Caste, Entrepreneurship and the Illusions of Tradition

Geir Heierstad

Description

A striking ethnography of traditional potters combining caste with a modern business sensibility to respond to the rapid economic developments in urban India

Caste, Entrepreneurship and the Illusions of Tradition is an ethnographic study of the potters of Kolkata’s Kumartuli, an analysis of their lives and the related commodification and instrumentalization of caste. This group of artisans turned artists do not display passive responses to colonial and capitalist encounters but engage actively with the modern and economic developments of society at large, redefining the concept of caste identity in the process. Caste, Entrepreneurship and the Illusions of Tradition suggests a new academic direction for the study of modern India, and of caste in particular, through an empirically grounded portrayal of the synthesis of traditional categories and contemporary realities.

List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Transliteration and Terminology; Prologue: The Durga Puja Business; 1. On Kumars, Modernity, Caste and Commodification; 2. The Civilized Potters and Their Neighbourhood; 3. Birth of Tradition, Coming of Modernity; 4. Ancestral Homes – East versus West; 5. Turmoil and Economics; 6. Accumulated Value: Education and Caste as Assets; 7. Commodification of Caste; References; Index.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Religión
• Social sciences
• Hinduism

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 02 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783085194
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Caste, Entrepreneurship and the Illusions of Tradition
DIVERSITY AND PLURALITY IN SOUTH ASIA
The Diversity and Plurality in South Asia series, wide in scope, will bring together publications in anthropology and sociology, alongside politics and international relations, exploring themes of both contemporary and historical relevance. This diverse line in the social sciences and humanities will investigate the plurality of social groups, identities and ideologies, including within its remit not only interrogations of issues surrounding gender, caste, religion and region, but also political variations, and a variety of cultural ideas and expressions within South Asia.

Series Editor
Nandini Gooptu – University of Oxford, UK

Editorial Board
Christophe Jaffrelot – CERI/CNRS, France
Niraja G. Jayal – Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
Raka Ray – University of California, Berkeley, USA
Yunas Samad – University of Bradford, UK
John Zavos – University of Manchester, UK
Caste, Entrepreneurship and the Illusions of Tradition
Branding the Potters of Kolkata
Geir Heierstad
Anthem Press

An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company

www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2017

by ANTHEM PRESS

75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© Geir Heierstad 2017

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,

no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means

(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),

without the prior written permission of both the copyright

owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-516-3 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-516-9 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
The King and the merchant settled on a riverbank and engaged in spiritual practice, chanting the supreme hymn to the Goddess.

