An Ethnography of Associational Life: Caste and Politics in India

In 1956 Susanne Rudolph and I arrived in India for the first of many research years there. We were among the second batch of Ford Foundation Foreign Area Training Fellows. As area scholars we were committed to using ethnographic methods. We used political ethnography to explore India’s associational life. Our research led us to understand that caste in the form of caste associations played a vital role in making the introduction of political democracy in India a success. Studying caste in the form of caste associations, we came upon two of India’s greatest paradoxes, that caste was anti-caste and that caste strengthened democracy. How could this be? Universal suffrage made it possible for India’s more numerous lower castes acting through caste associations to acquire political power and to use political power to dismantle the varna status order based on purity and pollution and to gain power, respect and benefits. Five decades on, caste associations have taken on a different hue. From striving for group improvement and social justice vanguard associations have turned to the pursuit group interest and social aggrandizement.