Workshop.

Social In- and Exclusion in contemporary India and beyond

Organised by the Contemporary India Study Centre Aarhus (CISCA)
Department of History and Area Studies, Aarhus University.
16th - 17th of June 2010. Building 1411, Room 247.

Participant abstracts (by surname):

Tibetan Refugees in India: In pursuit of non-inclusive
identity
By Jayaraj Amin

Ever since the grant of refugee status to Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, head of
Tibetan Buddhism in 1959, India has been a ‘host’ to over 100000 Tibetan
refugees. Though India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN refugee convention
Indian government out of humanitarian consideration has accorded Tibetan
refugees asylum and granted rights that are largely in tune with the refugee convention. The Tibetan refugees were also allowed to preserve their distinct
identity and culture which the Tibetans in India are pursuing so steadfastly under
the supervision of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in about 34 settlements spread across the country. The Indian government’s supportive postures and
CTA’s desire for a harmonious relation with Indians, however, have not always percolated down to the level of masses. Though sporadic, the Tibetan
refugees’ ways of life have drawn opposition from the local population of
the region surrounding Tibetan settlements. Depending on the settlement
regions that are mostly located in rural areas of India, tensions have run
high over the issues of meat eating practices of monks, competition with
locals (because of change of occupation from agriculture into business and
services), display of affluence and western life styles by the Tibetan refugees especially the youth, accusations of pushing up the land prices, loyalty to
the nation etc. Therefore, despite the seeming calmness in the intercommunity relations between the two, conflicts often simmer and the refugees are
not treated as part of ‘us’ by the locals nor culture conscious Tibetan refugees
intend to be treated as one. Despite second and third generation of Tibetan refugees born in India Tibetans in India are still foreigners (‘they’). On the other hand, the modernist trend among Tibetan refugees, especially youth and the large influx of migrants from the transformed Tibet in recent years for whom the CTA’s articulation of ‘Tibetan culture’ appear anachronistic have increased the pressure on Tibetan community, in particular on CTA leadership in India. Already many have left to the US and Europe in search of greener pasture and their commitment to Tibetan cause can not be taken for granted. Some others want to take up Indian citizenship knowing fully that they are usually disallowed by Indian bureaucracy despite being formally eligible for Indian citizenship according to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955. But Tibetan leadership in India generally discourages Tibetan claim to Indian citizenship as it consider it as detrimental to Tibetan road to independence. Coupled with these is the concern over perceived waning of sympathy of the Indian government as it warms up its relation with China.
All these have resulted in a situation of uncertainty of future for the community and an elusive recognition and identity in the present as gap widen between CTA perspectives and the ‘reality’ back in transformed Tibet. While attainment of ‘free Tibet’ is a mirage to some, to others ‘cultural preservation’ in its pristine form does not serve purpose as it alienates them from the Indians and/or prevents them from relating to present global trends. At the same time, lack of distinct identity is seen by many as defeating the very purpose of fleeing from Tibet. To a large number of second and third generation Tibetan refugees return to Tibet is not an attractive proposition nor would they identify themselves emotionally with India. Therefore, cracks within the refugee community on issues of recognition and future are visible. Yet, the CTA attempts to portray the community as homogenous and unified, a task in which it has largely succeeded. Tibetan refugees today appear to constitute a nation within larger Indian nation, yet non-inclusive in the latter. Identity and recognition as well as future of Tibetan refugees are based on a slippery ground and its sustenance in the face of increasing frustration among youth seems difficult. Hence, much more focus on the issue is required before it becomes too difficult to be handled by the Indian leadership as well as by the Tibetan.

Further Marginalisation of the Already Marginalised: A Study
on Social Exclusion of the Project Affected Indigenous People
of the Upper Indravati Hydro-electric Project of Odisha/India
By Prof. Deepak Kumar Behera (Department of Anthropology, Sambalpur
University)

