalits from a total of toll of 339 (Sinha & Sinha 2001). In chapter three, I described the experience of Dalits in Dumari and their exile from the village in the wake of violence unleashed by the Bhumi Sena. In this section, while drawing on the above analysis of the functioning of the state 6 State formation in India has been characterized by this process. Drawing on Gramsci’s concept of ‘passive revolution’, Chatterjee’s (1986) seminal work analyses how the nationalist bourgeoisie entered into a partnership with the old dominant classes to form a ruling coalition in postcolonial India. 7 Lathaith literally means a person who wields the lathi (a bamboo club or truncheon often six feet in length). Earlier every landlord kept lathaiths (traditionally belonging to the Yadav caste), to intimidate, punish and control the labourers.

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in Bihar, I examine the rise of the senas, with a special focus on the Ranveer Sena—the most dreaded caste militia in Bihar—its mode of violence and its relations with the state agencies.

Emergence of the Senas: Differing Perspectives The landlords and the state agencies held the view that the senas were the product of the Maoist violence.They pointed out that the reign of terror unleashed by the Maoists—their policies of annihilation, economic blockade, and people’s courts—compelled the landowners to take up arms to protect themselves (Table 6.1).The following account published in The Telegraph (Calcutta) sums up this perspective well: Operating under ‘armed squads’, the ‘extremists’ [Naxalites], according to the police records, sent ‘notices’ to prosperous landlords enumerating their demands. And if their demands were not met, the landlords inevitably met with death. In fact such is the terror of the IPF and the MKSS, that in the districts that it controls, no landowner will remove a flag planted by them to establish their claim on a plot of land [...] Such is the clout of the Naxalites, that in Jehanabad nearly 30 per cent of the cultivable land is lying fallow due to labour disputes and in some villages, the labourers have not tilled the landlord’s land for over two years. The landlord, of course, has not had the courage to summon labour from outside the village: he has been only too aware of the consequences. It was against this backdrop that the first private army—the Bhoomi Sena—was born in the mid-Eighties. This was, a police officer explained, ‘A desperate move by the landlords to protect themselves. When the landlords became insecure due to the growing clout of the Naxalites, they organized themselves, pooled in money and guns and vowed to protect each other’ (Banerjee 1991: 9).

In chapter three, while describing the rise of the Bhumi Sena, I discussed the reasons given by the Kurmi landlords for the emergence of their caste sena, which in many sense reflected the content of the above report—sena as a formation of self-defence. The Bhumihar landlords who supported the Ranveer Sena expressed similar views. They pointed out that with hundreds of acres of land lying barren due to the Maoist nakebandi (blockade), they were either forced to leave their villages or join the Ranveer Sena. S. B. Sahay, the former Director General of Police (DGP) in Bihar, upholding the version of the landlords, reiterated that the senas were ‘self defence groups’ and that they emerged as ‘a direct concomitant of unchecked extremist activities over the past several years’

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Table 6.1: Major Caste Senas in Bihar Name of the Sena

Caste Affiliation

Year of Formation

Kuer Sena Kisan Suraksha Samiti Bhumi Sena

Rajput

1979

Bhojpur, Rohtas

Kurmi Kurmi

1979 1983

Lorik Sena Bhramarshi Sena

Yadav Bhumihar

1983 1984

Patna, Jehanabad, Gaya Patna, Nawada, Nalanda, Jehanabad Patna, Jehanabad, Nalanda Bhojpur, Patna, Jehanabad, Aurangabad Palamu Palamu, Aurangabad Palamu, Gaya, Garwal, Aurangabad Bhojpur Patna, Bhojpur Gaya, Jehanabad

Kisan Sangh Rajput Brahmin Kisan Sevak Samaj Rajput Sunlight Sena Pathan, Rajput

1984 1985 1989

Kisan Morcha Kisan Sangh Savarna Liberation Front Ganga Sena Ranveer Sena

Rajput Bhumihar Bhumihar

1989 1990 1990

Rajput Bhumihar

1990 1994

Operational Districts

Bhojpur Bhojpur, Rohtas, Gaya, Patna, Jehanabad, Aurangabad

Source: Adapted from Louis 2000b: 2207.

(PUCL 1990: 55). Much evidence, that I shall examine later, suggests that the police extended tacit support to the senas in their version of counter-violence, aimed at targeting the Dalit sympathizers of the Maoist Movement. A contrasting version on the formation of the senas was offered by human right activists and some academics studying violence in Bihar. They pointed out that the rise of the senas was the direct fallout of the Green Revolution (Sinha 1998 cited in Louis 2002: 226).8 As I discussed in chapters two and three, the increased agricultural productivity sharpened the contradictions between the landed and the landless (Prasad 1980; Das 1983; Rudolph & Rudolph 1987; Jeffrey & Lerche 2001). While it accentuated the exploitation of the landless 8 Sinha’s article was published under the title ‘Bihar mein niji Senayen’ (Private Armies in Bihar) in the Hindi weekly Filhal (May 1998).

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peasants, it also awakened their aspirations.The 1980s then witnessed the widespread Dalit mobilizations under the Maoist ideologies against oppression by the landlords. The investigative report by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), while underlying the caste and class dimensions of the agrarian struggle, observes: The organized struggle of the poor did not only hurt the economic interests of the landlords, but even their ego peppered by the caste system. Thus even the poor among the upper castes who stood to lose nothing in material terms, reacted strongly against the rising poor.[...] The landlords of both upper and middle castes felt not only their material interests but also their social status threatened by this upsurge (PUCL 1990: 53–4).

Evidence suggested that the senas targeted those villages where the labourers had raised their voices against exploitation, demanded better wages and contested the possession of gairmazurua (public) land by the landlords. The case of Dumari clearly demonstrated this aspect of the struggle. Although the Maoists have been rather successful in rolling back many senas during the 1980s and the 1990s, the Ranveer Sena now represented the landlord class against any Dalit challenge to the power and dominance of the landowners in rural Bihar.

Ranveer Sena and the Production of Violence The Ranveer Sena (also spelt Ranbir or Ranvir) was formed in October 1994 by the upper caste Bhumihars in Belaur village, Bhojpur district. A brief examination of the context in which this Sena emerged throws light on the process of the formation of senas in Bihar. Belaur was one of the largest villages in Bhojpur with 1200 households, of which 600 belonged to the Bhumihars. Out of a total of 22,000 acres of land in the village, the Bhumihars owned 17,000 acres. Since the 1960s, the introduction of new technologies under the Green Revolution and the availability of irrigation facilities increased the agricultural production and prosperity of the Bhumihars. The economic power of the community was reinforced by its possession of firearms. The Bhumihars in this village owned nearly 800 guns; 70 of which were licensed and more than 700 unlicensed (Verma 2000). The increased agricultural production, however, did not improve the situation of the landless and marginal peasants in the village. Since the 1980s, their protest mobilization under the leadership of the CPI (ML) Liberation in the Bhojpur villages brought the Bhumihars into direct confrontation with the landless peasants. Violence broke

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out in the village when the Liberation held a janadalat on issues of wages and sexual abuse of Dalit women by upper caste men. The Bhumihars beat up some labourers who attended the janadalat. In retaliation, Jwala Singh, a Bhumihar landlord, was killed by the Liberation cadres. Subsequently the Bhumihars in Belaur formed the Ranveer Sena to take on the CPI (ML) Liberation in Bhojpur (Louis 2002). The sena was named after Ranveer Singh, who the Bhumihars claimed, had fought the Rajputs in the nineteenth century and Table 6.2: Massacres by the Ranveer Sena Village

District

Number Killed

Date and year

Khopira Sarthua Noorbigha Chandi Patalpura Nanaur Nadhi Nadhi Nadhi Morath Bathani Tola Purthara Khanet Ekwari Bagher Maachil Haibaspur Ekwari LakshmanpurBathe Nagari Bazar Shankarbigha Narayanpur Sendani Mianpur

Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Bhojpur Jehanabad Patna Bhojpur

3 6 6 4 3 5 3 3 3 3 21 4 5 7 3 3 10 8

04/04/1995 25/07/1995 05/08/1995 07/02/1996 09/03/1996 22/04/1996 05/05/1996 09/05/1996 19/05/1996 25/05/1996 07/07/1996 25/11/1996 12/12/1996 24/12/1996 01/01/1997 31/01/1997 23/03/1997 10/04/1997

Jehanabad Bhojpur Jehanabad Jehanabad Gaya Aurangabad

63 10 22 11 12 35

01/12/1997 11/09/1998 25/01/1999 10/02/1999 20/04/1999 15/06/2000

Source: Adapted from PUDR 1999; Louis 2002: 234.

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established their community’s supremacy in the region. Brahmeshwar Singh, who assumed the leadership of the sena, cleverly used the legend of ‘Ranveer Baba’ to win over the support of the Bhumihars and turn it into a militant organization to fight the Maoists (Chaudhuri 2002). In an interview with the news weekly Frontier in 1999, Singh claimed that ‘Marginalized by the market and terrorized by the Naxals either through economic nakebandi or by violent acts with active support of the casteist administration we were left with no alternative but to form the Ranveer Samiti’ (Roy 1999: 8).9 Using a religious idiom from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, Singh reiterated that Bihar was on the verge of disintegration due to the ‘Naxalite menace’, so like the Lord Krishna who took the human form to destroy evil and save the world, now the Sena had been created by God to destroy the Naxalites (Chakraborty 2002). Within five years of its inception, the Ranveer Sena had massacred more than 200 Dalits and marginal peasants (Table 6.2) and it became the most dreaded sena in Bihar. With the rise of the Ranveer Sena, the nature of violence in Bihar underwent a change. The Sena produced a distinctive mode of violence directed against the Dalits unparalleled in the recent history of Bihar. The Ranveer Sena indulged in the random killings of men, women, children and even infants. Among the 61 Dalits massacred by the Sena in Lakshmanpur-Bathe village, Jehanabad district in December 1997, there were 27 women and 16 children (Kishore 1997). In the Sena carnage in Shankarbigha, Jehanabad in January 1999, the 23 Dalits killed included 5 women, 7 children and even a 10-month-old baby (Chaudhuri 1999). In Mianpur village in Aurangabad, the 34 people massacred by the Sena in June 2000 included 15 women and 4 children (Balchand 2000). Targeting women and children was part of a deliberate strategy adopted by the Sena. In an interview with the English daily the Times of India on 13 June 1999, Brahmeshwar Singh explained that women and children were annihilated because they provided shelter to the Naxalite squads. When asked how an infant could provide shelter to the Naxalites, he had this to say: ‘Hanuman in his fight against Ravan set on fire the whole of Lanka. It is fair if the fight against the demons involves destroying the womb’ (Sinha & Sinha 2001: 4096). 9 The Ranveer Sena was originally called Ranveer Samiti. Eventually it came to be known as Ranveer Sena, like the other caste militias of Bihar (Roy 1999).

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Illustration 6.1: Martyr Memorials for Slain Dalit Labourers. Shahid Smarak or martyr memorials for Dalit labourers killed by Ranveer Sena in Narayanpur village, Jehanabad in 1999. Such memorials are a common sight in the Magadh region. In the first five years of its formation (1994–99), the Ranveer Sena massacred 247 people, mostly Dalit men, women and children.

The Sena’s gender-specific dimensions of violence was not limited to just killing Dalit women. The Savarna Liberation Front (SLF) of the Bhumihars, which merged with the Ranveer Sena, had conducted a ‘mass rape’ campaign. In the mid-nineties, in Gaya and Jehanabad districts, more than 200 Dalit girls and women between the ages of 6 and 70 became the victims of this campaign. The Ranveer Sena leaders claimed that this ‘operation’ was carried out to avenge the killing of the Bhumihar landlords by the Maoists. Rape was intended as a ‘lesson’ to the Dalits that ‘if they tried to take on the landlords, the women of their communities would be humiliated’ (Ramakrishnan 1999: 31). In other parts of India also, the rape of Dalit women by upper caste men is often one of the ways in which the upper castes express their dominance over lower caste men and women. The public humiliation of Dalit women was a certain way of reducing the ‘manhood’ of Dalit men who dared to challenge the landowners (cf. Kannabiran & Kannabiran 1991). This was often

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seen in the naked parading and other forms of public humiliation of Dalit women. The Ranveer Sena’s acts of violence, whether against Dalit women and children, or the lower caste communities in general, had certain specificities. First, they were carried out to create maximum terror among the marginal peasants who dared to challenge the dominant caste interests. Second, they were executed by the trained death squads of the Sena. Ravindra Choudhary, the vice president of the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, a frontal organization of the Sena, pointed out that a large number of Bhumihar men from the Magadh and Bhojpur regions joined the army and other central security forces; many of them, while on annual leave, trained the squad members of the Sena in the use of sophisticated weapons (Verma 2000). Some arrested Sena members ‘confessed’ that a few of these jawans even took part in the Sena massacres (Chakraborty 1999b). The regular squad members of the Sena were paid a monthly salary of between Rs 1100 and 1200 (Verma 2000). It was said that the Sena kept an amount of Rs 1,00,000 as insurance for every squad member who took part in massacres (Louis 2002: 227). Human rights organizations have claimed that the Sena’s war against the ‘rebellious Dalits’ was waged in coordination with some sections of the government agencies (PUDR 1997; Human Rights Watch 1999). This nexus between the Sena and the state apparatus is what I turn to now.