When they had fashioned an earthen image of her on the riverbank, the two of them worshiped the Goddess with flowers, incense, fire and libations of water.
Devi Mahatmya 13.9–10
CONTENTS
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Transliteration and Terminology
Prologue: The Durga Puja Business
The Old World
A New World
1. On Kumars, Modernity, Caste and Commodification
Comprehending the Kumars
Making Modernity the Context
Indian origins
Caste between Structure and Practice
Short depiction of the caste system and the Bengali case
Conceptualizing and contextualizing caste
Dumont, critiques and alternatives
Caste today
Commodification and Authenticity
Fieldwork in Kumartuli
On oral history
Kumartuli and the world
An Outline of the Book
2. The Civilized Potters and Their Neighbourhood
The First Kumar
Of Rudraksha and the forefather of Bengali Kumbhakars
Burning jungle and the first pottery
Behind the Potter’s Wheel
The Development of Kumartuli – the Story without Kumars
Kolkata
Kumartuli before and after Durga hits town
Life and Work as Seasonal Image-Makers of Kumartuli
The Potters’ History and Their Society
Contemporary Kumartuli Realities
Numbers and classes
The people – Maliks, Kumars and Kumbhakars
The pujas and/as the Maliks’ work
Constructing an unbaked clay murti
In the end
3. Birth of Tradition, Coming of Modernity
Gopeshwar Pal – an Artist?
‘We Used to Listen to These People’s Names’
‘I Have to Accept My Father First, Only Then Can I Accept My Son’
‘The age of reproduction’
Innovation and pride
When Modernity Settled in Kumartuli
4. Ancestral Homes – East versus West
On the Ground
The fight for independence
Partition
Bangal, East Bengal
Edeshi, West Bengal
West Ghotis and East Bangals Today
5. Turmoil and Economics
Patron–Client Economy
Kumartuli Bazaar
Political Turmoil
Indira Gandhi – the Nationalization Redeemer
Maliks and Labourers
A Renewed Kumartuli Emerges
6. Accumulated Value: Education and Caste as Assets
Successful Kumars of the Twenty-First Century
Prodyut – broadband connected
Parimal – presenting one’s portfolio
Joyanta – aspiring artist
Kumartuli reinvented, reimagined, reconfigured
A Kumartuli without Mud Floors
Modernity at Large: Caste for Sale
7. Commodification of Caste
Caste versus Modernity
Caste in twenty-first century Kumartuli
Hierarchy and purity
A Kumartuli Lesson
An image of the Kumars of Kumartuli
Commodification and the Illusions of Tradition
References
Index
FIGURES
P.1 Durga Puja 2006 at Baghbajar
2.1 Map of Kumartuli
2.2 The ‘official’ entrance to Kumartuli
2.3 One of the larger workshops
2.4 Secular fibreglass image and sacred-to-be clay images
2.5 Making a wooden frame
2.6 Frames
2.7 Straw-binding
2.8 Headless straw Durga
2.9 Applying clay
2.10 Clay Durga
2.11 Making decorations
2.12 Ornaments and hair
3.1 Ekchala thakur at the thakurdalan of Sababajar Rajbari, 2006
3.2 The face of Durga
5.1 Labourers at work
7.1 Painting of Kali Ma
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This monograph is about Kolkata’s Kumartuli and its inhabitants. It is their histories, life and work I try to relate. Thus, it is to them I must express my gratitude first and foremost. Outside Kumartuli a number of people have been important to my work. Afraid of missing someone out, I will restrict my thanks to Arild Engelsen Ruud, Lars Tore Flåten, Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Swastika Dhar, Anne Waldrop, Pamela G. Price and Rudraprasad Sengupta. Beyond my work other people have been equally important, and I wish to express my thanks to Bjørg, Embla and Nokkve: Cholo , let’s go skiing.
TRANSLITERATION AND TERMINOLOGY
Bengali words are written in italics on first use and subsequently given in roman font. Words are not spelled with the inherent vowel ‘a’ when it is not pronounced. Diacritical signs are not used as they disturb the reading.
Kumar or Kumor : 1 This denotes both ‘potter’ and ‘the potter caste’. However, in present-day Bengal in general, and in Kumartuli in particular, the Kumars do not make very many pots – they make murtis or images in the form of unbaked clay statues. And while the dictionaries present ‘potter’ as one of the meanings of ‘Kumar’, this is not necessarily what Bengali-speaking people associate with the term. To them, the word generally refers to makers of unbaked clay statues of gods and goddesses. Consequently, I will mainly use the word ‘Kumar’ and not the regular translation ‘potter’. ‘Kumar’ will thus denote a maker of clay images.
Kumbhakar : 2 While ‘Kumar’ denotes a maker of images, it also denotes a caste. However, there are Kumars, as people who make images, who not belong to this caste. As a consequence I will use the more formal term Kumbhakar to refer to the caste. The word ‘Kumbhakar’ can be translated as ‘maker of ( kar ) rounded vessels ( kumbha )’.
Malik : 3 The Kumars of Kumartuli can be divided roughly into two groups, labourers and Maliks. The latter is a term used in Kumartuli to denote owners of workshops. Most of the informants given voice in this book are Maliks and they will frequently be referred to as such, especially when it is necessary to distinguish between the image-makers in general and the workshop-owners.
Murti : 4 This word has several meanings; in this book it refers to a statue or image. Why not stick to that translation? Often when Kumars are mentioned in works in English, they are said to be makers of idols . In one way, it is idols they make – conceptualizing an idol in terms of something ‘that is the object of excessive or supreme devotion, or that usurps the place of God in human affection’ ( OED Online 1989). However, ‘idol’ often has a negative connotation, as ‘[a]‌n image or similitude of a deity or divinity, used as an object of worship: applied to those worshipped by pagans’ (ibid.). To Bengalis, ‘murti’ denotes an image or a statue in general. In Kumartuli, where they manufacture both religious and profane statues and reliefs in various materials, this is a good term. However, in more formal discourse there is always a reference to the making of thakur murti , a representation of a god, or to pratima , 5 which more directly refers to a representation of a god.
Jati : 6 This is another word with a multitude of meanings. In the context of this book, the word is used interchangeably with the word ‘caste’. Thus, caste and jati are distinguished from varna . See Chapter 2 for an elaborate discussion on this topic.


1 কুমোর [kumōr] n. a potter, a claymodeller (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 2000: 242).
2 কুম্ভকার [kumbhakār] n. a potter; a person who makes clay pots by hand (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 2000: 242).
3 মালিক [māl