Casting Kings: Bards and Indian Modernity

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Casting Kings: Bards and Indian Modernity

JEFFREY G. SNODGRASS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Casting Kings

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Casting Kings Bards and Indian Modernity

jeffrey g. snodgrass

1 2006

1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With ofﬁces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright 䉷 2006 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Snodgrass, Jeffrey G. Casting kings : bards and Indian modernity / Jeffrey G. Snodgrass. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13 978-0-19-530434-3; 978-0-19-530775-7 (pbk.) ISBN 0-19-530434-9; 0-19-530775-5 (pbk.) 1. Caste—India—Rajasthan. 2. Bhats. 3. Chamars. I. Title. HT720.S55 2006 305.5'122'0954—dc22 2005031798

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

In memory of Bansi Lal and Narayan

The mind is greedy, the mind is covetous, The mind is ﬁckle, the mind is a thief, Wherever the mind is told “Don’t go!” In a blink, blink of an eye, there it will be. —Bhat poem

Preface

This book considers the lives of a group of seminomadic performers from the Indian state of Rajasthan who call themselves Bhats. Specialist scholars know Bhats as elite bards who sang the praises and kept the genealogies of Rajasthan’s former kings and nobles. As late as the colonial era, Bhats received land grants from their royal patrons and thus could become, reminiscent of their benefactors, landed noblemen. Given their connection to religious scholarship and ritual performance, these elite bards have also been associated with Brahmin priests. Many locals told me that there were no longer any Bhats in Rajasthan. They meant that elite and landed bards tied to kings had abandoned their traditional profession and were now tending their ﬂocks and lands or turning to modern professions such as medicine or law. My own Bhat informants, however, claim descent from these elite bardic communities. Moreover, the Bhats I knew, in addition to dancing and selling puppets in the tourist industry, still narrate praisepoems and family histories for their patrons. Despite their purported connection to royalty, my Bhat informants are now generally poor, possessing little land and even less political power. My three years of ethnographic ﬁeldwork, for example, took place for the most part in Bhat homes in slums and tent colonies in the Rajasthani cities of Udaipur and Jaipur. In the summers of 2003 and 2004 I did see that many Bhats had begun to invest their money in houses of stone and concrete. Nevertheless, during the early to late 1990s, a period that forms the ethnographic present

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of most of this book, most Bhats I knew were squatters without legal rights over the land on which they lived. Thus, despite my informants’ claims to be descended from royal forebears, the Bhats I knew also claim Dalit, or “Oppressed,” status. The term Dalit is generally reserved for members of India’s formerly untouchable communities, whom Gandhi called Harijans, or “Children of God,” and the Indian state refers to them as Scheduled Castes, since they are “scheduled” for advancement through preferential treatment in a number of Indian-style afﬁrmative action programs. The Indian state maintains strict lists of which caste communities qualify for everything from reserved seats in local governments, state legislatures, and national parliament to preferential placement in universities. My informants, if in fact they descended from nobility, would not qualify for this aid. However, as I witnessed, they do access these programs. My informants suggest that their present poverty, marginality, and Dalit status is a result of a recent “fall.” Their formerly royal patrons, I was told, no longer remember the old ways; similarly, they no longer remember, or patronize, their bards who keep the old ways alive. I learned over a period of years, however, that there is more to this story. I do not wish to give away too many details of a mystery that will be explored in the book’s opening chapters, so I will simply say that my informants’ caste identity, which hinges on the connection between elite bards termed Bhats and my own Rajasthan informants who also refer to themselves as Bhats, is complex and slippery. Also, as readers will see, my informants render this connection more complex through their deliberate deceptions, often claiming afﬁnities and suggesting relations that do not exist. In examining Bhat lives here, I hope to illuminate the resilience of South Asia’s famous system of inequality, often glossed as “caste.” I will argue that despite all the bewildering changes in the cities they now inhabit, Bhats continue to conceptualize their own identity around a notion of patronage and thus around the interconnection of patron and client castes. Bhats are most comfortable and successful when they are able to position themselves as clients of the economically and politically powerful, be they village landlords in a crumbling rural economy termed jajmani or modern hoteliers and bank managers who now also employ these informants. Given the importance of relations of patronage to Bhat identity, this book draws heavily on the ideas of A. M. Hocart and the so-called neo-Hocartians, who argue that caste is best conceptualized as a social system organized around kings and patrons who protect and support dependent service communities. Though these ideas help to illuminate the logic of Bhat social relations in modern Rajasthan, my informants do not readily grant superiority or social centrality to the patrons who support them economically and protect them politically. Rather, Bhats argue that they possess a power over language, as well as a general bardic knowledge and cunning, that render them superior to their

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patrons, whom they educate and also manipulate and control. In the past, kings were in part made or “cast” by skillful bards, much as a sculptor might mold or cast a work of art in plaster or wax, or as a director might cast actors by allocating roles in a play or a ﬁlm. In the process, kings obtained their royal “caste”—that is, their status, their ranking, and their position in society. Bhats currently argue that they continue to do so for their village and urban patrons. In focusing on the roles and perspectives of bardic clients as opposed to those of kingly patrons, I hope to illuminate the poetic, imaginative, and thus radically contingent nature of contemporary caste relations. Bhats understand how social hierarchies can be imaginatively constructed and deconstructed and thus how those hierarchies would seem to be inventions of a kind. Indeed, such self-consciousness lies at the heart of the Bhats’ traditional bardic profession and continues to form the basis for my informants’ claims to status and dignity in contemporary India. Further, I hope to show how the Bhats’ sophisticated take on the art of representation, though couched in my informants’ distinctive poetic and narrative registers, is akin to poststructuralist insights into the “play” of language and identity. In drawing parallels between my own informants and western philosophers of language, I hope to bestow agency and further dignity on these Bhat informants. Though socially subordinate in many ways, Bhats are not simply oppressed victims of a traditional system of inequality that marginalizes them. Rather, their poetic ingenuity ﬁlls their lives with what seems at times like limitless power and possibility. The Bhats, a community on the move, are energetically remaking themselves in pre- and postindependence India. This book further argues that changes in colonial and postcolonial India, such as the decline of elite bardic communities, the reconﬁguration of gift economies, and the rise of tourism, provide opportunities for Bhats to refashion their caste identity. Conversely, I also hope to show how the Bhats’ bardic heritage, as a repertoire of narrative and poetic skills as well as general cunning honed in older patronage contexts, allows Bhats effectively to exploit the new economic niches opened up by these diverse changes. Casting Kings’s central argument, then, is partly a historical one. Nevertheless, the book is primarily ethnographic and thus ﬁrmly rooted in the present. It is most interested in documenting the manner in which Bhats apply old skills in new ways and, in the process, transform these old skills. Bhats are skillful players who pride themselves, both as individuals and as a community, on their ability to manipulate both story and people. As the reader will see in the opening chapters, they effectively played me, particularly in the context of narrating their community’s caste history. I do treat some Bhat histories as being truer than others. And I feel strongly that I got to the bottom of many Bhat deceptions. This feeling is based largely on the fact that my most trusted older informants, who were considered by other Bhats to

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possess authoritative knowledge of the past and who became over time my close friends, eventually opened up to me and revealed previously hidden details from their past. Nevertheless, there was rarely consensus among Bhats on any topic. In Bhat caste histories in particular, there remained inconsistencies from telling to telling that I never managed to resolve to my complete satisfaction. In this book, then, I hope to provide readers with insights into the lives of members of a fascinating community of paid praise-singers and storytellers. I share with readers my knowledge of the Bhat community, which has been painstakingly acquired over more than three years of ethnographic research spanning more than a decade. Still, given Bhat pride in their cunning, as well as my informants’ penchant for spinning compelling though not always true tales, the reader should exert a degree of caution and treat each detail presented in the following pages as partial, and thus open to further elaboration and interpretation.

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to Bansi Lal Bhat and Narayan Bhat, two unique individuals and my most important informants. Narayan died in 1995 at about age sixty-two (older Bhats did not generally know their exact age), just after I had completed my dissertation research in Rajasthan and returned to the United States. He was said to have silently keeled over while sipping tea. Bansi Lal died in 2003, at the age of sixty-ﬁve or so, of complications brought on by liver failure. The deaths of these two men, who provided many of the stories and poems discussed in this book, represent a tremendous loss to the Bhats and especially to the Bhats of Udaipur. The Bhat community will of course survive, but I hope its members continue to appreciate, as did Bansi Lal and Narayan, the value of bardic knowledge in the contemporary world. I would also like to thank the many Bhats who welcomed me into their homes and taught me so much about Rajasthan and also about life. In the Rajasthani town of Udaipur, I especially appreciate the help of Bansi Lal’s wife, Bedami, as well as this family’s ﬁve daughters, Gita, Kamla, Kosila, Santos, and Krisna. In addition, I thank, in no particular order, Kalni Lal (Gita’s husband), Sarma (Kosila’s husband), four incredibly ingenious and resilient Bhat brothers (from oldest to youngest), Bamla, Sarvan, Krisan, and Babu Lal, Mansu (Narayan’s young wife), Amba Lal (Narayan’s son by a ﬁrst marriage to Mansu’s sister), the brothers Hari Lal and Prem, as well as Kamla Bai and her son Beni Lal. In the city of Jaipur, I gratefully acknowledge the support and friendship of Mulcen (another husband of one of my Bhat sisters, Kamla, mentioned previously), as

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well as Santos Bai, Panna Lal, Ramu (Bansi Lal’s “cousin-brother”), Guljar, Dilip, Babu Lal, and Harji. Of course, thanks go not only to these individuals but also to their families as well as to the many other unmentioned Bhats who contributed to this project in so many important ways. Your warmth and generosity of spirit will remain with me forever. I wish to thank especially Sri Komal Kothari, the founder and director of the Rajasthan Institute of Folklore located in Borunda village near the Rajasthani city of Jodhpur, for teaching me so much about Bhat history and identity. Komalda, as he was known to his friends and relatives, passed away in 2004. Some of his thoughts on Rajasthan, however, have been captured in a 2003 book, Rajasthan: An Oral History, Conversations with Komal Kothari, which I highly recommend. I also gratefully acknowledge the support of several other scholars who facilitated my research in India, namely Dr. O. P. Joshi, a folklorist at the Ofﬁcers’ Training College in Jaipur, Drs. N. K. Bhargava and Mohan Advani of the Department of Sociology in Udaipur’s Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, and also Dr. Yuvraj Singh Jhala, now a professor and principal at Udaipur’s Bhupal Nobles’ P. G. College. I cannot even begin to express my gratitude to these generous and talented individuals, who gave so fully of their time and expertise. The American Institute of Indian Studies (Chicago and Delhi) funded the dissertation research upon which this book is based. In addition, I have beneﬁted from the ﬁnancial support of the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of California San Diego, the Izaak Walton Killam Foundation of the University of Alberta, and Colorado State University. Without the funds provided by these institutions, the research and writing leading up to this book would never have been completed. Special mention goes to Devendra Sharma and his wife, Savitri, for always making me feel more like a son than a tenant. I also thank the Mogra and Mehta families in Udaipur for all their sustenance of my body and mind. Jinesh, Manju, Aini Bua, Mehtaji, Vijay, Chirag, Priya, and everyone else, thank you so much for allowing Ve´ronique and me into your homes and hearts. I am also deeply indebted to my mentors in the United States. First, special thanks go to my dissertation advisor, Michael Meeker, whose ideas and inﬂuence are present on virtually every page of this book, and to F. G. Bailey, my co-advisor, for teaching me the craft of anthropology. Thank you Michael and Freddy for all your wisdom and guidance, as well as for your illuminating insights into Bhat culture. In addition, I acknowledge the stimulating environment provided by the Department of Anthropology, the University of California, San Diego. I especially appreciate the mentoring provided by this department’s many talented faculty members, such as Roy D’Andrade, David Jordan, Bob Levy, Tanya Luhrmann, and Mel Spiro; their psychological theories of culture have inﬂuenced

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my thinking in ways that are only now becoming evident to me. Likewise, I beneﬁted from conversations with my friends and fellow graduate students at UCSD, some of whom remain close friends to this day. Deserving special mention are Axel Aubrun, Rolf Belgum, Sharla Blank, Andy Brown, Tom Brown, Brendan Cooney, Gary Dmytryk, George Ericksen, Marysia Galbraith, Jon Guice, Kris Jansen, and Jordan Martin. I am extremely grateful to Jean DeBernardi and the Department of Anthropology, the University of Alberta, for providing much needed warmth during my years in Canada as a postdoctoral research fellow. It was during these years that this book’s central arguments gelled in my mind. For this I thank all my friends and colleagues up north—Jean especially, but also two Chairs, David Lubell and Nancy Lovell, friends such as Hugh and Sarah McKenzie, and many others. The Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University, has provided a collegial environment in which to pursue my research and writing. At CSU, I am especially grateful to Kathy Pickering and Kate Browne, and also to two Chairs, Jeff Eighmy and Kathy Galvin, who have encouraged and aided me in many ways. I also appreciate the feedback on my work provided by Prachi Deshpande and by colleagues participating in the multiyear interdisciplinary seminar in religious studies, such as Jim Boyd, Diane Margolf, Carol Mitchell, Ronny Turner, Joachim Viens, and Wayne Viney. Further, I am indebted to my undergraduate and graduate students, both at CSU and at UCSD and Alberta, who over the years have energetically engaged my writings on the Bhats. Stephanie Lott has been especially helpful in the ﬁnal stages of my writing this book, but I would also single out for thanks Allison Barrett, Megs Burd, Laura Parmely, and Christina Miller for all their support. I wish to express special gratitude to Ann Grodzins Gold. Not having been trained in one of the large centers of South Asian studies in the United States, I have often felt like an outsider to the ﬁeld of Indian studies. Ann, however, has provided informal post-PhD mentoring, offering me not only gentle guidance, but also applause, when I have most needed it. Ann, thank you for your scholarship as well as for your graciousness and generosity. In addition to these mentors and colleagues, I thank the many scholars of South Asia who have inspired this book’s ideas and arguments. I am thinking particularly of the so-called neo-Hocartians, such as Nicholas Dirks, Gloria Raheja, and Jonathan Parry, whose ideas I engage in the chapters to come. Christopher Fuller’s writings on caste and the jajmani patron–client economy also have helped me to place my ideas on the Bhats in a broader context. And Denis Vidal’s research has illuminated for me the roles and statuses of elite bards in Rajasthan’s colonial period. I greatly appreciate the work of the editors of the various journals in which my work has appeared over the years. In particular I would single out Ann Anagnost (Cultural Anthropology), Susan Bayly and James Carrier (Journal of

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the Royal Anthropological Institute), Carol Greenhouse (American Ethnologist), and Don Kulick and Willie Ostberg (Ethnos) for their seemingly tireless engagement with my manuscripts. I cannot even begin to express how impressed I have been with these editors’ commitment to scholarship and academic excellence. Likewise, I have beneﬁted from many anonymous reviewers of my writings, who have given so generously of their time and expertise, in some cases leaving me speechless, and at ﬁrst a little perturbed, with up to seven single-spaced pages of comments on an article barely twice that length. Thank you all; your energy and ideas have allowed me to reﬁne my prose and my arguments and have thus greatly enhanced the quality of this book. Special thanks go to the publishers of Ethnos and the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, respectively, Taylor and Francis (http://www.tandf.co.uk) and Blackwell Publishing (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com), for graciously allowing me to reproduce previously published material. I particularly thank Cynthia Read for her calm and patient guidance and sensible advice, which were offered throughout all stages of the publication process at Oxford. Cynthia, thank you for seeing, and then rediscovering, promise in this book on the Bhats. I am indebted also to Theo Calderara, Brian Hughes, Robert Milks, Julia TerMaat, and other Oxford editorial staff for the professional and meticulous manner in which they have completed the multiple tasks related to the production of this book. I should also mention that I have greatly beneﬁted from the responses of this book’s reviewers. The feedback of William Sax has been particularly helpful, and his many useful and penetrating comments have been directly incorporated into the text without further acknowledgment. An Acknowledgments section would not be complete without some reference to the friends and family who have supported and sustained me over the years. I owe a special debt to my grandparents, Mary Belle and Walter Gore, who taught me the value of tradition and provided me and my brothers with needed stability. Thank you for Bastrop as well as for everything else that went along with life in this small Texas town. I am also forever indebted to my mother, Mary Kathryn, for making me always feel unconditionally loved and supported. Kay, or Katie, as her friends called her, is no longer with us in body, but she still feels close in spirit. Likewise, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my father, Edward Leslie, for all that his continued presence in my life has meant over the years. I would also thank my stepfather, Billie Gene Caves, for, among other things, knowing the value of an education, and particularly of a McCallie high school education. My love and gratitude go to my brothers, John and Tom, as well as to their families (and especially Jennifer), for always warmly welcoming me back to the United States after my travels and for listening with attention and humor to my stories when and if I was ready to recount them. I am also indebted to Ve´ronique Pache for love, companionship, and intellectual stimulation during our years together in India.

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I wish to thank Ann Russ for, among many other things, her careful and thoughtful readings of almost everything I have written since the completion of my PhD. Thanks too go to Todd Shimoda, for billiards, for reminding me that science is art, and for allowing me to dream of a screenplay featuring Bhat characters (that still may happen). My gratitude also goes to Phil and Kris Cafaro for their warmth and friendship here in Fort Collins. I especially appreciate Phil’s outsider perspective on the anthropological enterprise and love of old-school ethnography, as well as his wager, which I lost, but which nevertheless helped me to stay motivated in the ﬁnal stages of this book’s completion. Thanks also go to Joe Grady and Axel Aubrun, as well as to their consulting ﬁrm, Cultural Logic (http://www.culturallogic.com/), for doing research that matters and for providing me with opportunities in the United States to hone my anthropological skills. I also thank a handful of old friends who go way back, Mark Cleaveland, Glenn Etter, and Kip Soteres, for giving my life some semblance of emotional and intellectual continuity. Finally, many people over the years have also stood in the way of this project’s completion, a point that I have never seen acknowledged or spoken of in any scholarly book. In deference to the Bhat tradition of insult-singing, I brieﬂy considered listing all such persons in a ﬁnal “in spite of ” paragraph. In respect to Bhat wit and common sense, however, as well as to the difﬁculty of clearly distinguishing friend from foe, I have chosen to stick with the gratitude and praise. I will thus leave this act of bravado, and of potential foolishness, to some future author.

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Contents

Note on Language and Texts, xix Sources, xxiii 1. Introduction: Caste Fictions, 3 2. Cast of Characters: Setting the Rajasthani Stage, 41 3. Obscene Jesters: Bhambhi “Little Kings” in the Economy of Bhat Praise-Singing, 75 4. Venture Funambulists: Composing Kings in Old and New Rajasthan, 109 5. The Enduring Power of Praise-Abuse: Bhat Admen in Modern Times, 143 6. Conclusion: Making History, 167 Appendix: Poem Texts, 175 Notes, 181 Glossary, 197 References, 201 Index, 215

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Note on Language and Texts

In 2004 Rajasthani was recognized by the State Assembly as an ofﬁcial Indian language rather than as a mere dialect of Hindi. Recognition is still pending, however, from the government of India and the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Some linguists, such as Lakhan Gusain, who is involved in writing various Rajasthani pedagogical grammars, delineate eight major regional dialects in Rajasthan—Bagri, Dhundhari, Harauti, Mewari, Mewati, Marwari, Shekhawati, and Wagri. Still, as other linguists such as David Magier remind us, Indian languages are said to change every four kos, or eight miles, and Rajasthani is no exception. Thus there being “eight” dialects is somewhat illusory, given the manner in which they shade into each other in border areas. There is also a rich Rajasthani literature, much of it composed by bards beginning around 1050 a.d., which is taught at the university level. This literature is written in a number of archaic dialects, Dingal and Middle Marwari among them. There have been several attempts to standardize Rajasthani, in some cases on the basis of the Marwari dialect, which is widely spoken in western Rajasthan. It is still an open question, however, as to how much standardization has actually taken place— be it in spoken, written, or broadcast Rajasthani. Since Bhats originated primarily from the district of Nagaur in western Rajasthan, their ﬁrst language is Marwari. Still, many of my Bhat informants have for many years been living part-time in the cities of Jaipur and Udaipur. They have thus picked up the dialects of those two regions, Dhundari (Jaipur) and Mewari (Udaipur), which they combine with their Marwari. Exposure to television, cin-

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ema, and the speech of educated elites in these urban contexts, as well as the fact that Hindi functions in many of Rajasthan’s cities as a general lingua franca, has also allowed Bhats to master spoken Hindi. Also some younger Bhats read Hindi in school, though they typically do not study past the primary level. (Most older Bhats are illiterate.) Many Bhats, then, adults and children alike, speak Hindi comfortably; in some cases it has even become their principal spoken language. They also blend Hindi with their Rajasthani, according to the context and the audience. By contrast, Bhats speak little or no English, though they sometimes sprinkle their speech with English terms picked up from the Indian cinema or from tourists. Typically, I spoke to my informants in standard Hindi, and they spoke to me either in Hindi or in their distinctive Hindi-Rajasthani blend. By the end of my ﬁeldwork, I could understand the gist of most conversations in Rajasthani, though I did not speak this language’s dialects. Early on, Bhats would frequently speak in “pure” Marwari in my presence when they did not want me to understand what they were saying. As my language skills improved, however, they shifted to what they call “Parsi.” This is not Persian, but rather a dialect invented by Bhats that only members of their community speak. Bhat poems, which appear throughout this book, were for the most part collected in my informants’ homes. Some, however, were witnessed on ritual occasions, such as patrons’ weddings at which Bhats performed. The poems are composed in a mixture of Hindi and Rajasthani, with a sprinkling, I was told, of the archaic Dingal dialect. The poet would recite the poem and then explain his or her basic point, with others in the audience providing further insights and commentary. At that point I would have the poet repeat the poem while I transcribed it with the help of Bhat children. If there were parts that I still did not understand after consultations with Bhats, then I would consult dictionaries or outsiders to the Bhat community, such as my landlord and friend, Mr. Devendra Sharma, or folklorists such as Sri Komal Kothari or Dr. O. P. Joshi. English translations, based on Bhat interpretations of their poetry, are found in the main text of this book. Indian language equivalents are in the Appendix. Stories were collected in a different manner. I would ﬁrst listen to the tale, which was usually narrated for my beneﬁt and entertainment over lunch in an informant’s home. Others in the community, having heard the story many times, would offer commentary. The narrator would then ask me what the story meant and what I thought of it. On the basis of my answer, the storyteller would elaborate, or not, on those portions he or she thought I had misunderstood. The narrator would then tell the same story a second time (or a third), slowly repeating and explaining unfamiliar vocabulary, while I took down each sentence in an English-Hindi shorthand. In most cases I would then be asked to retell the story to the audience, and I would be congratulated or criticized for my performance. On returning to my home, which was a short distance

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away, I would write out the entire story, translating from my shorthand into English. In a few cases I would tape-record difﬁcult stories so that I could translate them at my leisure and with the help of specialists. Sometimes I glossed Hindi words into English too quickly, losing the original and thus also losing my ability to reinterpret the stories as my appreciation for local language grew. Because my transcriptions and translations were never exact, I have felt justiﬁed in further editing these stories from my memory, and in some cases condensing or expanding them in order to enhance clarity and readability. Since I rarely tape-recorded my conversations with Bhats, direct quotes found in this book should be viewed in the same manner as Bhat narratives. I would typically write down an imprecise, on-the-spot gloss or paraphrase in my notebooks, partly in Hindi-Rajasthani and partly in English, and then later standardize it into a “quote” in my Jaipur and Udaipur residences. Such a style was less obtrusive than a tape recorder and thus allowed me to better capture the subversive commentary that was characteristic of almost all of my conversations with Bhats. I have chosen to render most Indian terms in Hindi rather than in Rajasthani. Doing this allows specialist scholars working in other parts of Rajasthan or India to recognize more readily the terms Bhats employ. Also, as I have mentioned, I did not meticulously transcribe recorded texts in local Rajasthani dialects in the way some folklorists and other scholars are known to do. Nor did I generally hire research assistants to do so. In addition, I do not feel that my ear was always capable of capturing the nuances of Bhat pronunciation of local terms. Furthermore, capturing the exact ﬂavor of Bhat speech was made more difﬁcult by the fact that Bhat speech—in its peculiar mixing of Hindi and Rajasthani, with the occasional English and “Parsi” phrase—seemed so often to deviate from standard forms. Indeed, most Bhats I knew had their own idiosyncratic pronunciation, depending on their education as well as on how many years they had been in their new urban homes and how widely traveled they were. Also, most Bhats rarely spoke to me in any singular dialect or even in any standard Bhat form of speech. Rather, they used a form of speech, part Hindi and part Rajasthani, that they thought I would understand. As a result, it is not clear whether careful transcriptions of their exact words, even if I were capable of capturing them, would have served the interests of any scholar other than myself. Poems are generally presented exactly as I encountered them. Still, the reader should note that Bhats generally recited these to me in a mix of Hindi and Rajasthani, though usually in a way that did not compromise these verses’ rhyme and rhythm. In addition, I transliterate Indian terms in a simpliﬁed Roman script. I do note aspirated consonants, which are followed by an /h/. However, I do not employ diacritics to distinguish between, for example, long and short vowels or retroﬂex and dental consonants. I have chosen this course because this book is aimed partly at an undergraduate and nonspecialist audience, who tends to

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ﬁnd diacritics distracting. This simpliﬁed system will allow for approximate pronunciation of Indian terms. Specialists, on the other hand, often do not need the cues provided by diacritical marks, especially in the case of relatively common Indian terms. In addition, the difﬁculties mentioned here render any attempt at accurate reproduction of my informants’ speech, as a community or as individuals, problematic at best. Indian terms, with the exception of proper nouns, are italicized. Caste names are capitalized only when they refer to the community itself and not when they refer to the profession associated with that community. Thus, “Bhat” and “Bard” could refer to my informants’ caste community, but “bhat” and “bard” would refer to their work as praise-singers and genealogists. I pluralize Hindi-Rajasthani words by adding an /s/ to the end of the term. In some cases I deviate from these simpliﬁed conventions, such as when representing terms or names that are customarily written in a certain way by scholars, or when quoting authors who employ other systems of transliteration. Note that /c/ is pronounced /ch/. Numbers in parentheses after the Bhat poems quoted as epigraphs at the beginnings of chapters refer to the poem number, which corresponds to Hindi equivalents in the appendix.

Sources

This book draws in part on three of my previously published articles: “Beware of Charitable Souls: Contagion, Roguish Ghosts and the Poison(s) of Hindu Alms.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (n.s) 7(4) (December 2001): 687–703. “The Center Cannot Hold: Tales of Hierarchy and Poetic Composition from Modern Rajasthan.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (n.s.) 10(2) (June 2004): 261–285. “The Future Is Not Ours to See: Puppetry and Modernity in Rajasthan.” Ethnos 69(1) (March 2004): 63–88. These articles have been abridged in some places and expanded in others, in order to mesh better with the arguments presented in this book. Still, much of the original text has been left unchanged.

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Casting Kings

RAJASTHAN

N INDIA

NAGAUR

RAJASTHAN

Udaipur

0

150 mi

0

250 km

Jaipur

1 Introduction Caste Fictions

Reaching for the Moon It was a crew of Indians, not Neil Armstrong, who ﬁrst landed on the moon. The United States, I learned, had invited Indian scientists to collaborate on the construction of a lunar craft. One of the visitors was a spy who secretly snapped an “x-ray photo” of the space-vehicle plans, which was smuggled to India. Working day and night from the stolen blueprints and with scant resources, India manufactured and launched its own rocket, thus beating the Americans to the moon’s surface. My companion Ve´ronique and I listened to this account one wintry evening in the town of Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan, where my anthropological ﬁeldwork unfolded. It was November 1992. Slurping tea and admiring the sunset, we huddled beside a crackling ﬁre with our hosts—semi-itinerant performers referred to as Bhats. Members of this community, who are originally from the western deserts of Rajasthan, typically live in tents (tambudis) pitched around bamboo poles. We crouched near about ten of these, which were close together for protection by the side of a busy road leading to the outskirts of town. Amba Lal, a Bhat man of about twenty, narrated his tale of espionage with aplomb.1 The story unfolded slowly, its details added adroitly between noisy sips. The young narrator backtracked often, ﬁlling in context, ﬂeshing out character, and addressing audience doubts. For example, responding to my own incredulity, Amba Lal assured me that an Indian ﬂag remains on the moon to this day. He

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explained how ordinary Americans aren’t privy to this information. With national pride at stake, my government had struggled to keep the truth from its citizens. And so far, judging by my own ignorance, such plots seemed to have succeeded. This telling was a group effort, and others who knew the plot frequently interjected details. Amba Lal, however, was center stage and seemingly getting it right. Squatting near the side of a busy thoroughfare, we were distracted by Marutis (an Indian make of car), Ambassadors (another make), Vespa scooters, and Vespa knockoffs, as well as by curious pedestrians who stopped frequently to inquire if Ve´ronique and I were lost or needed help of some kind. Still, Amba Lal’s audience remained rapt—nodding, smiling, and vocalizing appreciatively as they slurped. The story’s thread was sometimes broken, as whining children were bribed into silence with tea or as conversation turned to other matters. But the tale continued, fueled by an unspoken pact between storyteller and audience. Noting the expressions of pleasure on the faces of my Bhat informants during Amba Lal’s performance, I realized something central to “Bhatness” was unfolding. Thus I do not mean to denigrate my informants by introducing them with a tale in which Indians feature as thieves. Rather I hope to broach their deepest concerns. But what exactly are these concerns, and might they be found in the story’s content, its telling, or both? This tale emerged during a heated discussion about money. We had been in India for only a few months and had just befriended the Bhats of Udaipur. Eyeing our cassette and video recorders, Bhats thought of Ve´ronique and me as rich persons. We were careful not to reveal the amount of our monthly research stipends, but they sensed, and wished to partake of, our wealth. I had been adopted into a Bhat family. Any true Bhat, I was told, would share with his family and community.2 At the time, I did not see Bhat requests for money as unreasonable and didn’t want to lose my adopted status.Therefore I frequently gave informal gifts of food to Bhats and planned on giving more in the end, and did so. For example, Ve´ronique and I left our black-and-white television with my adopted family on our ﬁnal departure from India. But I had been warned by a local scholar that members of this community would devour me and my “riches” if I was not careful. Bhats, according to this scholar, had taken advantage of new ﬁnancial opportunities in post-independence Rajasthan more than any other community of artists, and if I was not careful, I would be perceived as one more of those opportunities. I therefore proceeded slowly and stingily. Bhats, however, were not pleased with my pace, especially those outside of my immediate adopted family who were not sharing in my lunches. They began requesting “loans” to fund weddings and dowries. I parted more or less freely with small sums of money, even giving one substantial loan of over 5,000 rupees (a little over $160 U.S., given the exchange rate of about 31 rupees to

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Bansi Lal and Narayan celebrate a child’s wedding. This book is dedicated to these two remarkable Bhats, both of whom are now deceased. (Unless otherwise noted, all photos are by me.)

the U.S. dollar), though only after I was assured over shots of whiskey that I would be promptly repaid. Time passed, however, and I was not repaid. More time passed, and still no return. I began to fear that I had become an easy mark. I also was afraid that I was blundering, even jeopardizing my research. Bhats, especially those in my immediate family, in fact told me as much, shaking their heads sadly at how easily I had been taken. It was at this point in my ﬁeldwork that Amba Lal led Ve´ronique and me to the moon. The spy of Amba Lal’s story originates from an impoverished and once colonized third-world nation. The dupes are citizens of an industrial dynamo with an ever-expanding market economy. The characters of this tale, then, parallel my own relationship with my informants: Bhats, poor Indians, are the spy; I, a rich American, get linked allegorically to those tricked out of their valuables. The theme of poverty, I might add, resonates with Bhats. India is poor by world standards, but Bhats are poor, or at least they seemed poor to me at that point, even by Indian standards. Most Bhat tent-dwellers owned little more than they could transport by auto-rickshaw, bullock cart, bus, horseback, or human-back. Bhats of Jaipur city (Rajasthan’s capital), the other community that features prominently in this book, are squeezed into sprawling slums for much of the year. If Bhat appearances are to be believed, my inform-

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A Bhat tent on the outskirts of Udaipur in the early 1990s.

ants are not only perched on the edge of town in tents and slums literally, but also ﬁguratively perched on the edge of starvation.3 This story, then, could be read as an apology—or at least a justiﬁcation— for the Bhat failure to return my loans. Indian spies can justiﬁably steal from rich America, because a poor country deserves the opportunity to catch up with the more advantaged. And didn’t the West, as a colonizing power, loot India for centuries? Similarly, though it was never put in so many words, the lunar vehicle story allowed Amba Lal to argue ﬁguratively that a poor Bhat, especially if faced with his and his family’s starvation, can surely borrow money from a wealthy visitor and not pay it back. Still, my narrator was not concerned merely with money, nor was his point primarily a moral or ethical one. Amba Lal did not demand pity for his community’s poverty, nor did he call for justice in this instance. To the contrary, Amba Lal’s story of space celebrates the power of human deception. Indians, pretending to be one thing, best their more powerful rivals. Assuming this tale says something about my budding relationship with the Bhat community, it appears as half warning and half statement of pride. The tale was even a friendly piece of advice from a new Bhat “brother,” a suggestion that I remain vigilant when moving among his clever if unscrupulous kin. More to the point, the tale celebrates those who wear disguise in order to hide true intentions. The crux of the tale then is not morality: Is it a sin to

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steal? Neither is it truth: Did the Indians really make it to the moon ﬁrst? Rather, the narrator marvels at one who seizes something “foreign” and cleverly puts it to use for the self. Indeed, Amba Lal himself, in offering me coded advice and words not exactly what they seem, is as cunning as the spy featured in his story. Tellingly, this story of space crime was told within a conversation about the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi army invaded Kuwait in August 1990. In reprisal, America and its allies launched an intensive bombing campaign against Iraq in January 1991. I was in Switzerland with Ve´ronique at the time and remember watching replays of the bombing on television. I did not meet Bhats until September 1992, but the Gulf War, then a year and a half past, was still a hot topic of conversation in India. That this war caught the attention of Indians was partly due to the pro-Iraqi sentiment of India’s Muslim population. It also resulted from the fact that the oil embargoes levied against Iraq brought ﬁnancial hardship to India. Rising transportation costs seemed particularly to concern the seminomadic Bhats. That this story arose during a discussion on the Gulf War might again suggest the appropriateness of a moral reading. Saddam Hussein had seized a smaller and weaker nation. Baghdad, however, is poor by the standards of America and Europe. Battling all-powerful and all-plundering foreign oil interests, Saddam Hussein could be excused for his invasion and for his unscrupulous tactics. But again Amba Lal and the other Bhats seemed less interested in Saddam Hussein as a sympathetic, morally righteous victim than as a leader with cunning. Outnumbered, outgunned, and outﬁnanced, the Iraqi leader nevertheless bested, for a time at least, the combined force of the United States and NATO. Iraq’s leader also seemed to be winning a war of words, contorting the seizing of a weaker neighbor into moral right, and in the process articulating diffuse third-world dissatisfactions with the West. Like the spy of Amba Lal’s story, Saddam Hussein is thus not construed as a mere thief, nor simply as a victim to be pitied, but rather as a clever player to be respected and even feared. But, why are Bhats so interested in deception? And why this interest in seizing what might rightfully be said to belong to others? To address these questions, we need to delve into Bhat history.

Traditional Puppeteers In the Rajasthani cities of Udaipur and Jaipur, my principal ﬁeld sites, Bhats are referred to as kathputli-walas or “puppeteers”—literally, “those of the wooden ﬁgures.”4 In post-independence India, ancient residences—including warrior nobles’ mansions referred to as havelis and full-ﬂedged kingly palaces called mahals—have been converted into guest houses and restaurants. In

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Jaipur Bhats pose with a dancer puppet.

these palace settings, Bhats put on short ﬁve- to ﬁfteen-minute puppet dramas in hotel lobbies next to gift shops or in hotel restaurants as dinner entertainment. These performances are family affairs: Bhat fathers, hidden behind a curtained stage, make the string puppets dance, and whistle through a reed to create the puppets’ voice; mothers sing, play a small double-headed drum referred to as a dholak, and narrate; and children help out where needed. Bhats typically celebrate the exploits of knights from Rajasthan’s medieval period. For example, the Bhats’ signature character is Amar Singh Rathor, a minor seventeenth-century noble from their home district of Nagaur in western Rajasthan, who is said to have served under the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.5 Bhats also narrate ballads and epics of marauders referred to as dacoits, who once plagued the Rajasthani countryside but, at least in Bhat tellings, renounced their evil ways to ﬁght for good. Dacoit, or daku in Hindi, puppets carry torches that are actually lit—a trick that certainly catches tourists’ attention but that I have seen go awry. Bhat puppet shows also feature communities who reﬂect a disappearing rural way of life, though are still present in parts of Rajasthan and in fact often inhabit the same slums as my informants: they are snake charmers, black-garbed dancers (such as Gulabi Bai, a famous performer from the Saphera caste), performing hijra eunuchs, and professional mimics known as bahurupiyas, who, in puppet form at least, unexpectedly switch between male and female identities by ﬂipping upside down.6 After a puppet show, Bhats, if they have not themselves been approached,

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sidle up to hotel guests. Some tourists tip them for their performance, others do not. In either case, Bhats strike up a conversation with audience members. This is a difﬁcult task in the case of foreign tourists—considered by Bhats to be the wealthiest and thus most desirable customers—given that Bhats do not speak their languages. Furthermore, some guests want to be left alone over a quiet dinner and are dismayed that hawkers have penetrated their dining sanctuary. Still, Bhats are persistent, and many tourists enjoy Bhat company. Guessing at a guest’s nationality from his or her dress and demeanor, Bhats offer a standard greeting in the visitor’s native tongue. If their words meet with a blank stare, Bhats try again and perhaps even again. Once a nationality is identiﬁed, Bhats produce every word or phrase they know in that country’s language—or the closest facsimile thereof—which they have picked up from previous interactions. This routine usually succeeds in eliciting a laugh if not comprehension, which is good enough for Bhats. Dispensing with further preliminaries, a common language exhausted, Bhats get down to business. Pointing to puppets that line their stage—consisting of hastily made camels and elephants which are not really ﬁt for dancing and sell for under a dollar, but also ancient-looking warriors and dancers which are said to be centuries old and can go for hundreds of dollars—Bhats push their product. Uttering a dollar or rupee ﬁgure, which is always met with a tourist’s counterﬁgure (as suggested in the protocols of The Lonely Planet guide to India), Bhats negotiate. Most transactions fail. But enough succeed, it seems, to keep Bhats in business. During the early months of my research, in order to familiarize myself with the basics of Bhat “business” (Bhats use the English word), I planted myself in tourist hotels, tea in hand, and observed exchanges between Bhats and their customers. Bhats also pose for pictures in folklore settings, such as in Shilp Gram (literally, “Craft Village”), a government-constructed “traditional” village and thus living museum on the edge of Udaipur City, which acts as a showroom for the handicrafts, architectural styles, and performing traditions of India’s Western Cultural Zone.7 In these settings, I interviewed Bhats and tourists, in the latter case asking customers what they thought of Bhats and their ﬂoor show. These conversations yielded interesting, if not totally unexpected, observations. Rajasthan’s palace hotels, which reﬂect a bygone era of kings, cater to nostalgia and exoticism. Bhats, presenting themselves to tourists and hotel managers as traditional artists, meld seamlessly into these settings. To domestic tourists, Bhats represent a quickly vanishing, more tranquil era, which contrasts with contemporary urban life. To foreigners, Bhats also signify a past way of life, characteristic of the West at a time when nomadic entertainers were a familiar sight. In each case, the Bhat community is perceived as representative of a different, more authentic mode of art and communication, which contrasts with the modern age of television and cinema. Many Bhat customers that I observed, especially those from foreign coun-

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tries, did not comprehend Bhat language. Those who did understand the language, with its idiosyncratic mix of Hindi and Rajasthani, did not grasp the nuances of Bhat songs and plot lines. Bhats, in turn, because of the transitory nature of their relationships with tourists, viewed them primarily as ﬁnancial resources rather than as persons. Once I grasped the basic needs that drew the two sides together—a thirst for exoticism on one side, a hunger for the quick buck on the other—I looked for a way out of the Indian tourist industry as a source of information. Fantasies of exoticism as played out in tourist locales do provide interesting insights into modernization, but I was looking for interactions that were deeper and more meaningful. By spending my time with tourists, and in spaces so obviously orchestrated for them, I felt that I was not being a good anthropologist and indeed that I was missing out on the “real” India that possessed a substance beyond that presented to travelers and outsiders. I began exploring Bhat history and the inner workings of Bhat society, becoming less interested in the manner in which Bhats were perceived by their modern customers. I had read about caste and was fascinated by the idea that performance traditions could be inherited and linked to a family profession. I knew that Bhats were supported by a still extant, if crumbling, patronage economy termed jajmani. Though I had read about such an economy in graduate seminars at the University of San Diego, California, I did not understand fully what jajmani meant, or once meant, to Bhats in particular. Questions ﬂooded my mind: How were Bhats paid in this traditional economy? In what contexts, and on what ceremonial occasions, did they perform? How was skill passed from generation to generation? Was it true, as I had been told, that artists must be supported in this economy no matter how lacking in talent? If so, how were artistic standards maintained?8 I started spending less time in tourist hotels and government-sponsored folklore exhibits, and more time simply sitting and talking with Bhats in their homes, eliciting material about their “traditional” profession. This attempt to understand Bhat history, in fact, became a major preoccupation of mine and in a way is the major theme of this book—at least in the way that the Bhat tactical narration of their history provides insight into this community’s desires and ambitions. Bhats eagerly ﬂeshed out the details of their caste history. In presenting themselves as “traditional” (paramparik) puppeteers, Bhats meant that they had inherited their art from their ma-bap (mother and father), who in turn had inherited skills from their own parents, and so on back in time. My informants stressed the ancient roots of their puppetry, the way it had been passed on from generation to generation. So old was their art, in fact, that it was hard for them to estimate its true age. Some suggested a few hundred years, others a few thousand, and still others a few hundred thousand. No matter what the age, Bhats stressed that their puppet craft had remained more or less the same

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for its long history. Sponsors changed—hotel managers were now more important than rural patrons—but their art did not. Bhat puppetry was also presented to me as a sacred art. Bhats refer to their puppets as incarnations of the Mother goddess, Bhavani Mata. Members of this community offer blood sacriﬁces to puppet deities, a ceremony that I witnessed, ritualistically smearing the blood of slaughtered goats on puppet faces. By keeping their gods “happy”—blood offerings as well as the rice and bread accompanying them, are said to quench their gods’ hunger—Bhats ensure that their puppets dance properly. Bhats also described to me miracles associated with their puppets. In some instances puppets were said to have miraculously jumped to life—warriors of wood and cloth, swinging their swords to fend off threats to nomadic Bhats squatting in unfamiliar locales. Bhats assured me that, because their dancing puppets are so sacred, they never sold them; they described these dancing puppets not only as gods (devis and devtas) but also as their daily bread (roji). Local residents of the towns of Udaipur and Jaipur veriﬁed this story about the antiquity of puppetry. They spoke fondly of puppeteer performances remembered from childhood. They vividly described the excitement they felt on seeing the nomadic puppeteers arrive in their village or town. The entertainers might stop in a local square and announce that they were going to put on a show. If a large enough crowd gathered, the puppeteers would continue; if not, they would move on to the next square. These performances involved elaborate story lines and thus might stretch from early to late evening. After a performance, the puppeteers’ children would take up a collection, the amount depending on audience pleasure. Bhats were not always paid in cash but might receive room and board or gifts of food, clothing, and grain. If audience members didn’t give enough, Bhats would resort to insults, I was told, hoping to increase their earnings. For a long while I did not question these Bhat histories, since they veriﬁed what I already knew about caste identity. The Bhat caste linked them with a set of performance traditions that they had inherited at birth. The Bhat profession, moreover, was informed by religious ideas which reinforced the importance of this art to them and thus the stability of the caste system itself. Pieces were falling into place, and I felt certain that I would be able to make an interesting comparison between Bhat art as practiced in past times and this community’s new market adaptations. It was about three or four more months into my ﬁeldwork, however, that certain details began to disturb my simplistic view of the Bhat caste profession. First it was revealed that Bhats were in fact selling their supposedly most ancient and sacred puppets, the ones they claimed to have inherited from their parents, which were supposedly thousands of years old and which they insisted they would not sell even for 10,000 rupees.9 Moreover, after such transactions, these ancestral puppets somehow magically reappeared in Bhat dramas, if in

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slightly altered form. With a bit of simple detective work, I learned that these “ancient” puppets were in fact of recent manufacture. After selling an “old” puppet, Bhats craft them anew and then give them the appearance of age through an arsenal of tricks: they clothe them in tattered saris picked up from rag vendors; they also bury the wooden heads in the ground, adding lye, so that they would rapidly decay. Some Bhats were dismayed when I discovered these tricks, but most seemed pleased that I was ﬁnally beginning to grasp Bhat cleverness (calaki). Still, my informants did not renounce their story of being “traditional” artists. Attributing their deceptions to hard times, Bhats told me that they had long ago sold their ancient ancestral puppets (though some held onto a few). Bhat ancestors were surprised, I was told, when the ﬁrst audience member offered to buy their puppets after a particularly engaging performance. Caught off guard, their ancestors made the mistake of selling their patrimony for piddling sums of money. Later, transforming tragedy into triumph, Bhats set about manufacturing a slew of new “ancient” puppets. Bhats assured me, however, that such puppets are made in the traditional style by their own hand, so tourists still receive an authentic taste of old Rajasthan. Even this story, however, started to unravel after a few more weeks of steady inquiry. On an early trip to the Jaipur slum colony where Bhats resided, I saw that most Bhat puppets are not made by individual Bhat artists. They are massproduced formula pieces made in piecemeal fashion. Some individuals make heads, others paint them, and still others clothe them. Furthermore, in most cases Bhats contract out the parts of a puppet. Some contracts do go to Bhats, but, as an anthropologist interested in “caste” art, I was disturbed to learn that many go to persons outside the Bhat community. In Jaipur, for example, a down-and-out Rajput woman—some Bhats claim she is a “fake” Rajput—is adept at painting puppet heads, for which she demands a premium from Bhats. I was therefore studying not a traditional art, as Bhats wanted me to believe, but rather the Bhat equivalent of outsourcing. Bhats, always quick to change course, now openly admitted to me that most puppeteers from their community are merchants rather than artists. Puppetry, and especially selling puppets, is big business. But Bhats still insisted that they had simply adapted to modern times. Tourists hover around their stage for a few minutes at best. Not knowing the local language, they are not interested in watching an involved drama. Rather, they want mementos, signs of a traditional place that are different, even antithetical, to their own modern societies. Moreover, they want these mementos to ﬁt into their luggage. Therefore performing talent is not rewarded, and the big payoffs go to middlemen who orchestrate puppet assembly lines. There is so much money involved in the business of puppets, in fact, that Bhats battle for access to prime tourist locales, especially ﬁve-star hotels where the wealthy stay. Bhat sales tactics there are something to behold. As competition grows, and as more Bhats

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A Bhat puppet assembly line. Here Bansi Lal of Udaipur visits the Jaipur home of his cousin-brother Ramu.

compete for opportunities provided by the tourist industry, a bidding war has started among Bhats for the right to sell their puppets in these spots. In the early years Bhats were paid to perform in hotels. Now they pay for access to hotels, offering kickbacks to hotel managers and shopkeepers for anything earned or sold—in effect paying rent for shop space. It is not surprising that Bhats now refer to themselves as “businessmen” (using the English) but also as dalals—a term for merchant middlemen but also for pimps. It is also not surprising that Bhats do not reveal this side of their livelihood to tourists, who crave simple traditions rooted in the past. Even after I learned of this behind-the-scenes business, Bhats continued to insist on the traditional status of their art, asserting, rightfully, that innovation did not necessarily belie the ancient roots of an art form. They pointed to master artists in the community—such as a young Bhat of Jaipur named Dilip, who is a talented craftsman—who had learned the craft of making puppets from their fathers, who in turn had learned from their own fathers. They said that such persons maintained master-craftsman relations with the rest of the Bhat community, teaching others their art, overseeing the assembly-line production of the puppets, and thus maintaining a link with their thousandyear-old tradition. After additional probing, however, I learned from a carpenter outside the

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Mass-produced Bhat puppets, which will be sold in Udaipur.

Bhat community that Bhats did not traditionally make their own puppets. This carpenter was a talented woodworker employed by a folklore institute in Udaipur to manufacture art objects for its museum. Originally from Bassi, a village famous for its folk art that is about sixteen miles from Udaipur City and near Chittor, he made wooden toy animals such as horses and elephants, and also the kavad miniature cupboard that serves as a compact, transportable temple. He told me that Bhats had been regular customers of his family for many years, buying dancing puppets for their dramas. However, in the 1960s they began to purchase fewer and fewer puppets. Deciding they could save money if they made their own puppets, they eventually cut out this community of carpenter middlemen altogether when the tourist industry took off and puppets could be sold on a massive scale. This carpenter claimed that Bhats had “stolen” his community’s profession. He insisted, however, that Bhat puppeteers could never manufacture puppets as beautiful as his own. Furthermore, in his opinion they could not be considered traditional puppet artists. It took some work to verify this story, but Bhats eventually admitted to me that this carpenter’s story was true for the most part. My closest informants told me that historically they had not crafted their puppets, that their ancestors had purchased puppets from this carpenter caste but had stopped doing so in recent years in order to increase proﬁts. The art of making puppets was ﬁrst appropriated by a Bhat clan or subcaste known as Parpars at around the time

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of Indian independence in 1947, and then over time it trickled into the Bhat caste community as a whole.10 Nevertheless, Bhats vehemently insisted that the ancient art of dancing puppets was their own. Bhats in fact claimed that the folklore institute employing this carpenter, and possibly even this man himself, was stealing their secrets. They told me also that the institute hires members of the Bhat community. They said the institute learns the plot lines of their dramas as well as their techniques of string manipulation and then eliminates the Bhats, instead training “Tribals,” or communities from remote forest and hill areas, to entertain tourists. The Tribals, I was told, are poor and desperate and work for half the salary demanded by Bhats. The Bhats are sympathetic but not entirely forgiving. But, alas, still more detective work on my part revealed that even this story is far from true. This time the truth was revealed to me by Bansi Lal and Bedamiji, my adopted Bhat parents residing in Udaipur, who seemed willing to sacriﬁce one image related to the ancient status of their art in order to reafﬁrm another concerning their community’s cunning. Bansi Lal and Bedami informed me that Bhat ancestors learned to dance puppets in the early part of the twentieth century, picking up the technique from a nomadic troupe from a region in what is now Pakistan. Late one night, Muslim artists wandered into a Bhat village and put on a private puppet performance in the mansion of the local landlord. Though the performance was intended for Rajput eyes only, a Bhat peeked through cracks in the walls of the royal haveli. Amazed, he wondered to himself, “What is this? What are these miniature dancing ﬁgures?” Seeing the potential in this art form, he decided to learn it himself, as my informants put it, “seizing it with his mind.” Little about Bhat puppetry, then, is “traditional,” if we understand tradition to imply continuity with the past. The Bhats’ story of the great age of their puppets is a marketing trick for tourists. Not only are their speciﬁc puppets not old, but Bhats, if we are to believe an alternate set of stories, do not even have a reasonably ancient tradition of manufacturing puppets—sixty years at the most. This is especially the case for new immigrants to Jaipur and Udaipur who have only recently given up other work for the increasingly proﬁtable folk art industry. The Bhat tradition of performing puppets does not fare much better in terms of its age. Some of my most trusted informants suggest that it is less than a hundred years old—certainly not a thousand years old, as some Bhats claimed. I was told that not only is this tradition not old but it was taken from a Muslim community originating in Pakistan, a fact that is ironic given that Bhat plays celebrate Hindu warrior struggles against Muslim invaders.11 Bhats understand that tourists are interested in “old things”—decaying and frayed goods that are no longer useful. Frequently when I was visiting the Bhats of Jaipur, a foreigner would show up in the Bhats’ slum colony. The word would quickly spread that a moneybags had arrived. Like electricity coursing through the settlement, Bhats scrambled to locate anything that was, or that

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Bedami and Kamla Bai pose with a granddaughter. Udaipur, Rajasthan.

appeared to be, remotely aged. Once an old Bhat of about seventy sprinted by me, nearly knocking me over, a rotting wooden chest in his arms. As he later told me, he had hoped to sell the chest for a few thousand rupees (about $65): “Then think how many new metal chests I can buy!” In the same way, Bhats understand that appearing “traditional,” and thus old and unchanging, allows them to sell puppets for previously unimaginable prices. Bhats in fact grasped that “traditional” culture appealed to me as well. These hijinks further illuminate why the opening story of a theft of space vehicle plans might be compelling to Bhats. Bhats, like the hero of the story, steal valuable secrets from others in order to proﬁt and advance. And I, pursuing Bhats through their narrative maze, was left as empty-handed as Amba Lal’s Americans, and feeling as manipulated as a Bhat puppet.

