Sunday, July 27, 2008

Too close for comfort












In case you haven't heard, another wave of terrorist attacks is hitting India.

First eight low-intensity bombs went off in Bangalore on Friday, killing a single woman, and then 16 bombs went off in Ahmedabad Saturday, initially targeting public transportation at around 6:30pm and then aimed at the hospitals where the wounded were taken. Altogether the Ahmedabad bombs killed at least 38 people and injured another 110. Although no individual or group has claimed responsibility for the first attack, a supposed member of the group "Indian Mujahedeen"apparently warned the media and government of the attack and challenged them to try and stop them. Given that IM claimed responsibility for a similar series of bombs in Jaipur, Rajasthan this past May, it may indeed be the culprit once again.

Today, Sunday, an e-mail was sent threatening more attacks, next in New Delhi. It's somewhat comforting to know that Mumbai's Anti-Terrorism squad has found the computer from which the e-mail was sent. However, officials generally seem extremely underprepared to respond to terrorist attacks, let alone prevent them. Much of the national debate consists of a back-and-forth between the governing Congress party and the main opposition group, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) who not only has an ax to grind with Congress, but also governs the two targeted states (Karnataka and Gujarat). The BJP has done its fair share to keep communal tensions high by reelecting the fanatic Mr. Modi, who is largely believed to have encouraged (or at least not discouraged) the 2002 riots in Gujarat.

Anyway, politicians outside of forwarding-thinking Maharastra State aren't discussing the 20 percent deficit in India's police forces, and are completely ignoring the urgency of 550 deaths due to terrorist attacks since Diwali 2005 without the government locating and arresting a single individual or group proved to be responsible for any of these deaths. I understand the need to avoid disturbing the country's peace and tranquility, as Manmohan Singh exhorts, but how about declaring peace in domestic politics first?

By the by, I spent today appreciating Ghandi's Samriti (memorial) and the Qutb Minar's ancient glory that dates back to Mamluk rulers in 1193-1197... I can't end this without at least one picture of today's sites. Below is one hall of the Quwwatul-Islam Masjid, India's first mosque built by the founder of the Slave dynasty, Qutbuddin Aibak using pillars from 27 Hindu and Jain temples.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Minor revelations from a wandering ascetic















These past few weeks have provided great fodder for speculation on why the world is the way it is.

However before reading any further, please do take what comes with a grain of salt. This advice is especially important if you're in a hot climate - dehydration is a constant threat! I may be delusional at this point due to 14 hour power cuts in fierce heat (now I understand why they hold power officials hostage here), monsoon-driven encounters with insects whose names I have yet to learn, and many-a-frustrating interview.

A few flashes of insight have come from my unique position this week. I've been a State Guest of Haryana, thanks to the generosity of Sonipat's Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Ajit Joshi, IAS. He has sped up my interviewing schedule to a dizzying pace by allotting me two extremely competent and efficient aides - the Sonipat Tehsildar (land revenue official), Mr. Hariom Attri who has arranged everything from lodging in a government guest house to meetings with all manner of judges, local lambradars, advocates, and (hopefully soon) khaap panchayat pradhans; and a Program Officer of Women and Child Development, Mrs. Sunita Sharma, who speaks wonderful English and translates for me whenever officials give her time to.

What have I learned from this august position, you might ask?

First - I now understand the despicable state of India's toilets. It reduces to an especially tricky problem of public goods.

Toilet sanitation would be your average, run-of-the-mill public goods problem if everyone wanted clean toilets, but once behind a locked bathroom door, or just in a semi-enclosed stall, most people became lazy and prefered speed to maintaining cleanliness. However things are especially tricky here because all public officials (with enough clout) have their own private bathroom!

So whereas I thought that Indians were blind to the absence of soap, running water, and clean floors in most restrooms, officials ' own facilities showed me the error of my ways. I entered the PO's private bathroom to find soap and shining floors, and then the DC's bathroom, with *gasp* toilet paper and hand towel!

Given that the authorities have no need to frequent commoner's stalls this means the community's recognized authority has no interest in ensuring a major public good: clean toilets. Once a single person dirties the bathroom, everyone else bears the cost of the first individual's carelessness, and not a single reward is possible for the common-spirited, or merely disguested person who cleans up another's mess. In fact, it's both easy to make a mess given frequent water shortages and it's hard to clean such mess, given social sanctions against cleaning bathrooms that apply to anyone who isn't of a scheduled caste. Aiyo!

Second - I am learning to distrust people who place great faith in the power of the written word (that includes me!).