The Sena, State and Police Nexus The Dalits, marginal peasants and other victims of the Ranveer Sena felt that the state agencies, especially the police, colluded with the Sena. The investigative reports of the Sena massacres published by human rights organizations, and the coverage of such incidents in the newspapers, reflected common man’s perceptions of the state-senapolice nexus. These sources, to which I shall refer shortly, confirm the argument I made in the earlier section of the book that the state in Bihar was highly ‘porous’. On the one hand, the evidence pointed to the interplay of the caste and class interests of state actors and the rich peasantry in the activities of the Ranveer Sena, and on the other, to how the state extended its tacit support to the Sena to counter the Maoist challenge. Brahmeshwar Singh, for whose capture the government had announced a reward of Rs 500,000, was twice arrested in Patna in

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1998. On both occasions, he was released from the police station even though there were more than a dozen criminal cases registered against him. In the first instance, the police ‘failed’ to identify him. When he was arrested for the second time, there was no problem with identification, but then the police received orders from the ‘higher authorities’ for his release (The Telegraph, 30 January 1999).10 He stayed mostly in the state capital and had free access to the homes of certain politicians and even ministers of his caste (ibid.). Indeed, like the earlier senas, the Ranveer Sena enjoyed considerable political patronage. Human Rights Watch states that the Sena had links with politicians from various parties, including the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Samata Party and the Janata Dal (HRW 1999: 53). In Bihar, where political connections played a significant role in the everyday relations of power and privilege, Brahmeshwar Singh and other politically-networked leaders of the Sena had immunity from the law, and not surprisingly, used this privilege to its fullest. If the Sena chief was allowed to roam freely in the state capital, the evidence presented by human rights organizations suggests that the Sena activists received indirect support from the police and the local administration in the events leading to Dalit massacres and their aftermath. In an interview with Human Rights Watch (HRW), the head of the Dalit tola in Ekwari village, Bhojpur District, where the Ranveer Sena killed eight Dalits in April 1997, described the police complicity with the Sena in the following words: ‘They [the police] searched the houses. Then they left and the Ranveer Sena came in and shot everyone. The police[men] were still there [in the village]. They were from the new police camp, not from outside’ (HRW 1999: 66). Even though more policemen came to stay in the village after the massacre, the head of Dalit tola reiterated in the same interview that the Dalits had no faith in the protection the police provided. He claimed that the police were ‘allied with the Ranveer Sena. They get money and food from the forward castes. The police don’t care about the poor. We don’t go to the police, nor any other state agencies’ (ibid.: 68). The same view was expressed by a Dalit activist in Jehanabad after the Sena massacre in Lakshmanpur-Bathe. He said: ‘[At] Bathe, protection [police camp] is near the poor but it only benefits 10

This information was published in The Telegraph (Calcutta) 30 January 1999, in an article titled ‘Caste Action Hero’.

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the rich. Police always goes to the landlord[s]’s houses.[...] All their needs are taken care of by upper castes. If someone calls a meeting they [police] won’t come. They say “we don’t have time”. They just do flag marches’ (HRW 1999: 64).11 After the Shankarbigha massacre, Dalits pointed out that the Saharsa police camp, located a mere 3 km from the carnage site, did nothing to rescue them. They said the police had visited the village just half an hour before the arrival of the Ranveer Sena. During the massacre, they claimed, the police had been stationed at a distance no more than half a kilometre away. One villager said that when he rushed to the police patrolling team to inform them of the attack, he was chased away by the policemen (Kumar 2000). Dalits interpreted the district administration’s neglect in responding to their warnings about impending attacks as the state’s complicity with the upper caste militias. They claimed that the Sena succeeded in killing Dalits because the district administration and the police did not take preventive measures. Human Rights Watch observes that long before the Lakshmanpur-Bathe massacre, the local police was aware of the possibility of a carnage in the village. It points out that the police knew that on 25 November 1997 the Ranveer Sena leaders had held a strategic meeting 7 km away from Bathe village. Shamsher Bahadur Singh, a Sena leader, had openly toured the area prior to the massacre, seeking donations from the Sena supporters (1999: 62). The English daily, The Statesman, reported that Birendra Singh, a Ranveer Sena activist in Jehanabad, had declared a few days before the carnage that his outfit was about to do something that would make national and international headlines (Jha 1997). Similarly, before the Shankarbigha massacre, the police ignored the warnings that a massacre was likely to occur in the area. Just a little over two weeks before the incident, the Sena leader Brameshwar Singh said in an interview with a local newspaper that the Sena was planning an attack in Jehanabad district, ‘with renewed vigour [and] in a calculate[ed] manner’ (cited in HRW 1999: 58). A newspaper report on the massacre of twelve Dalits by the Ranveer Sena in Narayanpur village, Jehanabad in February 1999 pointed out that the villagers had alerted the police about a possible attack by the Sena. But the police did not take any action. The 11 Human Rights Watch conducted the interview with this Dalit social activist from the Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti (BDVS) on 26 February 1998.

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villagers said that the policemen from the station which was barely 3 km away from the village arrived only 14 hours after the carnage; and merely to inform them that Narayanpur village came under the jurisdiction of another police station; they would have to lodge their complaint there. A police picket posted at Narayanpur following the massacre at the neighbouring Lakshmanpur-Bathe village in December 1997 was withdrawn shortly before the February massacre in the village. Dalits did not fail to see the state and the Sena nexus in this (Chaudhary 1999). It was not that the district administration and the police were completely clueless as to where the Sena would strike next. In all the villages where massacres took place; there had been long standing feuds between the upper caste landowners and the landless Dalits mobilized by the Maoists on the question of surplus land, wages and exploitation. As indicated earlier, the inaction of the state agencies or their indirect, in some cases even direct support to the Sena, were perceived by the Dalit activists as linked to the interests of a dominant bloc consisting of the entrenched upper castes and the emerging class of rich peasantry which formed the ruling elite in the state. The following report by the PUDR narrates how the state agencies played a significant role in safeguarding the dominant interest: According to Home Ministry reports, the Ranbir Sena possesses 4,000 guns, both with and without licences.[...] The SSP [Senior Superintendent of Police] gave an interesting explanation for not trying to withdraw licences from weapon-wielding members of the Ranbir Sena—that in the present state of agrarian conflict, the state could not protect all the Bhumihars. Hence they have to be allowed to have guns for their own security and to safeguard their properties. When asked whether likewise the state was in a position to defend all Dalits who did not possess weapons, he maintained a telling silence (1997: 31).

A high ranking official in the Bihar government argued that since the government was unable to tackle the Naxalite problem, it allowed the Sena to act as a counter-force to the Maoists (Bhowmik 1999). According to the police, ‘the Sena comes in handy as a necessary evil which acts as a balancing factor to protect the landed and the wealthy on the hit list of the dreaded Squads of the CPI (ML)’ (Yawar 1996: 41). Some government officials admitted that the ban on the Sena was a half hearted attempt to silence the critics of the government. The police maintained that they could ill afford a crackdown on

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the Sena as that might result in a power imbalance in the region and allow the ‘Naxalites a free run’ (ibid.: 41). The Ranveer Sena’s close connection with the state police was demonstrated by the fact that the Sena’s press release even gave the Patna Police Line as the address of its headquarters (Ahmed 2001). To conclude, the following observations could be made regarding the emergence of the senas as a politico-military formation. First, although the senas were formed by particular caste groups, they gradually came to represent the dominant interest in land beyond the castes to which they originally were affiliated. In chapter three, I discussed how the Bhumi Sena, although formed by the Kurmi caste, received the support of various landowning castes in Jehanabad, Nalanda and Patna districts. Similarly, the Ranveer Sena now represented a wider alliance of the landowners irrespective of their caste identities. The Rajputs, who had been traditionally locked in a power struggle with the Bhumihars, joined the Ranveer Sena in their struggle against the Maoists. The Sena, as noted earlier, was named after the Bhumihar hero who was believed to have defeated the Rajputs in the Bhojpur region. However, now these castes buried the difference between them and in some places, the Ganga Sena of the Rajputs fought the Maoists under the leadership of the Ranveer Sena. The increasing power and influence of the Ranveer Sena, thus, demonstrates an accentuated process of class formation among the rich peasantry in Bihar. Second, the Ranveer Sena’s nexus with state agencies reinforced the earlier argument I made, drawing on Corbridge et al. (2003a) that caste, class and religious affiliations of state actors influenced the functions of governance. For instance, traditionally the police force in Bihar was dominated by the Bhumihars and the Rajputs. Now they had been increasingly joined by the men from the ascending middle peasantry, representing mainly the Yadav and the Kurmi castes (HRW 1999: 54). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the police apparatus of the state, which was largely constituted by people from the rich sections of the upper and middle caste peasantry, took the side of the Sena to safeguard the dominance of the rural elite. Finally, the state-sena nexus in Bihar is evidence of the wider strategy of states that in revolutionary contexts use private militias to counter the resistance movements organized by the poorer sections of rural society. In Chhattisgarh in Central India, the state sponsored the Salwa Judum, an armed civilian group, to fight the Maoist Movement

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(Sundar 2006; Balagopal 2006). In other countries too, especially in the Latin American states of Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, and Guatemala, in the contexts of prolonged peasant rebellions, armed civilians or civil defence groups worked for or in partnership with state agencies, and had been responsible for thousands of forced disappearances, murders, torture, rape and death threats (Palmer 1992; Isabel 1992; HRW 1996). Could this be viewed as instances of weak states seeking the help of ‘private actors’ in order to re-establish peace and order in the countryside, or as the strategy of the ‘cunning states’, which by such alliance, try to maintain the dominance of the ruling blocs? The evidence from Bihar, as described earlier, points to the latter.

Lal Sarkar: The Maoist State in Bihar In the initial stages of my fieldwork, along with the local secretary of the Mazdur Kisan Sangram Parishad (the peasant wing of the Maoist party) and some activists, I visited different villages in the region where the organization worked. During one such introductory trip, while passing through a sugarcane field owned by a Kurmi landlord, someone from our entourage cut a couple of cane stalks. In my naivety, I pointed out this might lead to trouble with the landlord whose men were guarding the field. The secretary immediately replied, loud enough for the benefits of the guards: ‘Hamini ke raj mein humlog do ganne nahi tod sakte?’ (‘Can we not cut two sugarcane stalks in our rule/reign/realm?’) I did not say anything more. The landlord’s men just watched us silently. We chewed on the juicy stems and moved on. Although this was a very minor incident, the secretary’s words, ‘haminike raj’, (our realm) reflected the changing power relations in the region, a factor which I discussed in chapter three in relation to Dumari. The zamindar raj was replaced by the Maoist raj or the lal sarkar (red government/state). On one hand, the Maoists were fighting tooth and nail to destabilize the state, on the other they were setting up a parallel state machinery of their own in the remote regions of the country. The following observation made by Gellner in relation to the Maoists in Nepal was also true for their comrades in India: ‘In certain areas, the Maoists have effectively become the state, these they call their “base areas”. Whether they conceive their ultimate aim in terms of achieving a republican “people’s democracy”

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or in terms of more utopian Marxist notions of statelessness, the Maoists have in practice had to set up their own state within a state’ (2002: 26). Indian newspapers reported the Maoist ‘state within a state’ as a ‘parallel government’ conducting people’s courts and collecting taxes (Shahin 2004; Shankar 2005).

Imitation of State: Functions of Governance The Maoist state in rural Bihar, however, was not just limited to dispensing justice and collecting levies. I examine the Maoist raj against the frame of reference of the modern Indian state and its functions of governance namely development, empowerment, protection and discipline, and for this I draw upon the study by Corbridge et al. (2005). Earlier I referred to the observation made by the District Magistrate of Gaya that the Maoists were an obstacle to development. I will later discuss the arguments which highlight the limitations of the Maoist Movement for engaging in development work due to their emphasis on armed struggle (Dubey 1991; Bhatia 2006). Contrary to both these claims, the Maoist leaders reiterated that even in the face of severe state repression, they were engaged in development activities.12 In some villages in Jehanabad, I came across irrigation projects, village schools and community halls (dalaan) built under the leadership of the Movement. I did not see any such undertakings in Dumari though, and Dalits in this village did not associate the lal sarkar with vikas ke karykram (developmental activities). In respect to the notion of the state as empowering, in the previous chapters, I discussed at length how the Dalits through their participation in the Maoist Movement contested upper caste domination and exploitation in various ways. In Dumari, Dalits contrasted their present confidence and boldness with the earlier attitudes of submission to the Kurmi zamindars. One Dalit labourer who had been active in the Maoist Movement summed up this new disposition in the following words: Earlier we used to say to the zamindars ‘huzur peet par mariye magar pet par nahin’ [‘hit on the back but not on the stomach please’]. We pleaded with the landlords that they might do anything they wished, but not take away our livelihood. And now we say, ‘tamiz se pesh aaieye, nahi to zaban kheech 12 Interviews with the local secretary of the Maoist Party in Dumari in March 2003, and one of the state leaders of the Party in Patna in August 2003.