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Bards of Kings At the time I knew him, Panna Lalji Bhat, or Pannaji for short (the sufﬁx ji is an honoriﬁc sometimes attached to Indian names to show respect), was eighty years old, my oldest informant, and was refusing to die of tuberculosis (though he succumbed to the disease in 1995). Every day we sat together in a dark cubbyhole near the middle of the labyrinthine Jaipuri slum which was his home. Except for a grandchild here and there, Pannaji’s family was withdrawing from him, especially because of the ﬁnancial hardships his illness brought to his family. In exchange for almonds (which he loved), fruit (which he did not particularly like), a monthly trip to the TB clinic (which he liked even less), and companionship (which he at ﬁrst tolerated and eventually learned to enjoy), Pannaji spoke of things past and present. Sensitive to my changing moods, he offered the following story, somewhat curtailed from its original form. It was told in response to my growing agitation and determination to learn what members of the Bhat community had done professionally previously to their usurping of puppetry: Once, four bards [bharets]12 from Marwar learned of the great generosity of Raja Resamji, a king living in a village in Kach in the state of Gujarat. These client-beggars [yacaks] heard that he was a

Pannaji with his grandchildren. Jaipur, Rajasthan.

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casting kings good and generous king, that they could get lots and lots of alms [dan] from him! So they loaded up all their belongings—their children, everything they had—and journeyed to Kach. The trip was long and arduous, and the bards became tired and sick on their journey. They almost died of hunger, and their horses in fact did die. Still they kept traveling, but it was such a long trip! After their horses died, they were forced to carry their belongings on their head, which made the trip even more painful and difﬁcult. On the road to Gujarat, the Marwari bards met one of the king’s servants, who asked them from where they originated and where they were going. They responded, “We are from Marwar, and we are going to meet King Resamji!” Hearing this, the servant hurried back to the palace. Arriving before the bards, he told his lord, “You are very sick, you are going to die! Your life cannot be saved. We must prepare you for your funeral!” He thought to himself that if the king appeared dead, then the greedy bards could not get his wealth and they would be forced to return home empty-handed. The servant was so convincing that the king believed that he was in fact dying. Resamji lay down on a burial platform, readying himself to be carried to the cremation ground. He allowed his servants to wrap him in his funeral shroud. The servant orchestrating the ruse said, “Now you go to sleep,” and the king, distressed, fell into an actual stupor. Seeing his condition, and thinking their lord was really dying, the inhabitants of the palace began to wail and recite the Hindu funeral chant, “The name of Ram is truth, speaking truth is truth . . . [Ram nam satya hai satya bolna satya hai . . . ].” In time, the bards arrived at Resamji’s village. Seeing the elaborate funeral preparations, they asked, “Who has died?” They were told, “The king!” The bards were distraught and thought to themselves, “Now who will give us dan?” One of them recited an insulting poem (1): Abandoned our houses, our horses have died, Upon our head a great debt, You have died Resamji? What a bother! On hearing this poetry, the king, covered by his funeral shroud, became agitated, thinking that he was losing face before these wandering minstrels. He asked himself, “Is this the way I will be remembered? For causing hardship and loss to client bards? I will be insulted forever!” One of the bards recited a second poem (2): The Bora moneylender watches the road, A crow alights before the beautiful woman,

introduction The river ﬂows behind the ghat, All wait for Resamji’s loaded chariot!13 The king thought, “What? They are acting as if I am already dead!” With this he grew even angrier. He started to move around, trying to shake off his shroud, though this movement was hidden from the eyes of the bards. Everyone in the village started rejoicing, the king was stirring! Hearing voices of rejoicing, one of the bards thought to himself, “This sounds like a celebration. The people are not acting as if their king just died.” He thought that he might have been tricked, that Resamji was not in fact dead. He thus recited another poem, even more insulting (3): On this earth, patrons are legion, Generosity ﬂourishes in this country, You have died Resamji? What? Like the loss of a few pubic hairs! Now Resamji got really angry. He struggled off of his deathbed and tore at the funeral cords that bound him. He stormed out of his castle and threw his death shroud to the bards. The bards responded, “King, give these to the Bhangi [latrine cleaner]. We accept gifts only from the living!” [Many bards do not accept alms associated with death, fearing a loss in status.] They recounted how far they had traveled, how their horses had died, how they had taken loans out for this trip to buy the horses, and then proclaimed, “From now on we will not drink water within the borders of your kingdom!” King Resamji tried to explain that it was not his fault, that his servant had hatched the idea, but the bards would not listen and headed home. The king stormed back into the castle and struck his servant, “You fool, you have caused me to get a bad name!” Sitting and thinking to himself, the king became even angrier, and ﬁnally he hatched a scheme of his own. He would intercept the bards on their journey home, regaling them with gifts after all! Taking a shortcut, the king and his retinue set up their tent at a spot the bards would surely cross. The king ordered his servants to feed the bards when they arrived and to gift them generously. If the bards should inquire about the identity of the host, then the servants should say all the gifts come from King Jarecha. Resamji gave explicit instructions not to mention his name. Arriving at the spot where the king and his servants were camped, seeing the elaborate tent and preparations, the bharets

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casting kings asked, “Whose is this?” Resamji’s servants, following their lord’s instructions, replied that it was the tent of King Jarecha. If the tent had belonged to king Resamji, the bards would not have been able to accept any hospitality, given their vow. The bards were fed well, given clothing to wear, and treated with the utmost respect. They began to praise King Jarecha: “You have done well, King Jarecha. Resamji, on the other hand, he is nothing, he is lowly and crazy!” Now King Resamji heard all this. Still he instructed his servants to give the bards even more gifts: four horses and 1,001 rupees each. Finally one of the bards grew suspicious. He thought to himself, “King Jarecha is not this wealthy. He could not possibly gift so generously.” Turning to the king’s servants, he asked, “Tell us the truth. Whose tent is this? If you do not tell, then we will go without accepting anything.” At this point, King Resamji appeared from behind the curtain. He folded his hands in salutation and asked for forgiveness: “Excuse me, respected bards. It was my worker and not me who was responsible for all this deception and evil work.” One of the bards recited another poem (4): Who would go near Jam [Jarecha’s home]? Who would return to all that chaotic noise? Halfway down the road, A horse was given by Resamji! On hearing this praise, Resamji presented the bards with even more horses and gifts.

Here Pannaji ended his tale with this interjection: “You see, all were happy, both giver and receivers. There were once kings such as that. They would pursue bards on the road in order to give them alms; they would do this just for their royal name! First this king caused hardship [dukh], but then he brought happiness [sukh].” This story dwells on death and gifts—understandably given Pannaji’s age and poverty. Resamji’s staged death and subsequent reappearance, a symbolic rebirth of a kind, give the king a second chance to establish his wordly reputation before his eventual actual demise. And Pannaji, looking toward his own looming death, seemed to identify with the king, similarly wondering how he might be remembered. Though illness and even death were uppermost in Pannaji’s mind, the tale speaks most emphatically of a certain class of performers, bards. Rajasthan is renowned for its rangin (colorful) art—brightly tinted textiles, jewelry, and paintings—that contrast so with this desert state’s browns and yellows. But the

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state, and especially the desert region of Marwar, is as famous for a variety of relatively small seminomadic caste communities associated with performance: puppeteers, certainly, but also musicians, poets, comedians, snake charmers, professional mimics, and the bards that feature so prominently in the tale of Resamji.14 In a history that I will deal with in more detail in the next chapter, bards, sometimes referred to by the title Bharet but also as Carans, were especially important to kings.15 Rajasthan is renowned for its pre-independence martial rulers and their descendants, called “Rajputs.”16 And the Rajput reputation— indeed, subsequent generations’ very perception of Rajasthan’s history—has been importantly established by bardic praise-singers. During Rajasthan’s fractious medieval period, and indeed well into the colonial period during which the state’s rulers were tacitly allied with rather than ruled by the British, families of renown maintained poet-bards. Side by side with actual wars, which were not only costly but later prohibited by the British Raj,17 were battles of reputations. Bardless, a family was defenseless in these games of name and status. By singing their patrons’ virtues, martial or marital, bardic performers made benefactors appear either as valuable allies or as potentially ruthless enemies. They helped kings secure alliances, negotiate treaties, or avoid war altogether. Leaders, especially those of Tribal origins, also used bards to fashion noble genealogies once they ascended to power.18 And bardic genealogies, histories, and poems of praise were recited long after their initial composition, thus inﬂuencing the way later generations of Rajasthanis understood their state’s past.19 Bards, then, were persons of considerable skill and power, as is revealed in the story of Resamji if in a humorously exaggerated form. Composing poems of insult and praise, the tale’s nomadic bards drive the king to distraction, inverting status hierarchies in the process. Resamji is reduced to a beggar, pleading with bards to take his offering; bards are treated like potentates, compelling kings to scurry after them. I present the story of Resamji’s encounter with the wandering bards because Bhat identity and history are intricately connected to those of bards. Though some Rajasthanis told me that the profession of royal bards disappeared with Indian independence and the end of Rajput rule and thus of the old “feudal”20 order, my Bhat informants presented a very different account, claiming in fact that they themselves were descended from such noble persons and were still practicing the old art. My informants had been telling me this from the beginning of my ﬁeldwork, and indeed I had heard them occasionally make such claims to hotel managers and customers in the lobbies and restaurants where they hawked their puppet wares. But it was only after a few indepth conversations with Pannaji and some of the other older Bhats that such an afﬁliation started to make sense to me. Kathputli-wala, or “puppeteer,” is a professional rather than a caste designation. Bhat (with a long “aah” sound),

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as many scholars of India and Rajasthan know, refers to bards and is used particularly to refer to the elite bards who once sang the praises and kept the genealogies of Rajasthan’s former Rajput kings and princes. This, I eventually learned from my informants, is the puppeteers’ true caste name. Sensing my hardly veiled enthusiasm for this emerging version of Bhat history, my Bhat friends, who had passionately protected their traditional puppeteer identity, now spoke with equal enthusiasm of their royal bardic heritage, explaining the various functions they performed for their Rajput lords. They explained how they kept Rajput genealogies, which were useful in property and succession disputes and which functioned as oral birth certiﬁcates. Their praise poetry, in presenting the virtues of the families of potential brides and grooms, was used to forge marriage alliances. Drumming and chanting on the occasions of their lords’ deaths—at funeral feasts as well as at the cremation ground—comforted both guests and spirits. In exchange for services such as these, Rajputs bestowed gifts on their bards in the jajmani economy. These gifts included cash (21 or 101 rupees; adding one rupee to a gift is auspicious) and also grain from the harvest, mounds of sweets such as laddus and gulab jamans, golden-threaded turbans, colorful shawls, as well as goats, buffalo, and other domesticated animals. Bhats also expanded at length on their community’s gradual yet steady decline that accompanied their lords’ own fall from power, tracing their fortunes through the colonial and post-independence periods and thus reconciling their bardic caste identity with their acquisition of puppetry. They explained that traditionally members of the Bhat community worked halftime at best for noble patrons. During the wedding season Bhats had to be in their natal villages, since they were central to festivities. At other times of the year, however, Bhats, like the praise-singers of Pannaji’s story, wandered. Bhat ancestors, I learned, once traveled as far as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Assam, Tamil Nadu, and Burma. It was during these forays that they put other skills to work, such as their newly acquired puppetry. Gradually, as their lords’ power and wealth waned, Bhats began to spend more time traveling outside their natal villages and to rely increasingly on the income from the dancing and selling of puppets and other nontraditional activities. Eventually, with the explosion of the Indian tourist industry, many Bhats settled more or less permanently in certain Indian towns and cities, abandoning for the most part their nomadic lifestyle and returning to their natal villages only when their lords really needed them. Bhats emphasized that certain royal patrons, living in the western Rajasthani districts of Nagaur and Sikar, from where Bhats originate, have recently fallen on truly hard times. They have frittered away their fortunes on drink and are hardly able or willing to support their beloved bards. Still, many other Rajputs, I was told, continue to patronize their Bhat bards to this day, although not always in the royal manner that Bhats might hope for—Bhats frequently pointed to their tattered clothing and the lack of meat in their diet as signs of

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how far they had fallen. But Rajputs, or at least the honorable ones, always treated their bards with love and respect, especially when a bhat returned to their home villages after a long absence. How could they not, my informants asked, given that Bhat bards kept old memories and past glories alive, and in many cases these were all that their lords now possessed? I was thus promised a real treat when I ﬁnally had a chance to visit my informants’ natal villages. Accompanied by Bhats, I would be feˆted in a manner beﬁtting royalty. Bhats also told me that many of their former patrons own the tourist hotels where Bhats now market their puppets. I was informed that the tourist industry offers a neat solution to Rajput ﬁnancial troubles. I was informed by many locals, including the Rajput owner of a hotel in Udaipur I sometimes frequented, that historically Rajput rule could be bolstered through entertaining of guests. Kings could use food and drink to turn outsiders and potential enemies into allies. The tourist industry, based as it is on hospitality and specifically entertaining strangers, provides Rajputs with an oddly traditional way of putting their considerable real estate to good use. Likewise, Bhats, in working for Rajputs in these revamped traditional settings, are simply taking their rightful place next to their former lords and patrons. Indeed, Bhats suggested that in performing the drama of Amar Singh Rathor, the minor medieval king from Marwar who challenged the hegemony of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, Bhats provide a service for their traditional lords. By performing this particular drama before foreign tourists, a drama that will be examined in greater detail in chapter 4, they ensure that Amar Singh Rathor’s “name” (nam), and thus by extension the name of Marwar and all its royalty, is carried to America, Japan, England, and other distant locales. Finally, I felt that I was beginning to understand the real Bhats. Bhat puppetry is simply a new medium for telling the old stories, and thus an extension of my informants’ former praise work. I was confused as to why Bhats were not always so forthright regarding their very interesting, and indeed glorious, heritage—why their connection to royal bards trickled out so slowly and haphazardly. However, my informants eased any misgivings I might have had. I was told that the Bhats’ noble heritage made them proud but also sad. It was difﬁcult and even painful to gaze too intently at the past, a lesson I certainly was learning.

Something Afoot Pannaji’s tale of Resamji, like the opening story of outer space, paints a world of omnipresent trickery. Servants stage dramas to fool greedy beggar-bards. Lords, hiding under funeral shrouds, disguise their names and identities. The tale’s preoccupation with trickery is found particularly in the character of the bards. King Resamji and his retinue simply do not trust itinerant minstrels

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and do everything in their power to get rid of them. The bards of the story, in fact, give the king ample reason to doubt their ﬁdelity. They resort to poetic blackmail to extract gifts. Further, in extorting gifts from King Resamji, they laughingly break their “solemn vow” never to accept food from this royal person. One imagines that bards such as these would sell their services, laughingly, not only to king Jarecha but to anyone else if the price were right. Like this tale’s leery king, I too sensed something unsavory about my informants’ most recent incarnation as royal bards. Not a single Rajput in the cities of Udaipur and Jaipur, where my ﬁeldwork unfolded, recognized Bhats as their bards, nor could they imagine such a situation. My informants now insisted, however, that Rajputs of Udaipur and Jaipur were “different” Rajputs and that only those Rajputs residing in Bhat natal districts knew their true identity. Also I was told that many of my Rajput acquaintances were persons of bad character—“fallen” or even “fake” nobles who did not know their own history. I wanted to visit Bhat villages in order to verify my informants’ claims, and indeed petitioned to do so on many occasions, but I was repeatedly discouraged, usually with a seemingly valid excuse: the Rajput wedding at which Bhats were to perform had been canceled; a recent drought or outbreak of cerebral malaria made it unadvisable to travel to Marwar. Most puzzling, a community referred to as Bhambhis kept cropping up in conversation in association with Bhats. (Bhambhis are also referred to as Meghwals and Balais.21) Bhats from time to time inexplicably, explosively, and quite eloquently defended people of this community. I knew next to nothing about Bhambhis, but I did some detective work and learned that they are an agricultural caste of low status originating from western Rajasthan. Because of an association with leatherworking—the Bhambhis gather decaying animal carcasses from the ﬁelds and work them into leather products—people from this caste community are considered grotesque and degraded, in the words of some high-ranking villagers, little better than shit.22 Further, though bards served kings, I soon learned that all Rajasthani castes maintained at least one and usually several bardic communities. Even the most degraded of Untouchables once supported, and apparently still continue to support, their own praise-singers.23 Each caste community has its “most beloved” genealogists who inhabit their village and perform a range of functions from reciting family histories to composing poems of praise. These communities, often illiterate and thus referred to as Mukhbancha Bhats,24 could easily remember and orally recite ﬁfteen or more generations in a patron’s male line. But caste communities are also visited every few years by nomadic genealogists referred to as “book-reading bards,” or Pothibancha Bhats, who keep written records of births. Still other genealogical communities, sometimes referred to as Pandas or pilgrimage priests, inhabit Pushkar, a sacred Rajasthani site that is associated with the Hindu god Brahma and that draws many visitors, where they record deaths.25

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There are, then, a variety of bards, each “tied” or “attached” to particular patrons as well as to particular skills and statuses. Bards bound to high-caste patrons are typically literate, those linked to low-caste persons illiterate. Bards associated with birth are viewed fondly; those reciting genealogies on death occasions are looked upon with suspicion because of the death pollution they carry. Rajasthan’s bardic communities, because of the diverse roles they ﬁll, thus go by a number of names: Bhat, but also Caran, Rao, Dholi, Damami, Mirasi, and Bharati, to name but a few.26 My suspicions grew. If every caste has its own bards, might Bhats be bards of Bhambhis? This would explain why Bhats defended them. In doing so, they would be behaving like good and loyal bards. And hiding their connection with the lowly Bhambhis would certainly be consistent with all the other examples of Bhat deception discussed in this chapter. I must admit my curiosity was piqued by this seemingly impossible profession. How to praise a patron group viewed by many as little better than feces? Continuing on my investigative journey, I tried the direct approach. I asked my adopted father, Bansi Lalji Bhat, about Bhambhis, phrasing my query carefully, not wanting to insult him. Bansi Lal, after a long pause, offered me the following (5): The proud and gallant one of Dabriye, The manly one, this Rathor, Quickly he ﬁres his great blunderbuss, And he never need ﬁre twice! Bansi Lalji stood, allowing himself space. He shook his arms, loosening them for the task at hand. Pufﬁng out his chest, looking me in the eye, he recited another poem (6): The javelin begs for the liver, The body begs for the sword, The spear begs for the chest, The body begs for its head! Head tilted toward my microphone, again he recited (7): Publicized is your name Pratap Singhji, Your long spear of wood, The sky itself fears you, Play now your game of looting! This man of Jodhpur has awakened, As powerful as King Bima, In Kota he has planted his ﬂag, He has planted his seventeen markers!

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casting kings With stiff strength Kinsar was looted, Supported by other Rajputs, Bullet after bullet in Kinsar, He has brought the loot to Dar Panvar!

Thinking I had phrased my request too ambiguously, I tried again. After a shot of alcohol, Bansi Lalji offered the following dizzying sequence of names (8): Two Jhalas, two Purubiyas, Ripe Chundavats, four, Two Saktavats, two Rathors, Among them, Sarag Dev from Pamba, Sultan Singh from Sadri, In Bedli, they are blessed, Steadfast those of Amet, In Gogunda, king Jasvant, The big house of village Biyodya, The strong fortress of Gangoriyan, From the rooftops they sing songs, Mighty Emperor of Udaipur, such a palace, Perched between two parks! Prathi Raj’s Lake Pichola, Eight periods of three hours glides a ship, Your throne is the sun’s, May Fateh Singh build his kingdom! Bansi Lal sat down. With the help of my adopted sister Santos, I translated these poems from the Marwari into Hindi and saw that Bansi Lal’s verses of warfare and weaponry, though interesting, were not what I had asked for. The ﬁrst poem praises a Rajput landlord of the Rathor clan from the village of Dabriye for his marksmanship: he shoots so surely that he need never ﬁre twice. The second presents unsettling images of war, decapitation, and disembowelment: it is a cry for a return to wholeness. The third lauds a great looter. In these instances, we ﬁnd Rajput themes. Finally, in the fourth sequence, Bansi Lal presents names associated with the King of Udaipur and his royal entourage: a dazzling list of clan names (Jhalas, Purubiyas, Chundavats, Saktavats, and Rathors), noble personages (Sarag Dev, Sultan Singh, Jasvant), villages (Sadri, Bedli, Amet, Gogunda), and architectural structures (the houses of Gogunda and Biyodya, the immortal fortress of Gangoriyan). Rajputs, Rajputs, and more Rajputs. The poems, I recognized, were celebrations of the melody and rhythm of royal names. Bansi Lalji was both showing off and trying to bamboozle me with music. Such a blast from the feudal past was meant to blind Rajasthanis with bardic skill, so imagine its effect on a naive foreigner! The message was clear:

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with such knowledge of Rajputs, how could Bansi Lal be anything but descended from the praise-singers of kings? My father was sticking to his story. In Resamji’s kingdom all ruses are eventually exposed: the king, tricked into thinking he was dying, sees through his servant’s games; bards, thinking the king is dead, learn of the tricks of Resamji’s servants. All stories, especially those as convoluted and inconsistent as the Bhat account of their history and identity, eventually unravel, as did the ﬁction of Bhats and their connection to Rajputs. Going into all the details about how I exposed this story would take a book in itself; sufﬁce it to say that I was as stubborn and relentless as my informants. I played dumb, repeating the same tired questions to every Bhat who would hear me out. My informants noted with dismay what they imagined to be the weakness of my memory, but I was getting somewhere in noting Bhat inconsistencies. I also relied on knowledgeable sources outside the community, such as Komal Kothari,27 who spoke of the Bhat association with Bhambhis long before my informants themselves admitted this, and Dr. O. P. Joshi, a folklorist at the Ofﬁcers’ Training College in Jaipur; these people helped me ﬁll in myriad details of Bhat history, identity, and profession. I also developed strong friendships with Bhat squealers. When all else failed, I hinted at the pretensions involved in claiming to be bards of Rajputs. I said I was no classist and didn’t care if Bhats were bards of Bhambhis. Citizens of democratic societies, I argued, sometimes to good effect, no longer needed to maintain such pretensions. Many of my Bhat informants eventually acknowledged that they were not and never had been bards of Rajputs. They were “stuck behind,” and in fact had always been stuck behind, the formerly Untouchable Bhambhis, as I suspected. The occasional Bhat might have improvised a poem before a local lord for a few rupees, but Rajputs were not the Bhats’ traditional patrons, and Bhats were not in any sense descended from royalty. In fact, months into my ﬁeldwork, some of my informants even began to condemn their kinsmen’s deceptions. On one occasion my Bhat mother, Bedamiji, who was listening to a relative narrate his clan’s history to me, in this case denying all relations with Bhambhis, shouted in outrage, “Your Mom and Dad died begging from Bhambhis! How quickly you forget them!” In time I was also allowed to travel with Bhats to their natal villages. We went during the late spring of 1993 about seven or eight months into my dissertation research. At that time of year the tourist industry, like much else in Rajasthan, comes to a standstill, not reviving until after the almost unbearably hot Rajasthani summer. Bhats take this opportunity to perform at Bhambhi weddings. Talking to village Bhambhis on these trips and seeing Bhats perform their genealogies—as well as talking to Rajputs and seeing Bhats not perform for them—greatly contributed to my understanding of the Bhats’ traditional profession and afﬁliation. It took time, of course, to ﬁll in the many details related to this Bhambhi–

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Bhat patron–client relationship, a relationship that remained somewhat ambiguous. Some Bhats eventually admitted without embarrassment their ties to Bhambhis. Others wordlessly acknowledged their dependence on Bhambhis, tacitly accepting my knowledge of this fact though rarely putting it into so many words. A few said they once had ties with Bhambhis but placed this relationship in the distant past. Many never admitted these ties, and for certain Bhat clans the link seemed loose and even nonexistent. As these details reveal, the Bhat relationship to Bhambhis is a complicated one. In presenting Bhat history in this context, I am not implying that I ever obtained the whole truth or even one consistent tale. Further complexities in the Bhat relationship to Bhambhis—and also in my informants’ relationship to the descendants of royal bards of precolonial and colonial India who also refer to themselves as Bhats— will be explored in more detail in chapter 2, but even there the absolute truth of Bhat history will remain elusive. At ﬁrst, no matter how openly Bhats acknowledged that their described links to Rajputs were glorious ﬁctions of a kind, they insisted that I not share details of our conversations with outsiders. I was not to discuss these details with the Bhats’ new urban neighbors, nor was I to share them with the hotel and restaurant managers, the tourists, or the state ofﬁcials who had replaced Bhambhis as the Bhats’ most important sources of income and patronage. Nevertheless, in time my informants came to understand more about my work and agenda as an anthropologist. Those closest to me—in particular Bansi Lal

Udaipur Bhats with me (center top). Photo by Ve´ronique Pache.

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Bhat and his family, as well as most of the Bhats in Udaipur—allowed, and even encouraged, me to speak to others of their caste community’s seemingly limitless cleverness. These informants reasoned that sharing the Bhat history with others, if done properly with the correct mixture of sensitivity and ﬂattery, might only add to the puppeteers’ reputation as well as to their ﬁnancial success. In fact, as I, and my imagined future book, became associated in some Bhat minds with greater fame and success, these informants began to refer to me as their own community’s bhat, or bard.

Casting Kings This ethnography explores several interrelated questions, and seeming paradoxes, regarding Bhat identity. In many ways these questions revolve around the Bhat relationship, real and imagined, to kings. Speciﬁcally, this book asks: Why do Bhats, as citizens of an ostensibly modern electoral democracy, speak incessantly of kingship in an epoch when kings rule no more? Why would Bhats, so marginalized in pre-independence India as the bards of former Untouchables, struggle to keep alive old Rajasthan, and by extension its “backward” feudalism and regressive politics? How might one reconcile the Bhat praise of kings in certain contexts with their deep ambivalence toward, and indeed pointed satires of, royal persons and their descendants in other settings? Or, to encapsulate, how might Bhats, themselves at the bottom of social hierarchies old and new, speak their identity and pursue their interests through kings and the memory of kings?28 In certain respects, the reasons behind the Bhats’ preoccupation with kings, and indeed their claim to be royal bards, are straightforward enough. Whether one is linked to formerly royal or formerly untouchable patrons entails a total shift in status. If Bhambhis are low, then Bhats, materially dependent on this caste, are, as one local scholar once described how most Rajasthanis viewed such performers, “the lowest of the low.” Villagers in Bhat natal homes, as I learned on my various trips to Marwar, show Bhats little respect, often asking me, “These people are little higher than sweepers [Bhangis], they are pickpockets [ jeb katne-walas, literally “pocket-cutters”]. What are you doing with them?” Similarly, wealthy elites in Rajasthan’s cities are also prone to dismiss Bhats and other performers like them as beggars.29 It is therefore not difﬁcult to understand that Bhats, if and when they can get away with it, use stories of their royal roots to protect their name and elevate their status. Further, when they establish their name in this manner, Bhats obtain lucrative jobs in the tourist industry. Tourists, after all, are more attracted to noble kings and glorious feudal pasts than to the lower rungs of Indian society. Still, in order for us to address these questions satisfactorily and thus to

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truly grasp the ins and outs of Bhat identity, it will be necessary to explore further the continuing resilience and changing meanings of traditional structures of hierarchy and inequality in modern India. That is, we will need to delve more deeply into an institution that still centrally organizes Bhat lives and that, despite all the recent transformations, remains one of the single most important institutions in contemporary India—caste. To do so, and thus to explain how social relations are experienced by Bhats, we might ﬁrst direct our attention to two different perspectives on this Indian institution.30 The ﬁrst, emerging from an older scholarly perspective, which still lingers in the popular imagination, suggests that Hindu31 Indians are sorted at birth into social groups which are referred to as castes. Hindus, along with their children, must marry only those who were born into their same caste. Indeed, the institution of arranged marriage, in which parents with the help of other relatives choose their children’s spouses, is seen to be the key to maintaining these “closed” social groups over generations. Children might be inclined to select a bride or groom from outside their own caste, but parents who are involved in their children’s marriage process can ensure that they don’t.32 Further, in this ﬁrst perspective, each caste community is typically associated with a particular occupation. Thus one can be born a Barber (Nai), a Washerman (Dhobi), a Priest (Brahmin), or a Lawyer (Vakil), and, as such, one must perform the labor associated with these communities, be it shaving beards, laundering, guiding ritual performances and interpreting sacred texts, or arguing a client’s cases before a village council (termed pancayats). Members of a given caste may of course choose to pursue some other line of work, and they often do so in contemporary times, but the caste as a whole will typically protect its ﬁnancial interests by preventing others from encroaching on work traditionally associated with their community. There are exceptions to this rule in the agricultural sector of the economy as various castes, many of them of low status, like the Bhambhis, provide the labor and know-how associated with bringing a crop to a successful harvest. Even in this sector, however, we ﬁnd a tight connection between occupation and caste, since many landlords and peasant farmers come from speciﬁc landholding communities, as in the cases of the Rajputs and the Jats of Rajasthan.33 In addition, hierarchy is said to be of the utmost importance to those inhabiting a caste system, and Hindu communities are said to be ranked on a continuum from highest to lowest. Social inequality and institutionalized discrimination, in this ﬁrst perspective, are seen as inherent to caste. Indeed, Hindu Indians are said to be so concerned, even obsessed, with social rank as to be dubbed homo hierarchicus (“hierarchical man”) in Louis Dumont’s inﬂuential text of the same name.34 Further—and here I will group a number of divergent interpretations as falling within what I am calling the “ﬁrst perspective” on caste, since all these interpretations still frame caste as a system of

introduction

31

inequality linked to inherited professions and hierarchies—castes are said to be ranked according to certain dominant ideologies. According to Dumont, purity and pollution is the most important of these ideologies, with caste communities falling somewhere between the pure priest and the impure Untouchable.35 In a series of cogent attacks on Dumont’s work, however, attacks largely inspired by the writings of A. M. Hocart,36 kingship and patronage are given more prominent roles in determining caste organization and rank. In these latter writings, castes are seen to be arranged around generous patrons, either true kings and nobles or mere local landlords, who support, and are thus in some sense superior to, their dependent patron-clients. To summarize the perspective of scholars such as Dumont and many of his predecessors writing in the 1950s through the 1970s,37 the Hindu caste order is a system of bounded and ranked groups with more or less ﬁxed and stable memberships that reproduce themselves over time. In sociological parlance, castes are ascriptive status groups. That is, Hindus are ascribed, or given, a social afﬁliation which is not of their choosing. They are born with this afﬁliation, and they and their children will die with this afﬁliation. This state of affairs, according to scholars such as Dumont, is extremely limiting but at the same time potentially comforting, given that everyone seems to know his or her place and thus doesn’t fret about getting ahead. Similarly, Indian society as a whole, given the ﬁxed and immobile social identities of its citizens, is conceptualized as a traditional and even timeless place, in stark contrast to the dynamism of Western democratic and industrial societies. This version of caste, being premised on ideas about inherited identity, profession, and rank, does capture certain characteristics of the Bhat community. To overlook for the moment the important differences between jati and varna, two local terms for caste which will be explained in chapter 2, “Bhat” is the caste afﬁliation of my informants. They are born Bhats and overwhelmingly marry other Bhats. As Bhats, they inherit a profession of entertaining and praising Bhambhis, another caste community. Further, Bhats pass these skills on to their children, who will similarly perform for Bhambhis one day; despite the many denials, most Bhats who engage in new forms of urban work still maintain some ties to village patrons. Further, Bhats are enmeshed within, and seem seriously concerned with, traditional systems of rank. On the one hand, the ideology of purity and pollution, that Hindu system of thought that is seen to bestow supremacy on Brahmins, clearly determines how others view, and indeed treat, Bhats. Bhambhis, connected to a tradition of leatherwork, are considered to be deﬁled and even “untouchable.” Working with leather requires contact with decaying animal ﬂesh, a substance that is considered polluting by caste Hindus. Bhats, in accepting gifts and even food from their benefactors, are considered similarly degraded. On the other hand, Bhats speak frequently of the power and rank of Raj-

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casting kings

puts. As was seen in this chapter, Bhats sometimes praise kings and nobles, for their generosity as well as their martial valor. However, Bhats speak equally of the oppressiveness of kings, nobles, and their descendants. Speaking primarily of the recent past, for example, Bhats say that Rajput landlords did not allow members of the Bhat community to drink tea even though it was Bhats, according to my informants’ own oral histories, who as nomads ﬁrst brought tea back to their natal villages. Rajputs also did not allow Bhats to eat reﬁned sugar, which was limited to the highborn; instead, Bhats consumed unreﬁned brown sugar. Finely woven cloth was similarly denied to Bhats, as was wearing shoes, at least in the presence of Rajputs. Certain ways of tying turbans, as well as wearing turbans woven with silver and gold thread, signaled caste rank and were ﬁxed according to community. Horses were generally denied to some communities, including Bhats, though my informants say their lords often made exceptions in their case given their nomadism. Nevertheless, Bhats had to dismount before village headmen. My informants told me with outrage that when Rajput lords died, men in the Bhat community were required to shave their mustaches and heads in mourning. Mustaches are symbols of masculinity in Rajasthan, and Bhat men twist them proudly, and always upward; being forced to cut them was humiliating. Local nobles also did not allow Bhats to drink out of the wells of the high castes. Instead, they shared wells with water buffalo and goats. Similarly, Bhats did not enter the temples of the highborn; to do so was to court a beating. When in the presence of elites, even today, Bhats squat down trying not to be noticed, in their words, like “worms.” And when they speak to Rajputs in the hotels where they now work, typically only after being spoken to, they couch their language in elaborate honoriﬁcs. Bhats, my informants and their ancestors alike, would thus seem to be ensconced in a hierarchical system termed “caste,” which marks them at birth and is difﬁcult to escape. Further, Bhat critiques of Brahmins as well as of kings, nobles, and landlords, which I heard on a fairly daily basis during my years with Bhats, seem to acknowledge implicitly the enduring power, if not the legitimate authority, of both priests and Rajput lords. Nevertheless, a number of contemporary scholars argue that caste never really existed as a traditional system of ranking and afﬁliation and is instead a British colonial invention.38 I will pursue just a few threads of arguments regarding this second perspective on caste relations. Nineteenth-century British administrators and colonialists sought to understand India better so that they might more effectively establish their rule on the subcontinent. In many cases, they turned to local experts, largely Brahmin pandits, for explanations of Indian society. These Brahmins, in turn, suggested that caste was the principal social institution of India. They further argued for their own supremacy within the caste system, and for justiﬁcations of such a perspective they pointed to ancient Sanskrit texts such as the Vedas. Contemporary scholars who advocate this

introduction

33

second perspective suggest that these ancient texts bore little relationship to nineteenth-century realities. However, the British did not know this and in fact developed a number of “scientiﬁc” instruments to document every Indian’s caste and relative rank within the social hierarchy. These included the decennial census begun in 1871 as well as the voluminous colonial gazetteers and encyclopedic Castes and Tribes of [insert given region] volumes, which covered most regions of British India as well as the princely states. In documenting social relations in this manner, colonial ofﬁcials encouraged Indians to unambiguously link themselves to a single named caste group, as well as to a relatively ﬁxed social hierarchy. In many cases, it is evident that Indians did not in fact think of their identity in these terms. Still they were encouraged to assign themselves a caste and to rank their community in relation to others, because of concrete beneﬁts to be had from their colonial masters. Thus, for example, the British sought to identify the subcontinent’s “martial castes” for potential military recruitment, and many communities redeﬁned themselves along these lines to qualify for this lucrative employment. In fact, there were many beneﬁts to be had by claiming higher status of various kinds. The number of caste associations (sabhas), which were usually initiated by upwardly mobile segments of a given community, exploded in the late nineteenth century in order for these groups to lobby for speciﬁc caste names and ranks that carried weight within the British understanding of Indian society.39 The British, then, saw caste as a concrete and measurable set of social relations that could be documented and quantiﬁed in government surveys and censuses. In fact, however, they themselves seem to have created many dimensions of caste through their very attempt to document and measure this institution. Further, it is argued, the British found it difﬁcult to gain critical distance on the reports of their Brahmin experts because of the way that Brahminical reports met, and fed, British fantasies of India as a timeless place that inverted Western norms and realities. British colonial rulers’ images of Indians’ supposedly irrational allegiance to inherited communal identities such as caste could be used to reafﬁrm these rulers’ own individualism, secularism, discipline, and rationality. Such reafﬁrmations, in turn, could be used to valorize British ways of life and thus also to bolster the legitimacy of the British Raj. For these reasons and others, a group of scholars, in what I am calling a “second perspective” on caste, suggest that this institution is less a hard and fast social reality than an invention of British colonial ofﬁcials. At the least, these scholars suggest that a colonial fantasy about the nature of India, in this case of India as a caste society, eventually gained the status of social reality. These scholars insist also that contemporary social scientists not lose sight of the historical as well as the imaginative roots of this social reality lest they

34

casting kings

make the same mistakes as those who conducted otherwise excellent village studies between the 1950s and 1970s, which assumed caste to be the timeless center of rural social relations. This chapter has certainly presented ample details to support this second interpretation of caste as a historical invention. One need only observe the way Bhats have recently taken to puppetry, abandoning many of their traditional ties to Bhambhis and village life, to see how Bhat identity, status, and profession can be remade to exploit new economic and political opportunities. Of perhaps greater signiﬁcance, it was months into my ﬁeld research before Bhats even mentioned, much less discussed, their traditional ties to Bhambhis. Bhats, in a theme that will be developed throughout the book, seem conscious of the fact that caste identity itself can be invented for diverse purposes and audiences—and that identity is thus performative and ﬂuid rather than ﬁxed and rigid.40 Further, Bhats often pointed out that bards had the power to make, or unmake, kings. Bardic praise could elevate kings or cast them down, thus providing a further example of the historical and imaginative dimensions of kingly power and thus also of caste. Here, Bhats emphasized the importance in the past of a king’s reputation. It was bards, as skillful poets and storytellers, who controlled the manner in which a king’s honor was appreciated and understood. In this respect, kings were made or “cast” by skillful bards, much as a sculptor might mold or “cast” a work of art in plaster or wax, or as a director might “cast” actors and thus assign roles in a play or a ﬁlm. In the process, kings obtained their royal “caste”—that is, their name and social identity as well as their status, ranking, and position in society. Therefore, I take inspiration from the arguments of scholars in this second camp, which explores the historical and even ﬁctive dimensions of caste identity. Nevertheless, these scholars typically focus their attention on the way that caste is a ﬁction imagined from the perspectives and desires of elite Westerners such as British colonials. This book, however, argues that Bhats themselves bring the imagined dimensions of caste identity to light in the course of their daily activities and attempts to advance socially. I argue that Bhats understand, and indeed cleverly manipulate, the idea that modern caste identity can be diversely constructed or invented against the foil of tradition as imagined by elites as diverse as foreign tourists and Indian bureaucrats staging folklore festivals. Indeed, Bhats suggest that this skill was the very basis of bardic power—to imagine the names, reputations, and very identities of their lords and thus to “cast” and “caste” them in some important respect. In these terms, this book walks a middle path between two perspectives on caste that are often seen as incompatible. On the one hand, in deference to the ﬁrst interpretative position, which I believe is often too readily dispensed with, the book investigates the inherited constraints that Bhats experience as the bards of former Untouchables. For Bhats, caste as a social system based

introduction

35

upon inherited inequalities has by no means disappeared. Instead, it structures most Bhat social interactions, even if this simply means that Bhats feel the need to hide a previously degraded status and caste afﬁliation. On the other hand, this book owes a special debt to the second body of theorizing on caste, which ultimately better captures the spirit of Bhat society. Bhats are not stuck in a static system of inequality but rather have used a variety of tactics, some more successful or convincing than others, to remake themselves in contemporary India. In truth, most contemporary scholars writing on caste in colonial and postcolonial India do not align themselves with either of the two extreme perspectives on caste relations. Most scholars, following the ﬁrst perspective, acknowledge the restrictive nature of caste as an inherited system of inequality. However, they also suggest that this stance does not necessitate portraying such an institution as static and unchanging. Rather, they point to the way various Indians, be they elites or “subalterns,”41 take advantage of changing historical conditions to advance themselves. Likewise, much recent scholarship, in line with the second perspective on caste, points to the imaginative and invented dimensions of caste relations, as well as to the way that the human imagination can be used both to create oppressive social systems and to contest such systems. Still, scholars writing today would not typically accept that caste is entirely a social ﬁction that can be imagined or invented exactly as one might wish. Both colonial rulers and low-status persons always imagine themselves, and the world around them, within the context of inherited political and economic constraints. This book views caste as a real social institution that is inherited and constraining and, at the same time, as an imaginative ﬁction that can be tactically deployed to exploit ﬂuctuating historical circumstances. Thus it aligns itself with a large body of contemporary writing on Indian society. But in contrast to much recent writing on caste relations, especially much recent writing on Indian subaltern experience, it develops a particular analytical language that emerges from the writings of A. M. Hocart, who suggests that caste is best viewed as a social system organized around kings and patrons who protect and support dependent service communities. I chose this analytical lens because my informants continue to maintain close ties with Bhambhi patrons in a much transformed rural economy known as jajmani. In similar terms, the Bhats I know struggle to position themselves in relation to new employers, be they Rajput hoteliers or development ofﬁcers in the employ of the Indian state, whom they also conceive of and continue to refer to as their patrons ( jajmans). Likewise, my Bhat informants still practice arts, such as genealogy and praisesinging, that were honed in these rural patronage settings. Despite all the bewildering changes in Bhat lives, the patron–client relationship, as well as a suite of skills and perspectives developed within this relationship, remain uppermost in Bhat minds and lives.

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casting kings

As has already been seen, Bhats are adapting to the modern world in surprisingly ingenious ways. This adjustment can be seen in how they position themselves as speakers of kings in the context of global tourism, opening up all sorts of new opportunities for themselves. Yet even in these creative acts of redeﬁnition, Bhats nevertheless apply skills and perspectives developed in the context of jajmani. That is, even where Bhats attempt to escape the conﬁnes of their relationship with patrons such as Bhambhis, my informants still rely on the very bardic cunning that was developed in those patronage contexts. The Hocartian perspective therefore provides a powerful framework for dealing with both continuity and change in Bhat lives. It can also be used to illuminate the manner in which Bhats are bound to their identity as client-bards as well as how they use their bardic legacy to remake themselves. Still, most authors writing in the Hocartian tradition argue that caste relations are “centered” around kings and other patrons. It will be proposed in this book, by contrast, that such a perspective reﬂects patrons’ views and thus is biased in some important sense. Bhats, as will be seen, do not readily grant superiority or social centrality to the patrons who support them economically and protect them politically. Rather, my informants suggest that their praise poems, histories, and genealogical recitations teach their patrons virtue and also provide them with meaning and a sense of well-being. As a result, my informants argue, they possess a power over language, as well as a general bardic knowledge and cunning, that renders them superior to their old and new patrons, whom they not only educate but also manipulate and control. At the extreme, in a wide range of poems and stories that will be considered in this book, Bhats suggest that the whole notion of social centers and peripheries can be imaginatively constructed and deconstructed in diverse ways and thus is a ﬁction of a kind. Indeed, such an insight lies at the heart of Bhat praiseand insult-singing and thus at the very center of my informants’ traditional roles as bards. In taking seriously the insights of bardic clients on the nature of social relations, rather than focusing exclusively on the perspectives of patron castes as do many accounts of caste in the Hocartian tradition, this book hopes to illuminate more powerfully the poetic, imaginative, and thus radically contingent nature of caste relations. The book’s key insights, then, respond to debates initiated by Hocart’s writings on caste. Casting Kings is especially inﬂuenced by the “neoHocartians,” who have taken Hocart’s perspectives on patronage and created an effective lens for viewing the historical and shifting dimensions of contemporary caste relations.42 Nevertheless, I adapt these neo-Hocartian arguments to account for the perspectives of subaltern bards, as well as to deal with speciﬁc topics related to Indian modernity such as global tourism and state-sponsored development. In stretching neo-Hocartian arguments in these new directions, hopefully in ways that enhance rather than compromise these theories, this

introduction

37

book diverges from these accounts in certain key respects and thus can perhaps be best deemed, “neo-neo-Hocartian.” Chapter 2 further describes the context of my ﬁeldwork situation and more methodically ﬂeshes out the scholarly understandings of Indian caste society that ground the book’s arguments. This chapter demonstrates how changes in caste relations in the modern colonial and postcolonial periods, especially the declining importance of elite bardic communities, provided Bhats with opportunities to remake their caste identity in the manner explored in this book. This chapter takes pains to demonstrate continuities between Bhat and other communities’ experience of caste in the modern era. The rest of the book, however, points to the distinctive manner in which Bhats, as low-status bards participating in a declining jajmani economy, take advantage of changing historical contexts to rework themselves and the institution of caste in ways particular to their community. Chapter 3 ﬂeshes out Bhat relationships to the village patron–client economy that is often glossed jajmani. It will be shown that the Bhats’ skill as bards, and their perspectives on caste relations more generally, emerge from this socioeconomic context. In particular, this chapter explores Bhat understandings of virtue, and thus also of caste hierarchies, through a consideration of my informants’ praise and insult poetry. Here I examine the manner in which Bhats praise Bhambhis as generous patrons who are construed as “little kings.” In the process, Bhats would seem to acknowledge the way in which generous kings, as opposed to priests or some other community, serve as a measure of all human greatness. This chapter would thus seem to explain, at least in part, why Bhats speak so fervently of kings even today. Kinglike patrons continue to support Bhats economically and are thus worthy of praise and recognition. From these details, I will suggest that Hocart, in framing patron–client relations as centrally important to the institution of caste, provides an excellent starting point for understanding my informants’ current relationship to this institution. I will argue that such a perspective in explicating Bhat experience of caste is superior to other frameworks such as Louis Dumont’s theories of purity and pollution. Chapter 4 examines Bhat stories featuring linguistically talented bards who are represented as holding remarkable sway over Rajput lords and kingly patrons. Here, parting with the interpretations of chapter 3 and with certain aspects of the neo-Hocartian perspective, I suggest that the Bhats’ obsession with and praise of kings are less an acknowledgement of Rajput or Warrior supremacy—be it based on generous patronage, martial sacriﬁce, or some other virtue—and more a Bhat tactic for establishing their own value as linguistically cunning bards. In shifting the focus from patrons to the insights of my bardic informants, this chapter aims to draw more explicit attention to the imaginative dimensions of caste hierarchies and the arbitrariness of social

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casting kings

centers and peripheries. The chapter ends with an exploration of how Bhats use stories such as those explored in this chapter, in which they imagine themselves in close relationship to kings and nobles, to appropriate the roles and statuses associated with royal bards, a relationship that in turn helps them to exploit the modern tourist industry. Chapter 5 focuses on how Bhats “cast” traditional Rajasthan in a puppet drama sponsored by a state-run bank meant to teach Indians an ethic of saving and planning for the future. Here I concentrate on the idea that Bhats are not entirely serious about their claims to be the bards of kings, since they readily abandon such claims if the need arises. Instead, claims of royal ancestry are just one tool in a repertoire of tricks, tricks learned and developed in the context of jajmani relations, that Bhats use to advance in contemporary India. Bhat speech about kings, then, is less representative of true claims to royalty than it is indicative of a bardic cleverness which forms a deeper basis of Bhat identity claims in contemporary Rajasthan. Finally, chapter 6 returns to theories of caste by reﬂecting on the manner in which Bhats can be said to make their own history. It points to the continuities and differences between Bhats and other Indian communities in relation to this topic. Each of the book’s three central ethnographic chapters, which make up the heart of the Casting Kings, provide slightly different answers to the question of why Bhats speak of kings in an age in which there are no longer any kings. Chapter 3 suggests that Bhats speak of kings because they still participate in a jajmani economy in which former kings, and other “little king” patrons, continue to support Bhats and thus remain important to my informants. Chapter 4 demonstrates how Bhats, in portraying themselves as closely aligned to royal patrons, reap material and symbolic advantages in the modern tourist industry. Chapter 5 drives home the point that Bhats speak of kings primarily as a way of establishing their own cunning ability to manipulate and control those in power, and thus such speech helps Bhats establish their dignity as well as their bardic credentials.43 Overall, the book explores the changing roles of bards, or one class of bards, in modern India. It is a single case study and an ethnography of Bhat society based on nearly three years of ﬁeldwork, conducted mainly between 1991 and 1995, with return trips in the summers of 1998, 2003, and 2004 and also in the fall of 2005. It is also a meditation on the continuing resilience of caste relations in modern India, especially the resilience of social relations between patron and client castes. The book develops a historical argument in illuminating how Bhats put a bardic legacy to work for them in order to exploit newly emerging opportunities. But its arguments are primarily ethnographic and located in the present, being interested primarily in tracing the way in which Bhats, in applying their bardic skills and perspectives to recast their identity, also transform these skills and perspectives.

introduction

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Bhats are engaged with many modern Indian institutions—the tourist industry, nationalist politics, and state-sponsored development projects, to name just a few of those examined in this book. Therefore, though this is a single case study, the book also aims to provide a general introduction to diverse aspects of modern Indian society. Bhats, a community of interloping bards, possess a unique poetics and social situation. Nevertheless, their formerly untouchable status binds them inextricably to other subordinate communities trying to make their way in modern India. This story of Indian caste—and this view from the bottom of Indian kingship—is thus more far-reaching than the Bhats’ particular bardic situation might imply. Before delving further into Bhat lives, I should say something about this book’s style. In writing and rewriting this book, I eventually decided to speak on two distinct levels. Specialists of Indian society, it is hoped, will ﬁnd much of interest, and certainly much to provoke, in this exploration of Bhat society. The book is thus aimed at professional scholars, and it attempts to provide original perspectives and to open up new lines of inquiry on topics long considered central to Indian caste theory. It is especially interested in showing how a neo-Hocartian perspective, if adjusted to account for the insights of bards, provides for a very effective lens, ﬁrmly grounded in the day-to-day realities and exchanges of social experience, for understanding Indian modernity. However, this work is also directed at a broader audience of students and general readers who are interested in knowing more about modern India. It is aimed especially at persons hoping to see beyond simple stereotypes of India either as a traditional caste society or as a modern place just like any other modern place. To speak to this second audience, I have presented Bhat society and my arguments in as straightforward language as possible. I have eliminated unnecessary jargon, while trying to maintain analytical precision. Also, I have moved references to specialist scholarly debates to the notes. I thus hope that Bhat society will provide a vivid introduction to contemporary caste relations that is accessible to a wide audience. At the same time, I hope to acknowledge, and energetically engage, the often brilliant scholarship that has so informed my own understanding of modern India.

