Journal of South Asian Development

http://sad.sagepub.com From Militant Rejection to Pragmatic Consensus: Caste among Madigas in Andhra Pradesh
Clarinda Still JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN DEVELOPMENT 2009; 4; 7 DOI: 10.1177/097317410900400102 The online version of this article can be found at: http://sad.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/1/7

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Journal of South Asian Development 4:1 (2009): 723 SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/097317410900400102

From Militant Rejection to Pragmatic Consensus: Caste among Madigas in Andhra Pradesh
CLARINDA STILL Lecturer in Modern Indian Studies School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies University of Oxford Oxford
Abstract This article examines gender and age differences in Dalit attitudes towards caste inequality, using interviews and ethnographic eldwork conducted among Madigas in Andhra Pradesh (AP). Madigas express a range of views about their position in society. Some oppose ideas of untouchability and espouse ideologies of equality. They deny the existence of caste and have no respect for what they see as the dying remnants of the old order. Others (especially elderly women) accept patronage and subordination in return for cash and security and exploit the old forms of subservience and deference. The paper argues that Madigas reject caste-as-hierarchy and make use of caste-as-identity and attempt to use their caste status as a resource which can be invoked when it is benecial, and downplayed when it is not.

INTRODUCTION
widowed Madiga woman with cracked feet and bony ngers stood with her palms pressed together in a sign of prayer, beseeching the visiting ofcial to help her. Dried out by the dry summer heat, the previous night her hut had caught re. In the hope that this smart looking woman from the government ofce would take pity on her, she performed a dramatic display of subordination. Her eyes wide and plaintive, and her head tipped to one side, she lamented her poverty and wretchedness and went to touch the womans feet. The ofcial stopped the widow, reassured her and continued writing notes in her book (eld notes, May 2004).
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Chris Fuller, Veronique Bn, Roger Jeffery, Salla Sariola, participants of SAAG 2007, the LSEs anthropological research seminar and an anonymous reviewer for critical feedback. Special thanks to Hugo Gorringe for his comments on this paper. I am also grateful to ESRC and the LSE for funding and to G. Koteswarao for research assistance.

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Clarinda Still

On the evening bus, away from the scrutiny of kin and neighbours, Madiga boys lean over the specially-designated female seats to catch the attention of a fellow villager, an upper-caste girl who works for a courier company in the city. The girl sits among her female friends returning home from college clutching their les. She pretends to be annoyed, playfully insults them and the boys wittily respond. Other girls on the bus notice the irtatious exchange and cover their mouths in a smile (eld notes, October 2004). In April, Madiga men return home smelling of whisky holding yers from a political meeting. The meeting was held in a nearby village by the Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti (MRPS), a Madiga political group campaigning for the division of the Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation quota. The men discuss going up to Delhi to appeal to Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi led by their Madiga leaders. Their wives serve them rice and rebuke them for drinking. The men eat, fall asleep and the yers blow into the bushes at the edge of the village (eld notes, April 2004). The above vignettes describe incidents that are part of the fabric of everyday life for Madigas, the group amongst whom I did eldwork. In the traditional hierarchy, Madigas the largest Dalit caste in Andhra Pradesh (AP)are seen as one of the lowest untouchable castes and are habitually excluded and marginalised, and yet only the rst snapshot conforms to expectations about Madiga behaviour. These stories are not extraordinarya testimony to how much has changed in contemporary south India. What they illustrate are the daily processes through which Madigas negotiate their status, be it prostrating themselves in front of government ofcials, irting with upper-caste girls on the bus or asserting their rights more formally through political means. This paper examines how Madigas in the village of Nampalli1 perceive their social position, analyses how they respond to this and asks what these attitudes tell us about the reproduction of inequality. I show that Madiga views range from a militant rejection of caste hierarchy to a pragmatic compliance with the caste ideologies that degrade them. Some Madigas forcefully refute their lowly standing, declaring that now everyone is equal. Others, however, see advantages in maintaining the status quo, even if it means subordination and acquiescence. Caste, thus, is both rejected and exploited. In Nampalli, as in many other parts of India, Dalits are no longer willing to tolerate the degradation that characterised their past. They feel that life has improved for them. They suffer less hunger, they can sustain themselves through work, they all have near or distant family members who have secured white-collar employment, most are literate and some are well educated. All of this has reduced Dalit dependence on the upper castes. Such independence means that Dalits have ceased to perform degrading ritual roles and feel more condent in challenging upper-caste domination. Dalits in villages like Nampalli struggle with poverty, discrimination and a lack of opportunities, but they vehemently reject the ideologies which place them at the bottom of the social ladder.
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Caste among Madigas in Andhra Pradesh

