Transformations of Gender and Caste Divisions of Labor in Rural Nepal: Land, Hierarchy, and the Case of Untouchable Women Author(S): Mary M

Transformations of Gender and Caste Divisions of Labor in Rural Nepal: Land, Hierarchy, and the Case of Untouchable Women Author(s): Mary M. Cameron Source: Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 215-246 Published by: University of New Mexico Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3630359 Accessed: 14/07/2009 11:46

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http://www.jstor.org TRANSFORMATIONSOF GENDER AND CASTE DIVISIONS OF LABOR IN RURAL NEPAL: LAND, HIERARCHY,AND THE CASE OF UNTOUCHABLEWOMEN

MaryM. Cameron Departmentof Sociology,Anthropology, and Social Work, Auburn University, Auburn,AL 36831

Thearticle demonstrates how gender and castedivisions of laborin ruralwestern Nepal havebeen historically linked with practices of socialhierarchy and landdistribution. Be- causeof theirlow status in twohierarchies-caste and gender-untouchable women serve as handmaidensto thecommunity's changing economic needs. Over the past century, their primarilyartisan-related production has beenreplaced with a varietyof paid agricultural and nonagriculturalwork in theincreasingly capitalized agricultural economy. The conse- quentbreakdown of secure intercaste patron-client relationships and increasingpoverty are counteredby women's increasing economic power.

Tara Devi shuffles slowly up the crumblingstone walkway. Her face is not visible as she bends forward,balances the overflowing basket of grass suspended across her back from its headstrap. Tara Devi is over sixty years of age, but she must work hard each day to provide for herself and her granddaughter,Kumari. This afternoon, during a few spare hours, she has gathered enough fodder to feed her cow so that Kumari might drink milk with her millet bread that evening. She is tired and hungry, having worked from early morning in the fields of her upper-caste patrons. Tara Devi is low caste, a widow, and has no land of her own. So, with the money she earned that morning she purchased a few measures of grain which she ground into flour at the watermill. The coarse flour bag sits at the bottom of her basket, nearly hidden by the wild grasses and shorn leaves she collected from the forest. Her sickle hangs lightly from the rope tied aroundher waist, folds of torn faded cotton skirt hiked up around it to make work and walking easier. We have not seen each other since my return to Bhalaraa few weeks back. I tried to visit her and her daughter Sita, a good friend of mine and a talented folksinger and composer whose many songs I had recorded five years ago. After years of abuse by her husband, Sita left him and moved in with her mother, to help her and raise Kumari. Tara Devi and Sita were not at their home when I went to call on them in the lower- caste hamlet behind the school. The neighbors did not tell me about Sita's death last spring. Perhaps they thought I knew. Tara Devi hears my voice from the teashop and stops. The sun is set- ting and winter's evening chill sends a shiver through her sweaty chest

(Journalof Anthropological Research, vol. 51, 1995)

215 216 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICALRESEARCH andface. Our faces light up with radiant smiles when we see one another. "Namaste!How are you? How is yourfamily?" She bringsone handdown fromthe basket's strapand grabs my hand.Her head twitches, it has gottenworse, I think.We holdhands, look fondly into each other'seyes, I see tearswelling up in her's."My daughter died," she tells me, "sonow it is just me andmy granddaughter."I know what that means,crushing povertywith little hope. "I am sorry for you," I tell her.We talk about our lives of the pastfive years.Each mention of Sitabrings tears. It is getting dark."I have to feed the cow,"Tara Devi says as she turns,adjusts the basket which stayed on her backduring our short visit, and bends forward.Remembering something, she looksback at me. "Doyou haveany spare clothing,any torn pieces that you can give me? See these rags I must wear?It is dharmato give to old people,you know,"she jokes.

THEPOVERTY OFLOWER-CASTE people in Nepal'srural farming communities is the context in which their daily work lives must be understood.Tara Devi's landlessnessand her laborwithin the communityare the result of practices that have been transforminglower-caste families over the past century.Her situationis uniqueonly in its extremetragedy and the matrifocalquality of her household.Similar to otherfamilies of lowercaste is how her dailywage labor is shapedby her genderand her caste. It is the historyof these laborpatterns to whichI now turn.

GENDER, CASTE,AND LABOR IN THE ETHNOGRAPHYOF SOUTH ASIA

The majorityof studieson SouthAsia which explicitly address gender focus on the idealroles of Brahmin,Chetri, or ethnicwomen within Hindu ideology andsociety (Allen1982; Bennett 1983; Sharma 1980; Trawick 1990). Most au- thorsacknowledge the generallylow socialstatus of womenin Hindusociety, indicatedby women'slack of inheritancerights, preferential treatment of males overfemales in the areasof healthand education, Hindu ideologies of the impure anddangerous female, and, in the extreme,female infanticide (B. Miller1981). However,no studiesstart from a theoreticalmodel of the relationshipbetween genderand caste in society;most studies are directed toward the roles,position, and status of womenonly. Furthermore,the predominantfocus on womenof uppercaste does little to advanceour understandingof womenof lowercaste, nor our understandingof the similaritiesand differencesin the hierarchiesof genderand caste. The impliedportrait of untouchablewomen by SouthAsianists is that due to theirritual impurity, they have morefreedom and autonomy and fewersocial and behavioral restrictions than women of highcaste (Dumont 1970; Allen1982; Kolenda 1982; Bennett 1983; Sharma 1980). Whatabout women in Nepal?Most of the ethnographicliterature on Nepalis aboutnon-Hindu ethnic minorities.' Notable exceptions to the predominantly Tibeto-Burmanmodel of Nepalese people are studies by Bennett (1983), GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 217 Acharyaand Bennett (1981), Borgstrom(1980), Cameron(1995), and A.P. Caplan(1972). Here again,with the exceptionof Cameron(1995), these studies addresswomen of highcaste onlyand implicitly or explicitlyrelegate lower- caste personsinto a residualcategory of "untouchablesand others" (Bennett 1983;Acharya and Bennett 1981)and victims of upper-castepolitical machina- tions (A.P.Caplan 1972; Borgstrom 1980). In Himalayanethnography, people of low caste have not been treatedas political,social, and culturalactors in their own right. Regardingthe questionof laborpractices, research on agriculturalform and structurein SouthAsia has onlyrecently turned towards the relevanceof gender in agrarianlabor transformation. Twentieth-century historians and social scienceresearchers have steadfastly addressed the placeof castein SouthAsia's transformingfarming communities, particularly in the contextof patron-client relations throughoutrural India (Athreya, Djurfeldt,and Lindberg1990; Beidelman1959; Berreman 1963; Beteille 1965, 1974;Bhaduri, Rahman, and Amrn1986; Bouton 1985; Brass 1990;Dumont 1970; Elder 1970; Epstein 1967; Gough 1989; Gould1958, 1967; Harper1959; Harriss 1992; Kolenda1963; Lewis 1970; D. Miller 1975; Parry1979; Pocock 1962; Seddon1987; Raheja 1988;Ramachandran 1990; Rudra 1984; Srinivas 1976; Wiser 1936;for a discussionof the lackof studies specificallyaddressing Nepalese farmers, see L. Caplan1991). However,inattention to gender-baseddifferences in property andland ownership, labor forms and practices, and agrarian power is sufficient reasonfor reexaminingsome basic assumptionsabout models of SouthAsian agriculture(Harriss 1992). Thus, recent effortsto understandthe genderdi- mensionsof SouthAsia's agrarian political economy have focused, for example, on the local-levelsocial and politicalcontexts of women'swage negotiations (Kapadia1993), gender-based differential strategies for coping with famine and poverty(Agarwal 1990; Kabeer 1993; Sen 1982),and differences in time allocatedto variousfarming activities (Acharya and Bennett 1981). However,where attentionto genderemerges, caste seems to disappear,as if mere mentionof gender(or caste) is sufficientto placea groupeconomically, socially,and politically. This failure to linkcaste and gender, through either com- parativeor historicalexamination, resembles the problemin feministcultural studieswhere class and race remain stubbornly disconnected in feministtheory.2 Synchronicstudies of lower-castefemale workers do not addressthe historical relevanceof a person'sgender or caste (Kapadia1993; Mencher 1988; Mencher andSaradamoni 1982). Consequently, gender and caste remainconceptually in- coherentin ourunderstanding of ruralagrarian transformation in SouthAsia. As this articledemonstrates, contemporary forms of lower-castewomen's laborin Nepalare a historicalconsequence of boththeir gender and their caste positionsin society, in the contextof changinglandholding relations. This his- toricalperspective on laborattempts to bring into fullerview what Harriss (1992:192)calls the hiddenand "increasingly complex patterns of occupational multiplicity[found] in the categoryof 'agriculturallaborer"' (see also Guyer 1991 for a historicalaccount of gender divisionsof laborin Africanfarming). 218 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH Becausegender and caste divisions of laborin ruralNepal have been historically linkedwith practicesof socialhierarchy and are currentlyshaped by local,national,and international forces of socioeconomicchange, the low-castefemale "agriculturallaborer" of todaydid not alwaysexclusively occupy this role. Her positionin contemporaryrural production relations emerges out of andincreas- inglydeparts from those socialnetworks generated from the intercastejajmani system (or riti-bhagya,as it is calledin westernNepal). Thus, ongoing debates overthe logicof thejajmanisystem in SouthAsia, such as intercasterelations of entitlement(Sen 1982) and enfranchisement (Appadurai 1984) and strategies for copingwith agricultural and income troughs (Agarwal 1990), will remain unsettled untilthe roles of allpeople integrated into its system-women, men,low caste, highcaste-are examinedhistorically (Commander 1983). Furthermore, as this articlewill show, it is impreciseto regardlow-caste economic roles, women's included,as strictlyproducts of a Hinduideology that ascribes low-caste dharma to service-relatedlabor for landowners. Too oftenthe anthropologicalapproach to caste and economicrelations emphasizes such religiousand ideologicaldi- mensionsover materialand economicones. This articlecontributes to an ex- pandedunderstanding of the caste societyin westernNepal by focusingon the emergenceof femalelaborers in the contextof transformativecapitalist forces. In keepingwith an ethos of socialhierarchy inherent to the caste system,the peopleof Bhalarain westernNepal construe gender relations in severalways throughcodes of differenceand asymmetry between female and male. First, by drawingfrom the sameidiom of relative "purity" found in casteranking and Hindu ideologyin India(Dumont 1970), the peopleof Bhalarainterpret the menstrual andchildbirth "impurity" of womenas makingwomen less pure(and therefore more problematic)than men. Second,gender relations are construedthrough patrilinealinterests. To protectpatrilineal honor, women as in-marryingbrides are construedas potentiallythreatening to patrilinealsolidarity (Bennett 1983). In yet a thirdway, that of the idiomof "natural"disposition, the caste or "spe- cies" of femalehas certainattributes such as kindheartednessand compassion that,according to the sacredSanskrit texts, make women fit for motherhood, yet untrustworthyin the "rational"and dispassionate pursuits of men (Allen1982). Lastly,and the focus of this article,is the structureand practice of the gender divisionof laborwithin caste-organized peasant society, understood here as the allocationof personsto differentforms of workbased on theirgender and their caste,and the culturalvalues and meanings placed on thatwork. Becauseof theirlow statusin two hierarchies-casteand gender-women of lowcaste might be expectedto functionas handmaidensto a community'schanging economicneeds. This is, in fact,what the researchhas found.Over the past century,women of low caste have experiencedsignificant changes in the kinds of workthey perform, the groupsfor whom they work, and the typesand quanti- ties of remunerationthey receive.The historyof low-castewomen's labor has seen a gradualreplacement of primarilyartisan-related production with a variety of paidagricultural and nonagriculturalwork. The negativeconsequences of becomingfree laborers in the increasinglycapitalized agricultural economy include GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 219 the structuralbreakdown of secure,but exploitative, intercaste patron-client re- lationshipsand their replacement by informaland daily wage labor in the context of increasingpoverty. On the positiveside, the economicpower gained through low-castewomen's wage laborincludes rental of maatyaland given in exchange for loansmade to upper-castelandowners, a practiceexamined later in the article.