Many development projects in remote areas are not sustainable as they
are mostly designed without taking into account the interest of the indige-
nous population. Indigenous people seldom understand the long-term
implications of development projects, hence fail in their effort to devise
measures to counter them. Dam building in India in the post-independent
era became a major symbol of modernization. Even today, the mega-dam
continues to be seen as a symbol of progress, of man's supremacy over
nature, of prosperity and of pride. However, due to construction of dams,
many indigenous communities get displaced involuntarily but compensated
marginally. It severely damages the rich socio-cultural fabrics of the margina-
lized people. In this process the indigenous people suffer from economic and
social marginalization in many important areas of community life. The rehabil-
itation and resettlement policies have often excluded the marginalized people
from life opportunities. This has deprived a large segment of popu lation
from the rights and privileges enjoyed by the dominant sections of society.
In this paper, an attempt has been made by the author to present the
process of social exclusion experienced by the indigenous people of a remote
area in Odisha/India as a result of the construct of Upper Indra vati
Hydroelectric Project (hereafter UIHEP). The two key questions that
the paper primarily addresses are: (1) What experiences and processes generated social exclusion or promoted resilience among the project affected indigenous people of UIHEP? (2) What are the impacts of social exclusion on the socially and economically marginalized people?
The plan to construct a multipurpose hydro-electric project on the river Indravati in Odhisa/India was conceived in the year 1959 and in the same year investigation of its feasibility commenced. However, its approval by the Union Planning Commission was delayed until 1977 because of problems concerning the equitable distribution of water resources. The construction began only after obtaining financial assistance from the World Bank in 1985. According to official sources, about 17,000 people from 97 villages – 44 villages from undivided Koraput and 53 from Kalahandi districts of Odisha – were affected by the construction of the dam (RRU 1995: 3). Yet the Krushak Mahasangha and the Indravati Gana Sangharsha – two local NGOs – put the figure at 30,000. Evacuation started in 1989 and continued till 1993 and it was carried out in four phases.
Scattered in this dongerla (forested) region are numerous small hamlets of the indigenous people. Those indigenous communities such as Penga, Jhodia, Parenga, Gadaba, Kondha, etc. living in this region consider themselves as Parja or Desia. They worship the mountains, the growths and the under-growths as gods and goddesses and hold them in high esteem. They believe that the village deity and other demigods protect them; hence they feel more confident and secure in their ancestral land. They are hardworking people, subsisting on a simple technology. Their economy has multiple loci, centering on cultivation by slash-and-burn, collection of forest produce, hunting wild game, and wage earning as agricultural labourers.
The long drawn out process of displacement of Indigenous people due to the construction of the UIHEP has set in the process of social exclusion. Various impoverishment risks, as analysed by Michael M. Cernea (1997), are clearly visible in case of the project affected people of UIHEP. Majority of the indigenous people are now socially and economically excluded and experiencing situation of landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalisation, food insecurity, increased morbidity and mortality, loss of access to common property and social disarticulation. Some of the major consequences of the project on the indigenous people are: dismantling of traditional production systems, desecration of ancestral sacred zones, graves and places of worship, scattering of kinship groups, disruptions of family system and informal social network. The paper critically examines the resettlement and rehabilitation policies of the state and central governments from a cultural perspective.

Iron is hot
By Meghnath Bhattacharya (AKHRA, Ranch)i

Loha Garam Hai tells the story of how people struggle with India's most
polluting industry - the sponge iron industry. The 43-minute film presents
a picture of an industry allowed to grow unfettered and unhindered by
various laws, often with administrative connivance. Through graphics,
title cards, data and interviews
with people - both ordinary men and women, and rebel leaders - of Sundar-
garh, Rajgangpur, Siltara, etc., the film makes a scathing comment on the
lop-sided concept of industrialisation gained at the cost of human lives,
environment, agriculture and livestock.

(quoted from: http://www.indiatogether.org/2009/sep/rvw-loha.htm
- accessed 31/05/2010)

 

 

 

 

Transacting Asylum: Transnational Communities and Political
Asylum
By Dr. Radhika Chopra (Department of Sociology, University of Delhi)

This paper concentrates on one group of asylum seekers, Punjabi Sikh men,
who sought political asylum in the U.K. from approximately the mid-80s to
the late 90s, a span of about fifteen years. The “asylum phase” was bracketed between two equally distinct phases of movement of Punjabi migrants. In the
broader social history of migration the patterns of prior and subsequent move-
ments (stretching from the 1950s to the late 80s and then again from the last
decades of the twentieth century to the turn of the century) infused and
shaped the circulation and traffic of male migrants. However, asylum politics
was an interruption that critically reshaped the view of migrants and movements.