Dalits do not only resist and reject traditional caste stereotypes, they also use their caste to their advantage. They draw upon caste as a political and economic tool, as a basis to demand rights and resources, as an identity which differentiates them from others, and as a state category which entitles them to caste-related benets (see Govinda and Steur, this volume). What my study contributes here, however, is an appreciation of how even the most marginal Dalits can exploit caste in different ways, for instance, by using old forms of subservience to gain favour among highcaste patrons. Old women, thus, are materially and socially rewarded for acting out old forms of caste deference. These varied strategies show that caste is open to manipulation; it is more a form of identity (malleable, relational and context-specic) than a structural category in which people can be pigeon-holed.2 Most of the evidence in this paper comes from oral testimonies, which raise some signicant methodological questions. These testimonies are transcribed interviews recorded with Madigas during 20045. I have quoted interviewees at length in order to convey the richness and vitality of their expression and the condence and jocularity with which they talk about caste. But to what extent do Madigas words reect their social reality? Were they misrepresenting events to impress the interviewer or those around them? In some cases, there was some exaggeration and some of their claims may be overblown. But even so, these accounts do show changed and changing social attitudes. Whether or not these testimonies convey a true picture of their material circumstances, they tell us something important about Dalit men and womens worldview, opinions and values. Moreover, narratives are not inert. In Nampalli, with their employers living only a stones throw away, the willingness of Dalits to speak so condently about their social position with regard to their erstwhile superiors is signicant. That they are able to do this without fear of retribution marks a change in relations in their favour. Conversations in one village can only tell us so much about the Dalit situation overall. But contextualised by accounts from other parts of India they are illustrations of wider trends. Today, Dalits are emerging as one of Indias most potent forces of change, and almost all Dalits are touched by the impact of Dalit politics (Charsley and Karanath 1998; Gorringe 2005; Jaffrelot 2003; Omvedt 1994; Pai 2002, 2002; Zelliot 1992). But while the emergence of Dalits on the political stage is by now well documented, the relationship between politics (often urban-based) and village discourses is less clear. Although rural Dalits are becoming increasingly less tolerant of oppression, this is rarely illustrated in any ethnographic detail.3 This paper, then, aims to enhance our understanding of a trend emerging across the sub-continent. Not only does this paper seek to esh out the story of Dalit assertion, it also aims to complicate it. Dalit groups everywhere are internally differentiated. Families and communities are split by even the most minor class and education differences. One nds a variety of attitudes and political views as well as rivalry and conict along a number of different axes. Social attitudes are determined, or at least heavily
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inuenced by class, gender and age. This differentiation means that while some Dalits may rail against the strictures of traditional caste relations, others act out their inferiority and accept upper-caste benevolence. This is explored in the second half of the paper. The material here engages with one of the classic debates in Indian anthropology: whether those at the bottom of the caste system accept or reject the low status ascribed to them. Michael Moffat (1979) classically argued that through sharing the value system of the upper castes and replicating it among themselves, Dalits ultimately consent to their own subordination. As Delige (1999) points out, commentators on this issue fall into two camps: those who (like Moffat) argue that Dalits accept the caste system and their place in it, versus those who argue that Dalits have a culture of resistance and reject the reasons for their low status (for example, Berremen 1963; Gough 1960; Mencher 1972). This question of acceptance or rejection of caste is not just an anthropological hobby horse. As part of his controversial report recommending the extension of the reservation policy eventually implemented in 1990, B. P. Mandal wrote, The real triumph of the caste system lies not in upholding the supremacy of the Brahmin, but in conditioning the consciousness of the lower castes in accepting their inferior status in the ritual hierarchy as part of a natural order of things (cited in Radhakrishnan 1999: 164). Moffats argument is difcult to support today, partly because the theories which inspired it are a representation of a Brahminical view of society (Delige 1992; Kapadia 1995) but also because his structural analysis is at odds with the complex and often contradictory reality of most peoples daily lives, especially the conicting views that people have about their own and others place in society (Gupta 2000). Moreover, as Fuller (1996: 101) and Sharma (1999) point out, the lived reality of Dalits has so radically altered since Dumont and Moffats time that we wonder whether we are still studying quite the same phenomena. Evidence suggests that caste as a system has diminished, while caste as a form of identity has grown; a trend noted by Srinivas in 1957 and named substantialisation by Dumont (1970: 226). The breakdown of hierarchy means that today it would be impossible to describe Dalits as merely a counterpoint to Brahmins in a ritual system of purity and pollution. Indeed, some say that caste in its current form is comparable to ethnicity (Berremen 1972; Bteille 1991; Brass 1991; Sabharwal 2006; Schermerhorn 1978). Rather than being components in a total, inter-dependent ritual system as Dumont said, castes have become competing endogamous groups with their own particular characteristics and social practices. Caste politics, Indias afrmative action policies and caste-based social movements have all contributed to the sense that Dalits are not simply the lowest rung of a ritual ladder but rather an important and politicised interest group. Not only are Dalits in competition with others for a due share and rights, they are at the forefront of political change in India, a silent or democratic revolution (Gorringe 2005; Jaffrelot 2003; Omvedt 1994). As caste-as-identity grows stronger it poses severe challenges to caste-as-hierarchy.