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2 Cast of Characters Setting the Rajasthani Stage

The leaf breaks from the branch, The wind takes it away, When will this be mended? So far fallen from each other. —Bhat saying (1)

Travel Jagged, low-lying mountains called the Aravallis split the state of Rajasthan. West of this mountain chain lies an arid expanse called the Great Indian Desert, or Thar. This desert region coincides roughly with an area referred to as Marwar, literally, “the place of death.” Marwar is dominated by shifting sand dunes and temperatures in the summertime well over 120⬚F. Though Bhats for the most part now live elsewhere, this harsh and sweltering land is their home, or as they put it, their birthplace and homeland ( janmabhumi). As has been mentioned, most Bhats originate from the western Rajasthani district of Nagaur, where thousands currently reside.1 Historically, the arid ecology of Marwar limited the population. Villages were small and dispersed, and the result was a proliferation of dialects that are said to change every eight miles.2 The landscape also facilitated artistic creation and patronage. Bhambhis worked strenuously only ﬁve months out of the year, from just before the onset of the monsoon in late June until the agricultural harvest in November. During the remainder of the year they performed minor chores, maintaining corrals, homes, and families. At this time espe-

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cially, patrons hungered for entertainment. They planned feasts and celebrations, which would have been empty, even impossible, without the house bard. Though Bhats spoke fondly of Marwar, and though there were ample opportunities for persons of skill to make their name locally, they longed to escape, which they did, journeying to the far reaches of India and beyond. Bhats pursued their seminomadic way of life for diverse reasons. Some hoped to escape their status as the praise-singers of degraded leatherworkers. When they moved through areas where they were not known, their identities were limited only by their imaginations. Others ventured out of necessity. Some Bhat families, and even entire Bhat clans, were not attached to any particular villages. Having no permanent patrons, these Bhats took to nomadism in order to survive. Also, during regional droughts—when Rajasthanis were forced to eat shoes, which Bhats dubbed “leather rotis” (roti is an Indian unleavened bread)—Bhat ancestors traveled. Of course, some Bhats simply longed for adventure, and this desire led them to test the bounds of Marwar. In the past, Bhats traveled on horseback, with tents and bags of puppets. Some still train and trade horses, a reminder of the Bhats’ seminomadic heritage. They typically traveled as single nuclear families, thereby providing enough person-power to stage puppet plays. Also I was told that a small group

The seminomadic Bhats are continually on the move. Here Bansi Lal (center) and Beni Lal (right) welcome Ramu, who is visiting from Ahmadabad (Gujarat), to the Udaipur community.

cast of characters

43

was less likely to attract attention and was thus safer. Though some trips were long and arduous, most were of short distances. Bhats often traveled to neighboring villages, where they were greeted as novelties; locals would welcome my informants with shouts of, “The puppeteers are here!” or “Some poets have arrived!” Most Rajasthani communities, though supporting local bards and entertainers, were continuously on the lookout for new talent. Bhats frequently spoke of how Rajasthani fathers, especially Rajput fathers wishing to celebrate the births of ﬁrst sons and thus the continuation of their noble line, sponsored open poetry contests in which performers freely competed with artists from other communities. In post-independence India, with feudal travel restrictions loosened, Bhats began spending even more time outside of Marwar. In fact, they migrated and eventually settled in various regions of India. Small Bhat colonies can now be found in most major Indian cities. For example, Bhats now live in Delhi, principally in a sprawling slum colony called Shadipur Depot, an artist settlement that inspired Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. In smaller numbers, relatives of my Bhat informants inhabit Mumbai (Bombay) and Kolkata (Calcutta). Bhats were in Bhopal during the infamous 1984 Union Carbide gas leak, and some members of this community still collect beneﬁts from this multinational distributed through the Indian state.3 Other Bhats, however, have stayed closer to home, settling in other regions of Rajasthan, especially in spots of tourist interest such as Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Mount Abu, and, most notably for this book, Udaipur and Jaipur. These latter two cities formed my principal research sites and the Bhats who inhabit them my most important informants.

Udaipur Udaipur, founded in 1567 by Maharana Udai Singh, is a relatively small town by Indian standards with a population of slightly more than 300,000.4 It is situated in Southern Rajasthan in a valley in the Aravalli mountains and is famed for its manmade lakes, its palaces, and its beautiful scenery. The royal family, the Mewars, to which Udai Singh belonged, is also known for holding out stubbornly against Muslim invaders. Folk wisdom has it, though ofﬁcial histories tell us otherwise, that the Mewars never surrendered to Muslims such as the Mughals, who ruled north India from the 1500s to the mid-1700s. The ﬁrst Bhats settled in Udaipur in the 1960s. Currently, about ﬁfteen Bhat nuclear families are settled here, having pitched their tents on the outskirts of town. The Udaipur Bhats, with a few exceptions, are close kin. At the core of this community are ﬁve sisters and a brother, all in their early to middle ﬁfties. A sixth sister lived elsewhere; a second brother died, though his three sons also live in Udaipur. My key informants came from this older generation of Bhats, since I was especially interested in the Bhat knowledge of the past.

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In particular, three persons from this generation were of central importance to my study: Bansi Lalji ﬁrst and foremost, his wife Bedamiji, and Bedamiji’s brother Narayanji. Among those in the know, especially within the Bhat community, Bansi Lalji was famous. During my early travels in Rajasthan, whenever discussing the folk arts with performers and folklorists, I was repeatedly told, “You have to contact Bansi Lalji of Udaipur.” After ﬁnding a house and arranging meals in Udaipur—getting ﬂeeced by one landlord, Ve´ronique and I abandoned our ﬁrst living arrangement for another—I summoned my courage and an autorickshaw and set out for Bansi Lal’s house. On arriving, I was greeted by raucous festivity: shouts and snippets of music that differed from the ﬁlmi songs I had grown used to in Rajasthan. Bansi Lalji’s house was elevated above the street so I could not see what was going on inside. Mounting the steps, my heart beating, rapidly repeating in my mind my Hindi greeting and explanation of purpose, I came face to face with Bhats. They peered intently at me, children peeking out from behind adults. A moment of silence, and then Bansi Lalji stepped forward, twisting, caressing, and upturning a large salt-andpepper mustache. A bottle of alcohol hung loosely in his hand. He looked me over and then said something that made the others laugh. I stammered out something approximating Hindi. Then Bansi Lal smiled a really big smile. The others, following his lead, also smiled, and then started to laugh with unexpected gusto. Signaled by the hilarity, the party engines whirred back to life. In the next hours, which are still vivid in my memory, I witnessed much shouting, crying of real tears, hugging, singing, and bickering, which, it turns out, are typical of Bhat gatherings. My head reeled, but I was sure that something exciting and important to my research was transpiring. I sat in the wings, listening and watching with intensity, trying to take in the unfamiliar sights and sounds. From time to time Bansi Lalji planted himself beside me and explained, with gestures more than with words because of my poor command of local language at this time, what was going on, who the guests were, what the shouting was about. (I later learned, not fully understanding Bansi Lal’s explanation at the time, that a wedding and a funeral were being planned.) Occasionally a Bhat, suspicious though not aggressively so, staggered over to sit by me in order to learn more about me. Bansi Lal’s son-in-law, Sarmaji, inquired how much his community might make from my future book on Rajasthani art and culture. Then he offered me a shot of alcohol in an attempt to assuage any hard feelings. They felt my blond hair, I, their black. And I wondered, “Had my research begun?” I felt a deep emanation of warmth and humor from Bansi Lalji and the other Bhats on that ﬁrst meeting. As my research progressed, I realized that my initial impressions were not far off. Bansi Lal was a brilliant entertainer whose generous heart was said to separate him from the typical man. Almost immediately he adopted me into his family: I was to be his son. There was

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Udaipur Bhat children, who tended to hover around me as I conducted interviews.

certainly a degree of calculation in this adoption, as was there in many Bhat expressions of affection for other Bhats. Bansi Lalji’s move ensured that my resources—food, alcohol, and gifts from America—settled disproportionately in his house. But there were equal tactics on my part as an ethnographer. Bansi Lal’s mind was sharp; it could be described with a Hindi phrase, tej. I felt conﬁdent that he, more than many others, could help me understand Rajasthani culture and history. Nevertheless, genuine affection and need emanated from both sides. Bansi Lalji did not have a son, someone to look after him in his old age. I was far away from my real father, as Bhats continually reminded me. Equal in importance to my relationship with Bansi Lalji was my rapport with his wife, Bedamiji. She was not as talented a storyteller as her husband, but she possessed a down-to-earth intelligence that grounded Bansi Lalji’s extravagances. If many of the stories considered in this book come from Bansi Lalji, my understanding of them comes from Bedamiji. Then there was Narayan Bhat. He was Bedami’s brother and thus Bansi Lal’s brother-in-law. Most Bhats considered Narayan a jester, though this characterization in no way diminished the respect they felt for him. Bansi Lal’s stories tended toward a seriousness that Narayan’s lacked. For example, Bansi Lal wanted to believe in a blood link to Rajput ancestors. Narayan, however, rarely pursued such claims seriously. I believe Narayan was actually the more

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skilled narrator: concise, wry, biting, and yet subtle. But Bansi Lal had the warmer style and could keep an audience equally rapt. Around these three older Bhats were many children, grandchildren, spouses, cousins, friends, and hangers-on, who also shaped my experience of the Bhat community in myriad, inexpressible ways. Of special note were Bansi Lal’s and Bedami’s ﬁve daughters: Gita, Kamla, Kosila, Santos, and Krisna. They began as informants, quickly became my adopted sisters, and eventually were counted among my closest and most trusted friends. These younger Bhats translated their elders’ descriptions of old Rajasthan into contemporary images that I could better understand. As in my relationship with their parents, we insisted to each other throughout my years of research that we were as close as real family, and as time passed, I did feel this way. Two of my Bhat sisters were unmarried during the main period of my research from 1992 to 1995. I participated in the planning of their marriages—looking over potential grooms and their families and helping to strategize—although I did not meet their eventual husbands until a later trip to Rajasthan. Of the three married sisters, I became close to each of their husbands. I was especially close to Gita’s husband, Kalni Lal, and Kosila’s husband, Sarma, who had served in the army, was working at a folklore institute that other Bhats considered a rival, and was the only literate man among the Udaipur Bhats.5 Others in the Udaipur community were as helpful as those in Bansi Lal’s and Bedami’s family. For example, Narayan’s young wife, Mansu, the sister of his deceased ﬁrst wife, added spice to her husband’s stories. Also, their son Amba Lal, who regaled us with the story in chapter 1 of the Indian and American race to the moon, was a gifted sculptor who added immensely to my appreciation of Bhat artistic innovation. Finally, four brothers, Bamla, Sarvan, Krisan, and Babu Lal, contributed in many ways to the success of my research. Their father, the brother of Bedami Bhat and Narayan Bhat, had died at a relatively young age. Subsequently, each of them had taken a different profession: one maintained ties with Bhambhi patrons, one worked the tourist industry, one sold horses, and the last performed puppet dramas for the government. These four brothers, in my mind, encapsulated the way Bhats balanced tradition with innovation and entrepreneurship. During my time in Udaipur, Bhats inhabited three locales. Bansi Lalji, his wife Bedami, and their unmarried daughters lived in a two–room house in a kacci basti, or unﬁnished squatter settlement, near Lake Fateh Sagar. Their house was built with proﬁts from a trip to America (more on this in chapter 4) and was a focal point of much Bhat activity, such as that scene of communal eating and drinking upon my ﬁrst encounter with this Bhat community. Near Bansi Lal’s house, in the “jungle,” other Bhats had pitched their tents. This was where Narayan’s and Bedami’s sister Kamla Bai lived; she often entertained me with bawdy Marwari tunes. Also her son, Beni Lal, built a house in this locale in the early 1990s with proﬁts earned from dancing and selling

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The Udaipur Bhats exchange alcohol and poetic toasts.

puppets in local hotels. He was the only Bhat in Udaipur in the mid-1990s, beside Bansi Lal and Bedami, to have built a house, though by early 2000 most Bhats inhabited such homes.6 Finally, about a half dozen Bhat families lived next to the road leading to Udaipur’s Mohan Lal Sukhadia University. These Bhats, among them Narayan, Mansu, and Amba Lal, inhabited tents but were forced to leave this spot whenever dignitaries visited the area, such as during university commencement ceremonies. Most Bhats of Udaipur are squatters, since they typically do not own the property on which they live. After ﬁrst asking permission—from a local strong man or politician, and perhaps offering money, service, or votes in return— Bhats would pitch their tents. Some Bhats would buy a title to their property, but these purchases were often illegal and not recognized by others, and Bhats did not put much faith in them. The Bhats just past Bansi Lalji’s house, for example, have purchased land from a wealthy Adivasi Tribal, but this Tribal man, according to Bhats and other local persons, does not really own the land. Still, Bhats, practically speaking, have to maintain good relations with these informal landlords, who do exercise a degree of power and could evict Bhats with hired goons. The composition of the Udaipur Bhat community changed daily. It changed as Bhats fought with one another, one family packing up its tent in a huff and moving to a different part of the city. A constant stream of relatives

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also poured in daily from other parts of India, and many of them stayed with the Udaipur Bhats for months at a time. This situation was partly a practical necessity. Business opportunities often arose in distant locales, and Bhats, who would travel there at a drop of a hat, invariably needed places to stay. More generally, Bhats maintain close ties with their many relatives, even though they are separated by great distances, and they genuinely enjoy the gossip and the company. With electrical failures frequent, and thus fan and air-conditioning failures equally common, Rajasthani summers can be, to say the least, uncomfortable. Even locals avoid the sun during the heat of the day, from roughly 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. To do otherwise, I was told, was to invite sickness, and during my research I often fell ill before learning to take long siestas during the hottest parts of the day. In Udaipur, however, the weather is milder, and the forested outskirts of town where some Bhats live are especially pleasant. My informants knew they could earn more in larger cities like Jaipur, but they considered Udaipur superior because of its quieter lifestyle, milder climate, and slow pace. I felt the same way. I was happy with my own domicile, a rented room in a 300-year-old Jain merchant haveli, or stone-mansion, in the old town of Udaipur. There, I, along with Ve´ronique, who was then working on a doctorate in anthropology on the topic of changing marriage patterns among middle-class merchants, lived with the sister and brother-in-law (Aini Bua and Mehtaji) of my closest non-Bhat friend, Jines Mogra. Jines was an entrepreneur, currently in the tourist business, selling paintings and curios and trying to nurse back to life a failed softdrink business. Old Udaipur was a complex maze of winding alleys. The backalley residents often commented that it had the feel of a big village. From my home, it was a ten-minute auto-rickshaw ride to each of the Bhat settlements. I often breakfasted with my Jain family. Their perspective on the world, so settled and respectable, provided a marked contrast to the Bhats’ own worldviews. I also discussed my research with them; they seemed alternately amused and repulsed by my descriptions of Bhats, and their reactions helped me understand how other communities perceived Bhats. After breakfast I would visit Bansi Lal’s house in midmorning, where I usually stayed past lunch. Then I would visit those Bhats living in the jungle just past Bansi Lal and Bedami’s home. I returned home for a midafternoon siesta, and I frequently visited the Bhats near the university in the late afternoon. Most of my research was carried out in the Bhats’ homes, but I also visited their places of work. Bhats sometimes dropped in to see me in my own residence, though many felt uncomfortable doing so, saying my Jain landlords were “big” people who did not welcome such encounters. Most Udaipur Bhats work the tourist industry, which capitalizes on Mewars’ feudal legends and the reputation of its kings. Each Bhat nuclear family is linked to one or more hotels, which they guard almost as jealously as they

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do their village patrons. Bansi Lal was the ﬁrst Bhat to land a prosperous puppet job in one of these hotels. In the early 1970s his brother-in-law, Narayan, met the Maharana of Udaipur. Claiming to be a Rajput’s bard, Narayan praised this king by reciting genealogies and praise poems. This pleased the maharana, and he offered Narayan the chance to perform in the Lake Palace Hotel as dinner entertainment for tourists.7 The hotel was reached via a short boat trip, however, and Narayan, a true man of the desert according to his kin, says he was terriﬁed of water and decided to forgo the opportunity. Bansi Lal, learning of what happened, approached the king himself and recited the same poems. Again charming the maharana, Bansi Lal was offered the same position, which he accepted. He took the boat trip to the Lake Palace and thus unknowingly steered his community into some new waters. In the years to come, much wealth would be made off of foreign tourists and their after-dinner “tips,” and many a Bhat would seek to emulate Bansi Lal’s success.

Jaipur As my ﬁeldwork progressed, I often heard of the Udaipur Bhats’ relatives throughout India. In particular, my informants often spoke of the Bhats of Jaipur. These tales were usually not complimentary. Jaipur was a dirty city, I was told, and the Bhats of Jaipur were crooks. They were said to be opening folklore institutes that were cons meant to “loot” the Indian state and unsuspecting tourists. The Jaipur Bhats were also said to harass foreign tourists, bullying them into buying mass-produced puppets. Similarly, though many of these Bhats had traveled overseas as had Bansi Lal, most, I was told, were not even performers—and certainly not talented performers. These Bhats sold cups and dishes from ambulatory carts, traded stolen buffalo, and engaged in all manner of non-Bhat occupations. The Jaipur Bhats were also said not to let their women travel after marriage, showing that they were small-minded and overly “suspicious.” They also, apparently, beat their women. And, worst of all, these Bhats were said to be intermarrying with Bhangi sweepers. Judging by these Udaipur Bhat descriptions, which were surely tainted with a hint of possessiveness (these insults always intensiﬁed when I planned a visit to Jaipur), Bhats of Jaipur seemed even more entrepreneurial than those of Udaipur. Within the folk entertainment industry, for example, the Jaipur Bhats did not limit themselves to performing for tourists in hotels and folklore festivals. For example, UNESCO has in recent years declared the importance of using traditional media to communicate social reform, and the Jaipur Bhats have been especially successful in getting engaged by the Indian state, as well as by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to propagandize a variety of modernization projects. They now promote a modern vision of the future by dramatizing, in both rural and urban areas, family planning (think of the fu-

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ture, not your own desires), bank savings programs (a paise saved . . . ), health care (disease prevention through vaccination and better sanitation, anti-AIDS propaganda), alcohol abuse (invest in your family, not the bottle), and life insurance (what will your family do when you are gone?). (In chapter 5 I will discuss one of these plays, a bank drama teaching poor peasants how to save and invest their money.) Though discouraged from doing so by my Udaipur informants, I began regularly visiting the Bhats of Jaipur. On each trip the two communities gossiped about each other, providing me with a very effective research tool, needless to say, and indeed helping me to penetrate the Bhat relationship with Bhambhis. Without further delay, Ve´ronique and I set up a second home in Jaipur. Jaipur is twelve to twenty hours north of Udaipur, depending on the train delays. Referred to as the “Pink City,” because of the pink sandstone of its historic structures, it is the capital of Rajasthan. Its population was estimated at nearly two million at the time of my ﬁeldwork in the early 1990s, and it was growing, reaching 2,324,319 by the Indian Census of 2001. Bhats themselves ﬁrst settled in Jaipur in about the 1970s, seemingly just after their relatives settled in Udaipur. They did so on vacant low-grade land. Others followed, settling next to relatives who had come before them. As the city has grown around them, so has the value of their land, and so too has the government’s concern with what is perceived as a squatter problem. Thus Jaipur Bhats, like those of Udaipur, also live under the constant fear of being evicted, and their colonies are frequently razed. In Jaipur, Bhats inhabit three slum settlements, referred to as jhungijhompris (collection of huts) and also as kacci bastis (crude settlements), as in Udaipur. One of these abodes was in a spot called Pani Pech on the outskirts of Jaipur. Because of its peripheral location, this colony’s inhabitants were rarely harassed by the local authorities. A second settlement was opposite the Indira Gandhi Canal Board. It sat off a busy road where Bhats and their crafts could be spotted by the wealthy in their big cars. Some of the Bhats’ puppet creations were, for advertising purposes, ludicrously large so they could be easily seen from the road—a human-sized stuffed horse comes to mind. Here, roadside property was at a premium and was bought and sold among Bhats. A third small settlement, with only ten or so nuclear families, was near Jaipur’s main bus stop, which provided another convenient way for meeting tourists. Some of the Jaipur Bhats lived in tents, army surplus or patched together from cloth. Others lived in hastily constructed brick and mud dwellings of erratic size and shape. Some Bhat homes were topped with tin roofs that jutted out at irregular angles into the colony’s narrow alleys (which presented special dangers for me, since I stand at 6 foot, 7 inches). Such roofs were handy against the rain but rendered summers almost unbearable. Wealthier Bhats added

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Bhat children in Jaipur.

courtyards to their abodes, built around shade trees. Open drainage ditches, frequently clogged, threaded through the narrow, twisting streets of Bhat slums. Bathrooms were nonexistent, in stark contrast to most homes in Jaipur’s middle-class neighborhoods. The Bhats of Jaipur instead did their “latrine” in the open ﬁelds near their homes, leaving their houses with bottles in hand. Supplies of electricity and water, invariably pirated, were irregular. The twisting mass of electrical lines emanating from one pole seemed comical in its complexity and was allowed to exist only because of an equally twisted system of bribes. The slums of Jaipur were ugly in comparison to Bhat natal homes, a fact Bhats often commented on. Bhat villages were well maintained, orderly, and

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Bhat tent-home in a slum settlement called a jhungi-jhompri (a collection of huts) or a kacci basti (unﬁnished settlement).

spotlessly clean while the slums of Jaipur were ﬁlthy. Also there was typically only one Bhat family per village in Marwar, sometimes only one Bhat family for many villages. In Jaipur city, by contrast, Bhats lived in proximity to relatives from many separate Bhat clans. In their villages Bhats gathered together with other Bhats only on festive or ritual occasions. In Jaipur, however, where Bhats lived so close to each other, I was told that every day resembled a ritual holiday or, as my informants put it, “Here, every day is your ‘birthday’ [using the English].” In Jaipur, Bhats also lived next door to a variety of other communities, usually low caste, with whom they previously had had little intimate contact. They had neighbors who were descended from untouchable Sweepers, poor Muslims, down-and-out snake charmers, impoverished Rajputs, bards of other castes, as well as Bhambhis. They also lived next to groups from other regions of Rajasthan and indeed from all over India: Sindhis, Panjabis, Bangalis, Assamese, and Kashmiris. In my estimation, between 500 and 1,000 Bhats inhabited Jaipur during the period of my research in the 1990s. Since I could not work with all these individuals, much less with their many neighbors, I reined in my ambitions and concentrated the bulk of my time in the central Jaipur colony located opposite the Indira Gandhi Canal Board. This slum was the oldest and best-

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organized settlement, and it was also the social center of the Jaipur Bhats, housing most of the de facto Bhat leaders. My own residence was in a Brahmin household in a middle-class neighborhood about a ten-minute walk from this colony. My landlord, Devendra Sharma, a retired upper-level civil servant and former agricultural extension agent, was a remarkably learned man and a valued friend during my years in Rajasthan. He, along with his wife, Savitri, aided me in my translations and interpretations of Bhat poetry and narratives. As in Udaipur, my ﬁeldwork in Jaipur unfolded mainly in Bhat homes, though I tried to interact with my informants in as many contexts as possible. Usually twice daily—from late morning to early afternoon, and from late afternoon to early evening—I sat and talked with Bhats for approximately three to four hours at a time. My informants and I frequently spoke over lunch and dinner. Bhats did occasionally visit me in my rented home, where they often caught me reading and writing up my experiences on my laptop computer. I also spent time in Bhat work sites, especially in the tourist hotels. Among these were the ﬁnest ﬁve-star hotels of Jaipur, such as the Ram Singh and the Rajputana. Here I observed and spoke with Bhats but also with those outside the Bhat community—hotel managers and owners, merchants who marketed folk art—who helped me understand the changing status of the Indian folk arts. I soon limited the number of persons with whom I worked. Among my most important informants were Ramu, a man in his late ﬁfties who was Udaipur Bansi Lal’s “cousin-brother,” Ramu’s two wives,8 and his three sons and their wives and children. Ramu and his family lived together in a large compound, just off a main Jaipur thoroughfare. Each nuclear family, however, kept its own ﬁnances, cooked its own meals, and lived separately. Ramu, his wives, and their sons—all heavy drinkers, all concerned with the “old” ways— were gifted storytellers and poets. Ramu was also a respected dancer of puppets. Panna Lal, who narrated the story of King Resamji related in chapter 1, also shared his knowledge of old Rajasthan. His grandchildren and greatgrandchildren educated me, usually through teasing, in the jokes and insults of Rajasthan. A close friend of Panna Lal named Santos Bai, a Bhat in her sixties, was also invaluable, especially in her knowledge of poetry. Guljar, the ﬁrst Bhat to settle in Jaipur, was a talented puppet-maker, and I shared many conversations with him and his family. They were heavily involved in the mass production of puppets, which they sold in the largest hotels of Jaipur, where they had permanent work and substantial steady incomes. Babu Lal, who was considered by many to be the leader of the Jaipur Bhats, was another important informant. As the other Bhats described him, he was not much of an artist, but “What a talker!” Harji Bhat worked in the largest and most modern hotel in Jaipur and was perceived by his caste brethren as one of the most talented, and certainly the most innovative and clever, of the

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Jaipur Bhats. Kamla, one of my adopted Bhat sisters, and her husband, Mulcen, prided themselves on their ability to win lucrative puppet gigs sponsored by the Indian state, and I frequently found myself in their home sharing news of their Udaipur relatives. Jagdis, a successful Bhat businessman, was buying land in his natal village. He was concerned with the uplift of his people and provided me with perspective on social and political issues relevant to Bhats. Finally, Dilip, a talented carver and “true artist,” according to Bhats (who was mentioned brieﬂy in chapter 1), was also important in helping me understand the Bhat craft of making puppets. I have a ﬁrm sense of the size of Bhat settlements in Udaipur and Jaipur, which I previously sketched. Still, because of Bhat nomadism, the composition of these two communities is ﬂuid. Furthermore, I arrived at only a rough estimate of the general overall size of the Bhat community in Rajasthan and India. From numbers provided by Bhats regarding the size of their community’s fourteen clans, I estimate there to be 25,000 Bhat persons, though I never conducted a rigorous or systematic census of my own. Bhat mobility and the fact that Bhats now inhabit far-ﬂung cities make such a census difﬁcult, and my informants, too, have only an approximate idea of their community’s numbers. I should also point out that my informants now spend most of their time in these two cities and thus can be described as only seminomadic at best. Nevertheless, they do maintain close contact with village patrons. And for approximately four or ﬁve months during the summer, Bhats return to their natal villages. Though I myself spent a total of only a few months in Bhat villages, and accompanied my informants on a number of trips related to their or their patrons’ weddings and funerals, rural life was a frequent subject of Bhat conversation. The narrative and poetic skills that my informants put to use in the city were learned and perfected in rural contexts. Though they lived in cities, Bhats were in many ways still in the village; rural Marwar was a frame of reference for almost everything they do. This is especially the case with caste relations, to which I now turn. The Bhats’ village caste identity and status form the basis of my informants’ many urban maneuvers and deceptions, as will be seen throughout the book.9

Caste: Varna and Jati The meaning of caste, though it is the focus of this book, is not straightforward. Confusion arises from the fact that the English word “caste” originates from a Portuguese term, casta, used by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century traders to describe groups they encountered in India. This term, given its European origin, is not useful in teasing out Bhat understandings of such relations. The word “caste,” in fact, is an “unhappy translation,” to use one anthropologist’s

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phrasing, “of two quite different indigenous concepts, varna and jati, which are generally believed, both by Hindus and by outside observers, to correspond in some way.”10 Bhats employ these two terms. It is therefore with these concepts, and especially with the relationship between the two, that I begin to tease out further Bhat understandings of caste relations. Varna is an ancient term whose relationship to India begins about 1500 b.c. Archaeologists know little about this period of Indian history, but it is known that persons speaking Sanskrit, an Indo-European–derived language with roots in Central Asia, composed religious texts referred to as Vedas. These texts were mostly collections of hymns which were sung in praise of the gods and which spoke of society as being divided into four varnas. The Rig Veda, composed about 1000 b.c., is the best known of these. It has been speculated that the notion of varna, which literally means “color,” refers to the way ancient Indo-Europeans distinguished between their own light skin and the darker skin of the indigenous Dravidians or Dasyus, though there is no hard historical evidence to support a claim for the racial origins or organization of caste.11 Varnas, as described in the ancient Vedas, divide Hindu society into four categories based upon social function. Each of these categories loosely determines one’s role and profession in society as well as one’s attributes as a person. The ﬁrst varna is that of Brahmins, who as religious scholars and priests, are responsible for the maintenance—the memorization, recitation, and ritualistic use—of the Vedas themselves. The other three varnas mentioned in these ancient texts are Ksatriyas (warrior-nobles and landlords), Vaisyas (merchants and moneylenders as well as farmers and breeders of cattle),12 and Sudras (serfs, manual laborers, and servants). According to the famous Rig Vedic hymn referred to as the Purusa sukta, each of the four varnas emerged from a different body part of a lord of beings named Purusa, who sacriﬁced himself at the beginning of time in order to create the world: Brahmins are said to have emerged from Purusa’s mouth, Ksatriyas from his arms, Vaisyas from his thighs, and Sudras from his feet.13 Varna ideally produces a society of mutually interdependent and complementary groups. Each varna community, it is argued in these scriptures, provides a unique function that contributes to the maintenance and well-being of the social body as a whole. Nevertheless, there is a hierarchy of groups and functions in these ancient writings, with some communities being more valued than others. And the varna system, in distributing unequal rights and duties among various communities, produces a form of “complementary hierarchy.”14 Thus, for example, the Brahmins’ high rank is related to their knowledge of the Vedas. The Vedas are valued because they contain the ritual knowledge that allows Brahmins to make the sacriﬁces believed to maintain the order of the cosmos. Ksatriyas, which translates to “Warriors,” are valorized for their roles as kings and rulers, sponsors of rituals, and soldiers. And Vaisyas gain status in the way they support the social body through their agriculture, cattle

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herding, and economic trade. As described in these ancient texts, these ﬁrst three varnas are more highly ranked than the fourth, Sudra servant category. As a result, Brahmins, Ksatriyas, and Vaisyas are referred to as the “twiceborn,” since they have the right to don a sacred thread after taking part in a second ritual birth, overseen by Brahmin priests. The fourth group, the Sudras, however, do not have the right to wear such a thread or to take part in a second birth and are thus referred to as merely “once-born.” The ancient Vedas also make surreptitious reference to a ﬁfth varna of Outcastes by repeatedly stating that there is in fact no ﬁfth group. The collection of Hindu religio-legal texts known as the Dharmasastra, however, makes more explicit reference to a community known as Candalas,15 who are considered to be outside the caste system proper. More discussion of this highly stigmatized class of persons comes later in such writings as the Code of Manu (Manusmriti), which did not appear until sometime between 200 b.c. and 200 a.d. Here, Candalas are described as the offspring of illicit unions between Sudra men and twice-born women.16 The varna scheme described by ancient Hindu texts provides for an idealized view of society. These texts thus help us to understand how Brahmins, or at least the Brahmin authors of certain religious texts, thought society should be organized. However, these texts provide little evidence of how ancient Indian society actually was organized. With this in mind, we should be especially careful in equating these idealized varna schemes of caste found in texts thousands of years old with contemporary Indian reality. For this reason, most scholars suggest that other terms, such as gotra and jati, provide a better starting point for understanding modern caste relations. Gotra is a general term used to refer to exogamous patrilineal descent groups or patri-clans.17 These clans, in turn, intermarry with a number of other clans to form what is called a jati, a term that is found in most Indian languages that literally means “kind,” “species,” or “breed.”18 Though we need to distinguish carefully between idealized varna schemes of caste on the one hand and terms such as jati and gotra on the other, these three categories are in fact closely interrelated in the lives of most Indians today. Speciﬁcally, members of any given Hindu jati generally claim to belong to one of the four, or ﬁve, varnas. Varnas, then, can be thought of as titles which members of various jatis claim with varying degrees of conviction and with varying degrees of acceptance by members of other communities. To clarify the manner in which varna schemes express the social aspirations of persons inhabiting particular jatis, we might consider the case of the Rajput caste of feudal rulers and landlords. Some historians suggest that contemporary Rajputs are direct descendants of the Ksatriyas (Warriors) discussed in ancient Vedic religious texts.19 Such accounts, however, are generally not taken seriously by most contemporary historians. Less ideological histories tell us that Rajputs arose in India’s early medieval period, between the sixth and

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seventh centuries a.d. At this time, petty chiefs, most likely the leaders of local clans formed from the mixing of indigenous and foreign peoples, who had gained ascendancy over local tribes, began making claims to be Vedic Ksatriyas.20 These claims corresponded with an expansion in Rajasthan’s agrarian economy and local networks of trade, as well as with a rise of proto-state formations.21 Undoubtedly, these claims to be Ksatriyas bolstered Rajput status by linking members of this community with ancient glories and thus in some way may have helped legitimize their rule over other communities. Likewise, historians tell us that Rajput power was both threatened and bolstered in the late twelfth century as Muslims swept into Rajasthan from the northwest out of present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.22 These invaders challenged Hindu political hegemony, seizing lands and resources from locals. However, in many cases such incursions forced Hindu rulers into the role of defenders of the land, a role that once again could be strengthened if Rajputs imaginatively linked themselves to Ksatriya Warriors. In similar terms, in the mid to late 1500s, Muslims rose to dominance in Rajasthan as the Mughals (a corruption of “Mongol”) struggled against and allied themselves with local Rajput leaders.23 In their struggles with Mughals, too, Rajputs once again beneﬁted by linking themselves genealogically with ancient Ksatriya dynasties. Such genealogies, sometimes imagined to stretch all the way back to the Moon and the Sun,24 helped to establish Rajput and thus Hindu glory. Claims to such exalted origins, in turn, could be used in any number of ways, from encouraging popular resistance to Muslim rule to cementing more advantageous alliances with Mughal overlords. In fact, ruling Rajput claims of being descended from the Warrior varna mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts helped members of this community to advance the interests of their princely kingdoms in the British colonial period.25 And most Rajputs I knew in the cities of Jaipur and Udaipur referred to themselves with pride as descendants of noble Ksatriyas, in some cases suggesting unbroken linkages to noble clans believed to have existed in ancient Vedic times. To delve deeper into the meaning of caste in Rajput society, it needs to be pointed out that Rajput patrilineal descent groups (referred to as a collection as a bhaibamdh or “bound brotherhood”) go by a number of names based on how large they are, ranging from clans (referred to as vamses or kuls) that according to royal genealogists can be over a hundred generations deep in the case of certain noble lineages,26 to intermediate-sized branches (sakhas), down to twigs (khamps) of only three to six generations deep.27 Some Rajputs I knew did refer to their particular set of intermarrying clans within the larger Rajput bhaibamdh, that is, to the particular set of vamses or kuls with which their own clan members exchanged brides and grooms (relations referred to as saga), as their jati or caste. However, others did not. In any case, it was clear to me that the exact constitution of a Rajput set of intermarrying clans, whether labeled a jati or not, ﬂuctuated quite dramatically with historical circumstances. For

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example, in certain epochs, noble Rajput clans exchanged brides only with select other noble clans; however, these boundaries could and did vary dramatically from the Mughal to the colonial to the postcolonial periods. In contrast, certain clans at the bottom of the Rajput hierarchy of lineages might start taking women in marriage from clans previously considered to be “nonRajput.” Indeed, it seems that certain Tribal communities in Rajasthan joined the Rajput fold in precisely this manner. Despite the complexities of the Rajput case, we nevertheless see on a certain level of abstraction that clanlike groups of varying size (loosely, gotra-like descent groups) intermarry only with other clanlike groups that are judged to be of similar status (which we, like some Rajputs themselves, might refer to as a jati), whose members in turn claim to be Ksatriyas (a varna title). In fact, this pattern repeats itself among many different Indian communities, although the nomenclature and exact social organization vary from group to group. Thus, for example, many sets of intermarrying clans, that is, many jatis, claim the title of Brahmin because of their religious learning and priestly work. Other jatis, because of their communities’ historical association with business, refer to themselves as Vaisyas.28 Similarly, service jatis, be they Lohars (Ironworkers), Nais (Barbers), Sonars (Gold workers), Darjis (Tailors), Kumhars (Potters), Dholis (Drummers), or Telis (oil pressers), are often classiﬁed as Sudras. And, ﬁnally, other jatis, such as Dhobis (Washermen),29 Rangais (Tanners), Mochis (Cobblers), and Harijans (Sweepers), because of the deﬁling nature of their work, have been classed as “Outcastes” or “Untouchables.” As this discussion reveals, clans (whether referred to as gotras or some other term), jati, and varna all provide important pieces of the caste puzzle. As a result, in this book I use the English word “caste” to describe the interrelationship of these categories and thus the interrelationship of actual social groupings spread out over a territory (be they clans such as gotras or intermarrying sets of clans sometimes referred to as jatis) and ideological systems of rank (such as the ancient varna categories that are described in classical texts). To avoid confusion, however, I typically employ the speciﬁc Indian terms in question, whether it be gotra, jati, varna, or some other label, rather than the vaguer English term “caste.”30 In this book I am particularly interested in explicating Bhat relationships with the Indian institution of caste. On the surface, Bhat caste structure seems straightforward, and certainly less convoluted than that of the Rajput bhaibamdh. As described to me, fourteen gotras (clans) exchange brides and grooms with each other and thus constitute an intermarrying Bhat jati. Each of the clans (gotras) is exogamous or “marrying out,” though the jati as a whole is endogamous and thus “marrying in.” Thus, for example, Danavats, one of these fourteen clans, do not marry other Danavats. Members of this clan, however, marry exclusively persons from one of the other thirteen Bhat clans. In turn, Bhats, in their role as bards and thus providers of important services for

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other patron communities, can easily be associated with the varna category of Sudra. However, as one might imagine, such a simple description does not begin to capture the Bhat experience or representation of caste. To cite a few perplexing details, some of which have already been alluded to, Bhats did not generally agree on how many clans (gotras) were found within the Bhat jati. In my interviews with my informants, the number dropped to as low as six and as high as eighteen, and it was rarely the same six or the same eighteen clans. Likewise, my informants refer to themselves by a variety of jati names. “Bhat” is one of them, but “Nat” is another. In a similar vein, the varna title of a client community relates in part to the caste rank of their patrons. It is not clear, however, exactly who constitute the Bhats’ patrons, because my informants sometimes claim to be royal bards afﬁliated with Rajputs (and thus potentially Sudras or even higher) and other times to be the lowly bards of the untouchable Bhambhis (which would render my informants themselves untouchable). As long as the Bhat relationship to leatherworkers and kings remains shrouded in mystery, the Bhat varna title will also remain in doubt. To understand the meaning of caste in Bhat society, and speciﬁcally the logic by which Bhats short-circuit simple varna, jati, and gotra schemes, we ﬁrst need to explore general changes in the meaning of caste in the modern colonial and postcolonial periods. As will be seen, such historical changes opened up opportunities that my informants have tactically exploited. We will then explore the changing roles of bards in modern times, a discussion that will more directly explain how Bhats have been able to assume multiple caste identities.

Caste in the Modern Colonial and Postcolonial Periods Europeans appeared in India in the early 1500s with the arrival in Goa of Portuguese traders who were looking to secure a safe sea route to India. European merchant houses feared that the present land route, monopolized by Venetians and Egyptians, might be broken by incursions from hostile Mongols and Turks. A century later the British arrived; like the Portuguese, they were interested in securing Indian products such as cotton (from the north as well as from Madras), spices (such as pepper from Malabar), indigo (from Gujarat, used to make blue dye), saltpetre (from Bengal, for preserving meat and making gunpowder), sugar and silk (from, respectively, the South and Bengal), and opium (for trade to China). The British East India Company, a private mercantile concern that was granted a monopoly on trade with India by the English Crown, was set up in the early 1600s. The company, which did not have a strong presence in India until the 1700s, lasted until the great “Rebellion” or “Mutiny” of 1857. At this point, with the defeat of the Indian “rebels”—many

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of whom were British-trained Indian soldiers termed sepoys—the British Crown declared India its colony, thereafter directly ruling much of the subcontinent. Most of Rajasthan, however, was never governed directly by the British, at least not ofﬁcially in name. Beginning in 1818, the British, taking advantage of the power vacuum left by Mughal decline and of the political chaos brought by Maratha marauders, allied themselves with Rajasthan’s princes. Rajasthan’s twenty-two princely states were given relative autonomy under the British code of the paramountcy, a form of indirect rule which advocated little interference in the internal affairs of these states.31 Rajasthani kings were allowed to keep their titles and lands, remain in their palaces, attend foreign meetings of dignitaries, travel in their own personal trains, and in all manner be treated as lords. The British were interested in collecting taxes, and they left the mechanics of exactly how this was to be done to their Rajput subordinates. These tributary settlements—Rajasthani princes paid tribute to the British crown— lasted until Indian independence. As was alluded to in chapter 1, caste relations are said to have changed dramatically during the British colonial period. For example, the decennial Indian Census from 1871 to 193132 seems to have made caste the “institutional keystone of Indian society” and thus seems to have “reinforced the idea, among Indians as well as their colonial masters, that a ﬁxed hierarchy of clearly bonded castes formed the basic framework of society.”33 It is now commonly accepted in certain scholarly quarters that many caste communities took advantage of British rule to redeﬁne their identity and status in the colonial period, “usually by renaming themselves and claiming afﬁliation to higher varna.”34 So extensive were these attempts to exploit the census in order to advance socially that the Commissioner for the 1911 Census of Bengal reported that Bengalis generally believed that the census was designed to “ﬁx the relative position of different castes and to deal with questions of social superiority,” and “hundreds of petitions were received from different castes . . . requesting that they might be known by a new name, be placed higher up in the order of precedence, be recognized as Ksatriya and Vaisya, etc.”35 These petitions usually came from leaders of caste organizations (sabhas) that appeared rapidly in the late nineteenth century to take advantage of emerging opportunities offered by the British documentation of caste afﬁliations. For example, the British were particularly concerned with identifying “martial castes” for recruitment into the British army. In order to take advantage of the covert political purposes of the presumably “scientiﬁc” census, many Indian communities redeﬁned themselves in these terms by, for example, claiming Rajput or Ksatriya afﬁliation.36 It is even thought that the British, in docu-

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menting untouchability, created “a new, pan-Indian uniform category”37 that had never been seen before in the Indian subcontinent. Similarly, the British Raj, in its attempt to understand Indian society, drew heavily on the reports of Brahmin experts, in many cases ignoring the perspectives of other communities. Thus, for example, the British drew heavily on the Dharmasastra as the principal source of law for the Hindu populace, which, to a new and unprecedented extent, subjected Indians to a primarily Brahminical legal code.38 The colonial government’s perception of Brahmins’ superiority was aided also by the way in which British rule changed the meaning of kingship and thus the structure of the “traditional” Hindu state. It seems likely that priests, or at least in the nineteenth-century “little kingdom” of Pudukkottai in present-day Tamil Nadu, were able to take advantage of colonial rule by positioning themselves above kings. These kings had been robbed by the British of much of their traditional political power and emblems of authority. The priests’ perceptions of the world were central to the British colonials’ own understandings of India, and thus priestly supremacy is likely a remnant of the colonial “decapitation” of the traditional polity.39 The transformations wrought by the British on Indian caste relations were surely different in Rajasthan than in other parts of India. With the decline of the Mughals in the mid-1700s, for example, Rajasthan was overrun by the Marathas from the south of India. This period is typically described as one of the darkest in Rajasthani history; local temples, palaces, and monuments were looted and destroyed.40 In restoring the power of Rajput princely kingdoms, however, the British restored both political order and the power of Rajput households whose authority had been on the decline. In Rajasthan, then, it may have been the Rajput princes rather than Brahmins who took most advantage of the British presence to advance themselves.41 Whether it was Brahmins or Rajput Ksatriyas who took most advantage of colonial rule, it seems certain that the British provided a stable political environment that transformed many social and political structures, including those related to caste. Even in regions of Rajasthan where Rajput kings experienced a renaissance in their power and inﬂuence under their alliances with the British Raj, Brahmins and religious saints also found new status opportunities.42 In still other cases, merchant communities, who formed important components of the rising middle class, took advantage of the British system of money and trade to accumulate wealth and advance their interests.43 Similarly, settled agriculture expanded dramatically in the British colonial period, allowing peasant communities such as the Jats to better themselves.44 In any case, the growth of settled agriculture and thus of stable sedentary village populations, which was in many instances a response to British tax pressures, compromised regional centers of power and led to the new emphasis on local status hierarchies. Therefore, the anthropological village studies of the 1950s through the 1970s

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may be mistaken when they characterize India as a traditional society of semiautonomous villages in which local communities are organized into relatively stable caste hierarchies around such concerns as priestly purity or kingly honor. Such social organization, after all, may be a product largely of nineteenthcentury British revenue policies.45 From details such as these, we can see why scholars suggest that the British radically transformed Indian caste relations. They did not exactly invent caste, as some are wont to argue, but they did lend this institution a new importance. Vedic schemes of rank and afﬁliation became more important in the ﬁrst century of British rule from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth century.46 Likewise, relatively rigid jati hierarchies, with pure Brahmins or noble Rajputs at the top of relatively stable village hierarchies, ﬂourished in the nineteenth century. Thus, we see a shaking up of social relations in the colonial period as communities jockeyed for position, redeﬁning themselves in order to take advantage of British policies. Still, and ironically, given that such jockeying might seem to suggest an endless social ﬂuidity, caste in British times seems to have gone from an informal, ﬂexible, and relatively unimportant form of social afﬁliation to a scrupulously detailed, rigidly hierarchical, and centrally important dimension of Indian experience. Indians were able to remake their identities in the British colonial era, but they were able to do so only by agreeing to participate in the game of caste relations as deﬁned by colonial rulers and their local experts.47 These changes in the institution of caste only accelerated in the postcolonial period as well as the years leading up to it. Indian independence was obtained on August 15, 1947, although the struggle for freedom from British rule began earlier. In the early 1800s, the British began to promote English education to the Indian populace, or at least to local elites. Simultaneously, the English sought to “civilize” the local population by eliminating “barbaric” Hindu traditions such as sati (widow immolation), child marriage (which was, and is, still common in Rajasthan), and thagi (robbing conducted by groups sometimes closely linked or thought to be linked to Hindu gods such as Kali, from which the English word “thug” derives). British education, it might be said, gave Indians some tools to ﬁght colonial rule, while British intolerance of Hindu as well as Muslim customs provided the motivation. The Indian National Congress, whose aim was the creation of India as an independent democratic nation, was started in 1885. In the early 1900s Mohandas Gandhi emerged as a leader of this Congress, now referred to as the Congress Party (which has split into several contingents since independence). Other leaders included Jawaharlal Nehru (the ﬁrst prime minister of independent India), Subhas Chandra Bose (who opposed Gandhi’s peaceful path to independence, attempting to elicit military aid from both Stalin and Hitler), Dr. Ambedkar (the Untouchable drafter of the Indian constitution), and Muhammed Ali Jin-

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nah (the leader of the Muslim League, instrumental in creating an independent state for Muslims, i.e., Pakistan). Although India obtained independence from Great Britain in 1947, Rajasthanis entered the Indian union late and gradually. As was mentioned, the princely states of Rajasthan were theoretically allied only with England. They were therefore free to do as they wished when the British relinquished their claims to the subcontinent. Some Rajasthani kings, such as the Maharaja of Jodhpur, at ﬁrst implied to the leadership in Delhi that they would join the newly created state of Pakistan. These principalities, however, eventually joined the Indian union, surrendering their rule and autonomy in exchange for annual cash payments and certain privileges from the new Indian state. (In 1969 the Privy Purses Abolition Act eliminated these former rulers’ stipends.) This process was virtually completed on March 31, 1949, when these twenty-two political entities, then referred to as “Rajputana,”48 voted to form a single administrative unit. It was not until November 1, 1956, however, that a single entity encompassing all the former Rajputana states was formally completed, under the States Reorganisation Act, thus completing the merger of these states along linguistic and cultural lines. Finally, Ajmer, the former capital of British rule for the area—which, unlike the other Rajputana states, had been directly governed by the British—along with a region formerly belonging to Madhya Bharat (present-day Madhya Pradesh), was merged with the other princely states into what now constitutes the modern state of Rajasthan.49 For a proper understanding of the arguments presented in this book, and speciﬁcally the manner in which Bhats in particular experience caste relations, it must be noted that Indian independence, like British colonial rule, radically transformed caste relations. Mohandas Gandhi—the Mahatma, or “GreatSouled” one—rejected the discriminatory features of the caste system. Notably, he rejected untouchability and encouraged his followers to do the same, seeing such an institution as a corruption of ideal social relations as presented in ancient texts. Gandhi cleaned toilets and swept streets with individuals from unclean Hindu communities, thereby hoping to free these practices from their degrading connotations. He also began referring to Untouchables as Harijans—“Children of God”—trying to restore dignity to these communities. Dr. Ambedkar, one of the drafters of the Indian constitution, himself Untouchable, went even further in his challenge to the institution of caste. Ambedkar, a British-trained lawyer, like Gandhi, not only attacked untouchability but also the very foundations of caste, advocating its complete abolition. Ambedkar also labeled Hinduism corrupt, given that he saw caste relations as inextricably tied to this religion. And, in fact, Dr. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism and encouraged his followers, Untouchable or not, to similarly abandon the Hindu faith. The Indian constitution, adopted in 1950, contains a compromise between the views of Gandhi and Ambedkar on caste. In general, it provides for freedom

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from discrimination, be it based on caste, race, religion, or gender, for all of India’s citizens. For example, Article 17 abolishes untouchability. Article 15 likewise prohibits discrimination on the basis of caste afﬁliation. Still, these articles, which refer to the “fundamental rights” of Indian citizens, make exceptions to the principle of equal opportunity for all Indians, allowing the state to do what is necessary to take care of disadvantaged communities. This provision has resulted in afﬁrmative action programs, or positive or compensatory discrimination regarding employment, education, and health beneﬁts. The ﬁrst amendment to the Indian constitution, enacted in 1951, established “reservation” programs for India’s former Untouchables. Reservations include everything from postings in government jobs to spots in regional medical schools to seats in national parliament, state legislatures, and local pancayats (village or caste councils). There are currently 573 castes and 1,091 Tribes ofﬁcially associated with untouchability and thus put on a government “schedule” for advancement, and these communities are referred to as “Scheduled Castes and Tribes.”50 In contemporary India as a whole, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) comprise 15 percent of the population51 and include groups who scavenge animal carcasses and work them into leather products as well as street sweepers and latrine cleaners. Individuals belonging to these formerly untouchable communities typically refer to themselves as Dalits—literally, “Oppressed Persons”—a term that has been the focus of political mobilization for these communities.52 In Rajasthan the Scheduled Castes, of which there are currently 59, comprise 17.3 percent of the population, while Scheduled Tribes, twelve of them, account for 12.4 percent.53 The constitution mentions other “Backward Classes” but does not specifically deﬁne them or mention what provisions they should receive. Since 1950, however, several state governments have provided special privileges for “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs), generally economically and socially disadvantaged communities who were not deemed Untouchable, similar to what are provided for the SCs and STs by the central government. Thus, since independence, there has been a growth in the lists of communities qualifying for advancement and an expansion of Indian-style afﬁrmative action. For heuristic purposes, we can speak of three modern caste strata. First, formerly untouchable “Scheduled Castes,” together with “Scheduled Tribes,” comprise about 30 percent of Rajasthan’s population.54 Second, “lower-caste communities” refers to marginal farmers, landless laborers from low-status agricultural castes, and traditional artisan communities. Together, these groups make up another 30 to 50 percent of the population and intersect with what the Indian state refers to as “Other Backward Castes” (OBCs).55 Third, “highcaste” refers to landowning castes, wealthy merchants, and Brahmins. Here, as in the colonial era, when communities maneuvered to better their caste standing, we again see a partial weakening of social restrictions related

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to caste. Constitutional amendments have made caste discrimination and untouchability illegal in contemporary India. On some level, these democratic reforms, along with the sustained criticism of caste and untouchability initiated by ﬁgures such as Gandhi and Ambedkar, have had their effect. Most low– caste and formerly untouchable people now experience less discrimination based on their caste, especially in public settings, where it is generally no longer acceptable or defended. Even in village India, where caste prejudices tend to linger, we ﬁnd less emphasis on caste rank.56 Thus, in both urban and rural contexts, formerly untouchable caste communities undoubtedly now have more rights to live their lives as they please. By law, members of these groups can participate in political processes and can enter those Hindu temples previously closed to them. They can also pursue livelihoods of their choosing. As a result, many Dalits have abandoned the degrading work that high castes often required them to perform, such as removing night soil or sweeping streets and cleaning gutters. Dalits now practice medicine and law and they teach in India’s top universities. Similarly, in rural settings, land reform has in many cases allowed members of disadvantaged caste communities to become independent landholders and farmers, although not in nearly as many cases as was envisioned by India’s socialist and communist politicians. Many of these new opportunities are undoubtedly the result of India’s afﬁrmative action reservation system, through which special privileges are granted to the SCs and the OBCs. The so-called creamy layer of these groups— that is, the most upwardly mobile segments of caste communities classiﬁed as “scheduled” or “backward”—have been able to take particular advantage of these privileges.57 Thus we see a growing process of “bourgeoisiﬁcation” of the SCs and OBCs as the elite segments of these low-status communities enter the ranks of India’s middle class, which has expanded rapidly since independence.58 In general, democratic reforms linked to reservations have led to social class’s eclipsing caste in importance. Neo-Marxist scholars have long argued that “low-caste people, especially Harijans, merely pay lip service to caste values and only defer to the higher castes because they are too weak to resist them openly, economically, and politically.”59 And modern democratic reforms have only enhanced these attitudes, transforming incipient class consciousness into a full-ﬂedged Dalit political movement. Today, given the tenor of public discourse on caste as well as the powerful political sway of Dalit votes, low-status communities are able to bring into the open to an unprecedented degree their previously only private mockeries of the highborn.60 With details such as these in mind, it is understandable why many Indians frequently suggest, as they did to me on numerous occasions, that “caste doesn’t exist any more.”61 Nevertheless, despite the loosening of caste in many contexts, it is impossible simply to imagine that caste has been abolished in contemporary India. Indeed, one might suggest just the opposite, especially

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given the way the Indian constitution enshrines caste in its many articles, amendments, and programs meant to aid India’s SCs and OBCs. The growing importance of caste in post-independence India was made particularly apparent in the 1990s when then Prime Minister V. P. Singh decided that his National Front government would institute the changes recommended a decade earlier by the Mandal Commission. The Mandal Commission had decided that reservations should be broadly expanded so that the OBCs, rather than just the SCs and STs, could take advantage of them. This expansion was to “begin with the reservation of 27 percent of jobs in central government services and public undertakings for the OBCs. The new quota was in addition to the 22.5 percent already reserved for SCs and STs, so that the total reserved quota amounted to just under 50 percent, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s rulings limiting reservations to this maximum level.”62 Such a decision was met with protests and riots throughout much of India, some of which I personally witnessed in my ﬁrst years of ﬁeldwork. These protests were especially widespread in the southern states such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where “around 70 percent of public sector posts and higher education places have been reserved for SCs, STs, and OBCs together, and around 90 percent of the population belongs to the castes entitled to beneﬁt.”63 In some cases, high-caste individuals, often students, even burned themselves alive in protest to the “mandalization” of Indian society, and to the way V. P. Singh and other politicians seemed to be using the caste reservations for political gain.64 These details suggest that caste relations have not been eliminated but instead have become the center of Indian politics and the focus of debates about how to distribute India’s publicly owned resources. Caste in these contexts, however, is not simply a holdover from old India, since it has taken very different forms in modern times. For example, as many scholars have pointed out, caste relations now seem more “horizontal” than “vertical.”65 That is, the sway of electoral politics has led to the emergence of a form of horizontal solidarity among communities belonging to distinctive, though socioeconomically similar, jati communities. Such jatis have in many cases united in regional voting blocks, which in turn unite in even larger pan-Indian “supercastes,” in order to increase their inﬂuence in state and national politics. As a result, we see a decline in salience of the vertical ranking of castes in local village hierarchies, hierarchies that, as was discussed earlier, seem to have themselves increased in importance and rigidity during the British colonial era. But this decline in importance of local village status hierarchies has been accompanied by an overall resurgence of caste solidarities in relation to political membership, now as a marker of a kind of ethnic similarity and difference rather than an identiﬁer of higher or lesser rank.66 To summarize, in the colonial era we see a weakening of certain forms of caste relations as communities struggle to take advantage of new privileges and opportunities under British rule. This loosening, however, seems to be

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accompanied by a general increase in the importance and rigidity of caste relations in other domains of Indian society. Similarly, after Indian independence in 1947, we also see caste weakening in many respects as low-caste communities have taken advantage of opportunities offered by democratic reform. Indeed, many of those village hierarchies in which pure priests or noble landlords reign supreme are no longer of great importance. Still, as in the colonial era, this decline of caste in certain areas is accompanied by a resurgence of this institution in others. In particular, caste is discussed and documented in the Indian constitution and in other contexts in a level of detail reminiscent of the British decennial censuses. And such documentation, and even enshrinement, of the institution of caste has ensured the continued vitality of this institution in modern times. This extended discussion of general changes in the institution of caste in the colonial and postcolonial periods helps to explain many perplexing details regarding the Bhats’ own experiences of this Indian institution. To understand how this is so, and thus to set the stage for what is distinctive about the Bhat encounter with the modern institution of caste considered in the remainder of the book, we will need to examine my informants’ changing relationships to elite bardic communities.