SocialHierarchy and Low-Caste Women's Work For the people of low caste, productivework includesagricultural production, artisancommodity production, and income service work, any of which maybe done on one's own familyfarm and/or for landowninghigh-caste families.3The examinationhere of untouchablewomen's work addresses not just the formsof laborbut also the socialrelations of laboras we findthem in Bhalara. Likeproductive work, reproductive work tends to interfacewith socialhierar- chies of genderand caste. Reproductivework has traditionallycome to include activities directlyrelated to biologicalreproduction (fertility, breastfeeding) andreproduction of householdmembers and the workforce(child care, feed- ing, socialization) (Collier and Yanagisako1987; Moore 1988; Pearson, Whitehead,and Young 1981). Reproduction as employedin this articleincludes its structural-Marxistsense, that of reproducingthe social system (Stolcke 1981;Harris 1981), specifically, the hierarchicalaspects of Bhalara'ssocial system. This approachto examininggender and caste divisionsof laborin Nepal recognizestheir embeddednature within the social system, particularlyits patternedinequality (di Leonardo1991:31). In Bhalara,hierarchies of genderand caste conduce to unequalsocial relations of agriculturalproduction such that landless, low-caste, and primarily female la- borerswork for large landowning, upper-caste households. For low-caste women, the obligationto work in ritually"impure" activities such as those associated withtheriti-bhagya system reinforces caste boundaries and leads to castehierar- chy.4Thus, the ideologicaland material constraints around production processes mirrorand reproduce Bhalara's gender and caste hierarchies. As a consequence, thepublic prestige value of women's work, particularly that of lower-caste women, is low (even thoughthe work'sinstrumental value in the reproductionof the familyis high).However, with their emergence out of strictlycaste-defined work roles andthe powerthey gainfrom certain income-generating labor, women of lowercaste can shed these associationsof impurity.

TheGeographical and CulturalSetting The researchcommunity of Bhalarais foundin farwestern Nepal (Figure 1), andthe peopleof Bhalaracall themselves gauko manchay, "village hill people." Theirclustered hamlets of stone,wood, and mud houses dotthe sides of rolling andever-rising hills thatpeak in the westernHimalayan Mountains and flatten and descendto the Gangeticplain in the distantsouth. The vast snowcapped peaksare visiblefrom only the highestvantage points in the surroundingarea, but the mountainsframe the identityof these peopleas hill peasants-small- 220 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Figure1. Mapof Nepal scale farmerswho use no mechanizedor capitalizedmeans of production,have little capitalfor exchangepurposes, and have a highpopulation density to feed andhouse. Whatone is able to see fromevery place in Bhalaraare steep and narrowterraced slopes, green with fertile crops of summerrice or winterwheat andbrown in the late springand fall between growingseasons. Connectingthe hamletsare a myriadof humanand animal footpaths cutting across fields and up the sides of hills, guidingpeople to andfrom their fields, theirneighbors' homes, and more distant sites. There are no roadsin Bhalara, and there is no electricityor runningwater inside the homes. The people of Bhalarasituate their communityin relationto the rest of the worldwith geo- graphicalreference to Tibet andIndia. Caste rankingin Bhalarais similar(though not identical)to that foundin Indiaand in the rest of Nepaland is basedon relativeritual purity ascribed at birth.5The lower-castegroups are linkedthrough their ritual impurity relative to those abovethem. Although there are manyarguments within caste theory aboutwhat makes the low castes "low,"locally they are labellednachunay jaat, "nottouchable people"; saano jaat, "smallcaste"; or talojaat, "lowcaste." In additionto their untouchablestatus in relationto those of highcaste, the low- caste groupsare rankedamong themselves. The higherranked and intermar- ryinggroups among the lower castes includethe followingartisans and spe- cializedlaborers: basket weavers, goldsmiths, ironsmiths, masons, and former guardsfor the localking. These artisans,some of whomare also marginalfarm- ers, do not touchpersons of caste ranklower than themselves. The secondtier of lowercastes includesleather workers and tailors, who do not intermarrybut are of equivalentstatus. At the bottomof the caste hierarchyis a singlegroup of potters,musicians, and female prostitutes, who areuntouchable to allgroups abovethem. The highestranked and most rituallypure caste in the Nepalese caste system is the Brahmins,followed by the Thakuriand Chetri castes. GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 221 A SOCIALHISTORY OF LOW-CASTEWOMEN'S WORK

ConceptualizingWomen's Work Situatingwomen's productive work in its historicalcontext eliminateser- rors of presumedgender-based essentialism and biological reductionism that fora periodstagnated the developmentof gendertheory (Collier and Yanagisako 1987).When we ask aboutlow-caste women's work in an agriculturalsetting, we confronttwo dialecticallyrelated historical transformations: changes in the formsand quantityof work that women performand changesin the cultural definitionsand meanings of that work.As the kindsof workthat womenper- formchange, the meaningsassociated with that workand, subsequently,the groups that have traditionallyperformed that work also change.Thus, eco- nomictransformation is at its core a socialand cultural process. Furthermore,transformations in the gender divisionof laborare linkedto largerglobal processes. In a comparativestudy of the divisionof laborin four communitiesin Guatemala,Bossen (1984:2-12)demonstrates that the division of laboris not simplyor only a localproduct but is a productof the dependent relationshipsociety has to the worldeconomy, particularly in the way it affects the economicdivision of laborand resources. The contemporarydivision of labor in Bhalaraand the trendtowards a "feminization"of agriculture-bythe wives of the malelandowners and their lower-caste female hired help-are influencedby the samecombination of interrelatedlocal, regional, and international forces that haveimpacted local landholding relations.