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Dalit biographies help counteract an excessively structuralist view of caste, showing how Dalits often creatively manage the burden of untouchability and poverty. James Freeman (1979) describes a dissolute Orissan Bauri man, who works as a pimp and lives off his wifes earnings. And yet Muli displays great humour and ingenuity in creatively manipulating circumstances of extreme subordination to his advantage. Vasant Moons (2001) description of his life in Nagpur describes not only caste conict, crime and hunger but also childhood games, education and later, the inuence of Ambedkar and neo-Buddhism. But it is the remarkable narrative of Viramma (Racine et al. 1995), a Tamil Paraiyar woman that does most to convey the richness of Dalit life worlds. Unlike her son, Viramma reproduces those ideologies which degrade her. But her world is full of joy, emotion, complexity and dynamism, and we see how she uses her position to negotiate her social standing and secure education for her son. My ethnography of Nampalli contributes to these biographies by exploring how Dalits manage their disadvantages. Nampalli is in the fertile plains of the Krishna River, just inland from the Bay of Bengal in the rice growing belt of northern Guntur district. Nampalli is near three major towns which provide employment and education to some of its residents. The area is well-irrigated and intensively farmed, and the district has been a hub of nationalist, communist and Dalit political activity throughout the twentieth century (see Omvedt 1994: 11425). Nampalli and its surrounding region witnessed what Srinivasulu (2002) calls unprecedented mobilisation around the issue of caste. Dalit protest has a long history in the state, and in the 1980s Dalits began to agitate specically against caste and untouchability. The Dalit movement in AP emerged after two tragic massacres of Dalits in 1985 and 1991 (see Balagopal 2000; Srinivasulu 2002). The Dalit Maha Sabha (DMS) was formed in response to the outrage against this violence. Later, Madigas established their own organisation, the MRPS, to represent their interests, especially over reservations. Dalit politics is important here: the politicisation of caste has fostered a sense of Madiga caste pride and underpins the assertion which is manifest in the village today. Nampallis population of roughly 1,500 people is divided into 12 castes: two Dalit castes (Mala and Madiga), a tribal group, ve Other Backward Classes (OBC) and four Forward Castes. Although few of these castes carry out their traditional caste occupation, caste (kulam) is still one of the most important ways in which people relate and refer to each other in the village. While it is awkward to ask someones caste directly, villagers use caste names to identify, describe and refer to each other (the Komati shop, the Kamma tea stall, that Goud pastor, the Brahmins at the end of the village and so on). In this part of AP, Kammas are the dominant caste (Srinivas 1955). They constitute 10 per cent of the districts population and the largest single caste in Nampalli. Kammas own most of Nampallis agricultural land and they dominate local governance and party politics. Kamma men work in the thriving agri-businesses in the area and some have salaried employment in local towns. Kammas are the best
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educated caste, and their children mostly attend private English-medium schools (while the village state schools are dominated by Dalit children). Of course, not all Kammas are rich and inuential; some are landless, poor and illiterate. But Kammas have used various forms of social, economic and political capital to preserve their position at the top of the village pecking order (cf. Upadhya 1997). Malas and Madigas together comprise a third of the village population. Most Dalits in Nampalli are landless agricultural labourers, sharecroppers and tenant farmers. A small minority own land, although none of these holdings are over three acres. Some Dalit men earn a better wage from construction work on roads and buildings, labour jobs in the nearby sand quarry and semi-skilled work like house painting or auto-rickshaw driving in town. A few have lower level government employment and menial jobs in ofces. Non-farm jobs, better paid wage labour and landowning have enabled a certain amount of economic independence for some. Education has also substantially changed the fortunes of Dalits in the village, and the vast majority of the younger generation of Dalits in Nampalli are literate. Education and assertion are connected in the village: Dalits often claim equality with the upper castes on the basis of tellavi-tetalu (intelligence/awareness). Education may not have enabled Dalits to secure employment, but it produces a sense of entitlement and condence (cf. Ciotti 2006; Jeffrey et al. 2007). Some politicised, educated unemployed Dalit men are viewed as idlers and troublemakers, politicians without brains (burralekka rajikiyanayakalu), as one landowner put it, too proud to do agricultural labour but unable (or unwilling) to do anything else. But while young men have beneted moderately from education and higher-paid wage labour, their mothers, wives and sisters are generally employed for less than half the mens pay in the most menial forms of agricultural labour. Dalit women play a crucial role in maintaining the household in south India, where a large part of the agricultural labour force is low caste and female. This burden of responsibility helps to explain gendered and generational reliance on upper-caste patronage. These residual structures of power are most clearly observed in the organisation of village space. While caste-wise territorial boundaries are relatively uid, the residential division between Dalits and non-Dalits is rigid. In AP, villages are divided into two distinguishable parts: the palli and the uru. The palli is at a distance from the main village, so that Dalits travel into the uru for work and leave when they have nished. In Nampalli, even though the uru-palli border is just one road, Madigas still talk about going to the uru when they cross it. As Delige (1999) points out, Dalits position is one of ambiguity. They are both insiders and outsiders in the village. They are relied upon for work and services and yet excluded from the uru, marked out as members of communities dened in opposition to the rest of the village: the pallivallu (the people who live in the palli) not the uruvallu (the people of the uru). Indeed, for Telugu speaking people, a village is made up of these two constituent parts, reected in the colloquial word for a village, pallituru. Dalit communities are segregated, excluded, marked out from
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the rest of the village as exterior, and yet they are a necessary and important part of the village as a whole. Madigas spatially dened identity remains unaltered by individual changes in prosperity. That a rich Madiga could not move into the uru underscores the differential impact of Dalit movements in rural and urban areas. As long as Dalits remain in the village, they are socio-spatially xed into a low geographical space, regardless of individual changes in status (cf. Delige 1999; Freeman 1979; Mosse 1994).

