Lower Castes Research Articles

NISTA MARRIAGE PRACTICES AT THE LOWEST MARRIAGE LEVEL URF PERSPECTIVE IN PEGAYAMAN SUKASADA VILLAGE, BULELENG, BALI

The research method used in this research is qualitative research, a descriptive study type. The researcher uses qualitative research methods to obtain, study, and understand the phenomenon through in-depth data regarding the community's perspective on the practice of nista marriages in Pegayaman Village, Sukasada, Buleleng, Bali. This type of research uses descriptive research to explain and examine the phenomenon of nista marriages in Pegayaman Village from an 'Urf perspective. The researcher's data collection techniques are observation, documentation and interviews with informants from three categories, including other key informants from local community leaders, primary informants who are residents, and complementary informants who are migrants who live in the village and work in the village office. People in Bali use levels as identities according to their position, especially the Hindu population, which starts from the highest Brahmana, Ksatria, Waisya, and Sudra, the lowest caste. In contrast to the community in Pegayaman, where the majority of the population is Muslim, the level is implemented within the scope of marriage. Local traditions, empowerment, and community perceptions regarding nista marriages are the benchmarks for researchers analysing ancestral heritage from an Urf perspective. Binary opposition is used to explore the relationship between Islamic teachings and ancestral cultural heritage. The existence of 'Urf about Islamic teachings is the basis for the empirical facts of nista marriages in Pegayaman village. In studying the data obtained by researchers regarding slanderous marriages from the perspective of 'urf, it is limited to 'urf fasid, namely in nista marriages as the lowest level of marriage, which is contrary to the law and enriches the elements of family formation.

Can Digital Skills Empower Disadvantaged Castes and Women? Evidence From India

How do digital skills influence individuals’ wages in contexts where caste-based and gender-based social stratification play an important role? We draw on sociology and economics literature to argue that the returns to digital skills in such contexts are shaped by caste and gender, and that digital skills empower disadvantaged individuals to increase their wages. Our empirical analysis of a rich micro-dataset on more than 20,000 individuals across all states in India from two waves of Indian Human Development Survey in 2005 and 2011 yields two key findings. First, we find that the positive returns to digital skills are greater for individuals from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India than for individuals from other castes. Second, we find that the returns to digital skills are greater for women than for men. We also find that movement up the skilled occupation ladder is a mechanism that mediates the relationship between digital skills and wages. Our post hoc exploratory analyses suggest that among individuals from the lowest castes (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes), the returns to digital skills are greater for women than for men, and that returns to digital skills are lower in regions with less developed infrastructure and lower literacy rates than in other regions. We discuss the implications of our findings for diversity, equity, and inclusion research in operations management.

Learning sustainability at the Barefoot College: local and global community values in action

This article investigates learning sustainability at the Barefoot College, identifying potential replicability and relevance for other contexts.BackgroundGovernment statistics in India, suggest that some 32 million children have no access to education, especially in rural areas. Despite initiatives, 80% mainly from lower castes and deprived backgrounds, have never attended school. Operating across many villages, the ‘Barefoot College’ (BFC) is a mature non-government organisation (NGO) centred on Tilonia, in Northern Rajasthan. Here, poverty is so extreme that children can be sold into textile factories because parents cannot afford to feed them. However, skills learned at BFC such as conserving fossil fuels and water, how to vote, literacy and health practices, improve local lives immeasurably and benefit the planet. The research question (RQ) examines the key characteristics and impact of learning sustainability in this environment. The lead author was astonished by the depth and beauty of how teachings of semi-literate women, teachers and children have generated a living, breathing sustainable community.MethodThis research used an education case study methodology comprising multiple nested cases. Narratives of three key BFC project cases, the solar panel mamas, the Barefoot health and social workers and the children’s Night Schools, contextualise participant interviews that enable individual voices and experiences to emerge. Strategies aligned with a feminist standpoint approach enhance rigour and trustworthiness, systematically comparing qualitative data initiated in 2012 across semi-structured interviews, observations, and photographs. We found two key themes: dealing with on-the-ground inequality and practices of teaching and learning, together with five subthemes. These are in turn examined within a global sustainability-based framework to evaluate and characterise of BFC learning sustainability and sustainable leadership.ResultsThe research finds that learning sustainability at BFC contains novel key elements that are scalable and transferable. Meticulous joined-up-thinking underpins the BFC projects. Participants’ words confirm local and global relevance. Mapping learning sustainability in practice confirms individual self-actualisation and community agency through transformative education with impact. Individual and organisational adaptability are evidenced through individuals’ transformation into community leaders.ConclusionThe Global North has a lot to learn from the BFC, where learning sustainability is deeply embedded in belonging to the community. Bottom-up leadership through active participation and democracy empowers all community members, instilling pride in the Barefoot ethos. In this difficult environment, locally rooted projects nurture the ecological commons including rainwater harvesting and reducing fossil fuels. Projects enable traditions and clean technologies to flourish, whilst strengthening individual and community belonging and identity.