Two Classes of Bhats in the Colonial and Postcolonial Periods Scholars have paid particular attention to two bardic communities in Rajasthan whose identity and status are not always clearly distinct—Bhats and Carans.67 Rajasthan’s Bhats typically claim descent from Brahmins who long ago composed Sanskrit verse in praise of kings; they also maintain royal genealogies, inscribing them either on stone tablets in temples or in their “books” (referred to as bahis or pothis). These Bhats, though they no longer speak Sanskrit and are sometimes more akin to landed nobles,68 nevertheless identify closely with Brahmin priests because of their connection to learning and literacy. By contrast, Rajasthan’s Carans, the equivalent of wandering minstrels, do not generally claim a connection to ancient Vedic traditions nor to priesthood. Immersed in Rajasthan’s oral traditions, Carans commemorated the battleﬁeld deeds of kings and nobles, typically in an archaic dialect of Marwari that coalesced in the ﬁfteenth century a.d. and is today referred to as “Middle Marwari.” Like the priestly Bhats, Carans received land grants from their kingly patrons in exchange for their services and thus were also a landed nobility reminiscent of their Rajput benefactors. Nevertheless, many Carans were primarily herders and were poets only “on the side.” Carans were also known to ride into battle with their lords, composing verse in order to stimulate their kingly patrons into heroic action. Since they participated in battle, they often claimed Ksatriya as opposed to Brahminical status.

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To put it bluntly, my informants, though referring to themselves as “Bhats,” did not traditionally perform for nobility and thus have little actual connection to either of these two elite bardic communities. Rather, as was discussed in chapter 1, my own Bhat informants, who will be referred to as “low-caste Bhats” or “my Bhat informants,” are in fact the clients of the lowly leatherworking Bhambhis. Still, in modern times they have taken advantage of changes within elite colonial and postcolonial India to appropriate roles and statuses associated with royal bards. To understand how this has transpired, recall that local Rajasthanis often told me there were no longer any bards in Rajasthan. By this, they meant that elite and landed bards tied to kings had abandoned their traditional profession and were now tending their ﬂocks and lands or turning to new professions such as medicine or law. The destruction of the elite bardic service tradition was the result of a series of long-term changes in the Rajasthan region over several centuries. In addition to their panegyrical services, elite bards once served as messengers between kings and some of the groups from whom they drew their allies and military recruits, including the so-called Tribal populations. Bards, as persons of learning linked to Brahminical functions and services, could travel with “priestly immunity” in areas where no one else could venture safely.69 Similarly, the homes of Carans served as sanctuaries where noble rebels could lodge their goods and families in times of war and insurgency. After the establishment of British colonial rule, the “paciﬁcation” and subsequent demilitarization of the Rajasthan region drastically reduced the demand for bardic messengers and negotiators. Well into the colonial period, however, Carans continued to perform another of their long-standing functions, which was to serve as witnesses or guarantors to commercial transactions and ﬁnancial contracts. Some also carried on as providers of a related service, which was to act as guarantors of the security of caravans conveying goods in transit. These activities too fell into decline under British rule; the colonial law courts and policing system supplanted many of the Carans’ former guarantor activities, and the railways replaced most if not all of the old caravan routes. Yet another of the Carans’ longstanding traditions was rendered obsolete by colonial legal campaigns against “violent” and “barbaric” social practices, of which the most notable was sati (widow immolation). Elite Carans had traditionally guaranteed security through a similar practice referred to as traga (threats of self-mutilation).70 When the British bracketed these practices with the form of ritual selfmutilation known as “hook-swinging,” they deprived the elite bardic groups both of income and of an important source of status and inﬂuence. It was because they could claim that their bodies were Brahminlike and sacrosanct that they could secure compliance from clients by threatening to use their trademark daggers for self-harm. These pressures on the status and functions of elite bardic groups reached their culmination in the post-independence pe-

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riod. New legal moves to reduce or abolish so-called feudal landholding systems deprived many families of the properties and incomes which their ancestors had received as a mark of their privileged royal service. Other forms of hereditary service income that had once beneﬁted the elite bards were also progressively eroded with the decline of patron–client relations characteristic of jajmani and similar local economies and the growth of an increasingly commercialized rural economy. In short, elite bards were squeezed by a variety of historical pressures, until they eventually abandoned much of their traditional work. Not least among these pressures was the fact that the British might have seen royal bards—as arbitrators of disputes, witnesses to contracts and agreements, protectors of hostages, educators of kings and their offspring, composers of history, and indeed establishers of truth—as competitors of a kind and thus sought to eliminate them.71 My own Bhat informants have not ﬁlled many of the past roles of the landed Carans and high-caste Bhats. They do not work as notaries, nor do they protect caravans. Still, taking advantage of new opportunities for social and economic mobility in the modern period, they have attempted to appropriate these communities’ titles, statuses, and very identities. Further, they have used their newfound status as descendants of the bards of royalty to carve out new economic niches for themselves. My Bhat informants, for example, report now entering and sometimes even winning poetry competitions sponsored by local nobles. These opportunities opened up signiﬁcantly with elite Bhat and Caran abandonment of this work. My informants also narrate historical epics in the old style to Rajput hoteliers who have converted their old mansions and palaces into modern tourist attractions. This new work, and many other Bhat antics to be explored in the pages to come, is also bolstered by the Bhats’ claim to be the descendants of the former bards of kings. As the newly made “Bhats,” my informants—now claiming to be both Brahmins (descended from learned and priestly Bhats) and Ksatriyas (related to the Caran poets who accompanied their lords into battle)—seem perfectly at home in new locales owned by the wealthy descendants of former kings. Peddling history in Rajasthan’s palaces, mansions, and other “traditional” spaces, my Bhat informants argue that they are simply reestablishing in modern Rajasthan their ancient position as the bards of Hindu royalty. Such a strategy would once have been highly dangerous, inviting violent retaliation from members of the elite Caran and Bhat communities. Today, however, these high-status groups have turned their attention elsewhere, and people such as my informants have more scope to undertake maneuvers of this kind. To delve more deeply into some details regarding my Bhat informants’ caste history which were explored in chapter 1, they did not immediately reveal to me their connection to the formerly untouchable Bhambhis. It was only after some months that I began to piece together a story that was becoming more complex and more interesting than my informants’ initial claim to be

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descended from the bards of kings. I was told that, at some point in the period around independence, the region’s Bhambhis held a number of meetings that they vested with the authority of a caste council or pancayat (which may in fact have been meetings of newly formed caste associations or sabhas).72 The outcome of these deliberations was a formal decision, probably by upwardly mobile segments of the community, to call on all Bhambhis to renounce the occupation of leatherwork and take up farming and weaving instead. The aim was to elevate their status in the eyes of other Rajasthanis.73 Many Bhambhis refused to comply, having found leatherwork to be a reasonably proﬁtable occupation. The Bhambhi caste group (jati) therefore split into two sections, each taking on the status of a separate jati, each of which banned intermarriages between members of the two divisions on pain of expulsion or “outcasteing.”74 To delve even more deeply into my informants’ caste history, and to clear up some details alluded to previously, it was eventually revealed to me that my informants used to refer to themselves as Nats, loosely translated as “Dancers,” derived from the Sanskrit word for “to dance” (nrtya).75 Under this name, my informants worked as acrobats, rope walkers, balancers, and tumblers, primarily performing these feats outside their home region of Marwar.76 Nat, in fact, is the afﬁliation Bhats currently use when trying to qualify for beneﬁts given to India’s “Scheduled Castes.”77 After the split in the Bhambhi community into leatherworking and nonleatherworking jatis, my informants’ kin held meetings of their own caste council, the pancayat. The topic of how to deal with the split in the Bhambhi community was discussed, though consensus was not reached and my informants’ community itself split into two sections. Those bards who continued to perform for the newly Sanskritized Bhambhis took on the name “Bhat,” which is both a general term for a bard or genealogist who keeps records of all births in a patron’s male line78 and also a title strongly associated with the elite praisesingers of Rajputs. My informants’ brethren who continued to sing the praises of those Bhambhis who still worked leather (whom my informants also refer to as Regars), however, retained the name Nat. Thus, as in the case of the Bhambhi community, the low-status Nat community, which used to be a single jati, now formed two sections, each of which took on the status of a new jati. The title “Bhat,” which I had taken to be my informants’ traditional caste ( jati) name, is thus a post-independence appropriation. Splitting with their Nat brethren, my informants renounced their dancing and acrobatics and took more fully to puppetry, an art form that, according to certain histories discussed in chapter 1, seems to have entered their community only at the beginning of the twentieth century, though my informants sometimes claimed it had been known to them for thousands of years. This history helps to make sense of why my Bhat informants refer to one of their jati’s fourteen clans (gotras) as Carans. This is another example of how

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they have crafted new post-independence identities for themselves, replacing names and titles associating them with Bhambhis with more exalted status and occupation—this time on the level of clan (gotra) rather than the caste ( jati). Of note, some of my informants also now refer to themselves by the term “Bhatt”—pronounced with a short “uh” sound rather than with a long “aah” sound as in “Bhat”—which is a Brahmin caste name. This latest example of Bhat puppeteers’ attempts to associate themselves with high-status jati and varna titles, in this case an example of “Brahminization,” is especially common among my informants’ relatives inhabiting the Shadipur Depot colony of Delhi.79 For the most part, my own informants, referring to themselves as Bhats and Bhatts, have cut ties with their brethren who continue to recite praise and genealogies for those Bhambhis who have not given up their leatherworking (Regars). Nevertheless, despite the fact that my informants’ own caste councils and associations have proscribed marriage with the Nats who continue to work for leatherworkers, it seems clear that many Bhats do not heed these new rules. They continue to intermarry with these distant kin, who are called Thuddi Nats to distinguish them from my informants, who sometimes refer to themselves as Nuri Nats.80 This background helps to explain the immense variation in gotras listed by my informants. In many cases they were naming clans associated with the supposedly excised Thuddi Nats, a slip that could draw harsh stares from elders within the Nat-turned-Bhat community. The number of Bhat clans could also be inﬂated by the fact that some Bhats were ready to intermarry with clans from other performing communities that were not associated with either the Thuddi or Nuri Nats. Bhats listing fewer than fourteen gotras, by contrast, were typically referring to clans with which they commonly did or preferred to intermarry rather than to all the clans with which they theoretically could intermarry according to my informants’ caste council. Bhats, then, have remade themselves in ways that are reminiscent of the manner in which other Indians have reworked caste in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Similar to the way that priests and peasants alike manipulated the British decennial census, Bhats have taken advantage of the decline of elite bardic communities to advance claims to possess higher varna and jati titles. Likewise, democratic reforms in independent India present Bhats with new freedoms and rights, which have both limited public prejudice against my informants and bolstered Bhat acts of reinvention. Similarly, throughout the early and middle twentieth century, Bhats, like their Bhambhi patrons, periodically have organized themselves into caste councils and committees, which they dub pancayats or sabhas. These meetings have helped to standardize the way in which they advance their new claims, a function that is not so different from that of these councils among other caste communities. We even see inklings within the Bhat community of the horizontal caste solidarities said to

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result from electoral politics in democratic India, as Bhats more readily link themselves with members of other performing communities, even claiming to be ready to break the boundaries of their jati to intermarry with them. Still, despite a seeming loosening up of caste on the lives of Bhats, it could also be argued that historical changes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have reinforced caste in the lives of my informants, as it has in the lives of members of India’s other communities. It is, after all, the idiom of caste through which Bhats have pursued their path of redeﬁnition, a fact suggesting the continued if not growing importance of this institution in their lives in modern times. That Bhats have continued to frame their identity in terms of caste, despite the fact that this discourse so marginalizes them, is surely a result of the manner in which Bhats, again like many other caste communities, recognize the importance of this institution to modern states and rulers. Bhats and other performing communities, after all, were as rigorously documented by colonial censuses and gazetteers as any other group. Thus, for example, The Castes of Marwar: Being a Census Report of 1891, building on Wilson’s Glossary of Indian Terms, describes Nats as “ ‘a tribe of vagrants who live by feats of dexterity, sleight of hand, fortune telling and the like, and correspond in their habits to the Gypsies of Europe.’ They are generally rope-dancers and expert gymnasts, performing various clever antics with long bamboos.”81 Similarly, the independent state of India has been as meticulous in categorizing my informants as Nats and thus a Scheduled Caste. Ironically, the Indian constitution, meant to free my informants from the burden of caste, presents them with a name and an identity that is every bit as weighty and difﬁcult to escape as any village status hierarchy. As a result, the constitutional reformulation of the institution of caste perfectly captures how contemporary caste relations, whether experienced by Bhats or by members of some other community, are delicately balanced between an open ﬂuidity and a rigid ﬁxity.

Conclusion: Caste and the Bhats’ Bardic Legacy Despite the historical changes, varna still provides ideal categories of social afﬁliation that Hindus continue to claim as their own, with varying degrees of commitment. Varna, like other aspects of caste, does continue to impinge on Bhat lives. It does so because many Rajasthanis, especially those with wealth and power, are committed to this system of rank, elevating it to a place of importance in their lives. Also, Bhats, because of their profession as praisesingers, are compelled to respond to the varna beliefs of others, such as using poetic cunning to argue that they and their Bhambhi patrons are not untouchable. Still, varna ideology can best be described as a system of belief and value belonging to others. Bhats themselves do not ﬁnd it compelling, especially in

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its more orthodox formulations. In fact, Bhats do everything in their power to short-circuit and subvert these revived Vedic schemes of rank by claiming to belong to every single varna. A single Bhat informant, from situation to situation, was known to claim to belong to every varna and not just to the Sudras or Outcastes. For example, my informants often asked me, “What is a Brahmin?”82 Even street sweepers and latrine cleaners, as Bhats point out, are born, marry, and die, and they hire priests to preside over rituals marking these occasions. Bhats, as performers at Bhambhi life-cycle rituals, claim they are therefore Brahmins of a kind. Bhats also argue that Brahmins are teachers. Bhats themselves are gurus to their Bhambhi patrons, using praise and insult verse as well as stories to guide their patrons morally. Again, Bhats say they can rightfully claim Brahmin status. As one of my Bhat sisters put it when asked by her teacher how she could be Brahmin given that her community eats meat, “We Bhats are the meat-eating Brahmins.” Bhats also explained to me that one is not born a Ksatriya or “Warrior.” Rather, one becomes a Warrior through brave and noble actions. Bhambhi ancestors, according to Bhats, fought in wars alongside Rajput kings, helping defend villages from Muslim invasion. As warriors, these Bhambhis can claim Ksatriya status. Furthermore, Bhambhi women, through affairs with Rajput lords who fought alongside the men of their clans, produced offspring. One of these illegitimate children, according to one Bhat narration of his family’s history, founded his Bhat clan referred to as the Danavats. This man, as my informant saw it, was thus also a Rajput Warrior of a kind. Another Bhat of the Caran clan, tracing a less dubious route to kings, claimed to be descended from Rajasthan’s legendary Caran Bhats and thus also considered himself to be a Ksatriya. Further, Bhats who now work as merchants—either as animal traders (Bhats say they can eye a beast’s value better than anyone) or as small-time salespersons (mainly glassware hawked from peripatetic carts)—claim Vaisya status. Also most Bhats I knew claimed to belong to the Sudra varna as clients and even servants of Bhambhi patrons. Finally, some of my informants battle for Untouchable status, or, in the language of the Indian state, for Scheduled Caste status, which qualiﬁes them for state-sponsored loans and Indian-style afﬁrmative action reservations for the disadvantaged. Articles and amendments to the Indian constitution, then, have not eliminated the social inequality or caste prejudice experienced by my Bhat informants. One need only visit Bhat natal villages to see how such prejudice remains—for example, in the way Rajputs are still powerful landlords and heads of village councils, and Bhambhis are shunned as polluting, even when working as “free” farmers who own their own, typically small, plots of land. Bhats just as energetically contest these inequalities and prejudices, struggling to redeﬁne themselves in the manners discussed in these ﬁrst few chapters. And in describing the context of my ﬁeldwork as well as the larger social and his-

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torical contexts of caste relations themselves, this chapter sets the stage for an understanding of the Bhats’ current relationship to this highly resilient Indian institution. Speciﬁcally, this chapter has argued that general changes in colonial and postcolonial India have resulted in a contemporary social context that Bhats share with other caste communities. I have taken pains here to demonstrate continuities in the modern era between Bhat experiences with caste and the experiences of other Indian communities. However, in the remainder of the book, I hope to show that the way that Bhats exploit this contemporary context that they seem to share with many other Indians, as well as how they interpret the signiﬁcance of their exploitation of this context, emerges more narrowly from skills and perspectives developed by my informants in Rajasthan’s patron–client economy termed jajmani. As praise-singing bards, Bhats possess a unique reservoir of narrative and poetic traditions that provide them with perspectives on caste relations that are not as readily available to other caste communities, not even to other client communities within jajmani. In exploring the Bhat relationship to their bardic legacy, the remaining chapters of this book will also point to my informants’ general ambivalence toward the past, which provides Bhats with their greatest burdens as well as their most powerful tools for relieving themselves of these burdens.

3 Obscene Jesters Bhambhi “Little Kings” in the Economy of Bhat Praise-Singing

Two miles, four miles is heard The noise of a drum’s hide, 250 miles is heard The speech of a man! —Bhat poem (1) Your fame is unknown, Unknown in the four corners of the world, King In Singh only parted with a camel When we thrust a stick up his ass! —Bhat insult (2)

Dirt and Grain The following myth describes the relationship between Ann Dev, The God of Grain,1 and Sati Churi, an Untouchable sati divinity who is said to have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. The tale was narrated to me by Guljarji of Jaipur, the Bhat who so successfully markets puppets in ﬁve-star hotels such as the Rajputana. Guljar and I were eating meat in his home. On this day the ﬂies, which continually landed on our food, seemed more numerous than usual. Seemingly embarrassed by his caste’s poverty and presumed impurity—a perception ampliﬁed by the open sewers that surrounded us and the fact that Guljar was serving me unclean buffalo meat—Guljar recounted the following:

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casting kings Once all the gods were sitting eating and drinking with each other. Ann Dev, the god of grain, the most powerful of all the gods, was sitting with his fellow deities. There was Jag Dev [the godlike son of Udiya Dit, a Rajput king from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh], Indra, Chandra Ma [the Moon Goddess], Suraj Bhagwan [the Sun Deity], Visnu, Mahes [Siva], Brahma, Krisna—all the divinities were there. It so happened that all the ﬂies were sitting on Ann Dev, the god of grain. As many ﬂies as there were, they were all sitting on Ann Dev. The other gods, including Krisna, thought to themselves, “This god is bad. We are all clean, but he is ﬁlthy. Why are the ﬂies all sitting on him, and not on us? It is because he is bad.” The gods decided that they had to get rid of the god Ann Dev, that he shouldn’t be sitting with them. After holding council, they told him to go: “Be gone from here, and never come near us again!” Ann Dev was puzzled, asking, “Why are you getting rid of me?” The other divinities replied, “Because all the ﬂies are sitting on you. Not even one ﬂy is on us. You are not clean.” Ann Dev said, “Okay, I will go, but it will make things difﬁcult for you.” They said, “We won’t have any problem. Get out of here!” With that, Ann Dev disappeared, descending into the ground. There he met Sati Churi and stayed with her. She was a Bhangi, a Harijan, and an Untouchable who had committed sati and now lived under the ground. The day after the gods had gotten rid of Ann Dev, they started feeling hungry. They thought to themselves, “What have we done, what will we eat?” They all started criticizing each other for getting rid of Ann Dev, blaming it on each other. “You said he was bad!” “No, you said he was bad!” “No, it was you!” and so on. They thought in dismay, “We will die if we don’t get Ann Dev back.” So they decided to call him back but were puzzled how to do so given he had descended into the ground. Finally, they created a little ant that they sent into the ground to retrieve Ann Dev. They gave the ant instructions to go and get the grain god back. The ant arrived near Sati Churi, the Untouchable who had sacriﬁced herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. He told her that all the gods were dying of hunger and that they needed Ann Dev back. He pleaded with her to give Ann Dev back to the pantheon of gods. He told her that the Fire, Sun, and Moon Deities, that Visnu himself, were all dying of hunger. Sati Churi said to the ant, “I will give you Ann Dev back, but I will take interest [byaj] on the loan.” The ant agreed: “Whatever in-

obscene jesters terest you need, we will give it.” Sati Churi then gave Ann Dev, who took the form of a single grain of wheat, to the ant. The little ant set off on his journey back to the surface. It was a long trip for the little ant, and he had to travel for a long time without any food. Finally, he got so hungry that he ate the grain of wheat that was Ann Dev. When he arrived, the gods were happy to see the little ant but dismayed to hear that he had eaten the grain that he was carrying. They sent him back once again. This time they tied a knot in his stomach so he could not eat the grain. Even if he swallowed it, the grain would not go into his stomach to be digested. This time the mission succeeded, and the ant retrieved Ann Dev and returned him to the gods. Ann Dev, standing before the gods, queried, “First you said I was dirty, but now you have called me back. Why? At ﬁrst I was your equal, but then I became ‘other’ and separate. I was taken in by Sati Churi the Untouchable. I live near her now, and I am hers. So, by taking me from Sati Churi, you will have to pay her back with interest.” The gods got nervous. They thought, “We have no more grain. When she comes to ask for her interest, how will we repay her? We don’t have the principal much less the interest.” The sun and the moon, nevertheless, said, “We will pay her back.” After a while, Sati Churi returned to claim her grain and interest. She hovered over the sun ﬁrst, and then the moon, her shadow falling on them, giving rise to an eclipse. She screamed, “Where’s my grain and my money? Give it to me!” The sun retreated in fear, getting smaller and smaller, darker and darker with Sati Churi hovering over him [an eclipse]. Guljar explained to me: So now, when the eclipse comes we believe that this is Sati Churi coming. The Untouchables, the Harijans, come and beg from all the households. They have their sweeper trashcan in one hand and broom in the other. They beg for their grain back. And we have to give it to them. We give them cloth, grain, money, whatever they demand or that we deem appropriate. If we don’t give it to them, then the eclipse, the shadow of Sati Churi, will not go away, and the whole world will die. When we give grain and other gifts, however, then the sun and moon are safe. To this day, the ﬂies come all the time like Sati Churi. They sit on everything, until the holiday of Rakhi [a Hindu celebration of the brother–sister bond]. Then we feed them the pudding of the deity

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casting kings Goga [a Rajasthani pastoral god]. They eat it and go away satisﬁed after a few days. After eating the Goga ka khir [Goga’s rice pudding], they leave, satisﬁed, just like Sati Churi.

Guljar narrated this story to me during a lunar eclipse. During these periods, Hindus gift untouchable Sweepers who beg door-to-door. The tale, then, provides a mythological justiﬁcation for such gifts: alms to Bhangi Sweepers represent the payment of a debt to the untouchable Sati Churi, who gave refuge to the God of Grain when the other clean deities cast Ann Dev out of their community; if such gifts are not made, the story suggests, the eclipse will not end, and the world will come to an end. Guljar’s story, to be fully comprehended, needs to be told within the context of Hindu ritual and astrological calendars—with respect to Rakhi and eclipses, for example. Here I would simply point to the manner in which the story dwells on dirt and pollution. Ann Dev, the God of Grain, personiﬁes such ﬁlth. As the story puts it, “As many ﬂies as there were, they were all sitting on Ann Dev.” His subterranean benefactress, Sati Churi, is a wretched Bhangi.2 Contemporary sweepers, of which Guljar speaks in his concluding commentary, are also deﬁled because they, as I was often informed, carry “latrine” on their heads. In the dominant Hindu view, such persons deﬁle their bodies by bringing their heads (the “high” seat of wisdom) into contact with feces (deﬁling substance originating from the lower part of the body). In fact, the other gods perceive Ann Dev to be so deﬁled that he is no longer allowed to live and eat among them. One senses, too, that Sati Churi, herself an Untouchable as well as a woman, is similarly looked down upon by the clean and mostly male deities. As a sign of Sati Churi’s degradation, she lives hidden underground and apart from heavenly persons. Typically, Untouchables are similarly segregated from clean castes, and their abodes, whether in villages or Jaipur city itself, are located in separate areas. Guljar, however, questions, and even reverses, standard Hindu caste hierarchies based upon purity and pollution. The gods try to eliminate their necessity to eat—an attempt paralleled by these deities’ twisting and tying of the tiny ant’s stomach so that he could not eat the grain that he was entrusted to retrieve. They ﬁnd, however, that they need the life-giving essence of the God of Grain. Regretting their actions, and nearly starving, they barter to get Ann Dev back. In other Hindu myths, the gods are often described as not needing to eat grain, they being gods and thus in some sense transcending the normal human bodily requirements that caste Hindus believe can lead to impurity. In Guljar’s narrative world, however, even the clean gods cannot escape their cravings. Without engaging in natural bodily processes such as eating, they would perish. In a similar manner, the clean gods are revealed to be dependent on the impure Sati Churi. She rescues the despondent deity Ann Dev, thus indirectly saving the lives of the gods. The gods’ indebtedness to Sati

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Churi is expressed in just such an idiom—in terms of a debt which, because of the interest accrued, can be repaid only with difﬁculty and perhaps not even then. The Sun God, for example, trembles and shakes, shrinking from view, when asked to repay such a sum. By extension, we might imagine that society is itself indebted to untouchable castes—to Sweepers and Leatherworkers. “What would we do,” Bhats asked me on occasion, “if the Sweepers refused to clean the streets and latrines?” This story establishes the value of seemingly lowly entities such as Ann Dev, Sati Churi, and India’s Untouchables, rendering them necessary and even exalted. If Ann Dev and Sati Churi appear valuable, however, the other deities, like the eclipsed Suraj Bhagwan himself, shrink in esteem. They decide to get rid of the God of Grain—and thus of food itself—in the midst of a feast which they are clearly enjoying. Besides the obvious hypocrisy, the clean gods are foolish, unable to see the folly of their ill-considered actions. This myth’s message, then, is a simple one. Clean gods are nothing without dirty gods. And by extension, clean society is dependent on unclean persons. Caste Hindus sometimes associate impurity with the negative and bad— with the dirty, the unclean, the poor, and the unmannered, as well as with forbidden desires and secret lusts. The tale, however, interprets such beliefs differently. Dirt is the soil from which grain grows. Stomachs are the cauldrons that brew life. Without unclean acts—the violent tilling of the soil to grow grain, the unclean but necessary process of digestion, Sati Churi’s incest—life itself could not exist. Or, to put it another way, that which seems marginal, peripheral, and even “other” becomes, in the magic of this Bhat story, central.3 In this chapter I examine Bhat representations of Bhambhis—stories, histories, poems of praise and insult. Bhambhis too, as Dalits and thus former Untouchables, are often still perceived as peripheral and even “other” to Hindu caste society. Bhats, however, do not generally accept such formulations, and they put all their creative and poetic skills to use in order to establish the value of their seemingly degraded patrons and thus to destabilize traditional caste hierarchies. The myth of Ann Dev, in the speciﬁc way it challenges dominant views of purity and pollution by bestowing social centrality on a seemingly lowstatus individual, hints at the manner in which Bhats imaginatively elevate their degraded Bhambhi patrons. As to the exact logic of Bhat praise of Bhambhis—and thus also to the way Bhats decenter caste hierarchies—the story of Ann Dev provides another clue in its references to gifts provided by seeming outsiders as well as to the way others are indebted by these gifts. For as will be seen, Bhats themselves frame their Bhambhi patrons’ value in a logic of gift-giving. Likewise, it is a patron’s virtue of generosity, be that patron a degraded Bhambhi or a member of some other community, that potentially bestows on them social centrality. In examining Bhat praise of and insults to their Bhambhi patrons, I also explore Bhat understandings of contemporary caste relations more generally.

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Bhambhis weaving cots. The Bhats’ patrons have now largely abandoned leatherworking and instead taken up weaving and other professions. Nagaur District, Rajasthan.

On the basis of Bhats’ obsessive concern with gifts and generosity revealed in these poems of praise, it will be argued that Bhats frame their understandings of caste in terms of patron–client relations of exchange characteristic of an economy that Bhats sometimes refer to as jajmani. A. M. Hocart’s writings on caste, then, would seem to provide an effective starting point for understanding the Bhat relationship to the institution of caste, as compared to other authors such as Louis Dumont, who privilege Hindu beliefs on purity and pollution. Likewise, Bhats would seem to suggest that generous patrons, be they Bhambhi “little kings” or the descendants of Rajput kings themselves, provide a powerful measure of social value and even the center of Hindu society itself. In fact, it will be seen in subsequent chapters that the Bhat view on these matters is even more complicated, and Bhats do not relinquish social centrality so easily. However, we need to explore more context by, ﬁrst, examining more closely the Bhambhi community’s history and profession and, second, exploring the Bhat relationship to Bhambhis in the economy known as jajmani.4

Sturdy Farmers Historically, Bhambhis, who are also referred to as Meghwals and Balais, scavenged animal carcasses from the ﬁelds, especially those of water buffaloes,

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working them into shoes, satchels, sacks for well water, and harnesses for beasts of burden. It was their inherited right and patrimony. Or, as Bhats put it, Yeh hak bap dada se prapt kiya— literally, “This right was obtained from our fathers and grandfathers.” Such work requires handling decaying animal ﬂesh and thus entails close contact with dangerous processes of death and bodily decomposition; it is this aspect that has made leatherworking a polluting activity in the eyes of high-caste Hindus. Bhambhis are therefore widely considered to be collectively impure or even untouchable by virtue of their hereditary association with this unclean occupational specialty.5 Bhambhis also, and Bhats did not discuss this fact in polite company or even with their neighbors who were their friends, ate meat from these carcasses, a triply repulsive act. Meat itself is a forbidden food, considered deﬁling by certain high-ranking Hindus. Furthermore, buffalo meat, being beef and thus close to the ﬂesh of the sacred Hindu cow, is particularly forbidden. A cow, which provides milk, yogurt, and ghi, is a symbol of maternal sustenance. Some Hindus have suggested to me that eating buffalo was akin to devouring one’s own mother.6 Even many of my meat-eating Rajput acquaintances refused to eat buffalo because of these associations, preferring goat instead. Finally, to scavenge meat from a semi-rotting carcass lying in the hot sun, not even purchasing it from a butcher, was the ultimate in degradation. Many Bhambhis now own their own plots of land and are independent farmers, though they do sometimes also work for others as agricultural laborers. Historically, some Bhambhis also farmed their own ﬁelds, though a large share of the harvest was owed to their Rajput lords (referred to as jagirdars). Still, many Bhambhis, either in addition to or instead of farming their own ﬁelds, had to work Rajput farms for minimal or even no pay. Some Bhambhis did own animals, but in these cases too, they were often responsible for herding and managing Rajput cattle, buffalo, camels, and goats, again often for little to no pay. Bhambhis also commonly were required to volunteer as village watchmen and guards and were thus responsible for the protection of others. In this capacity, they served as village or town criers and were referred to as ganv balais, from which derives one of their caste names, Balai. In a similar vein, Bhambhis were responsible for entertaining strangers in the village. When a visitor arrived, it was the head Bhambhi’s responsibility to ensure that these guests were properly cared for. This Bhambhi had to feed, entertain, and in general ensure the safety of all village guests.7 In many cases, Bhambhi families were expected to provide only one family member to serve the village’s jagirdar in these capacities, while others were free for other pursuits.8 Nevertheless, Bhambhi labor was commonly conscripted by Rajput lords. As a result, my Bhat informants, as well as others in the Rajasthani towns of Jaipur and Udaipur, frequently referred to Bhambhis as akin to Rajput slaves (gulams). In the eyes of many caste Hindus, then, the Bhambhi association with the unclean tasks of scavenging, the disgusting profession of leatherwork, and the

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revolting habit of eating buffalo meat mark them as truly vile, among the lowest of all Hindu communities. The Bhambhi link to physical labor, servitude, and poverty does little to improve their case. Reminiscent of how the clean gods judged Ann Dev to be “other” and thus cast him out of their heavenly abode, elite twice-born9 persons in the villages and towns of Rajasthan judge Bhambhis to be similarly degraded and even “outside” of normal social relations. Guljar, however, reverses such formulations in his myth. And other Bhats too did not accept standard characterizations of their Bhambhi patrons. They drew attention, for example, to the Bhambhi reputation for physical strength and the fact that Bhambhis possessed the sturdy bodies necessary for backbreaking agricultural work. Ann Dev, though linked to eating and thus to impure corporal processes, ultimately proves essential to the gods’ survival. Similarly, the Bhambhis’ impure blood and sweat produce the clean foods, grain and ghi, that sustain the social body. Bhats added that the Bhambhis’ sturdiness facilitated their duties as village guardians and protectors, which took substantial strength as well as courage. Above all, Bhats bragged about the Bhambhi reputation for entertaining guests, which was linked to this community’s traditional role as village caretakers of strangers. Bhats told me that even today, though Bhambhis no longer ofﬁcially serve these functions, they are still great “feeders.” My informants, in fact, spoke of how Bhambhis enjoyed serving others. Just as it was a Bhat pleasure to feed me, a guest from afar, it was Bhambhis’ pleasure to bring comfort to strangers—offering them not only food but also bidi cigarettes and a place to stay if needed. Bhambhi servitude in these contexts, Bhats argued, marked the Bhambhis’ moral superiority rather than their degradation. In a tradition that nicely captures the Bhambhis’ complex social and moral position, Bhambhis wear a sacred thread around their neck that they refer to as a “janeu.” The janeu is supposed to be worn only by twice-born persons, who don it after taking part in a second sacred birth presided over by a Brahmin priest. This thread is interpreted as a holy umbilical cord that connects them, the select, to God. Bhambhis, as outcastes, are excluded from stringing janeus around their necks; to do so, as to enter a high-caste temple, is to court violence. Nevertheless, prodded by their Bhat bards, Bhambhis don sacred threads and claim twice-born status. The Bhambhis’ sacred thread, however, differs from those worn by the highborn. Typically, a janeu is spun of ﬁnely woven cotton, a pure (sudh) substance. The Bhambhis’ janeu, however, is made of buffalo intestine. This practice is viewed by the highborn as a grotesque inversion of orthodox practices. As a result, Bhambhis are rarely disallowed from wearing such a string, because in the eyes of high-caste Hindus it is not a sacred thread at all but rather a further sign of Bhambhi degradation. Bhats, however, interpret the Bhambhis’ janeu in a different manner. In stringing a buffalo intestine around their necks, Bhambhis evidence their connection to this life-giving animal in the

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most visceral of ways. Buffaloes, as my informants explained to me, are noble creatures who provide valuable services to human beings. From a buffalo, as from a cow, one gets milk, cream, yogurt, butter, and milky sweets. Buffaloes are also used to plow ﬁelds, thus helping to produce grain and vegetables. To wear the intestine of this animal around one’s neck, then, is to tie oneself to the life-giving sustenance of the “buffalo-mother.” The carcasses of buffaloes, Bhats pointed out to me, provide further service to human beings. This ﬂesh is crafted into such products as sandals and satchels. Buffalo meat can also be eaten, and both Bhats and Bhambhis partake of such ﬂesh. In wearing a buffalo intestine around their necks, Bhambhis also link themselves to the transformative and generative powers of the digestive tract. Buffalo meat, when eaten, is transformed into the living ﬂesh of Bhambhi laborers, who in turn work the ﬁelds and thus produce the food which sustains other communities. In this alternate discourse, Bhats suggested to me that the buffalo, giving of its ﬂesh in order to sustain human life, is a god (devta) of a kind. In turn, in partaking of this giver-god’s ﬂesh either in rituals of sacriﬁce or in daily meals, Bhambhis invite divinity into their bodies, themselves becoming powerful. The Bhambhis’ meat eating, then, far from polluting, ﬁlls members of this community with divine energy referred to as sakti, which in turn gives them the takhat, or strength, to work in the ﬁelds under the hot sun. Illustrating this point, an informant told me a humorous story about a Bhambhi who, pleased by his bard, gave him plot of land. The Bhat in turn became a farmer, asking himself, “How hard could it be?” After tilling a single furrow, however, the sweat ran off of the Bhat “in rivers,” and the praise-singer turned farmer almost fainted from exhaustion. He therefore sold his newly acquired land and returned to his job as a performer. In this story, which was told to me on a village trip before a Bhambhi patron, the bard self-consciously lampoons his own person and praises his patron’s vitality. Finishing his story, my narrator told me, in a further attempt at ﬂattery, that only gods or devtas possessed the strength necessary for farming. Brahmins, unlike Bhambhis, do not need to eat buffalo. For, as this Bhat joked, these privileged people’s most strenuous task is stufﬁng themselves at ritual feasts, from which they are subsequently carried home on gurneys, not having the strength to support their engorged frames. In a certain Hindu discourse, professions and activities that involve manual labor or that connect workers to polluting substances are judged low. Dharma, a multivalent term which we might translate as “duty” or “law,” presumably binds each caste to its inherited profession and status as well as to the model of purity and pollution. Low-caste Hindus, and even Untouchables, are said to understand that if they perform their inherited duty well, whether it entails sweeping streets or gathering animal carcasses, they will improve their karma and purity and thus be rewarded with a higher incarnation in a

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future life. This is a theme that is elaborated in sacred Hindu texts ranging from Manusmriti (The Laws of Manu) to the Bhagavad Gita (The Song of God), and, as such, is repeated by priests familiar with these writings. In Bhat talk, however, of which I have given but a few examples, the body is reﬁgured as a site of potency. Meat eating bestows the strength and vitality of gods on marginal and degraded persons such as Bhambhi ﬁeld workers. One of the epithets Bhats use to refer to their Bhambhi patrons, perhaps even the main epithet, is “givers of grain” or anndatas. This idea is exempliﬁed in the following couplets recited when Bhats are looking for handouts at Bhambhi wedding: “Giver of Grain, Mother–Father, what is there left to do?” (Anndata, ma-bap, koi baki ki bat?) That is, “What is there left to do for us, your dependent clients? Be generous! Give to your bards!” Bhats not only refer to Bhambhi patrons as “givers of grain,” they also, in an even more extravagant language of praise, refer to them as “gods of grain,” that is, ann devtas and even the curtailed ann devs. Guljar’s story about Ann Dev, then, is not just a story. Rather, it is ﬂattery aimed to elevate—though in an indirect and disguised manner—Untouchables such as Bhambhis and thus also Bhats themselves, who, as the Bhambhis’ dependent clients, presumably share in their impurity. As to how and why Bhats are so bound to their Bhambhi patrons, an answer that in turn unlocks my informants’ experience of caste, we need

Ramu Bhat accepting grain from a Bhambhi patron just after a genealogical recitation in Nagaur District.

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to explore my informants’ relationship to a village economy termed jajmani, which, although transformed, is still important in village Rajasthan.

Jagirdari and Jajmani Before Indian independence, Rajasthan was divided into a number of princely states governed by Rajput royal families. These families were responsible for governing their territories as well as for collecting tax revenues for the British crown, to whom the princes owed allegiance. The pre-independence system of land ownership and tax collection was “complex, multifaceted, and exasperating.”10 Still, to simplify, the lands termed khalsa had their taxes (typically paid in grain) collected directly from farmers by the king of the princely state through his ﬁeld managers and tax collectors (the latter were referred to as patwaris). The king’s agents would go directly to the farmers’ ﬁelds, where they would collect their share of the harvest, which could be one fourth of the crop in the case of Rajput farmers and other privileged peasants (referred to as “quarter-givers”), one half from other peasant communities, and nothing in the case of tax-free lands owned by temples or other religious organizations (whose lands were called dolis).11 On other lands, classed as jagiri, however, it was Rajput feudal lords, referred to as jagirdars and also as Thakurs in a land system termed jagirdari, who collected tax from farmers in the name of the king and the British.12 Before British paramountcy, Rajput jagirdars held their feudal estates ( jagirs) on condition that they would provide military service to the king, but later in British colonial times these lords’ rights and duties to their overlord became primarily ﬁscal, though their roles as lawmakers were retained.13 At the center of jagirdari relations were distributions of shares of the harvest to all those having rights sanctioned by feudal lords. After a harvest, grain was carried to the threshing ground, where it was piled into a heap and divided among those according to their various rights.14 Part of the harvest went to kings and lords as rent. Lords and farmers alike, however, in their capacity as patrons, also distributed shares to the many client communities who provided services to them throughout the year. These clients, clean and unclean alike, originated from many of the jatis mentioned in the previous chapter, and included communities as diverse as Priests and Sweepers, Bards and Tailors. Nestled within the pre-independence jagirdari system, then, was a local patron–client economy referred to as jajmani.15 In jajmani, certain jatis were referred to as patrons, or in Hindi, jajmans. Others were clients, in Hindi, kamins (workers), yacaks (literally, “beggars”), or mamgats (from mamgna, “to beg”). As the preceding details reveal, jagirdari and jajmani, though they had different names, were closely intertwined in pre-independence India. In fact, Bhats say the most important patrons ( jajmans) originated from the Rajput

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community. Jagirdars were described by my informants as prototypical patrons who had the power (adhikar) as well as the responsibility (zimmedari) to defend and economically support all the village’s communities, be they clients or other landowning patron castes. After the jagirdar, other Rajput landowners, who themselves owed allegiance and shares of their harvest to feudal jagirdars, were important jajmans. However, patrons could also originate from non-Rajput peasant communities who historically lived under Rajput rule and whose land tenure had been granted by kings or jagirdars. These included the relatively high-status and sometimes dominant16 Jats (some Rajasthani districts were historically run by Jats after successful rebellions against Rajput overlords), the generally prosperous Gujars, the Lodas, and also the leatherworking but also farming Bhambhis. In fact, most of the communities in pre-independence Rajasthan, even the so-called client castes, were deemed patrons in certain contexts. On the occasions of a Sweeper’s wedding, for example, members of the Sweeper community would bestow gifts and payments to the ritual specialist ofﬁciating at the wedding as well as to the other client communities performing various duties related to the festivities. In most cases, these gifts would themselves constitute a further partitioning of the share of the grain heap that client communities themselves had received from their own patrons. In pre-independence Rajasthan, jajmani was used mainly in reference to exchanges that were heavily ritualized and replete with religious signiﬁcance.17 The services provided by bards, such as genealogy and praise, typically fell within the purview of jajmani. Other terms, such as birat and ayat, however, were used to refer to relatively concrete material or technical services with less ceremonial signiﬁcance provided by artisans or craftsmen who were hereditarily bound to patrons.18 Within the category of jajmani itself there were many distinct kinds of patron–client relationships. For example, in the case of Rajasthani entertainers there were four distinct patronage systems.19 In the ﬁrst, the Rajput lord (jagirdar) directly paid entertainers in his village. About 10 percent of the performer’s salary came from revenues from the lord’s own lands, and about 90 percent from taxes collected from tenant farmers. Though the jagirdar landlord was responsible for paying entertainers, and in some cases personally bestowed gifts upon them, other villagers had the right to enjoy their services. In a second form of arts patronage, called siroli jajmani, or “patronage shared by all,” a patron jati, be they Rajputs or some other community, were obligated to support an entire jati of entertainers who were said to be “tied behind” these patrons. This was the case even when the patrons and the clients were spread throughout the state. In this patronage system, entertainers traveled quite frequently, ferreting out the more proﬁtable patrons. There was therefore a good deal of competition among entertainers belonging to the same jati community.