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lenge’ [‘speak with respect, otherwise we will pull out your tongue’]. Now we live with izzat [dignity].13

In chapter five, I illustrated Dalit empowerment in terms of their increasing ‘capacity to object’ (cf. Latour 2000: 116), not only to the Kurmi landlords but also to the Maoists, in order to challenge the ‘adverse terms of recognition’ (cf. Appadurai 2004: 66; Mosse 2007: 31). Through their participation in the Maoist struggles, Dalits acquired a certain space for individual and collective expression, while also developing a ‘capacity to aspire’ (cf. Appadurai 2004). They did this by building on their cultural resources, especially through reinterpreting and celebrating their caste histories, heroes, myths and legends. Through their participation in the Maoist Movement and through their caste-specific mobilizations (for social status and political participation), Dalits were engaged in a dynamic process of contesting and altering the conditions of their subordination, especially based on caste. Many Dalits in Dumari told me, in words not very different from those of the labourer I have just quoted, that they were now able to pursue a life with izzat (honour, respect, dignity), and that this was a marked improvement from the time before the mobilizations. In terms of economic empowerment of Dalits, the Maoist Movement, however, had little impact. In the course of the Maoist struggle (1980s to 2003), there was a marginal increase in daily wages—from sava ser kachi (three-quarters of a measure of coarse grain) to 3 kilos of paddy or wheat. Except for the redistribution of some captured and gairmazurua (public) land among Dalits, the vast majority of Dalit supporters of the Movement remained landless. In Dumari they still worked for the Kurmi landowners either as chutta (casual/free) or as lagua (‘attached’ on a yearly contract) labourers. Most of them lived in chronic poverty. The Bihar sarkar offered loans to Dalits, but the lal sarkar at the time of my fieldwork offered no concrete economic incentives. The protective role of the Maoist Movement was ambiguous. Over the last two decades, the Party had increased its military power through the formation of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), Local Guerrilla Squads (LGSs) and People’s Militia. The Movement had seized numerous and sophisticated weapons from the police and the paramilitary forces. The Maoists had been accused 13

Interview with Rajinder Das in Dumari village in March 2003.

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of imposing heavy taxes on petty businessmen and contractors to build up their armoury. Shah’s study in Jharkhand points out that the Maoists were ‘selling protection’ in return for support (2006: 299). In Dumari people paid taxes to the party. None of my Dalit respondents however, complained about it. The landless labourers had to give 3 kilos of grain (paddy, rice or wheat) annually and the landowners also gave the same amount but for every bigha of the land they cultivated. The LGSs or dasta (as they were locally known) patrolled the villages at night as a sign of assurance and protection. The villages often visited by the dasta included ones where they had been disputes between the labourers and the landowners or had been perceived as targets where the Ranveer Sena might strike. The protective role of the Maoist Movement was, however, called into question by the frequent occurrence of Dalit massacres in the region. But in Dumari, the Dalits still preferred the Maoist armed squads to the police. They feared that in the absence of the Maoist dasta, the samanti raj (feudal rule) would return. In the disciplinary function of the Maoist state, its instant dispensation of justice in the janadalat had often been identified as the Maoist ‘parallel government’. The janadalat, which is derived from the revolutionary praxis advocated by Mao, presented an alternative to the state judicial system.14 There were two main aspects to this specific judicial practice, one more emancipatory than the other. I start with its non-liberative aspect. The people’s courts, although organized as antithetical to the state system, sometimes produced the same effect of denying justice to the poor. In this regard, Foucault’s discussion with Maoist activists in France offers interesting insights. Foucault argues that instead of dispensing popular justice, the ‘historical function’ of the people’s court was ‘to ensnare it, to control it and to strangle it, by re-inscribing it within institutions which are typical of a state apparatus’ (1980: 1). In the exercise of popular justice by the judges, the exactions of confessions, the imposition of fines, the deliberations to declare the accused guilty or innocent and various other processes imposed on the people in an authoritarian manner, Foucault sees ‘the embryonic, albeit fragile form of state apparatus reappearing’ (ibid.: 2). The dominant role played by the 14 In Mao’s theory and practice of revolution, the people’s courts were developed as ‘tools of the proletarian dictatorship’ and ‘weapons in the hands of the people’. They were meant to resolve two types of contradictions, arising either ‘between the enemy and the people’ or among the people themselves (Spitz 1969: 255–6).

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Maoist Party and the priority given to its interests, sometimes, as the case study in chapter five demonstrated, hindered the Dalits from playing a significant role in the Maoist judicial process. However, the emancipatory role of the Maoist judicial practice could not be denied. It made an impact on the everyday power relations in rural villages—both real and symbolic. In most cases, the trials of oppressive landlords were preceded by the imposition of aarthik aur samajik nakebandi (economic and social blockade). The labourers boycotted them and they were not allowed to cultivate their land. The judicial process ruptured the traditional jajman-paunia (patron-client) relations as the landlords were denied the services of their puania (clients) such as those of the Nai (barber), Chamar, Dhobi and Kahar. Their dominance weakened by the prolonged imposition of economic and social boycott, either they escaped to the cities secretly selling their land and, in some cases, joined the Ranveer Sena—a process described earlier, or surrendered before the janadalat. The actual settings and proceedings of the people’s court symbolized a complete reversal of power dynamics. The court was often held in the village bagicha (mango grove) or in the open squares in the Dalit tola (settlement). The landlords who were summoned to appear before the people felt vulnerable without their lathaith (musclemen) around them. In the janadalat, they stood as the accused before their own labourers, who were mostly from the ‘Untouchable’ castes. They were made to apologize, with folded hands. As described in chapters three and four, guilty landlords were often beaten, garlanded with sandals and their heads shaved. Although these isolated instances did not destroy the power and dominance of the landlord class, the janadalat became symbolic sites of Dalit collective assertion and gradual establishment of the Maoist raj.

A ‘Revolution in Revolution’: Maoist Alliance with Middle Castes Apart from the functions of governance examined above, another significant process in the formation of the lal sarkar can be identified in the strategic alliances the Movement sought to enter into in order to establish the ‘New Democratic State under the leadership of the proletariat’ (CPI [ML] People’s War 1995: 9). The party constitution makes the following statement regarding the formation of such alliances:

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The peasantry is the main force in the agrarian revolution which is the axis of the new democratic revolution carried out under the leadership of the proletariat.[...] It firmly unites with the middle peasants. It wins over to its side a section of rich peasants and neutralizes the remaining.[...] The petty bourgeoisie are reliable allies of the revolution in our country (ibid.).

As discussed at length in the last three chapters, in the 1980s, the Maoist Movement established itself among the landless and the marginal peasants by addressing the basic contradictions that existed between the landless Dalits and the landowning middle peasants. In the 1990s, with the emphasis now placed on uniting ‘with the middle peasants’ in the struggle for state power, the Movement changed its earlier aggressive policy towards this segment of the peasantry. This shift in the Maoist strategy could be viewed in terms of Gramsci’s (1998 [1971]: 108–11) concept of ‘passive revolution’, to which I referred earlier. Apart from creating a wider political formation for the capture of state power, in practical terms, by this alliance the Maoist Movement tried to neutralize the pressures from the contending middle peasantry. This process involved incorporating the interests of the middle peasants—in government subsidies, remission of rents, and protection from the demands of the classes below them—in the Maoist agenda. It was a strategy aimed at establishing the Maoist hegemony, and its political and moral leadership (Gramsci 1998), among the middle peasants. Gramsci identified this process of passive revolution with the concept ‘war of position’—a slow and protracted struggle to win over middle peasantry to the cause of the New Democratic state. In this shift of strategy, the Maoist Movement had now abandoned the ‘war of manoeuvre’—to borrow from Gramsci again—the ‘armed assaults’ on the interests of the middle peasants (cf. 1998: 108–10, 229–35). I discussed the Dalit response to this strategic shift in the Maoist agenda in chapter five. To sum up, the Maoist judicial system, together with its guerrilla squads and campaigns, especially against the security forces, created a powerful impression of the existence of the structure of a parallel Maoist state in rural Bihar. In this sense, Mitchell’s (1991, 2006) analysis of state as a ‘structural effect’, could be applied in the case of the Maoist state as well. Mitchell argues that the state ‘should be examined not as an actual structure, but as the powerful, metaphysical effect of practices that make such structures appear to exist’ (1991: 94). In relation to the lal sarkar, such a state effect includes, along with various structures and practices of governance,

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‘base areas’ and ‘liberated zones’, an ‘aura’ or ‘image’ or ‘effect’ of an actual state, and a ‘parallel government’. This ‘structural effect’ was admired as well as feared and resisted. It also produced subjectivities both sympathetic (in the case of Dalits and other weaker sections) and hostile (land owners and official state agencies) in relation to the Maoist Movement.

Armed Struggle and Mass Mobilization: An Uneasy Marriage? While the 1980s witnessed a widespread Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement, the 1990s saw their gradual alienation from it. Both aspects of this Dalit response discussed in the earlier chapters were influenced by the Maoist’s twin practice of armed struggle and mass mobilization. Departing from its earlier method of large scale mass mobilization of the 1980s discussed in chapter three, since the late 1990s the Movement came to rely increasingly on its armed actions. Since the majority of Dalit men and women participated in the Maoist Movement through its ‘mass actions’, I have sought to address the question whether this change in the Maoist strategy contributed to a shrinking space for mass movement in the Magadh region, indicating an uneasy relation between armed struggle and mass mobilization. In various studies of armed resistance by subaltern peoples, the relationship between mass action and armed struggle has been examined as problematic. In the Basque Nationalist Movement led by the ETA in Spain, the organizations of workers associated with this movement found the armed struggle an obstacle to their activities among the workers (Wieviorka 1997). A similar line of argument was put forward in relation to the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru (Palmer 1992; Degregori 1992; Isbell 1992; Stern 1998). The same concern has been raised in studies of the Maoist Movement in India (Banerjee 1980, 2006; Dubey 1991; Bhatia 2006). These studies point out that any subaltern movement, when it relies primarily on its armed strength, experiences a weakening of its mass mobilization. The primacy given to the party and its armed squads may eventually result in the alienation of masses from the movement. Moreover, since the armed squads operate ‘underground’ due to state repression, the activists of mass organizations, as the only ‘visible

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actors’ of the movement, are arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the police. This apparent problematic relation between mass movement and armed struggle calls for a deeper investigation in the context of the Dalit experience in Dumari.

Mass Movement: A Muddled History Before I discuss the Dalit experience, it is worth pointing out that from its very genesis in the 1960s, the Maoist Movement in India struggled to find a balance between armed struggle and mass mobilization. The dilemmas in this regard could be identified in the writings and speeches of Charu Mazumdar, the key Maoist ideologue in the country. His earlier writings, as Banerjee (1980: 355) observes, especially from 1965–68 (and also later in 1971), argued for the creation of ‘mass movements’ and ‘mass fronts’, and combining ‘legal struggles’ with ‘armed activities’.15 However, at the height of the Maoist struggles in 1969–71 in West Bengal, especially in Calcutta, Mazumdar expressed distrust for these modes of struggle and elevated the strategy of the ‘annihilation line’ as the highest form of class struggle (Mazumdar 1970).16 He now equated class struggle with the ‘battle of annihilation’ (ibid.). Mazumdar stressed the importance of building a secret party and claimed that open mass movements and mass organizations are obstacles in the way of development and expansion of guerrilla warfare (Mazumdar 1969a, 1969b). This emphasis on the ‘annihilation line’ often led to indiscriminate killings by the Naxalites—‘even hacking or slitting throats’, not only of the rich landlords but also small farmers, petty government employees, political rivals and anyone suspected of being police informers. This led to the discrediting of the Movement (Banerjee 2006: 3160, 3162). Further, due to the neglect of mass movement and the mobilization of the peasants along economic lines (Banerjee 1980), the Maoist Movement failed to make an impact on rural 15 While emphasizing the importance of guerrilla war as the ‘highest’ form of class struggle, Charu Mazumdar contrasted his approach with the foco theory propagated by Che Guevara which underlined that a committed group of revolutionaries can win state power without a ‘prolonged’ people’s war (Wickham-Crowley1992). Mazumdar at this stage advocated the participation of peasant masses in the guerrilla war and the creation of mass organizations (July 1969a). 16 Mazumdar (1970) pointed out that the ‘New Man’, who will defy death and will be free from all thoughts of self interest, can only be created through class struggle—the battle of annihilation.