Constraints Faced by the Tribal Goat Farmers of Kandhamal District in Odisha, India

Constraints Faced by the Tribal Goat Farmers of Kandhamal District in Odisha, India

Health Beliefs and Practices Among Subaltern Women: An Ethnographic Account From Rural Telangana, India

Apart from biological factors, social determinants play a major role in shaping health beliefs and paving the way for various behaviours. Subaltern women, being the lowest strata of the caste hierarchy, have additional barriers to accessing modern healthcare and may be more likely to experience poor health outcomes due to a combination of social, economic and cultural factors. Structural violence represents a dynamic process that impedes an individual’s social, economic and biological potential, affecting both socially excluded, economically disadvantaged and historically marginalized subaltern communities. Social justice significantly influences individuals’ life prospects and health outcomes, with health disparities stemming from social disadvantage and inequality. Addressing disparities in health, the Health Gap underscores the importance of acknowledging the role of social determinants of health. Health equity entails enhancing the well-being of marginalized social groups and tackling the broader social determinants of health. The current qualitative study was conducted in three villages in the Nalgonda district of Telangana, India. In addition to focus group discussions and one-on-one interviews, the ethnography method was employed to capture subaltern women’s health beliefs and practices regarding food habits, puberty, menstruation, sexuality and sexual life, childbearing and childbirth, breastfeeding and the role of primary healthcare centres in promoting healthcare. Subaltern women experience double discrimination as members of a lower caste and a weaker gender, and access to healthcare, like other fundamental human rights, is a recurring issue. Many of them are impoverished and unable to afford contemporary medical care, forcing them to rely on the more cost-effective traditional model of healthcare. Despite being forbidden from accomplishing many things owing to a range of societal and age-old customary sanctions, modernization and state-owned institutional mechanisms are bringing about a good shift towards better health.

Prevalence of Chronic Energy Deficiency and its Socio-Demographic Correlates among Ethnic Adult Population of Punjab, India

Introduction: Chronic Energy Deficiency is a condition characterized by a long-term insufficient intake of calories and/or nutrients relative to a person’s energy expenditure, leading to a negative energy balance. It is typically associated with inadequate nutrition and can result in various health issues.Objectives: 1) To find out prevalence of CED in ethnic Punjabi population. 2) To determine the sociodemographic factors affecting CED the study subjects.Materials & Methods: The study was a cross sectional study using simple random sampling technique. Taking the prevalence of CED as 30%, sample size came out to be 336, but for ease of convenience, 400 subjects were selected.Results: The study subjects comprised of 183 males and 217 females and there were 24 cases of CED in males and 52 in females. Maximum cases of CED were found in the age group of 20-29 years, in lower castes and low-income groups and in illiterates.Conclusion: According to this study, maximum number of CED was found in the age group of 20-29 years.Prevalence was significantly higher in females than males and its was maximum in lower castes at 35.8%. In lower income group and in the illiterate group, it was maximum and the results were statistically significant.

Uniform as Assertion: The Politics of Caste Reservation in Colonial and Post-colonial Armed Forces of India (1930–2020)

Recruitment of lower and middle castes remained a much-debated topic in Indian electoral politics till now. On the one hand, there was intense political debate between various castes, and on the other, there was judicial and administrative debate about social justice. Even though Ambedkar tried to use it as a method of social justice and state-sponsored social alleviation, because of its connection to identity politics, it quickly became a matter of electoral mobilization. Various parties that were attempting to win over various communities with their call for military recruitment eventually strayed from the real motivation behind that Ambedkarian demand. Lastly, since the turn of the twentieth century, the new political rhetoric of Hindutva has intriguingly transformed this call for military recruitment into a different cause. This article discusses how the demand for the Chamar Regiment and the Ahir Regiment in particular became the focal point of this debate for nearly a century.

