Tribal Margins: Dalit Belonging and State Recognition in the Western Himalayas
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Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE 8-24-2018 Tribal Margins: Dalit Belonging and State Recognition in the Western Himalayas Steven Christopher Johnson Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Johnson, Steven Christopher, "Tribal Margins: Dalit Belonging and State Recognition in the Western Himalayas" (2018). Dissertations - ALL. 923. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/923 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Tribal Margins analyzes the project of tribal fashioning in the Western Himalayas against the backdrop of affirmative action politics. Specifically, it unpacks the discursive loop between government-administered ethnological paradigms for positive discrimination and its effects on ethnic belonging and spirituality. These dynamics are located among the Gaddis of Himachal Pradesh, a heterogeneous tribal/Dalit community traditionally associated with transhumant pastoralism on both sides of the Dhauladhar Mountains. The 2002 awarding of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to only high- caste Kangra Gaddis has instigated a range of tribalizing strategies from Dalit groups who identity as Gaddi and are partially assimilated into tribal life. These low-status groups demand tribal recognition as both a form of social justice in the face of longstanding social discriminations and as a pragmatic strategy for state support amid the growing tide of neoliberalism. They rightly contend that the demographics of Himachal Pradesh (with the second-highest Dalit population in India) cause fierce competitiveness within the Scheduled Caste quota – about four times as competitive as the Scheduled Tribe quota. Many have mobilized under the trending discourse of Scheduled Tribe Dalit (STD) and fused indigenous ethnic associations with the pan-Himalayan struggle for double SC/ST status. The analysis of marginalized social formations in the tribal margins fundamentally reconceptualizes how political subject formation trickles into social life. The introduction of self-identifying Gaddi Dalits, largely sedentary laborers and former landless tenants, into the transhumant tribe disrupts the colonial literature on Gaddis. It further unsettles assumptions of tribal egalitarianism and complicates how South Asian sociology theorizes the discrete borders of tribal and caste organization. Understanding the intersectional identity of Gaddi Dalits speaks to the broader issue of tribal casteism and the double marginalization of low- status groups who remain misrecognized by the state and discriminated against in their everyday lives. In short, it imagines new trajectories of ethnic belonging and social justice for Himalayan Dalits. Each chapter attends to these trajectories within the lived experiences of Gaddi Dalits, specifically Halis (former landless tenants) and Sippis (wool-workers and shamans). The experience of fractured caste consciousness has led to ongoing legal woes due to their juridical liminality. These dynamics shape how Gaddi Dalits experience divinities, exorcism and witchcraft. Individual chapters trace forms of spirituality, religious conversion and ritual practice that provide powerful personal arenas for the re-articulation of ethnic identity and the burgeoning emergence of tribal multiculturalism. The presence of Tibetan refugees in Gaddi villages around Dharamsala has injected contestatory forms of sociality, modern aspiration and cosmopolitan competencies into tribal performance. TRIBAL MARGINS: DALIT BELONGING AND STATE RECOGNITION IN THE WESTERN HIMALAYAS BY STEVEN CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON B.A. UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, 2006 M.A. SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, 2013 DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ANTHROPOLOGY SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY AUGUST 2018 Copyright © Steven Christopher Johnson 2018 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements This dissertation is based on sixteen months of fieldwork among Gaddis, primarily in Himachal Pradesh but also in Jammu and Kashmir, Goa and Delhi. I would foremost like to thank those Gaddi Dalits who shared their struggle for recognition with a foreign anthropologist. If I have conveyed their stories with empathy, I hope they will forgive me the discomfort my insistent questioning sometimes caused. While this dissertation aims to contribute to the amelioration of tribal casteism, data collection occasionally intensified emotions of frustration, helplessness, anger at injustice and fear of social reprisal. Coaxing out these tensions