Gender, Caste, and Mobility in Rural India
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Country Girls: Gender, Caste, and Mobility in Rural India Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Sri Devi Thakkilapati, M.A. Graduate Program in Sociology The Ohio State University 2016 Dissertation Committee Steven H. Lopez, Advisor Mytheli Sreenivas Korie Edwards Copyright by Sri Devi Thakkilapati 2016 Abstract Since the late 1990s, India has asserted its modernity through a “new middle class” that promises inclusion to all worthy citizens. Yet India’s claims to modernity are consistently challenged by trenchant gender, caste, and class inequalities. The figure of the poor, uneducated rural woman marks the limits of Indian modernity. As such, rural young women and their families have become key targets of development programs. This dissertation looks at how families and young women in rural India are responding to new pressures to achieve social mobility and represent the nation. Using ethnographic data from ten months of fieldwork in the Guntur region of south India, I argue that gender, class, and caste are reproduced in distinctive ways, despite the vastness of change associated with modernization in India. I distinguish the current re-articulation of gender, class, and caste inequalities from the formations of the past on the basis of three characteristics: First, though women are becoming more educated, I find that education alone is insufficient to address social inequalities and may even increase disparities. Second, I demonstrate how the transnational migration of elites has transformed social life in Guntur. Lastly, I find that educational privatization has produced a highly stratified educational system that almost perfectly reproduces the class system. My analysis clarifies whether and how rural young women, who are often perceived as the most disadvantaged fraction of Indian society, are able to achieve social mobility. ii Dedication Dedicated to my parents, who encouraged my curiosity and gave me a sense of justice. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation is a labor of love. My own love, of course, for India and for the people I came to know during my fieldwork. But the labor of the dissertation was made both deeper and lighter by the love of friends and family. Though I cannot name everyone who I would like to thank in the space given here, the following is a start. My aunt Sathyabhama, my uncle Kam Prasad, Manga Rao, and Naga Laxmi took care of innumerable big and small details to settle me in India. It was my great fortune to meet Vajaram, Kavitha, and Prabawathi during my fieldwork. Their practical help in managing everyday life and travel were invaluable, but it is their patience, humor, and excellent company for which I am most grateful. In the villages, Vijaya Kumari, Jyothi, Koteswari, Mary Kiran, Radjammamma, and Bharathi Laxmi opened their homes to me with such generosity and grace that they gave me a sense of belonging and made it easy to visit the villages everyday. Jamie Hecker and the women of Preterm taught me to listen carefully, think critically, and think big. I was lucky to have the support of Liana Sayer, who worked with me to develop this project from its earliest stages. Korie Edwards taught me to think historically and sociologically about race and caste and inspired me to keep thinking about these things. iv Mytheli Sreenivas’s intellectual generosity and thoughtful feedback were invaluable for developing the arguments in the dissertation, especially for Chapters 2 and 4. Steve Lopez helped me think through my work, taught me to become a better writer, encouraged me, listened to me, faced-down the time-to-degree dragons on my behalf, and helped me keep perspective. I am grateful everyday that he took me on as a student. Carol Upadhya’s and Mario Rutten’s works on provincial globalization became foundational to my thinking about social life in Guntur. The excellent conference they arranged in 2013 in Amsterdam helped me develop my analysis, especially in Chapter 3. Archana Venkatesh, Anna Peterson, Tali Best, Nithya Rajan, Naman Modi, Debanuj Dasgupta, Colin Odden, James Morrison, Bridget Kriner, Katie Horowitz, Anna Muraveva, Jon Vaughn, Jill Yavorsky, Tasleem Padamsee, Susan Pennington, and many other friends commiserated with me, advised me, got what I was saying, cheered me on, fed me, read drafts, joked with me, and otherwise kept me (mostly) sane and motivated. My parents have made me the luckiest person I know. I could not have accomplished this task without their generosity and kindness. I hope to make them proud. To those I have mentioned above and to the many others who helped me, thank you for easing my way. v Vita June 1991……………………………………….Strongsville High School 2005……………………………………………..B.A. English, Cleveland State University 2009……………………………………………..M.A. Sociology, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Sociology vi Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….........iv Vita………………………………………………………………………………………..vi List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..ix List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………..x Chapter 1 Introduction: Family, Hegemony, and Social Change in India………………………...