Papers by Balmurli Natrajan
Routledge eBooks, Jul 13, 2022
1. Introduction 2. Artisans Part 1: Producing Identities 3. Culture 4. Community Part 2: Inequali... more 1. Introduction 2. Artisans Part 1: Producing Identities 3. Culture 4. Community Part 2: Inequalities 5. Reproduction 6. Multiculturalism
Routledge eBooks, Apr 25, 2023
Beef festivals are a dramatic and visible form of protest against the Indian government's ban on ... more Beef festivals are a dramatic and visible form of protest against the Indian government's ban on beef. These festivals are framed popularly as an assertion of Dalit 'cultural rights' and identity, with beef represented as the cultural food of Dalits. While it is clear that the beef ban is a casteist ban based on a Brahmanical food hierarchy, this paper explores the limits of resisting casteism through the assertion of caste-based cultural rights and identities, or as an assertion of an individual right to food choice. It argues that such a politics of resisting casteism runs into problems of the culturalization of caste, and limits the kinds of radical Dalit subjects and actors who could emerge as liberatory political subjects. The paper calls for reframing beef festivals as 'antagonistic' moments that articulate the degradation of Dalit labor in the politics of beef, reassert Dalit identity as an anti-caste identity rather than a cultural caste identity, and herald a politics of 'multiculturalism against caste'.
Journal of Anthropological Research, 2019
DECISION, 2019
This paper is a critical commentary on the organizational challenges for collectivization of dome... more This paper is a critical commentary on the organizational challenges for collectivization of domestic workers (DWs) who constitute a core part of India's informal economy. Building upon field research among DWs working in a mega-city and in multiple homes, we explore three challenges-the transformation of labor NGOs to 'unions,' the 'place' of the union and the 'place' of the worker in organizing DWs. While the first challenge deals with the form of the collective that best enables the transformation of subjectivity and consciousness of DWs from 'servant' to 'worker,' the latter two emerge from the structure of work of DWs-the fact that they are dispersed among multiple employers, and the possibilities offered by large apartment complexes for DW unions to work in concert with the state to guarantee worker rights.
Economic and Political Weekly, Jul 18, 2009
Encyclopedia of Social Problems
CASTE / A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, 2021
How does one write about a social institution and social relation that is constituted by violence... more How does one write about a social institution and social relation that is constituted by violence, but one that has become normalized in society such that the violence is viewed only in its dramatic expressions as an 'atrocity', an abnormality, an exception to its existence? How does one write about a social phenomenon whose end one wishes to see? How does one write about domination without making the victims into mute objects or free subjects? How does one write with a verve and tenor that conveys the urgency of a world desperately seeking change, while acknowledging the need to submit to analysis? Such questions demand writing that foregrounds accountability (who are our accounts of reality really for?) and perspectivism (from what location do we as writers speak?). Jebaroja Suganthy-Singh's book, Spotted Goddess: Dalit Women's Agency Narratives on Caste and Gender Violence deftly places such questions in the mind of a reader, by making them think about how caste, the institution and phenomenon in question above, would appear through the experiences of say, Chitra, a Dalit woman born into historically constructed conditions and identities of caste, gender, sexuality, class and religion that put her to work from the age of five in stone quarries owned by terrorizing caste groups self-aware of their own command over the social distribution of wealth, power, and status. Or, of Rani, a Dalit mother whose questioning of a patently unjust practice of 'two-tumblers' (a cultural practice of segregating and stigmatizing Dalits at roadside tea-stalls by
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2021
This paper views Hindutva hegemony in India today as authoritarian populism. Its focus is Hindutv... more This paper views Hindutva hegemony in India today as authoritarian populism. Its focus is Hindutva’s cultural-ideological work to make “peoples” by “fixing” meanings around socially constructed ide...
1. Introduction 2. Artisans Part 1: Producing Identities 3. Culture 4. Community Part 2: Inequali... more 1. Introduction 2. Artisans Part 1: Producing Identities 3. Culture 4. Community Part 2: Inequalities 5. Reproduction 6. Multiculturalism
Two comments on the essays by Sundar Sarukkai and Gopal Guru on the sense of touch underlying “un... more Two comments on the essays by Sundar Sarukkai and Gopal Guru on the sense of touch underlying “untouchability” (EPW, 12 September 2009). In two tightly knit essays by Sundar Sarukkai and Gopal Guru (EPW, 12 September 2009), the case for how caste exists (as “untouchability”) and carries forward its essence (a metaphysics of body based on the sense of “touch”) has been strongly made using methods of phenomenology and Foucauldian archaeology not conventionally used for the study of untouchability. In this essay, I briefly assess the utility of the above approaches to untouchability, and then suggest two ways that the focus on touch only captures the workings of caste and untouchability in limited ways.