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In a third form of patronage, entertainers and their families were connected to a given number of patron families—not to an entire patron jati—all of whom nevertheless belonged to the same jati and were usually localized in a particular area. The number of patron families was ﬁxed, although the size of individual families could of course grow. In this system, entertainers referred to their patrons, to whom they were tightly bound, as dhanis, which is translated “persons of property and standing” and even “masters.” This was considered the most personal of the four systems. Finally, in a fourth system of patronage, performers inherited entire villages or groups of villages from their fathers, and they subsequently divided them among their sons. Historically, Bhats were tied to the leatherworking Bhambhis in the fourth form of patronage just described. Bhats inherited a set number of Bhambhi villages from their father, and were required to entertain and maintain the genealogies of all the Bhambhis occupying the villages that they “owned.” If new Bhambhi families moved into the village, my informants similarly gained the right to perform for them. With Indian independence, the Rajput khalsa and jagirdari landlord systems were abolished, at least in name. Land was supposed to be redistributed to those who farmed it. In many instances, however, land reform did not dramatically change the distribution of ownership of village land. Through means legal as well as corrupt—for example, surreptitiously passing land to distant or even ﬁctive relatives—the descendants of kings and feudal lords have been able to avoid caps on land ownership which would have limited the amount of land they could own in independent Rajasthan. As a result, the descendants of former Rajput dynasts, though no longer formally acknowledged as rulers, are still ﬁgures of great power in contemporary Rajasthan, controlling massive land holdings and thus also continuing to wield substantial power in local and regional politics.20 Still, many poor peasants now have deeds of ownership to the land they formerly only worked, even if the amount they own is less than they might wish, deserve, or even need. The patron–client economy termed jajmani was itself radically transformed in democratic India. In some cases jajmani relations were eliminated, in others they continued to exist though in greatly attenuated form,21 and in still other instances they have held on with great and even renewed vitality. In Rajasthan the exact form of jajmani seems to have partly determined this village economy’s fate. Therefore, for example, performers who were supported directly by jagirdar landlords, rather than by patrons originating from other jatis, were generally forced to search for other employment as Indian independence eliminated the jagirdari system and many Rajput rights with it. By contrast, performers supported by particular patron families, because of the personal bond created between patrons and clients in this system, tended to fare rather well in post-independence Rajasthan. The Bhats’ own system of patronage—the fourth system described—has

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experienced a mixed fate in democratic India. The system has not been completely eliminated, as has the jagirdari form of jajmani. However, the population of India has skyrocketed in post-independence times, from approximately 250 million just before independence to currently over a billion, and Rajasthan’s population has similarly exploded. Bhambhis now ﬁnd it difﬁcult to support their own families with their ﬁxed amount of land, much less their burgeoning population of bards. Adding to the problem is the fact that there has been much out-migration from villages among Bhambhis and Bhats alike. In this context, the slightly less personal form of this system of patronage has prevented it from ﬂourishing to a greater degree. “Slightly less personal form” refers to the fact that Bhats were tied to entire Bhambhi villages rather than to particular Bhambhi families. Thus they would often work for recent Bhambhi migrants to their village, or in some cases would lose important patrons as they migrated out of my informants’ villages into other areas and be claimed by other Bhat families. The ties between patrons and clients in the Bhats’ system of jajmani, then, were not as strong as they were in other forms of this economic system. As a result, Bhambhis migrating out of villages in the postindependence context have not felt as obligated to continue to support their bards, and those remaining similarly ﬁnd themselves less desirous or able to do so.22 To this day, Bhats continue to refer to Bhambhis as their jajmans, and, in exchange for Bhat ritual services, Bhambhis support Bhats with gifts: both cash and items such as goats, a camel here and a buffalo there, cloth, sweets, cots, millet, jewelry, and okra. But my informants have felt pressure to ﬁnd new sources of income, a feeling that partly explains their turn to puppetry. In a manner of speaking, my informants now operate in two worlds: one a jajmani gift economy based on generosity and long-lasting ties of patronage; the other resting on the principles of entrepreneurship, cash, and temporary relationships of convenience. Historically, Bhats were supported primarily by gifts in the jajmani economy. In recent years, however, this situation has reversed. My informants are now supported mainly by cash and they rely on Bhambhi gifts primarily as supplementary income. Still, that jajmani relations remain important to my Bhat informants is demonstrated by the fact that most Bhats, young and old, could recite poems praising and insulting Bhambhis. Bhats compose and practice these poems in the cities they now inhabit, and they continue to recite them on ceremonial occasions such as Bhambhi weddings and other celebrations. It is to these poems that I now turn, using them to tease out Bhat understandings of caste relations, which, I will argue, are encoded by these poetic couplets or dohas.23

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In Praise of Generosity As details earlier in this chapter suggest, the supposedly impure Bhambhis are praised by Bhats for their powerful and sturdy bodies. But Bhats often emphasized that the Bhambhis’ involvement in agricultural production is significant only when manifested in gifts to others—and speciﬁcally gifts to bards. Such generosity, Bhats argue, displays Bhambhi morality. Bhambhis are ready to place others’ needs above their own, I was told. Frequent Bhat comparisons of Bhambhis to parents and even gods, in fact, are premised on such ideas. In these contexts, Bhats suggest that Bhambhis sustain the lives of their bardic children, through gifts of food, clothing, and shelter. Or, as Pannaji of Jaipur once said of his patrons, summing up a range of metaphors applied to Bhambhis, “They are the same as God, because they provide for us. They are our parents and lords because they give to us.” Bhats, in fact, often praised their patrons’ generosity in very public settings. The following poem of praise recited at a Bhambhi wedding is an example (3): Indo made all hearts agreeable, Chandro a quarter more, Here in the town of Pilva, Six, six moral weddings! This genealogical poem of praise—“genealogical” because of its focus on patrons’ names—was recited by Narayan Bhat before a Bhambhi man named Chandro. It begins with a reference to Chandro’s father, Indo, who “made all hearts agreeable.” By this, Narayan explains that Indo sponsored a “moral” (dharam ki) wedding in which everyone (guests, bards, ancestral spirits believed to return for these festivities) was generously feted. His son Chandro then married off six of his own daughters in a single glorious ceremony. One might think that Chandro, facing the prospect of six dowries, would either skimp on gifts to the grooms’ families or be forced to “sell” his daughters (i.e., take brideprice). But, according to Narayan’s poem, Chandro gave “Six, six moral weddings!” The dowries were respectable, as was the feast. In fact, Chandro made his guests “one and a quarter” times happier than those of his father, which of course encourages him to be similarly a tad more generous to his bard. The praise of this Bhambhi family did not end here. Indo had a second son, named Sawta, and Sawta had a son named Goddal. Both Sawta and Goddal—Indo’s son and grandson—also sponsored elaborate weddings for their daughters. Narayan Bhat attended these weddings, composing a variation to his previous recitation (4):

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Ramu Bhat sips tea during a break from performing at a Bhambhi patron’s wedding in Nagaur District. Photo by Ve´ronique Pache.

Indo and Chandro made all hearts content, Sawta and Goddal one and a quarter, In this town of Pilva, Long live moral weddings! Here Narayan suggests that this family distinguishes itself through time. In each succeeding generation, the members of this family refuse to take brideprice. In repeating the structure of the previous poem—the rhyme and meter do not change despite Narayan’s insertion of new names—Narayan isolates and publicizes this clan’s moral mantra. His patrons’ generosity is now no longer individual and idiosyncratic, but familial. And, in putting his words in poetic form, he ensures that his observations will be repeated and thus passed on to future generations. His composition thus both memorializes and contributes to a denial of the passage of time, at least in terms of the morality of this cluster of patrons. In some instances my informants rely on a logic of gifting and generosity to suggest that Bhambhis are superior to caste communities that, on the basis of criteria such as purity and pollution or nobility, are supposedly higher ranking. The following story is one example:

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Kamla Bai of Udaipur (left), who has traveled to Nagaur in order to perform at a Bhambhi wedding, visits with a Bhat relative living in this district.

About seven or eight generations ago there was a guest, a bard in fact, who came to the village of Cacas, which is near Ajmer. The man was hungry and thirsty. First he went to the Rajput to ask for food. The Rajput gave him no alms and thus gained no merit [punya]. Then the man went to the Caudhri Jats. Once again he was turned away. These Jat persons simply told him, “Go!” After visiting all the castes [jatis] in the village, ﬁnally he visited the house of a Bhambhi. The woman of the Solan clan [gotra] and her family, despite their poverty, provided for the man, feeding him and giving him tea and water. (This woman’s husband, named Dalu, was from a Bhambhi clan referred to as the Pariyas.) At this, the bardic visitor said, “You are ‘ahead’ of all these others. All the big ones are ‘behind’ you!” The Bhambhis’ own bard, observing this event, then composed a poem memorializing the actions of this woman (5): Virtuousness grabbed the woman of the Solan clan, She has risen up, this guardian of truth, The Caudhri Jats of Cacas village, The honor of Dalu and all the Pariyas!

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When explaining the motivation of this Bhambhi woman, my informants said that she was afraid that the man, if not properly fed, would bad-mouth the village. This lack of generosity would contribute to the “bad name” of this settlement. The woman, through her service (seva) to others, saves the reputation of her own Bhambhi clan as well as the name of her husband’s clan; she also saves the honor of the entire village. In being concerned with the wellbeing of this guest as well as with the name of the village, and in subordinating her own material welfare to these concerns, this Bhambhi woman demonstrates her moral superiority. She establishes a superior name which, despite her poverty and presumed bodily impurity, places Bhambhi clans “ahead” of castes such as Jats (a prosperous community of farmers) and Rajputs (village rulers and landlords). Bhats claimed that they publicly recited this tale before other jati communities, but they said they had to be careful. To recite these stories in the wrong manner was to court a beating. (One Bhat, priding himself on his cleverness, said if he recited the story in the right way, he could get a laugh, and a gift, from Jats and Rajputs.) In a logic of gifting, one can make a reputation by, say, spending on visitors to one’s village. In addition, one’s generosity, and thus moral worth, is judged relative to one’s wealth in these contexts. The Bhambhi woman of the Solan clan gave a great gift to the visiting bard, but what was noteworthy was her generosity relative to her poverty. In the world of gifts, then, names are made, not inherited. As a result, the positions of the high are under constant threat from the aspirations of the low. It is no wonder that Bhats had to be careful in reciting this story.

Down with the Stingy! Bhats are also skillful artists of abuse, or, in their language, of “hitting others with words”—referred to as bol marte or thana marte.24 The ability to insult and threaten others is put to use at Bhat festive and ritual occasions. For example, Bhats threaten their Bhat rivals with bodily dismemberment: “I will rip off your mustache!” “I will smash your teeth!” “I will chop off your ear and throw it away!” (or, alternately, a nose, hair, or phallus). Bhats threaten other Bhats with murder: “I will feast on the meat served at your twelfth-day funeral!” Or, more straightforwardly, “May you die!” as well as “May your father die!” Bhats hurl insults with cannibalistic overtones: “I will devour your liver!” and also “Eat my dick!” Bhats commonly menace each other’s parents with degrading acts: “I will pound your father and grandfather over the head with my shoes!” or “I piss on the head of your father!” Men threaten to seize each other’s women (these threats were particularly common): “I’ll grab your daughter for my own!” “I’ll have your wife!” and “I’ll put your daughter in my son’s house!” Women

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similarly belittle their husbands: “I’ll get a new man!” And in all these threats and insults Bhats liberally sprinkle an assortment of obscenities—usually drawn from my informants’ secret language, “Parsi”—for penis, vagina, sister’s vagina, and sexual intercourse.25 These threats and insults constitute a particular genre of verbal art: Bhats threatening other Bhats. Insults directed toward those who share one’s blood and substance take form in an intimate bodily language. They rely on images of dismemberment, cannibalism, excretions (of urine and feces), sexual pleasures (with others’ wives, daughters, and husbands), and feasting (on livers, bodies, and funeral feasts). These threats are crude, direct, and low. And, quite literally, they bring one’s opponent low, for this language brings rivals in touch with the now dirty earth (heads being pounded with leather shoe bottoms, ears being thrown to the ground, Bhat bodies being buried) as well as with nether regions of the body (genitals) and its products (urine). In fact, Bhats do rely on spatial metaphors when discussing abuse such as these, saying that when they insult other Bhats in this fashion they bring them low (niche karna), causing them to bow or stoop (jhukna) as well as fall (girna).26 Bhats insult their Bhambhi patrons, however, primarily by drawing attention to their stinginess. When facing inadequate compensation for ritual services, Bhats draw from a reservoir of abuse that, despite its speciﬁcity, nevertheless shares certain features with the threats to fellow Bhats. For example, Bhats described the manner in which their ancestors insulted Bhambhis in the language of bodily mutilation referred to as traga, which was discussed in the previous chapter in connection to elite Bhat and Caran communities. In this idiom, violence is directed toward the self rather than toward another. Speciﬁcally, when a patron is behaving stingily, a bard would threaten to mutilate himself. They would threaten to beat themselves with ﬁsts and rocks, to cut off their own ﬁngers one by one, to excise ﬂesh from their own body, or even to kill a member of their own family. Bhats insisted that such threats were common in the past and were frequently carried out—though I never witnessed any such incident. The threat of violence toward oneself is vaguely reminiscent of Gandhi’s satyagraha or “truth-force” protests. Gandhi, through hunger fasts, famously compelled others through self-inﬂicted suffering.27 Bhats too attempt to gain the moral upper hand in their own reported practices of self-mutilation. As members of a dependent service caste, Bhats cannot direct violence against their patrons. But they can render visible the anguish that a patron causes through stinginess—for example, by hurting themselves or their family. By dramatizing self-abuse, or simply threatening to abuse oneself, a bard publicizes a patron’s inability or unwillingness to take care of his dependents. Hoping to steer his patron onto the right moral path, the bard brings to his patron’s mind the stigma his family would suffer if his bard were actually to die. And,

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if a bard were actually to perish, patrons were believed to fear being haunted by this disgruntled man’s spirit, a fear that presumably compelled them to do everything possible to prevent such a death. Excising portions of one’s own ﬂesh is an extreme device, perhaps existing more in bardic legend than in village reality. Bhats, however, disparage their patrons in other ways. If not properly rewarded for services rendered, I was told, my informants parade a skinny, pitiful-looking human ﬁgure of wood and cloth around the village. (Bhats refer to these efﬁgies as lolars as well as putlis, and they are related to Bhat puppets or kathputlis, literally translated as “wooden ﬁgures”). Bhats, shouting abuses, yell, “Look at this poor, skinny man! Thanks to his patrons, he is starving! Look at how they take care of him!” In similar fashion, it was reported to me that my informants parade a dog around the village with a rope around its neck, shouting ironically, “Look what our generous patrons have given us!” Here a dog symbolizes a worthless animal with little to no economic value. As a gift, a dog is a sad shadow and poor substitute for a useful domesticated animal such as a goat, cow, buffalo, or camel. Even these techniques, however, were—and are—rare. They are last resorts. More frequently, my informants rely on verbal art, castigating and prodding their patrons in verse rather than in action. Bhats refer to poetic insulting of this kind as bhand dena or inselets. For example, the following recitation, a reworked portion of a Muslim devotional ghazal, was performed spontaneously at a patron’s wedding when a patron was behaving less than generously (6): A garden of ﬂowers have you created, Two worlds you have decorated, Muhammad you have given us, Flowers you have fed us, But covering your eyes is a cloth, There is one oversight, Take an oath, God, and throw off this veil, There are so many that have landed thus, Not even a shroud to cover their dead bodies! In this poem the bard creates a parallel between a patron and God. The poet draws attention to the manner in which God has created the world. Like a park, this beautiful world is ﬁlled with wonders, ﬂowers to smell, as well as with the truth of the prophet Muhammad himself. A patron who hosts a wedding, in this bard’s metaphorical logic, has also made something beautiful. He, like God, feeds his guests and provides them pleasure. In these terms, the poem seems to be a straightforward poem of praise. There are, however, some discordant notes. The poet tells us God is seduced by the beauty of his creation. He thus overlooks the fact that poor and hungry souls remain uncared for. The singer thus requests that God throw off the veil covering his eyes and ﬁx this last imperfection. In other words, “Provide

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for the poor!” Similarly, the poet implies that his Bhambhi patron has overlooked his bard who stands before him. All preparations and festivities were taken care of, with the exception of this one oversight. The message to the patron, then, is simple: “Your bard stands before you, hungry and neglected, so feed him too!” The recitation of this poem is straightforward, and even good-humored, in its message of generosity. In other cases Bhats are less than gentle. I was told that they explicitly denigrate their patrons, as the following two poems encouraging generosity demonstrate. In the ﬁrst example, which was reported to me, a Bhat poet, spurned by his patron, composed the following insult about deception (7): You have tied a fat turban, Inside it is stuffed with frayed cloth, Giving-taking, nothing doing, Only to boast and brag have you come! The poet refers to a Bhambhi patron who was seen parading about the village in a ﬁne large turban. This patron, on the surface, appeared to be a big and important man—a fat turban in Rajasthan is a sign of strength, masculinity, and wealth. Yet underneath, this Bhambhi’s head covering contained old and dirty cloths, pufﬁng it up and making it look big, thus giving it the illusion of a substance that it did not really possess. In a similar fashion, this patron had promised to give generously to his bard at an upcoming wedding. He had boasted of this to the entire village. In the end, however, this patron gave his praise-singers little or nothing. Therefore this Bhambhi man resembles his turban—apparently big but actually rotten inside—a point that his praisesingers, now his insult-singers, publicize. The second of these insult poems is another example of Bhat criticism of a stingy patron. In this poem, because of this Bhambhi’s lack of giving, the patron becomes a mysterious entity barely known by the other villagers (8): In this village, it is not known you lived, Neither your relatives knew, nor your friends, How did Yama, the god of death, learn of your demise? Even your wife asked Yama, “How do you know my man?” This poem of insult is a joke. The subject of the poem never gave to anyone, and so the bard suggests that he was not known by anyone in the village. Pushing this idea to an absurd level, the bard suggests that even the god of death, Yama, could not ﬁnd this man after his demise. My Bhat informant, elaborating on his poem, told me that the god of death asked all around the village but to no avail. Finally, when this ghastly god did locate the deceased man’s house, the man’s wife was ﬂabbergasted to have a guest in her home, and she suspiciously asked, “Who are you? How did you know my man?”

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Though these couplets are meant to bring laughter to their patrons, goodhumoredly encouraging generosity, this poem had a more serious side. As Bhats explained to me, the poet indirectly wishes the death of his own patron. In Rajasthan, to connect a person to death discursively is to risk actually connecting that person to death—a belief that makes speaking of these matters difﬁcult. By poetically placing a patron in direct relationship to the god of death, by speaking of them in the same breath, this poet risks bringing this man’s actual death. This poem, then, despite its humor, was a curse and a weapon.28 These poems of insult revolve around gifts and generosity. Insults in these contexts are not viewed by Bhats as mere descriptions of the world. Nor are they mere retribution for a patron’s immoral stingy behavior. Rather, they possess motivational force. Bhat praise-singers hope that in publicizing—what they refer to as prachar karna—or in simply threatening to publicize a patron’s shameful stinginess, they will motivate patrons to reenter the world of the living through a renewed commitment to gift-giving. Bhats hope, in other words, that their patrons’ fear of poetical insults will encourage them to part with their wealth. If this tactic doesn’t work, they hope that their jokes will ring funny and true enough to be remembered and recited long after such a patron’s death, thereby, at the very least, discouraging others from behaving similarly. Alternately, they might simply let patrons drift into obscurity by refusing to speak of them altogether, and such silence possesses its own directive force.

Dumont, Hocart, and Bhat Society Louis Dumont, with his controversial interpretations of Hindu beliefs about purity and pollution,29 initiated important debates on the nature of Indian society, particularly the nature of caste relations and hierarchies. Dumont pointed to the way ancient Vedic texts framed human existence in terms of beliefs about polluting substances. Pollution was described as inherent to the human body because the bodies of human beings decay and also produce impure substances such as sweat, blood, puss, saliva, and sexual ﬂuids. These unclean substances, moreover, are described as evil and contagious. Because they are contagious, those associated most closely with them—through professions that bring them into contact with the body, birth, and death—are considered low and to be avoided.30 In a controversial move, however, Dumont suggested that beliefs described in these ancient texts could be used to explain contemporary Hindu status hierarchies and concepts of society and person. In contemporary India, Dumont argued, caste communities are ranked on a continuum between pure Brahmin priests and impure Untouchables. According to Dumont, Brahmins are revered because of their ritual knowledge, but mainly because this knowledge allows them to arrest the spread of impurity, thus protecting the social

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order in a manner reminiscent of earlier sacriﬁces. The special training and magical mantras (spells) possessed by Brahmins also presumably allow them to avoid or at least ritually diffuse the dangerous pollution inherent in the normal ﬂow of human life.31 Other client castes are subsequently ranked according to the nature of their caste profession, which determines their relative pureness or pollutedness. Barbers, for example, called Nais, come into contact with impure bodily efﬂuvia such as blood (shaving) and hair (barbering). Women from within the Barber caste, who work as midwives, also come into contact with blood as well as other impure ﬂuids related to birth. Thus, though Barbers might be important advisors to kings, as was often the case in Rajasthan’s pre-independence polities, their profession links them with bodily impurities and thus places them lower than Brahmin priests. Similarly, merchants and farmers, and Vaisyas and Sudras more generally, are linked to artha—the sphere of worldly wealth (which is considered tainted), cultivation of the land (plowing is an inherently violent activity that kills creatures inhabiting the soil), and the overall maintenance of society (the world itself is tainted)—and are presumably also more polluted than Brahmins. All castes display a certain degree of impurity, Dumont argued. The normal ﬂow of life is, after all, polluting. Some of this pollution can be removed through ritual action, but much is judged fundamental to the makeup of speciﬁc communities and cannot be removed. The differential pollutedness of India’s communities presumably explains a variety of Hindu taboos related to exchange and interaction. For example, higher castes do not accept food from lower–status groups, because of a fear of pollution. Untouchables are not allowed into the temples of the higher castes and typically use water wells reserved for animals. In fact, Untouchables are said to be horribly deﬁled to the extent that their mere touch—or even their breath and shadow—are considered dangerous. They are thus said to exist “outside” the caste system, though some scholars, because of the central roles Untouchables play in society, would question exactly what being “outside” Hindu society entails.32 In Dumont’s understandings of Indian status hierarchies, Ksatriya Warriors create something of a dilemma. On the one hand, Dumont acknowledged that the Hindu social system has to accommodate political power. He proposed that the archetype of the Ksatriya, as embodied, for example, in Rajasthan’s Rajputs or more speciﬁcally in feudal kings and jagirdars, is generally ranked high in Hindu society despite his impurity. Still, Dumont argued that the bodily impurity of politically powerful and economically wealthy Ksatriyas, such as the Rajputs, were ranked second to Brahmin priests because of their participation in the violence of war and because of their consumption of meat and alcohol. Or as has been presented in Dumont’s famous formulation: power (kingship) is encompassed by and subordinated to status (priestly purity) in Hindu India.33 Dumont’s formulations have been widely challenged by scholars inspired

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by the work of A. M. Hocart. Nicholas Dirks, for example, accepts that power was encompassed by status, morality, and the ritual imagination in some, though perhaps not all, precolonial Hindu polities.34 But he rejects the idea that Hindu religious values were a matter of opposition between the pure and the impure. Nor does he accept that the Brahmin was the prime focus of status in the Hindu moral order. Rather, in his ethnohistorical study of the “little kingdom” of Pudukkottai in present-day Tamil Nadu, Dirks argues that kings gained religious signiﬁcance from the central role they played in royal sacriﬁces and other redistributions. Here kingship derives its authority from an alternative religious and moral discourse—one of royal honour (mariyatai, antastu) rather than priestly purity—and thus is in no way devoid of sacred signiﬁcance. As ﬁrst in rank of the various servant-protectors of sacred deities and the social body, according to Dirks, kings and not priests were the “central ordering factor in the social organisation of caste” in premodern Padukkottai.35 In regard to my own observations of the Bhats, my informants do not often spontaneously speak of purity and pollution, that ideological construction which Dumont posited as the central organizing principle of traditional Hindu society. When they do speak of such matters, as in reference to my questions about meat-eating, they speak in a distinctive register and frequently with the intent to overturn, and even scoff at, Brahminical assumptions about the body. As Bedamiji, my Bhat mother put it, neatly encapsulating an alternative discourse on the qualities of meat, “Meat is only impure [asudh] for those who don’t eat it. For us, it is very pure [sudh]. It gives us life and power [sakti].” It makes sense that Bhats overturn Brahminical assumptions about the body given my informants’ own position as bards of the low-status Bhambhi caste group. Discrimination against persons of so-called untouchable caste is today a criminal offense under the Indian Constitution, but those of low or Scheduled Caste may still be disadvantaged in various ways, especially in rural areas. Likewise, those bards who accept gifts and even food from patrons of low or ritually degraded caste are widely considered to share in their uncleanliness. As has been seen in this chapter, however, Bhats give more credence to kingly than to priestly claims to status. In fact, hardly a day went by without at least one of my Bhat friends, replete with food and drink, regaling me with tales of Rajasthan’s past glories and long-dead kings. These conversations often conveyed much that Dirks and his fellow neo-Hocartians would probably expect to hear in such a setting; they often turned on a view of kings as the measure of all human greatness. During my time in Rajasthan, Rajputs were frequently praised for their martial prowess, bravery, moral and ethical code, protection of the poor and helpless (for example, from foreign, and typically Muslim, invasion), and maintenance of law and order. Above all, kings controlled land and resources. And it was mainly gift-giving that allowed kings to enhance their name (nam) and demonstrate their honor (izzat or man).

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Scholarly debates initiated by Dumont and Hocart might seem to carry us far from Bhats and Bhambhis, but this is not the case. Rajput landlords and Bhambhis, despite the obvious differences, were often praised by my informants in a common language of economic generosity drawn from the ideology of kingship. This makes sense in the context of village relations of exchange where, historically, the systems of jagirdari and jajmani intersected in the manner described in this chapter. In the jajmani system, patrons, be they wealthy landlords or poor Bhambhis, are responsible for the well-being of dependent clients such as bards. Generous patrons are lauded as high and good because they support and sustain their children-clients. Stingy patrons, on the other hand, are low. Bhambhis, then, are not really kings or nobles, nor are they even traditionally landlords. Nevertheless, Bhats often describe their Bhambhi patrons as “little kings”—or, chote rajas—who were modeled after Rajput patrons and even jagirdars. Such comparisons, no matter how exaggerated they seem, were used by Bhats to frame as well as motivate Bhambhi generosity. The models of social relations described by Dirks and the other neoHocartians would thus seem to describe a model of society that is more compelling to Bhats than one focusing on inherited purity and pollution. In imitating kingly models of generosity and redistribution of resources, Bhambhis, like lower-level village patrons and landlords, take on some of the characteristics of real kings, even the generous and godlike kings of the past. Bhambhis, themselves dependent on their own patrons and lords to sustain them, become “little kings” in the orbit of other “big kings.”36 Furthermore, in accepting gifts from lords, client castes such as bards demonstrate their dependence upon, and thus their “weakness” (kamjori) before, their patrons. A bard’s hierarchical position in society is understood in terms of proximity to centers of wealth and power. Bhats, as clients of Bhambhis, are several steps removed from kings or even from Rajput landlords. It would thus seem that Bhats conceive of patron-kings as central, and of dependent service communities such as bards as marginal and peripheral to social life.37 Such an interpretation certainly does seem to make sense of Bhat praise, and also insults, of Bhambhis. It would also help explain the main riddle of this book: why Bhats speak so incessantly of kings. They would do so presumably because kings represent an ideal model of hierarchy and social relations that Bhats respect, as much out of self-interest as of true commitment—that of the generous, and thus virtuous, patron-lord. Bhats have migrated to places where they have found new work. However, they also return periodically to their natal villages to “beg” from Bhambhis and other patrons, especially during those summer months in which the tourist season grinds to a standstill. They are still at least partly immersed in a rural economy termed jajmani. And this economy, despite the many ways it has been transformed, is still somewhat

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intact in these village contexts. Therefore, Bhats still have reason, and incentive, to promote this model of social relations premised on generous patronage. Nevertheless, I do not think that the Bhat praise of kings or Bhambhis can be entirely explained by the fact that many Bhats are still immersed in a rural economy that remains ﬁnancially important to them. To explain more fully the reason Bhats speak so incessantly of royal persons, we will need to return in later chapters to the issue of Bhat “cleverness”—and indeed deception—which was never far from view in my daily interactions with my informants. First, however, for a hint at how the theme of Bhat cunning relates to my informants’ understandings of caste and the hierarchies it encodes, consider the following story of Brahmin priests.

Conclusion: In Praise of Clever Brahmins The following tale, which offers insight into an alternative way in which one Hindu individual might be judged against another, was narrated to me by Narayan Bhat of Udaipur: Once there was a Brahmin’s son who was studying in Banares. He was studying Sanskrit in a special school. After a year or two of study, the student told his guru that he was ready to leave. He said that he had learned much but that he was now ready to go out in the world to teach and read the kathas [educational stories]. His guru advised against this. He told him that though he had learned much, still he was not ready, was not wise enough, to survive in the real world. The pupil argued with him, continually asserting that he had learned enough. The two argued and argued. In the end the pandit could not prevent his pupil from leaving. The pupil packed his things, his sacred book, and all his other possessions and left. The pupil was planning to support himself by wandering from village to village and reading God’s kathas from his Sanskrit texts. In exchange for this, he could make a fair living. After traveling for a while, the pupil entered his ﬁrst village. Meeting the guard [caukidar] at the edge of the village, he announced that in exchange for food and whatever other gifts, he would read God’s stories. He asked that the caukidar please announce this to all the villagers. The caukidar did so, announcing that a Brahmin, coming from Benares, would read God’s kathas at eight p.m. in the temple. Now in this village there was a man named Khetaji. Khetaji was very quarrelsome and ill-mannered, always picking ﬁghts with everyone for no good reason. He had no mind. When Khetaji heard that the pandit was coming, he thought to himself, “I will be there for sure.”

obscene jesters At eight p.m. all the villagers were sitting peacefully in front of the temple, quietly waiting for the pandit to begin. The pandit was waiting until eight p.m. to begin. At this time Khetaji arrived. When he arrived, all the peace and order disappeared. The villagers stood up, shouting, “Hooray, Khetaji is here!” Mocking him, they gave him respectful greetings. They all stood up, laughing and yelling. They all seemed really happy to see him arrive. They were actually making fun of Khetaji, mocking him, but the pandit didn’t know this. When the pandit saw all this activity, he thought to himself, “This Khetaji must be a very important man. He must be the biggest, most important person in the village. Everyone is calling out his name.” The Brahmin thus also stood up, greeting Khetaji with respect. At this time Khetaji went over to the Brahmin. The Brahmin said to Khetaji, “Birajo” [“Please sit, respected sir,” using a respectful form of address]. All the villagers were amazed at the tone of respect in the Brahmin’s voice. They thought that he must have seen some hidden quality in Khetaji that they themselves didn’t perceive. They thought to themselves, “Maybe he is a great man after all, when we all thought he was crazy.” Then Khetaji said to the Brahmin, mimicking his words, “Birajo” [“Sit down, respected sir], and then, “Birajo-tirajo kahan birajun?” [“Sit, respected sir, tirajo (meaningless echo word), where will I sit?”] Khetaji was being needlessly silly and combative. The Brahmin, a little ﬂustered, said to Khetaji, “Baitho” [“Sit down”]. Khetaji once again replied, mimicking his words, “Baitho-taitho, kahan baithun?” [Sit down, taitho (meaningless echo word), where will I sit?”] After uttering these words, Khetaji grabbed the Brahmin’s book out of the pandit’s hands and disappeared. “Hooray!” All the villagers were cheering for Khetaji, as if he had gotten the better of the pandit, leaving him speechless. Now the Brahmin was thinking to himself, “How can I get my book back? This man is very important, and if I challenge him then I might get thrown in jail.” The Brahmin thus left the village without being able to retrieve his book [pustak]. He returned to Banares. In Banares the Brahmin pupil returned to his master. His master asked him what happened. The young Brahmin told him the whole story. On hearing his story, the master reminded his pupil that he had told him that he wasn’t ready, that he still needed some time to complete his “training” [Narayan used the English word]. Then the master told his student that he would accompany him to the village in order to get his book back.

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casting kings The two Brahmins made the trip, once again arriving in the same village. They were once again greeted by the watchman. They told him to announce that at night there would be a reading of God’s kathas. The caukidar went and announced to the villagers that this time two pandits had come and that they would both read God’s stories in the temple at eight p.m. All the villagers were excited. “Two pandits?” Khetaji also heard about the two pandits. He thought to himself, “Two pandits? Even if ten came I would chase them out of the village. I could take them.” Once again at eight p.m. the villagers were seated outside the temple waiting for the reading to begin. The two pandits were there. The older pandit, turning to his pupil, asked, “Where is the man who stole your book?” The student told his master that he had not yet arrived. At this time Khetaji arrived with a big stick in his hand. Once again all the villagers begin to shout, “Khetaji! Khetaji!” They were laughing and having a good time at his expense. Khetaji approached the pandits. The older pandit told him, “Birajo” [“Sit down, respected sir”]. Khetaji responded, mimicking, echoing his words, “Birajo-utharajo, kahan birajun?” [Sit, rise, where will I sit?] The older pandit then said, “Baitho” [“Sit down”]. Khetaji responded, “Kahan baithun?” [Where will I sit?] The older pandit then leaned over to his pupil, signaling for him to stand. They both stood and grabbed their ears [a sign of submission, begging for forgiveness], asking for forgiveness, pleading with Khetaji not to be offended. The whole village was very happy at the spectacle, at the confrontation between Khetaji and the two pandits. They wondered to themselves, “Why are the pandits grabbing their ears? They must know something about Khetaji.” At this time the older Brahmin took out his own book. He said to all the villagers, “Quiet, listen!” All the villagers instantly grew quiet. The pandit said, “Khetaji, I hold my hands up in respect to you [hath jorke].” Your fellow villagers do not know how smart you are. But we know. We know you are a wise man [jankar admi]. Khetaji repeated their words, “That is right, I am wise!” He was happy with the Brahmin’s characterization of him. The older pandit continued, “Khetaji, your hair is like gold.” Khetaji then asked the pandit what he wanted. The pandit told him, “Please, just give us a few of your golden hairs that we can keep in our sacred books.” Khetaji then turned to the villagers: “You made fun of me. You laughed at me. But look, my hair is gold!” The pandit repeated his request: “Please, Khetaji, just a few hairs from your mustache.” Khetaji painfully pulled out a few hairs, handing them to the pandit. The pandits folded their hands in reverence to the hair. They took them and very

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carefully, with heads bowed, placed them between the leaves of their book. “Dhanyvad, thank you, great one! You are blessed, Khetaji!” The villagers were watching this spectacle in amazement. Finally they asked the pandit, “Is Khetaji’s hair really gold?” “Yes,” the pandit replied. “Not just the hair on his mustache but all the hair on his head, his beard, and all over his body.” One of the villagers then approached Khetaji: “Give me a hair or two!” Khetaji pulled out a few more hairs and gave them to him. Then another villager approached, asking him for the same thing. Khetaji similarly gave him some hair. This continued. The villagers were thinking to themselves, “Whoever gets all his hair will be a millionaire [lakh pati]! Whoever does not will be a pauper [kangal]!” Another and another villager approached Khetaji, begging for hairs. They were beginning to get frenzied. In the chaos, Khetaji, terriﬁed, ﬂed. The villagers, however, pursued him, running him down, pouncing on top of him, pulling and yanking out his hair. They chased him all around. When the rush was over, Khetaji was left completely bald, with not one strand of hair on his entire body. And he never bothered the pandits again. Narayan Bhat uses this story to speculate on hierarchy, on who is exalted and who is not. As the story begins, a low fool does not know his place. As Narayan puts it, Khetaji doesn’t know where he should sit. As a result of his antics, this simpleton nearly gets the better of a Brahmin. In the tale’s conclusion, the fool is put back in his place—torn to pieces by greedy villagers as a result of a Brahminical ruse. The pandits regain the respect temporarily lost because of a young pandit-in-training’s own foolishness. The story begins as an attack on Brahmins, mocking them in no uncertain terms. But it ends with Brahmins back on top while pretenders sink back to the bottom of the village hierarchy. At the outset of the story, the fool Khetaji speaks as if he were a person of value, speciﬁcally by parroting the words of a Brahmin. Because others speak to this idiot with respect, however jokingly, the young Brahmin assumes that Khetaji is worthy of respect. The pandit, out of inexperience and naı¨vete´, then, does not realize that appearances and performances sometimes deceive, that they can suggest inner worths that do not exist. The story’s villagers make the same mistake, forgetting the way images can deceive. Thus, when the Brahmin speaks to Khetaji respectfully (because the villagers themselves were doing so), the villagers subsequently treat Khetaji with real, no longer feigned, respect—“All the villagers were amazed at the tone of respect in the Brahmin’s voice. They thought that he must have seen some hidden quality in Khetaji that they themselves didn’t perceive. They thought to themselves, ‘Maybe he is a great man after all, when we all thought

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he was crazy.’ ” Though the villagers had just pulled a similar maneuver, pretending to offer Khetaji respect in order to fool the pandit, they now fell victim to their own ruses. The Brahmins ﬁnally escape this loop of faulty inference, in which the respect one bestows on another is based on the respect given by others, which in turn is based on the respect oneself bestows. They eventually recognize that language and behavior need not be honest, a fact that in turn allows them to pull off a trick of their own, speaking to Khetaji with even greater respect: “Khetaji, your hair is like gold.” The villagers, however, are unable to recognize the metaphorical aspects of speech. They think that hair said to be gold is literally gold and thus misread the situation. Thinking Khetaji’s hair will make them rich, and ﬁlled with depilatory greed, they rush the hapless fool. Khetaji runs howling from the village pursued by the other fools, and “proper” social hierarchy is restored, with Brahmins back on top. In the way this tale praises Brahmins, we might imagine that it contradicts many of the themes discussed in this chapter. It seems to belie the way that Bhats, for example, elevate kings and even Bhambhis above pure priests. Narayan, however, makes no mention of the opposition of the pure and the impure—that is, of the presumably central organizing principle of Indian caste society that bestows on Brahmins, as the most pure, their superiority. Nor does he even mention gifts. Instead, the story emphasizes Brahmin cleverness. It does so by referencing sacred books, which the Brahmin pupil struggles to master and which Khetaji attempts to procure. Some scholars might draw attention to the fact that such texts describe ritual procedures that allow Brahmins to maintain their bodily purity. Or they might say that these texts teach Brahmins how to purify Hindu rites of passage such as birth, marriage, and death (these life passages are referred to as samskaras). That is, such texts instruct Brahmins how to serve as priests and thus how to purify others—and more generally how to purify the cosmos—through the application of ancient ritual science. Narayan, however, presents the Brahmins’ books simply as a sign of priestly learning and authority—the way in which Brahmins are known (traveling with books) and the way in which they make a living (reciting “God’s stories” in village squares). More important, he suggests that these texts are the source of a practical knowledge. The tale implies that further study in the “special” Sanskrit school in Banares might give the young pupil enough knowledge to “survive in the real world.” The older Brahmin, then, possesses such worldly cleverness—which Bhats refer to as calaki—and by the end of the tale the young priest is well on his way to acquiring it. More speciﬁcally, the story focuses on a particular kind of cleverness— whether acquired from ancient written sources or ﬁrsthand experience—which we might refer to as clever word play. The priests safeguard their social position with linguistic maneuvers, not with claims to bodily purity. Therefore the story

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does not even seem to be about Brahmins or priesthood per se. Narayan Bhat uses priests to make a point about language and performance. And the story’s Brahmins, in fact, end up looking more like bards than priests. The tale, then, does not exactly end on a hegemonic note. In judging Brahmins by this alternate Bhat standard, in which words and linguistic performances are deemed valuable, Narayan offers a critique, disguised within the folds of his story, of the so-called dominant model of caste relations based on one’s presumed bodily impurity. Similarly, Bhats, while seeming to praise Brahmins, actually praise themselves and their community’s own presumed linguistic skills. I should point out that Bhats are not prepared to concede that they are the inferiors of those whom they serve as client-bards. Rather, they claim to be smarter than members of other communities. Their smartness, in fact, is said by my informants to be tightly linked to their work as bards—the way they praise and give their patrons meaning with their cunning narrative and poetic compositions. We get a sense of the Bhat pride in their community’s cleverness by noting the way Bhats discuss their praise, and abuse, of Bhambhis. Their verses acknowledge that, yes, Bhats are dependent on Bhambhi generosity. This acknowledgement of dependence, in fact, links Bhats with a variety of service communities across North India. But equally, my informants argue that patrons are dependent upon, and quake before, bardic services. Bhats, even when praising their Bhambhi patrons in the most glowing terms, therefore also praise themselves—their facility with words, their ability to bestow dignity on persons regarded by many as little better than feces. In view of Bhat claims to possess a superior cunning that allows them to control and manipulate others, including their patrons, we may need to reassess some of the interpretations of this chapter. This is particularly the case given how Bhat relationships to jajmani are changing so rapidly. We might consider, for example, Narayan Bhat’s relationship to jajmani. Narayan’s paternal grandfather was responsible for twelve Bhambhi villages. He entertained the Bhambhis within these villages, he performed ritual services for them, and he also kept their genealogies. Upon this man’s death, his two sons, Narayan’s father and uncle, each took six villages. In turn, when Narayan’s father died, he gave three villages to each of his two sons, Narayan and his brother. Narayan knows all the genealogies of Bhambhis in his home village of Pilva, where there are two clans (gotras) of Bhambhis: the Devana and Gorasra Bhambhis, which encompass thirty Bhambhi houses. In Narayan’s second village, Karekariyas, there is only one gotra, the Mohayel Bhambhis, and about twenty-ﬁve Bhambhi households. In his third village there are two Bhambhi gotras, the Lilar and Miyaram, and ﬁfteen houses. Narayan passed away in 1995 in his early sixties. Until his death, he had jealously guarded the genealogies of the Bhambhis residing within “his” villages and was intending to pass this knowledge on to his son, Amba Lal, hoping they would “sit on his throat” or “lie well on his throat.”38 Still, Amba Lal, who

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supports himself mainly as a sculptor, had not adequately learned his father’s genealogies or poems of praise before his unexpected demise. Sensing too late the loss of a family tradition and also of a potential source of income, Amba Lal asked me in the summer of 2004 for my recordings of his father’s recitations. (I gave them to him in the fall of 2005.) Though he knew such recordings would not do justice to Narayan’s knowledge, he nevertheless hoped to learn Bhambhi names enough to be able to please at least some patrons, and thus to supplement the income earned from carving and selling statues and puppets. In fact, Narayan had also been responsible for his brother’s genealogies. Narayan’s brother had predeceased Narayan, leaving four sons— Bamla, Krisan, Sarvan, and Babu Lal—all of whom lived in Udaipur, near Narayan.39 Only Krisan, however, who was in his middle to late thirties during the years of my research in the mid-1990s, had managed to learn the genealogical knowledge from his uncle Narayan before Narayan’s death. I give these details to point out that the praise and insult poetry discussed in this chapter, as well as the relations of exchange between Bhats and Bhambhis, are particularly important to Bhats of a certain generation. In addition to Narayan Bhat, who provided many of the poetic verses in this chapter, Bansi Lal, my adopted father, was also proﬁcient in Bhambhi praise poetry. Bansi Lal passed on in 2003 at about the age of sixty-ﬁve from complications brought on by liver disease. It is true that there are many other Bhats of Narayan’s and Bansi Lal’s generation still alive, both in village Rajasthan and in the many cities that are now Bhat homes, who continue to maintain close relations to Bhambhis in the economy known as jajmani. Likewise, there are many like Krisan, who will follow in their fathers’ footsteps, recognizing the continued economic and social importance of this knowledge. Nevertheless, for many Bhats, especially those of a younger generation, this knowledge either has been lost or is no longer seen as proﬁtable. In many cases jajmani relations themselves seem passe´, and as a result many Bhats, especially younger ones, no longer see the point of maintaining links to village Bhambhis. This chapter has demonstrated the way in which patron-client relations, and thus understandings related to the generosity of patrons and the skill and knowledge of bards, form the central fulcrum around which my informants conceptualize caste relations. It has argued that neo-Hocartian perspectives provide an effective lens, especially in comparison to the theories of Louis Dumont, for explaining Bhat experiences with the Indian institution of caste. Still, it needs to be pointed out that the exact way in which jajmani structures Bhat relations to the institution of caste varies across generations. For Bhats of an older generation, as well as for their sons who still perform for Bhambhis in village contexts, the process is relatively straightforward. For Bhats who have largely abandoned Bhambhis, however, as for Bhats of a younger generation who do not see the point of keeping their parents’ relationship to Bhambhis alive, jajmani structures their lives in a more indirect

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manner. As will be seen in coming chapters, for these Bhats, it is the linguistic skills and performance traditions developed by Bhats in the context of jajmani, as well as the general bardic cunning displayed by members of the Bhat community, that continue to be signiﬁcant in their lives, even when actual jajmani relationships are no longer so.

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4 Venture Funambulists Composing Kings in Old and New Rajasthan

The great never boast, They never need utter a word, When has a diamond ever said I am worth 100,000 rupees? —Bhat verse (1)

The Five Fingers of the Hand In the oft-repeated Sanskrit myth recounted in chapter 2, the four Hindu varnas are said to have emerged from the dismembered body of the primordial man Purusa.1 Further, each group’s profession and status related naturally to its point of bodily origin: the elevated Brahmins, as mouths, taught; Ksatriyas, the arms, were masters of arms, defending the land; Vaisyas, the sturdy loins, sustained the social body with trade and farming; and Sudras, as mere lower appendages, served under the other groups. My Bhat informants know this myth well and make oblique reference to it from time to time. They are also well aware of its hierarchical implications, often inverting it in a way that suggests the special perspective of members of a peripatetic service community: “You can’t get anywhere without the feet—the Sudras are the ones!” This reversal of time-honored varna statuses, however, is simple, even crude, and does not do justice to Bhat play with this trope. My informants possess more subtle devices for transmogrifying leaden persons into gold. For example, Bansi Lal Bhat, my adoptive father, narrated the following to me:

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casting kings One day the ﬁve ﬁngers of the hand were ﬁghting and arguing over who was the “biggest.” They went to the local magistrate to argue their case. The little ﬁnger said to the judge, “It is on me that rings are worn. Be it a 5-rupee or a 1,000-rupee ring, it is on me that it will be found. I am therefore the greatest!” The ﬁnger next to it then said, “No I’m the most important. Whenever a tilak [Hindu mark of blessing] is applied to the forehead, it is done with me. I am thus superior!” The index ﬁnger, the pointer, then asserted, “No, I’m the biggest. Whenever someone is lost, then I point the way.” The thumb then interjected, “No, I’m the most important. When a document needs to be signed, a testimonial created, it is on me that the ink is applied. I am the one who puts my print on the paper. I am the most important!” Finally, the largest ﬁnger, the middle ﬁnger, spoke up. “No, I’m the biggest. A simple movement like this [Bansi Lal made a wiggling gesture with this ﬁnger, signifying, ‘I screw a female from your family’], and then we’re all in a ﬁght!”

Like the metaphor of Purusa, Bansi Lal’s trope locates society in the human body, except that now society is organized like a hand rather than like the body as a whole. Nevertheless, in a way that is reminiscent of the myth of Purusa, Bansi Lal suggests that each ﬁnger represents a different Hindu varna. The little ﬁnger, as the ring ﬁnger associated with wealth, signiﬁes merchants. Its neighbor, an applier of religious tilaks, stands for morality (dharma) and is thus equivalent to Brahmins. The pointer, a symbol of practical knowledge and getting things done, points to Sudras. The thumb, a symbol of law, represents Ksatriyas. And, as an additional social category, the middle ﬁnger, a manipulator of symbolic gesture and thus representative of language, is linked, I would argue, to bards—and thus stands for Bhats themselves. Bansi Lal’s tale relies on corporal metaphors for the social body and thus would seem to naturalize varna functions in the same way as the myth of Purusa does. Still, this Bhat rendering of the social body destabilizes the more typical, and more dominant, varna status hierarchy. In this telling, the middle ﬁnger, through a simple obscene gesture, brings a threat of violence onto the whole hand, thus subduing the other ﬁngers’ noisy claims. In this Bhat reading of the varna hierarchy, language (bards) bests money (Vaisyas), morality (Brahmins), and law (Ksatriyas). The story’s central trope, the image of bickering ﬁngers, reinforces this point about the power of language. In this tale, far from being understood as the product of a secure and stable social order rooted in the assured primacy of either priestly or kinglike beings, hierarchy is treated as a raucous argument composed of competing claims and counterclaims. As if to reinforce the narrator’s points, the Bhat audience listening to Bansi Lal’s tale continued to reinterpret it in a number of ways. In one version, a Bhat suggested that if the index ﬁnger can helpfully point one in the right

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direction, it can also menacingly, and even wrongfully, accuse others of crimes—(pointing) “He did it!” Similarly, if the thumb can testify on others’ behalf, so too can it accuse others of wrongdoing—(mimicking placing a thumb print on a document) “No, he did it!” In this second version of the tale, a Bhat indicates that status is not ﬁxed and singular but rather double, simultaneously supportive and menacing, high and low. Indeed, Bansi Lal’s daughter, Gita Bai, recounted a version of this tale in which, by means of an obscene gesture, the middle ﬁnger did bring down a threat upon the hand as a whole. But Gita described how, in response to the potentially ensuing violence, the entire hand clenched itself into a ﬁst in order to defend itself. In this countertale, Gita transforms a competitive striving for superiority into a message of harmony and cooperation. She thus challenges her father’s point about the social centrality of language, despite having used a story, and indeed a compellingly and even competitively wrought one, to do so. This chapter examines a number of Bhat tales—myths and legends— about kings and bards. In the previous chapter Bhats were seen bestowing kings and “little kings” with honor and exalted rank. Patrons, be they Rajputs or Bhambhis, as generous gifters, were conceptualized by Bhats as superior to priests and, indeed, potentially to their dependent client-bards. Still, the tale of the clever Brahmins in the previous chapter, like Bhat pride in their praisesinging abilities, provides an alternate perspective in which language is judged to be of central signiﬁcance. I would suggest that Bansi Lal’s tale of bickering ﬁngers also echoes such a perspective by once again drawing attention to the control of language. Each of the ﬁngers attempts to establish itself as supreme and thus as a social center—a point from which the value of the other ﬁngers can be established and judged. The narrator, however, suggests that the only ﬁnger with a right to social preeminence is the middle ﬁnger—as a master of gesture and thus symbolic of language—thus “decentering”2 and indeed silencing these other ﬁngers’ noisy claims. Here a Bhat once again metaphorically makes a case for the value and exalted status of bards as skilled poets and praise-singers. To put this another way, I aim to show that the narratives explored in this chapter again convey a striking Bhat concern with the power of language and that this concern arises from a distinctive understanding of social hierarchies as the products of discursive construction. Bhats understand that the imagination plays a critical role in establishing who stands at the center of the social order. In these Bhat narrative worlds, then, claims of social centrality, be they put forth by priests, kings, or “little kings” such as Bhambhis, are shown to be ﬁctions that can be dismantled by counterﬁctions. That is, from certain Bhat points of view, whether one is accepted as socially central or not might critically depend upon, among other things, the talent and verve of one’s bard.3 Finally, I will return to the book’s discussion of why Bhats, themselves

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bards of former Untouchables now living in a modern electoral democracy, speak so incessantly of kings and their bards. Speciﬁcally, I will expand upon the way Bhats use stories of bards and kings to bolster the ﬁctive caste histories that allow them to take on prestigious identity markers that were formerly the province of a very different group of people, the high-status genealogists who once served the royal lineages of the pre-independence Rajput realms.

