Abstract
This chapter deals with the role of caste in Arni’s civil society. On the background of the change in the caste system in independent India, it explores the Gramscian proposition that caste creates the institutional and ideological framework in which the hegemony of capital is negotiated and workers’ ‘spontaneous’ consensus is gained. It is based on a survey on Arni’s civil society: all associations operating in Arni at the end of the 1990s. After a description of Arni’s civil society, the urban associational order is shown to reflect social production relations, in which the interests of capital are supported while those of labour are under-represented. The empirical analysis confirms the Gramscian hypothesis in the case of Arni, caste has not been eroded by capitalism and continues to be a major organizing principle of civil society. It represents the vehicle through which subaltern workers are led to accept the leadership of capitalists with the support of caste-based institutions and ideologies.
This chapter largely relies on the analysis of the role of caste in Arni presented in Chap. 5 of my book Capitalist Development in India’s Informal Economy (2013).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Associations are ‘the private texture of the state’ (Gramsci 1975, p. 57).
- 3.
‘We can for the moment fix two major super-structural layers: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called “private”, and that of “political society” or “the State”’ (Gramsci 1975, p. 1518).
- 4.
Particularism involves ‘the exclusive attachment to the interests of one person, class, section, especially at the expense of the community as a whole’ (Collins Dictionary). Particularistic interests are private interests which might be imposed to the whole community. They are not ‘general’, but, by means of ideology, might be imposed as ‘general’.
- 5.
In Italy, this aim was carried out by means of the corporazioni, i.e. cross-class organizations in which the Fascist ideology was spread to the subaltern classes. The corporazioni were the tools though which subaltern classes were organized to attend a variety of kinds of public meeting. They were the main propaganda tool of Fascism.
- 6.
i.e. associations in which each individual enters on a ‘voluntary’ basis.
- 7.
‘Corporatism can be defined as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organized into a limited number of singular, compulsory, non-competitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for observing certain controls on their selection of leaders and articulation of demands and supports.’ (Schmitter 1974, pp. 93–94). Corporatism has been contrasted with pluralism. ‘Pluralism can be defined as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organized into an unspecified number of multiple, voluntary, competitive, non-hierarchically ordered and self-determined (as to the type or scope of interest) categories which are not specifically licensed, recognized, subsidized, created, otherwise controlled in leadership selection or interest articulation by the state and which do not exercise a monopoly of representational activity within their respective categories.’ (Schmitter 1974, p. 96).
- 8.
It was then a form of state corporatism, a situation which differs from societal corporatism, i.e. when the pressure for interest representation and organization in association emerges from society (Cawson 1985).
- 9.
The ideological basis for a Fascist corporatist society was an ad hoc economic theory based on the concept of Homo Corporativus, according to which there were no divergences or contrasts between individual and social interests (Cavalieri 1994).
- 10.
It is interesting to note that the corporatist ideology was not enough to hide the real aims of Italian corporatism to important analysts of the period, who saw it as a ‘machine to preserve the existent’ (Gramsci 1975, p. 125) and as a ‘method of consolidating the basis of capitalism’ when the conflict between capital and labour had reached a ‘critical point’ (Sraffa 1926, p. 16).
- 11.
The Mandal Commission was set up in 1979 in order to actuate the constitutional provisions for reservation in favour of the less advanced groups of Indian society. The Mandal Report was submitted in December 1980, suggesting a number of reservation measures for the backward and most-backward castes and classes, including Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Tribes (STs)—the communities outside the Hindu caste system—and the Other Backward Castes (OBCs)—i.e. the lower Hindu castes. The implementation of the measures suggested by the Mandal Report started in August 1990 (Radhakrishnan 1996, p. 203).
- 12.
Socio-anthropological research has shown that the origin of caste is associated with the production of an economic surplus, caste being a tool ‘to accommodate’ the inequalities generated by the surplus itself.
- 13.
So caste has elements of false consciousness but, as will be argued below, its roles are more than this.
- 14.
This is not to argue that other dimensions of the socially regulated economy such as gender and ethnicity make no contribution to the historical bloc.
- 15.
Detailed information on the survey is found in Basile (2013, Chap. 8).
- 16.
It must be emphasized that the silk sector is regulated by three main associations: The Arni Silk Merchants Association, the Tiruvannamalai District Handloom Silk Designers Association and the Silk Twisters Associations.
- 17.
In this section, all the remarks in quotations are taken from interviews with the president and office holders of the relevant association.
- 18.
Most tailors are self-employed however.
- 19.
For Agamudaiyar Mudaliars, Brahmins, Kannada Veera Saiva Jaineekars, Karuneekars, Naidus, separate associations for Saurashtrian men and women, Sengunthas, Tuluva velalars, Vanniars, Vaaniars and Visva Karmas.
- 20.
For example the Fruit and Vegetable Traders Association, the Rickshaw Pullers Association and the Car and Van Drivers Association.
- 21.
See Harriss-White (2014) for a critical discussion.
- 22.
Major examples are the Paddy and Rice Merchants Association and the Arni Silk Merchants Association.
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Acknowledgments
The 1997-8 survey of Arni’s organized social life was devised by me, with much help from the late P.J. Krishnamurthy—and was undertaken with the assistance of the late G. Jothi and P. Pandian to all of whom I am grateful. I am very grateful to Barbara Harriss-White for her stimulating and challenging comments on several versions of this paper. I also benefited from discussion with the participants in the Arni Conference in Oxford (2009). In particular I am grateful for discussant’s comments from Nandini Gooptu.
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Basile, E. (2016). The Impact of Caste on Production Relations in Arni: A Gramscian Analysis. In: Harriss-White, B. (eds) Middle India and Urban-Rural Development. Exploring Urban Change in South Asia. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2431-0_6
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