CONTESTATION

AND

CHALLENGE

Despite their residence on the wrong side of the palli-uru boundary, Madigas do not accept their status as untouchables, and they do not refer to themselves as such. Their days of shame and backwardness are over, they say. Madigas perceive a divide between life now and life then, contrasting a backward past with an improved present (cf. Ciotti 2006: 899). For most, life is better than it was; there is little nostalgia for how things were. Older Madigas talk about the old days (patha kalam), the mad age (pichi kalam) or the time of ignorance (motu tanam). They recall when uruvallu gave them water by pouring from a vessel into their hands and when they did not allow them near their houses, to avoid antu or maila (pollution). Madigas joke that even now the Komatis in the village shop still drop change and items into their hands to avoid touching them. But importantly, they joke about it and see it merely as the rude eccentricity of the shopkeeper rather than internalising the insult. Some women remember that in times of scarcity, they asked their landlords for buttermilk, pickle or leftover curries. Madigas laughingly describe the loin cloths they used to wear and the saris worn without pins or a blouse. Men describe the deferential behaviour they displayed, lowering their lungi in their landlords presence, folding their arms over their chest, speaking with eyes downcast, dismounting bicycles and not wearing shoes through the uru roads, typical low status behaviour. Forms of address are also keenly remembered as an index of subordination. Uruvallu addressed Madigas disrespectfully, shouting Aray! Ammayi! (hey! lass!) or Eh, ra! (Oi! come here!). Now, landlords mostly use their employees names while labourers address the landlords as emoudi (sir) or using the honoric sufx garu. Madigas see this as an expression of politeness rather than a sign of oppression. The obsolescence of dora-garu (lord) and the diminished use of demeaning forms of address indicate the amelioration in the Madigas social position: landlords can no longer objectify their employees in such an imperious manner. So when old Madigas speak of the ignorant age they remember the inferiority which underpinned those (now insulting) forms of address. A middle-aged labourer, Gopal, described how, in the past: If a landlord came we used to have to stand up and lower our lungis You had to get up! Now it is not like that. If they come and call for us, we can stay seated;
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it is our cot so we can sit on it. If we have a good relation with a farmer then we will get up. Previously if we were sitting down when they came and we did not get up immediately they would see it and make a note of it to punish us later. Now there is nothing like that. They silently accept what is going on. (interview, 27 February 2005) Kamma landlords can no longer demand respect, it has to be earned from employees. Landlords have no recourse to action in the face of deant labourers. Many Madigas are no longer willing to accept caste-related subordination associated with the past. During a conversation with a group of Dalit men in the tea shop, Ragavaiah, an elderly labourer, talked about untouchability: It is here and there in some places, but there is none here for us anymore. It is still there, but 80 per cent has gone. The 20 per cent that is remaining we dont care about. My nephew was here recently, he is in the rice business. He went to the rice mill here wearing an expensive shirt and trousers. When he went there, the owners looked him up and down and said O-ho! This kind of dress youre wearing now! Havent you come up a long way? So in that way, in their stomach they have that feeling but they cant vomit it up (kudupu lo unda koda kukkulekka sustunaru). It is like that for all of them. We are not depending on them now; we are earning our own money and living on it. But even so, it is in their hearts. They want to beat us for not observing untouchable behaviour. They want to beat us but they will not come forward because now we have support. Previously if we made any mistakes and did not show respect they would call us to their house and beat us. Now it is not so bad. We have more-or-less developed. We are in a better position. (interview, 3 February 2005) Some perceive a resentment festering beneath the surface of their daily interactions with the uruvallu. Often they describe this as caste feeling (kula bhedam) something subtle, implicit and indirect revealed in a look, a gesture or a transaction of food or money, acts which are noticed by Madigas but are too small to warrant objection. Nowadays, I was told, the upper castes know that it is unwise to antagonise the Dalits overtly, so instead the village lives under a thinly veiled tension. This is aggravated by some Madigas such as Mangamma, an outspoken female labourer, who boasts that they are in a stronger position than the uruvallu now: In the past if we asked for water they (uruvallu) would drop it into our cupped hands. Now they give us a glass. Now some people go and work in their houses but not if they dont want to Now if they want to borrow money, they come and ask us! If they want ten thousand rupees, we will give it to them Now say we are going to get fuel for the re [in the elds] and if anyone says something or takes hold of our hand [makes a sexual advance] we will slap him and say,
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who do you think you are? They wont say anything later because who would say anything when it is their mistake (tappu)? For one bad word they say, theyll get four words in return! (interview, 29 January 2005) Not all Madigas would agree. Another informant said that this was rubbish: no Kamma would ever ask a Madiga for a loan, adding that nowadays most women like her would take the hand of a Kamma man if there was money in it. It is highly improbable that a Kamma would come to the Madiga palli to ask for money, but even in the insulting reference to the complex sexual relations between Madigas and Kammas there are signs of change. A weakening of caste-as-hierarchy is seen in the presumption that Kammas now have to pay for sexual favours that they would previously have taken by force. Both Mangammas statements and the commentary on it illustrate Madiga condence. That she has the self-assurance to say such things on tape and in public demonstrates a robust fearlessness. Some of this assertiveness was confrontational, and there are numerous instances of Dalit provocation of the upper castes. Whilst I interviewed the family of a Kamma landowner, my educated younger brother came, leaned over the veranda wall, scoffed at their replies and was deliberately provocative. The interviewees were visibly annoyed