Caste, gig-economy, and youth: the resurgence of a new age caste politics in urban Gujarat

ABSTRACT This article interrogates the connections between caste and gig economy, and how these connections play out in the political actions by youth in the erstwhile mill-neighbourhoods in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat. It asks, how do the gig-economy workers from the lower castes navigate in the highly caste segregated urban spaces of Ahmedabad? What drives them to join their own caste collectives while looking for gig work in the city? The article explains through ethnographic inquiries that while the recent emergence of the gig economy provides the young jobseekers from the lower castes an escape route from the caste-based occupations in the rural, their caste identities are strategically masked and highlighted in informing their choices, political aspirations and economic anxieties while navigating in the urban. The unpredictable and uncertain nature of the contractual work consolidates caste and kinship networks to get work and information about available work in the urban gig economy. This in turn facilitates a renewed political activism of the youth in the urban neighbourhoods that strengthens caste politics in the region.

Caste Differences in Child Growth: Disentangling Endowment and Investment Effects

Using the fourth round of the Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), and subsequently replicating our results using the fifth round (NFHS-5), we document differential child physical growth patterns across caste groups in India, demonstrating that lower caste children are born shorter and grow less quickly than children from higher-caste households. We then show that, in line with work from previous rounds of the NFHS, these differences are largely explainable by observable covariates, particularly maternal characteristics and household wealth variables. Our research also reveals a previously undocumented dynamic, that the influence of these variables changes as children develop, and suggests that caste-gaps are the result of multiple mechanisms impacting the child growth process at different stages of development. Using age-disaggregated decomposition methods, we demonstrate that health endowment related variables (e.g. maternal height) largely explain birth length gaps, and that variables related to health investments (e.g. household wealth, health care usage) become increasingly influential as children age. Children from lower caste households thus face two margins generating height gaps as they age: a persistent endowment disparity present from birth, and a post birth investment differential that exacerbates the initial deficit.

A View of Social Justice and Exploitation by Mulk Raj Anand in the Light of Gandhian Thought

Indian author of English literature Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was known for his portrayal of the lower castes in traditional Indian culture. Along with R. K. Narayan, Ahmad Ali, and Raja Rao, he was one of the first India-based authors in English to attain a global audience, making him a pioneer of Indo-Anglian fiction. Anand's books and short tales are considered contemporary Indian English literary classics due to their insightful depiction of downtrodden people and thoughtful examination of poverty, exploitation, and disaster.

A Discourse Analysis on Workplace with Hymes 'Speaking Model' Between Owner and Staff In Puri Itoma Corporate kuta Lombok: A study on Ethnography of communication

Ethnography in general is communication in society. Ethnography of communication combines ethnography, description and structural and functional analysis of society and culture, and linguistics of cultural behavior that guides and helps share knowledge, art, morals, beliefs, and everything that people acquire as members of society. Communication Ethnography is an approach to understanding society and culture and reconstructing this ethnic group, especially society in general. Discourse is also very often used in communication in society, at work, offices, schools and public places, both formally and informally. Discourse in English is called discourse and is defined as expression in communicative interaction. Speech events are based on eight speech components. Hymes summarizes these components with the acronym SPEAKING. Ethnography of communication in this discussion refers to the use of language in certain community groups. A smile means, for example, eight components of speech: (1) Setting and scene, (2) Participants, (3) Ending, (4) Sequential action, (5) Key, (6) Instrument, (7) Interaction norms, and (8) Flow. This study shows that the main focus of workplace research is a professional workplace and the ability to express oneself calmly at work. However, as stated in this review article, there are several interesting studies regarding the topic of communication in workplace briefings, for example using relaxed language but still targeting different jobs and power or positions, different nationalities, even different cultures. but still respectful. with each other between the owner and sales marketing staff, as in the discussion above. Another potential growth area is the study of multilingual conversation patterns in the workplace and communication norms at press conferences. Recent research in this area explores the importance of ideology and effectiveness in multilingual communication in the workplace. The research clearly shows the importance of communication ethnography, namely the dense interaction of participants. High network density is essential. This research describes communication competence. each participant is considered to have expressed his opinion. All statements from the meeting created strong communication between the three members. At the same time, it can be assumed that the participants are owners and sellers who have long established close relations, even quite proper, relaxed, clear and concise cooperation. So, their level of cognition deserves thumbs up. Another important thing is to create clear communication in the office space. Another achievement is that Participant 2 is a sales marketer from Germany who is able to adapt to the work environment and belongs to a lower caste. But it shows the same thing as the relevant statement. However, external participants, despite coming from upper caste strata, gave conflicting statements. Even though people from different castes always try to fulfill their demands or desires in conversation.

