“They have it in their stomachs but they can't vomit it up: Dalits, reservations, and “caste feeling in rural Andhra Pradesh

Author： Still Clarinda

Publisher： Berghahn Journals

ISSN： 1558-5263

Source： Focaal, Vol.2013, Iss.65, 2013-03, pp. : 68-79

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Abstract

This article examines the social effects of India's affirmative action policy (“reservations) on the relationship between dalits and the dominant castes. Drawing on fieldwork in rural southern India, this article looks at the way people use their knowledge of reservations (however imperfect) to form opinions that shape behavior in everyday life. I argue that this policy is used to vindicate upper-caste antipathy toward dalits and has become an important part of new discriminatory attitudes. While discrimination on the basis of pollution has become muted, in its place reservations (combined with ideas about habits, morality, and cleanliness) have become the principal idiom through which the dominant openly express resentment toward dalits. In this sense, the language of reservations enables and legitimates an upsurge of anti-dalit feeling. This leads us to consider whether the positive effects of the policy can effectively counteract the caste antagonism caused by it in everyday life.