but made no comment. In the end, I told him we could not continue unless he returned home, and he sauntered off. Similarly, a history graduate, Gopalan, told me how he and a friend had gone to another friends village where the two-tumbler system of serving Dalits tea in separate glasses was still being practised. They went with the sole intention of demanding an ordinary cup and planned to start a ght if anyone objected. He told me how they had broken the customs and sat all day in the main hotel drinking tea and eating snacks. Although no one resisted, their actions did not go unnoticed. After they left, a Reddy farmer had approached Gopalans friends father, a village resident, to express his disapproval. Dalit girls too are involved in small acts of provocation. On the way back from the elds, for instance, some of the Madiga female labourers walked through the entrance of the village, near the Brahmin houses, passing a mentally ill Brahmin lady who often sat on the bench outside her house. One of the teenage girls made a habit of making fun of the woman, one time rather cruelly asking if she was mad. Signicantly, even such open provocation went unpunished though had the lady been from a rich Kamma family the matter might have been more serious. Much petty quotidian conict is played out over village space. Unemployed educated Dalit men hang around the village centre near the bus stop, eating snacks, smoking cigarettes and surveying the streets. They sometimes play cricket in the school grounds where most of them went to school. One Madiga boy conspicuously drove around the tiny village lanes on a borrowed motorbike. The residual traces of caste hierarchy mean that Dalits are excluded from certain areas of the village, especially the Brahmin settlement. But Dalits are increasingly inclined to ignore these injunctions. Occasionally these routine challenges erupt into conict, as when
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drunken young Madiga men provoked a ght by sitting on the village temple steps during the Vinayaka Chaturti festival in August 2004. The idea that all Madigas should kowtow to superiors because they are intrinsically lower people had no currency at all in Nampalli. Kalyani, a widowed Madiga shopkeeper and leader of the womens savings and credit groups, said: Now everyone is the same, we have the same blood. They (Kammas) do not look down on us anymore. If they did, we will ght against them (dowajanyam chestamu), we will not accept it. In the old days it went on because we were not educated, we had no knowledge. Now, why should we follow along (induku langalli)? Why should we do that? We used to be people who ignorantly would do whatever we were told. We relied on the elders to sort out problems. But now everyone is on their own and looks after their own affairs. (interview, 14 December 2004) Dalits attach a high value to independence and looking after ones own affairs. For Madigas, dependence and lack of status (viluva) are virtually synonymous. Madigas described their past dependency in three distinct ways: economic dependence (they needed Kammas for work, rented land and credit); knowledge dependence (they were uneducated, illiterate) and an enforced dependence through fear of physical violence. Indeed, much of the present day antagonism towards the uruvallu relates to the violence and sexual abuse that they suffered in the past. It follows, then, that ideas of improvement are derived from, and expressed in terms of, one over-arching change: the attainment of independence (swatantram). Babu, a young, politically active labourer described this link between growing condence and diminishing dependence: We used to be utterly scared of farmers We were all frightened that if we didnt give respect, in the morning we would not be asked for work. To live and eat we needed that work so we were frightened in that way. Now we dont have to go to the landlord for work. We can look after buffaloes, sell milk, open some shop or otherwise go to town and get work there, rent land here or work in the banana business. Now we are not depending on those farmers to live. Because we are living independently we are no longer frightened of them. It is no longer our job to fear them. (interview, 5 January 2005) Furthermore, for Mangamma and others like her, the caste hierarchy no longer exists at all. She commented: Way back in the past there used to be castes. Who was higher than who we could tell you. Now we cant say; it is not there anymore. Everyones caste is the greatest for them. Take Brahmins, they think they are the highest; then take the Kammas,
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they think they are the greatest. You think your caste is greater than mine, I think mine is greater than yours. It is like that. (interview, 29 January 2005) Clearly, many contest their low, unclean status at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. They have relegated untouchability to the past; they say that caste has ceased to exist. Madigas are aware of their own poverty and marginalisation, but they refuse to suffer mistreatment, condescension and abuse from the uruvallu. Although the picture is perhaps not as straightforward as they paint it, this self-representation nevertheless marks an important shift in attitudes. Some might object that this deant rhetoric is at odds with their low socioeconomic status. Could this constitute an example of what Scott has called hidden transcripts or the weapons of the weak (1985) whereby labourers make their under-the-thumb existence bearable by deriding, belittling and ridiculing the landlords behind their backs? Although there may be an element of this, I suggest that this is a genuine condence derived from increased economic independence and a heightened political awareness. This is illustrated by Selvi: If we have any problems we go to the Madiga Dandora (the popular name for the MRPS) and they help us to get justice. If anyone insults us as Madiga and ghts with us the government will arrest them. Now you cannot say those words. (interview, 27 January 2005) The Dalit movements gave ordinary rural Madigas and Malas the sense that they were part of a force with a state-wide presence and that inuential people were at hand to help, almost as if they were kin. They are seen as manavallu (our people) and they are referred to using kinship terms such as annaya (elder brother). Selvis account displays her faith not only in the MRPS but also in the government. This sense of support is a key to understanding current assertiveness in the village, which ts with a more general pattern of Dalit assertion in other parts of India. But, despite Madiga optimism, caste hierarchy still persists and must be understood in reference to gender and age differences.