Mata Ni Pachedi: Tales of the goddess on textiles from Gujrat, India

India is a land of vibrant culture and heritage. It is home to many diversified craft techniques, most of which have been intensely investigated, recorded, diversified and revived, while a few have languished. This work reflects the origins and process of the Indian craft Mata Ni Pachedi, which means ‘behind the mother goddess’ and is a cloth that constitutes a temple of the goddess. The original creator of Mata Ni Pachedi is the nomadic Vaghari community from Gujarat, the members of which lived along the banks of the Sabarmati River and worshipped the mother goddess in all her forms. The community created these textiles as an ode to the goddess, as sacred wall art pieces that enabled them to worship the goddess when they could not enter temples due to their low caste. Mata Ni Pachedi is a unique textile that has survived modern-day clothing techniques using natural dyes and simple block printing techniques, exploring different forms of gods and goddesses on cloth. Those in the rural community of Gujrat still worship their goddess on a piece of fabric during the festival of Navratri, in March and September. This research aims to investigate and catalogue the evolution, consumption pattern, production process and present-day scenario of the Mata Ni Pachedi craft to aid and sustain its survival and establish its context in contemporary times.

Examining toilet use and menstrual hygiene practices among beneficiary households of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Clean India Mission) in rural areas of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, India.

Basic sanitation and waste management have always remained a central issue in India. The country launched its flagship sanitation program - Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) (Clean India Mission) in 2014 to abolish open defecation and achieve universal sanitation coverage. This study aimed to examine barriers to toilet use and women's menstrual hygiene practices in relation to the availability of toilets among rural residents. Using a cross-sectional design and multi-stage sampling method, 120 households were selected from rural villages of the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Structured questionnaires and direct observation methods were used for data collection. All the houses had SBA latrines, yet 25% population defecated outside. About 40% households reportedly never cleaned their toilets. Most menstruating women (86.2%) preferred to change their menstrual pads/cloths in their bedroom instead of bathrooms. Incomplete construction was reported as the major reason for not using toilets. Large family size and low caste were found to be other predictors of non-use of toilets. Rural women did not use toilets for menstrual purposes as they do not consider these places as clean and safe. This study clearly suggests that constructing toilets without adequate behaviour change interventions would not solve the problem of hygiene and sanitation in India, particularly in rural areas. There must be adequate monitoring of SBA scheme and utilization of funds for toilet usage. Development and implementation of suitable behaviour change strategies for toilet use in rural areas are essential to achieve the goal of open defaecation-free India.

Reproductive Justice in the Hindu Balinese Compound: Community, Property and Development

Building communities is one way to limit inequality in the global development process. In Indonesia, that principle can best be illustrated in the Hindu Balinese compound. But does discrimination against women, especially those of lower class and caste, fundamentally undermine the community? Feminists contend so, but what is the nature of the pressure on Balinese women? Why is this experienced? How could this discrimination be resolved? Drawing on a wider intersectional feminism, primary data from 72 people and thematic analysis, it seems both the reproductive and property rights of Balinese women are constrained. But ordinary Balinese women, activists, and intellectuals do not share the Western feminist case of dismantling communities for individual human rights. Instead, Balinese people largely advocate Hindu community alternatives, at the heart of which is strengthening the institution of ‘nyentana’. This alternative helps to decolonize “gender,” and reproductive justice, while putting the case for studying social economics a bit more in development studies.

Power and Inequality in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights novel was written by Emily Bronte. It was published by T.C. Newby in 1947.Wuthering Heights was a famous novel from the Victorian era. The novel’s story telling method was innovative in that time. The novel is filled with love, revenge, nature, social class and passion. Super natural elements also present in this novel. The plot follows Earnshaws who lived in Wuthering Heights and Lintons who lived in Thrushcross Grange, respectively. Mr. Earnshaw had two children, Catherine and Hindly, and adopted Heathcliff as his own. Hindly illtreats the gothic protagonist Heathcliff. Catherine and Heathcliff fell in love but the family refused to marry due to his lower caste status. The vital theme of this novel is power and inequality. The tale concludes with Heathcliff exacting his retribution on the next generation of the two families. Nelly, Heathcliff’s servant, witnessed the story silently throughout the entire novel.