IntercasteEconomic Relations and UntouchableWomen's Work Accordingto elder informants,low-caste women in the past were more in- volved in caste-specificcommodity and service productionfor a limitednum- ber of familiesthan is the case now. The workof lower-castewomen was nar- rowlydetermined by their family'sposition in the riti-bhagyasystem, a tradi- tionalintercaste patron-client system integratedinto the agriculturaleconomy of Bhalara,which binds low-caste families to high-castefamilies through eco- nomicneed andHindu religious ideology. In exchangefor low-casteproducts andservices, high-castelandowner patrons (called riti) provideharvest shares (calledkhalo) and are expectedto meet manyother subsistence needs of their low-castelandless dependents (called bhagya). Khalo payments from landholding riti familiesto low-castebhagya families serve as the economicand moral backboneof the patron-clientrelationship because they establishthe rightof each familyto ask for services, food,or cash advancesfrom the otherin times of need.6Thus, the riti-bhagyasystem developedas a SouthAsian form of feu- dal economyin whichlandholding and laborrelations followed caste lines. Its Indianequivalent is the familiarjajmanisystem (Beidelman1959; Raheja 1988). The riti-bhagyasystem was, andis today,fundamentally economically based and culturallyprescribed.7 The largest landownerand the riti with the most bhagyawas the familyof the Bhalararaja; 63 percentof the low-castefamilies interviewedsaid that they had workedfor the raja.Low-caste labor ties to 222 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH nonrulinglandholding families such as Brahminsand the indigenousKhas people (laterintegrated into the caste system as Chetri)evolved as rice cultivation developed,population increased, and agriculturalproduction intensified. Up- per-casteand landholdingfamilies who needed low-castecommodities, service, andlabor developed economic relationships with those lower-castefamilies ableto providethem. Low-caste families, in turn,relied increasingly on the khaloharvest shares from their patrons; upwards of 80 percentof the totalfood consumptionfor some familieswas comprisedof khalopayments. The eco- nomicinterdependency between low-casteand high-caste families eventually involvednearly all familiesin the Bhalaracommunity. Inkeeping with the patrilinealsystem of property inheritance, low-caste rights to riti andhigh-caste rights to bhagyaare passedfrom father to son(s). Thus, caste-basedeconomic interdependence developed in sucha waythat for the last fewhundred years, the rightstoriti-bhagya relations among the familiesof Bhalara havebeen inheritedpatrilineally. A woman'sright to workfor certain families is derivedfirst from her father,then fromher husbandafter marriage. High-caste familiesare committedto hiringlow-caste people from their bhagya families for servicework, commodity production, and agricultural labor. Female leather workers, tailors,potters, basket weavers, and goldsmiths who were skilledin commodityproduction worked with their husbands and other adult household mem- bersto fillthe localdemand for their products. Quantitative data on femalearti- sanwork are not availablefor earlier times, but during the contemporaryperiod, womenallocated only 9 percentof theirtime to artisanwork, while they spent three times as muchtime in agriculturalproduction. A very differentsituation was commonin the periodprior to the mid-twentiethcentury, however. During thattime, low-castefamilies did not own land,and the economicstrength of the traditionalexchanges in the riti-bhagyasystem precluded the necessityfor low- caste householdsto provisionthemselves in ways otherthan by artisanproduction. Whilesome low-castefamilies did smallamounts of sharecropfarming in the past,they were not extracting profits. A minorityof low-castewomen worked as agriculturallaborers for others, but only in specificand seasonal work primarily for Brahminsand other high-castewomen who were prohibitedfrom such impureagricultural activities as haulingfertilizer and transplantingrice seedlings.In short,low-caste women rarely worked outside their patron circle, and suchwork was limitedto workfor the localrulers. Furtherevidence suggests that low-castewomen did not usuallywork for non-ritihigh-caste families on a regularbasis and that their currentwork as dailywage andagricultural laborers is a recent phenomenon.The majorityof low-castegroups migrated to the Bajhangregion with high-casteThakuri rul- ers from a region in Rajasthan,India (Subedi 1988), and low-castemen and womenwere obligedto work for them. Onlylater were riti-bhagyarelations developedwith nonrulingfamilies as landownershipspread vertically to other castes andagricultural production intensified. Asriti-bhagya relations expanded beyondthe primaryties with the king's familyto includeother landholders, women'swork obligations expanded as well. By the time of the dissolutionof GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 223 the localkingdom and the openingof Nepal'sborder to Indiain the late 1950s and early 1960s, low-castewomen workedfor their own familiesor for the localBhalara king andhis relatives.Importantly, though, they hadalso begun workingfor otherhigh-caste families within expanding riti-bhagya relations. Sincethe 1960s,low-caste women's work has increasedin quantityand type. Bhalarawomen of both untouchableand high caste have experiencedan increase in the formsand quantityof work they perform.As a consequenceof competitionfrom Indian and Nepalese mass-produced commodities, lower-caste womenare shiftingtheir productive activities from artisan work to agriculturallyrelated work on theirown smallrented plots or on the landof patronland- owners. Whatare the specificchanges being experiencedby Bhalara'slow- caste womenand the significantcontemporary forces of changethat have im- pactedtheir work? To answerthese questions,we need to lookat some of the generallabor patterns and agricultural practices in Bhalara.

AgriculturalProduction in Bhalara Agriculturalproduction in Bhalarahas developed into, and is nowfirmly estab- lishedas, intensiveirrigated rice cultivation,supplemented by wheat,corn, and milletcrops.8 Today, most landowningNepalese are subsistencefarmers whose little surpluswill be sold or given away.The most commonagricultural sales transactionsare between upper-caste and lower-caste people, the latter purchasing fromthe former.In fact,lower-caste people often refer to themselvesas people "whomust buy to eat."9Livestock-cows andwater buffalo-provide an impor- tantprotein source in milkproducts, and they are the primarysource of fertilizer (Bhalarafarmers use onlyorganic fertilizer on theirfields). Goats are raisedfor meatand ritual sacrifice during festivals, and a few familiesown chickens.10 The terracedfields are preparedfor plantingtwice a year. Stalksfrom the priorcrop are burned,and manure-basedfertilizer is hauledto the fields in deep bamboobaskets carriedby womenand is plowedunder by men. During all phases of planting,outside help is oftenrequired. Labor contracts are pref- erablymade between persons and familieswho have exchangerelations cir- cumscribedby the riti-bhagyasystem. A culturalideology that privilegesfarming as the occupationof most value has developedaround the resourceof landand the agrarianmode of production in Bhalara.Farming one's own landbrings wealth, honor,and prestige to a family.Not all share equallyin landownership, though, since the systematic inheritanceof landby males insures the structuralexclusion of womenfrom ownershipof this most importantvillage resource (Sharma 1980), inheritance throughthe patrilinereproduces male controlover the means of production (Coontzand Henderson1986; Deere 1981;Acharya and Bennett 1981), and peopleof lowercaste are structurallykept out of the landmarkets.

ContemporaryGender and CasteDivisions of Labor11 Figure2 providesa condensedrepresentation of the timeallocation data from Bhalara-thebig picture of laborin farwestern Nepal. As we cansee, allfemales 224 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH workmore hours in productiveand reproductive work than do theirmale counterparts. Condensingthe time allocationdata in Figure1 intoratios of leisureto work (withleisure definedin the researchas "social"pursuits) yields the results in Table 1.12 Womenof uppercaste workthe most hoursin familyfarm production and reproductiveand domestic work; they are the mainfarmers in Bhalara,a find- ingconsistent with that of otherresearchers (Acharya and Bennett 1981). Nearly equalto the high-castewomen in the relativeallocation of time in workand in leisureare the womenof lowercaste. Bothgroups of womenperform, on average, over two times morework in productiveand domestic domains than their malecounterparts. In fact,high-caste men were the onlygroup to spendmore time in leisure thanin workactivities. Indeed, women in the researchpopulation often postponedor interruptedinterviews because of work or childcare obligations,whereas men rarelydid. The relativelyequal amounts of productiveand reproductive/domestic work that women of all castes performin relationto each other and in contrastto their male counterpartssuggest that gender is a strong determinantof the

Percentage of Cohort lOOz 2 1 !~ ,2 2 6 [29

o%1-5 23 3B Low-caste women Low-caste men High-casle women High-caste men Genderand Caste

Family farm piod. EZ~EE Odelcwe Repro./domestic ES- Social IE Away Figure2. Genderand Caste Divisions of Labor:Comparison of Women'sand Men's Work in All Households Based on datafrom thirty low-caste householdsand twenty high-castehouseholds, 1988-89.

TABLE 1 Ratios of Leisure to Work, by Gender and Caste

Low-caste Low-caste High-caste High-caste Women Men Women Men 1:2.26 1:1.12 1:2.47 1:0.97 GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 225 allocationof workin the ruralNepali household. To whatextent does caste influ- ence the allocationof work?When we lookat the leisure-to-workratio between the two majorcaste divisions,we findless influencethan that of gender.First, women,regardless of caste,are moresimilar to one anotherin theirwork times thanthey areto men.Second, the menand women of lowcaste spendmore time workingthan those of highcaste, but onlyslightly more: low-caste people, as a group,spend 1.62 times morehours in workthan in leisureactivities, compared to 1.59 times more workhours for high-castepeople. The nearequivalence of these ratiosis surprisingin lightof the factthat high-castemen allocatemore time to leisurethan to productivework. Clearly, the low productivityof men in high-castehouseholds is compensatedfor by the workof high-castewomen. Whilethese datamight suggest little caste-baseddifference in the allocation of time for productivework, there are, in fact, significantdifferences in the typesof workin whichthe villagersare engageddue to the fact that caste is a significantdeterminant of the socialrelations of work.This relationshipis best demonstratedby examiningthe history of Bhalara'srural economy and the genderand caste divisionsof laborwithin it.