GENDERED

AND

GENERATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

Socio-economic and political fortunes are still loosely caste-based, with privilege largely resting with the Kammas and poverty, debt and alcoholism found predominantly in the palli. Madigas also live with social exclusion and other peoples sense of their untouchability, even if they do not vomit it up, as they say. Castebased reservation causes much local antagonism. The legacy of untouchability is also manifest in caste-inected interactions between uruvallu and Madigas. When the English-medium educated nephew of my Madiga host family visited the village, we went to the house of the familys patrons for a meal. The nephew was better
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educated, well dressed and more urbanised than his familys landlords. This presented an odd dilemma. Rather unusually, we were served by the male head of the household while the women stayed in the kitchen and we were served on leaf plates and in plastic cups. I assumed that this was to show respect to us as guests, but the nephew thought that we had been served on disposable plates to avoid antu (polluting touch). The nephews class status meant that in some ways he might have been treated as an honoured guest from the city but his position as a member of their client Madiga family warranted the use of disposable plates, he supposed. Even when a person has become educated, dresses well and has a good job, when they return to the village they are still Madiga, he commented bitterly. In what follows this paper traces out the complex relationships and processes through which caste inequalities are both subverted and reproduced. Crucially, it is not just that the upper castes enforce Dalit subordination; some Madigas actively seek to perpetuate caste inter-dependence themselves. Madigas, like all Dalits, are not a homogenous group; education, income, lineage, political and religious afliation and perhaps most importantly gender and age cross-cut caste groupings. Militant anti-caste rhetoric is more helpful to some than to others. Most obviously, elderly Madiga women tend to exploit old forms of subordination to gain the rewards and security of upper-caste patronage, making pragmatic compromises in order to secure work and benets from Kamma landlords. For instance, Nagamma, the grandmother of my host family, had maintained patron-client connections with three different Kamma families since she arrived in the village after marriage. They employed her in kuli work (wage labour) and she helped with domestic chores. With all three houses this was an informal arrangement, based on mutual ties and a history of service rather than obligation. She assisted in preparing for family gatherings and cleaned and washed up afterwards. At harvest time she helped process the crop for consumption or sale: sorting and removing the heads from the chillies, picking stones from rice and so on. All three families gave her gifts of money, leftover food and occasionally blouse material. She kept the money in her blouse, hid it in secret places in the house and used it to go and visit her daughters. Doing work in her landlords household was easier money than hard agricultural labour but it was also a sociable relationship. The women of the families enjoyed chatting with her and sharing gossip; one Kamma housewife even read Nagammas grandsons letters to her since she was illiterate. Nagamma was fond of these women and proudly showed me their smart houses and modern furniture. She moved around the houses quite freely but when eating, sitting or drinking, she crouched on the oor outside, eating from a put-aside plate, which she washed afterwards. Nagamma was rebuked by her family for maintaining these kinds of relationships, and though she happily accepted food from her patrons, family members were displeased when she brought it back home. Her eldest grandson would initially refuse
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the food and scold her, saying it was degrading to go and beg from their houses. Others ate the food she brought, but did so rather disdainfully, saying the crisps were too salty or the sweets too oily, as if the humiliation entailed in eating leftovers was mitigated by exacting comments about the quality of the food. In passing judgement on these handouts, Madigas repositioned themselves as adjudicators of Kamma cooking rather than low-status recipients. But although the patron-client relation was a divisive element in the family, Nagamma was loath to sever links which had a history of exchange, and which provided her with extra money. She reminded her grandchildren that their