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Table 6.3: Open Front Organizations of the Maoist Parties in Bihar Open Fronts

CPI (ML) Party Unity/People’s War

Mass Mazdur Kisan Organizations Sangram Samiti (MKSS)

Maoist Communist CPI (ML) Centre Liberation Krantikari Kisan Bihar Pradesh Committee (KKC) Kisan Sabha (BPKS)

Mazdur Kisan Sangram Parishad (MKSP)

Jan Suraksha Sangharsh Manch (JSSM)

Jamhuri Muslim Conference (JMC)

Lok Sangram Morcha

Jan Pratirodh Sangharsh Manch (JSPM)

Indian People’s Front (IPF)

All India People’s Resistance Forum (AIPRF)

All India Struggling People’s Forum (AISPF)

Women’s Nari Mukti Organizations Sangharsh Samiti (NMSS)

Nari Mukti Sangh (NMS)

All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA)

Student and Democratic Youth Student Union Organizations (DSU)

Revolutionary Student League (RSL)

All India Students’ Association (AISA)

Bharat Navjavan Sabha (BNS)

Communist Yuva League (CUL)

Inquilabi Navjavan Sabha (INS)

Abhivyakti

Krantikari Sanskriti Jan Sanskriti Manch (KSM) Manch All India League of Yuva Niti Revolutionary Culture (AILRC)

Cultural Fronts

Source: Adapted from Louis (2002: 238).

politics, and almost withered away in the face of state repression and internal splits and re-splits in the early 1970s. However, in the latter part of the tumultuous decade of the 1970s, the inheritors of the Naxalbari made concerted effort to rectify past mistakes and build mass movements along with waging armed struggle. The People’s

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War in Andhra Pradesh, the CPI (ML) Liberation, Party Unity (PU) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Bihar formed organizations of workers, peasants, students and women in order to involve them in the Maoist struggle against the landowners and state (Dubey 1991). Table 6.3 testifies to the significance that the Maoist parties in Bihar gave to building mass organizations.

Mass Mobilizations in Dumari: Experience of CPI (ML) Party Unity In Dumari, the success of the CPI (ML) Party Unity in the 1980s was built around the mass mobilization by its front organization, Mazdur Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS). The Party followed a policy of limited armed action and more involvement of the Dalit masses in the struggle.This also signified a notable departure from Mazumdar’s (1970) theory of class struggle as the ‘battle of annihilation’ to a strategy of ‘selective annihilation’ of the oppressive landlords, which made the Maoists popular with the Dalits. For the first time in the history of Dumari, Dalit men and women came out in large numbers to participate in the demonstrations, strikes, janadalat and economic boycotts of the landlords to protest against low wages, theft, social and economic abuses. Many of my Dalit informants recalled their participation in a large protest demonstration organized by the MKSS in Jehanabad in 1985 against the police atrocities towards peasant activists. One villager said: ‘The rally was so long that it extended more than two kilometres on the road to Jehanabad town. Women, children, old people, everyone participated in this’.17 Alarmed by the rising popularity of the MKSS, the government started a repressive campaign against the organization, culminating in the massacre of 26 of its supporters by the police at Arwal (then part of Jehanabad district) on 19 April 1986. Three months later, on 16 August 1986, the state government banned the MKSS (Urmilesh 1991), and the organization was forced to go ‘underground’. The police massacre and the government ban exacerbated the tension that had already begun to exist between the Party Unity (PU) and its mass organization. This tension became irreconcilable due to 17 This information was gathered from my interview with Rajinder Das, a landless labourer in Dumari, in March 2003. Dubey (1991: 251) makes reference to this big demonstration organized by the MKSS in Jehanabad on October 4, 1985.

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the differing positions taken by two of the founding members of the MKSS, Dr Vinayan and Arvind Singh. Vinayan, the first president of the organization,18 disagreed with the PU’s ‘meaningless violence and undisciplined manner of peasant struggle’ (Dubey 1991: 124). He accused the Party of conducting violent actions in the name of the MKSS and argued that as a result, the members of MKSS were exposed to police repression and the organization was banned. He claimed that he had to go into hiding because on one occasion when the PU activists seized guns from the police near Dumari village, he was implicated in the incident and an arrest warrant was served on him. Dr Vinayan also pointed out that the MKSS activists were arrested and imprisoned when the PU carried out their ‘selective annihilation’ of certain landlords in Jehanabad. He demanded a complete separation of the MKSS from the PU. 19 Arvind Singh, on the other hand, wanted the MKSS to be working in close relation with the PU and its armed squads. In consultation with the PU leaders, he expelled Vinayan from the MKSS. Singh then made the following press statement in Patna: ‘Samiti [MKSS] has dismissed its founding president Dr Vinayan due to his anti-party and reformist activities’ (Dubey 1991: 123). Along with Vinayan, a few other members were also dismissed from the organization for the same reason. The PU accused Vinayan of taking a ‘wrong class direction’ (ibid.). The MKSS then split into two factions in June 1987, with Dr Vinayan and Arvind Singh becoming leaders of their respective factions. Both factions kept the old name MKSS, although the one led by Vinayan came to be known as Vinayangutt (Vinayan’s group) and the other as Arvindgutt (Arvind’s group). The former moved away from the PU while the latter continued to work within its framework. Justifying the split, Vinayan said that the MKSS earned a bad name for the killings done by the PU’s armed squads. He admitted that the MKSS had accepted its help, but did not approve its killings (Indian Express, 18 July 1988).20 There were armed clashes between the groups led by Vinayan and Singh. One such armed action 18 I interviewed Dr Vinayan in June 2003 in Jehanabad. Vinayan died in 2006 after having worked in rural Bihar for about three decades. 19 Interview with Dr Vinayan in June 2003. 20 Vinayan’s statement appeared in an article titled ‘Naxals Butcher 19 Harijans’ in Indian Express (Delhi) on 18 July 1988.

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took place in Dumari when five supporters of the Vinayangutt took shelter in the village. In the subsequent exchange of fire, one of its members was killed while the others ‘surrendered’.21 There were further splits in the Vinayangutt. When I interviewed Vinayan in June 2003, he was leading an organization called Jan Mukti Andolan (People’s Liberation Movement) in Jehanabad, which he had formed. By then he had completely moved away from Maoist politics. The MKSS under Arvind Singh, after it was banned by the state government in 1986, was renamed the Mazdur Kisan Sangram Parishad (MKSP). During my stay in Dumari, all the demonstrations, village meetings, people’s courts and strike actions were organized by the MKSP. The organization worked in close conjunction with the Maoist party. Urmilesh (1991) and Dubey (1991) in their works on the Maoist Movement observed that the split in the MKSS resulted more from the personal interests of the actors involved than from the question of choosing between armed struggle and mass actions. According to Urmilesh, although Dr Vinayan was an effective organizer and leading Marxist intellectual in Bihar, he wanted to be in the limelight of Naxalite politics (1991: 124).22 Dubey claimed that Dr Vinayan had no qualms in seeking the PU’s armed assistance whenever it suited him (1991: 253). He cited Vinayan’s interview in the Illustrated Weekly of India, in which he acknowledged that the initial success of the MKSS was made possible by the armed squads of the Party Unity (ibid.: 252). However, in the face of state repression of the Maoist Movement, he came to denounce armed struggle (ibid.: 253). Personal interests of leaders might have led to the split in the MKSS, but it still places the problematic relationship between armed struggle and mass mobilization under scrutiny. Bhatia (2006) points out that the Maoist Movement’s reliance on armed actions had a negative impact on mass mobilization. She cites a common scenario in rural Bihar, in which the peasant front (mass organization), while engaged in open struggles against any landlord for surplus land or higher wages, becomes the target of state repression due to the Maoist party’s armed action against such landlords. In such situations, the members of the mass movement often paid the price for the actions taken by the underground party. Thus it became impossible for 21

Interview with Rajubhai in Dumari in February 2003. Urmilesh wrote that Dr Vinayan was interested only in becoming a romantic ‘Robin Hood’ figure of the Naxalite Movement in Bihar (1991: 124). 22

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the mass organization to carry out open and legal struggles. Bhatia further argues that no empowerment of the masses took place while the struggle was too dependent on its armed strength. The reliance on arms might create an appearance of giving ‘power’ to the masses, but when arms were withdrawn, they became more vulnerable than they were before. The arms made people dependent on external agencies and did not prepare them to carry forward the struggle on the basis of their own strength (2006: 3182). Dubey observes that the Maoist ‘military perspective’—armed actions and armed squads—has trapped the Movement in a ‘bullet for bullet’ type of engagement with state security forces. As a result, all energy, money and personnel were concentrated in buying arms, building squads and battling the police (1991: 228). The Maoists had also been accused of collecting money through dubious means to build up their armoury, and harbouring armed criminals in its ranks (Bhatia 2006). Further, in waging a class struggle primarily based on arms, the Movement could not pay attention to any development work for the poor (Dubey 1991). In the context of severe state repression, as Gupta points out, ‘deprived of legal and open opportunities for propaganda and agitation they [the Maoists] find it extremely difficult to launch large-scale mass movements and demonstrations even in areas where they still have considerable popular support’ (2006: 3175).

Armed Struggle and Mass Movement: A Dalit Critique In Dumari, where the Maoists still had a considerable popular base, the Dalit participation in the Movement had undergone a transformation. Their current level of participation in the Maoist Movement could be examined in terms of active and passive support and sympathy (cf. Berg 1992: 96). Berg in his study of the Sendero Luminoso makes a distinction between sympathy, active, and passive support. By sympathy he means a ‘general or specific agreement with the actions or philosophy of the guerrillas’ (ibid.). In Dumari, the majority of Dalits still sympathized with the Maoists. Dalits did not object to the armed struggle or the armed actions conducted by the Maoists against the police or the landlords. Dalits wanted the Maoist armed squads to remain in the area as they feared that the landlords would re-establish their domination if the Maoist arms were withdrawn. Their objections to the Maoist Movement, as

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discussed in chapters four and five, were not based on the question of armed struggle, but rather on the Maoist inclusive policy toward the middle castes and concerns specific to the village. ‘Active support’, the second element in Berg’s discussion, refers to ‘acts of commission’ (1992: 26). The armed squads of the Movement were largely composed of Dalit and lower caste men. In the local armed dasta in Dumari area, out of the 12 members, 6 were Dalits. The others belonged to the Lower Backward Castes.The commander was a Yadav. No Dalit from Dumari worked in the dasta any longer when I was there. They took part in demonstrations, janadalat and meetings organized by the MKSP. By their own admission, however, the number of people now taking part in different programmes organized by the MKSP had considerably dwindled.23 They still provided food, shelter and protection to the Maoist cadres. Their providing me with shelter and food during the course of my fieldwork can also be interpreted in relation to their active support for the Movement as the majority of the people in the village seemed to associate me with the Maoists. The shrinking active support base of the Maoists could be contrasted with the growing number of Dalits becoming ‘passive supporters’. In Berg’s analysis, ‘passive support’ refers to people’s ‘willingness to tolerate the presence of the guerrillas and a disinclination to take any action against them, including informing the police’ (1992: 96). A large number of Dalit households in Dumari now belonged to this category. The reason, according to the Dalits, was not that the Maoists had placed a greater emphasis on armed struggle to the neglect of mass mobilization, but their failure to understand the concerns of the Dalit community. The Maoist failure in practicing a ‘mass regarding’ politics—the central element in Mao’s revolutionary praxis—contributed to their failure in building a mass movement. The ‘mass regarding’ politics is based on the objective of immersing political activists into the everyday concerns and conditions of the masses (Tsetung 1977[1957]).24 Therefore, I argue that on the one hand, the 23 I made a reference to this in the introduction to chapter five by narrating my conversation with some Dalit villagers in Dumari. 24 Mao developed a revolutionary programme centred on the concept of the Mass Line, which he summed up as ‘from the masses to the masses’. He insisted that the party cadres develop action plans combining the concerns, conditions and ideas of ordinary people with the revolutionary theory and goals. The method was intended to create a party leadership immersed in the everyday world of the people as well

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Illustration 6.2: Dalits still Support the Maoist Party. These villagers came to take part in a janadalat organized by the Mazdur Kisan Sangram Parishad (MKSP), the front organization of the Maoist Party, in a village in Jehanabad in July 2003. Maoists succeeded in rolling back the powerful landlord militias by a combination of ‘mass’ and ‘armed’ actions. Although critical, Dalits still support the Maoist Party.

Maoist reliance on arms, and on the other, the state repression and state incentives aimed at weaning away the Dalits from the Maoist Movement, contributed only partially to the failure of the Maoists in building a large-scale mass movement among the Dalits. For my Dalit respondents, it was the absence of ‘mass regarding politics’ that led to the shrinking of the active Dalit support base of the Maoist Movement. Therefore, from a Dalit perspective, an appropriate balance between armed struggle and mass mobilization could only be maintained in a revolutionary praxis that incorporated Dalit concerns, conditions and ideas. as to raise the consciousness of the masses beyond narrow or short-term self-interests to that of a political consciousness, which aimed at a revolutionary transformation of society (Tse-tung 1967 [1943]: 120).