Ram’s Clever Bard According to Narayan Bhat, the bard of the Hindu god Ram once found himself in the territory of his demon enemy, Ravan. Called before this demon, the bard was ordered to devise a poem insulting his king and master. This request put this praise-singer in a quandary. To remain loyal to his lord, he had to refuse. A refusal would result in torture or even death at the hands of Ravan, but to betray his master was equally terrible. Thinking for a moment, the bard composed the following Sanskrit verses: ku karmi ku data ku kanya hi chahe This poem can be translated: Evil-doer, evil-giver, Evil daughter, such is my master! These couplets refer to Ram as an evil person and, likewise, to Ram’s wife, Sita (the “daughter,” or kanya) as equally degraded. Ravan was pleased, for Ram had been belittled and thus betrayed by his own bard. This betrayal, however, was only apparent and not actual. In the phrase ku karmi, ku means both “evil” and “destroyer.” Karmi, similarly, has a double reference. It means “doer” and also “accumulated acts.” Ku karmi can thus be rendered “evil-doer,” but it can also be translated “destroyer of karma.” Thus the hidden meaning of this phrase is no insult. It refers to a superior being who destroys a person’s accumulated deeds and misdeeds and thus liberates that person from the chain of rebirth—a powerful ﬁgure indeed, and an equally powerful turn of phrase. Yet this interpretation does not exhaust the meanings of ku. In the term ku data, ku can also signify “land.” Ku data can thus be rendered as both “giver of evil” and “giver of land.” The latter phrase refers to a generous patron who provides for his bards and other clients, and also to the very creator, and thus “giver,” of the earth. This phrase too, from this alternative perspective, is thus not an insult but a tribute and accolade. The phrase ku kanya similarly has an additional hidden meaning. Kanya means “virgin” or “daughter.” Ku kanya, if

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ku is again read as “evil,” can thus signify “evil daughter,” an insult to Ram’s wife Sita, who was charged with sexual inﬁdelity by her husband Ram and others. But, from the meaning of ku as “land,” ku kanya can also mean “daughter of the land,” an epithet of respect for Sita, referring to the fact that she was originally found in the earth and that her name literally means “furrow.” Finally, hi chahe stands simply as “the one wanted or desired.” Consequently, the entire couplet can bear the alternative translation: Shatterer of karma, giver of the land, Daughter of the earth, you are so desired! In this alternative bardic reading, then, every phrase of the poem is not an insult, but an expression of homage. This clever turn of phrase thus allows for a wily escape for the story’s bardic hero. The wandering minstrel of this story is reluctant to betray his lord and master Ram. This attitude is in part a reﬂection of the bard’s dependence on his lord father Ram, as well as his love and devotion. But the fact that two warrior kings—one a god and the other a demon—battle for control of a bard’s utterances is also a tacit indication of the importance of praise-singers. Though certainly powerful in their own right, both gods and demons stand in need of these specialists to bear witness to their greatness—or, in this case, to proclaim the depravity of their rivals. The story also points to another reason for this struggle. In this tale, identities constructed in language cannot be trusted. Words are bent to produce multiple, and even contradictory, meanings. An apparent insult to Ram can therefore alternatively be interpreted as praise. In theory, praise can also be twisted into insult. Here the linguistic cunning of bards draws attention to the fact that words possess an aural form that exists apart from, and stands in merely arbitrary relation to, any particular referent. Thus, depending on discursive context, expectations, and tactics, the sound ku can be linked either to the idea of evil and depravity (thus insulting Ram) or to the notion of a destroyer of one’s accumulated karma as well as that of a bestower of land (thus praising this divinity). The demon Ravan, by contrast, expects truthfulness and univocality in language. When Ram’s bard claims that he will insult his master, Ravan awaits, and then perceives, an insult. Not recognizing the “play” of language, Ravan is tricked by a bardic performance and thus made to appear foolish. Presumably Ram, though a god, will be entranced by a performance from which the opposite interpretation is drawn, seeing only praise where there is also insult. In this Bhat tale, only bards stand apart from any ﬁxed linguistic meaning. Only they see the trickery, and implicit lack of transparency, of words. Patrons, the story implies, would be better served by having such clever persons as allies rather than enemies. This story, in the way it praises patrons, is consonant with what was learned in the previous chapter about Bhat relationships with their own “little

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king” Bhambhi patrons. However, in the way it celebrates praise-singers as much as it lauds patrons, this tale would seem to have more in common with the tale of clever Brahmins at the end of that chapter. Throughout India, one ﬁnds many retellings of Ram’s rivalry with the demon Ravan.4 Indian women, high and low caste, sing of the doings, feelings, and perspectives of Sita, Ram’s wife. This aspect makes their tales less of a Ramayana, as the tale is largely referred to in India (literally, “The Coming of Ram”), and more of a Sitayana (“The Coming of Sita”).5 Similarly, my Bhat informants manipulate the Ramayana in order to promote the value of their own bardic community. In the fragment cited here, they focus on neither Ram nor Sita. Rather, they draw attention to clever bards, thereby rendering their versions, in a manner of speaking, a Bhatayana.6

A Less Than Divine King The following tale, which was narrated to me by Bansi Lal Bhat, concerns Prithviraj Chauhan, a Rajasthani king who ruled in the 1200s. This king’s legendary actions are recounted by many Rajasthanis, since he is one of the most famous rulers from the region. But Bhats have their own version of the tale which, as we might expect, deals with the relationship of this king and his bard: There once was a great king named Prithviraj Chauhan. This ruler, who originated from near Ajmer, was one of the most famous kings of all of Rajasthan. His kingdom spread throughout the known world and was like the rising and setting of the sun itself. Prithviraj Chauhan was most famous for his battles against the Mughals;7 he fought against these invaders in battle after battle in order to protect Rajasthan. Prithviraj Chauhan’s most infamous enemy was Muhammad of Ghori, a leader from Misar, an Arab country, who tried to conquer India. Muhammad of Ghori tried many times to take Delhi Fort, where Prithviraj Chauhan was living. On each occasion, he came like a thief and a coward, stealing into the fort in the dead of night and trying to kill Prithviraj Chauhan. Yet each time, he was defeated by the king of the Chauhan clan,8 and he would be captured by Prithviraj Chauhan after each attack. Yet instead of being executed, he would be forgiven and treated like an honored guest by his Hindu rival. He was fed, clothed, and then released. This is the Rajput way: a Rajput doesn’t harm a visitor who comes into his house even if he is his enemy.

venture funambulists This occurred sixteen times. Each time, Muhammad of Ghori’s attack would be repelled, and the invader himself would be captured and then released. He would then return the next time with a superior army. Finally, on the seventeenth time, Muhammad of Ghori arrived with his entire army. Surveying the wall surrounding his rival’s fort, Ghori noticed a small ant likewise attempting to scale the wall. Sixteen times the ant failed, but on the seventeenth time it made it up the wall and to the other side, entering the fort. Muhammad of Ghori thought to himself, “If an ant can do it, why can’t I, a human being?” And he did. He and his soldiers penetrated Chauhan’s fort and subsequently captured the Hindu king while he was sleeping. He arrested Prithviraj Chauhan, putting one hundred guards on him and chaining him with one quintal [4,000 kg.] of irons. He then locked his rival into this king’s own jail. He also took two red-hot pokers from the ﬁre and gouged out the Prithviraj’s eyes, blinding him. Now, Prithviraj Chauhan was no ordinary man. He drank 60 kg. of milk every day and in general had a tremendous appetite. He was very strong and, even with all this weight on his shoulders, was still able to stand up. He was also an excellent archer, shooting with both incredible accuracy and power. With one arrow, and from a great distance, he could put a hole through twenty–eight iron plates [or tuha, on which roti bread is cooked], one placed on top of the other. After Prithviraj had been imprisoned for one and a half months, his bard, Chanda Bidai Bhat, who was in Ajmer, learned of his lord’s capture. He was grief-stricken. He cried for many days: “My patron has been locked up! Our patronage and begging have been ‘closed up’!” The bard resolved to go to Delhi in order to save his patron. Disguising himself as a sadhu, a Hindu renunciant, he penetrated the camp of Muhammad of Ghori. He examined the situation and saw that his patron was hidden away in a dungeon, just near ground level. He also saw that his patron had been blinded. The Mughal King of Ghori himself sat in a tower, high above the ground, surrounded by guards and retainers. In the enemy camp, Bidai Bhat began singing the virtues of King Prithviraj Chauhan. In particular, he praised him as the greatest bowman that ever lived. His praise-singing came to the attention of the Muslim emperor, who was a little surprised at his audacity. The emperor called the sadhu closer, asking him to explain himself. The disguised Bhat continued with his praises. Muhammad of Ghori ordered that this unknown sadhu—this audacious man—

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casting kings be taken to see Prithviraj Chauhan in order to see the king’s current state. Exposing the king in this way, he hoped—and this Muslim was laughing all the while—would show how much his Hindu rival had fallen. Chanda Bidai Bhat, on entering his master’s dungeon, cleared his throat. Prithviraj Chauhan, on hearing this distinctive sound, immediately recognized his bard, exclaiming with excitement and joy, “Chanda Bhat has arrived!” His bard, on looking at his lord, asked, “My lord, what has happened to you?” Prithviraj Chauhan exclaimed, “What can I say? Look at my condition. It is right before you! Now, what is there to do?” His bard told him, “Hazur [respected one], there is one upay [literally, “cure” or “device”] through which our work will be a success, and through which our names will be remembered forever. As long as the earth and the sun live, our names will live on.” His lord, excited, replied, “Simply show me the way!” His bard said, “I will recite poetry that will allow you to take your revenge. Just listen closely to my words. How is your bow and arrow? Will they ﬂy? Can you still wield them?” Prithviraj, though signiﬁcantly weakened during his conﬁnement, assured him, “Yes, just give me good poetry, and I will follow your words!” Chanda Bidai Bhat, leaving his lord, appeared before Muhammad of Ghori’s court and offered his greeting. The Muslim emperor asked, sarcasm rising in his voice, “So, how is the health of the one you praise?” The bard, still disguised as a sadhu, responded loudly: “Even now, blind, Prithviraj could hit a target from a great distance! Even though his health is broken, though he is dying of starvation, he could still put an arrow through twenty-eight iron plates!” Muhammad of Ghori could not believe his ears. “What? Even now he could perform such a feat?!” With that he ordered his servants to set up a target. He then took his place way up high on his throne, at the highest point on the tower, over one hundred feet high so that he might see everything that transpired. His guards then brought out Prithviraj Chauhan, who was looking quite weary. They brought him out into the middle of the square [maidan or cauk] above which the Muslim emperor was sitting. All the guards were ready with their swords drawn; they were still afraid of him even though he was so beaten down! One of the guards put a bow in the king’s hand. They played a drum in the direction in which the target was placed. Prithviraj readied himself. He was told by the guards exactly how far the target was from the drum. At this point, his bard Chanda Bidai Bhat loudly composed the following (2):

venture funambulists In Pave fortress was Fatiyo, In the fortress of Samar, a special warrior, In Rantal, Hamir Singh, On the threshold, King Chauhan! Four bamboo rods and twenty-four arm’s lengths, Plus eight true ﬁngers’ breadth, On his throne is the Sultan, Don’t miss Chauhan! This poem was recited in an “upside-down language” [ulti bhasa], so that Prithviraj’s enemies could not understand it. The bard ﬁrst recited the names of three other patrons—Fatiyo, another warrior from Samar, and Hamir Singh—just in order to fool Muhammad of Ghori, to make him think that this recitation was just ordinary poetry of praise of other patrons. He simply recited the names of other givers, those who bestowed alms [dan] upon him as a religious mendicant. But Chanda Bidai then recited a secret message to his lord that was hidden in the poetry. He knew that this king was at a threshold and also at a crossroads—that is, at a place where he had no friends, no master, and no owner, and where he would be killed for what he was about to do. He thus gave the coordinates and location of Muhammad of Ghori, who was perched up high in his tower. King Chauhan’s bard told him exactly how far, how high, and at what angle the king Muhammad of Ghori was sitting. Then the bard exhorted the king, “Don’t miss your chance! Shoot now!” Muhammad of Ghori’s coordinates were disguised in poetry so that only Prithviraj could understand them. On hearing his bard’s words, Prithviraj spun around and—despite having been blinded— launched an arrow with terrible force. At that moment, Muhammad of Ghori had just leaned out of his tower in order to see better what was going on, curious to see if this blind king could in fact make the shot. Prithviraj released his arrow at that very moment. And the arrow struck Muhammad of Ghori dead-on under the chin and then traveled up into his head and killed him instantly. He crashed to the ground, falling from his high tower, landing with a thud. Then the bard Chanda Bidai took out two hidden knives. He gave one to his lord and kept the other for himself. The two men— king and bard—both sliced open their own chests and stomachs, opening themselves wide. They had managed to kill their enemy, for their honor and for their mustaches. They had died, but their enemies had not laid a hand on them. Instead, they had died at their own hands, never bowing their heads.

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casting kings And that is all. [With Bansi Lal’s encouragement, I wrote his name down as the narrator of the story.]

King Prithviraj Chauhan is represented as a superhuman being who performs amazing physical feats. He devours 60 kg. of milk each day; he can drive an arrow through twenty-eight iron plates; he stands with tons of iron chains hanging from his body. King Chauhan also lives by a code of honor from which he never veers. As a Rajput, he never allows guests to be harmed, even if such guests happen to be his dire enemies who, at least from a practical point of view, should be executed. King Chauhan also never gives up a ﬁght, even when reason tells him the situation is hopeless. And this king’s qualities are reﬂected in symbols within the story—in Chauhan’s kingdom, which is described as being as constant as the rising and setting of the sun, and in the king’s own focused marksmanship. Despite his extraordinary qualities, Prithviraj Chauhan appears as less than divine. Muhammad of Ghori is condemned by the narrator for his sneakiness: creeping over walls at night like an insect, taking advantage of a host’s generosity and sarcastically mocking his enemies when they are at a disadvantage. But Chauhan and his bard, Chanda Bidai, display their own brand of cunning and deception, sneakily hatching a plan to bring down their enemy. This story, then, tells of a noble king who is nevertheless unable to defeat his enemies through his own qualities but instead must rely, at least in part, on a plan concocted by his bard. Speciﬁcally, he relies on his bard’s mastery of “upside-down talk,” which includes blurred pronunciations (King Chauhan’s name is mumbled), ambiguous references (King Fateh Singh, a well-known Rajput at the time, becomes “Fatiyo”), confusing enumerations of the names of other lords (Chanda Bidai mentions these other lords in order to confuse Muhammad of Ghori), double meanings (the tale’s “threshold” refers to the door frame or lintel near which the king stands as well as to king Chauhan’s difﬁcult decision of whether to carry out Chanda Bidai’s daring plan, which will open up new possibilities for him), and hidden messages (the secret coordinates of Muhammad of Ghori). Chanda Bidai, then, employs inspiring speech and clever wordplay to stimulate in his lord a renewed sense of greatness. In uttering “As long as the earth and the sun live, our names will live on!” this bard allows his king to dream of immortality. As important, in secretly communicating Muhammad of Ghori’s coordinates, he gives king Chauhan the necessary tools—and thus the opportunity—to perform the superhuman feat that will allow him actually to be remembered forever. This legend, then, much like the myth of the god Ram and his bard, bestows on bards a central importance to, and powerful sway over, their lords. It is no wonder that my informants, themselves bards, repeat

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this tale so often, or that all Bhats I knew, no matter how young, could repeat the verses of poetry that feature in this story. Nevertheless, on some level Prithviraj Chauhan, like the god Ram in the previous Bhat tale, is great. In the end, goaded by his bard, he performs a remarkable, even godlike, feat. In general, he displays superhuman strength and resolve. His greatness is thus not merely a bardic artifact, and Chanda Bidai’s praise and poetry in this narrative context play the role primarily of recognition. That is, in the legendary world of Prithviraj Chauhan, bardic verse recognizes, as well as communicates and keeps alive, the memory of truly great kings. As will be seen in the next tale, however, bardic potential, at least as it is understood by my informants, is as yet barely tapped.

A Legendary, If Degraded, Monarch Another story, this one narrated by Narayan Bhat, builds upon this Bhat view of the world: This is a story about Man Singh,9 the king of Jaipur, and his bharet [bard]. On the birth of a son, King Man Singh called his bard before him. The bharet pleased the king with ﬂattering words, and the king rewarded him with an elephant. The bharet, on receiving this gift, thought to himself, “The king has given well, but he hasn’t given me the seat and canopy to put on top of the elephant, which would allow me to sit comfortably and properly steer this beast. If he would just give me this one thing, then I would be happy!” Meanwhile, the king recognized that his bard was disturbed. He asked, “Bard, I have just given you an elephant worth one lakh rupees [100,000 rupees]. Why do you look so sad? You should be laughing and celebrating! What is wrong? What more do you want?” The bard replied to his king, “Respected sir [hukamji], what can I say? You have given me an elephant, but you have not given me the seat which would allow me to ride it.” On hearing this, the king got very angry, “What? Don’t you feel ashamed of asking for more? How can you beg for something after the gift I have given? Beggar [mangat], aren’t you ‘full’ [daba]?!” At this, the bard himself became enraged. “What, you have called me a beggar?! Hey, king, I don’t need your elephant! Take your elephant and shove it up your ass!” Now shortly thereafter Man Singh was invited to a wedding in the city of Jodhpur, in the kingdom of Marwar, which is the home of the royal Rathor clan. Man Singh debated about whether or not to

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casting kings attend. He thought to himself, “All the other kings—from Kota, Bikaner, and Udaipur—will be accompanied by their bards. Only I will be alone.” But Man Singh knew that his angry Bhat, if called to accompany him, might insult him in front of the other nobility. In the end Man Singh decided to attend the feast without his bard. He loaded up his entourage of servants, guards, and courtiers, about 500 to 1,000 people all told, thinking to himself, “There are so many with me, why would I miss this one man?” Arriving in Jodhpur, Man Singh and his party erected their tents and planted their ﬂag. Unbeknown to the king, his bharet had also decided to attend; he pitched his tent at night and took it down each morning so that he would not be seen. On the last day of the wedding all the kings were gathered together listening to their bards recite praise poetry. The king of Jodhpur, out of joy for his daughter’s marriage, was particularly generous with his bard, distributing much dan [alms or donations] and thus winning respect from his brethren. On hearing these words of praise, Man Singh thought to himself, “These kings’ bards have made them bigger. They have brought us down low. If our bharet were only here, he could ﬁght for us, he could bring us back up high [umca]!” [At this point a servant, seeing his lord’s distress, tried to get the Man Singh’s praise-singer, whom he had spotted, to come and join the king. After much wrangling, the servant was harshly insulted by the bharet, and he reported the incident to Man Singh.] Shortly thereafter Man Singh saw his bharet approaching the gathering of kings and became terriﬁed: “Why is my bard coming?! He will hurl insults [bhandai] at me in front of everyone!” At this point the eyes of Man Singh and the bharet met, and the bard saw the fear in the eyes of the king. Man Singh secretly raised four ﬁngers, meaning that he would give his bard four elephants if he was honorably praised. [The various bards stood in succession and, for the beneﬁt of the newly arrived bard, repeated their tarif—praise of their patrons.] The kings all conversed excitedly among themselves, reveling in the exalted speech of the bards. Finally, only two bards remained in this poetic competition, the praise-singer of Man Singh and that of his host, Amar Singh Rathor. Expectations were high, since these bards were famous throughout the land. First the host’s bard stood and recited a poem of praise to his patron (3): Garud the eagle, the fortress Lanka, Samer mountain’s glowing head [the sun], The sandalwood of Brij, The royal Rathor line!

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[Here, Amar Singh Rathor’s poet suggests that his king is superior to a host of superior things: to Garud (the bird vehicle of Visnu); to Lanka (the mythical fortress of the demon Ravan); to the sun rising in the morning over the mythical mountain of Samer (a place where the sun is believed to originate); and to the sweet-smelling sandalwood from Brij (the home of Krisna).] The audience excitedly shouted their praise, and in turn the bharet of King Man Singh from Jaipur stood, noisily cleared his throat, and recited (4): Mounting Garud, smashing Lanka, In fragrant sandalwood disguised, Upon your ﬁngernail the earth rests, The solar dynasty’s Raghu Nath [i.e. Ram]! [In these verses, Man Singh’s bard tops his rival’s metaphors: Man Singh is compared not merely to Garud, but to Visnu riding atop his bird-vehicle; he is said not only to possess the strength of Lanka, but to be capable of smashing this mythical fortress and home of the evil Ravan; he is said not only to be sweeter than sandalwood, but to seem to possess in his body the sweetness of this wood; ﬁnally, the king does not merely hold the sun on his turban but, as a member of the ancient solar dynasty from which the god Ram (Raghu Nath) himself is said to originate, is the sun itself.] The other lords declared: “Vah, vah [bravo]! Look! He made Man Singh the greatest of all! The highest of kings! Man Singh holds the very world on his ﬁngernail, and thus he holds all our lives in his hand. A simple ﬂick of his nail and we will all perish!” All agreed that the bard of Man Singh was the winner because he had successfully trumped the metaphors of the host’s bard. Man Singh then turned excitedly [jos a gaya] to his bard, shouting, “Vah, vah bharet!” Congratulating him warmly and profusely, he rewarded him with the promised four elephants. In this story Man Singh possesses something of the lordly grandeur of kings, as manifested particularly in his legendary wealth and largesse. This tale thus reinforces themes encountered in the previous chapter, as well as in this chapter’s stories of Ram and Prithviraj Chauhan, where kings similarly are praised for their generous patronage. Yet in conversations I have also heard Bhats speak disparagingly of the great Man Singh. Some say that he was a dishonorable man and that, having become a general under the Mughal emperor Akbar, he had become a servant of Muslims and had betrayed his Hindu faith. Bhats especially dwell on the fact that Man Singh traded his own daughters’ ﬂesh, marrying off his Hindu

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daughters to Muslim kings for political advantage. Man Singh, this king from the less distant past, is thus the butt of many a Bhat joke. In fact, Narayan’s tale hints at his less than kingliness—and thus at his less than mythic, and hardly even legendary, status. For example, Man Singh displays a vulgar concern for his own name and is unable to control either his own petty emotions or his retainers. Yet far from dwelling on Man Singh’s shortcomings, Narayan’s story features poems that elevate him to a king among kings, even a god among gods. In fact, all the bards featured in Narayan’s story do the same for their patrons. In their praise poetry, they compare their patrons to divinities as well as to unconquerable forts, enduring features of the landscape, intoxicants that cool passions and bring peaceful repose, places free of decay and disease, and eternally ﬂowing rivers. This story, then, reinforces and builds upon the view of bardic language— and of bardic potential—encountered in the tales of Ram and Prithviraj Chauhan. The kings of the story of Man Singh are ruled by human desires and engaged in petty disputes. Bardic praise, however, makes them appear to be godlike beings beyond desire and the world. And as in the other stories of bards and kings presented in this chapter, Bhats point to the “play” of language. In an attempt to demonstrate their superior creativity, bards ingeniously build upon the metaphors of their praise-singing rivals. This use of language, far from diminishing bardic power, magniﬁes it. The kings featured in Narayan’s story long to be portrayed by their bards as possessing idealized strength and composure. Such idealized poetic images would seem to establish these kings as superior to their royal rivals. But in acknowledging their concern with games of reputation and their need for bardic champions, kings, at least as imagined by Narayan, become even more indebted to praise-singers than is Ram or Prithviraj Chauhan. Unable to establish their names through real acts of generosity, bravery, and leadership, these kings appear to be very dependent on their bards’ linguistic skills. As a result, the bards of Man Singh’s world wield tremendous power over kings. It is no wonder that they are rewarded with elephant after elephant.

The King Is a Cur! In the next tale, set in contemporary times, kings, at least in the Bhat imagination, sink even lower and bards rise still higher; I withhold this narrator’s name, for reasons that will become obvious: There once was a king of the Sisodia clan10 who had a daughter who was to be married. The other kings of the area were to be in-

venture funambulists vited to the wedding, and they were to be fed and entertained. The bards of all the kings were also to be invited, to be fed, and so on. Now on this occasion the king’s servants became disconcerted. Among themselves they said, “We work so very hard in the palace. So many hours a day we work, expending so much sweat and labor. And yet we receive such a piddling monthly allowance. The king’s bards, on the other hand, they recite two to four sentences, a few minutes’ worth of work at the most, and they take away elephants, horses, camels, and so much else. What is going on here?!” This backbiting and slander [cugli] reached the ears of the king. Aware of his servants’ discontent, he determined to stop the bards from coming to his wedding and begging for gifts. He proclaimed that no bard should enter the palace grounds to take part in the wedding, and he added, “And under no circumstances should these bards actually enter the palace!” Now there was a bard who was traveling to meet the king on the occasion of the king’s daughter’s wedding. The bard had traveled a long way and was determined to beg alms [dan] from this king. When he reached the outskirts of the village, however, he was stopped by ﬁve of the king’s guards. They asked him where he thought he was going. They told him that he was not allowed to go on, that he could not enter the palace grounds. He proceeded anyway, despite their attempts to stop him. After going a little bit further, he met ten more guards at the door of the palace. They gave him the same message, trying to stop him from proceeding. Despite their protests, however, he moved on anyway. After going a little bit further, he met eighty more men, and then ﬁnally one hundred who were sitting around the king in his inner circle. Rajputs who are the “equal” of the king are allowed to sit in this inner circle; there were ﬁfty men to one side of the king and ﬁfty to the other side. The king himself was sitting in the middle of all these other Rajputs. Finally the king, on seeing the bard, snapped at him, barking and growling like a mad dog. He ordered his men to get this bard out of his presence. The guards did as he requested, forcibly ejecting the praise-singer. At this point the bhat who had been thrown out of the palace sat near a well, thinking to himself, “How can I get back in the castle?” Then an idea came to him. Bandaging up his legs, looking like a cripple, and covering his face, he disguised himself so that no one could recognize him. Then, sitting next to the well, he composed a letter. He thought to himself, “I am a great poet. How dare they throw me out of the court. They will learn to fear and respect me! How can they throw me out, barking and snapping at me like a

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casting kings bunch of wild dogs?!” In the letter—thinking of all the palace guards, the Rajputs around the king, and the king himself as nothing but a pack of wild dogs—this bard composed the following (5): At the border the dogs were ﬁve, Ten more nippers at the door, Nearby the dogs were ﬁfty, Eighty more were growling, One hundred all together in a pack, The big-dog in this pack seems to be That Sisodia from Sahipura! The bard thought to himself how appropriate this poem was. The ﬁve dogs at the edge of the city corresponded to the men guarding the gate of this king’s village. The ten dogs were the guards protecting the entrance, or gate, of the palace itself. The ﬁfty dogs were the guards inside the palace, and the eighty dogs were the wedding guests. The one hundred dogs that travel in a pack were those Rajputs who traveled with the king when he went hunting. And, ﬁnally, the head of the pack—the Sisodia dog, the most dangerous of all the curs—was the king himself! The bard then waited for a wedding guest to pass by. When a guest ﬁnally arrived, the bard gave him the letter, ﬁrst folding it carefully. He said that he had been injured, that he was lame, and that he therefore would not be able to make it to the feast. He asked if the guest, however, might be able to deliver this letter to the king. The guest, sensing nothing amiss, took the letter and put it in his pocket, promising to give it to the king. This guest who was serving as the bard’s messenger ﬁnally arrived near the king. He announced—in a loud voice, proud of his role as a courier of important news—that he had a letter for the king. The king became excited. He asked, “From whom is this letter?! From what village?!” He thought that it must be from another Rajput—another Thakur Sahab—who was his equal. By this time, however, the guest had read the letter to himself. He grew nervous, thinking, “How can I possibly give this to the king?!” The guest tried to get out of handing the missive over to the king, describing it as an inconsequential message of no importance. The king told him, however, growing angry and again seeming to bark like a dog, “Don’t be ridiculous! Give me the letter!” Then the king, thinking to himself to take advantage of this opportunity, said, “No, better yet, you read the message before us all!” The guest saw that he could not escape his predicament, the king being so determined. He thus read the letter before the entire

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court, from beginning to end. The king immediately recognized himself and his court in the letter. Everyone who had forbidden the bard from appearing before the king had been described as dogs. And the king was thus humiliated before everyone! This tale demonstrates true bardic bravado, both in its themes and in its very telling. A king attempts to break his relationship with his bard and in turn suffers the consequences. The king vainly holds onto an image of himself as a prosperous feeder of others, a holder of vast properties, a master of many servants, and a leader of men. So entranced is he with this image of himself that he demands that the letter be read in public, sure that the missive will be a ﬂowery letter of praise and thus a further testament to his greatness. In the carefully scripted document, however, the bard portrays the king as a snapping cur, barking and snarling amid a pack of angry dogs. This king, then, is a victim of his own arrogance. Unable to recognize his dependence on others—and speciﬁcally his dependence on bards—the king seemingly deserves what he gets. When it comes right down to it, however, this story suggests that the king’s true qualities are irrelevant to the actions of this bard. The bard’s poem reﬂects less the king’s actual person and more this bard’s sense of personal injury. The bard, on the slightest of offenses by a king he barely knows—remember, like the bards in the story of king Resamji in chapter 1, this praise-singer is a stranger in this king’s land—circulates a humiliating poem of insult. Ignoring the true qualities of the king, this bard imagines the king in a manner that exacts his revenge. In the story of Prithviraj Chauhan, a bard uses clever words and inspiring speech to goad his lord, who is great in his own right, onto still more acts of greatness. In the tale of Man Singh, bardic praise further inﬂates a king who, though viewed by Bhats as a pimp and a traitor, is still acknowledged to be a world-historical ﬁgure, or at least a wealthy and generous patron who jousted with other royalty in contests of reputation. In the tale of the Sisodia king, however, the bard does not know the patrons he insults, neither their admirable qualities nor their weaknesses. His poetry, then, is freed of all bonds of personal allegiance and familiarity. This bard thus brazenly constructs the king as he sees ﬁt. As a result, kings are portrayed as even more helpless before the seemingly limitless skills of rogue praise-singers. This idea brings us back to scholarly debates concerning caste rank and primacy that were the focus of the previous chapter.

In Praise of Praise-Singers: Hocart Reconsidered The stories presented in this chapter portray relations of exchange between patrons and their praise-singing bards. In the story of Prithviraj Chauhan, for

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example, the bard Chanda Bidai Bhat laments the imprisonment of his king and lord, in part because the bard’s “patronage and begging” would now be “closed up.” Likewise, the story of King Man Singh describes the struggle between a king and his praise-singer over a gift involving elephants. And similarly, the contest between the Sisodia Rajput and the wandering bard ensues over the king’s refusal to gift a praise-singer, a refusal that is itself a result of jealousy among the king’s other clients over the manner in which bards are remunerated for their poetic services. Relations of exchange between patron and client castes, as was seen in the previous chapter, encode Hindu beliefs about status and hierarchy. Thus the stories of bards and kings in this chapter, dealing as they do with the theme of gifts, might return us to the issues of social centrality that were left somewhat unresolved in the previous chapter’s concluding story of linguistically cunning Brahmins. To return to this topic of gifts and status, and to the discussion of ideas inspired by the writings of A. M. Hocart on this topic, it has been suggested that exchanges characteristic of patron–client economies such as jajmani are often accompanied by certain dangers. In particular, dangerous substances are seen to pass back and forth between givers and receivers in jajmani. This is especially the case with prestations referred to as dan, which we might translate as “alms,” or more speciﬁcally as gifts that in an ideal form are conceived of as “voluntary and disinterested donation[s] made without ostentation or expectation of any kind of this-worldly return.”11 Indeed, such are the dangers associated with dan, which is seen in certain contexts to bring madness, disease, and even death, that client castes sometimes refuse to accept such prestations.12 Some theorists have suggested that the “poison” of gifts offered by Indian patrons to their clients, and indeed the fact that such gifts are sometimes refused, can be attributed to the relative impurity of givers vis-a`-vis recipients.13 Brahmins, for example, believe themselves to be composed of pure substance. In order to protect themselves from pollution, they maintain strict taboos which regulate both the exchange of food and social interaction with other communities. But despite their efforts, Brahmins cannot completely segregate themselves from the world: in day-to-day activity they come into contact with lower castes. This is particularly true of Brahmins who serve as priests. In the process of accepting gifts for ritual services associated with their priesthood, given that all patrons are presumably less pure than their Brahmin clients, priests are exposed to dangerous polluting contagions. Gloria Raheja,14 a neo-Hocartian theorist, has analyzed jajmani exchanges in the northern Indian village of Pahansu (Uttar Pradesh). Focusing particularly on prestations referred to as dan (alms), she criticizes these arguments by pointing out that even charity offered by hierarchically superior pure persons to hierarchically inferior polluted ones are still perceived as dangerous.

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Explanations based on differences in purity may explain the danger to Brahmins’ accepting alms from Raheja’s principal informants, the Gujars, a dominant landholding community ranking near the middle of the caste hierarchy in terms of purity. But they would not explain why gifts of charity are also considered dangerous by impure castes such as Washermen, Barbers, Sweepers, Beggars, or even untouchable Bhats. Finding inspiration in the sacriﬁcial model of Hubert and Mauss as well as in Hocart’s work on caste,15 Raheja instead links the dangers of dan to the passing on or disbursing of evil and misfortune. In the writings of Hocart and others, kings push evil into sacriﬁcial human vessels whose bodies are believed then capable of carrying such misfortune from the land and community. Gujar farmers, according to Raheja,16 pursue a similar logic at harvest time. They offer clients alms which clients are instructed to carry away in order to remove hindrances that might otherwise threaten the land and diminish agricultural production. Offerings of dan, in this interpretive framework, are thus straightforwardly dangerous to receivers, who are obligated either to digest this inauspiciousness, a general category that is seen to encompass a number of evils and misfortunes, or to pass it further along to others.17 In the previous chapter I argued that Bhats do not ﬁnd beliefs about purity and pollution very compelling. Instead, they argue for the supremacy of kingly patrons, be they actual kings, village landlords, or Bhambhi little kings who are only modeled after royal or formerly royal persons. From Bhat praise and insults of their Bhambhi patrons, we turned to neo-Hocartian theories of Indian social relations, the writings of theorists such as Nicholas Dirks and Gloria Raheja, to explain the Bhat experience of caste. These explanations seemed consistent with the manner in which Bhats themselves, in their praise and insult poetry as well as in other contexts, do seem to acknowledge their political and economic subordination to their patrons, who protect and support them. Pushing these neo-Hocartian theories further by building on Raheja’s thoughts on the dangers of prestations such as dan, however, we might imagine that Bhats also accept their ritual inferiority to the kings and other patrons they serve. That is, Bhats might think that patrons, in addition to having political and economic dominance, are also ritually superior because they distribute dangerous contagions to dependent service castes such as the Bhats while not themselves accepting gifts associated with these contagions. The stories of kings and bards considered in this chapter do point to dangers associated with gifts (dan) between patrons and clients. In these Bhat tales, however, there is absolutely no mention of contagious substances, be they impure or inauspicious ones. Even if my Bhat narrators conceived of the elite bards discussed in these tales as Brahmins of a kind, and thus potentially pure priests, they do not represent these bards as fearing the polluting effects of gifts received from less pure kings. Nor do my Bhat narrators portray the royal bards of these tales as being afraid of the internalization of inauspicious sub-

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stances which their patrons might try to dispense with or pass on in order to render ceremonial occasions propitious. Rather, as described in these tales, the dangers associated with the ritualized exchange of dan (alms) emerge from the back-and-forth bickering and bargaining between kings and their bards. King Prithviraj Chauhan, like the god Ram, is a superhuman being, steadfast in word and deed. But King Man Singh and the Rajputs from the Sisodia clan are not to be entirely trusted. Nor can these lords be expected to recognize the value of bardic services offered to them. The danger in ritual gift exchanges from a bard’s point of view, then, is that kings will fail to recognize their dependence on their bards and thus will fail to support them in the manner they deserve. The danger from a king’s perspective, again from a bard’s point of view, is that bards will demand too much and, failing to get what they want, will use poetic skills to disgrace their benefactors. The dangers of gifts described in these narratives relate in part to the fact that bardic services are somewhat ambiguous in value and thus difﬁcult to price. How, after all, does one compare the value of a poem to the value of an elephant? Is a bardic poem of praise worth one elephant? Or is it worth four, as becomes the case in the story of Man Singh? Such ambiguities lead to disputes between patrons and clients, which can, if unchecked, result in real or symbolic violence, the banishment or physical punishment of a bard or the insulting of a king. It is thus the ever-present risk of violence and retribution, not the fear of contamination, that leads to the Bhat perception of danger in these ritualized gift exchanges. Bhat understandings of the risks associated with dan can thus be said to emerge from the ﬂuid give and take of social relations, as well as from the inherent tensions and ambiguities associated with those relations. They emerge from the fact that humans are imperfect and limited and thus are unable to know or assess accurately either their own value or the value of those with whom they come into contact. Such imperfections and limitations, however, can be cloaked by skillful praise-singers. Indeed, the stories in this chapter argue that the ability of bards to distort human frailty, and thus to transform mere men into immortal gods, is a bard’s greatest gift to a lord.18 If a neo-Hocartian framework were really appropriate to the Bhat case, we might expect Bhats to acknowledge the ritual inferiority of bards before their lords. The stories in this chapter, however, make it very clear that Bhats are not prepared to concede that they are the ritual inferiors of those whom they serve as poets and praise-singers. The bard who sings in praise of the divine Ram provides this deity with the recognition to which he is entitled, thus providing the valuable service that allows the world to perceive his greatness through all time. Likewise, without the help of his bard, Prithviraj Chauhan is portrayed as naked, blind, dispirited, and drifting into obscurity. Similarly, in the story of Man Singh, it is for bards to vest a king with conﬁrmation of his

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good name, and they may perform this task even for a ruler whose kingly qualities are defective or degraded. The storyteller implies that this king would have found it difﬁcult to rule effectively without his clever praise-singer at his side, ever ready to help him in waging the wars of reputation which were, and still are, such a crucial feature of Rajasthani political life. The ﬁnal tale also brings to the fore the dangerous power of the bardic imagination. This disgruntled praise-singer does not merely passively reﬂect or acknowledge a patron’s name and titles, but instead brings down an unknown lord seemingly on a whim. In “taking the names” (nam lena) of patrons—that is, in praising them and maintaining their genealogies and histories—Bhats argue that they give their patrons meaning (matlab) and history (itihas) and that they make them happy (kusi) and even immortal (amar). In the past, bards possessed the power to make or break kingly reputations, to guard or besmirch kingly honor, and thus literally to forge royal identity. As curators of collective memories, skilled praise-singers vested kings with noble lineages stretching back to the sun or the moon. If they felt that their services were not adequately valued or rewarded, they had the power to tell the world that their lords were mere pretenders and their titles false or illegitimate. Bhats, then, do not conceive of bards as inferior dependents of kings. Rather, my informants think of patrons as dependent on bardic services. In these terms, a patron’s gifts are not necessarily a sign of lordly supremacy. Rather, they can also be construed as a tribute and thus an implicit acknowledgment of bardic value. In shifting the debate on Hindu social rank from a concern with contagion into this poetic and narrative register, my informants present a radically constructionist, and thus radically unstable, view of kingly rank and authority. Bhats show how Ksatriyas—be they Ram, Prithviraj Chauhan, Man Singh, a local noble, or even a run-of-the-mill village Rajput—can be discursively established as a social center in a particular linguistic performance. Ram is said by his bard to be a generous patron from whom life and sustenance ﬂow. Man Singh too is rendered a great god, seemingly the center of the universe, who “takes the world on his ﬁngernail.” Nevertheless, Bhats point to the fact that such centrality is imagined; therefore kingly claims to centrality can also be imaginatively “decentered.” Ram can be revealed to be an “evildoer,” who deserves no more allegiance than does the demon Ravan. Prithviraj Chauhan is helpless without his bard. Man Singh can be shown to be what he seems to fear: little more than a strutting impostor totally dependent on his praise-singer. And the Sisodia Rajput in the ﬁnal story could apparently use a good bard by his side. The king, then, is not really the center of society or the world in any deep or absolute sense. Rather, at least in these stories, he is a ﬁction of a kind—an unstable creation sprung from the bard’s rich imagination. In these terms, bards, as guardians of kingly reputations, history, and even truth itself, stand at the center of the traditional Hindu polity.

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Most likely, many client castes resist and upturn the views of their patrons. Neo-Hocartian theorists themselves point to dependent client castes’ challenging the understandings and practices of their wealthier and politically more dominant patrons. Still, Bhats have the professional responsibility, as praisesingers of Bhambhis, to overturn ideologies of inborn character that seem linked to beliefs regarding bodily impurity, which are also potentially related to the exchange of inauspicious rather than impure substances. It is not surprising, then, that they argue in story and verse that hierarchy is malleable, based upon action, and ultimately a human construct. Although other marginalized client communities in jajmani challenge many aspects of caste ranking and organization, Bhats seem to possess narrative and poetic skills that are less available to oppressed Potters and Washermen. Thus members of other low-ranking caste communities may use language and cunning to challenge caste injustices. They may even demonstrate self-consciousness into the way social hierarchies can be imaginatively constructed and deconstructed.19 But the Bhats’ traditional profession, and their entire identity, are built around just such a self-conscious perception of caste hierarchies as imaginative constructs and thus ﬁctions of a kind. As the stories in this chapter evidence, Bhats do not use their bardic tools merely to bring chaos to the social center occupied by their patrons by rejecting their patrons’ views on contagion, as the neo-Hocartians themselves might suggest. Rather, they use their skills to point to the ultimate ﬁctiveness of any such social center, be it occupied by kings or bards. Similarly, neo-Hocartians suggest that client castes are united by the fact that they are all priests of a kind who ceremonially remove inauspiciousness from their patron-lords. I would suggest, however, that my informants’ narrative and poetic traditions, and the manner in which their identity emerges from these traditions, separates them from other such client “priests.” To return to a central theme of this book, Bhats speak of kings, and speciﬁcally of the relationship of kings and bards, in order to engage issues of caste rank intrinsic to Rajasthan’s jajmani and jagirdari systems. In this sense, Bhats, in their stories of kings and bards, return to themes explored in the previous chapter in the context of Bhat praise and insult verse. In the contexts discussed in this chapter, however, my informants do not so readily subordinate themselves to their patrons. Rather, building upon insights alluded to in Narayan’s story of the clever Brahmins, they stake a claim to their own social centrality, a claim based on their own power over language and ritualized performance, skills that in turn enable them to control the politically and economically powerful. Still, the Bhats’ obsession with kings, and with the Rajasthani past more generally, cannot be explained only in these terms. Moving from the context of jajmani, we need to return to the Bhat work as puppeteers in the tourist industry for additional answers to the question of why Bhats speak of kings.

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Speciﬁcally, we need to explore the story of Amar Singh Rathor, a Rajput nobleman who is the Bhats’ signature character and thus the focus of most of their puppet plays.

Long Live Amar Singh Rathor! Amar Singh Rathor was a seventeenth-century noble belonging to Jodhpur’s royal Rajput family during the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.20 He was the elder of two brothers and therefore would have inherited the kingdom of Marwar from his father had he not been disinherited for continually failing to heed his father’s wishes, in favor of his younger brother, Jaswant Singh. Despite being disinherited, Amar Singh was made the emperor’s representative (subedar) of Nagaur district, which at the time was ruled directly from Delhi by Shah Jahan.21 Typically, Bhats in their brief puppet performances, often no more than ﬁfteen to thirty minutes long, focus on incidents from Amar Singh’s life that draw attention to this noble’s headstrong and proud character.22 Thus Bhats stage ﬁghts from the battle of Gwalior Fort, in which Amar Singh made his name and gained favor with the Mughal emperor. They also dramatize Amar Singh’s village marriage, when this Rajput overstayed his leave from the court and thus insulted his Mughal lord. After this incident, the emperor’s brotherin-law, Salavat Khan, who was jealous of Amar Singh Rathor for his popularity among the people as well as his favor at court, ﬁned this hero. Amar Singh, however, refused to pay the ﬁne. A ﬁght ensued, and Amar Singh slew Salavat Khan in hand-to-hand combat. Amar Singh then ﬂed the court and escaped into the desert, where, befriended by a Muslim daku (bandit) and “religious brother” (dharam ke bhai), Narse Vaj Pathan, the play’s hero experienced many adventures. With Amar Singh Rathor on the run, a conspiracy brewed at court. Amar Singh’s own nephew, Arjun Gaur, eventually won his uncle’s conﬁdence and convinced him to return to court. There, Amar Singh, in a series of further deceptions, was murdered by Arjun Gaur. Amar Singh’s body was subsequently taken back to his village, where it was greeted with raucous celebrations and where it also inspired a young warrior named Ram Singh to avenge Amar Singh’s death by killing Arjun Gaur in a duel. Accompanied by a drummer and a brief commentary from a narrator, who sits beside the stage and interprets the puppets’ words, a role often ﬁlled by the puppeteer’s wife, Bhat puppets march onto an empty stage. The puppets themselves, in the marionette23 tradition, have heads of wood and bodies of ﬂowing cloth and are manipulated by up to six strings. The ﬁrst puppet to enter is often a Bhangi street sweeper, sometimes accompanied by a water carrier, who ritually cleans and thus prepares the stage for the performance.24 Then court ushers announce the royal puppets, Muslim nawabs and Hindu kings

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Bhat puppet stage. The puppeteer is silhouetted in the background. Jaipur, Rajasthan.

and nobles, who parade onto the stage in the order of their status and sit in that order to view the coming spectacle (that is, they are hung to curtains bordering the puppet stage). The Mughal emperor eventually appears and demands to be entertained. At this point the puppeteers announce and perform skits—which Bhats refer to with the English word “items”—related to the life of Amar Singh. Or they parade out a series of performer puppets: jugglers that actually toss balls, snake charmers and their cobras, sword ﬁghters, balancers and acrobats, professional mimics (bahurupias), performing animals, dancers, magicians from the state of Bengal (Bangali jadugars) whose heads separate from their bodies and are subsequently balanced on the magic user’s feet, and dancing puppets who change their genders when they ﬂip upside down. These puppets are often said to be celebrating a victory of the noble Amar Singh,

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either at Gwalior or at some other battle. Most Bhat puppet dramas, then, consist simply of a parade of kings and queens on stage, followed by an equally perplexing, though amusing, parade of performer puppets, perhaps capped off by a battle scene and ending with a stage full of dead puppets piled on top of each other.25 The episodes from Amar Singh’s life, as narrated by female Bhats drumming on their dholaks and by male Bhat puppeteers creating puppet voices by squealing through bamboo and rubberband bolis (squeakers) held between their teeth, unfold as a series of dramatic moments that are never fully explained or even contextualized within the total story of Amar Singh’s life.26 Thus in one scene that might constitute the core of a play witnessed by tourists,

Dancer puppet said to be Gulabi Bai, a well-known artist from the Saphera snake-charmer community, stands above a puppet of a Bengali jadugar (magician). Jaipur, Rajasthan.

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Salavat Khan threatens the hero Amar Singh after the latter has broken his promise to return from his wedding after seven days. As Bedami Bhat, my adopted mother, recited (6): You promised seven days, Fourteen have passed, You married the Queen of Hadi, Hindu, Why no proper respect to the emperor? This speech, in turn, is met by a threat from Amar Singh, again recited to me by Bedami Bhat and also by her daughter, my sister Santos (7): Don’t speak foolishly, Sekh Salavat Khan,

Bhat snake-charmer puppet. Jaipur, Rajasthan.

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If such foolish talk continues, I will have your tongue! Taking out your tongue, I will ﬁnish you eye-to-eye, With this curved dagger in my hand, Your lifeless head will ﬂy! In other instances, Bhats narrate exchanges between other characters, such as the following between Amar Singh Rathor and his wife, Hadi Rani, in which the queen offers her own jewelry in an attempt to save her husband from trouble at court: queen hadi rani A 7-lakh ﬁne from the emperor? Do not fret. Here take this necklace. It will fetch twice that much. amar singh rathor I will not take the necklace from your throat. They want metal to pay this ﬁne? Let them taste the cold steel of my sword! queen hadi rani hol from my hand.

Here, husband, take courage with this shot of alco-

amar singh rathor Wife, I will take no alcohol today. I am too intoxicated already with my lust for revenge! Poetic and prose exchanges such as these, and I collected many of them, include other dramatically salient moments in which, for example, Amar Singh raises his hand to the sacred Kaaba sanctuary in Mecca and vows to avenge the death of his Muslim brother Narse Vaj Pathan; Amar Singh’s entrance into battle is announced, as are the qualities of his ﬂashing sword and dagger, which are said to have been forged in lightning; or, in contrast, the hero’s death is bitterly proclaimed and his dying words are memorialized. Bhats undoubtedly began performing the story of Amar Singh Rathor because of its wide appeal throughout Rajasthan and other neighboring territories.27 Nevertheless, it seems to have particular appeal to my Bhat informants, as was clear in the passionate manner in which they spoke to me of this hero’s life. This afﬁnity relates to the fact that Amar Singh originates from Nagaur, the Bhats’ home district. My informants, living in a kind of exile in the cities of Udaipur and Jaipur, loved speaking of a hero who evoked the ambiance of their beloved Marwar. Still, above all, my Bhat informants seem drawn to the fact that Amar Singh Rathor was a minor noble and not an important king in his own right. Despite his subordinate status, the headstrong Amar Singh nevertheless pursues his own path and plays by his own rules, regardless of what those in power do or think. This point is evident, for example, in his disobeying the emperor by overstaying his leave in his natal village and then killing the court-

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ier who dares to question him about it. Such a hero appeals to the marginalized and subversive Bhats, themselves minor ﬁgures in the employ of others but who nevertheless possess strong and independent spirits. In a similar vein, Amar Singh was disinherited by his father. Then he was the victim of a court conspiracy, being betrayed ﬁrst by the courtier Salavat Khan and then by his own nephew, Arjun Gaur. These details from this hero’s life parallel the manner in which Bhats now claim to have fallen from their own position as royal bards in the employ of kings. They also parallel many other Bhat histories narrated to me over the years I spent with members of this community. To cite but one further example, Bhats told me that their Bhambhi patrons, once Brahmins, were the victims of their own relatives’ deceptions. Jealous of a younger brother who was much loved by their father, a clever elder brother convinced his younger brother, who became the ﬁrst Bhambhi, to touch the decaying carcass of a cow. As a consequence, this brother, who was described as honest and simple (bholi) and even saintlike, was deﬁled and subsequently outcasted and robbed of his priestly status. In narrating the story of this minor seventeenth-century king, then, Bhats would again seem to be ﬁghting the status battles waged by themselves and their patrons, which are the focus of this book. Amar Singh Rathor was a headstrong minor noble who, exiled from his own palace home, lived life on the run and deﬁned himself by his actions and abilities rather than by his birth. It is not difﬁcult to imagine that such a hero would appeal to the marginalized yet proud Bhats, who, as seminomadic performers exiled from their own beloved Marwar, similarly live life “on the run” and struggle to make their name in spite of their degraded births.