landlords family had given them a buffalo when Nagammas rst daughter-in-law had died, as well as clothes, loans, money for weddings and her own gold wedding amulet. But now, all in the family except Nagamma and her daughter-in-law refused to cultivate links with these families. In several other Madiga houses, older women received patronage, while the men severed ties of dependency wherever possible. Although dependency is demeaning, for Nagamma, it was a trade-off between material gain and prestige (cf. Mosse 1994: 86). By acting as a subordinate and accepting the role of a servant, she was rewarded nancially. And since the money and gifts she received afforded her a modicum of independence, she accepted the subordination it entailed. The affective content of these relationships should not be neglected either, since women were often genuinely fond of their patrons families. Some joked that they were looked after better there than in their own homes. Within their households, old women are vulnerable. They receive the tail-end of dinner, they sleep on the least comfortable bedding, they perform the most menial household chores andsince their earning capacity is reduced they are often seen as a burden. Nagammas own pragmatism, her precarious position in the family and her ambivalence towards change led her to make the best of the system rather than challenge it. Of course, any loud resistance to upper-caste superiority would have also jeopardised her client position, and perhaps this was what silenced her (see Breman 1993). But Nagammas priority was her own and her familys well-being and her views simply tted around that imperative. In such circumstances, it is unsurprising that she continued performing lowly roles and saw no need to ght old forms of subordination. Deference is not always a manipulative strategy. Old peoples displays of subordination also reected an acceptance of their subservient role in the village order. Among Madigas, there is both resistance and collusion. Some bend and atter in public and then poke fun behind their landlords backs, performing elaborate displays of humility only because they know they will achieve a desired effect. But for many Dalits, especially the older generation, subordination comes entirely naturally to them; they have been socialised into it since childhood. Nagamma and others like her acknowledge their low status. Time and again Nagamma insisted that hard work was her tala rata, her fate, what was written on her head by god when she was born. Hard work, my dear, otherwise how would we eat? she constantly
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reminded me. Collusion does not, however, equal acceptance of the values underpinning the system, and Nagamma was glad that the young were different. But she was resigned to her position as a servant of her landlords and considered it important to show them respect (gowravam). While this recalls Mosses argument that subordination is ideologically constitutive of untouchable caste identity (1996: 74, 1999: 68), it might also be thought of in terms of Mausss techniques of the body (1973) or Bourdieus (1990) concept of habitus (cf. Gorringe and Rafanell 2007). The bodily demeanour and genuection of some Dalits is an incorporated way of being; a set of dispositions beyond conscious articulation that re-enacts, reects and reproduces a social order in which they feature as unequivocally low. These expressions of servitude are perhaps even more appreciated in the current climate of inter-caste tension. Recall the Madiga widow at the beginning of the paper: her attempt to prostrate herself was even more effective because of its invocation of dependence that characterised caste relations of the past, what Madigas refer to as bhayam-bhakti (fear-devotion). Implicit in this notion is the idea that the relationship between the high castes and the Dalits is homologous to gods and humans. The widow saw t to touch the womans feet, the ultimate expression of humility. It was an attempt to deify the government ofcial and show that her welfare was dependent on her grace and generosity. And yet this display was performed in front of a person the widow had never met before, whose caste identity was not known to her, who stood outside village hierarchies and was supposedly a neutral bureaucrat. It was also performed by a woman who was loud and boisterous in other circumstances. And yet because these expressions are voluntaristic rather than forced, they are even more effective. In this sense, Madigas manipulate forms of subordination to their own advantage, exploiting the historical resonance of these actions in a changed and politically charged environment.

