Copyright by Indulata Prasad May 2016
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Copyright by Indulata Prasad May 2016 THE DISSERTATION COMMITTEE FOR INDULATA PRASAD CERTIFIES THAT THIS IS THE APPROVED VERSION OF THE FOLLOWING DISSERTATION: LAND REDISTRIBUTION AND DALIT ASSERTION: MAPPING SOCIAL CHANGE IN GAYA, BIHAR, INDIA Committee: Charles R. Hale, Supervisor Kamala Visweswaran, Co-Supervisor Sharmila Rudrappa Shannon Speed João H. Costa Vargas Maria Franklin LAND REDISTRIBUTION AND DALIT ASSERTION: MAPPING SOCIAL CHANGE IN GAYA, BIHAR BY INDULATA PRASAD, P.G.D.; M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN MAY 2016 DEDICATION To my parents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation marks the culmination of a long and eventful journey and I want to thank everyone who has been a part of it. My deepest gratitude to my teacher, mentor and guide, Kamala Visweswaran, who has been very supportive of my work. I thank her for her immense patience in letting me “arrive” at my key arguments, interventions and conclusion. Without her consistent help, guidance and support, this dissertation would not have been possible. I thank Sharmila Rudrappa for her encouragement throughout the research process. I greatly benefitted from her advice that helped me identify and articulate some of the key concepts and intervention of my research. I thank Charlie Hale for his unconditional support and patience, particularly, towards the end of the writing phase that was critical to finishing the dissertation in a timely manner. I thank Shannon Speed, João Vargas, for their comments and feedback on this dissertation. I owe much to Maria Fraklin, Ted Gordon, Kamran Ali, Kaushik Ghosh, Indrani Chatterjee, Snehal Singhavi and Azfar Moin for their motivation, encouragement and intellectual prodding that helped me overcome thought paralysis. At University of Texas, Austin many special thanks to Mubbahshir Rizvi and Alia Hasan Khan, Noor and Ali baba for making graduate school appear doable with my then 18-month old in tow. Special thanks to Noman Baig, Nikki Martere, Raja Swamy, Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Hisyar Ozsoy, Halide Velioglu, Omer Ozcan, Diya Mehra, v Mohan Ambikaipaker, Luciane Rocha, Hafeez Jamali, Claudia Chavez, Jaime Alves, Tathagatan Ravindran, Jogendro Kshetrimayun, Abdul Haq Chang, Faiza Moin and the several others may not have been mentioned here, for their warmth and friendship and making the graduate work experience rewarding. My friends in Bay Area, my fall back people— Pei Wu, Jess Diliberto and Laura Rivas, for reading the multiple rough drafts on short notice and for just being there. My special thanks to Elvia— getting the first draft out was most difficult part of this process and it could not have been achieved without your support. In India, my greatest debt and gratitude is to the people who welcomed me in their homes and lives and allowed me to be the part of their worlds. Although I cannot name some for obvious reasons, I want to express my special thanks to Kailash Bharti and Banarsi Alam, Arvind Anjum, Fr. Jose, Kaushal Ganesh Azad, Kanak Srinivas, Poonam, Chetna Gala, Bada Karu, Urmila Karn, Ashok Manav, and Rupesh ji, Fr. Manthara and Fr. Anto. In Patna, I am grateful to Professor D.M. Diwakar, Director, A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Sciences, Professor M.N. Karna, Professor Daisy Narayan and Professor Vinay Kantha for their support in facilitating the fieldwork process. Special thanks to C.A. Priyadarshi for sharing his invaluable collection of articles and books on the struggle and his experience and analysis of Bodhgaya land struggle. vi I thank the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) for the generous grant that allowed me to focus on the fieldwork without any distractions and complete it in a time bound manner. A summer grant from the South Asia Institute at UT Austin allowed me to conduct the initial research for this project. I am indebted to my parents, Kunti and Shashi Bhushan Prasad, who are the motivation behind my ability to undertake and complete this project. I specially thank my Dad, who very early on taught me the importance of stories. I owe much to my sisters: Sunny Sinha and Priyanka Prasad for making this journey possible. I thank my late grandfather Tirath Prasad Roy who passed away during my course of this doctoral journey and my grandmother Bhagirathi Roy. This achievement of mine would have meant a great deal to them. I thank my in-laws, Munni and S.S. Shrivastava, Meenu and Ajay Shrivastava for their unconditional support and encouragement. Lekha, my daughter, my fieldwork companion surprised me by taking on village life with such ease and comfort. I