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Martial Ethos and Armed Violence in Bihar: A Critical Reflection In this section I argue that the pervasiveness of violence in Bihar is partially the product of a deeply embedded martial ethos in the culture and history of the region. In the past, as I shall demonstrate later, the martial character had been primarily associated with the upper and middle castes in this region. They used their martial prowess in maintaining their domination over Dalits and other poor peasants. Only with the rise of the Maoist Movement did the Dalits and other lower caste people, become significant participants in the martial tradition of the region collectively and openly. I suggest that the spread of the Maoist armed struggle and the counter violence of the landowning castes, then, along with a host of other factors discussed in previous chapters, needs to be located within the martial context of the region. I base my argument on a number of historical works which explore the martial traditions of Bihar and their agrarian links (Kolff 1990; Pinch 1996; Narain 2001; Servan-Schreiber 2003; Hauser 2004; Richards 2004). In his seminal work Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, Kolff claims that during the Mughal and colonial periods, Bhojpur and Sasaram became famous centres of the military labour market (1990: 62–3). He points out that armed peasants were recruited by zamindars, local rajas, bandit chiefs, military contractors for the Mughal, and the colonial armies. Drawing on Kolff, Richards categorizes the peasant soldiers within the military labour market into three categories—village militias, retainers of zamindars and armed men employed in professional armies (2004: 394–5). Kolff argues that to ‘maintain the martial skill at a high level was an integral element in the survival strategy’ of the peasants in the conflict ridden society of eastern India (1990: 29–30). Whether in the service of state or of zamindars, these armed men were intimately linked to land. Regarding their connection with rural life, Kolff comments: The enduring connection with rural society in the Bhojpur and Awadh regions would remain characteristic of the British East India Company sepoys[...]. This peasant soldiers’ tradition coalesced in different contexts and times, the conditions of clientship or employment, the discipline and method of recruitment of these men may have changed but not their link with agrarian society, i.e., their peasant character (1990: 172–3).

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That rural Bihar, according to Kolff, thus became an ‘armed society’ (ibid.: 30), then, could be considered inevitable. Even long after the demilitarization of the region in 1857, the impact of the martial ethos on rural life continued into the twentieth century as every zamindar maintained a posse of armed men ‘to keep his tenants in order’ (Kolff 1990: 190). They were called lathial or lathaith and were experts in wielding lathi (a bamboo club or truncheon six feet in length, sometimes bound at short intervals with iron rings, forming a formidable weapon). Violence or the threat of violence carried out by these armed men undoubtedly aided the dominance of landlords in the region. These martial traditions linked to land, as demonstrated in earlier chapters, played a significant role in the birth of the private militias formed under the control of the landowners in the 1980s in response to the Maoist inspired Dalit challenge. The Kshatriya reform movement among the middle castes, especially the Kurmi, Koeri and Yadav communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Pinch 1996) further transformed rural Bihar into an armed arena. By asserting their Kshatriya origins, Pinch claims, these castes ‘sought and attained (after 1898) recruitment as soldiers in the British Indian Army’ (ibid.: 90). Pinch reiterates that ‘kshatriyatva (the essence of being kshatriya, or valor) constituted an important component of this new political framework for reform, in part because the martial element contained therein fit a colonial ideology that placed a premium on virility and power’ (1996: 117–18). Their claims to kshtriyatva were matched by an aggressiveness and violence which had lasting implications for rural life in Bihar. In chapters two and three, I discussed in detail the rise to dominance of the Kurmi, Koeri and Yadav castes and their role in the armed violence of the 1980s. In the present context of armed violence, as in the past, the martial ethos was often articulated through religious and caste specific folk traditions. The Kurmi and Yadav communities traced their warrior genealogies to Lord Ram of Ayodhya and Krishna of Mathura whose martial prowess were central themes in the Hindu epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata respectively (Pinch 1996). In the 1980s, in order to counter Dalit mobilization under the Maoist organizations, landowners formed and named their private militias in honour of the legendary figures of their castes whose martial exploits were well known. The Rajputs named their caste militia Kunwar Sena after

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Kunwar Singh, a soldier in the colonial army whose bravery in the mutiny of 1857 in Bhojpur was famous (Hauser 2004). The Ranveer Sena, as discussed earlier, was named after Ranveer Singh, another nineteenth century soldier who was venerated by the Bhumihars for his martial dexterity. The Yadavs named their sena after Lorik, a mythical figure associated with their community, who was also known for martial exploits. Thus the landowning castes evoked their martial histories and traditions to counter the Maoist challenge. Although Kolff (1990) stressed that membership and enrolment in military bands were fluid and not strictly determined by caste identities, there is hardly any tradition among the Dalits in the region which emphasizes their claims to martial origins. The only exception to this is the folk traditions of the Dusadhs, to which I referred in chapter five.25 For the majority of Dalit castes, an armed option to defend themselves and collectively challenge the upper and middle caste dominance became a possibility only through the Maoist struggle. One of the activists instrumental in establishing the Maoist Movement in Dumari told me that when the party cadres made their first contacts in the village, Dalits wanted to know whether the party had hathiyar (arms).26 Dalits were aware that any open challenge to the upper and middle caste domination would eventually and inevitably result in armed violence, as it did. Therefore, it is in this context of the entrenched martial traditions within the culture and history of the region that, I suggest, we must view the rise of Dalit mass mobilization, Maoist armed struggle, the formation of caste senas, and the rapid transformation of Magadh region into the ‘killing fields’ of Bihar.

Conclusion In the context of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Bihar, I have analysed the state, the caste senas and the Maoist Movement as 25 In chapter five, I narrated the Dusadh claims to Kshatriya status, the deification of their caste hero Chuharmal and his martial exploits. Servan-Schreiber writes: ‘The Dusadhs have been incorporated into gangs of more than one Bhojpuri landlord or political entrepreneur. This set of occupations may have its roots in the medieval past—when they counted, like so many pastoral groups, among the martial castes of India. Many of the soldiers who fought for the Company in the eighteenth century, for instance, came from the Dusadh caste’ (2003: 298–9). 26 Interview with Bhola Prasad in Jehanabad in June 2003.

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formations of violence. These three units might be considered as two alternative or opposing formations; the state and the sena forming one category and the Maoist Movement emerging as a counter state-sena formation. In their practices of violence, however, they were mutually constitutive. As demonstrated in this paper, according to the Dalit experiences, the mutual ties between the state and the sena were centred on their caste and class interests. The Maoist Movement, although opposed to the state, often imitated the state not only in practices specific to the state but also in entering into alliances with the emerging middle peasants in order to maintain its hegemony. For a majority of Dalits, then, both the Bihar sarkar and the Maoist sarkar were, as Gellner pointed out, state formations to be resisted and supported, as well as to be used to their advantage. In the context of the emerging formations of violence described above, I argue that violence has become a mode of relationship between contending actors, leading to its normalization and reproduction in everyday life. These actors, as discussed earlier, carried out their programmes with clear justifications. Dalits and others, who were part of the Maoist Movement, explained their armed actions as struggles against upper caste domination and exploitation. The state agencies, in the name of restoring law and order, condoned police violence against the Maoist activists and sympathizers. Landowners, who participated in the violent campaigns of the caste senas, reiterated that they were compelled to take up arms in self-defence. Whatever might have been the initial justifications for violence, during the course of prolonged insurgency and counter-insurgency, the meaning of violence underwent a transformation. Violence became the primary means by which the mutually contending forces now related to each other. This emphasis does not, however, deny that the relations between upper caste groups and Dalits prior to this accentuation of violence, were not violent. But as demonstrated in chapter two, the earlier relations of violence were more ‘submerged’ and ‘structural’. During the last two decades, violence has become predominantly visible with the ‘encounter killings’, police raids, massacres, selective annihilations, and punishments in janadalats. Violence thus has become the constituent force in social relations, which redefined and reshaped relations of power and dominance in the Magadh region.27 27

In chapters three, four and five, I discussed at length, through various ethnographic examples, the changing dynamics of power relations in the context of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence.

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I further argue that feelings of revenge play a central role in the transformation of violence as the most visible mode of relationship between the contending actors. In the context of the increasing massacres in Bihar, Mendelsohn & Vicziany (1998) comment: ‘Revenge is not a difficult emotion to understand, but extravagant revenge has another element in its constitution. In the present case, we have to explain the massing together of large number of high caste men and their premeditated orgy of violence—the burning and the beating’ (1998: 53). The explanation, although related to the persistence and escalation of structural cleavages between the landowners and the landless, and the mobilization of the Dalits under the Maoists, also needs to be sought in the way violence, once unleashed, takes on a meaning by itself and produces itself. The Ranveer Sena chief, Brahmeshwar Singh, in the wake of the killings of seven Bhumihars by the Maoists in Rampur village in 1998, declared: ‘hum saat ka badla shatak se lenge’ (‘we will avenge the murder of seven of our men by killing a hundred of theirs’) (Chaudhuri 1999: 38). The Maoists also vowed to avenge the death of their supporters and sympathizers. After the Dalit massacre in Shankerbigha, when the then Chief Minister Rabri Devi visited the village, Ramwatia Devi, a Dalit woman, demanded: ‘Give us guns, not compensation. We don’t want your money. We want to fight with those who have been killing us and moving around freely’ (ibid.). Through these relations of revenge, violence has become normalized as part of the fabric of everyday life, which has also led to its internalization and reproduction (cf. Bourdieu 2000: 233). The result of such processes is the reproduction of numerous Shankerbighas, Arwals, Lakshmanpur-Bathes, Senaries and scores of other massacre sites in Bihar.

7

Conclusions An Anthropology of Revolution

IN DRAWING TOGETHER SOME OF THE THREADS DISCUSSED IN THIS BOOK, I

want to highlight the distinctive contributions this book makes to at least three key areas of anthropological debate. First, my study of Dalit mobilization under the Maoist Movement in Bihar offers a different perspective from that of conceptualizing radical movements narrowly in ‘structure versus agency’ terms. In drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of ‘social fields’, my work makes a case for a more nuanced explanation of peasant revolutions, by integrating notions of social structure and human agency rather than relying on deterministic social models. Second, this book provides a historical sensitivity which goes beyond Stoll’s conceptualization of peasants in the context of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence as the victims of ‘dual violence’. In drawing on Tarrow’s concept of ‘protest cycle’ I highlight the changing dynamics of the Maoist Movement which moved from a predominantly Dalit constituency to one based on the interests of the middle castes, and involved a cycle of shifting mobilisations, strategic recruitment, and de-mobilisation. Third and most importantly, drawing on my methodological closeness to the Dalit articulations of self and community in the context of violence, my work highlights the significance of close experience and the relational nature of anthropological knowledge. First, I will highlight some specificities of this book in relation to the literature on peasant revolutions which it discusses. Following Gupta and Ferguson, I have argued that the distinctiveness of this research is characterized by its commitment to ‘the local’ combined with its ‘attentiveness to the epistemological and political issues’ with origins beyond the boundaries of the ‘limited area’ of this study (1997: 39). In this sense, I have followed an extended case method

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(cf. Van Velsen 1967; Burawoy 1998), which while exploring the everyday world of Dalits in a specific village and its links with wider networks of power relations, critically engaged with as well as built on existing theories on peasant revolution. In contrast to the claims of some classical works on peasant rebellions, which identify landholding peasants as the likely initiators of revolution (Wolf 1969, 2001; Scott 1977a), my work argues that the landless Dalit labourers were the main protagonists of the Maoist revolution in the Magadh region. These labourers—who apparently possessed neither the material resources which Wolf suggested were an indispensable catalyst for action, nor the cultural and organizational autonomy which Scott proposed as an essential condition for revolution—were at the forefront of the Maoist struggle against the landowning upper and middle castes in the 1980s. Contrary to Wolf’s and Scott’s argument, the evidence from Dumari suggests that autonomy is the result, not the precondition, of militant activism.Without the support of Dalits, I have argued, the Maoist Movement could not possibly have survived in this region, which possesses none of the mountains and jungles with which we normally associate a guerrilla movement. More specifically, my work has demonstrated that only through Dalits joining the ranks of the Maoist guerrillas and providing them with protection, shelter and food has the Movement established itself in the region. And without Dalit support, the Movement would not have been able to withstand the counter-revolutionary actions and alliances of the state and caste militias. The Dalit revolutionary agency described in this book thereby demonstrates the specificity of the Maoist revolution in the Magadh region, and disproves the theories of Wolf (1969, 2001), Migdal (1974), Paige (1975), Scott (1976, 1977a, 1977b), Skocpol (1979, 1994), Stoll (1993) and others. In recovering this agentive role of Dalits in the Maoist Movement, I have developed my arguments around Bourdieu’s concept of ‘social field’ (1985, 1992), which I defined in the introduction and discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. Accordingly, by examining the everyday Dalit world as an ‘arena of struggle’, my work has attempted to overcome the limitations inherent in the various structure and agency oriented approaches to the study of peasant revolutions. I have argued against conceptualizing the rise of Dalit revolutionary action as directly resulting from external structural factors, whether they be identified as macro-structural perspectives such as the classical Marxist emphasis on sharpening