CONCLUSION
How do we interpret Madiga claims that it is no longer their job to fear the upper castes, as Babu put it? Despite these attitudes we have seen how aspects of caste inequality are reproduced and how caste still largely correlates to class position. Caste standing, we are reminded, reects status as well as material wealth or power. But in Madigas determination that caste and untouchability should disappear in the future, we see Dalit aspirations for a new order and a lack of consensus with the old. Dalit condence is not just wishful thinking, an example of the weapons of the weak. Their views reect a changed social reality, and in turn, help to generate further change as they are expressed. Such change will not happen overnight. Even within one community we nd compliance and resistance, radicalism and conservatism, various political stances and afliations. There is no unied position of Madigas, let alone Dalits as a whole. Deance or acquiescence is a product of positionality. This is not to say that Madigas
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construct any number of self-representations on an arbitrary basis. As Ursula Sharma points out, to recognise that a culture is multi-vocal is not to say that Indians are without cultural commitment of any kind, cynically voicing any ideology which seems strategically advantageous at the time (1999: 57). Rather, divergent individual strategies tell us something important about the cleavages within the Dalit community. In the absence of an all-encompassing caste system, Madigas negotiate their social position using the resources at hand. For some, this means refusing low paid labour for the sake of prestige and using political, religious or state discourses to confront the humble position ascribed to them. For others, it entails accepting subordination for the sake of patronage and security: a conscious reproduction of the very inequalities that their politicised grandchildren oppose. We have seen how the vulnerability of old women and the dominance of young men, for example, profoundly inuences their stance towards the upper castes, and how both strategies are played out within a eld of power. What are the effects of these different strategies? Are they conicting or complementary? I suggest that Dalit young mens challenge to the upper castes is attenuated by their grandmothers maintenance of vertical caste links. The tension between castes in the village is abated by Madiga clients rapport with their patrons. The security provided by patronage not only helps these families to survive, it makes it viable for educated men to remain jobless and refuse humiliating tasks. This reminds us that social identities are not pliable at will (Mosse 1999: 65), and that ultimately the pervasiveness and persuasiveness of these different representations are largely a measure of the power and inuence of their advocates. The extent to which Dalits self-representations matter outside the connes of the palli similarly reects power asymmetries, but the very articulation of dissent marks a signicant erosion of caste values. Identity change, as Mosse puts it, is caste politics (ibid.).

NOTES
1. Names of people and places have been changed to preserve anonymity. 2. Of course, others still try to pigeon-hole Dalits. Despite their insistence that, everyone thinks that their caste is the highest, Dalit are often described in conventionally degrading terms. 3. Important exceptions include Anandhi et al. (2002), Mosse (1994, 1996, 1999) and Gorringe (2005).

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