Book Review: “Chasing Dignity”

Rachhpal Sahota’s novel Chasing Dignity is a compelling narrative, set in the 1980s and ‘90s in Punjab, India, tracing the many twists and turns in the life of a low caste boy, Jaggi. The Indian caste system is a social stratification system characterized by hereditary status and endogamy, enforcing crippling social barriers for those on the lower end of that spectrum. Bound by this rigid system of social hierarchy, Jaggi, a Keera, faces many hurdles as he sets out on his pursuit of a successful life. In the story, his mother Bindo, and his friends, Navi and Rani, serve as catalysts on this journey.

Self-Arranged Marriages in India: Change Amidst Sociocultural Underpinnings and Hanging Norms

In self-arranged marriages, individuals choose their partners themselves, whereas in arranged and jointly-arranged marriages the decision is taken by parents and kin or jointly with the couples. Although the majority of Indian marriages are arranged, among younger cohorts, self-arranged marriages are increasing. Using the IHDS 2011–2012 data, we adopt a multivariate multilevel approach to explore the association of self-­arranged marriage with various socioeconomic, cultural, and regional factors. We find that the likelihood of self-arranged marriages increases with higher educated parents, especially parents-in-law; among higher and lower castes exhibiting a U-shaped association with caste hierarchy; and by living in less conservative regions. Findings imply that although marriage norms are transforming in India, it is not uniform, and sociocultural barriers are prevalent, thus, slowing down the pace.

Social identity and learning: Adult literacy program in India

The paper examines the effect of social identity on adult learning within a hierarchical social setting— an important yet often understudied issue for effective adult education. We leverage the random matching of students and teachers from a randomized controlled experiment in India, where illiterate adult female learners aged 18–45 were randomly assigned to a literacy program. We find a positive and significant impact of matching an upper caste teacher with a lower caste adult student on literacy scores. We also find suggestive evidence of an increase in students' confidence measures when matched with an upper caste teacher, indicating a plausible impact mechanism. Our findings highlight the need for future research on social identity and its influence on adult learning, particularly in countries with existing deep-rooted hierarchical social constructs.

Gendering Inter-caste Marriages: A Sociological and Anthropological Inquiry of Endogamy

In Indian society, caste and gender are not mutually exclusive constructs. They coexist and are inseparable. India’s meteoric rise to becoming a nation least safe for women as Thomas Reuters reported in 2018, has its origins not only in patriarchy but also in casteism. This is most clearly visible with reference to the phenomenon of inter-caste marriages in India and the resulting perpetuation of atrocities on the inter-caste couple, and women have been the worst sufferers of this, since it is women’s bodies that has, since time immemorial, been the site of violence and discrimination. This can be corroborated by the fact that while Hindu scriptures has institutionalized inter-caste marriages, to a limited extent, by allowing anuloma marriages, it, in no way, allows for a pratiloma union. The anuloma marriages permit an alliance between a lower caste woman and a higher caste man, while the pratiloma form of marriage is an alliance between a higher caste woman and a lower caste man. The former is referred to as hypergamy and the latter as hypogamy. Thus, while caste discrimination and violence against women as distinct forms of oppression has garnered much attention, little sociological and anthropological research in the area of inter-caste marriage and its implications on women within the framework of religio-cultural, anthropological and sociological discourse, has come to the surface. The article focuses on fundamental prerequisites for a wholehearted acceptance of intermarriage.

Conceptualizing the Paradigm Shift from Prosocial Communism to Violent Communism and Pogroms of Dalits to Adivasi Guerrillas in India: A Systematic Literature Review

In India, the violent communist movement encompasses 70 districts of 10 states with substantial support from the marginalized people with arms in their hands. Why does the transformation process from a communist political party to violent communism take place in India? How does communism in its violent form still survive in India? These questions are addressed by reviewing the literature on the left-wing extremist movement in India from 2005 to 2022. It is found that the violent version of communism has largely succeeded in the domain of suppressing caste-based exploitations of the landless lower castes and gaining support from the indigenous tribes on land and forest-related issues. Therefore, the destination of communism in India is an important eventuality to study its survival strategies, diverse forms and processes.