A great deal has been written on the involvement of transnational Punjab
i communities in the conflicts and violence of Khalistan. What is inadequately
chronicled is the fact that “hosting” asylum seekers becomes a shared responsi-
bility between the ‘sanctuary’ state and members of the transnational community. Asylum seekers however were not- and do not remain - a homogeneous group.
The critical distinction rests on the idea of legitimate political personhood which
itself is variously inscribed and understood.

In this paper, I analyse the issue of asylum through narratives of asylum seekers within a particular location – the west London borough of Southall- to think
through ideas of passage, incorporation and identity within the overall experience of migration and politics. I address the way that the demarcation of asylum seekers as ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ (categories produced from immigration policy and international law) are countered and contested by the ideas and categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’ asylum seekers produced from within political discourses of the transnational community. Critical to this latter discourse is the way the locality itself was transformed and inscribed by signs of support (or resistance) to the politics of Khalistan.

 

Cosmopolitanism or iatrogenics? Reflections on India’s ban on
religious provocations and caste abuse
By Kathinka Frøystad (Associate Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, University of
Bergen)

In a recent book chapter on freedom of expression, Thomas Hylland Eriksen
suggests that India’s ban on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in 1988 reflects
a cosmopolitan attitude which accepts the importance of respect for fellow
citizens of other communities than one’s own. Following this logic, cosmopolitan-
ism would be an equally appropriate characteristic for India’s ban on religious provocations in general, as well as to the more recent ban on caste abuse.
From a historical perspective, however, Christopher Pinney argues that censor-
ship of this kind inadvertently intensified the problems it intended to cure, a
paradox he captures with the “iatrogenics” metaphor. Raminder Kaur and William Mazzarrella further suggest that censorship may invite publicity-motivated transgressions and censorship demands, which in contexts of ethnoreligious
relations and caste may aggravate these relations just as much as they improve
them. Who is right? In this paper I look back at some of India’s major contro-
versies pertaining to India’s censorship on caste abuse and religious provocations since the ban on Satanic Verses in order to examine the possibility that cosmopolitanism and iatrogenics can go hand in hand.

 

Indian ethnological museums as agents of inclusion and exclusion
By Dr. Lidia Guzy (Institute of Religious Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin)

The paper presents recent insights into the ethnography of Indian anthropolo-
gical museums. Since the 1980´s a new museum movement (Chakravarty 2005:
25-30; Basa 2005: III-VI) is slowly transforming the representations of today's ethnographic/anthropological museums in India. Indigenous representation, empowerment and revitalisation of the tangible and the intangible cultural
heritage of endangered, small scale pre industrial (Adivasi) communities of
today's India become the crucial issues for ethnographic museums.
In the context of globalisation theories (Appadurai 1996; Rectanus 2006:
382-385, Friedman 2000) and post-colonial Studies (Said 1978; Spivak 1988;
Clifford 1988; Bhabha 1994) anthropological museums in India appear as cultural, political and imaginary spaces. They reflect global discourses as well as utopian experiments at actual places. Hence, Indian anthropological museums can be described as hetero-topies (Foucault 1990:39) or museo-scapes (see Appadurai 1996:33-37).
Indian anthropological museums dramatically bear witness to the paradoxes
of globalisation: On the one hand, they reflect de-territorialized global discourses
and act within a framework of international conventions. On the other hand,
they constitute iconic spaces of local traditions, where new forms of represen-
tation but also new forms of essentialisation of culture manifest themselves.
In response to the UNESCO convention for the preservation of the Immaterial
Cultural Heritage, Museums in India have started to focus on the documentation
and preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Today a 'boom' of national and local museums can be traced throughout India showing new dynamic forms of handling and interpreting traditions. One of the most impressive examples of this creative effort is the biggest anthropological museum of Asia - the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya or the Museum of Mankind - located in Bhopal and particularly devoted to the traditions of rural and Adivasi India.
The paper explores new possibilities and limits of representation and empowerment for Adivasis and marginalised groups through anthropological museums in India.

