GOVERNING MORALS: STATE, MARRIAGE AND HOUSEHOLD AMONGST THE GADDIS OF NORTH INDIA Kriti Kapila London School of Economics and Political Science University of London PhD UMI Number: U615831 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615831 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 I H cS £ S h S) IS ioaqsci% Abstract This thesis is an anthropological study of legal governance and its impact on kinship relations amongst a migratory pastoralist community in north India. The research is based on fieldwork and archival sources and is concerned with understanding the contest between ‘customary’ and legal norms in the constitution of public moralities amongst the Gaddis of Himachal Pradesh. The research examines on changing conjugal practices amongst the Gaddis in the context of wider changes in their political economy and in relation to the colonial codification of customary law in colonial Punjab and the Hindu Marriage Succession Acts of 1955-56. The thesis investigates changes in the patterns of inheritance in the context of increased sedentarisation, combined with state legislation and intervention. It examines the move from polygamous to monogamous marriage, and changes in everyday sexual moralities and notions of legitimacy. Analysing marriage and succession related litigation undertaken by Gaddis over the last hundred years, the thesis maps the discursive constitution of the ‘customary’ and its negotiation in the juridical sphere. The ethnography of local level bureaucracy and its regime of certification demonstrates that dominant legal ideals of conjugal and property relations are effected not merely by legislation, but also through certain state enumerative and documentary practices, such as registration and certification. The research explores how knowledge of ‘native’ rules and behaviour necessitated the use of anthropological expertise, the culmination of which was the recording of every single tribe’s ‘customary law’ in the region. It investigates the conditions under which the colonial state solicited anthropological expertise, and how the discipline extended its expertise into the realm of state. The colonial state’s entanglement in knowledge and human interests is compared with the contemporary state’s reformist legal discourse of rights and equality to chart the trajectory of the changing object of governance from subject to citizen. Contents Acknowledgements Glossary List of Abbreviations Map of Himachal Pradesh Chapter I INTRODUCTION: GOVERNING MORALS................................................................. 1 I: The Ethnography of the State ................................................................2 The Scribal State .................................................................................... 8 The Domestic State ................................................................................ 11 The Legal State ................................................... 14 II: Regional Concerns ................................................................................ 16 Humans in Geography...........................................................................16 Ethnographic legacies ............................................................................21 III: Putting Meghla on the Map ................................................................ 22 Thesis Plan ........................................................................................... 26 Chapter II BORN WITH MOVING FEET: PASTORALISM AS CITIZENS’ LABOUR 28 Bom with Moving Feet ..............................................................................29 We the People............................................................................................ 45 Conclusion ..................................................................................................56 Chapter III THINGS OF THE STATE AND THE STATE OF THINGS.......................................58 Courting Justice ......................................................................................... 59 A Day in the Life of a Local Court...........................................................60 A Day in the Life of a Panchayat.............................................................70 Problem into Case into Problem ..............................................................73 Rats into Paper......................................................................................... 78 Conclusion .................................................................................................84 Chapter IV RULES OF THE DOMESTIC: CUSTOM AND LEGAL GOVERNANCE.............. 86 An Early Anthropological Practice..........................................................87 Empire of Information..............................................................................95 Custom into Law .......................................................................................100 Subjects of Governance.........................................................................108 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 114 Chapter V MAKING RELATIONS PROPER: LAWS OF A MODERN GADDI HOUSEHOLD.................................................................................................... 116 Relations in Law ......................................................................................118 Proper Relations.......................................................................................130 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 139 Chapter VI IMPERMANENT IDEALS AND MOBILE AFFECTIONS: CONJUGATING MARRIAGE IN MEGHLA............................................................. 141 Domestic Government............................................................................ 143 What is marriage .......................................................................................143 Recording the household .........................................................................147 Sex is not everything............................................................................... 148 Conjugating Marriage in Contemporary Meghla ..................................152 Multiple unions.........................................................................................152 Sharing and caring ....................................................................................157 Premarital conduct of sexuality.............................................................. 160 Caste and class..........................................................................................164 Divorce..................................................................................................... 167 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 171 Chapter VII IN CONCLUSION: MARRIAGE, HOUSEHOLDS AND THE STATE...................174 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................182 APPENDIX I: SCHEDULE OF HEIRS....................................................................... 202 APPENDIX II: SUMMARY OF SELECTED CASES, KANGRA DISTRICT RECORD ROOM, DHARAMSHALA......................................................................... 204 APPENDIX III: KINSHIP DIAGRAM 1..................................................................... 210 Acknowledgements Nothing gives me more joy than to acknowledge the debts I have accumulated over the last few years. My first thanks must and do go to Prof. Dipankar Gupta and Prof. Patricia Uberoi. It is from them that I leamt take my first steps in research and it has been their encouragement and a faith in my abilities that made this PhD a real possibility. I would like to thank my supervisors Profs. Christopher Fuller and Jonathan Parry. The thesis has benefited enormously from their close supervision. I would also like to thank Prof. Maurice Bloch, Dr. Martha Mundy and Dr. Deborah Swallow, who have always been generous with their time and encouragement. The people of Meghla made me feel at home from day one and never showed any signs of impatience or irritation at my unending inquisitiveness about sometimes seemingly inane or obvious matters. I hope they soon write their own book about themselves, as some of them wished aloud. But I also hope this thesis does not disappoint them. I am grateful for the cooperation extended to me by everyone at the subdivisional court at Palampur. I particularly thank Rajni Katoch and Kapil Mandyal for making me their understudy. Thanks are also due to Mr. Vaidya. Research for this thesis was funded by LSE Research Studentship, Malinowski Memorial Fellowship, Morris Finer Trust, Emslie Homiman Travel Grant, Charles Wallace India Fund, Commonwealth Trust, Gilchrist Trust, Hammond Trust, Leche Trust, Radcliffe-Brown Grant, and the Churches Commission