FORCES OF ECONOMICCHANGE, PAST AND PRESENT

The most significantcauses of changein low-castewomen's productive work are: decreasedformal and informalownership of landand increasedrental of maatyaland; male migration to India;competition between mass-produced and locallow-caste commodities, with a subsequentdecreased demand for low-caste artisanproducts; decreased supply of raw materials for low-caste artisans' production;relaxed social norms for female behavior; and an influx of outsiders-govern- mentbureaucrats, law enforcementofficials, and administrators-into the area.

LandOwnership Priorto the mid-twentiethcentury, the lower-castefamilies of Bhalaradid not formallyown land,nor did they need landto survive.Products made by low-casteartisans-leather shoes, clothing,pottery, gold and silver jewelry, bamboobaskets and mats, and iron farming tools-were in continuousdemand by the local Thakurirulers and other farmingfamilies. Artisans experienced little outsidemarket competition because the tradeof commoditiesthey pro- ducedremained local, unlike the tradewith India and China in salt andgrains.13 In additionto theircommodities, services renderedby lowercastes as guards, tax collectors,and entertainerswere importantin maintainingThakuri rule. Fortheir services and products, lower-caste families received large khalo shares of the annualrice andwheat harvests. Overthe pastfive decades,the peopleof Nepaland their land have undergone significantchanges. Dramatic population increase; land availability, distribution, and registration;and commoditycompetition have shiftedthe balanceof the patron-clientrelationship in favorof the patronover the client,leaving lower- caste familiesdisenfranchised and dependent on upper-castelandowners. The 226 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH most direof these developmentsis landscarcity. From the adventof nationalist unificationof Nepalin the mid-1950sto the present,the materialbase of tradi- tionalintercaste and land tenure relations has eroded due to a severe shortagein arableland. The maincauses of landscarcity are: (1) the populationof Nepalhas morethan doubled from eight to nearlytwenty million people since unification; (2) intensiveagricultural production, annual monsoon rains, and natural disas- ters suchas earthquakeshave caused steady and pernicious erosion of the Hima- layanfoothills;14 and (3) landreform has not successfullytransferred land from those withplenty to those withnone (Bienenet al. 1990;Eckholm 1976; Regmi 1978;Seddon, Blaikie, and Cameron 1979).15 These contemporarychanges occur at the end of a long historyof upper-castecontrol over farmlandthrough formalregistration. Brahmin, Thakuri, and, later, other upper-caste families have amassedsome of the largestland properties in the areathrough the legitimating practiceof written land documentation.Land appropriation by upper-caste patrilinesdisenfranchised low-caste families who didnot press theirown claims to informallyheld land,and the prohibitionagainst female inheritance of land becameinscribed into the quasi-legalcode of the area.Women who hadinfor- mallyinherited land in the pastbecame formally barred from doing so. In Bhalaratoday, as in the past,land ownership closely parallels caste hierarchy. Of the fiftyhouseholds in the researchsample, upper-caste families own 82 percentof all landthat is registered.The remaining18 percentis ownedby low-castefamilies. The averagesize of the high-castefamily farm is 9.01 ropani (approximately20 ropani= 1 hectare),more than 4.5 times largerthan the averagelower-caste family farm of 1.95 ropani.The mainmeans whereby low- caste familiesmeet subsistencedeficits and shelter themselves againstpov- erty andhunger is throughland tenancy, the most commonform called maatya (discussedfurther below).

MaleMigration Male migrationout of the middlehills to Indiaand southernNepal for em- ploymentis recognizedas one of the most influentialsociodemographic forces in Nepal'scontemporary agrarian society (Thapa1989). Thapa notes thatprob- ablyall Nepalese rural families have experienced some formof malemigration. Ofthe 168 malesin the samplepopulation, 24 (14 percent)had been awayfrom the homefor over six monthsof the year(7 percentof the entiresample populationof malesand females). Of these, 19 percentcome fromupper castes and 12 percentfrom lower castes. In Bhalara,the influenceof male migrationis experienceddaily in people's adjustmentsto the lackof localemployment opportunities and an increasingly absentmale work force. A womanfrom the Okhedacaste of formerpalace guards told me that male migrationwas the primarycause of low-castewomen doing moreagricultural work now thanin the past.She saidthat many changes began when men startedgoing to Indiafor work in the 1970s:"The women were left behindand they hadto startdoing the workin the fieldsthat men had been doing before."The flexibledomestic unit of productionabsorbed the laborgap left by GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 227 the absenceof productivemales. Low-castewomen took over the riti-bhagya obligationsof theirabsent husbands and sons; their men's workon high-caste familyfarms-including fuel and fodder collection, raising of livestock,and planting and harvestingof crops-was taken over by mothers,wives, and daughters, andlow-caste women were hiredas temporaryagricultural laborers.

Competitionwith Mass-Produced Imports Overthe pasttwo decades,low-caste families have been forced to dependless on harvestpayments and other customary clothing and cash subsidies from high castesbecause the decreaseddemand for their goods has resulted in lowertradi- tionalpayments. After the openingof Nepal'sborders with India, low-caste com- moditieshave had to competewith Indian mass-produced imports that have al- readyreplaced many locally made products. The groupwhose artisan production is mostaffected by Indianimports is the Sarkileather workers. The sturdyleather shoes andsandals made by Sarkiare no longerin demandin Bhalara,having been replacedby rubberthongs from India and Nepal. Sarki products are considered unfashionableand low class in comparisonto the shoes andsandals from India. Peoplecomplain that Sarkileather sandals are useless in the monsoonseason (thoughpresumably they were functionalin the past).The Damaitailors are also greatlyaffected by Indianmass production,their productsbeing graduallyre- placedby "modem"goods. Thus, the Sarki'sand Damai's place in the peasant economyas artisanproducers is vulnerableto marketforces. To keep theirriti- bhagyaties, Damaiand Sarkiwomen and men must providesubstitute labor, usuallyagricultural; otherwise, their patrons will cease to supportthem.

DecreasedSupply of RawMaterials Suppliesof rawmaterials for low-caste production have been curtailed.Bam- boo used in Parkibasket making has traditionallybeen obtainedfrom Khapted Lekh,a well-knownplateau recently established as a nationalpark. The parkis heavilypatrolled to keep localpeople from grazing their animals, planting hardy cropsof potatoesand millet, collecting medicinal plants, and, for the Parkibas- ket makers,cutting bamboo. Basket makers'access to criticalresources thus has been severely curtailed,threatening their artisan livelihood and their abil- ity to meet patrons'demands. Consequently, high-caste patrons claim that harvest shares to their low-castebhagya are not justifiable.Like the Damaiand Sarki,women of the basket-makingcaste substitutewage laborto largeland- ownersfor the loss of employmentin their craft.

RelaxedNorms for FemaleBehavior Bhalaraand much of Nepalhave experienced relaxed social norms for female behavior,paving the way for increasedfemale labor of manykinds. Currently, womenof all castes (withthe exceptionof the Thakuriand Brahmin) do work whichin the past was prohibited,resulting in an overallincrease in women's work. The people of Bhalaragive many examples of work that was exclu- sively done by men in the past but is now done by women.Local people once 228 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICALRESEARCH consideredthis workto be impurework for high-caste women, too difficultfor all women, or likely to take women away from the home and into "public" spacesof activityconsidered improper for women. Such work includes thresh- ing cut rice andwheat, chopping wood with an ax, carryingrice andwheat in heavy sacks fromthe threshingfloor to the home, haulingslate for roofing, lugginglarge bundles of firewoodfrom the forests,digging fields and breaking clods of dirt in preparationfor rice and wheat planting,and carryingmanure fertilizerto the fieldsin baskets.I haveobserved women doing all of this work, as well as breakinglarge boulders and carrying the splinteredrocks in baskets to constructwalls, diggingirrigation ditches, carrying timber from the higher hills, andhauling 30-40 kg of grainsfrom the threshingfloor-all workwhich only men didin the past. The onlyjob currentlymonopolized by men is plowing;otherwise, men have not substitutedother forms of farmlabor, and many men admitthat they are now "lazy."Others defend their diminishedwork on the familyfarm by claimingthat they travelon "bigwork," referring to migration to India,and weekend trips to the districtcenter (a day'swalking distance away)for political and government work or to settle variousdisputes.'6 Womenregard the changesin theirwork as a relaxationof restrictionsplaced on theirfreedom of travel.They claimthat in the pastthey were not trustedto travelfar from their husbands'home, thus preventingthem fromcutting fuel andfodder in the secludedforest, grazing livestock in the upperhills, or travel- ing to distantfields to farm.17

Influxof Outsiders The expandingnational bureaucracy has penetratedinto even the most re- mote areasof Nepal,including Bhalara in the farwest, bringingwith it an influx of outsiders,temporary residents. Local people are expectedto meet the subsistence needs of these people (usuallymen), and farmerswith agricultural surplusesfind they can sell productsat inflatedprices. This practicedisadvan- tages lower-castepeople who havedepended on low pricesto offsettheir poor wages anddepletes their traditionalkhalo payments. Consequently, low-caste womenhave hadto look for alternatesources of food supplies,as well as acceptingcash over the preferredin-kind payments for labor.

