Towards a Horticultural Society: Class, Caste and Masculinities in Rural Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

India has seen a deceleration in the area and yield growth rates of many food and cash crops since the 1990s. The area and production of horticulture has, however, grown impressively in the post-liberalization period. This paper is a case study of this “restructuring” in a semi-arid village in Andhra Pradesh from a longue duree perspective. It suggests that horticulture has enabled a small class of pioneering Reddy farmers and some Kuruba farmers (a local “Backward Caste”)—who have better access to groundwater—to reinforce their economic position in the village. But a majority of small OBC dry-land farmers, the late-coming aspirants, are being excluded from horticulture due to the ruinous cost of groundwater. The paper contends that by recreating established idioms of aggressive masculinity, the aspiring OBC horticulturists construe horticulture as an arena in which to perform as virile, risk-taking “new farmers” to transact honor with other horticulturists and dry-land farmers within and across castes.