‘Musahar’, in Uttar Pradesh: A Caste Searching for its Identity in Contemporary India

Abstract

Caste-class nexus, a discourse which never gets old in a highly stratified country like India. Within every level of stratification, a dominant caste had formed its class and a mechanism for discrimination within caste and social groups. From the 1950s onwards in India, voting and identity politics played a crucial role in the strong caste-class phenomenon. This discourse had forced some caste groups to remain at the bottom of the hierarchy, and one such caste is Musahar. They are one of the most discriminated social groups, a marginalised dalit caste, (dalit among dalits), officially ex-untouchables, sufferers of extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition and commonly known by the name ‘Musa-har’, which means rat-eaters, they are primarily found in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Among the dalit fold, they are at the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy mostly agricultural labourers. This article is an ethnographic study conducted in four villages in Jaunpur district. This article will be focused on the sociopolitical and cultural aspects of the Musahar in their day-to-day lives. A section of this article is dedicated to the identity crisis among Musahar castes occurring as a result of their lower sociopolitical position in the caste hierarchy. After the pandemic, the socioeconomic status of Musahar is more deteriorated due to the unavailability of essential services in their locality, and a section of this article assessed the implementation of government policies before and after the pandemic.