Nikah: Bringing Muslim Social Reforms to Nationalist Agenda
By Dr. Nirmal Kumar (Associate Professr, Department of History,
Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University

India had bitter creation as an independent nation, one that divided the people
on the basis of religion and destroyed the very concept of secular state. While
it led to creation of Muslim majority Pakistan, the remaining part became the
largest democracy under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru where though
Hindus were in majority, it still had a formidable presence of Muslims. Today
the Muslim population in India is second only to Indonesia. But the bitterness
of partition saga of 1947 has left its scar which refuses to heal.
The religious divide and the latent distrust in the mind of Hindus and Muslims
have led to further bitterness and suspicion among the two communities.
While the congress party which ruled at the centre till 1984 without much
opposition, remained largely secular, it was the rise of rightwing Bhartiya
Janata Party (BJP) which was Jan Sangh reborn that led to the militant rise
of rightwing Hindutva politics based on hatred for minorities, especially Muslims
and Christians.
Somewhere before BJP emerged as the strong political party, people had
been taken in by the propaganda that Muslims are bad, backward and are
multiplying to outnumber Hindus in India. One of the weapons of attack and
maligning the Muslim was their archaic social laws that included imbalanced
marriage and divorce laws among the Muslims. Film apparently was made to
advocate social reform among the Muslims and had actually been able to
create a storm among the Muslims.
The paper would argue that this came as a package of right wing Hindu politics
which was asking for moving towards Uniform Civil Code applicable to all religions alike (at present there are separate codes for Hindus and Muslims). This is a way to suggest that while Hindus are progressive and been implementing many social reforms, the Muslims have been living in a closed shell. The core of this argument is the condition of women in Islam who are alleged to have been treated as sex slaves by Islam and all that needs to be changed. I would argue that the film made by a champion of Hindu thoughts B.R. Chopra, the maker of Nikaah went on to make hugely popular Hindu epic stories Ramayan and Mahabharat for TV. It may not be entirely co incidental that the person who revisits the popular Hindu epics also makes reformist film for Muslims. I would like to argue that this film tried to force reform on Muslim community and fostered the Hindutva agenda, albeit unconsciously.

Dalits and Muslims in Post-Industrial Mumbai: Negotiating
Exclusion and Discrimination
By Sumeet Mhaskar (Department of Society and Globalisation,
Roskilde University)

This paper will examine the survival and coping strategies employed by the
ex-millworkers from the Dalit and Muslim communities in the context of textile
mill closures in the city of Mumbai. In the past decade and a half, Mumbai has witnessed closure of cotton textile mills that retrenched around 100,000 workers.
The retrenched workforce found it difficult to re-integrate in Mumbai’s ‘new’
economy, dominated by the service sector such as Information Technology
enabled services, Banking, Insurance etc., as the new economy required
different skills and knowledge. Politically speaking, India has witnessed the
rise of Hindu extremist forces in the last two decades. In addition to this India
has also witnessed the rise of backward castes (OBC and Dalit) gaining promi-
nence in the political arena.

It is against this backdrop that the proposed paper will investigate the situation
of ex-millworkers from the Dalit and Muslim communities. Through their survival
and coping strategies this paper will examine the issues of exclusion and discrimination, and also of continuity and change in the identity based occupa-
tions in Mumbai. Are the survival and coping strategies differentiated along
caste and religious groups? What is happening to caste based occupations in
the new economy? Is there any continuity or change in community based
occupations in Mumbai? In order to answer these questions this paper will rely
on the qualitative and quantitative survey data collected over a period of 13
months in the city of Mumbai.

In search of Inclusion: Muslims, Development and Party Politics
in West Bengal
By Kenneth Bo Nielsen (Research Fellow, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo)