was cathartic for some and voluntarily onerous for others. I remain humbled by the trust I was bestowed and the hospitality I daily received. Although they are pseudonyms in this dissertation, their real names I cannot forget. I am indebted to my primary research associates – Atul, Arjun (pseudonym), and Reeta – for their patience conducting fieldwork and transcribing more than 350 hours of interviews. Our lives have become so entangled that it is impossible to say where work ends and friendship begins. Since completing research, Atul enrolled in a PhD program in Political Science and is pursuing parallel research on Gaddi politics. Arjun remains a fixture at the district library while preparing for government exams. Reeta, after teaching at Yale University through a Fulbright award, works at a call center in Chandigarh and continues to give Gaddi cultural performances. This project was aided by the transparency of several Gaddi organizations. I want to specifically thank Ramesh Mastana, president of the Himalaya Gaddi Union, for tirelessly fighting on behalf of Gaddi Dalits; Thakur Das, founder of the Gaddi Sangh in J&K, for his honesty and friendship; Rakesh Jaryal, president of the Hali Mahasangh, for sharing legal documents and archival data; Parveen Jaryal, president of All J&K Gaddi Sippi Tribes Welfare iv Association, for his broadminded leadership; Krishan Sippi, member of the Gaddi Sippy Uplift Organization; Pintu Sharma, member of the Indo-Tibetan Friendship Association, for providing a key invitation which got me a seat at the table, so to speak; Ajeet Neharia, former president of the Dharamsala Taxi Union; Kuldeep Pataniya, former president of the Kailash Association; and Dharmu Trehan, president of the Dalit Backwards Class Gaddi Organization, who tragically passed away during fieldwork. I would further like to extend my gratitude to Gaddi intellectuals and public figures who shaped my thinking on tribal belonging, specifically Dr. Uttam Chand, Dr. B.P. Singh Chouhan and retired serviceman Karam Singh; MLA Kishan Kapoor, MLA R.S. Pathania and former MLA candidate Badrinath Sippi; and folksinger Sunil Rana. It is also necessary to mention non- Gaddi social activists Sukhdev Vishwapremi (president of the People’s Campaign for Socio- economic Equity in the Himalaya) and Lal Chand Dhissa (president of Janjatiya Dalit Sangh), whose tireless efforts to combat tribal casteism are an inspiration for this dissertation. It would be remiss to overlook the many Tibetan friends, housemates and interviewees who shaped this project. At the organizational level, I thank Dekyi Wangmo at the Tibetan Homes Foundation, for opening broader contacts with Tibetans across East Asia; Sonam Dechen, the associate director of the Tibetan Center for Conflict Resolution, for her work promoting ethnic harmony in Dharamsala; the principle of TCV Gamru; the Tibetan Settlement Office in Dharamsala; Ms. Wongmo at the Tibetan Transit School; His Eminence Acharya Dagpo Shabdrung at Shakya College; and Teshe Choesang, Editor-in-Chief of the Tibet Post, for press access to the Dharamsala International Film Festival. My English students at LHA remain inspirations. Dhondup Choephel, penname Mila Rangzen, must be recognized for his courage to roar what is often whispered; his frankness through extended email exchanges provided v considerably insight into the precarity of refugee life in Dharamsala. This view was reinforced by Khampa housemates during research in McLeod Ganj. Throughout the writing process, several chapter drafts were presented and received constructive feedback. I am grateful for the opportunity to guest lecture at the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies in Delhi, where Director Sanghmitra and faculty helped me to think comparatively about tribal Dalits; at Kyoto University in Japan, where Tatsuro Fujikura and faculty guided my analysis of Tibetan patronage into an East Asian context; and at the Tibet Society in London, Syracuse University in New York, Vietnam National University in Hanoi and the Landour Lecture Series in Mussoorie. Conference papers based on dissertation drafts were presented at the AAAs, AARs and the Annual Conference on South Asia, among others. The community of scholars focused on Gaddis is small but resilient. In the early stage of fieldwork, conversation with Kriti Kapila and Anja Wagner helped me to think through the problem of Gaddi nomenclature. Richard Axelby has been a mentor and friend; neither of us will soon forget our time together in McLeod Ganj with the Lion Man. Peter Phillimore has been more than gracious reading chapter drafts and providing his considerable expertise. Daniel Côté helped me make sense of his French-language dissertation on Gaddi spirit possession. And