ScarcityArrangements: The Land Crisis in Nepal'sFoothills and the Importanceof MaatyaLand Today,the low-castefamilies in Bhalaraare in a constantdaily struggle for survival.Their survival depends upon acquiring land to farm,a goal nearlyim- possibleto achievedue to the localscarcity of landand due to practicesin which low-castehouseholds are regularlydenied access to localland markets. During this research,large landowners of high caste revealedthat theirproperty was acquiredin equalparts by purchasesand inheritance. Surprisingly, high-caste familiescame to owntheir land just as oftenthrough purchasing it on the market as by inheritingit throughthe ancestralpatriline. Furthermore, most purchases were madeby high castesfrom high castes, a practicethat privileges high-caste GENDER, CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 229 buyersover low-casteones. Even if a lower-castefamily has the moneyto pur- chase,landowners prefer to sell to otherupper-caste families for the politicaland socialadvantages such exchangesconfer. As a result,the landmarket is effec- tivelyclosed to familiesof lowercaste, a pointthey frequentlyemphasize. Maatyaland is given to low-castehouseholds as collateralon cash loansand maybe used forthe durationof the loans.In additionto providingthe cashloan, low-castefamilies may also promise labor on the land.Figure 3 showsthe distri- butionof landby caste amongthe fiftyresearch families in Bhalara.18As seen in Figure3, maatyaland is a criticaladdition to the farmingresources of lower- caste families.By addingsmall amounts of this "rented"land to their minute parcelsof ownedland, the size of the averagelower-caste farm nearly doubles fromapproximately 2 ropanito 4 ropani.On the rightside of Figure3, we see how criticalrented land is to low-castefamilies. In almostall cases, rentedland movedlow-caste families into a higherlandholding category such that low-caste peopleworked 32 percentof the total landfarmed by the population,while 68 percentwas farmed by high-castefamilies. Clearly, lower-caste subsistence criti- cally dependson rented land.The money lent and the laborpromised in exchangefor maatya land is earnedby womenand men of low caste equally,as we will see in the discussionof laborexchanges and work for others below. However,while maatyaland tenancy arrangements give low-castefamilies temporaryshelter against shortfalls, the low caste's economicdependency on high-castehouseholds is reproduced.Eighty-seven percent of the low-caste familiesin the populationrented maatya land from upper-caste families.19 Thus, Percentage of Cohort

80 ...... 70_---...... 40 ...... 30-

aI "

lless. marg. small med. Ige. Iless. marg. small med. Ige. Category of Landholder

_ High-caste 3 Low-caste Figure3. LandOwned Versus Land Worked Landworked = landowned + rentedland. Landless= 0-1 ropani;marginal = 1-4 ropani;small = 4-10 ropani;medium = 10-20 ropani;large = 20+ ropani. 230 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH not only do landownership relations follow caste lines, but land tenancy relations do as well. Still, farmingmaatya land is preferred over farming no land at all because it gives lower castes partial economic independence from upper- caste families. Over the past twenty years, nearly twice as many low-caste families took more collateral land than took less, an indication of the demand for land locally. Because landpurchasing is controlledby the upper-caste groups and lower castes find it extremely difficult to break into the tradition-bound land market, they settle for temporary use of maatya land.

CONTEMPORARY CASTE AND GENDER DIVISION OF LABOR: PUBLIC HIERARCHY, HOUSEHOLD COOPERATION

The history of gender and caste divisions of labor reveals that low-caste women's labor develops in conjunctionwith that of high-caste women's. In the past, caste-based differentiationof labor structured the local economy in ways that reproduced economic stratificationand ideological hierarchy. Certainagri- cultural work was prohibited for high-caste women, such as carrying manure and digging the soil; low-caste bhagya were hired to do this farmwork. The question for us now is, Have these interfaces between economic and social practices shifted over the past century of change? If so, what impact has been made on contemporarygender and social relations? With social and economic changes in Bhalara,high-caste women now do much work formerlyprohibited to them, thus replacingtheir low-caste female andmale laborers. At the same time, low-caste women resist doing demeaning agriculturalwork for others, occasionallygenerating conflict with high-castepeople over laborand "impurity"issues. For low-caste women to do certain types of agricultural work that others have traditionallyrejected subjects them to continued discriminationand reinforces their low ritual status. In one of the research vil- lages, the people of uppercaste considered stoppinga practiceof gift giving (usually in the form of money and food) to their lower-caste bhagyawho were plan- ning weddings. They were dissatisfied that the bhagyawould not carry fertilizer for them any longer, that they hadbecome too "proud"over impurityissues. The lower castes, on the other hand, see their resistance as power, using it as a rea- son for disallowingthe marriageof one of their village daughtersto a lower-caste family in another village who still carriedfertilizer for their riti: "We are higher than them now [even though of the same ironsmith caste]. They continue to carryfertilizer, so how can we give one of our daughtersto those people, who are lower than us?" In the end, the upper castes decided to reduce their gifts but not stop them completely. Thus, the lower castes resist certain laborthat in the past was commonplace;locally, laborhas become contestable.20

UntouchableWomen and Men in HouseholdProvisioning: Complementarity and Flexibilityof Labor The ruraleconomy of Bhalarainvolves differences between women and men of low caste in the allocation of time to productive activities, but the GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 231 complementarityof those differencescontributes to sustainedsubsistence pro- visioningin the household.We see the complementarityof workarrangements most clearlyin the two most importantforms of labor,family farm production and outside-incomework. Lower-castewomen do more work on the "family farm"(albeit largely maatya land) than do their men-68 percentof women's productivetime to men's26 percent.Complementing this arrangementis low- castemen's engagement in outsideincome-generating work-74 percent,com- paredto women's32 percent-due in large partto their riti-bhagya-related artisanproduction. Low-caste men are engagednearly four times as often in riti-bhagyawork than are low-castewomen: 34 percent of men's productive time was spent in workrelated to artisanproduction for riti patrons,compared to 9 percentof low-castewomen's productive time. The importantconclusions to be drawnfrom these dataon the genderdivision of laborin low-castehouseholds are: (1) flexibilityin laborallocation is indicatedby bothsexes engagingin all three categoriesof productiveactivities (albeitat differentrates) and (2) the flexibilityof productivetime andthe fact thatmen's work in outside-incomeand riti-bhagya activities equals the amount of time womenspend in only familyfarm production lead to subsistencerela- tions in lower-castehouseholds that could best be characterizedas complemen- tarybetween women and men (see Borqueand Warren 1981 for a similarchar- acterizationof ruralGuatemalan farming households). An enduringexample of lower-castewomen's and men's complementarity of work roles is foundin maatyaland-renting practices. Maatya land tenancy arrangementsintegrate the remoteagrarian community of Bhalarain western Nepalinto the vast industrialeconomy of Indiato the south.Since the opening of Nepalto Indiaand the rest of the world,lower-caste men havebeen earning moneyin Indiaand sending it backto theirwives, who addtheir own earnings fromagricultural and nonagricultural labor for others.The womenthen make loansto high-castefamilies in exchangefor the use of land.21Thus, womenof low caste arecritical partners in theirhusbands' and sons' maatya land negotiations,even thoughthey themselvesdo not generallytravel to Indiafor employment. Additionally,women of low caste are importantmiddlepeople in the maatyaexchange arrangements: they artfullynegotiate the landand its price, meet theirabsent husbands' and sons' workobligations, and fulfill new maatya- designatedwork obligations that both parties agree to.22 The flexibilityand complementarity of men'sand women's work in low-caste householdsare apparentwhen we comparethese featureswith their relative absencein upper-castehouseholds. Greater differences are evident in sometypes of workthan in others.For example,low-caste women spend more time in domestic work thando high-castewomen due to the fact that, on average,low- castehouseholds are larger by aboutone person;therefore, food preparation and serving,laundering, cleaning, and caretaking for the veryyoung, the elderly,and the sick take moretime. Second,due to the muchlarger landholdings of high- caste families,their women spend considerably more time farmingthe family's propertythan do womenfrom lower-caste families. Instead, low-caste women 232 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICALRESEARCH seem to dividetheir farming skills between their own land and the landof others. Low-castewomen spendalmost as muchtime in family-farmand outside-income work(31.4 percentof theirtime) as do high-castewomen in family-farm productionalone (38.0percent of theirtime). For manycultural reasons, high- caste womenin Bhalarado not engagein workthat producesincome; on the contrary,they are in a positionto hirelabor. Finally, and interestingly, both groups of womenspend nearly equal time in socialand leisure activities.23 One significantdifference between the work of low-caste and high-caste women is that the formerhave multipleroles in artisanproduction, farming, anddaily-wage labor, whereas the latterare farmersonly, spending no time in outsideincome-earning activities. In upper-castehouseholds we findless labor varietyfor both men andwomen than we findin lower-castehouseholds, less participationof men in productiveactivities, and fewer labor choices avail- ableto upper-castewomen. Thus, the labordimensions of genderrelations are mediatedby caste in the householdsof Bhalara.