Tourism and the Bards of Kings We should not forget that no matter how deeply and viscerally the drama of Amar Singh Rathor appeals to Bhats, and no matter how closely it mirrors their own identity story, my informants still use this play to argue and defend consciously a speciﬁc identity story. They use this story, as they do with the many stories of bards and kings presented in this chapter, to connect themselves more ﬁrmly to the Rajput community in the minds of their patrons and audiences. In doing so, they cement, or at least bulwark, their claim to be the fallen bards of kings. In fact, the play in many respects is simply a showcase of Bhat connections to the Rajput community. Most episodes from this puppet drama are reenactments of key moments in this king’s life. In performing these scenes, Bhats demonstrate their knowledge of Rajput history and thus their right to speak for them. That is, as I was frequently told, they demonstrate that Amar Singh Rathor’s name, and by extension the name of Marwar and all its royalty, is

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carried to England, America, Japan, and other distant locales. In other words, Bhats show in this theatrical context the manner in which they, despite the vicissitudes of history that have brought them low, continue to be loyal to their Rajput lords and continue to provide them with the traditional services of praise-singing. The play itself, when not recounting glorious moments from Rajput history, parades out performer puppets who seek to win favor from their lords and patrons. It will be recalled, for example, that among the most popular scenes performed by Bhats is the celebration of Amar Singh’s victory at Gwalior Fort. In order to mark this occasion, the Mughal emperor calls all the region’s artists to his palace. Subsequently, the emperor, surrounded by his courtiers and nobles, is entertained by performers from all matter of castes and communities. In performing this scene repeatedly before Rajput hotel owners and others, Bhats demonstrate, consciously and unconsciously, the deep historical roots of their contemporary work. Foreign visitors may simply see a parade of ﬁgures linked to old Rajasthan, but those in the know, such as members of the Rajput community who play prominent roles in the state’s tourist industry, are reminded of the importance of kingly patronage of performer communities. This “parade of artists” is thus both a demonstration of the tight historical link between kings and performers and a tool to keep that link strong in the minds of Bhats’ patrons and audiences. We even see in this puppet play hints of the themes discussed in the ﬁrst part of this chapter, where Bhats argue for the supremacy of bards over their Rajput lords. While it is true that Bhats celebrate Amar Singh as a folk hero, much of the drama does not exactly demonstrate reverence for Rajputs.28 Indeed, Bhats focus on Amar Singh Rathor precisely because he is a subversive ﬁgure who does not generally respect the status hierarchies and ﬁxed ranks of old Rajasthan and its noble lineages. Instead, Bhats draw attention to the signiﬁcance of action and performance as opposed to inherited status. The swordﬁghting Amar Singh puppet garners his share of attention, but it is the performers—the jugglers and head-losing magicians as well as the trick horse-riders and ﬂamethrowers—who steal the show. And overall, the play draws attention to the virtuoso skills of the puppeteer, who is able to evoke the wonders related to kings and times gone by. In this play, as in the Bhats’ many stories of kings and bards, Bhats seem to argue for their own supremacy. And, reminiscent of Ram’s bard in the ﬁrst story in the chapter, my own Bhat informants strive to remind their patrons and sponsors that they might be best served by having skillful artists such as Bhats on their side and in their employ. With the coming of electoral democracy and the erosion of the old ties of service and clientage which had once prevailed between lordly patrons and their royal bards, my informants have found ways to take over performative spaces that were once closed to them. Despite all the changes during the transition from colonial to democratic India, many Rajputs have converted their

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residences into tourist hotels, guest houses, and restaurants. And low-caste Bhats now ﬁght among themselves to catch the eyes of tourists. In general, Bhats have found remarkable success at a time when the patronage of Rajputs and others seems up for grabs. Bansi Lal Bhat, for example, spoke of winning the favor of the Maharana of Udaipur with a puppet drama performed in the Lake Palace Hotel about the sixteenth-century battle of this king’s freedom– ﬁghting ancestor, Maharana Pratap, at Haldighati against a Mughal army led by the very same “traitorous” Man Singh of Jaipur. Parlaying his success before this former maharana, Bansi Lal met a Macy’s Department Store agent at the same Lake Palace, as a result of which Bansi Lal and his wife were invited to the United States to take part in a Macy’s promotion of an Asian product line called The Dream of the Orient. A plaque commemorating the trip hung on Bansi Lal and Bedami’s wall, and they often spoke to me about the trip. In fact, the money from this trip allowed Bansi Lal and his wife to build a home in the late 1970s (the ﬁrst permanent Bhat home in Udaipur) and fund their ﬁve daughters’ weddings. This trip to America, and the money it generated, encouraged a wave of Bhat migration from Marwar into Rajasthan’s tourist centers, where many within the Bhat community now strive to imitate Bansi Lal’s model and success. Many have succeeded. For example, a younger puppeteer in the Udaipur Bhat community, Beni Lal, recently traveled to Scotland, a trip that was arranged by Indian festival organizers in consort with Scottish scholars and folklorists. With the proﬁts from this trip, Beni Lal also has had a stone and cement house built and in addition now sends his children to an expensive private school.29 Similarly, many other Bhats, though not yet traveling overseas, earn thousands of rupees a month by selling puppets to tourists. This is much more than the small sums they would have received as quasi-hereditary bards to their former Bhambhi patrons. Bansi Lal and other Bhats also relate epic tales of Rajput bravery to members of the so-called Adivasi (Tribal) population known as Bhils, a group often inhabiting isolated forests and thus long associated with untamed ways, but nowadays inclined to claim descent from Rajput dynasts. I watched, for example, as Bhats of Udaipur formed patron–client relationships with their new Tribal landlords. Tribals, though of low status, held rights, however precarious, to the land on which Bhats squatted. Of course, it would take generations, assuming Bhats remained in Udaipur for that long, for these budding relationships to approximate the richness of the relationships Bhats experienced with their village patrons. In short, the “real” bards who sang the praises of kings seem long gone, but a variety of Rajasthani persons, be they the descendants of former kings or Tribals, continue to imagine their identity and status in relation to kings. As a result, Bhat stories, plays featuring Rajput heroes, and genealogical recitations are still valued today. And Bhats continue to narrate, and indeed market,

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After a recent trip to Europe, Beni Lal poses with his family near a photograph of a giant poster used to promote his puppet plays in Scotland. Udaipur, Rajasthan.

history in the old style. The Bhats’ stories of bards and kings, then, like the Amar Singh Rathor puppet play itself, are tools that Bhats use to link themselves to Rajputs and thereby to position themselves as more authoritative speakers for the Rajasthani past. These stories and plays help Bhats build an argument for being the descendants of the royal Bhats who kept the genealogies and histories of kings in the precolonial and colonial periods. But perhaps more important, since such claims are not always taken seriously by contemporary Rajputs or others, these stories help my informants to take up the symbolic rather than the real mantle of renowned bards of old. Bhats present themselves as keepers of valuable traditions that were abandoned by members of elite bardic communities, even if they know that they are not always accepted as the actual descendants of such royal persons.

Conclusion: Jajmani and Its Remnants Before Indian independence, when, as Bhats put it, the Angrez (English) were still in power, it was dangerous to leave one’s village, and with it the security of jajmani. Cities were particularly risky, given that Bhats had few urban contacts. Nevertheless, Bhats traveled throughout Rajasthan and beyond during

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these years, although they took precautions when searching for new patronage. For example, they would organize a “big party,” agreeing to meet their jati mates at a speciﬁc time in a given city—there was safety in numbers. And after their performances, they quickly left these areas. Bhats at this time were perceived as low-caste and suspicious outsiders, and it did not behoove them to overstay their welcome. To actually settle down in urban areas such as these, I was told, was next to impossible in pre-independence Rajasthan. After 1947, as formal and informal travel restrictions were relaxed, Bhats began to spend more time outside of their natal villages. Eventually, with the explosion of the Rajasthani tourist industry, accompanied by other emerging economic opportunities, many Bhats began to settle more or less full time in cities such as Udaipur and Jaipur. My Bhat informants now support themselves primarily with earnings from market contexts, many of them linked in some way to the tourist industry. In cultivating new market relations, however, Bhats ﬁnd themselves in a double bind. Money and the market, despite their historical roots in the Rajasthani countryside, still challenge this state’s old ways and old values. They are attractive to Bhats in that they offer cash as well as a potential escape from caste and the old systems of inequality. On the other hand, Bhats like the safety net that traditional jajmani patronage provides. They like the fact that their patrons must gift their bards, no matter what the level of the bards’ talent. And perhaps more important, Bhats have wagered their future on the Rajasthani past. That is, Bhats advance by making claims to speak authoritatively, or at least compellingly, of the Rajasthani past. These two contrary desires—to advance and forget and yet also to remember—engender a number of tensions and even paradoxes in Bhat identity which have been explored in this chapter. Overall, Bhats are indeed breaking with the past, a process that includes cutting many ties with the jajmani economy discussed in chapters 3 and 4. However, clearly they have not broken totally with these economic systems nor with the performing traditions associated with them. Bhats continue to maintain jajmani relations with their Bhambhi patrons, returning often to their natal villages to perform at Bhambhi ceremonies. Signiﬁcant also is the fact that my informants continue to put their performing skills to work for them in their urban homes. These skills, along with the perspectives on caste relations and hierarchies that they encode, were developed in the context of jajmani. As a result, jajmani is still with my informants in some important way. We can now bring together the two key questions addressed in this chapter and indeed in this book: the question of how Bhats characterize the relationship between kings and bards as markers of caste primacy, and the question of why the formerly untouchable Bhats speak so persistently of kings and royal bardship in ostensibly modern and casteless India. Other scholars have contended that bards, as ensurers of truth, maintainers of collective memories,

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and establishers of royal identity, served as a sort of “kingpin” around which traditional society turned.30 Bards, rather than kings or priests, can thus be understood from certain perspectives as the center of the traditional Hindu polity. My informants, however, have seized the former roles of the elite Bhats and Carans. Claiming to speak authoritatively for kings and the Rajasthani past, the formerly untouchable Nats-turned-Bhats, ensconced in activities from tourism to folklore exhibitions with nationalist and regionalist agendas, now present themselves as dedicated guardians of local Hindu identity. In these terms, my Bhat informants place neither kings, priests, nor elite bards at the center of society. Rather, they center society around their own interloping selves—a ﬁtting testament perhaps to the bewildering inversions of democratic Rajasthan, and a logical if not altogether straightforward resolution to questions of central interest to this book. To return to the phrasing of this chapter’s opening myth, the behavior of my Bhat informants in these contexts is akin to that of the forces that tear apart the primordial human, Purusa. In the way Bhats seize the roles of other communities, they dismember the dominant and apparently naturalized constructs of the social body. At the same time, however, there is a double sense in which these low-status Bhats act as “rememberers.” Continuing to perform their tasks as both genealogists and historians, they remember in the sense of keeping the past alive, and they also “re-member” in the sense of reconstructing or reconstituting, that is, putting something back together after it has been divided or disassembled. In the latter case, my Bhat informants have reconstituted the roles and statuses of elite royal bards after they were destroyed by colonial rule. Their stories of primeval bodies and bickering ﬁngers, then, like tales of bards and kings, do not concern caste relations or social hierarchies per se. Rather, turning self-reﬂexively back on themselves, these tales are imaginative commentaries and even meditations on a perennial Bhat obsession—that of poetic composition and indeed of Bhat linguistic cunning that forms the basis of their new identity claims. This idea brings up a possible contradiction, or at least a tension, in Bhat society. Bhats use their skills and insights into language and poetic composition to claim the roles of royal bards and thus to advance socially in modern India. Indeed, in the stories presented in this chapter, Bhats imaginatively link themselves to kings and elite bards, a connection that helps them to advance such claims. However, we might ask how seriously do Bhats really take these claims to their own royalty, and how consistently do they deploy them? Might such claims be merely one weapon in a more complex Bhat arsenal that Bhats distance themselves from in other contexts? Might Bhats, the skillful deconstructionists, also dismantle their own claims to royalty, revealing them also to be mere artiﬁce and thus not fully real or substantial? That is, might a more

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general Bhat claim to their community’s cunning, rather than a speciﬁc claim to wear a royal mantle, help to explain why Bhats speak so energetically of kings? To answer these questions, we will need to turn to several very different modern patronage contexts, these not linked to tourism, that Bhats also fully exploit.

5 The Enduring Power of Praise-Abuse Bhat Admen in Modern Times

Cleverness is without end, not to be counted, Laughing, laughing, it ends up crying, Above the shrine, strips of cloth ﬂapping,1 Entangled, entangled, they end up ﬂying. —Bhat saying (1)

Both Hindu and Muslim In the early 1990s, events surrounding a disputed mosque-temple in the now famous North Indian pilgrimage town of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh approached a climax.2 Hindus claimed that in Ayodhya in 1528 the Mughal emperor Babur had destroyed a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, the warrior incarnation of Visnu and hero of the epic Ramayana, discussed in the previous chapter, and that he built a mosque out of its ruins. In fact, Hindus had long been hoping to rebuild the “original” temple, thus liberating Ram’s birthplace.3 In 1857 Hindus ﬁrst lobbied for a reconstruction of the Ram temple, an action that seemed to respond to a neighboring dispute at a nearby site where a temple had supposedly been built from the ruins of a mosque.4 Then in 1949 Hindu activists inserted a Ram idol in the mosque, claiming that it miraculously appeared there, an action that resulted in the closing of the mosque by the Indian government. In any case, in the early 1990s Hindu nationalists—especially members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, or “Indian Peoples’ Party”), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (the VHP, or “World Hindu

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Council”), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (the RSS, a group of Hindu youth)—raised the temple issue with renewed fervor. In October 1990 L. K. Advani, then president of the BJP, took a pilgrimage across India in a Toyota made to look like a chariot. Collecting bricks for the new Hindu temple, Advani was arrested just short of Ayodhya. Finally, on December 6, 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed the mosque. This destruction was followed by anti-Muslim riots that left thousands of persons—mainly Muslim—dead.5 I was in India in December 1992 at the time of the destruction of this disputed mosque, which is referred to as the Babri Masjid. Bhats frequently spoke to me of the god Ram after riots broke out in the Rajasthani capital of Jaipur, a city that was one of my two main ﬁeld-research sites and the home of hundreds of Bhats. In some cases Bhats brought up this topic in order to connect their own caste community to this most sacred of Hindu gods, in accounts reminiscent of the tale of chapter 4 that tells of Ram’s relationship with his clever bard. Here, Bhats suggested, for example, that they were descended from Mala Nur, a bard who himself sang the praises of the god Ram. But it was also around this time that one of my most trusted informants, Narayan Bhat, told me that members of his community were neither Hindu nor Muslim or, phrasing it in a slightly different manner, and I think more accurately, both Hindu and Muslim. Elaborating, he told me that his caste community’s ﬁrst clans (gotras), the Kavas and Kaleths, were Muslim. These two clans began exchanging persons in marriage, thereby forming the core of the current Bhat caste (jati). Two other Muslim clans, the Dokravars and Daosis, were subsequently added. The other ten Hindu clans were added over time.6 Thus at the heart of the Bhat caste community one ﬁnds four intermarrying Muslim clans, which Bhats termed Mirasis, an Urdu word meaning “Muslim genealogist.” They also referred to these ancestors as Dhadhis, another term for Muslim entertainers and genealogists.7 As was mentioned earlier, Bhats say that they learned their puppetry art from nomadic Muslim performers originating from areas within present-day Pakistan. The folklorist Komal Kothari has collected alternate legends suggesting that members of the Bhat community learned their art from Muslim court puppeteers. Indeed, he says that in the 1960s some Bhats were still sharing a percentage of their earnings with a Muslim khalifa (master) living in Delhi, whom they considered their teacher (ustad).8 In any case, the Bhats’ own clan history, speciﬁcally the fact that they see their history as tightly intertwined with Islam, would help to explain my informants’ readiness to form links with Muslim performers and teachers, no matter how those relations were formed in the ﬁrst place. The Bhats’ mixed Muslim-Hindu roots, like the origin of their puppetry, are convoluted and difﬁcult to pin down, and I cannot do these histories justice in this context. Rather, I would simply point out that the timing of Narayan’s

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revelation to me was surely signiﬁcant given that it coincided with strong antiMuslim sentiment coursing through much of Rajasthan at the time. On the one hand, in speaking of Ram’s bard Mala Nur, Narayan linked himself and his community to Ram, the ideal Hindu god-king and the imagined symbol of a new Hindu nation-state. On the other hand, Narayan acknowledged his Muslim roots. In fact, he told me that Mala Nur himself was Muslim. In telling me this, Narayan, considered one of the cleverest of all Bhats, would seem to be situating his community as enemies of such a state, at least in the minds of certain fervent Hindu activists and nationalists.9 As to which of these messages Narayan was trying to communicate to me, if either, consider that Bhats were hired as admen (prachar karne-wale) for India’s various political parties at the height of Hindu–Muslim tensions emerging from the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque. For example, the then ruling Congress I (“I” for Indira Gandhi), a party premised on national secularism, engaged Bhats to spread a message of religious brotherhood. That is, Congress activists, many of whom regularly canvassed the Bhats’ new slum-homes for votes, hired Bhats to propagate the dangers of Hindu–Muslim violence. Congress had popularized a rhymed Hindi couplet—Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai / Ham sab bhai bhai—which translates, “Hindus Muslims Sikhs Christians / We are all brothers.” Bhats not only knew this ditty and others like it but energetically inserted it into their politically adapted puppet plays, urging audiences not to harm or kill their neighbors and also to “Vote Congress!” In fact, I was informed that Bhats revealed their Muslim roots in order to secure this new form of patronage from the Congress Party. In pointing to an ancestral connection to Islam and indeed to their mixed Hindu–Muslim ancestry—and I do not know exactly how they presented this history to these political sponsors, since I did not witness these actions—Bhats were seen by Congress leaders to be even more effective communicators of a message of religious brotherhood. Bhats, however, were not merely communicators of religious tolerance and state “secularism.” They possess another version of this rhyme composed by Congress politicians, inverting this political party’s message of pan-religious brotherhood: Hindu Hindu bhai bhai / Muslim log kahan se aye? which translates, “Hindus all are brothers / But where have the Muslims come from?” The message of this couplet is nearly the opposite of the previous one. Here, Muslims are precisely not Hindus’ brothers. Rather, treating Islam as a religion brought to India through invasion, Bhats suggest that Muslims are aliens of unknown origin. They are thus not of Hindustan—one Hindi term for “India”—literally, “the place of Hindus.” This poetic reversal was not just play. After the events in Ayodhya, the same Bhats who worked for Congress were also hired to advertise for Congress’s political rivals, the Bharatiya Janata party. The BJP, as was mentioned, was among the primary instigators of the destruction of the mosque at Ayod-

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hya, along with other members of the Sangh Parivar (“Family of Organizations”) such as the VHP and the RSS. In order to broaden their appeal to the masses—that is, to appeal to Tribals, Dalits, and oddly enough even to Muslims—BJP party members engaged low-caste propagandists such as the Bhats. And my informants just as agilely injected their overturned Congress rhyme into dramas meant to foment anti-Muslim sentiment in Rajasthan’s slums, urging the electorate to look with suspicion on their Muslim neighbors and, just as certainly, to “Vote BJP!” As can be imagined, Bhats did not reveal their Islamic roots to BJP leaders. Rather, they pointed, as they did in Rajasthan’s tourist hotels, to their primordial connection to the god Ram and to their abiding links to local Rajput kings such as Maharana Pratap and Amar Singh Rathor. That is, in their meetings with BJP politicians whose Hindutva or “one-nation-under-Ram” platform now dominates Rajasthani and indeed Indian politics, Bhats represented themselves as staunch and loyal Hindus to the core.10 The Bhats’ political-puppetry work for the BJP, then, reveals how my informants, as in their maneuvers in the Rajasthan’s palace hotels, can be mistaken for staunch Hindus in the late twentieth and early twenty-ﬁrst centuries. We should keep in mind, however, that these maneuvers are precisely that— a kind of political ploy or game. Indeed, Bhats play a number of such games. In rhymes such as Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai / Ham sab bhai bhai (“Hindus Muslims Sikhs Christians / We are all brothers”), my informants link themselves to a rhetoric of common belonging that includes both Hindus and Muslims. They attack boundaries separating these groups as differences of name only that can be eliminated under other names such as “brotherhood.” By contrast, in chants such as Hindu Hindu bhai bhai / Muslim log kahan se aye? (“Hindus all are brothers / But where have the Muslims come from?”), Bhats opportunistically take advantage of a widespread distrust of Muslims, a minority group and, in the present political context, an easy target. They assert that gaps between religious communities not only are a matter of name but represent historical realities, such as the fact that Muslims arrived late in India, bringing with them different habits and beliefs. Bhats were not only aware of their inconsistency toward Islam but proud of it. Drawing my attention to the contradictions in his political puppetry, one informant, Harji Bhat of Jaipur, smiled wryly and pointed out, “You see, we work for both parties, Congress and the Janta Party [the BJP]. This shows our brains [dimag] and cleverness [calaki]!” Similarly, in revealing the Bhat link to Islam at the moment in which Muslims were being murdered in cities throughout Rajasthan, Narayan too implied that he and his kin were just plain smarter than those zealots who were busy killing each other. In Bhat words, their straddling of the line between Hinduism and Islam, and their controlling which aspects of their history and religious identity are revealed to any given audience, are “tricks” that allow “little” people like them-

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selves to “ﬁll their stomachs” by deceiving “big” people. These maneuvers are “political tactics” and “weapons of the weak”; we might also refer to them as forms of “everyday resistance,” political actions that have been well documented in the South Asian context.11 Indeed, the Bhats’ tactical image management—their clever manipulation of the way they were perceived by outsiders—was apparent in the way my informants presented their religious afﬁliations to me. Some Bhats never acknowledged their historical ties to Islam, apparently not trusting me with this information. I was informed by others in the Bhat community that this failure to publicly acknowledge their Islamic roots represented a capitulation to contemporary politics and speciﬁcally to the rise of Hindu nationalism. Other Bhats admitted that they paid homage to Muslim icons, such as the previously mentioned Islamic saint or pir baba named Mala Nur, but not that they possessed ancestral ties to Islam. Still other Bhats openly mocked those Bhat clans that seemed to have the closest ties to Islam, thus indirectly asserting their own Hindu afﬁliations. As one Bhat put it, playfully exaggerating the Islamic ties of one of the original four Bhat clans, “The Kaleths, they read Muslim scriptures in the local mosque!” By contrast, others battled to associate themselves more ﬁrmly with Islam, such as by claiming to be descended from Mala Nur. For example, Sarmaji, a Bhat belonging to the Kava clan, told me that the Muslim saint Mala Nur himself was a Kava and not a Kaleth. He added that if I tried to conﬁrm this detail with other Bhats then they, driven by jealousy, would make themselves “bigger” by associating their own clan with this highstatus Muslim ancestor. As if to prove the point, this man’s wife and my adopted sister, Kosila, spoke up, claiming that her father’s clan, the Danavats, was the ﬁrst Bhat clan and that Mala Nur in fact belonged to this clan, even though most Bhats accepted that the Danavats were added last. Bhats manipulated me in similar ways in presenting details of their caste history. When I ﬁrst attempted to map Bhat social structure by inquiring about my informants’ clans, my informants, noticeably struggling to control their laughter, listed Rajput clans instead. Then, when I caught on to this game, Bhats reeled off Brahmin gotras, again barely containing their hilarity. After this, a Bhat provided a playful list of his caste’s clans, punning their various names, a few of which I include here: “Jagah Bhats, these cannot be woken up, they are lazy and sleep all the time [playing off the Hindi word jagna, to wake up]; Kava Bhats, these are bringers of ill fortune [a play on kava, or crow, an animal perceived by Hindus to be portentous, as was seen in chapter 1 in the poem in the story of Resamji]; Danavats, they are descended from the Gehloth Rajputs [this was followed by a snicker, for Gehloth, the name of an actual Rajput clan, sounds similar to a local word meaning ‘bastard’].” Eventually, Bhats did list actual Bhat clans for me, though most of my informants never settled on a ﬁxed list of names or even on the same number of clans. In these examples, Bhats were tactically controlling the ﬂow of information about

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their community, though in a typically humorous manner. They were playing me, an ignorant and vulnerable outsider. And they largely succeeded. The jokes were so common that, even now, reading my ﬁeld notes, I cannot extricate the humorous pseudo-histories from my informants’ serious accounts of their past. Even in those religious contexts where Bhats manifested something more akin to true belief and commitment, Bhats played politics. For example, many Bhats placed images of Jesus Christ on their household shrines shortly after my arrival. Here my informants, who enthusiastically pointed out these Christian icons to me, offered respect to an Angrez—that is, “English”—deity and thus indirectly to my kith and kin. Such a move, Bhats seemed to imagine, might help procure the good will of a potentially valuable new friend and patron. Equally, Bhats seemed eager to win the amity of Jesus himself. In a move reminiscent of their worship of both Hindu and Muslim personages, Bhats hedged their bets and didn’t take any chances. What did it cost them, as one informant put it, to add another image to their already crowded Hindu shrines, thus multiplying their chances for supernatural payoffs?12 Such Bhat actions would seem to have much in common with the details discussed in the previous chapter, where Bhats claimed to be a kind of royalty, fallen far in contemporary times but royalty nonetheless. In the religious contexts, such claims could also be tactically deployed, as when they were trying to garner patronage from the BJP. In other contexts, however, such claims were a hindrance, and Bhats readily abandoned them. For example, Congress Party members were much more eager to hear of Bhats’ Muslim roots, not their links to Hindu royalty. And Bhats readily obliged, hiding all links to kings.13 These details point to the way in which Bhat claims to be the descendants of bardic royalty represent merely one tactic utilized by my informants to advance in contemporary Rajasthan. Less important than any speciﬁc claims advanced by Bhats, I think, is the way that they claim a certain bardic cleverness. In their stories of bards and kings, Bhats are not, I would argue, demonstrating allegiance to any single identity. Rather, my informants suggest that members of their community possess a general cunning that elevates them above other communities, such as feudal kings and other “little king” patrons. Such cunning was perhaps shared by royal bards, but not exclusively so. Indeed, Bhats seemed to suggest that members of their community possessed even more cunning than royal Carans and Bhats. My informants’ poverty and low status warranted this cultivation of cunning. Bhats, then, do speak from time to time of kings, and even of their own royal roots, in order to gain new employment. They are not, however, limited to this particular ploy. They self-consciously suggest that their cleverness allows them to advance many different, and even contradictory, stories about their caste identity and history. To examine further the way in which Bhats put old bardic skills and insights to use in new contexts—this time by deploying a

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general bardic cunning and “double-talk” rather than any particular royal claim—I will explore in detail a particular Bhat “consciousness–raising” drama.

“Your Daughter’s Wedding” As was mentioned in chapter 2, in the early 1990s UNESCO declared the importance of traditional media such as puppetry for communicating social reform. As a result, Bhats, with their history of performing and praise singing, have been actively sought out by the Indian state as well as by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to propagandize puppet shows on a variety of topics. Just as my informants have ﬂocked to the tourist industry and have put their skills to work for India’s political parties, they have also taken advantage of this opportunity. Bhats now perform dramas on themes as diverse as life insurance, fertilizer, AIDS, family planning, childhood immunization, state-run reforestation programs, and the importance of defecating away from drinking wells.14 An examination of one of these new Bhat puppet plays, “Your Daughter’s Wedding” (Ap ki beti ki shadi), will demonstrate Bhat attitudes toward the modern worldviews within these dramas. In this play, which was sponsored by a nationally run state bank, Bhats explain to India’s “backward populace”— mainly the urban and rural poor—the nuts and bolts of tractor and water buffalo loans, interest rates, and savings accounts. The play thus exposes Bhats to a new attitude toward the future, which we might call “modernist”—a mode of thought said to rest upon the idea that human beings can rationally manage, plan, and thereby control the future.15 Modernization plays concerning money and investment such as “Your Daughter’s Wedding” are of particular importance to the Indian state. From the perspective of Indian bureaucrats, it is only if the poor use their money wisely, investing rather than wildly spending it, that they can amass sufﬁcient funds for health care, education, and housing. Moreover, if money is placed in banks rather than hidden in secret chests as some Rajasthanis are known to do, it can be invested by the state in roads and telephone lines. It can be loaned to farmers to buy tractors, dig tube wells, and more generally build India’s future. In short, the inculcation of “rational” economic practices—saving and planning—is seen to be the foundation for all other state reforms. It is therefore not surprising that Bhats are hired to perform a number of plays with economic themes. “Your Daughter’s Wedding” was composed in consultation with urban sponsors. Bhats and their sponsors, the former typically illiterate and the latter always literate, discussed not only how and where the plays should be performed, but the drama’s plot and characters. The Bhats’ urban sponsors also oversaw the Bhat composition of the songs and verse that accompanied these

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plays. Indeed, a local bank manager even supervised one of the Bhat dramas I witnessed. This play, then, is a joint creation of Bhats and bank managers. As such, “Your Daughter’s Wedding” directly exempliﬁes the manner in which the state intersects with and is mediated by local understandings and agendas.16 I witnessed this play twice as it was performed on the outskirts of Jaipur city toward the end of 1994, and the bulk of the description and analysis that follows is based on these two performances. However, I also discussed this play with my informants in their homes over a two-week period following these two stagings, at which time they replayed and explained key scenes and jokes (which I recorded). I also had access to the play’s written script and witnessed meetings between Bhats and their bank manager sponsors while the play’s plot sequences were ﬁnalized. In the case of “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” a group of Bhats were engaged to stage twelve showings at 200 rupees per performance (about U.S. $7 at the time of my research) in the city of Jaipur as well as in nearby villages. Two puppeteers were necessary to stage each performance, one dancing the puppets and the other narrating the story as well as providing musical accompaniment on either a harmonium or a small two-headed drum (dholak). It was typical for the puppeteer who landed the contract to take the lion’s share of the proﬁts. It was also common for Bhats in these situations to have their contracts renewed when new funds became available, and the managers of this particular bank had implied that this would occur. Since these dramas were staged for the poor in urban slums and villages, the audiences, typically about forty people including a healthy smattering of children, were mainly Dalits.

The Wonder of Modernity The hero of this puppet play is Krisan Bhai, a hapless peasant (literally, “Brother Krisan”). In the opening scene the Krisan puppet is hurrying toward his ﬁelds when a wealthy merchant invites him for tea. Krisan laments that he has no time, because his daughter’s wedding has “come down upon his head,” and his son’s is not far off. He has saved little and must therefore “work, work, work.” The merchant, feigning sympathy, offers Krisan a “special” loan, because he is “like family.” Actually, it is proffered at an excruciatingly high rate of interest, 15 percent a month, but Krisan, as simple as he is, cannot see through the merchant’s ruses. Putting up the family jewelry for collateral, Krisan takes out the loan. In the course of the play, this poor peasant gets taken by just about everyone in the village, even his closest relatives. Then, just as he gathers the means to fund the wedding, throwing his family into debt for generations to come, all his amassed wealth is destroyed. Farcically manipulating Rajasthani beliefs about idle, noncirculating money, his cash meets a multitude of demises. Part is burned in a ﬁre. Another portion, buried in a

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strongbox, is devoured by termites. Some melts in the rain, a bit is devoured by mice, and a ﬁnal wad of cash is picked from his pocket by a gremlin. Convinced he is cursed, Krisan ponders whether to take out an even larger loan from the merchant, stage an elaborate feast for the gods, and thus hopefully placate their anger. At this point another puppet, representing Krisan’s friend Dhanji Maru, steps onto the stage. Dhanji Maru, whose name is derived from the Hindi word for wealth, dhan, explains to his friend the workings of banks, their low interest rates, their security against loss, the lack of need for collateral, the way a savings account encourages thrift, and so forth. He relates how loans can be used for tractors, wells, and other farm implements. And if one invests the loan properly, one can amass enough for a splendid wedding. One can even educate one’s children. Here Krisan reveals himself a true naif who knows little about modern values. He asks, “Educate your children? Won’t studying make you crazy?” And also “Where does the bank get their money? Do they grow it on trees?” “And if we don’t pay it back, can’t they just grow some more?” (Laughs from the audience.) Krisan, an easy target, is not the only butt of this play’s jokes. Dhanji Maru, the friend who at ﬁrst seems so wise and well informed, later shows up rollicking drunk in the street. For appearance’s sake, he had bought a buffalo with his loan, but he sold it to his cousin, using the money for drink. His borrowed rupees were gone within a few weeks. Then, rather than working to pay back his loan, he sat around gambling. At one point, after being put in jail for ﬁghting with a neighbor, Dhanji Maru had to bribe the police to get out, thrusting himself further into debt. The scenes in which Dhanji Maru appears are portrayed in a slapstick manner, replete with loud and drunkenly slurred words. In fact, almost everyone in the village is ridiculed. Wealthy moneylenders are portrayed as deceitful and unscrupulous, and Bhats mimic their wheedling and conniving voices to much laughter. Also, wealthy landlord puppets, who appear at ﬁrst to be powerful and threatening, ultimately kowtow to moneylenders and educated bank managers, cloyingly offering namaste after namaste (a standard Hindi greeting). On ﬁrst glance, this puppet play pursues a relatively straightforward formula. It mocks old social forms as corrupt (bhrast). In making traditional practices appear risible, the audience is encouraged to turn to modernity, which is implicitly efﬁcient, rational, and good. Only by turning from tradition and toward modernity might effective control over one’s future be possible.17 This point was driven home repeatedly in the play. Figures representative of modern life, like the ever-present bank manager, are well spoken and well mannered. Rather than humiliating villagers, as traditional landlords do, they treat them with respect. At one point the bank manager invites Krisan Bhai into his ofﬁce to share a cup of tea. There, Krisan is assured that with a recommendation from the village headman he will have no problem procuring

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his loan. Throughout this meeting the Krisan puppet is amazed at the hospitality he is shown, how such a “big” person takes the time to explain things to such a “little” person like himself. He admires the spotlessly clean interior of the bank ofﬁce, its typewriters and computers, the refreshing breeze from its air conditioners, and the overall bustle of the handsome employees. As Krisan leaves, he marvels at the size of the bank, noting how it must cost a fortune to build and maintain. In many scenes the play remarks on the projects made possible by the bank: electricity, roads, wells, relief programs for the poor, and schools, to name a few. Periodically tiny shiny jeeps zip across the stage. Overall, the modern Indian state, as represented by banks, is portrayed as wealthy, powerful, and benevolent; it provides its citizens with many advantages and thus deserves their allegiance. One should therefore pursue the rational economic outlook that it promotes. In doing so, one will reap further prosperity, wealth, and happiness. The play would further seem to purvey a straightforward perspective on time and the future. In the drama, Bhats lay out a view of the future as unpredictable. The forces amassed against an assured knowledge of the future are ﬁres and rains, as well as hungry mice and white ants, which destroy one’s idle cash. In other cases they are mischievous gremlins, greedy moneylenders, and corrupt landlords who are eager to relieve villagers of accumulated wealth. One might expect Bhats, as purveyors of history and promoters of kings, to place their faith in tradition. In this dramatic world, however, one does not have to place one’s trust in traditional systems of temporal control or prediction. Rather, the play presents a new modern mechanism for overcoming anxieties and doubts about the future: banks. By placing one’s savings in the play’s sponsoring bank, or in any bank for that matter, one can rest easy. Not only will one’s money be secured in a vault and thus safeguarded from theft, it will, through the magic of compound interest, reproduce itself into ever greater quantities. Here Bhats suggest that if one simply puts one faith in India’s banks, one can gain control over contingency—and thus ensure a prosperous future for oneself and one’s children. Bhats, then, do not promote tradition or kings here as they do in so many in other contexts. Rather, they suggest that one free oneself from the corruption of traditional India.

Reversals These straightforward messages, though compellingly rendered, do not exhaust this play’s meanings. Nor do they exhaust this drama’s stances toward the future or toward an ethic of saving and planning. At certain moments of the drama, Bhat puppeteers parody not only tradition but also, and seemingly paradoxically, modern persons, settings, and temporal understandings. For example, Bhats mock savers such as the merchant castes who, though

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part and parcel of traditional Rajasthan, have adroitly adapted themselves to the modern economy. Bhat performers suggest in one instance that these communities’ retentiveness is as much anal as ﬁnancial, reﬂective of an inability to defecate properly. My puppeteer informants even poke fun at the bank managers who hire them—either during teˆte-a`-teˆte script-doctoring meetings between Bhats and their sponsors or in the plays themselves. In one version of this play the bank manager, who features centrally in the action, offers tea to Krisan Bhai but refuses to drink with him. Although he is repulsed by this low-caste wearer of rags, the manager tries to maintain an air of politeness throughout, and his discomfort brings easy laughter from the audience. At still another moment, when a manager is preaching on the evils of dowries, a puppet character remarks that this bureaucrat’s family offers the biggest dowries of all. Throughout the play, urban bank employees are portrayed as being ill at ease among the rough villagers, uncomfortable in settings other than their urban ofﬁces, and ignorant of agricultural matters. Such ignorance explains, after all, why such managers, in the Bhats’ understanding at least, require others to propagate their reform programs in the ﬁrst place. This ridiculing of modern persons brings up an odd contradiction in the play. On the one hand, the modern state is shown to be inﬁnitely superior to traditional rule: the old village is a land of buffoons, the new nation a glorious utopia. On the other hand, both are shown to be more or less equally corrupt and equally ludicrous. Such a contradiction in both distinguishing between tradition and modernity and at times equating the two was not limited to a scene or two. It permeated the drama. Thus, at one moment the bank’s shiny jeeps and imposing buildings are symbols of its efﬁciency. Here the bank’s economic principles that generate such wealth are proven sound. Bank managers are thus the planners of a better economy loosely based upon individual accumulation, and modernity’s ethic of individualism is judged rational and good. At another point in this drama, however, shiny jeeps and imposing buildings become symbols of greed. In this context the wealth demonstrates that the state is exploiting its citizens, directing the nation’s funds toward bank managers’ own dowries rather than to, for example, village roads. Now proﬁt maximization is represented as selﬁsh and bad. Bhats tap into a rural suspicion that money put into banks goes directly to the pockets of its employees, and they frame the institution of banking in a “traditional” Rajasthani moral discourse in which those who save for themselves by putting their money in private bank accounts, are positively asocial, and even evil. Bhats, then, seem to provide their audience, on the one hand, with a rational and straightforward mechanism for mastery over the future, through banks and the ethic of thrift. But subsequently they suggest that bureaucrats manage banks, something Bhats admit in private that they only partially understand, in order to amass dowries for their daughters and jeeps for their

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pleasure. Putting oneself in these people’s hands through a disciplined saving of one’s cash, then, remains at best an uncertain affair. In pointing to these managers’ corrupt behavior, Bhats rob their audience of the very possibility of control over arbitrary fate that this play initially promises. A modernist system of temporality, then, from this Bhat point of view, rests upon a certain deception: promising control over what is to come, banks in the end only inculcate further uncertainty. Although Bhats focus on the inability to gain control over destiny, one should not view my informants as mere victims of arbitrary power exercised from above. Bhats themselves, in the way they cleverly subvert the message of their sponsors, demonstrate their own measure of power, and indeed their own degree of corruption. In their case, however, this corruption is not found in political strength or economic might. Rather, as was seen in chapter 4 in a very different context, it emerges from the deceptive manipulation of the art of representation. Such corruption, originating in Bhat practice itself, further circumvents one’s ability to know the future and thus to control one’s fate. This is discussed in the next section.

The Corruption of Words and Images Bhat puppet plays are sprinkled with poetic language. Much of “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” in fact, is sung rather than spoken. One Bhat song in this play speaks of the transformation a loan can bring: “Until yesterday, you were a beggar / But now you are a respected businessman.” In Hindi this is: Kal tak tha jo ek bhikhari / Aj banaya hai vyapari. This is highly patterned language. This short couplet consists of a parallel grammatical structure and thus a rhythm as well as a rhyme. Even a non-Hindi speaker can appreciate this composition’s tight structure, the way it is not mere words but music. Bhats, then, seem to be as interested in the form of their compositions as in their content, if not more so. This attention to the musicality of words or even to what we might call “metalinguistics”—the way a message is crafted and delivered, as opposed to the mere content of the message—makes Bhat plays a pleasure to listen to and increases the possibility that these dramas will be heard and heeded. Indeed, in demonstrating a mastery of patterned language, Bhats establish their authority as persons of skill and knowledge, and therefore persons worthy of respect.18 Bhat skill with poetry would seem to suggest power and control—in this instance, and returning to the theme of time, the power to craft compelling messages about planning and saving that will remove contingency from one’s life. However, Bhat power over images also partly subverts their own authority as well as that of the state. Evidence for this subversion is provided by a few improvisational moments in “Your Daughter’s Wedding”; Bhat performances

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invariably entail changes to scripts prepared in association with bank managers. At one point in “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” a Bhat puppeteer recites that the State Bank of India “embraces everyone” (sab ko gale lagaya). But shortly thereafter, following an audience remark about the state’s high taxes, the puppeteer repeats the phrase, changing it slightly to sab ko gale dabaya, which translates as “throttles everyone.” The fact that these two words—lagaya and dabaya—sound the same is used as a pretext to substitute one for the other. Bhats cleverly suggest that an equivalence of sound is an equivalence of meaning—and thus that the beneﬁcent state is just a hair’s breadth from the rapacious state, just as “thrift” is barely distinguishable from “stinginess.” These spontaneous riffs were subversive, contravening their sponsors’ agendas. Such subversion was even more pronounced in that these improvised jokes, judging by audience response, were among the most memorable moments in the dramas, if only because of the Bhats’ outrageous verve. On another level, however, Bhat jesting did not contradict the spirit of their sponsors’ agenda. The average peasant or poor person is suspicious of those in power. Banks, like other modern structures, are even more inscrutable and intimidating than traditional powers. In mocking these institutions and thus bringing them low, however, Bhats liberate these intimidating institutions from high seriousness. They bring them into folk consciousness, where they can be more closely examined and where they are less threatening. In fact, the Bhats’ desire to make banks less threatening was made everywhere clear. We hear lines such as, “Banks are for everyone, big and small,” and “Anyone can open an account or take out a loan, even women.” One song promises, “Whether you are a lowly barber, a washerman, or a cobbler / Whoever you are, you will ﬁnd the bank’s warm heart.” This is why “traditional” puppeteers are chosen to deliver the play in the ﬁrst place. Who better to render the state more folksy than people who capture the familiarity of childhood?19 Keeping spontaneity alive through improvisation is not only a tactic that Bhats consciously instigate and control, for even Bhats could not always predict the course of their words. For example, at one point in a song a puppeteer asks of the Indian state—in that same patterned language—“Who, working magic, has fed the nation? Who made the roads for everyone, brothers?” This line brought a smattering of laughter from the crowd, surprising even my informants. As they later explained to me, after they had identiﬁed the reason for the mirth, this village had been lobbying the state for roads for many years with little success. Those few roads that were eventually built with state funds were now little more than sand-covered trails. In another example, one of the play’s characters preaches on the evils of alcohol. Rather than wasting money in such a way, one should save it by putting it in banks, he argues. At this point there was another outburst of snickering in the audience, and a few remarks I didn’t quite catch. Afterwards a Bhat

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A new hybrid Bhat home built around 2003 on the outskirts of Udaipur, half tent and half made of mortar and stone.

informant told me, “Everyone knows that the puppet man drinks.” Bhats, then, practice the very habits that they propagandize against, such as drinking rather than saving and sponsoring elaborate funeral feasts rather than pinching paise. (Bhats also do not themselves open savings accounts.) In fact, they had been drinking that very day in the village, just before the play, a detail playfully referred to by audience members. These poetic reversals point to the Bhat power over the art of representation, as did the stories of kings and bards in the previous chapter. My informants’ play with words and images, like their stories of royal bards, also draw attention to the fact that knowledge is stored in unstable and deceptive discursive vehicles and is thus not entirely trustworthy. One need only consider the opening tale of chapter 4 in which a bard uses clever double-talk to manipulate both the god Ram and his demon rival Ravan. Plays such as “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” then, are other than straightforward maps of the world. And this Bhat manipulation of words and people, logically, might lead my informants, as well as their audiences, to question the extent to which these plays can serve

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as reliable guides for action. That is, the Bhats’ power over representation, the way they cleverly subvert both their elite sponsors’ agendas and their own discursive constructs, can make their dramas appear less rather than more trustworthy. Bhat suspicions toward the modern ethic of planning, then, undoubtedly express a simple distrust of persons of power and indeed a desire to subvert their agendas: Why would one give one’s money, or encourage others to give their money, to strangers and indeed to corrupt elite strangers to boot? However, my informants’ overt attention to poetic form also accounts for the failure of some of the Bhats, and their audiences, to place faith in modern claims to control the future: Persons of power are corrupt, rarely acting as one might hope and thus short-circuiting the best-laid plans, a perspective surely shared by many Rajasthanis; but words and images do not always behave as one might hope or expect, since they possess an unstable vitality that similarly throws one’s presumed knowledge about the future into disarray.

Playful Resistance “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” while seeming to preach certainty and control over future vicissitudes, instead becomes to Bhats, on a temporal as well as linguistic level, a testament to the need for improvisation as opposed to precise prediction. Bhats are rarely conﬁdent that a single rule, especially as revealed to low-status and uneducated persons like themselves, will ever exactly match the situation at hand. Rather than mechanically applying temporal formulae, as is suggested by this modernist bank drama, Bhats instead rely on the power of improvisation and imprecise estimation (andaj). To give but one example, and there are many, Bhats are not astrologers, a fact they freely admit. My informants, however, were not reluctant to play amateur palm reader—having picked up a few tricks from a jogi snake charmer— on several occasions attempting to divine how the stars and planets had been written into my hand. Bhats, moreover, rarely allowed failure to check their improvisational enthusiasm in situations such as these. My adopted Bhat father, Bansi Lalji, merely found it humorous when I informed him that his most recent reading of my palm (which featured a second marriage and ﬁve children) veered dramatically from a previous interpretation (in which I remained faithful to my then companion, who was to bear me one, or in some cases no, children). To generalize, for most Bhats the temporal game—and many Bhats did seem to experience life at times like a game—is not in knowing how and when to apply which rule or principles. Rather, the task is how to improvise in the face of a complexly unpredictable temporal landscape. Instead of exact recipes inherited from the past, Bhats work with veiled clues, rough ideas, close ﬁts,

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and near misses. And Bhats, inheriting traditions of performance that allow them to stage dramas such as “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” perform with verve in a world reminiscent of an improvisational theater. In “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” Bhats would seem to argue that the future can be successfully managed and planned into existence by humans through implementation of the “rational” concepts of thrift and saving—“We make our children’s future,” to take a current motto of the Indian government. But, as we see, Bhats sabotage such claims in a myriad of ways, thus contravening the message they were paid to propagate. Seeing how Bhats contest the ideas about time that are promoted by modern elites, we might imagine my informants to be resistors par excellence. Indeed, such resistance would make sense given Bhats’ current situation. Most of my Bhat acquaintances inhabit either urban slums or tents on the outskirts of Jaipur and Udaipur. Though they were frequently promised modern amenities by local politicians trying to garner votes from the urban poor—running water and indoor plumbing, for example—such aid rarely materialized. Bhats, jaded though not totally cynical, came to distrust most so-called development projects, or at least they came to distrust the idea that the wealth of modern India would be delivered to them by well-meaning political elites or development experts. It is therefore not surprising to me that Bhats also contest modern temporal schemes of prediction and control as manifested in bank savings programs. It has been remarked that marginalized people sometimes contest political realities by establishing alternate relationships to time.20 The Bhats behave similarly, subverting elites’ temporal schemes of prediction and instead improvising. Bhats, then, certainly “resist” elite ideas about time. Nevertheless, no Bhat I knew was actively involved in the Dalit movement or even truly engaged with organized politics. Bhats assiduously avoided, and even mocked, such commitments. They suggested that members of their community were too “clever” to be taken in by simplistic political ideologies. This attitude distinguishes Bhat subversions from subaltern “communalist” politics, and indeed demonstrates the manner in which Bhats resist, so to speak, organized or large-scale political resistance.21 Still, Bhat activities described in this book do share features with “everyday resistance”—that is, they resemble those disguised quotidian contestations such as “dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage and so forth.”22 The savvy Bhats do not generally express their discontent in an openly brazen manner or even in a manner that is obviously political. Instead, with an eye to possible negative repercussions, they resist in ways that are covert as well as opportunistic, emergent, and even unconscious.23 Indeed, Bhat resistance, given the way it is couched within subversive dramas and representations, is particularly akin to what the political scientist

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James Scott has termed “hidden transcripts”—oppositional discourses that “reverse and negate” the beliefs and values of dominant groups typically without seeming to do so.24 In fact, one ﬁnds many of Scott’s principal forms of hidden transcripts in “Your Daughter’s Wedding”: obsequious yet manipulative appeals to the public self-images of dominant groups (like the drunken Dhanji Maru” the free-drinking puppeteers do not save their money and could seemingly use the steady hand of the Indian state, or so Bhats sometimes implied both to their audiences and to their bank manager patrons); offstage critical counterdiscourse (jokes uttered out of earshot of their sponsors); and onstage criticisms disguised in puns and other evasive speech genres (the ambiguously critical asides uttered in the presence of their sponsors).25 Nevertheless, Bhats do not strive merely to turn the caste system, or indeed the world, “upside-down.”26 Rather, as was often pointed out to me both within and outside the Bhat community, they are gurus of a kind—that is, teachers and educators. As such, they wield subversive images and even comedy in a way that is meant to bring understanding and insight to their audiences. In “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” for example, Bhats purportedly promote a modern ethic of time, one that subalterns could presumably use to better themselves and thereby escape their traditionally subordinate position in society. In promoting such a temporality, however, Bhats also illuminate, as often accidentally through discursive slips as intentionally through consciously subversive representations, the state’s own slipups, hypocrisies, and broken promises, thus potentially inciting audiences to still other forms of resistance against modern authorities.27 In these terms, the Bhats’ discursive resistance is double—or perhaps once removed. That is, Bhats themselves overturn elite ideas about time and the future, be they traditional or modern. Equally, however, through their crafty control of images, they also strive to raise the consciousness of their audiences, thus providing others with the tools to recognize and resist the agendas of the powerful. Indeed, Bhats, through self-deprecating jokes and double-speak, even encourage their audiences to resist the Bhats’ own messages. All this makes sense, I would argue, in the context of the Bhat profession as bards. Rajasthan’s bards are certainly masters of the subversive counterdiscourses that James Scott discusses; poetic insults, often directed toward the highborn and referred to as bhandai, are one such example.28 Nevertheless, in their capacity as bards, Bhats do not use poetry and story simply to attack highcaste persons and their values. Rather, most Bhat poetry and narrative, be it used to praise or abuse, is recited before Bhambhi patrons, as was seen in chapter 3. In these contexts, Bhats provide their presumably degraded patrons with the tools to reimagine their status and worth: a poem in praise of generous Bhambhi gifting can help a leatherworker envision alternatives to the value of priestly purity; a story documenting the greed and stinginess of local priests and kings might perform a similar function.

