Networks that Make a Difference The Production of Social Cohesion in Lucknow, North India Tereza Kuldova Master Thesis Department of Social Anthropology UNIVERSITY OF OSLO 20. May 2009 1 Table of Contents PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER I - DOING ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CITY: MEDITATIONS ON THEORY AND METHOD . 6 THE PRODUCTION OF PLACE ......................................................................................................... 7 THE THEORETICO-METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................... 9 DOING ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CITY: THEORY AND METHOD IN THE FIELD ............................................ 12 CHAPTER II - IMAGINING LUCKNOW: THE MYTHOLOGIES OF A CITY ....................................... 16 THE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PAST ............................................................................................ 17 THE NARRATIVE OF GLORIOUS PAST, DECLINE & OLD CHARM ............................................................ 18 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MUHARRAM .............................................................................................. 20 THE IDEA OF SECULARISM .......................................................................................................... 22 POETRY, LANGUAGE & ETIQUETTE ............................................................................................... 24 THE DELICATE CUISINE .............................................................................................................. 25 HANDCRAFTING PAST ............................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER III - THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CROSS-CUTTING TIES: THE ECONOMIC NETWORKS OF THE CHIKAN INDUSTRY ...................................................................................................................................... 33 THE CHIKAN INDUSTRY TRIVIA .................................................................................................... 35 THE MULTI-STAGED PRODUCTION PROCESS ................................................................................... 39 THE CHIKAN BLOCK MAKERS (TAPPAGARS) .................................................................................... 44 2 THE PRINTERS (CHEEPIS) ........................................................................................................... 45 THE TRADERS-CUM-ENTREPRENEURS ........................................................................................... 47 THE MEANING OF THE NETWORKS OF ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCY ................................................... 56 THE PATRON-CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS ............................................................................................ 57 CHAPTER IV - DRAWING CONNECTIONS: CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE INDIAN MIDDLE-CLASS, BOLLYWOOD CINEMA & CHIKAN ................................................................................................... 65 THE MIDDLE-CLASS LIFEWORLD: DISCURSIVE OSCILLATIONS ............................................................... 67 THE MERCHANTS & BUYERS: THE PRODUCTION OF SELVES THROUGH COMMODITY CONSUMPTION & DISPLAY 84 BOLLYWOOD CINEMA: LIVING THE DREAM-WORLDS ......................................................................... 87 CHIKAN IN THE CINEMA AND IN THE WARDROBES OF THE MIDDLE-CLASSES: THE HIDDEN MEANINGS OF CLOTHES 92 CONCLUDING REMARKS ........................................................................................................ 100 THE RIDDLE OF THE “RELAXED” COMMUNAL RELATIONSHIPS............................................................ 101 THINKING IN TERMS OF IDENTIFICATION INSTEAD OF IDENTITY ........................................................... 105 THINKING IN TERMS OF NETWORKS INSTEAD OF DICHOTOMIES ......................................................... 107 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 110 FILMOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 131 3 Preface “Lucknow bestowed on me an invaluable gift. It taught me to look at the human being rather than his religion or his caste or the colour of his skin” (Mehta 2007: 219) When the word Lucknow slips from the tongue the whole imaginary landscape of the rich, extravagant and peculiar culture of the times of the Nawabs of Awadh unfolds in front of our eyes. The Urdu poetry, courtesans, exquisite cuisine and fashion, kite-flying, cock-fighting, elaborate etiquette, marvellous architecture, mosques and imambaras, kathak performances, the mourning festival of Muharram… The Lucknow of today is a bit different; it is a modern North Indian city with its characteristic buzz in the streets, with its “struggling” middle class and new shopping malls; with its abysmal difference between the urban rich and poor. But still, behind the facade of modernity, when we look closer, the old Lucknow is still alive. The Lucknow imagined and portrayed as a secular, peaceful place with a distinctive culture of intercommunal tolerance, the Lucknow as the legacy of the Nawabi rulers with their etiquette and morals still lives in the imagination of its inhabitants. Lucknow of today is a remarkable blend of “tradition” and “modernity”, it is an example par excellence of how the discursive material of the past is redefined and adapted to new conditions and how it, in its consequences, recreates the imagined past making it in nowadays reality - only under different conditions. 4 I investigate the city of Lucknow which is imagined as secular, peaceful and as distinguished for its communal1 harmony. In contrast to the vast majority of studies concerned with communal violence in general and the Hindu-Muslim violence in India in particular, I opt the opposite point of departure, the one of communal peace2. There is a great deal of knowledge on why intercommunal conflicts emerge, what ideas sustain them and how they are produced, but what we lack is a more nuanced understanding of why there are some places which do not fall in the above mentioned category. I thus present an analysis, which tries to answer the riddle of why Lucknow, lying in the heart of an area stricken in periods by communal violence has throughout its history always remained as peaceful; particularly focusing on the period from the 1990s on. In my work I argue that there are several deeply interconnected factors which play a salient role in the preservation of the peaceful relationships. These are the local history as it is imagined by the Lakhnawis; the local informal embroidery industry which is well known under the name Chikan and which creates intercommunal networks of economic dependency; the spectacular show- case of this handicraft in Bollywood cinema; intercommunal networks outside the realm of the industry; the role of the emerging middle class, its lifeworld and consumerism all set within the framework of glocalization. Throughout the different chapters I treat these salient factors as analytically separated, while in the concluding chapter I elaborate on the interrelationships and interconnections between these factors and analyze the discussed factors within a greater framework of the general processes of glocalization and emphasize the extra-local networks which work for the sustenance of the peaceful cohesion. I thus present “anthropology of the city, rather than in the city” (Fox 1977). 1 In the context of South Asian studies the word ”communal” usually connotes an extreme form of group exclusivity, which is associated with the practices of discrimination and violence. 2 It may be noted that similar logic led T. H. Eriksen in his investigations in Mauritius (Eriksen 1998). 5 Before we proceed to the discussion of the challenges connected with doing the anthropology of the city, I would like to thank people who helped me on the way, as I am fully aware of the fact that without them the fieldwork and the thesis would look much different, and I must emphasize that every single person will be inscribed somehow in the text and in me. First of all, I would like to thank my landlady, Naheed Varma, for taking such a motherly care of me and for her witty observations of the Indian life. My thanks go also to Ram Advani, the famous bookseller well-known to everyone who did research in or just travelled through Lucknow, for hours spent in his bookshop discussing all different topics over a cup of tea and biscuits and for his invaluable help with my research. My thanks for warm discussions and friendship go to Sarah Pinto, professor of medical anthropology at Tufts University, to Robert Phillips, professor of Urdu at the University of North Carolina, Rakesh Chandra, professor of philosophy and director of the Institute of Women's studies at the University of Lucknow, Roop Rekha Verma, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Lucknow, Sanne Van Der Kaaij, PhD student at the University of Amsterdam, to my dear friends and devoted Urdu students Devon Lee, Justin Smolin and Brian Wolfe. My thanks go also to Chander Prakash, Mrs. Mangalik, Nawab Syed Ibrahim Khan, Mamta Varma, Shri Mar Prasad Agarwal, C. M. Naim, Urfi Khan and of course to many people I worked with, who became my friends and who opened my eyes to a different world. Special thanks go to Christian Krohn-Hansen