…1 Chapter 2 A Brief Primer on Caste, With a Discussion of the Advantaged and Disadvantaged Castes Guntur Region of Andhra Pradesh…………………………………………………...…..49 Chapter 3 Cultural Capital and Class Struggle in Civil Society………………………….......……..86 Chapter 4 Rural Disadvantages and Modern Desires……………………………………...………124 vii Chapter 5 Conclusions, Recommendations, and Future Work…………………………………….191 References………………………………………………………………………………201 Appendix A Methodology: Trying to Get the Fish to Talk about the Water………………………...214 Appendix B Samples……………………………………………..…………..……………………....246 Appendix C Descriptions of Government Job Categories…………………………………………..248 viii List of Tables Table 1 Transnational Cultural Capital………………………………..………………………….98 Table 2 Rural Sample Class and Caste Composition…...………………...……………………..246 Table 3 Urban Samples Class and Caste Composition…………………………………….........246 Table 4 Family Observations- More than three visits…………...……….…………………..….247 ix List of Figures Figure 1 Advertisement in Guntur City for NRI’s Indian Springs School……….……………..…83 Figure 2 School sign and grounds in rural area, approximately 30 kilometers south of Guntur….84 Figure 3 Chandrababu Naidu on the Campaign Trail in October, 2012…………………………..85 Figure 4 A SUV displayed as part of the dowry for a lavish non-resident Indian Kamma wedding…………………………………………………………………………………122 Figure 5 The attendees of the same non-resident Indian wedding in Guntur………………….…123 Figure 6 Total number of educational institutions in Andhra Pradesh ……...…………………...187 Figure 7 Advertisement for co-ed engineering college on a residential road in Guntur.……..….188 Figure 8 School advertisement for co-ed Montessori institution in Guntur city………...………189 x Figure 9 School billboard advertisement in Guntur for co-ed school.…...……...…….…………190 xi Chapter 1: Introduction: Family, Hegemony, and Social Change in India In 2011, when I began to conceptualize this dissertation about social change in India, I went to my hometown of Guntur, Andhra Pradesh to collect some preliminary information. I wanted to focus on childrearing because Andhra Pradesh had undergone a rapid transition in the total fertility rate, from 4.4 children per woman in 1978 to 1.7 in 2005 (Ramachandran and Ramesh 2005; National Family Heath Survey-3, 2005-2006). The change in fertility was not only notable for its speed, it was also remarkable because there was very little variation in fertility rates across social groups, and because this change had occurred in the absence of significant institutional changes that predict fertility decline1(James and Subramanian 2005). A number of demographic works suggest that the change in fertility rate is due to a normative shift in conceptualizations of the family (Säävälä 2001; Ramachandran and Ramesh 2005; James and Subramanian 2005; Guilmoto 2005; Dommaraju and Agadjanian 2009). In her insightful ethnographic study of fertility decline in rural Andhra Pradesh, Minna Säävälä (2001) argues that, rich or poor, rural women in the state are having fewer children because they want to provide a better life for their children. Because her research focuses on fertility, it was beyond the scope of Säävälä’s study to investigate whether and how parents were trying to realize 1 Guilmoto (2005) reports the highest variation in fertility rates as approximately .2 children per woman. General predictors associated with fertility decline are women’s education and labor force participation, health care access, industrialization and other indicators associated with social and economic modernization. 1 2 Marital conventions dictate that women should marry men who are at least as this better life. However, it was clear form these studies, and from my own observations, that significant material and cultural shifts were taking place in Andhra. In order to understand the social changes taking place in Andhra Pradesh, I wanted to talk with parents about how they were raising their children and the challenges they faced in doing so. I met Laxmi in July of 2011 at my aunt’s house in Guntur city. As a chākali, a member of the washerfolk jati, Laxmi’s occupation was somewhat determined by her birth. Though some members of the chākali