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economic contradictions (Marx 1974; Paige 1975), the decisive role of revolutionary organizations (Lenin 1961; Migdal 1974) and the ‘regime weakness’ emphasized by Skocpol (1979, 1994), or micro-factors such as the breakdown of a moral economy based on patron-client relations in the countryside due to the growth of capitalism in agriculture (Scott 1976, 1977a). Further, I have argued against viewing Dalit activism as an outgrowth of internal factors such as the conscious intentions and calculations as posited by rational actor theories (Popkin 1979). Viewed separately, these perspectives further perpetuate the structure-agency dichotomy, and thus fail to provide an adequate framework for understanding Dalit activism. Instead, through my approach of portraying Dalits as agents competing for resources in the form of various ‘capitals’ in a ‘social field’, which is constituted by and constitutive of their everyday practices and strategic actions, I have tried to integrate the micro and the macro, the subjective and the objective factors as mutually inclusive explanations for Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement in the Magadh region. The book also uniquely emphasizes a historical perspective in the study of peasant revolutions. In exploring the everyday world of Dalits in the context of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence, drawing on Tarrow’s concept of ‘protest cycle’ (1989, 1994), I have discussed the changing dynamics of the ‘cycle’, which involve shifting mobilizations, demobilizations, strategic alliances, active and passive support. I argue that an ahistorical perspective—that is, a preoccupation with the present state of Dalit demobilization in relation to the Maoist Movement—might lead to the conclusion which Stoll (1993) arrived at, in relation to war-torn Guatemala that peasants in revolutionary situations are ‘caught between two fires’—the violence perpetuated by the state and the revolutionary forces. Social scientists studying peasant revolutions along the lines of this argument, however, run the risk of distorting the past with the perspectives of the present. Stoll, in his study of the Guatemalan peasants in 1990, for instance, failed to account for their aspirations and the meaning they gave to events and actions which took place during the heightened mobilizations of the late 1970s and the early 1980s. He does not reflect on how peasant perceptions of the guerrillas might have changed in a highly militarized context of the later years (cf. Hale 1997). Yet in such studies, it is vital to acknowledge that present perspectives of the research participants are likely to have

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been influenced by various factors that occurred in the lulls following intense conflict. In the case of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement, I have tried to account for the distinctive dimensions of Dalit experiences and perspectives both during the heightened phases of mobilization of the 1980s and the demobilization of the late 1990s. These distinct, but interconnected phases of Dalit struggle discussed at length in this work can be usefully summarized by drawing on Tarrow’s concept of ‘protest cycle’. Within Tarrow’s conceptualization, which I discussed earlier in the book, a ‘protest cycle’ develops when conflicts in a society are deep and can be generalized, and when new political opportunities appear for groups within and outside the polity (1989: 10). The Dalit experience of deeply embedded structural cleavages—landlessness, caste hierarchies and exploitation—discussed in chapters two and three, which led them to rebel against the middle and upper caste landowners in the Magadh region certainly bears out such interpretation. But ‘structural factors’ alone, as Tarrow has pointed out, are not sufficient to explain the origins of a protest cycle. Instead, he argues, a political culture that provides opportunities and incentives for collective action is a necessary precursor (1994: 85). In chapters three and four, I explored the significant role played by the Maoist Party and the Maoist inspired struggles for land, better wages, and dignity which led to visions of egalitarianism in the rising Dalit mobilizations of the 1980s. It is also important to note that once the cycle had begun, as defined above, it reached well beyond the initial factors which led the Dalits to rebel. In chapter six, I went on to describe how the motivations and actions of various actors representing state, sena and Maoist organizations produced practices of violence which reflected and fashioned social formations based on caste and class interests. As a result, violence has come to constitute a mode of relationship among the contending classes in Magadh region leading to its further reproduction in everyday relations of power and domination. The further significance of Tarrow’s concept of ‘protest cycle’ for the analysis of Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement lies in the fact that his conceptualization accounts for the process of demobilization. According to Tarrow, ‘cycles of protest produce counter-movements, violence, and political backlash, new repressive strategies, and thence demobilization’ (1989: 9). And there is no doubt that the rise of the senas, especially the violence perpetuated

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by the Ranveer Sena, and the state repression described at length in chapter six, have partially contributed to Dalit demobilization since the late 1990s. Other factors that have contributed to this process are the incentives, in the form of loans, offered by state as a strategy to turn Dalits away from the Maoist Movement, combined with the perceptions of the younger generation that caste oppression has ended due to the earlier struggles. However, from a majority Dalit perspective the most significant factor that led to their growing ‘passivity’ lies in the failure of the Maoist Movement to address the caste-specific grievances of Dalits in a sustained manner on the one hand, and on the other the Maoist strategy of incorporating middle caste interests in their agenda, which Dalits resented. Both these factors have been discussed in chapters five and six. In describing Dalit protest as a ‘cycle’, I have argued that in the context of the Maoist struggle, the movement among the Dalits swelled from a period of relative quiescence to a heightened phase of mobilization and armed conflict to later abate to a period of demobilization and cautious management of agrarian tensions. In illustrating these various phases, I have discussed the Dalit experiences of structural violence, and the role of the Maoist organization, the state, and upper caste responses in relation to Dalit participation in the Maoist Movement. In emphasizing Dalit multiple voices in the above social and political processes, I have rejected as too simplistic the argument that peasants in revolutionary situations are ‘caught between two fires’ or that they are ‘rebels against their will’ (Stoll 1993: xi). Instead, in my discussion, I have tried to demonstrate the complexities, contradictions and the shifting voices and identities of the Dalit actors in the context of armed violence in Bihar. In a further rejection of reductionist social models, the book argues that the current state of Dalit demobilization in the Magadh region does not indicate that the cycle has ended in a definitive sense, contrary to what Tarrow’s notion of ‘protest cycle’ implies. The changing political face of the state and the opportunities it entails on the one hand, and the intensification of structural cleavages, the failure of the state to address the issues of inequality, the growing influence of the Maoist organizations and caste militias on the other, continue to exacerbate the volatility of the region, thus making more protest cycles seem imminent. Most significantly, therefore, my argument is not simply aimed at reversing the claims by Wolf and others by pointing out that landless Dalits and not landholding peasants are

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the key actors. The book demonstrates the changing dynamics of the Movement, which moves from Dalits to the middle peasants and involves a cycle of shifting mobilisations and demobilizations. My third and last observation concerns the value of this ethnography in relation to its methodological closeness to the processes of ethnographic production. In the introduction of this book I described the deep feelings of identification I shared with the Dalits in Dumari and also discussed the dilemmas such closeness gave rise to in the production of anthropological knowledge. This identification involved twin processes, which I described as being there with my research participants as well as being here with them. The first process conveys the sense of belonging that I shared with my research participants in the field through our shared experiences of want, fear and uncertainty; but also of joy, solidarity and shared visions. Regarding the second process of identification, I had pointed out that even in my current ‘removed location’ of writing up the book, this sense of belonging and shared aspirations reinforced an experience of being here with my research participants, which Mosse (2006: 937) so well described as the continuing relationships of ‘field and desk’ mutually influencing each other. This identification was not without its dilemmas, which I described as the potential risks of ethnographic mimesis and a lack of analytical and interpretive rigour. In this book I have tried to address these concerns through a process of distanciation which involved, first, an engagement with multiple voices and experiences of Dalits, who themselves are a multi-layered category, as well as nonDalits; and second, a critical engagement with literature on peasants, poverty, subordination and struggle. This distanciation then is not a foregoing of my commitment to producing this ethnography from the vantage of point of the Dalits. Rather this distanciation enriches the significance of my close encounters in the field and allows inference beyond the ‘mundane’ and the ‘ordinary’ voices and events. These simultaneous processes of identification and distanciation, then, have contributed to the production of anthropological knowledge which is relational and situated, yet as mentioned earlier ‘forges links between different knowledges that are possible from different locations’ and traces ‘possible alliances and common purposes between them’ (Gupta & Ferguson 1997: 39). As such, the book offers a way to reflect upon our social positionings and knowledge, and how they are linked to the struggles of the rebels from the mud houses.

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Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

Index

acquiescence, 20, 30, 67, 132–33 activists Dalit, 3, 4, 16, 88, 92, 100, 189 intellectual, 120 Maoist, 76, 80, 83, 87–88, 175–76, 196, 211 MKSS, 93, 99, 202–03 political, 60, 93, 206 sena, 90–94, 113, 115, 140, 189–91 Ad Dharam, 65, 156, affirmative action, 3, 137 agentive moments, 13, 72, 95–96 role, 137, 214 agrarian classes, 8, 21–23, 36 conflict, 133, 191 movements; 65–66 struggle, 80, 123, 184 tensions, 6, 217; See also violence agriculture, 20, 25, 34, 77, 215 agricultural labourers, 23, 29, 36–38, 40, 49, 72, 78, 82, 109, 123, 128, 131, 133, 181 production, 31, 184 technologies, 33 workers, 31, 37 alcohol, 124, 133, 153; See also liquor Ambedkar, Dr 169 annihilation, 75, 81, 88, 129, 182, 200, 202–03, 211 battle of, 81, 200, 202

line, 81, 200 selective, 81, 88, 202–03, 211 anthropological commitment, 15 curiosity, 46 knowledge, 17, 213, 218 literature, 6, 124 anthropolog ist, 5, 15, 54, 137; comrade, 119 armed actions, 75, 199, 202–05, 207, 211 civilians, 192–93 squads, 76, 82, 84, 89, 94, 99, 106, 110, 113, 115, 117, 123, 129, 140, 144, 166, 182, 196, 199, 203–06 struggle, 2, 4–5, 12, 14, 72–74, 82, 106, 108–09, 121, 129, 166, 172, 194, 199–201, 204– 08, 210; See also resistance; violence Arwal massacre, 174 assembly, 32, 34–35, 59–60, 74, 146 Bihar, 34 elections, 34–35, 60, 74 legislative, 32, 34, 59 autonomy, 7, 10, 105, 119, 169–70, 214 cultural, 119 Backward Castes, 1–2, 22–24, 33–35, 44, 78, 90, 140, 163, 206

238

Index

Lower, 22, 206 Upper, 22, 24; See also Middle castes; middle peasantry Barber caste, 43–45, 197 benami transfers, 32 bhaged, 89–93, 95–96, 98–99, 101, 142, 152, See also exile, exodus Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 35, 189 bhoj, 44–46, 49, 64, 80, 155 bhoodan, 31–32, 66; land, 82, 174 Vinobha Bhave, 32 Bhumi Sena , 72, 84, 88–94, 96–97, 102, 105, 113, 115, 138, 140, 152, 176, 181–83, 192 Bhumihar, 21–23, 26–27, 37, 40, 65, 76, 79, 84, 142, 159, 165–66, 168, 182–88, 191–92, 210, 212; Caste, 76, 141, 165 landlord, 57, 159, 182, 185, 187 birth control, 50 bhakti, 3, 137, 151, 155, 168 bondage, 29–30, 36, 40, 117 bonded labourer, 13, 108, 118, 128, 139; See also labourer Bourdieu, 11–12, 15, 20, 57–58, 61–64, 68, 72, 86, 104, 132–33, 137, 151, 212–14 Brahmin, 21–23, 26–27, 39, 65, 168, 183 priests, 45, 154 brokerage, 24–25 Buddhism, 65 Bhuiya, 54–55, 60 bukhor (pigsty), 106 capacity to object, 14, 137, 143, 148, 170, 195 caste association, 66, 151 discrimination, 46, 63, 80, 99, 150, 153, 155 exploitation, 53 Hindus, 4, 65 hierarchy, 3, 10, 20–21, 37, 45, 47, 70, 90, 128, 150, 154, 170, 216 mobilization, 66, 137, 151, 154; senas, 14, 75–76, 106, 171, 177, 180–83, 210–11

militia, 14, 18, 84, 88, 134, 171, 182, 186, 190, 209, 214, 217 relations, 19 status, 19, 28, 66; See also Dalit castes, dominant castes, Middle castes caste and class, 2, 10, 12, 14, 23, 26, 67, 73, 90, 106, 109, 111, 123, 173, 184, 188, 211, 216 Central Organizing Committee (COC), 82 Chamar, 23, 45–46, 53, 59, 60, 64–65, 129, 151–52, 155–56, 159, 165, 197 chamain, 43–44, 49 Champaran Satyagraha , 65 Charadih, 160, 162–65 Charles, Hale, 132, 215 Chatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, 79 child marriage, 59 Christianity, 65 chronic deficit, 40 chronic debt, 61; See also debt chronic poverty, 54, 195 Chuharmal, Baba, 159, 161–65, 167 civil defence groups, 193 class consciousness 14, 106, 127, 130, 132 contradictions, 125 language of, 127–129 mobilization 12, 98 relations, 1, 8, 90, 106, 109, 111 struggle, 65, 81, 85, 110, 121, 127–29, 200, 202, 205; See also landed classes, landowning classes class-for-itself, 122 class-in-itself, 122 coercive state, 14, 172–73, 180 colonial , 13, 19, 25, 29–31, 36, 68, 72, 168, 208–10 postcolonial, 13, 19, 31, 35, 68, 72, 181 colonized personality, 64 commission, 74, 138, 143, 178, 206 complicity, 62, 93–94, 132, 189–90