Why such pessimism? Mainly because I've been noting the proliferation of road-side wisdom around Delhi, as well as pithy sayings posted where Maoist agitation has a long history, such as the northern reaches of West Bengal. For example, recent Delhi-region (NCR) signs meant to prevent speeding, ranging from straightforward to profound:
"NO HURRY, NO WORRY. U-TURN ANYWHERE."
"BETTER LATE THAN NEVER."
"PERSPECTIVES CAN CHANGE DUE TO CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES."
In Maoist areas signs are mainly of the more profound version. Right now I can only recall one:
"EVERY LIFE IS SPECIAL."
But really, who are these people who think signs are truly tools for waging a revolution in driving etiquette, statehood, or both? Is the written word really that powerful? I tend to think that no one seriously has complete faith in the power of words, unbacked by any regular agitation. Yet it seems that Delhi's cops and Darjeeling's Maoists are content to sit back and let the signs work their magic. In the NCR region a pitiful number of cops scour the highways for speeding drivers, and in Darjeeling and the surrounding hills I have yet to see a Maoist soldier 'on duty.' (As an aside: certainly Maoists have made their presence known with strikes and rallies throughout West Bengal - but is that really "doing" anything???)

I don't mean to cast doubt on Euripides' claim that "The tongue is mightier than the blade," but rather just to clarify. Words -spoken or written- have force when their author has the ability and will to make her verbal assertions reality. Without such backing, words are the lazy man's crutch. So forgive me for speaking ill of Delhi's transportation authority and the Himalayan Maoists, but certainly they could do a little more than making fancy roadsigns to make themselves credible agents of change.

Third - the sad, slow-dawning truth of my first few days in Sonipat. My hopes of studying social institution's ability to arbitrate land disputes are, at best historically-inaccurate, and at worst the delusional visions of just one more political scientist obsessed with "institutions."

You see, I came to Sonipat (in southern Haryana, just north of Delhi) to study Khap panchayats, or councils of sub-castes (actually sub-jatis) held by the elders of 24 or more villages when some crisis demands their arbitration.

The good news, at least for my research, is that these social institutions are still alive and kicking. In fact, a fairly recent (2005) article titled "Caste Injustice" by T.K. Rajalakshmi in India Today describes social boycotts as a "[c]ommon story in Haryana, [and] in the rest of north and northwestern India. It is a story of the newly revived social power of khap panchayats, organisations representing one or more castes, usually the dominant ones. Khap panchayats do not have much use for the law of the land and hand out diktats according to a `traditional' code of morality."

The bad news is that khap panchayats, or the more general form of 'gotra' (sub-jati) panchayats have moved from arbitrating all manner of disputes to narrow arbitration of disputes about maintaining marriage rules. This change has occurred over the past thirty years as Independent India's courts have gained people's trust. I still hold out some stubborn hope that community panchayats resolve land disputes, which will most likely be dispelled upon meeting panchayat pradhans (heads) early in the coming week.

So what to do? I shall diligently seek out variation in fallow agricultural land and amass data from judicial, economic, and social sources to explain why such variation exists. This is Professor David Laitin's advice and I think it prudent to follow, however heavy my institution-loving heart may be.

But first, I've taken advantage of a weekend near Delhi with a fantastic driver (Dev) to revel in one of the world's oldest cities...

Today included a trip to the लाल िकला (red fort) - where I picnicked beside the मोती मिस्जद:



















Of course
I stopped for tea in the Heritage Tea house and visited a nearby tea merchant, Aap Ki Pasand. I am now the proud owner of spring-picked tea buds from Darjeeling, smoky tea from Sikkim, and Assam's pungent black brew, any of which I will be happy to brew and drink with you once I return...

But my day would not have been complete without a stop to India's anti-Borders, the Nai Sarak book bazar in Chandni Chownk... Below is my new favorite store, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers:













Just a few hours in the bustling streets were enough to give me new energy...














I'm not sure what the week ahead holds, but for now I will content myself with an upcoming picnic in the Lodhi Gardens and will invite a few friends: Percival Spear's History of India (Vol 2: 1600-2000), Srivastava's Mughul Empire, RS Sharma's Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, SC Ghosh's Dalhousie In India, various sundry books on the judiciary and land revenue systems of the past, and as a dessert treat, Amartya Sen's Argumentative Indian.

For today, I am happy to put of any real responsibility by immersing myself in the past.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Taking a breath from Haryana's slow suffocation of the fairer sex

Okay, I know fieldwork is supposed to be unpredictable, but I'd be perfectly happy if I could maintain some small illusion of control.

Deep breath.

To begin at the beginning, I didn't expect Haryana to be a perfect haven of progress given its skewed sex ratio. Yet given its high literacy rate, wealth, and an appreciation for new technology (the green revolution), I hoped life would be much smoother than in other Indian states.

To make matters worse, I had a fantastic time in Chandigarh and raised my expectations accordingly. I spent dawn jogging around gorgeous Sakna lake with the Himalayan foothills in the background, and the majority of my days were filled with generally-informative meetings, particularly with one of the chief editors of Amar Ujala newspaper, Mr. Yogesh Narayan Dixit, and many officials in Haryana's PR and Judicial offices. With the help of pithy commentary from my refreshingly sarcastic translator, Manmohan Singh, (no relative of the PM) I went off to Yamunanagar feeling relatively prepared to begin fieldwork. Much of what has gone right so far has been thanks to Bhartendu Trivedi of the Hindustan Times, who introduced me to Mr Dixit and many others whose advice has made the journey thus far much more comprehensible.