This paper looks at some recent political attempts by West Bengal’s Muslim
population at addressing and overcoming the apparent exclusion from the development processes in the state that they have been subject to.
In 1995 analyst Irfan Enginner noted how in West Bengal the Muslims –
who make up 25 percent of the state’s population and whose choice determines
the electoral fate in at least 50 assembly seats – ‘always voted for the Left Front’, even to the extent of bringing about the defeat of Muslim candidates fielded by
other non-LF parties. Engineer’s comment echoed a general perception among
political observers, namely that the LF enjoyed overwhelming Muslim support
because of its pro-poor and secular credentials, and because of its consistent opposition to the saffronisation drive that affected large parts of India from
the 1980s onwards. In light of this the on-the-ground situation as described
in the Sachar Committee’s report on the condition of Muslims in India, published
in late 2006, surprised many. The report demonstrated the while the LF might
have secured the Muslim community a safe existenece free from overt commu-
nalism, the community had to a great extent been excluded from the develop-
ment processes of the state. On most indicators West Bengal’s Muslim minority
scored significantly lower then other sections of the state’s population. A large
number of Muslim concentration villages lacked postal and telegraph services,
and the report identified a clear inverse association (in small villages) between
the proportion of Muslim population and the availability of educational infrastructure. It also found that the proportion of Muslim concentration villages with medical facilities was lower than the proportion of all villages with such facilities. There was, in other words, a distinct bias in public service provisioning in Muslim concentration areas in the fields of education, physical infrastructure and health facilities. In addition, in comparison with other Indian states the condition of Muslims in West Bengal was found to be particularly bad in some fields. For instace, the mean years of schooling of Muslims was lowest in states like West Bengal, and the most glaring cases of Muslims’ deprivation in government jobs were found in the Left-ruled states of West Bengal and Kerala: In West Bengal, only 4.2 per cent of government staff were Muslims as against their population share of 25 per cent.
Many Muslim voters now ostensibly turn their backs on the LF in search of political alternatives that can and will put the concerns of the community higher up on the political agenda. In this paper I look at some of the characteristics and consequences of this search for inclusions, including:
· The (brief) rise of Siddiqullah Chowdhury and the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind as a political force.
· Pushing for a progressive implementation of the recommendations of the Ranganath Mishra Commission, including Muslim quotas in government jobs and education.
· The endorsement of opposition leader Mamata Banerjee, who has actively been courting the Muslim electorate with promises of quotas and development in her drive to become West Bengal’s next chief minister.

Exclusiveness and inclusiveness – young Hindus in Denmark and
their relation to tradition
By Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger (Lector, Institute of Culture and Society, Religious Science Department, Aarhus University)

In Denmark we have around 12.000 ethnic Hindus emigrated from mostly
Sri Lanka as refugees (counting around 9.000) but also from different parts
of India, mostly North India (counting approximately 3.000). They are all
Hindus in there self-understanding. But what they put in to this category
differs. This is not a new observation, but it is interesting to note an overall generation pattern, when it comes to the relation to the Hindu tradition.
The young Hindus in Denmark, who are either born in Denmark or came to
Denmark when they were small children, have another relation to the Hindu
tradition compared to their parents.
The first generation tries to keep up the local tradition, they know from
their life in India, the second generation tries to weed out the elements,
which for them seems contradictory to their life in a late-modern society.
That is what the sociologist Anthony Giddens calls a disembedding or detraditionalisation process, I will call it a re- or new-traditionalisation process
because they do not reject the tradition, but their relation to the tradition
shifts. The Hindu tradition is in other words to debate among the young Hindus,
which can be noted in different chat forums, in Hindu youth groups and
magazines - printed and written by young Hindus.
You can point on lots of reasons why the young Hindus relation to the
tradition changes both in India and in Denmark, but one reason which I
see as crucial in Denmark is, that they are taught not to take anything for
granted in the Danish school system: in other words they are taught to ask the question WHY? That starts a critical reflection-process both when it comes to their personal relation to the Hindu tradition, but also in their criticism of their parent way of living not least when it comes to the way of keeping up tradition.
I will in my paper give some examples on how and in relation to which subject the Hindu tradition seems to be debated the most: 1) what is included or excluded? And 2) who are including or excluding? In other words, my paper will try to deal with Hinduism in the Danish locality, focussing on the interplay between the local setting (history, demography, geography, policy etc.), late-modernity, and how especially the young Hindus negotiates their relation to the tradition both in relation to their parents, in relation to society and among each other.

Citizenship, border-making and the construction of pravasi Nepali
in the context of Nepalese-India migration
By Karen Valenti (Reseacher, The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University)

Nepalese people can by virtue of the Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship
of 1950 migrate legally and officially be granted equal civic rights as Indian
citizens. NGOs, however, report that Nepalese migrants in India are often
deprived these rights and remain in a situation of insecurity and lack of legal protection. This means that Nepalese migrants in India are caught in a legal
“no-man’s land” without any state taking genuine responsibility for them, once
they have left the territory of Nepal.
Inspired by the work of, among others, Veena Das and Deborah Poole about
the “margins of the state” and by recent anthropological debates on citizenship,
this paper seeks to explore how physical mobility combined with ambivalent
legal status, on the one hand, contributes to continued marginalization, and
on the other hand creates spaces for migrants to negotiate their social positions
in new locations. This paper focuses on the construction of the Nepali migrant
(pravasi Nepali) in the context of a longstanding tradition of comprehensive
migration between the two countries, a regionally unique and legally ambivalent political framework regulating cross-border movements and recent years of
armed conflict, political instability and poverty. The paper, thus, aims to cast
light on the porosity of the Nepal-India border and on a blurred conceptual
borderland between different categories of moving subjects. Drawing on
ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Nepal and India over a period of, in
total, five months in 2007-2008 it shows how Nepalese migrants in Delhi are
engaged in constructing a place of their own as pravasi Nepali; one which is
characterized by both feelings of stigmatization attached to their status as
‘outsiders’ and by feelings of belonging to a cultural collectivity.