UntouchableWomen as HiredAgricultural Laborers Accordingto the research,women of low caste spend 23 percentof their productivetime in workfor othersfor which they receive cash or in-kindpayments. This is approximatelyhalf of the time that men of low caste devote to such activities(40 percent),yet is farmore thanthat of womenof high caste, who spendno time in outsideincome-earning activities. Untouchable women work in the fields belongingto two groupsof high-castelandowners, riti and non-riti.If theirrelations with their husband's patrons are good, women prefer to workin patrons'fields because their labor time is an investmentin the main- tenanceof riti-bhagya ties whichthey candraw on in the future.In turn,a high- caste familyis likelyto hirefirst from its bhagyafamilies, due to theirinherited patron-clientrelations and their greater dependability over workersfrom non- bhagyafamilies. Women are usuallypaid in-kind from riti. If riti work is not available,low-caste women will workin the fields ownedby non-ritilandown- ers. Forthis workthey are remuneratedwith both in-kind and cash payments. In the manywork situationsthat a low-castewoman finds herself, all of the productsof her workare pooledfor her family'ssubsistence needs. Forwhat kinds of workare women of lowercaste hired?The most important typeof workis agricultural,steady, though seasonal. During the plantingseason, forexample, a low-castewoman may remove rocks from her fields prior to planting,then helptransplant her riti's seedlings,only then to be askedthe next day to gatherfirewood for a non-ritihigh-caste family whose own women may be too busy transplantingto collectfirewood. Low-caste labor within agricultural pro- ductionconsists of informaldaily-wage work in labor-intensiveactivities such as plantingand harvesting and ongoing agricultural maintenance such as weeding anddigging the soil. Dataon the frequencyof hires andtypes of paymentwere collectedfrom forty-six families' hiring-in practices during rice planting(Table 2). Fivetypes of workare considered: plowing fields (which also involves sowing of seeds), diggingirrigation canals, carrying fertilizer, transplanting rice seed- GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 233 lings, and weeding and diggingonce the crops are growing.The numberof householdshiring ranged from three that hired males to help dig canals to forty-threethat hiredfemale workers to transplantrice seedlings. The researchfound clear patterns in the genderand caste divisionsof hiring labor;four main points can be drawn.First, the hiringof agriculturallaborers parallelsthe genderdivision of laboron the familyfarm. For example, only men arehired to plow,sow seeds, anddig irrigation canals, and only women are hired to carryfertilizer, transplant rice seedlings, and weed the crops.Second, far more womenare hired as agriculturalworkers than are men (98 percent and 2 percent, respectively,of all 722 hires). This pattern may be causedby the factthat women's jobs are repetitive-such as weedingand digging the soil-and manyworkers are hiredduring the intensivefew daysof fertilizingthe fieldsand transplanting rice seedlings.Third, far more low-caste workers are hiredthan are high-caste workers(71 percent and 29 percent,respectively). And finally, on average,men's jobs are of longerduration than women's, due primarilyto the factthat plowing takesnearly five daysto complete,whereas the jobsfor which most womenare hired-transplantingseedlings and weeding-take halfthat time. While men plow the fields in preparationfor rice planting,women carry

TABLE 2 Features of Hired Agricultural Workers: Hiring Practices of Forty-six Farming Families

Plow Fields, Dig Carry Transplant Weed, Sow Seeds Canals Fertilizer Seedlings Dig Numberof households 12 3 19 43 32 whohired Averagenumber of workers 1 1 6.7 9.7 5 hired/household Averagenumber of days 4.5 2.0 2.0 1.7 1.4 worked/worker Males(total 15, 2%) 12 3 0 0 0 (100) (100) Females(total 707, 98%) 0 0 129 419 160 (100) (100) (100) Highcaste (total209, 29%) 1 1 40 135 32 (8) (33) (31) (32) (20) Lowcaste (total513, 71%) 11 2 89 283 128 (92) (67) (69) (68) (80) Totalrupees spent on 300 0 500 2,904 658 labor(of 4,362total) Totalkg of grainspent on 46.2 0 29.9 155.1 175.4 labor(of 406.6 total) Note: Numbersin parenthesesindicate percentage of cohortper job. 234 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH fertilizerto be plowed under.This is a labor-intensivejob, and one considered impure.Hired women are alwaysof lowercaste. Overthe course of two weeks, nineteen householdshired, on average,just underseven women to carryfertilizer, for a total of 129 female hires (18 percent of the total hired laborforce for the rice crop). The largestnumber of workerswere hiredto transplantrice seedlings-418 women,or 58 percentof the totalworkers hired during the rice seasonof 1989. Transplantingrequires many workers per householdand is thus most afford- ableusing reciprocal labor, orparma (discussed below). Nearly all of the farming householdshired workers for transplantingrice (forty-threeof forty-six), requiringon averagean extraten workersper household.Sixty-eight percent of the female workershired to transplantwere low caste; the remaining32 percent,of highcaste, were reciprocatedwith exchangelabor. After transplanting,the rice fields are weeded and dug, againusing hired femalelabor. Weeding, a time-consumingjob, is donethroughout the growing season, andhousehold women can, with the help of a few laborers,complete most of the weedingthemselves. Digging the soil to aerateit bothbefore and aftertransplanting, however, requires many workers. Thirty-two of the forty- six familiessurveyed hired, on average,five extrawomen to weed anddig the soil,a totalof 160 (22 percentof hiredlaborers). Here again, most of the women hiredto weed anddig were low caste-80 percent.

UntouchableWomen's Earnings How muchdo womenof lowercaste earnfrom their work in agriculturallabor?Three types of laborcontracts are used in Bhalara:(1) nimakis workcom- pensatedwith in-kindpayments and daily meals and snacks;(2) jyala is work compensatedin cash and does not includemeals or snacks;and (3) parmais exclusivelyfemale reciprocal labor and is mostcommonly used during rice trans- plantingand harvest when largenumbers of workersare neededfor intensive work.Prior to the startof work,either at the timeof hire(commonly a daybefore workcommences) or on the morningof the workingday, workers negotiate cash (jyala)and grain payments (nimak) or parma reciprocal exchanges. FromTable 3, we see thatthe most commonarrangement isparma, recipro- callabor done by women in transplantingseedlings, carrying fertilizer, and weeding.Parma was used in 75.4 percentof all cases in whichwork by femaleswas done for others, and it was the arrangementfor nearly70 percentof all low- castefemale hires.24 The secondmost common form of laborcontract wasnimak, used in 21 percentof lower-castefemale hires. The least commonform of labor contractused in Bhalaraisjyala, in whichworkers are paid in cash.In the cash- poorbut labor-richeconomy of Bhalara,it is not surprisingthat people make laborexchange and in-kind payment arrangements as often as possible.How- ever, the channelingof grainsurplus to temporaryresidents, mostly male bu- reaucrats,threatens to limit in-kindpayments, and some lower-castewomen are forcedinto acceptingcash, whichgives them less for their laborand re- quiresthem then to seek out those with surplusto sell. GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 235 TABLE 3 Type of Labor Contracts with Female Workers, by Caste

Percentage Percentage Percentage Parma(reciprocal) Nimak(in-kind) Jyala(cash) Low-castewomen 49.4: 69.6 15: 21 7: 9.6 High-castewomen 26: 91 1.7: 6 0.9: 3 Note: In percentages:% of allfemale workers: % of femaleworkers by caste.N= 707 Howsignificant to lower-castefamily subsistence are women's cash and grain contributionsearned from their labor for others? Because women of lowercaste are hiredmore frequently than any other class of worker,they earnmore than their male counterpartsin agriculturallabor. Nearly 90 percentof all cash and grainpayments went to low-castefemale agricultural workers during the pe- riodof research.However, gender mediates pay rates such that women earn less than men for equal labortime. This is particularlytrue for in-kindpayment. Plowing,for example,is a higherpaid job thanis weeding.It also takes longer,so thata manhired to plowanother's fields is guaranteedwork for up to five days,whereas a womanhired to weed for a daymust seek workagain the followingday, particularly during the off-season.A manhired to plow,dig irri- gationcanals, or sow seeds can expect to receive substantiallyhigher in-kind paymentthan can a woman.Thus, the maleworker earns more per job thana femaleworker. As a result,males' earning capacity is greater,in theory;should a male choose to do more agriculturalwork for others, he is in a positionto earnmore thanhis femalecounterpart. Female-dominated agricultural activities, such as plantingand harvesting, earned women per diemrates less than halfof whatmales earnedfor their dailywages. Womenearned an averageof 1.4 kg of grainper day,compared with men's average of 3.4 kg of grainper day. These rates indicatehow often women of low caste must, and do, work as agriculturallaborers in orderto earnas muchas their husbands,sons, fathers, brothers-in-law,or fathers-in-lawwould earn if so engaged.At the end of the day,women bring in more cash andgrain incomes to the household,but they mustwork longer and harder to do so-in a varietyof situations,with a variety of households,and with more dailyuncertainty and competition. Caste,interestingly, has no bearingon the rates of cashpayment that workers receive, although,as indicatedabove, caste is reflectedin the typeof payment for whichwomen agree to work. High-castewomen are nearlyalways hiredas parmaexchange laborers, but low-castewomen's labor contracts are more varied.Some lower castes do moreparma labor than others, and some castes contributefar more workers to the laborforce than others. See Cameron (1995)for furtherdiscussion of these patterns.