Index

comrades, 1–2, 106, 109, 112, 116, 134–35, 140, 193 in arms, 110, 140 conflicts, 9, 12, 70, 148–49, 216 Congress, 3, 34, 66, 189 consciousness contradictory, 20, 62–63, 68, 132 critical, 144 elementary and imputed, 126 false, 131–32 political, 98, 112, 122, 126–27, 134, 207 subaltern, 63, 133 trade union, 127; See also class consciousness, Dalit consciousness consent, 62–63, 67, 121–22 covert and overt, 67 CPI, 35, 73, 78–80 CPI (M), 73, 78 CPI (Maoist), 5, 81, 134 CPI (ML), 73, 81, 191 CPI (ML) Document, 73, 78, 88–89 CPI (ML) Liberation, 74, 117, 139, 142, 145–49, 184–85, 202 CPI (ML) Party Unity, 74, 76, 80, 82, 202, See also Party Unity CPI (ML) People’s War, 74, 81–82, 117, 141, 144–45, 148–49, 178 CPI (ML) Unity Organization, 82 critical events, 90 cultural consensus, 64 cunning state, 177–80, 193; See also state cycles of protest, 135, 172, 216; See also protest cycle dakhin tola, 47 Dalit assertion, 2, 88, 98, 137, 151, 156 castes, 4, 6, 13, 23, 37–38, 53, 56–57, 64, 72, 79, 93, 101, 103, 151, 166–67, 181, 210 community, 53, 66, 95, 109, 133, 148, 154, 164, 206 compliance, 20, 61 consciousness, 3, 13, 72, 90, 95

239

demobilization, 14, 137, 150, 215, 217 households, 24, 37–38, 42–43, 50, 53, 115, 156, 179, 206 landless, 36, 39, 68, 77, 86, 112, 123, 148, 150, 167, 191, 198, 217 leaders, 98, 100, 139, 164 leadership, 13, 72, 99–100, 105 militancy, 70, 72, 88 mobilization, 10, 12–13, 18, 20, 25, 66, 69, 71, 76–78, 80, 105–06, 135–36, 150–51, 172, 184, 209, 211, 216 multiple voices, 61, 217 Panthers, 4 protest, 67–68, 85, 217 resistance, 86, 104, 173 revolutionary agency, 12–13, 72, 214 revolutionary subjectivity, 83, 107 settlement, 47–48, 64 subjectivity, 13, 96 subordination , 19, 47 women, 13, 19, 39, 46, 48–50, 52– 53, 75, 80, 87, 90, 92, 99–100, 103, 113, 185, 187–88 massacres, 177, 189, 196, 212; See also harijan debt, 29–31, 39–40, 42, 61, 80, 117, 124; See also chronic debt de Certeau, 149 demobilization, 6, 12, 14, 71, 135–37, 150, 170, 172, 215–18 democracy, 193 deterministic, 15, 213 development, 8, 16, 19, 25, 33, 35, 127, 138, 172–74, 177–79, 194, 200, 205 programmes 16, 33, 174 schemes, 33, 179 developmental programmes, 178–79 state, 177 works, 178 dialectical relationship, 12 disciplinary state, 172 discriminatory practices, 46–47, 151

240

Index

dominance and subordination, 38, 45, 70, 98, 121, 150 dominant castes, 18, 21, 36, 44–45, 49, 55, 85, 128, 181, 188 dominant discourses, 19, 56, 62 domination and subordination, 102 Doms, 37, 45–47, 54, 64, 89, 93, 96, 140, 158 Dusadh, 23, 37, 38, 45–50, 52, 54, 56, 59–60, 64, 66, 89, 124, 137, 139, 151–52, 154, 158–66, 168, 179, 210 economic blockade, 75, 94, 182 economic contradiction, 12, 215 education, 8, 11, 15, 21, 36–37, 63, 115, 120, 138, 177 egalitarianism, 65, 127, 129–30, 153, 216 empowerment, 126, 134, 148, 172–73, 194–95, 205 encounter deaths, 176 police, 114 staged, 175 ethnography, 11, 15–17, 24, 58, 109–10, 218 ethnographic mimesis, 16, 218 ethnographic encounters, 19 exile, 72, 83, 85, 89–93, 95–99, 101, 115, 138, 142, 181 memories of, 97 exodus, 89–90, 113, 115, See also bhaged exploitation, 4–5, 10, 19, 25, 30–31, 38, 49–50, 53, 56, 63, 65, 68, 71–73, 80, 110, 123, 128, 133, 150, 167, 171, 183–84, 191, 194, 211, 216 Extended Case Method, 10–11, 213 external consent, 122 extremist, 84, 174–76, 182, fear, 17, 46, 59, 84, 89, 91, 96, 101, 137, 176–77, 218 feudal lords, 39, 128, 169, See also samant feudal attitude, 87, 130, see also samanti vichar

field and desk, 17, 218 fieldwork, 13, 74, 82–83, 99, 108–09, 112, 116, 120, 168, 193, 195, 206 fields under fire, 6 Foucault, 61, 71, 86, 196 front organization, 130, 201–02, 207; See also mass organization Gandhi, Mahatma, 3, 65 Ganga Sena, 76, 183, 192 gender, 48, 153, 187 governance, 14, 171–72, 176–78, 180, 192, 194, 197–98 government, 4, 53, 66, 82, 143, 164, 173–80, 188, 193–94, 202, 204 Bihar, 162, 191 employment, 20, 37, 45, 200 job, 53, 77, 84 local, 21, 138, 143, 180 of India, 3 of Laloo Prasad Yadav, 156 parallel, 194, 196, 199 schemes, 25, 57, 157 services, 37, 77, Gramsci, 20, 61–64, 67–68, 121–22, 126, 132–33, 181, 198 Green Revolution, 33, 77, 183–84 guerrilla war, 200 warfare, 70, 200, See also Maoist guerrilla Guatemala, 6, 97, 193, 215 habitus, 62, 132 harijan, 3, 39, 44, 46, 84–85, 94, 96, 128, 139, 153, 156, 168, 203, See also Dalit caste; Untouchables harvaha, 39–41, 51, 139 hegemony, 3, 7, 63, 67, 72, 98, 104–05, 121–23, 132–33, 198, 211 alternative, 104; counter-hegemony, 72, 98, 104 internal hegemony, 122–23 hidden transcripts, 67, 104, 232 Home Ministry, 175, 191 human agency, 15, 20, 213 liberation, 15 suffering, 15, 62

Index

Human Rights Watch (HRW), 76, 188–90, 192–93 hunger, 13, 18 identity, 7, 95–96, 100, 121, 123, 125, 129, 150, 153–55, 159–60, 166–68 assertion, 137, 154, 160, 168, 171 caste, 137, 151, 154, 166 class, 139, 167 collective, 90, 96, 133 illiteracy, 13, 18, 58 impure, 44, 49, See also purity and impurity; purity and pollution infant mortality, 13, 18, 58 independence, 4, 26, 31, 49, 66, 68, 77, 168 Indian constitution, 3, 169 injustice, 50, 71, 84, 86 insurgency, 210–11 counter-insurgency, 210–11 insurrection, 4, 9, 106 intellectuals, 8, 14, 108, 120–22, 124–27 organic, 14, 108, 120–22, 125–26, 133 traditional, 121–22 IPF, 74, 139, 182, 201 jajman-paunia , 43, 197 relations 43; See pauni, paunia jajmani , 44, 49 relations, 43–44, 49 jajman-kamin relations, 43 janadalat, 101, 123, 134, 136, 144–49, 185, 196–97, 202, 207, 211; See also people’s court Jannuzi, 26–28, 31–33, 66 judicial, 175, 196–98 justice, 50, 71, 84, 86, 124, 134, 164–65, 178, 194, 196 Kabir, Sant, 151 Kabir-panth, 65, 137, 151–54, 157, 167, 169 Kahar, 22, 44, 46–47, 49, 53, 101, 155, 197 Kahar women, 44, 46, 49, 53, 155

241

kaharni, 46–47 kamia, 29, 41 kamin, 44 -malik, 29, 41 Kayastha, 21, 27 killing fields, 2, 6, 172, 210 kisan, 23, 30, 65, 76–80 82–84, 87–88, 127, 141, 144, 183, 188, 193, 201–02, 204, 207 Kisan Sabha, 30, 65, 77, 80, 201 Koeri, 19, 22–24, 28, 34, 66, 68, 180, 209 Kolff, Dirk, 208–10 Kshatriya, 66, 160–61, 168, 209–10 Kurmi caste, 9, 35, 76, 85, 88, 89, 102, 150, 192 households, 36, 44–46, 49, 85, 89, 104, 109, 140, 155 landlords, 41, 47, 76, 83–84, 87–88, 94, 101, 112–13, 116–19, 140, 176, 182, 193, 195 narrative, 85–86 Reserve Police, 88 women, 92, 158; See also Bhumi Sena labour manual, 20, 24, 119 market, 208 labourer agricultural, 23, 29, 36–38, 40, 49, 72, 78, 82, 109, 123, 128, 131, 133, 181 attached (lagua mazdur), 39, 57 bonded, 13, 108, 118, 128, 139 Dalit, 1–2, 5–6, 9–10, 14, 24, 29, 35–36, 39–42, 45, 67, 76–78, 82, 85, 87–89, 92, 105, 112, 123–24, 138, 149, 187, 194, 214; free (chutta mazdur), 39, 42 landless, 4, 13, 22–24, 26–27, 30, 33, 75, 78–81, 96, 105, 113, 117, 119, 128, 133–34, 141, 174, 196, 202 ladaai (struggle), 42, 92–93, 101–02

242

Index

lal salaam, 144, 146 sarkar, 192–95, 197–98 sena, 84 land Ceiling Act, 32 gairmazurwa, 184, 195 grab, 117, 123 homestead, 32, 36, 78 reform laws, 31–32, 174 reform, 31–33, 66, 174, 178 revenue, 26 surplus, 31–33, 78–79, 88, 191, 204 landed classes, 5, 10, 29, 70, 74, 76, 123, 125 landless: See Dalits; labourer s; peasants landowning castes, 38, 88, 128–29, 181, 192, 208, 210 classes 13, 31, 36, 39, 71, 75, 141 landlordism, 30, 73 landlords See Bhumihar landlords, Kurmi landlords, Rajput landlords, upper caste landlords; oppressive, 75, 81–82, 85, 88, 113, 123, 197, 202 lathaith, 181, 197, 209 left opportunist tendencies, 81 Leggett, John, 127–130 Lenin, 127, 215 Liquor, 40, 57, 93, 124, 142; See also alcohol literacy, 15, 56, 115–16, 126 Lorenzen, David, 65, 151–53, 155 Lorik Sena, 76, 183, 210 livelihood, 7, 15, 20, 41, 194 Lukács, George, 126–27 macro structural relations, 9–10, 12; micro and, 12 malik, 23, 27, 29, 38–43, 47, 50, 77, 86–87, 118, 128 maliki, 40–41, 49, 67, 102 malik-mazdoor, relations, 119, 128 Mao, 196, 206 Maoism, 5, 130, 134 Maoist activists, 76, 80, 87–88, 196, 211

armed squad, 76, 82, 84, 99, 106, 113, 123, 166, 196, 205 cadres, 94, 140, 176, 206 dasta, 140, 142, 144, 196 guerrilla, 13, 94, 107–08, 214 ideology, 72, 74–76, 79 leaders, 80, 82, 99, 115, 123, 142, 146–47, 194 leadership, 71, 149 legacy, 116 organization, 14, 72, 77, 83, 104– 07, 141, 171, 209, 216–17 Party, 6, 72, 74, 92, 108, 125, 138, 140, 193–94, 197, 204, 207, 216 revolution, 5–6, 70, 214; Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI), 74, 81 Maoist Movement 3–7, 9–10, 12–16, 18, 20, 25, 36, 42, 54, 61, 68–69, 71, 73, 76–77, 80–81, 83, 85, 88–90, 103–06, 108–10, 113–14, 120, 123–24, 133–39, 141, 143–44, 148, 150–51, 153, 166–67, 169–75, 181, 183, 192, 194–96, 198–200, 204–05, 207–08, 210–11, 213–17 Dalit critique of, 14, 71, 136, 138, 166, 205 marriage, 28–29, 40, 43–45, 50, 53, 59, 89, 114–15, 146, 152–54, 199 martial ethos, 166, 172, 208–09 martyrs, 106, 187 Marx, 11, 122, 127, 215 Marxism, 5, 167 Marxist, 73–74, 78, 116, 125–26, 128, 131, 167, 194, 204, 214 mashal julus, 87, 104 mass action, 82, 199, 204 line, 206 mobilization, 14, 82, 113, 172, 199–200, 202, 204, 206–07, 210 movement, 81–82, 199–201, 204– 07 organization 81, 144, 199–200, 202, 204–05 regarding politics 206–07