In fact, these two good souls helped me meet my current source of joy - the Sodi family in Yamunanagar. Mr. Sodi, Bureau Chief of the Punjabi Khesari newspaper in Yamunanagar arranged the first real interview I conducted here. He brought members of a family with an interstate land dispute from the southern tip of Yamunanagar, Gumthala Rao village, to his home. They told me of their case which led to two murders and 65 acres of fallow land. Oh frabjous day.

Anyway, at the end of our meeting the newly-wed Mrs. Gudia Sodi asked me a few questions in perfect English, and ended by inviting me to stay with them in their home and act as my (domestic) translator. I'm incredibly happy living with Gordip, Gudia, and their mama-ji (Gordip's paternal uncle). Mama-ji and I take 4am walks around a nearby park, him a limber 73-year-old walking with his lati (stick) to scare off wild dogs, and me meandering along discussions with my broken hindi. At the end of the day I come home to watch give lessons to some young relatives as I type up my interview notes amidst jokes and tentative questions about my strange habits. [As an aside: The nicest comment I got was from a young lady named Saiba who said "mam, you look so beautiful, like an angel, in your white kourta and all." Given that I am too sweaty to physically shift between work and sleeping clothes each day, I'll take any complement I can get.] Later in the evening Gudia teaches me the finer elements of Indian cuisine, and we chat about things great and small in life. Sometimes we take wild rides in Mama-ji's car late at night - Gordip finding us tasty treats and Gudia translating beautiful Hindi tunes from "Jaab we met". We've even had a proper celebration for a relative's wedding anniversary this past Saturday - Kingfisher and all - with Mama-ji and Gordip pressuring Gudia and me to drink like college boys.

So life is good, right? There are a few research-relavent issues that make me worried (which I describe first) and some cultural issues that chill my blood. I'll start with the kinder issues.

Okay, so all was well until I started pressing about my fieldwork in two villages. I plan to visit 2 neighboring villages w/similar general conditions, but different means of resolving disputes, and then see what sort of fallow land exists in these places in addition to understanding their dispute-resolution procedures. Come to find out: (1) there are informal dispute-resolution mechanisms that are very powerful -खाप पन्चायाट्स।

However (and I appologise for the poor spelling in Hindi - it's a transliteration device similar to babblefish and thus imperfect) these kaap panchayats exist only in Jaat-dominated areas w/in Haryana (although similar panchayats exist for Rajputs and Gujaars in Rajasthan and elsewhere). These areas are all in the SOUTH and I'm in the NORTH. Should I leave the district where only now am I beginning to access relevant case records for another w/kaap panchayats (there is nothing similar in this district i'm told - people simply go to court), or squeeze in some time in a similar, more souther district as time permits? Please do let me know your advice...

(2) Cultural issues... Ahem - anyone who would rather believe all is well please cease and desist your reading immediately. Continue with your good cup of tea or coffee and put aside the blog until I return. Mom - this means you!

So women simply don't leave the home here. Even when I want to take a rickshaw ride of a few km to a nearby, known location like the district court, everyone tries to dissuade me from going alone. Visit a cybercafe or atm down the street? No way. This is the slow, stifling life of women in highly-educated Haryana.

Thus you can imagine the panic that set in when I suggested going to stay in villages. Okay, well I'll find a male interpreter to come with me (my current one is leaving - thus one cause of gloom). NO DOING, I'm told. Why? It's simply unsafe for a woman, especially a foreign woman to stay in a village where she doesn't know people well, who not only will take care of her, but will defend her physically if and when necessary. Apparently there are a lot of violent crimes against women here, and those are crimes against women who are longtime residents of the given villages. I received calls from all of the important men in my life here who are doing their best to protect me, warning me off any overnight stay in villages. One female Indian friend in Bombay who does similar field research told me that most of the violent crimes against women in Delhi are carried out by men from Haryana and Punjab. Upon mentioning this to my translator, (a quasi-Punjabi as I call him) he gave me the most unsettling response ever: "What? People in Bombay have no idea of what goes on in Delhi! Why does she say the crimes are carried out by men from Haryana and Punjab? Biharis and Nepalis frequently rape women as well!"

So I won't be staying in villages. Gordip Sodi has recommended I speak with Lawyers here, who can give me access to land dispute cases in villages, and then I'll go and investigate those particular cases and ask about others through day-trips to villages. This is my current plan, but it is a serious shift- how am I to accomplish my in-depth study of village conflict resolution when I flit in-and-out? Unsure.

Anyway, it's sad to be shuttled back and forth between domesticity and male domains by guardians, especially when my current bodyguard and friend, Manmohan, is departing. However I'll make due, and hopefully find out something interesting.

To end on a happy note, I discovered a fascinating case of vastly different land survey techniques in Haryana and UP - Haryana has something like a grid system, and UP hasn't updated its survey techniques since Akbar's reign, so they're haphazard at best. To make matters more exciting, the Division Commissioner here is experimenting w/use of GPS survey techniques in 5 out of over 700 villages in the district, and I think I could figure out a way to do a very exciting randomized experiment w/survey techniques if he agrees...

take care,
rachel