UntouchableWomen's Work in Riti-BhagyaArtisan Production The mostwell knowneconomic relationship between lower-caste and upper- caste familiesis foundwithin the riti-bhagyasystem. With the exceptionof four recentlysettled families,all low-castefamilies in the samplepopulation have 236 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH semipermanent low-caste and high-casteriti for whom they produce goods and services in exchange for khalo harvest shares. Women frombhagyafamilies have two roles in fulfillingtheir economic responsibilities to their riti. First, women from families who regularlyproduce artisan commodities for the community (about40 percent of the low-caste sample population) may fully or partiallyengage in artisan and service production.Second, low-caste women work as agriculturaland nonagriculturallaborers for their riti, as discussed above. Overall,low-caste women allocate 9 percent of their productive labor time to artisan production.Table 4 delineates the gender division of laborin artisanproduction. As we can see, women and men may either do identical types of work or may supplement each others' work. Damini (women from the Damai tailoringcaste) are active seamstresses, receiving sewing machines as dowry or purchasingthem. Luhami (women from the Luharironsmith caste) do not poundiron into tools as do their husbands,but they may pumpthe bellows or gather raw materials for farm tool production.Women in all artisan castes negotiateproduction timetables, deliver finished goods, make laborarrangements, manageorders, and collect paymentfor productsfrom riti andnon-riti alike. Many times throughoutfour years of residence in Bhalara,my high-caste hosts would request a good or service from bhagyawomen and, though the women do not always create the goods, they place the order and often deliver the product. The lowest-caste groups considered the most impure have the highest fre- quency of female participationin artisanproduction. Baadini and Damini women spend more of their labor hours in production specific to their caste (pottery and entertaining, and sewing) than do the other low-caste groups-Parki, Okheda, and Sunar. The exception to this is the Sarki caste which no longer produces the leather goods which have lost in competition with mass-produced commodities from India. Productionof commodities is usually done at home where the tools are kept. The potters' wheels and molds, the ironsmiths' bellows, hammers, and hearths, the leather workers' tanning pits and chemicals, and the basket makers' knives and softening materials are not mobile, and therefore it is impracticalfor the work to be done at the patron's home. Some low-caste artisans, though, work at the patron's home for the durationof the productionprocess. The Damai, for example, carry their sewing machines to the riti's house to sew clothing, prop- erly fitted, for family members. Goldsmiths also work at patrons' homes so that the patron can oversee the use of family gold. And the Oudh masons must, of course, work at the patron's home. An artisan working at a riti's home will be given all meals that day in addition to the semiannual harvest shares.

CONCLUSIONS: CONTESTED HIERARCHIES AND FEMALE POWER

The historical trend in low-caste women's work is a movement away from artisan production and towards family farm production and paid agricultural labor for high-caste landowning families. Out of such practices that serve to GENDER.CASTE. AND LABOR IN NEPAL 237 TABLE 4 Gender Division of Artisan Activities

Caste Male Female Baadi potters, Collectand mix clay,pound Carryand mix clay,shape pipes, entertainers clay,shape vessel parts,dry, carryfodder, deliver goods. fire,decorate. Dance, sing, Dance,sing, solicitclients for drum prostitution Sarkileather workers Skinanimal, tan hide, design Collectraw materials, tan hides, andstitch goods, deliver designand stitch goods, deliver Sunargoldsmiths and Collectmaterials; sell gold, Pumpbellows, deliver silversmiths silver;design, create jewelry; fire,hammer gold into sheets, silverinto pellets; make wax mold;melt goldinto mold, poundsilver into shape;shine, decorate;deliver Luharironsmiths Collect,recycle iron scraps; Pumpbellows, gather raw fire,pound iron into tools; materials,deliver deliver Parkibasket weavers Collectbamboo, split into Collectbamboo, split into strips,design, weave, deliver strips,design, weave, deliver Oudhmasons Collectrocks, clay, manure, wood;break rocks, carve wood; measure,construct wall, house, steps Damaitailors, Buycloth and/or notions; sew Buycloth and/or notions; sew seamstresses men's,women's, children's men's,women's, children's clothing;deliver clothing;deliver reproduce the conditions of gender and caste subservience emerges a counterposition of power for women of low caste. But before discussing this important issue, let us turn to the main findings of the article.

LaboringHierarchies The division of laborin ruralHindu Nepal and the work of lower-caste women, in particular, are shaped by gender, caste, and landholding status. As people labor to reproduce their households, work becomes constituted by varying measures of these forces. For example, the primary productive roles of many Damai and Parki women and all Baadi women are caste-specific. They contribute to household subsistence their cash and grain earnings from sewing clothes, making baskets, and entertaining at weddings. Since their right to this labor derives from their caste position in the riti-bhagyasystem, these women's work is primarily caste-defined. This conclusion is further supported by two other facts: first, most artisanproduction, including the supplementalwork of women, 238 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH is done for riti patrons, a relationship defined by caste; and second, the men of these castes also sew clothes, make baskets, and entertain at weddings along- side their wives and daughters, indicatinga lack of distinction in work patterns based on gender. Other forms of female labor, however, are subject to gender determinations, regardless of caste status. For example, certain agriculturalwork, such as plowing, is done only by men. Work monopolized by women, on the other hand, includes transplanting and weeding crops. Importantly, the impact of gender on agriculturallabor significantly shapes labor contracts, including duration of employment and pay rates. In additionto the gender- and caste-constituted forms of low-caste women's labor, much of their agriculturallyrelated work derives from their landholding class. Workingon their own small farms or in the fields of large landowners, in a variety of activities, low-caste women's agriculturalwork is more variable than artisanproduction, both in terms of laborrelations andjob type. This varia- tion reflects the different social lives of women from lower-caste and upper- caste families, a separation caused primarilyby their differentpositions in landholding andriti-bhagya relations. Laboringtowards the same goal of household provisioning, each group of women reproduces its positions of asymmetry inherent in Nepal's caste and gender hierarchies in ways that may not be obvious from the cooperative experience of women working together. In working with and for the women married to the men who own the land, lower-caste women reproduce their own dependent position in the social relations of production,a position devoid of ownership and prestige. Upper-caste women stand in a position dominant to the women of lower caste whom they hire as agricultural workers, even though these production relations are contingent on a gender asymmetry in which women must work on male-owned property.Furthermore, the meaning of upper-caste women's work is to reproduce ideologies by which the upper castes maintain their privilege and status-the acknowledged subservience of females to males and the supremacy of upper-caste patrilines. The social consequence distinguishing high-caste and low-caste women's work is that women of the upper castes enjoy the privilege and prestige conferred by their high status, whereas women of lower caste do not.

Lower-CasteWomen's Work and EconomicPower The riti-bhagyarelationship is vital for low castes because of the year-round subsistence it guarantees. Production and exchange entitlements that women of lower caste activate locally allow them to seek and be given daily work with- out recrimination. Even a reluctant upper-caste landowner can be goaded into providing some form of work on a temporary basis so that a woman can provi- sion her family that day. These rights of low-caste women to labor in agricultural and nonagriculturalproduction also encompass rights to produce commodities specific to their caste. Through traditionalartisan labor and hired agriculturalwork, low-caste bhagya women are critical players in meeting their families' responsibilities of the relationship with their upper-caste landowning GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 239 riti. In doingso, low-castewomen gain some measureof economicpower. A secondsource of women'seconomic power lies in their abilityto acquire landfor their families to farm.Women in lower-castehouseholds contribute to the acquisitionof both maatyaand haliya (plow) land, unlike women in high- caste households.In all untouchablegroups that seek land to own and that currentlyrent maatya land (this excludes only the Baadi),the valueof women's workand their power within the householdin high. Maatyaland is a formof loancollateral, and haliya land is lentto a familywhich providesthe lenderwith a maleplower. A portionof the moneylent formaatya landcollateral is earnedby womenof low caste workingas daily-wagelaborers, andthe remaindercomes fromlow-caste men's work in India.A low-casteman is ableto migrateto Indiafor employment only if householdwomen (particularly wives) are willingand able to managethe familyfarm and meet riti obligations. Low-castewomen must also cooperatein the acquisitionof haliyaland. While theirhusbands and sons are plowinganother's fields, the womentake on addi- tionalhousehold and agricultural labor at theirown homes and those of theirriti (sincemore than plowing is alwaysexpected of the haliyafamily). The relationshipto land and its consequencesfor gender asymmetryare distinctlydifferent for womenof untouchablecaste thanfor their upper-caste counterparts.The differencebetween upper-casteand lower-castewomen's economicpower lies not in the actualownership of land(since neitherdoes), but in who contributesto its permanentor temporaryacquisition. Maatya is landobtained only aftermuch work by low-castewomen; its valuefor renters is high.Given that well over halfof the landworked by low castes is not owned by them but is rentedmaatya or haliyaland, the kindsof conflictscommon to uppercastes over inheritanceand the partitioningof propertydo not exist in lower-castefamilies. But more importantly,the associatedbeliefs and ideas aboutthe threatof upper-casteaffinal women disruptingpatrilineal cooperation andland inheritance (Bennett 1983) are only partially(if at all) sharedby low-castefamilies. Thus, the value of untouchablewomen's labor and the lack of inheritableland among low-caste families occur at the expense of beliefs that would otherwiserestrict women's independenteconomic activities and power. The historyof changein divisionsof laborsuggests culturaltransformations in caste hierarchyas well. Linksin the reproductionof a perfectcaste hierarchy are weakeningas the directresult of challengespresented by laborand landtransformations. Forces that have shapedthe historyof genderand caste divisionsof laborin ruralNepal are intensifying.The currentwork patterns of low-castewomen reflect a contemporaryarrangement of socialrelations of pro- ductiondistinctly different from those of the past when,as a group,they were involvedprimarily in artisancommodity production. The forcedshift from caste- based commodityproduction to selling their labor developed out of the sociohistoricalconstruction of low-castelandlessness and the currentthreat of decreasedharvest shares from riti. Withthe rapidsocioeconomic changes oc- curringin Bhalara,in particularthe declineof arableland, the deteriorationof 240 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH riti-bhagyaintercaste relations, increased male migrationto India,and decreased demand for low-caste commodities, low-caste women's labor will be increasingly freed into the rural labor market.