Balmurli Natrajan ([email protected]) is an anthropologist at William Paterson University of Ne... more Balmurli Natrajan ([email protected]) is an anthropologist at William Paterson University of New Jersey, United States. Suraj Jacob ([email protected]) is a political economist at Vidya Bhawan, Udaipur. Both are also visiting faculty, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Large-scale survey data are used to question the most public claims about food habits in India. It is found that the extent of overall vegetarianism is much less—and the extent of overall beef-eating much more—than suggested by common claims and stereotypes. The generalised characterisations of “India” are deepened by showing the immense variation of food habits across scale, space, group, class, and gender. Additionally, it is argued that the existence of considerable intra-group variation in almost every social group (caste, religious) makes essentialised group identities based on food practices deeply problematic. Finally, in a social climate where claims about food practices rationalise violence, cultural–p...
Fieldwork was made possible through a grant from Azim Premji University. Fieldwork data collectio... more Fieldwork was made possible through a grant from Azim Premji University. Fieldwork data collection was done by Indira Patil as part of a research project at Azim Premji University. We thank Azim Premji Foundation (Yadgir District Institute) for facilitating the fi eldwork. We also thank Umashankar Periodi, Giridhara Vaidya, Krishnayya T, Rudresh S, Devaraj Kodabala and Suresh Goudar for their assistance during the fi eldwork, and Bhavyashree Jain, Fathima Begum, Annapoorna, Asha and Shruti for conducting the survey. Above all, we thank all the villagers of Chennooru, Valasooru and Banadooru for welcoming us and sharing their experiences. A longer version of this paper is available upon request.
There is now a lot of debate about the possibility of political solidarities across the dalit/ no... more There is now a lot of debate about the possibility of political solidarities across the dalit/ non-dalit divide. This debate has layered on to the earlier one about the possibility of solidarities between the dalit and Left movements and the reasons for their failure. This article, using Anand Patwardhan’s fi lm, Jai Bhim Comrade, as a point of entry into this debate, is an attempt to fi nd spaces for a political praxis which may allow for such solidarities to emerge and succeed, where others have failed. I strongly believe that what “progressive upper caste people” should do is work among themselves...making their communities aware of caste realities, change the thinking of their own communities and highlight casteist behaviour of their own communities towards dalits. – Pradeep Attri (2012)
Poor sanitation poses problems for health and policy. Sanitation policy has traditionally address... more Poor sanitation poses problems for health and policy. Sanitation policy has traditionally addressed open defecation (OD) by constructing toilets. However, a puzzle remains: in many parts of the developing world, why do people continue with OD despite toilets being built for them? While extant research is insightful, an empirical, socially driven explanation for ‘sanitation behaviour’ is still elusive. We advance such an explanation based upon fieldwork in central India where the state has built private toilets for villagers. Drawing upon and modifying pragmatic and analytic approaches in sociology and anthropology, we analyse ethnographic examples of individual toilet behaviour to present a social mechanism that explains toilet use (TU) as an emergent social practice resulting from a chain of ‘problem situations’ experienced by villagers. We find that coercive methods deployed by the state as part of toilet and sanitation policy do not produce durable TU habits, and that good qualit...
This article argues that certain representations of protests ideologically aid the hegemonic proj... more This article argues that certain representations of protests ideologically aid the hegemonic project of globalization. Using Merquior’s distinction between ideology as mask and veil, it considers, first, the question of how consent to globalization’s power is produced even within non-benefiting groups, and next, the related question of how and why some intellectuals produce ideological representations. It answers the first question by discussing the typical frameworks that represent protests against globalization as irrational, immoral, unnecessary, or non-existent, thus masking power and sectional interests. It answers the second through an examination of John Tomlinson’s argument against ‘cultural imperialism’ and claims for ‘cultural loss’ as the real meaning of protests, and argues that the concept of ‘culture’ operates in his arguments in a peculiar way to veil protests. Finally, this article makes a claim for the continued relevance of the term ‘cultural imperialism’ to accoun...
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that you mayest bring forth my people the ... more Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that you mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.-Holy Bible Exodus 3:10 Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.-Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, Text 66. Both the above guotes enjoin complete loyalty to God. They are conveying similar meanings to very different peoples, at very different times, with very different traditions. I grew up with the latter tradition and I bring this with me into this journey, albeit only as a spectator. I set out in the summer of 1992, to meet the cultural "other," and after two months of wandering, I found my way to the doorsteps of the Church of Sweet Jesus 1. At that time, I felt a good opportunity had come my way after much hard work. Now, eight months later, as I write this thesis, I feel less egocentric. Maybe it was the musical magic to which I was unconsciously drawn, or maybe it was God who brought me to His home-a 1 The real name of this church has been changed in order to protect the confidentiality of the church members. This church is situated in what is usually referred to as the inner-city. The names of the informants and other church members have also been changed for the same reason.
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Papers by Balmurli Natrajan