Everyday Resistance or Routine Repression? Exaggeration as a Statagem in Agrarian Conflict

Abstract

In a deeply stratified rural society a good stratagem on the part of those in power is to exaggerate the shortcomings of the lower classes. Such exaggerations justify domination over, and the curtailment of respect for, the rural poor. James Scott misunderstands the disempowering nature of this stratagem and believes the exaggerated tales related by the rich about the poor. This is what leads Scott to romanticize these stories as 'everyday forms of resistance' by an empowered rural poor, and thus to ignore what such tales really are: sources of routine repression by the rich. Drawing on fieldwork in rural Uttar Pradesh, this article demonstrates how propertied classes systematically exaggerate the failings of poor peasants in order to justify the routine repression exercised over them.