Index

Mazumdar, Charu, 81, 200, 202 memory, 71, 86–87, 89, 96–98, 100, 110, 157, 165 collective, 71, 86–87, 89 Dalit, 71, 96, 98 humiliated, 98 official, 71, 86 popular, 71 Menchu, Rigoberta, 111 Middle castes, 10, 13, 19, 25, 33–34, 64, 66, 68, 77, 136, 141, 150, 167, 180, 184, 192, 198, 206, 208–10, 213–14, 217 midwife, 43, 49 Migdal, Joel, 5–6, 8, 10, 12, 72, 214–15 minimum wage, 31, 42, 75, 78, 80, 82, 138, 174 misrecognition, 58, 62 Miskitu Indians, 132 MKSP, 144, 201, 204, 206–07 MKSS, 77, 81–82, 85, 87–88, 91, 93–94, 99, 167, 182, 201–04 moral economy, 7–8, 215 Mosse, David, 16–17, 24, 45, 65, 67, 143, 150, 160, 167–68, 170, 195, 218 mud houses, 1, 13, 70, 76, 87, 94, 128, 218 Mughal, 26, 208 multiple strategies, 13 Musahar, 19, 23, 37–39, 45–46, 50, 53–64, 68, 72, 79–80 Muslims, 22–23, 27–28, 33, 35, 65, 91, 151, 166, 201 landowning, 28; upper status, 23, 65 myths, 4, 56, 65, 137, 150, 165, 195 origin myths , 65 Nai, 22, 44, 197; See also Barber caste; Thakur caste Naxalbari, 72, 79, 81, 201 Naxalite Movement, 2, 66, 72–73, 114, 175, 179, 204 Naxalites, 74, 83, 88, 114, 116, 182, 186, 192, 200 New Democratic Revolution, 5, 198

243

numerical strength, 20–21, 25, 34, 36–37, 60, 154 open front, 201; See also front organization; mass organization oppression, 2, 6, 20, 53, 61–62, 65, 67, 73, 77–78, 80, 82–83, 85–86, 89, 110–12, 116–17, 123, 125, 127, 143, 149–50, 184, 217 oppressive landlords, 75, 81–82, 85, 88, 113, 123, 197, 202 organic intellectual, 14, 108, 120–22, 125–26, 133, See also intellectuals othering, 57 paddy, 29, 41–43, 45, 70, 76, 80, 93, 97–98, 113, 118–19, 128, 130, 144, 162, 195–96 transplanting, 41, 49, 51 wet, 24 Paige, Jeffery, 5–8, 10, 12, 72, 106, 214–15 panchayat, 103, 138, 157 participant observer, 115 Party Unity (PU), 74, 76, 80–82, 94, 106, 141, 176, 202, 204 passive revolution, 181, 198 Paswan, Ramvilas, 164–65 patron-client, 7, 197, 215; See also jajman-paunia patronage , 20, 24, 36, 181, 189 paunia, 43–46, 197; See also jajmanpaunia peasant class, 8 concept of, 5 Dalit, 10 landless, 3, 7, 24, 31, 82, 115, 125, 141, 143, 147, 184 landowning, 83, 133 middle, 23, 66, 105, 198, 211, 218 rational, 10 resistance, 67, 76 revolt, 72 revolution, 5–6, 8–12, 15–16, 72, 100, 213–15 struggle, 2, 79–80, 170, 203

244

Index

peasantry, 7–8, 22, 24, 30, 33–35, 65– 67, 77–78, 100, 121–22, 180–81, 188, 191–92, 198 middle, 24, 33–35, 66, 78, 180–81, 192, 198 peasantization, 31 people’s court, 14, 75, 101, 117, 123, 149, 182, 194, 196–97, 204; See also janadalat People’s War, 5, 14, 74, 81–82, 117, 144–46, 148–49, 172, 178, 197, 200 Protracted, 5 Permanent Settlement, 26, 28, 30 Peru, 193, 199 Police camps, 90, 176–77, 189–90 regime, 2 repression, 88, 203 violence, 175, 211 politics, 25, 34–35, 60, 74, 126, 135, 139, 168, 201, 206–07 Bihar, 34–35 Dalit politics, 100, 169 electoral, 25, 137 Maoist, 204 Naxalite, 204 representational, 25, 60 revolutionary, 99 political community, 90, 96 leaders, 79, 121, 157, 158, 164 networks, 19 power, 21, 34 politico-military formation, 171, 181, 192 Popkin, Samuel, 6, 8–10, 12, 215 poverty, 7, 16, 19–21, 54, 58–63, 68, 120, 124–25, 127, 170, 195, 218 chronic, 54, 195 durable effects of, 62 power and dominance, 19–20, 25, 67–68, 70, 104, 134, 137, 181, 184, 197, 211 changing power relations, 25, 98–99, 103, 193; See also shifting power relations

coercive, 9 durable effects of, 19, 67–68, 104 economic, 21, 34, 36, 184 exercise of, 24 forms of, 11, 21 political, 21, 34 power relations, 11, 15, 20, 24–25, 44, 58, 72, 98–100, 103, 105, 124, 137, 193, 197, 211, 214 relations of, 189, 211, 216 shifting power relations, 13, 100, 105, 124 state power, 4–5, 128, 136, 180, 198, 200 structures of, 13, 71, 86 transfer of, 4–5 private armies, 2, 10, 76, 182–83 private militia, 192, 209 privileging the Dalit perspective, 15–16 proletariat, 3, 5, 125, 127, 197–98 protest cycle, 12, 15, 19, 70–71, 135–36, 170, 213, 215–17; See also cycles of protest PUCL, 82, 88, 173–75, 177, 183–84 PUDR, 76, 78–80, 174, 176, 185, 188, 191 purity: and pollution, 40, 45, 61; and power, 45, 168;/impurity, 45, 64 raiyat, 26, 27, 33 Rajput, 21–23, 26–28, 34, 37, 88, 100, 144–49, 160, 183, 185, 208–09 caste, 23, 145 Ganga Sena of, 76, 192 landlords, 88, 100, 144 Sunlight Sena of, 76 Rajubhai, 13, 39, 46, 54, 76, 78, 87–88, 94, 98–102, 108–35, 138–41, 143–44, 148, 169, 204 as an organic intellectual, 120–22 life story, 108–09, 111 the Maoist, 109–10 the revolutionary subject, 108 Rakshak , 174, 175 Ram, Jagjivan, 66 Randeria, Shalini, 173, 177–80

Index

Ranveer Sena, 18, 76, 84, 114, 117, 134, 182–90, 192, 196–97, 210, 212, 217 rape, 18, 82, 90, 92, 113, 133, 187, 193 Dalit women, 50, 187 Rashtrya Janata Dal (RJD), 34 Ravidas, Sant, 23, 154–55, 157–59, 167 Ravidasi, 23, 44, 54, 59, 66, 154–57, 162 women, 44, 49, 155, 158 youth, 138, 153–54 rebellion, 4, 7–9, 26, 54, 105, 193, 214 rent, 26–28, 30, 41, 67, 73, 118, 198 research, 4, 6, 11, 15, 17, 74, 92, 109, 137, 213 participants, 1, 15, 17, 76, 87, 215, 218 resistance, 20, 61–65, 67, 72, 86, 104, 110, 113, 128, 131–34, 149, 159, 173, 192, 199, 201 accommodation and, 63, 133; armed, 6, 199 compliance and, 63, 132 everyday forms of, 62, 67 everyday, 104 romanticizing, 20; See also Dalit resistance; peasant resistance revenge, 10, 212 revolution new democratic, 5, 198 passive, 181, 198 spontaneous, 10; See also Maoist revolution; peasant revolution revolutionary action, 106, 119, 169, 214 organization, 4, 6, 8–10, 12, 105 party, 13–14 politics, 99 subjectivity, 14, 83, 107; See also revolutionary violence; counterrevolutionary violence right deviationist, 81 ritual, 21, 36–37, 45, 52, 131, 152, 154, 156, 164 status, 21, 36–37,

245

Sahajanand, Swami, 65, 77, 156 Salwa Judum, 192 Sandinista State, 132 Sathi Farm Struggles, 65, Samata Party, 35, 189 samant, 39, 87, 169; See also feudal lords samanti vichar, 39, 87; See also feudal attitude sanskritization, 21, 153 Satnami Movement, 65 Scheduled Castes (SC), 3, 22, 31, See also Dalits, harijan; Untouchables Scheduled Tribes (ST), 4, 22, 31 Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, 15, 18, 58, 61, 86 Scott, James, 5–10, 12, 54, 61, 67, 72, 100, 104–06, 119, 131, 149, 169, 214–15 Sendero Luminoso, 109, 205 semi-colonial, 5, 73 semi-feudal, 5, 73 relations, 73 sena: See Bhumi Sena; caste sena, caste militia; Lorik Sena; Ranveer Sena; Sunlight Sena sexual abuse, 13, 18, 49–50, 63, 101, 128; of Dalit women, 2, 50, 75, 99, 185 Shanti Devi, 99–100, 106, 174 sharecropping , 36, 39, 73, 82, 99, 118, 139 sharecroppers, 7, 23, 30, 39, 78, 118 Siddharth, 174–75, 177–78 silence, 14, 112–13, 136, 144, 148–49, 191; as strategic, 144 Sino-Soviet split, 73 Singh, Krishna, 100 Singh, Arvind, 203–04 Skocpol, Theda, 6, 8–10, 12, 214–15 social field, 11–12, 15, 72, 104, 137, 151, 213–15 Socialist Party, 76–78, 80, 127 state actors, 14, 171, 178, 188, 192 agencies, 14, 76, 171, 182, 188–89, 191–93, 199, 211

246

Index

boundaries of, 171, 173, 180 in Bihar, 10, 172, 174, 177–78, 180, 188, 193 -sena nexus, 76, 128, 136, 172, 192, 180, 198, 200 violence, 176; See also cunning state Stoll, David, 6–7, 72, 107, 111, 137, 213–15, 217 strike action, 82, 85, 87–88, 104, 113, 204 structural cleavages, 19, 68–70, 212, 216–17 factors, 19, 214, 216 effects 20, 68, 198–99; See also everyday violence; structural violence; symbolic violence structure-agency, 11, 215 subaltern consciousness, 63, 133, groups, 149 identity, 131 movement, 199 peoples, 199 Studies, 131 Sunlight Sena, 76, 183 surrender, 84, 94, 96–97, 99, 105, 138, 146, 176, 197, 204 supremacy, 83, 85, 105, 113, 149, 186 Tarrow, Sydney, 12, 15, 19, 70, 135– 36, 172, 213, 215–17 tax, 26, 30, 31, 67, 194, 196 taxation, 30 tenant, 7, 23, 26–28, 30–31, 33, 65–66, 77, 118, 209 high caste, 28 low caste, 28 tenancy, 25, 28, 31, 133 tenure holders, 26–27 terror, 173, 182, 188 terrorism, 84 terrorist, 84 testimonio, 110–11 testimony, 111 Thakur caste, 34, 44–46; See also Barber, Nai Thompson, E.P, 125–26

Tilly, Charles, 4, 5 torture, 175–76, 193, 200 unity line, 81 Untouchability, 2, 10, 13, 18, 48, 78, 80, 123, 125, 167, Untouchables, 3–4, 29, 45, 64, 155, 197 Untouchable castes, 3, 197 upper caste dominance/domination, 56, 164, 194, 211 landlords, 19, 33, 112, 147–48, 164 landowners, 3, 33, 83, 134, 146, 148, 191, 216 men, 45, 59, 130, 185, 187 militia, 18, 134, 190 senas, 177 violence, 179 women, 41, 130 village committee, 72, 99–105, 115, 123–24, 134, 151–53 Vinayan, Dr, 77, 82, 203–04 violence agrarian, 171–72, 177 armed, 5, 71, 208–10, 217 communal, 33 counter, 183, 208 counter-revolutionary, 6, 14, 171– 72, 211, 215 dual, 6, 72, 137, 213 everyday, 15, 18 formations of, 181, 211 in rural Bihar, 14, 171, 181; Maoist, 182 mode of, 182, 186 nature of, 181, 186 production of, 171, 184 revolutionary , 6, 14, 171–72, 211, 213, 215 sena , 176 state, 176 structural, 13–14, 18, 36, 53, 61, 86, 106–08, 217 structures of, 58 submerged, 13 symbolic, 20, 57, 62, 68, 132

Index

voluntarist human actions, 12 war of manoeuvre, 198 war of position, 198 weak state, 177–79, 193; See also cunning state weakness of regime, 12 witnessing, 15–16 through writing, 15 Wolf , Er ic, 5–10, 54, 72, 100, 105–06, 119, 169, 214, 217

247

Yadav caste, 23, 66, 133, 146, 181, 209 Yadav dominance, 34–35 Yadav, Laloo Prasad, 34, 156, 164–65, 179 zamindar, 26–28, 30, 32–33, 39, 127, 159, 193–94, 208–09 zamindari, 19, 26, 30–33, 68, 127 abolition of, 31–33 system, 19, 26, 30–31, 68