NOTES

1. Suchgroups include the Sherpa(Fisher 1979; Ortner 1978), Tamang (Fricke 1986; Holmberg1989; March 1979), northern Tibetan (Levine 1988; Haimendorf 1966), Gurung (Macfarlane1976; McHugh 1985), Magar (Fisher 1987; Hitchcock 1966; Molnar 1981), andNewar (Toffin 1977). 2. See the collectionof articlesin Nicholson1990 that address the philosophicalim- plicationsof this failure. 3. Forhigh-caste Hindu female farmers, productive work involves primarily agriculturalwork directed toward the goal of householdprovisioning at a subsistencelevel; malesmay be employedprofessionally, though these jobs are few. 4. Age and maritalstatus are also significantlyrelated to women'swork. For example,young unmarried girls generallydo less andfewer kindsof workthan do new brides,who themselveswork longer and harder than senior affinal women. 5. Thereare two maindifferences between caste structurein Nepaland India: first, Nepal'sLegal Code incorporatesall Nepalese citizens into the caste system, Hindus andnon-Hindus alike, whereas in Indiamany non-Hindu ethnic groups remain outside the caste system;second, Nepalese ethnic groups, designated asmatwali ("liquor drink- ing")in the caste system, occupythe thirdlevel of the caste hierarchyand are considered pureor touchable.This same level in the Indiansystem is designatedas the im- purevaisya Sanskritic category, and these personsare Hindu.See Hofer(1979) for a detaileddescription of the Nepalesecaste system's structure. 6. The bulkof khalopayments are in the formof unhuskedwheat and rice but may includeother foods such as millet,lentils, and soybeans. Although khalo is considereda paymentfor services rendered,the bhagyamust still go to the threshingfloor or the riti's house to obtainit. This practiceis calledmaagnu, or begging(see Cameron1992 for a furtherdiscussion of maagnu).In additionto the khaloharvest shares, all of the commodity-producingcastes chargea fee calledbasho for their laborand products at the time of delivery. 7. In contrastto the economicarrangement of the riti-bhagyasystem, slaveryex- isted in Bhalara(as it didthroughout Nepal) until the secondhalf of the twentiethcentury.Low-caste people, because of theirstatus as untouchable,were not slaves. 8. For extensive discussionof the early historyof farmingand cottageindustries such as clothingmanufacture in Bhalara,see Cameron(1995); see Regmi(1978) and Seddon,Blaikie, and Cameron(1979) on other Nepalese sites. The two kinds of rice plantedby Bhalara'sfarmers are irrigatedand nonirrigated. Irrigated rice is preferred as a food,but it requiresmore labor to plant,maintain, and harvest. For further discus- sion aboutagricultural practices in the Himalayanfoothills, see Cameron(1995) and Seddon,Blaikie, and Cameron (1979). Supplemental grains and foods planted with sum- mer/monsoonrice includealley crops such as lentils, soybeans,and mustard; during the same season,corn, millet, mustard, pumpkin, cucumbers, and other vegetables are grownin separatesections. Foods planted with winter wheat include lentils, peas, pota- toes, cauliflower,spinach, and other vegetables. 9. Bhalara,like the rest of Bajhang,is rice deficientand is subsidizedby the Nepal GENDER,CASTE, AND LABOR IN NEPAL 241 FoodCorporation, which has an officein the districtcenter of Chainpur. 10. The importanceof animalsto the villagersis reflectedin the large numberof loansused for theirpurchase. 11. Severalresearch methods were used to investigatelabor in ruralNepal. Data on the allocationof time in variousactivities for all membersabove the age of five were collectedin fiftylow-caste and high-caste households for one year. Five categoriesof activitieswere used to codifythe time allocationdata (for a completedescription of the seventy-onedifferent kinds of activitiesrecorded, see Cameron1995): (1) Familyfarm production-planting,maintaining, and harvesting crops; fertilizing and irrigating soil; dryingand storingcrops; animal husbandry; collecting fodder and fuelwood. (2) Out- side-incomework-farm productiondone for othersin whichcash or in-kindpayment is received;artisan commodity production; entertaining; portering; house building, maintenance,and repair. (3) Reproductive/domestictasks-child care;food processing; cook- ing and serving;cleaning house and compound;fetching water; laundering. (4) Away activities-travel to India,the districtcenter of Chainpur,or south to the Terai for business, employment,health care, and other reasons. (5) Socialpursuits-personal hygiene;relaxation; religious worship; education. The firsttwo categories,"family farm production" and "outside-income work," com- prise productivework, while the thirdcategory of activitiesis understoodto be reproductivework. Some "away"activities are partof productivework, for examplewhen peopleof lowercaste collectharvest shares from upper-caste patrons, and were there- forecoded as outside-incomework. Otherwise, the categoriesof awayand social do not generallyinvolve productive or reproductivework and are not consideredhere. Qualitativeand quantitative data were collectedon landholding patterns and processes, agriculturalproduction, patron-client relations, gender and caste divisionsof labor,and the workexperiences of womenof low caste. 12. The ratioswere calculatedby dividingthe time spentin socialand leisure activities by the amountof time allocatedto familyfarm production, outside income-generating activities,and reproductive or domesticwork together. 13. Saltand grain trade between Nepal, China, and India has a longhistory that con- tinuesto this day(Fisher 1987; Levine 1988; Regmi 1978; Seddon 1987; Subedi 1988). Tibetantraders come through Bhalara regularly, trading salt carriedby sheepand goats for grains. 14. Of the fifty familiesin the researchpopulation, fifteen lower-caste families (52 percentof total low-castefamilies with ownedor rentedland) and thirteen high-caste families(62 percentof the totalwith land)claimed to have lost landin the past decade due to annualmonsoon erosion and two destructiveearthquakes. 15. Fora completediscussion of the impactof nationalland reform and the distribu- tionof the deceasedBhalara king's land on landholdingrelations in Bhalara,see Cameron 1995. 16. Professionalpositions such as governmentand teachingpositions available to men or womenhave not increasedsubstantially. The police,the largestgroup of pro- fessionals,are not localpeople. 17. Mensay thatthey restrictedwomen not because the women could not be trusted, but becauseother men, comingin contactwith nonkinwomen in publicplaces, could not be trusted. 18. Landholdingdata are groupedin five categoriesadapted from those used by the NepalNational Bank (Nepal 1978). 242 JOURNALOF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH 19. Of the 72 ropani of land rented by the sample population-the majorityof which is irrigated land called khet-51 ropani (or 70 percent) is maatya land rented primarily by lower-caste families from landholdingfamilies. Untouchable families also rent small tracts ofhaliya or plow land. The remainingmaatya land is rented by lower-caste people from other lower castes andpoor upper-castefamilies renting fromwealthy uppercastes. 20. Low castes say that India's attempts at caste reform have motivated them politically. Nepal's lower castes return from employment experiences in India emboldened by their experiences there. However, caste reform is slow, changing primarily at the economic level from lower castes' efforts to acquire land and free themselves from dependent riti ties and less at the level of caste ideology. 21. Of the fifty households sampled, thirty-nine currently have at least one cash loan. Nearly halfof the loans were used equallyfor livestock purchases and marriageexpenses. 22. An established local calendar governs maatya practices. If a loan is not paid back by plantingtime for rice or wheat, the tenant can use the land again that season. By local consensus, land can be reclaimed for planting rice on the last day of Maagh (February 10). The renter harvests the wheat crop for her family, then relinquishes planting and harvesting rights to the owner of the land upon repayment of the loan. If the owner does not pay back the money owed, the renter can expect to continue planting for another season. 23. The importance of leisure time to socialize and talk with others cannot be over- stated. The meaning of women's lives and their experiences of power are expressed in innumerableconversations with other women and men, as they build relationships with kin, neighbors, laborers, and employers. 24. In contrast, parma is absent in men's work arrangements. This does not mean that men do not exchange labor; they do, particularlyin digging irrigation canals and sometimes in plowing. But men do not call their labor exchangeparma; they simply say they are doing the work as a favor, with the unspoken assumption that the "favor"will be returned. Women, however, label their labor parma and therefore expect a labor return quite soon after.

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