Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India. By Bhrigupati Singh

Abstract

Poverty and the Quest for Life is Bhrigupati Singh’s presentation of life in Shahabad, a region of southeastern Rajasthan, India. The author begins by providing elements of his own background and then that of the area and focus of his research. This allows the reader to contextualize both, which is key to understanding what is written. Quite early in the text, Singh reminds us that the academic understanding of India has limitations that can become obstacles when seeking to perceive life as experienced by those who are living it. To assist in overcoming these obstacles, Singh provides a concept of learning and labeling that he seems to have used well throughout his work: Education often involves undoing the conventional wisdom we had previously learned. As one mode of this undoing, anthropology turns more intensely to this world. This is not necessarily a process of moving from an outsider’s first impressions to “native” interpretations, since what is native may be disputed. These disputes are not resolved simply by gathering a multiplicity of perspectives, since we inescapably affirm or deny the value of particular perspectives. To agree or disagree, we need context. Yet what the context is, is also open to dispute, even in as seemingly basic a matter as the classification of the social groups that inhabit the world we approach. For instance, in the chapters ahead I do not use the term adivasi (original inhabitant/tribal) or dalit (outcaste/oppressed), although the people I write about could very well be defined as such. In contemporary South Asian politics and scholarship, these terms carry heated political intensities. (18-19)