Post-Colonial State and Exclusion / Inclusion Dynamics in India
By Dr. R. Pavananthi Vembulu (Assitant Professor, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion & Inclusive Policy, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University)

There is much debate on the nature of Post-Colonial State in India. On the
one hand the Post-Colonial State has been presumed as an instrumental
agency of transforming India into the trajectory of ‘Modernity’; on the other
hand critics commented on its failure of achieving such transformation. The
debate invariably revolves around or against the concepts of ‘citizenship’, ‘development’ and ‘democracy’ in India.
However, this paper is not about the Post-colonial State in general; rather
it ventures to explore its nature in terms of exclusion / inclusion dynamics.
The central argument of the paper is to highlight how the Post-colonial State
in India has transformed the traditional exclusion / inclusion gradient of caste,
religion and region into modern techniques of governance.
This paper draws its arguments based on the experience of Tamilnadu, the southernmost state of India.

The the following abstracts presenters did not make it to the workshop, due to cancellations:


Honour Killing: Contemporary and Cosmopolitan India Chained in Traditional and Customary Practices
By B. Krishnamurthy, Department of Politics and International Studies, Pondicherry University

The customary practice of Karo Kari (both terms meaning black) or “honour” killing, goes ‘across culture and across religions’ and is being widely practiced in those societies and communities, where patriarchal power and authority as well as discriminatory traditions of justice rule roost. The goal of all patriarchies is to control women’s freedom, sexuality and reproduction rights and to hold their lives undervalued and restrained. Women are seen as the property of their holders and so are not entitled to have an independent and individual identity and existence on the one hand and are considered as repositories of family honour and reputation, on the other.
“Honour” killing continues to remain a customary practice which leads to murder of woman by her own kin after something she has done/ done to her is interpreted as tainting her family’s honour. Marital infidelity, pre-marital sex, flirting, developing an affair with or marrying a man from another tribe or belonging to lower caste than hers, and unfortunately, even being a victim of rape invite the wrath of patriarchs. Intra-“gothra” (clan) alliances and marriage between certain relationships are prohibited traditionally in India. “Khap” (Caste) Panchayats deal with these cases and pass “death sentence” on violators of long cherished believes and customs.
As such, religious, social and institutional justification and support is being extended to “honour” killings, which turn the issue still murkier and hard to deal with. The generally prevailing sense that “honour” killing is “normal” and “usual” and that severe action should not be taken against the perpetrators and efforts towards ‘normalisation’ of violence against women complicates the issue still further.
The present paper aims to deal with the complexities of the issue of “honour” killing and to suggest that political, societal and legal approaches are needed to tackle the problem.

Waiting for Godot: The Story of Non-Inclusion of Some Nepali Castes in Sikkim
By Tanka B. Subba, Department of Anthropology, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong

The story of some Nepali castes (Rai, Yakkha, Sunuwar, Magar, Gurung, Bhujel and Jogi), who are waiting to be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes in Sikkim is like the story of Vladimir and Estragon in the play Waiting for Godot written by Samuel Beckett. The leaders of these castes are keeping themselves busy like these two characters in the play just “to hold the terrible silence at bay”. They cannot give up their demand after a lot of hope has been created, following the inclusion of Limbus and Tamangs in the list in January 2003, but they have no idea when that will ever happen, just like the arrival of Godot in the play. The bowler hat in the play is also symbolic of the “tribal hat” that these castes are wearing with the hope that they would be included in the list. Despite the constitution of a committee in 2005 (Sinha Committee) and a commission in 2006 (Roy Burman Commission) to facilitate their inclusion nothing has happened yet, just as nothing happens twice in the two Acts of the play and yet the audience is glued to their seats.
In my presentation I wish to tell the story of their non-inclusion on the basis of my own experience as a member of the Sinha Committee and my critique of the Roy Burman Commission report which draws heavily from both the Sinha Committee report and several of my publications on the Nepalis of Sikkim.

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