owe much to her for keeping me on track. Finally, I thank Aviral, my spouse, formidable ally and my best friend. I hope in this dissertation you find reasons that make our difficult years, worthwhile. vii LAND REDISTRIBUTION AND DALIT ASSERTION: MAPPING SOCIAL CHANGE IN GAYA, BIHAR Indulata Prasad, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisors: Kamala Visweswaran & Charles R. Hale This dissertation uses social mapping in conjunction with ethnography to undertake a spatial analysis of the long-term effects of legal rights to redistributed land among Dalit communities in Bihar to reframe what land means to these communities and how it has transformed their immediate social landscape and subjectivities. It does so by assessing questions undergirding the long-term impact of the Bodh Gaya land struggle that for the first time in the history of social movements in South Asia resulted in primarily Dalit women securing joint land titles along with their husbands. How has ownership of redistributed land shaped Dalit subjectivities in rural South Bihar? What do the altered material and social conditions of Dalits tell us about the claims made by land- based social movements and the State? How have acquiring productive assets for Dalits, a historically marginalized population, altered what is referred to as the ‘hidden apartheid’ in rural India? In answering these questions, attention to social space is crucial, as little attention has been paid to the ways in which rural spatial segregation within the viii village re-inscribes caste on a daily basis. First, the ownership of redistributed land has allowed for the emergence of a “politics of becoming” that actively opposes practices that perpetuate the social exclusion of Dalits. Through the actual control (kabza) over state owned land, previously under the control of the landed castes/elites, Dalits are effectively undermining the century old practices of kamiauti or servitude in the region and questioning old forms of caste mediated and gender relationships. Second, despite the mainstreaming of gender and land rights issues, the state bureaucracy continues to act as ‘machines for the social production of indifference’ toward the Dalit community. The ‘bureaucratic phase’ of the land struggle is characterized by prolonged inaction that has worked to not only intensify Dalit social suffering, but also has jeopardized the viability of peaceful forms of mobilization and resistance. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Contesting Scape(s): Shifts in the dynamics of land, caste & gender in Bodh Gaya, Bihar ..........................................................................................52 Chapter 2: Contesting Erasure? Dalit narratives of a tenuous Struggle for ‘kabza’ over redistributed land, in Gaya, Bihar .................................................................85 Chapter 3: Dalit ‘Kabza’ over land: Praxis for undermining social exclusion in rural Bihar ............................................................................................................128 Chapter 4: Contested hierarchies? Dalit assertion over land redefine space/place154 Chapter 6: Contested Belonging? Mapping contemporary politics of Dalit becoming .....................................................................................................................190 Bibliography ........................................................................................................224 x INTRODUCTION My initial interest in the Bodhgaya land struggle of the late 1970s was driven by two main reasons: first, it took place in Bihar, and second, women, in particular, Dalits1 (Ex-Untouchables), actively took part in the land struggle and successfully secured rights to redistributed agricultural land. These two key aspects of the Bodhgaya land struggle seemed very implausible at first and the discovery was a pleasant surprise for someone who self-identified as a Bihari. The implausibility was informed by an intimate understanding of the popular perception of Bihar in the national imagination and the secondary status of women in India when it comes to owning agricultural land. The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 —amended only as recently as 2005—attempted to do away with gendered bias when it came to inheriting residential property and agricultural land.2 Research meant to end with a paper I wrote for my Master’s seminar class, therefore, ended up becoming the subject of inquiry of my doctoral study, as I wanted to document how procuring legal titles to land had, due to the Bodhgaya struggle, fundamentally altered women, and in particular, Dalit subjectivities, as well as 1 Dalit literally meaning, “broken”