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In this way Bhats are again resistors of a kind. Just as important, however, Bhats, much like Marx’s intellectuals in a different context, provide oppressed audiences with the tools to potentially resist and reverse the prevailing social order themselves, or at the very least to understand the truth of their subjugation. In this traditional context too, then, Bhat resistance is double and once removed. Bhat contestations in “Your Daughter’s Wedding” would therefore seem to emerge from, and be tightly intertwined with, local traditions of poetic and narrative composition. Many communities utilize hidden transcripts to overturn the beliefs and values of the powerful. Nevertheless, we can see why Bhats might be particularly engaged with discursive and poetic forms, and indeed why they might be particularly attuned to the corruption of such forms. If they are to succeed in their work as bards and thus survive economically and advance socially, they must wield language and images in a way that is compelling to their audiences. This difﬁcult rhetorical task provides Bhats with a powerful incentive to hone their discursive skills. Indeed, I more or less daily witnessed impromptu poetry recitations—typically competitive, accompanied by drink and meat, and unfolding at dusk. Such a rhetorical task also provides Bhats with a degree of distance on their representations. After all is said and done, Bhats, despite their allegiance to the Bhambhis, are hired guns who will spin any discourse for whatever political entity if the price is right, be it for the most retrograde of Rajput princes or the most progressive of democratic reformers.29 Finally, such a task explains why it is difﬁcult, despite all the obvious resistance in “Your Daughter’s Wedding,” to transparently access the Bhats’ consciousness and know what they really think of elite persons and institutions. In this play, Bhats both praise and critique dominant powers, sometimes in a single image or utterance. The Bhats’ own thoughts, then, remain a truly hidden transcript—hidden within their many contradictory appraisals of the powers that be and hidden within their commitment to deceptive rhetoric and poetics.30

Bhats and the Discourse of Modernity Bhat relationships to old and new temporal ideologies also shed light on academic discussions of “modernity.” In these wide-ranging debates, certain scholars, in what I would call a realist mode, attempt to locate the essential features of the modern age. Some, in arguments particularly relevant for this chapter, point to a distinctive modern relationship to time. It has been suggested, for example, that modernist thought entails a radical “break” or “rupture” with the past.31 Or, to put it another way, modern persons seem particularly convinced of their power “to change the course of history . . . through the imposition of

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master plans on present conditions.”32 As a result moderns do not passively inherit their futures; rather, they rationally plan them into existence.33 It is theoretically possible to identify the Bhats’ own modernity, or lack thereof, in their relationship to time. Such a project, however, is complicated by the manner in which Bhats ambiguously straddle the line between so-called tradition and modernity. As we have seen, Bhats contest modern systems of temporal control, a fact that suggests Bhat traditionalism; further, Bhats, as genealogists and oral historians, seem the very essence of tradition, ensuring as they do that the past remains alive in the present. By contrast, Bhats center their social life around human ingenuity rather than divine mandate, thus seeming to possess an almost modern secularism. Indeed, to be a bit provocative, my informants’ sophisticated engagement with playful uncertainty, ambiguity, and improvisation meshes almost too cleanly with a “postmodern” aesthetic.34 This manner in which Bhats alternately seem to be traditional, modern, or even postmodern—and surely this diversity is related to the various ways so-called modernity and postmodernity are deﬁned—makes problematic the idea that either tradition or modernity, as a set of essential qualities or features, is easily localized in this community. There is a way to escape this confusion, however, and I propose that Bhat practices discussed in this chapter can contribute more to the modernity debate than simply to “reveal cultural diversity in globalization.”35 In particular, I would suggest that Bhat practices add an interesting wrinkle to discussions concerning the discursive construction of modernity. In these more narrowly deﬁned debates, theorists do not try to identify the essential features of the modern moment in time, however useful such a project might be. Rather, inspired by Said’s (1979) critique of “Orientalism”—that is, by the observation that many ideas regarding the “Orient” are constructs of the Western imagination—they turn their attention to how the discourse of modernity might be constructed against the foil of tradition. That is, they examine how images of so-called traditional and typically non-Western societies—say, Indians’ supposedly irrational allegiance to inherited communal identities such as caste and religion—can work as tropes that deﬁne the seemingly essential features of modern, typically Western society, be it individualism, secularism, or an ethic of planning that allows one to break with the past and plot one’s own future. As to how Bhat activities might contribute to this discussion, I note ﬁrst that Bhats themselves imagine modern persons and institutions in two very different and contradictory ways in “Your Daughter’s Wedding.” At the beginning of the play, modern bank managers are high and noble while traditional landlords and moneylenders are corrupt and degraded. At other moments in this drama, however, Bhats reverse themselves and suggest that bank managers

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possess all the greed of dowry-giving fathers and all the caste prejudice of the arrogant highborn. In these examples, Bhats establish the qualities of modern persons by identifying them with other terms in a discourse—in this case, from traditional persons. Bhat actions thus draw our attention to the contingent and constructed character of modern people and institutions, that is, to the fact that banks or even the nation-state are not only social and political institutions but also “discursive ﬁelds” rife with contradictions that can be variously “labeled, discussed, practiced, decried, and denounced.”36 Further, I would suggest that Bhats do more than inadvertently draw our attention to the discursive dimensions of modernity. Bhats in fact seem to be conscious of the imagined and discursive, and thus the contingent rather than essential, dimensions of the modern world. As evidence, I would point not only to the Bhats’ many humorous asides that contradict their play’s purported purpose of promoting banks, but also to the way Bhats brag about their “clever” ability to tailor their representations of banks to the needs and desires of their various audiences (be they bank managers or Dalits); the way Bhats knowingly preach what they do not practice (exhorting others to open savings accounts and give up alcohol while they themselves do not); the way my informants revel in the unpredictable ways their plays are interpreted by audiences (Bhats appreciated the unexpected laughs brought on by their reference to roads and thus to the modern Indian state’s corruptions and failures); Bhat puns that draw attention to the medium of communication and thus to their representations as representations (the “embraced/throttled” example); the overall skillful manner in which Bhats can translate a state savings program into song and verse, puppets of string and wood, humorously drawn characters, and a carefully plotted story; and the Bhats’ skill as bards and thus their long-standing engagement with deceptive rhetoric. All these examples suggest: “Don’t take what we say seriously, it is not real, it is just art, and we are just puppeteers trying to entertain.” That is, Bhats demonstrate playful, tactical, and self-reﬂexive distance on their discursive portrayals of the modern state. They therefore seem to view such portrayals, be they laudatory or critical, as discursive “ﬁctions” of a kind. Thus I take inspiration from the arguments of scholars that explore the discursive construction of modernity. Nevertheless, these scholars typically focus on the way that modernity is a ﬁction imagined from the perspectives and desires of elite Westerners. This chapter, however, argues that Bhats themselves bring the discursive dimensions of modernity to light in the course of one play purportedly promoting banks—if, admittedly, they do so inadvertently as often as intentionally. I would emphasize also that a similar Bhat perspective emerges from the way in which my informants frame themselves for tourists and other nostalgic elites, constructing themselves as “traditional” puppeteers against the foil of modernity. My informants are well aware that they can get more mileage out of being seen as the elevated bards of kings—icons of this

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state’s past glories—as opposed to the degraded praise-singers of lowly leatherworkers, symbols of past oppressions that interfere with the packaged fantasies characteristic of the local tourist industry. Nevertheless, they are also aware that they sometimes need to discard such an image, as when trying to garner patronage from the socialist-leaning Congress Party or even from the sponsors of their play, who are presumably concerned with democratic uplift.37 I would therefore locate the “Orientalist” critique in Bhat society and practice. Also I would refer to the Bhat world as an “alternate modernity,” a modern place both reminiscent and distinctive from my own. In this Bhat modernity, however, my informants do not emerge only from my imagination, and they do not inhabit only my ﬁction. Rather, just as certainly, I emerge from, and inhabit, theirs.38

The Power of Praise-Abuse In the following tale, Narayan Bhat brings to the fore the simultaneous power, and vulnerability, of praise-singers: Once a bard went before his master, the king, and greeted him in a deferential manner, praising him with the words, “Oh great lion king of great mercy!” Shortly thereafter a second bard, a competitor with the ﬁrst, came before the king and gossiped to him concerning the other bard. He asked the king, “Did you hear what that other bard just called you? He made you into a lion, an eater of cattle and buffalo, a devourer of horses and she-goats, a beast locked up in a cage in a zoo, a silly beast easily vanquished by Tribal hunters!” The king became enraged. He thought to himself, “What?! I will have this bard executed!” He called the bard before him and asked him to explain himself, and the bard responded with the following: That lion you are not, the wild one who devours cattle, That lion you are not, the one who runs, pursued by Tribals, That lion you are not, the one who is caged, That lion you are, the one who is the avatar of Visnu, Who killed the evil king Harna, and saved the devotee Pahla! The king, on hearing these words, was soothed and cooled. Later, the ﬁrst bard once again went before his lord. He incited the king into a fervor and frenzy [josh], sending him off into battle with the words, “Oh great king, you, the brave and manly boar!” Once again, the second bard came before the king and gossiped, “Did you hear that? He called you a pig, a ﬁlthy animal! Just look in the alleys; pigs eat dirty things from the road. And Untouchables

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casting kings grab them and devour their testicles! In the forest, they are hunted and killed by mere Tribals!” On hearing these words, the king became even more furious than he was before. He again called the ﬁrst bard before him, demanding that he explain himself. How could he compose such a phrase? The bard, for a second time, composed a response: That pig you That pig you That pig you That pig you

are not, which in the alleys wanders, are not, that in a cage lives, are not, the one that is hunted down, are whose tusks carved out Pushkar Lake!39

Once again, on hearing these words of the bard, the king was cooled. In this brief tale a praise-singer ﬁrst creates glorious images of his kingly patron. However, a rival sabotages this performance by taking these words out of one linguistic context and placing them in another in order to draw out new and hidden meanings. A lion is the king of the jungle, but it is also a beast that cannot control its hunger, a howling object of ridicule victimized by “lowly” Tribals. Similarly, a boar is a fearless warrior, charging ferociously into battle, but it is also a dirty wanderer of back alleys, a beast whose testicles are devoured by untouchable scavengers. In this story Narayan points to the power that praise-singers exercise over words, which as we saw in chapter 4 serves as the basis for Bhat claims to bards’ social centrality and supremacy over kings. However, Narayan also suggests that bards cannot totally control the mad play of language, and as a result bardic compositions are open to constant attack. Every utterance, being always open to interpretation, simultaneously contains both praise and abuse, or what we might call “praise-abuse.”40 Because of the dual and thus unstable nature of language, Narayan implies that no bard is safe. They cannot permanently ﬁx the nobility of kings, no matter how much their patrons might wish that this were not the case. In this chapter, similar themes have emerged. Bhats’ play, ﬁrst, treats the dual status of Muslims, as Hindus’ brothers but also as dangerous outsiders. Second, in “Your Daughter’s Wedding” they point to the positive and negative sides of modern attitudes toward time and indeed to modern authority itself. In doing so, they also point to their own multiple identities and afﬁliations. In these contexts, too, Bhats claim the bardic ability to uncover the hidden sides of modern discourses—the praise in the abuse, the abuse in the praise. Bhats acknowledge that they cannot totally control which side will emerge in any given context and so must constantly improvise. Nevertheless, my informants seem to suggest that simply being aware of the inconstancy of linguistic com-

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positions gives them a power over elites who expect, indeed demand, stable and univocal linguistic meanings. To put this another way, with the rise of Hindu nationalism, contemporary Indian consciousness is increasingly able only to acknowledge the dualistic division between Hindus and Muslims. Bhats, however, are not so trapped by such a perspective. And as we have seen in their work for opposing political parties as well as for certain development projects, the ability to move between seemingly contradictory perspectives gives them a power over modern elites, or so my informants imply. In this respect, modern Bhats seem to be playing out the roles allotted to royal bards in the stories in chapter 4. Bards were seen there to possess a special ability to raise kings up as easily as they might cast them down. Bards of old, with their insights into the “ﬁctive” dimensions of lordly reputations and thus also of social hierarchies, are not so different from contemporary Bhats. And Bhats thus claim, seemingly rightfully so, to have inherited the mantle of such royal wordsmiths. Still, the details of this chapter would suggest that Bhats are not wedded to a single claim promoting their own royalty. Indeed, they frequently in no way argue for their own royal roots. We see this in the opening political contexts in which Bhats distance themselves from the god Ram in order to garner Congress patronage. We also see it in the way they critique traditional Indian society, including Rajput landlords, as corrupt in “Your Daughter’s Wedding.” In each of these contexts, Bhats implicitly, and explicitly at times, take pains to separate their own fates and histories from those of kings. In these terms I would emphasize that the Bhats’ claims to be royalty are not so important in their speciﬁcs. Instead, they are signiﬁcant in pointing to a more general Bhat claim regarding their community’s cunning that is closely linked to a control over language. Bhat insight into the dual and unstable nature of language ultimately allows my informants to argue for an even deeper kind of supremacy over elites, be they kings of yore, modern Congress and BJP politicians, or even the “real” royal bards. Nevertheless, just as Bhats admit that even they cannot completely control the madness of language, so too do they acknowledge that they cannot make themselves or their reputations exactly as they please. Instead, like the bards in this ﬁnal story, they must improvise their attacks as well as their defenses. And this point about improvisation, which was one of the primary foci of this chapter, allows us to return to the manner in which Bhats “cast” themselves in contemporary India, and thus also the extent to which my informants are bound to, or liberated from, traditional “caste” structures.

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6 Conclusion Making History

The following verses of poetry echo the theme of praise-abuse encountered in the previous chapter (1): Master of mine a horse you have given, What good work you have done! My feet have been raised up high, May the God Ram do the same to you! Here, a Bhat friend of mine thanks his patron for a double “elevation.” When this Bhat mounts his new steed, his feet are literally brought off the ground. In being honored with such an extravagant gift, the poet is metaphorically raised in status. Happy, this bard wishes his patron the same rise in fortune. However, the words of a bard typically mask double upon double entendres, which my informants painstakingly explained to me. In asking that his benefactor be raised up to the heavens, the bard does seem to bless his patron. With a slight shift in meaning, however, these words can be reinterpreted as a curse, something akin to, “Die and be gone from this earth!” Even this reading, however, does not exhaust the joke. In feudal times, having one’s feet elevated was a prelude to torture. One was hung upside-down before being beaten senseless. My informants also revealed, hesitantly, a ﬁnal and more obscure and obscene meaning. This poem suggests that this patron might have his feet elevated in the air like a woman during intercourse and thus be sexually mounted by God.

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One might ask why an entertainer, even if only half seriously, would wish death, torture, and supernatural sodomy upon those who support him. Based on what we have learned of Bhats and the roles of bards, some of the answers should now be clear. If a gift is inadequate, a bard, reminiscent of the insults of chapter 3, communicates, “My family is starving as a result of your meager gifts; may you too die!” or even “You screwed me, may you also be screwed!” In this situation, however, a horse is more than fair compensation. Other meanings must therefore animate constructions such as these. To begin, and despite the obscenities, poems such as these send a moral message. On the one hand, the poet teaches his patron humility: “If you give generously simply in order to be praised, then learn humility, do not think of rewards!” The bard also tests his patron’s wits in jests such as these: “Can you see that I am humiliating you? If not, you need a clever person like me by your side.” These ambiguous jests are thus a game played between patrons and bards. In creating insults in the guise of praise, and praise in the guise of insults, bards tease and test their patrons. In so doing, they also demonstrate their power over language and representation, thereby building their value in the eyes of their patrons. Such skills and tests of wits were common in pre-independence Rajasthan. In the past, bards, especially those who provided their services to persons claiming kingly or warrior status, possessed power to make or break royal reputations, to guard or besmirch kingly honor, and thus to forge royal identity. In addition to being clever wordsmiths, bards worked as curators of collective memories, and skilled praise-singers vested kings with noble lineages stretching back to the sun or the moon. If they felt that their services were not adequately valued or rewarded, however, they had the power to tell the world that their lords were mere pretenders and their titles false or illegitimate. Rajasthan’s royal bards have largely abandoned their roles as the storytellers and praise-singers of kings, turning instead to the professions of medicine, law, journalism, and politics, a history that was explored in depth in chapter 2. My Bhat informants, however, realize that the past still holds power and potential. History is still very much alive in many Rajasthani settings and minds and is thus central to how contemporary Rajasthanis understand themselves and the world they inhabit. My Bhat informants have positioned themselves in contemporary Rajasthan as speakers for, and knowers of, the dead. Bards in pre-independence and even precolonial times, then, had the ability to bring kings up and also to “cast” them down. Skilled praise-singers, in a certain manner of speaking, crafted or “cast” kings much as an artist might cast a bronze statue. In the process, they established a lord’s status or “caste,” to return once again to the wordplay in this book’s title. Today a very different bardic community continues to cast kings for a variety of new publics in new urban settings. In doing so, Bhats appropriate a new caste identity and status.

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Artistic “casting” and social “casteing” are again intertwined—though in a very different context and with very different implications. This, then, explains the central question of this book: Why do Bhats speak so incessantly of kings? The answer is that they are still immersed in a village patron–client economy that is ﬁnancially important to them. Bhats return periodically to their natal villages to beg from Bhambhis. In this economy, termed jajmani, kings provide a model of generous patronage that serves as a prototype for the actions of their own Bhambhi “little kings.” In praising kings and other givers, and thereby serving as moral curators of an economy based upon “name” and ﬂamboyant generosity, Bhats protect their summer salaries and thus their interests. However, Bhats also speak of kings, particularly their own relationship to kings, in order to exploit more efﬁciently the emerging economic and social niches by seizing the abandoned roles of Rajasthan’s former bards of kings. In everything from tourism to nationalist politics to development, there is a demand for those who can forge compelling stories about the past and “traditional” society. Bhats cleverly exploit the romantic feudal fantasies of tourists and folklore organizers by posing as the once glorious, though now declining, bards of royalty. In fact, the Bhats’ cunning wordplay and deceptive histories provide an idiom through which my informants claim superiority over kings and other contemporary communities and thus maintain their dignity and advance socially in modern India. In chapters 4 and 5 we saw clever bards, either in story or in actual practice, making fools of kings, politicians, and bank managers. In these contexts, Bhats demonstrate their control over “praise-abuse” such as that found in this chapter’s opening verses. That is, they show that they possess the ability to elevate the seemingly degraded and degrade the seemingly elevated through cunning composition. In doing so, Bhats prove that they have the ability to provide contemporary elites with the services once provided by the bards of old. They also demonstrate their right, or so my informants argue, to wear the mantle of bard, perhaps even royal bard. Still, in these contexts the speciﬁc claims to royalty seem less important to Bhats than a more general claim to bardic cunning and linguistic cleverness. Bhats are thus actively forging a new public identity, claiming to be curators of Rajasthani tradition and thus authoritative speakers for their state’s past. This identity involves, in part, knowledge claims. Bhats argue that they understand history better than most Rajasthanis. As seminomadic performers with one foot in the village and another in Rajasthan’s modern towns and cities, Bhats claim to be intermediaries between old and new Rajasthan. Bhats realize that Rajasthani urbanites, given their prejudices and perspectives, would dismiss histories presented by the praise-singers of the degraded Bhambhis because they question how much people of such a social class might know about

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the world-historical events that shaped this formerly feudal state. The claim to be the former bards of kings is a deceptive tactic that establishes Bhat historian credentials. Of even greater importance to the Bhats’ new identity than these knowledge claims is the assertion by members of this community, not typically proffered in public, that they are just plain smarter than others. Rajasthan’s royal bards were known both for their knowledge and for their ability to put that knowledge to use skillfully, which sometimes meant stretching the truth in order to promote the good name of their lords and the well-being of their lords’ polities. My Bhat informants, through their own adroit storytelling and clever ﬁctions, prove that they possess the very skills that made Rajasthan’s bards so famous. The Bhats’ imagined links to royalty, like their fabrications related to the history of Bhat puppetry, then, are not only clever attempts to garner authority but also examples of Bhats putting to use the very bardic skills and qualities that they claim to possess. This book has explored what we might call Bhat practical subaltern politics. There are numerous ﬁrst-rate accounts of Hindu kingship, and of Rajput society and politics more generally, in precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times.1 Many of these, such as those in the so-called neo-Hocartian tradition, have formed the basis of my own account and have been cited throughout the book. There are also some ﬁrst-rate accounts of Rajasthan’s royal bardic communities.2 Casting Kings, however, is dedicated to providing a detailed view of Hindu kingship and of Rajput society from the bottom, a project that is rarer in the literature,3 and it does so from a very particular subject position, that is, from the perspective of bards of the once untouchable Bhambhi leatherworkers. Elite bards in pre-independence Rajasthan were undeniably political actors: they used praise and genealogy to establish the authority and legitimacy of kings. The Bhats who were formerly acrobats also politically resist dominant structures of value that render them marginal, and thus manifest what has been referred to as a state of “dominance without hegemony.”4 Nevertheless, it is important to remember that, as was seen in chapter 4, Bhat informants elevate bards over kings. In doing so, these Bhats, though clearly able to speak in a political register, do not themselves ground society in the political. Rather, in pointing to the manner in which my Bhat informants insist on the linguistic prowess of bards—particularly bardic skill in composing praise-poems and authoritative genealogies—I have sought to underline the sense of the poetic which is central to how my informants see themselves. From such a perspective, as has been seen throughout this book, especially chapter 5, Bhats resist any form of elite control and domination. But Casting Kings especially explores the connection between relations of power and the Bhats’ engagement with local Rajasthani traditions of poetry, story, and drama. It argues that the Bhats do have much in common with other Indian subor-

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dinate communities. It also suggests, however, that the Bhat experience of subordination, and their resistance to it, is unique. Bhat “subaltern consciousness,” their politicking and clever tactics, I have argued, is tightly intertwined and inﬂected by my informants’ traditions of narrative and poetic composition. There is therefore both a “politics and a poetics of transgression.” My Bhat informants, given their rootedness in local performance traditions, distinctly emphasize the poetic.5 Bhats, then, certainly do speak obsessively of kings and feudal Rajasthan, but this fact does not seem to represent a “hegemonic” political domination of Bhat consciousness. For Bhats do not speak nostalgically of kings nor of Indian feudalism. They have experienced too many injustices and humiliations to do so. Rather, putting their community’s traditional engagement with poetic composition to new use, and with an eye toward their own advancement, Bhats, using every trick in their diverse repertoire, manipulate other Rajasthanis’ nostalgic fantasies for simpler and perhaps nobler times. Bhats therefore resist their past and do everything in their power to separate themselves from it. Nevertheless they are heavily indebted to it. The book has emphasized that the Bhats’ most innovative moments emerge from the traditions of narrative and poetic composition that form the patrimony of these bards, or former bards, of Bhambhis. In the same way that Bhats both praise and abuse kings, they are also ambivalent about their own past, which provides their greatest burdens but also their most powerful weapons. In these terms, my analysis has attempted to walk a difﬁcult line between two very different interpretations of caste. The ﬁrst perspective suggests that caste forms a timeless and static system of social ranking that is bestowed upon one at birth. The second argues that caste is largely a ﬁction, a remnant of British colonial power and the Western imagination gone haywire. As scholars of the ﬁrst perspective might expect, Bhats cannot entirely escape their births, as my informants are reminded when their best laid schemes and inventions go awry. By contrast, Bhats do not themselves accept caste as natural or ﬁxed. Rather, they utilize every trick at their disposal to remake themselves and recast their status. Indeed, reminiscent of the accounts of critics of “Orientalism,” they also argue for the ﬁctive and imaginative dimensions of caste rank and identity. Bhats too suggest that we are all players, some poorer than others, strutting on life’s stage. In giving prominence in this book to the Bhats’ own reﬂections on their work, I have tried to show that as poets, storytellers, praise-singers, and even providers of their own ethnographic self-descriptions, my informants are themselves aware of the same processes that have been documented and theorized by academic specialists of caste, situated in whichever tradition of interpretation.6 Many of the Bhats I know were explicit in drawing attention to the ways in which their use of language has the power to establish and conﬁrm status hierarchies, even if these points were made indirectly through the telling

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Ve´ronique and I receive a blessing from Santos, daughter of Bansi Lal and Bedami, just before our departure from Rajasthan after completing our dissertation research in the mid-1990s. The turban and sword are said to lend auspiciousness to the departure.

of their stories. They were also explicit in describing the ways in which such insights into language could be put to use in contemporary contexts. Bhats, then, insistently argue that their power over language and representation allows them to advance in myriad ways in contemporary Rajasthan and indeed seemingly to cast themselves as they please. They suggest that such a power renders members of their community in some regards superior to their contemporaries, be they kings and priests, or tourists and politicians. But we have also seen how Bhats back off these claims in certain other contexts, as in chapter 5’s concluding story of kings, boars, and lions, where Bhats admit that their control over language and representation is limited at best, as well as in other contexts when Bhat village roots are discovered or surmised. In deference to Marx’s description of certain French revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries, then, it does seem as if Bhats do “make their own history” just as they construct the manner in which their patrons are remembered. Bhats do not, however, always control the way their histories will be received by an audience, either those chronicling their own past or that of their

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patrons. Thus, to continue with the quote, “they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”7 To conclude with reference to Marx’s words, this book has illuminated the balance in Bhat society between constraint on the one hand and freedom on the other. In doing so, Casting Kings has shown how Indian history and tradition continue to shape, but not determine, Bhat lives; it has revealed how the memory of kings and the legacy of bards weigh like nightmares, sometimes shaken off on waking, on Bhat consciousness and experience.

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Appendix Poem Texts

opening poem man lobhi man lalci man cancal man cor man ke manta na caliye palak palak man aur

chapter 1 1. ghar choriya ghora mariya mathe rn hua then marta Resamji itna tog hua 2. Bora jove bat kag utavre kamini beh aputa ghat rath me lad Resamji 3. dharti upar datar ghana datar bhariyo des then marta Resamji kya kuc gaya kes

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appendix 4. kun Jam kan jaem kun dhore bum asamge adhe mhare rasta revar bakhsa Resamji 5. gamand bank Dabriye vir bank Rathor turat calave jamgi dujo cuke ni pher 6. barchi mamgem bumkara tan mamgem talvar bhala mamgem pippala sil mamgem sardar 7. prakat karem Pratap Singhji lambi dhad ka sel ambar pat dar ka kare khelo abhi ta khel Jodhane nar jag gaya anmi Raja Bim Kota jhanda rok diya ghali satara sivan kalre himmat Kinsar luti Rajputom ki ar diya gola Kinsar ke ata lut laye Dar Panvar 8. do Jhalas do Purubiyas bhar Cundavat car do Saktavat do Rathor jimen Sarag Dev Pambar Sadri Sultan bedli badotar atal phatal Amet Gogunda Jasvant badam ghar Biyodya banki garh Gangoriyan goka gave git had rana mahal baniya do bag bic

appendix Pichola Prathi Raj ka athu pahar jahaz tire gaddi Hinduva bahan ki Phate Singh raj karen

chapter 2 1. patta tuta dal se pavan leke urae ab ke bichare kab milen dur parenge jae

chapter 3 1. kos do kos sambalem khal anda dhol sava sau kos sambalem mard ka bol 2. yas tharo janno nahim o yas carom khumt In Singh Raja umt diyo gamr mai diya thumth 3. Indo to man raji kare Candro kare savai Pilva nagar re mai ne chah chah dharam parnai 4. Indo Candro raji kare Savta Goddal savai Pilva nagar re mai ne jay jay dharam parnai 5. sat pakriyo Solan ki carhiyo dharam ki pal Cacas ka Caudhri sab Dalu Pariya ki laj 6. caman banake do alam sajja kiya tune

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appendix Muhammad diya gul khila diya tune parem huem them amkhom par parda yeh gaﬂat qasam khuda ki parda hata diya tune kai to aise gaye hai jin ko kafan nahim 7. mota band pagri maine dhale gaba dene lene ko kuc nahim gap marne a gya 8. basti base ne janyo tan sago ne jano mitr Yam khatu jan gya kamin puche o mara kanth

chapter 4 1. bara barai na karem bara na bole bol hira se kab kahem lakh hamara mol? 2. Pave garh Phatiyo bhayo Samar garh kaliyan Rantal mem Hamir caukhat Rao Cauhan car bams caubis gaz angul ast praman tau par sultan hai mat cukem Cauhan 3. Garud khag garh Lanka Samer pahar maur Brij des candan bara raj kuli Rathor 4. Garud calan Lanka toran candan bas svamg ke nak upar dharti thahara Ragh vamsi Raghu Nath

appendix 5. parisar kutta pamc das kutte darvaze parge kutta pacas assi kare gurararat sau kutta sang sathiyan lahori legad laje Sahipura Sisodiya 6. sat din ka qaul kiya din caudah guzaraya Hadi Rani byah kar Hindu mujre kyon nahim aya? 7. zyada bak-bak mat kar Sekh Salavat Khan zyada bak-bak karem teri luga jibhan luga teri jibhan nikal tera nain se nain cukau leke khanjar hath mai tera but sir urau

chapter 5 1. caturan ki an-ant gan-ant hams hams rojan kar-ant deval upar dhaja pharuke ulajh ulajh sulajh jant

chapter 6 1. dhani mharo ghoro diyo accho kiyo kam mhamka pag umca kariya tanko karsi Ram

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Notes

1. introduction 1. Amba Lal, the son of Narayan Bhat, is not a pseudonym. Bhats, proud of their knowledge of Rajasthani society, insisted that I use their real names, especially when citing their stories and praise poems. In other parts of the book, however, when quoting subversive observations of high-caste persons for example, I do disguise Bhat identities. 2. My monthly research stipend from the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) was about 20,000 rupees—about $650 U.S. according to the exchange rate at the time (about 31 rupees to 1 U.S. dollar). 3. It took me time to see that my informants were not as poor as they ﬁrst made themselves out to be. As I calculate it, on the basis of informal interviews, Bhat households in the town of Udaipur earn on the average 2,500 rupees per month (at the time of my ﬁeldwork about $80 a month). This is not low and is even considered middle class by Rajasthani standards. 4. From kath or “wood” and putli, meaning “doll” or “ﬁgure.” 5. On the Bhats’ Amar Singh Rathor puppet drama, which I discuss in more detail in chapter 4, see Bharucha 2003: chap. 9. 6. See Emigh and Emigh 1994 for more on Rajasthan’s bahurupiya mimics. 7. Which includes the Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana. There is always one family of Bhat “traditional puppeteers” in this setting. In the 1990s each family would typically earn 1,500 rupees per stint in this museum (100 rupees a day for ﬁfteen-day engagements), a signiﬁcant amount of money for my informants. 8. Patrons presumably support lackluster performers, hoping for more talent in the next generation. 9. Slightly over $320 U.S.

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10. For a similar point regarding Parpars, see Bharucha 2003: 200. 11. For a different account of the history of Bhat puppetry, see Bharucha 2003: chap. 9 as well as Jairazbhoy n.d. 12. The word bharet connotes a high-status praise-singer, storyteller, and genealogist; I translate it here as “bard.” 13. The implication is that all the persons mentioned in this poem—the Bora moneylender who hopes to be repaid, the queen (the beautiful woman) who spots an ill omen in a crow, and the Brahmins who normally bathe the king at the ghat platform—will continue to wait for the king’s chariot, disappointed, for the king is dead. 14. For publications on Rajasthani performing communities, see Bhanavat 1971, 1971–1972, 1986; Emigh and Emigh 1994; Erdman 1985; Joshi 1976; Kothari 1994; Samar 1966, 1971, 1972. On Bhat performance and society, see Snodgrass 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2004a, 2004b, 2004c, and n.d. 15. For further details on the bards of kings, see Dirks 1987, 1989: 67, Enthoven [1920–1922] 1975; Peabody 1991; Quanungo 1957, 1969; Russell [1916] 1969; TambsLyche 1997; Tod [1829–1832] 1978; Vidal 1997; Ziegler 1976. 16. Rajasthan combines the Hindi raja (king) with sthan (place) to translate literally, “The Place of Kings.” “Rajput” combines raja with putra (son) to make “son of a king” or “prince.” 17. The “Raj” is a term applied to the British empire in India. 18. In past centuries, too, Rajasthani Tribals apparently recruited bards to create or conﬁrm their claims of royal ancestry (see S. Bayly 1999: 45). For the importance of bardic genealogy in the early medieval period, see Chattopadhyaya 1994: 166–175. 19. For example, Colonel James Tod’s ([1829–1832] 1978) Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, one of the most cited histories of Rajasthan, is based largely on bardic reports. 20. See Unnithan-Kumar 1997: chaps. 2 and 3 for the appropriateness of “feudal”—a term taken from European history—to Rajasthan. 21. Rajasthani castes typically have three names: one respectful, one neutral, and one demeaning (Kothari 1994: 205). In this case Bhambhi is the most neutral of the three terms. Meghwal is used by Bhambhis to make a higher status claim—speciﬁcally, that they are descended from the Hindu saint Megh. Balai, on the other hand, is used to refer to this community’s sometimes role as a village or town crier, referred to as a ganv balai, or even a royal crier in the service of the king, called a raj balai. On this last point, see Gold and Gujar 2002: 220, 226. 22. This negative characterization of Bhambhis was reported to me by Bhats as well as by folklorists working in the area. I heard such epithets directed to India’s other former Untouchables, such as Bhangi sweepers, but I never personally heard such comments made in reference to the Bhambhis themselves. 23. On the bards of low- and middle-status communities, see Chambard 1963; Kothari 1994; Qureshi 2000; Raheja 1988a; Shah and Shroff 1959; Tambs-Lyche 1997: 154; Wiser [1958] 1969. 24. Mukhbancha Bhats combines terms etymologically linked to the Hindi words for “mouth” (mumh) and “to read” (bamchna), to connote a caste of bards who recite their genealogies orally and from memory rather than read them from a book. 25. See Bharucha 2003: 28 and chap. 1 for a discussion of these different classes of bards in Rajasthan.

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26. Theoretically, one might ﬁnd as many bardic group names as there are bardic castes. Certain names, however, have high-status connotations and are therefore sought after like prizes by lower-ranking bardic communities. 27. Sri Komal Kothari, or Komalda to his friends and acquaintances, is the founder and director of the Rajasthan Institute of Folklore, located in Borunda village near the city of Jodhpur. Komalda passed away in 2004. 28. As to whether Bhat actions in these contexts might constitute “Sanskritization” or “Rajputization,” see Snodgrass 2004b. 29. These negative characterizations relate to the fact that performers have the reputation of using heavy-handed tactics to extract larger donations from their patrons and audiences. One common term for client communities such as Bhats in the rural economy termed jajmani, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 3, is mamgat, which can be translated “beggar.” (This term is related to the Hindi verb mamgna, “to beg.”) The dismissal of Bhats as beggars and thieves also seems to be a remnant of the British colonial labeling of many nomadic communities as “Criminal Castes”; they were often poor and generally difﬁcult to tax and control. 30. The literature on caste is enormous and thus does not lend itself easily to simpliﬁcation. As early as 1946 J. H. Hutton ([1946] 1963: 1) pointed to over 5,000 published works on caste in India (Unnithan-Kumar 1997: 7, n. 10). As an introduction and synthetic overview of this sometimes bewilderingly complex literature, I highly recommend S. Bayly 1999, who, as in this book, draws attention to the historical dimensions of caste—that is, to the idea that Indian caste afﬁliations, being highly sensitive to ﬂuctuating local and global economic and political contexts, are in some sense “ﬂuid.” 31. For discussions of castelike status divisions among non-Hindu communities in India, including their afﬁnities to and differences between Hindu castes, see Ahmad 1973; Fanselow 1996; Fuller 1976; Jamous 1996; Lindholm 1986; M. Mines 1972; and S. Vatuk 1996. 32. Scholars point to hypergamy as an exception to the rule that Hindus generally marry within the caste of their parents. In many instances, parents try to marry their daughters “up” into a caste higher than their own. 33. On these points, see Fuller 2003: 478. 34. Dumont’s ([1966] 1980) book, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications, is perhaps the most inﬂuential treatise on Indian society to appear in the past thirty or forty years. 35. Dumont ([1966] 1980). 36. E.g., Hocart 1950. 37. For a summary of their “village studies,” see Mandelbaum 1970. 38. On the “invention” of traditional India in opposition to the modern West, arguments that I will only touch upon here, see C. Bayly 1988; Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993; Cohn 1985, 1987; Dirks 1987, 2001; Inden 1990; P. Mayer 1993; and Peabody 1996, 2001; for critiques of these arguments, see Quigley 1988, 1997. 39. On this last point regarding caste associations, see Fuller 2003: 492, as well as Rudolph and Rudolph 1967 and Srinivas 1966. 40. On Indian identity as performative, see Sax 2002. 41. “Subaltern studies” refers to a group of historians and social scientists who have contributed to the Subaltern Studies series edited by Ranajit Guha and others

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(e.g., see Guha and Spivak 1988). A guiding assumption of these Gramsci–inspired theorists—“subaltern” is a term coined by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci to refer to peasants—is that an understanding of Indian history and society, and especially of Indian peasants and Tribals, is inﬂuenced by elite perspectives. Subaltern theorists hope to “rectify the elitist bias characteristic of much research and academic work” in the ﬁeld of South Asian studies (Guha 1982 vii–viii) by focusing on subordinate persons’ experiences in “communal disturbances, grain riots, up-risings of hills-people, and small-scale peasant insurgencies” (Haynes and Prakash 1991: 7). By resisting, so to speak, the primacy given to elite perspectives, they hope to allow a fuller understanding of the life worlds, consciousnesses, and resistances of subaltern persons. They also hope, as do I, to remove the image of India as a static place ruled by consensus. 42. For neo-Hocartian arguments, which will be considered in more detail in chapters 3 and 4, see Dirks 1987, 1989; Parry 1980, 1994; Quigley 1993; and Raheja 1988a, 1988b, 1990. 43. Scholars have puzzled over the manner in which many low-status Rajasthani communities continue to conceptualize themselves in relation to Rajputs. As UnnithanKumar (1997: 46) frames this general problem: “In cultural and social terms, however, today many of the castes in Rajasthan still deﬁne themselves in relation to the historical Rajput dominance. The Rajput ethic continues to dominate the psyche of most of the communities in Rajasthan, especially among the rural and land-holding sections. It is an ethic especially linked to the values of honour and shame, and related to a particular style of life popularised by members of royal lineages.”

2. cast of characters 1. Other Bhat natal districts include Sikar, Kisangarh, Ajmer, and Churu. 2. On the Rajasthani language, see Gusain 2002, 2004; Magier 1983, 1992. 3. In the case of Bhopal, Bhats often accuse each other of collecting beneﬁts they do not deserve. On how these accusations reﬂect tensions in the Udaipur Bhat community as well as change Bhat relations and attitudes to the market economy, see Snodgrass 2002b. 4. Here, and elsewhere, I cite mainly the 1991 Census of India, since it provides ﬁgures that coincide more closely with the period of my ﬁeldwork with the Bhats in the early to mid-1990s. To cite other important ﬁgures from the 1991 Indian Census, Rajasthan at this time, with a total area of 132,150 square miles, was roughly equal in size to the United Germany. Its population—a little over 44 million, or 332 people per square mile—was about equal to that of France. 5. In Rajasthan, literacy rates are 38.6 percent, with male rates at 55 percent and female at 20 percent. Rajasthan is considered to be educationally “backward” in relation to the rest of India, where literacy rates are 52 percent overall, 64 percent for males and 39 percent for females (1991 Census of India). Bhat literacy rates are much lower than these numbers—few adult Bhats, even in the city of Jaipur, could read or write. 6. After Bansi Lal’s death in 2003, Bedami sold her home and moved to this part of Udaipur, living next to her newly married youngest daughter and son-in-law. For more on changes in the Bhat community related to my informants’ construction

notes to pages 49–57

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of stone and concrete homes, which is accompanied by a curtailment of spending at ceremonial feasts referred to as mosars, see Snodgrass n.d. 7. Jag Niwas (Jag’s residence), now commonly referred to as the Lake Palace, was built in the 1740s by Maharana Jagat Singh II on a four-acre island in Udaipur’s Lake Pichola. The palace was converted to a tourist hotel and restaurant in the early 1960s and is now run by the Taj Group of Hotels. This hotel, along with the city of Udaipur itself, was made famous to many Western audiences with the release of the James Bond ﬁlm Octopussy, which was shot in these settings. 8. His second wife was previously married to a now deceased brother. Ramu had fought with Bansi Lal for the right to take this woman as a second wife. 9. Rajasthan’s urbanization ratio, according to the 1991 Census of India, was 22.9 percent—that is, a little over 1 in 5 Rajasthanis inhabited cities. 10. Quigley 1993: 4. 11. See Srinivas [1962] 1991: 28–29 and Fuller 2003: 480. 12. For the past 1,500 years or so the ancient category Vaisya has been associated mainly with merchant communities and not with farmers and peasants. 13. For more on the Purusa myth see Quigley 1993:6 and S. Bayly 1999: 8–19. 14. Fuller 2003: 479. 15. Fuller 2003: 479. 16. Manu 10.1–73, as cited in Fuller 2003: 479. Here “illicit” refers to “hypogamous” marriages in which women marry “down” by taking lower-caste husbands. “Hypergamous” marriages, in which women marry “up,” are often accepted, both in ancient Hindu scriptures and in contemporary India. 17. In anthropological parlance, members of a particular patrilineage claim descent from a common male ancestor, or they are associated with such persons through afﬁliations such as marriage or adoption. 18. Jati can refer to species or breeds of animals and plants, but it can also be translated as tribe, race, clan, or lineage. This term is also used to refer to other social categories, such as gender. On these points see Fuller 2003: 477 as well as Marriott and Inden 1985: 348. 19. As an example, C. V. Vaidya writes (1924:7, as quoted in Chattopadhyaya 1994:162): “The Rajputs who now came to the front and who by their heroism diffuse such glory on the period of Medieval Indian history cannot but have been the descendants of Vedic Aryans. None but Vedic Aryans could have fought so valiantly in defense of the ancestral faith.” 20. Chattopadhyaya 1994; Yadava 1973. 21. For example, Kakkuka, an early Rajput clan leader, is described as making the land “fragrant with the leaves of blue lotuses and pleasant with groves of mango and madhuka trees, and covered it with leaves of excellent sugarcane” (inscription of ninth-century Rajasthan as quoted in Chattopadhyaya 1994: 164). See also Thapar 1987 for the origins of Rajputs. 22. Muslim Turks were among the ﬁrst invaders, beginning their incursions into Rajasthan in the twelfth century a.d. and forming an empire referred to as the Delhi Sultanate; at its peak, this Sultanate encompassed much of northern India. Still, though the Sultanate controlled a larger territory and more resources than Hindu rulers, Rajput clans remained powerful at a local level. 23. Mughal leaders, beginning with Tamerlane in the thirteenth century, are de-

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scendants of the Mongol Genghis Khan. Mughals seem to have originated in Persia, though they spoke Turkish. Mughals conquered Rajput fortresses in Ajmer and Nagaur in 1558, Jodhpur in 1565, Chitor in 1568, and Ranthambhor in 1569; but the Mughal emperor Akbar, in the late 1500s, married his young heir to a Hindu princess of Amber, Rajasthan (near the city of Jaipur) (Taft 1994: 226). 24. Rajput lords who link themselves to the moon refer to themselves as Chandravansi for “Moon-Family,” while those said to be descended from the sun are called Suryavansi or “Sun Family.” Thapar (1978: 132–33) describes how the earliest Rajput dynasties described in the Puranas were classiﬁed as one of these two categories, which later became the mythical “prototype of all rulers seeking Kshatriya genealogies” (as quoted in Bharucha 2003: 299–300, n. 7). 25. See, for example, Peabody’s (2003) discussion of Hindu-Rajput interactions with British colonial rulers in the context of the Rajasthani kingdom of Kota in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 26. My Bhat and Rajput informants alike suggested that, historically, there were thirty-six major noble Rajput clans, which constituted less than 10 percent of the population. 27. On Rajput kin relations, especially how such relations formed the basis of this community’s “feudal” rule, see Unnithan-Kumar 1997: chap. 2 and Ziegler 1978. 28. Indian merchants, whether Hindu or Jain, are commonly referred to as Baniyas (merchants, shopkeepers) or Mahajans (literally, “eminent personages,” a title used especially to refer to moneylenders). 29. As is discussed extensively in this book, there are contradictions in the caste hierarchy. Thus Dhobi Washermen are often considered untouchable only by other Untouchables and not by other clean castes (Bharucha 2003: 31). 30. See Unnithan-Kumar 1997: 8 for a similar usage of the English word “caste.” Other scholars translate varna, jati, and gotra in a different manner—for example, referring to varna as “caste,” jati as “subcaste,” and gotra as “subsubcaste.” See Daniel 1984: 2 for a conceptualization of jati as “beyond or beneath caste,” and also see Unnithan-Kumar 1997: 11. 31. On paramountcy in Rajasthan, see Unnithan-Kumar 1997; Lee-Warner 1894; Copland 1982; and Rudolph and Rudolph 1984. 32. After 1931 caste afﬁliation was no longer documented in the Indian Census. 33. Fuller 2003: 481. This section draws heavily on Fuller’s (2003) excellent account of Indian caste relations, whose ideas and sources are cited extensively. 34. Fuller 2003: 492. 35. Srinivas 1966: 95–96, as quoted in Fuller 2003: 492. 36. See Kothari 1991 and Bharucha 2003: 319–320, n. 13. 37. Fuller 2003: 481. 38. Fuller 2003: 480. 39. See Dirks 1987, 1989. These arguments, incidentally, also emerge from the “neo-Hocartian” perspective, which will be more carefully considered in chaps. 3 and 4. 40. Of note, Bhats found heroes in the marauding Marathas. For example, Shivaji, a commoner from Maharashtra who rose to be a fearsome leader, successfully challenged Rajput hegemony and was thus celebrated by Bhats. I give this detail,

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which is based on my interviews with Bhats, to point to the complexity of Bhat relationships to Rajputs. 41. For a nuanced exploration of this history in eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury Rajasthan, see Peabody 2003. 42. See, for example, Peabody 1991 and 2003: chap. 3. 43. C. Bayly 1983, 1988. 44. Fuller 2003: 480. 45. Fuller 2003: 480. 46. On this point, also see Marriott [1955] 1969. 47. C. Bayly 1988; Cohn 1987: chaps. 8, 10, 22; Dirks 2001; Fuller 2003; Peabody 2001. 48. Rajputana translates as “The Place of the Offspring of Kings.” 49. The systematic merging of the princely states was thus a slow process that, according to some scholars, proceeded through seven distinct stages (Bharucha 2003: 300). In many cases former Princely States have become districts in the state of Rajasthan, though some of the larger states were split into multiple districts. 50. 1991 Census of India, as cited in Unnithan-Kumar 1997: 17. 51. Charlton 1997: 25. 52. For poignant “Dalit” life histories, see Freeman 1979; Moon 2001; and Racine, Racine, and Viramma 1997. 53. More speciﬁcally, in the Rajasthani district of Udaipur, Scheduled Castes comprise 8.3 percent of the population, Scheduled Tribes 36.8 percent; Jaipur district’s numbers regarding Scheduled Castes and Tribes are more comparable to Rajasthan as a whole (1991 Census of India). Other caste-based information, such as the number of Brahmins and Rajputs in India, was discontinued after the Indian Census of 1931. Such data were seen as promoting “communalism”—that is, too much focus on caste or religious-based identities. 54. 1991 Census of India. 55. Church 1984: 231; see also Choudhary 1991: 111; and Hansen 1999: 254, n. 10. 56. See, for example, the 1950s to 1980s longitudinal study of the village of Ramkheri in Madhya Pradesh (A. Mayer 1960, 1996). 57. Fuller 2003: 495; Radhakrishnan 1996a. 58. Panini 1996. 59. Fuller 2003: 485. On such scholarship, see Gough 1981, 1989; Kapadia 1995; and Mencher [1974] 1991. 60. Another tradition of scholarship suggests that low-status and formerly Untouchable groups do accept many of the premises of the caste system. Rather than totally rejecting caste, low-status groups try to advance their rank within the framework of elite ideologies (for example, by arguing for a higher degree of purity) or suggest that caste rank should be based on some alternative to elite standards of value (like physical vitality rather than bodily purity). For such arguments, see Deliege 1993, 1995; Moffatt 1979; Mosse 1994, as cited in Fuller 2003: 485. 61. Beteille 1996 and Fuller 2003: 488–489. 62. Fuller 2003: 494. 63. Fuller 2003: 494.

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64. Additions to the OBCs were typically made after leaders in potential OBC communities lobbied politicians to support their cause of being deemed economically “backward.” The promise of these communities’ votes is an enticement that many politicians ﬁnd difﬁcult to refuse. As a result, it is commonly felt that many OBC communities, such as the relatively prosperous Jats, have unjustly received OBC status simply because of their political numbers and dominance. In general, large and powerful caste communities have had more luck gaining OBC status than small groups. On the “Mandalization” of Indian politics, see Choudhary 1991; Fuller 2003: 493–497; Jain 1996; Radhakrishnan 1996b. 65. Shah and Desai 1988. 66. Given these changes, communities now often speak of themselves not as jatis, which encodes hierarchy, but as “communities” or samajes, which implies solidarity with others (Fuller 2003: 488). 67. This section of the chapter was originally published in slightly different form in Snodgrass 2004c. In this paragraph I closely follow Vidal 1997, esp. pp. 91–92. 68. For their services, bards were awarded tax-exempt territories. 69. See Vidal 1997, esp. chap. 4. My Bhat informants themselves say they traveled with such immunity in pre-independence India. 70. For further details concerning bards’ violent forms of protest like these threats of self-mutilation, which were also referred to with alternate terms such as dharna and which were seen to have “terrible implications for the patrons, who were assumed to be cursed by the Caran’s self-immolation” (Bharucha 2003: 318, n. 5), see S. Bayly 1999: 87; Bharucha 2003: chap. 10; Kothari 1994: 207–208; and TambsLyche 1997: chap. 7. 71. Vidal 1997. 72. Caste pancayat meetings are now sometimes thought to be a myth created by colonial ethnographers (S. Bayly 1999: 45). The creation of caste associations (sabhas), however, are well documented from the late 1880s into the twentieth century (Fuller 2003: 492). Of note, some Bhats suggested that the Bhambhi decision to abandon leatherworking was a gradual process and the result of a series of choices that never received direct pressure from organized meetings, of either pancayats or sabhas. 73. This is very closely linked to Srinivas’s description of “Sanskritization” (Srinivas 1966, 1989). 74. I was told that other jati communities have snatched up the Bhambhis’ previous work. The bones of animal carcasses, for example, can be ground up to make animal feed and paint whitener, so these impure carcasses are valuable commodities. 75. On Nats as the traditional bards of Bhambhis, see Kothari 1991: xi and Bharucha 2003: chap. 9. 76. As Nats, they practiced gulach khana (somersaults), rasi pe chadhna (tightrope walking), gol gol ghumna (whirling on a pole suspended in the air), and other similar activities (on terms such as these related to Indian acrobatic communities, see Bharucha 2003: 34). 77. They are listed, I believe, as Balaion ke Nats, or the “Tumblers and Acrobats of the Balais.” I say this tentatively, since I never in fact saw these schedules but only heard of them in secondhand reports by Bhats as well as by sociologists and state ofﬁcials. Komal Kothari suggests that many of the low-caste genealogical communities are from acrobat communities, with genealogical recitations often following acro-

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batic performances, and include the Nat, the Rajnat, and the Badi (Bharucha 2003: 31). 78. Bharucha 2003: 29. 79. On this point see also Bharucha 2003: chap. 9. 80. The Bhats’ own term of self-reference, Nuri, seems related to the Hindi word nur, which means “brilliant, radiant” (McGregor 1993). The term Thuddi, in contrast, connotes something degraded or dirty, as my informants joked, a penis’s discarded foreskin (which I could not locate in my dictionaries) or a corncob with the grains removed (McGregor 1993). 81. Singh [1894] 1991: 221. 82. Kothari, in the introduction to The Castes of Marwar (1991), deals in detail with this question. The difﬁculty in deﬁning Brahminhood, and thus the debate, arises from the fact that many communities performing priestly services for lowstatus groups will claim the varna title “Brahmin.” Elite groups, however, often do not recognize such claims, reserving the term “Brahmin” for priests of high-status communities. On this discussion, see also Bharucha 2003: 319–320, n. 13.

3. obscene jesters 1. Ann literally means “grain,” and dev means “god.” 2. The deity Sati Churi is viewed as repulsive also because of her link to incestuous sex. In another myth, which Guljar and others recounted to me, Sati Churi is said to have given birth to humankind after having had intercourse with her own brother. See Sax 1992 for extensive details on similar myths. On satis in Rajasthan see Harlan 1992 and Hardgrove 1999. 3. Derrida’s writings (e.g., 1978) on discursive centering and decentering have inspired the arguments in this chapter. For a similar interpretation of stories of grain and ﬂy-covered gods, which I discovered only after my own reading of this tale, see Gold 1998. 4. For a different perspective on Bhat views of purity and impurity, see Snodgrass 2004b. 5. The task of transforming carcass to ﬁnal leather product is actually distributed through a variety of communities in many parts of Rajasthan. Mochis (Cobblers) are generally ranked higher than Rangais (Tanners), since making shoes out of leather is considered more respectable than tanning leather. Likewise, the profession of tanning is more highly regarded than either skinning leather or handling an animal’s decaying carcass as do many Bhambhis. On these points see Komal Kothari’s oral testimony as documented in Bharucha 2003: 31. 6. Sax (1992) has extensive discussion of this point. 7. Given Bhambhi impurity, I assume that food and drink were arranged by Bhambhis but prepared by others. 8. Bharucha 2003: 28. 9. On the twice-born in Rajasthan, see Carstairs 1967. 10. Gold and Gujar 2002: 211. 11. E.g., see Gold and Gujar 2002: 356, fn. 8. 12. On the distinction between khalsa and jagirdari, see Bharucha 2003: 41. On jagirdari, also see Rudolph and Rudolph 1984.

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13. Gold and Gujar 2002: 213. 14. See Raheja 1988a: 204–205 for a description of such a distribution in a village in Uttar Pradesh. 15. For classic studies of jajmani, see Kolenda 1967 and Wiser [1958] 1969. On the manner in which this economy has been transformed in modern times—and indeed how anthropologists have reiﬁed, simpliﬁed, and misconstrued the historical dynamism and regional diversity of this economy—see Fuller 1989 and P. Mayer 1993. 16. Communities that have a disproportionate amount of power and control over local politics and the agrarian economy because of, for example, their land holdings and numbers are sometimes referred to as “dominant”; see Fuller 2003: 478; Srinivas [1955] 1969: 18; Raheja 1988a, b, 1990. 17. What scholars sometimes call jajmani, presuming this to be a unitary economic system found throughout northern India, is actually a diverse array of distinctive local economic systems. For example, Fuller (1989) discusses the baluta exchange system, which is closely related to, though still distinct from jajmani. 18. Bharucha 2003: 218. 19. This paragraph is based on oral communications from Komal Kothari. Also see Kothari 1994 and Bharucha 2003: chap. 10. 20. Peabody 1997: 563. 21. For example, Gold and Gujar (2002: 358) report that jajmani relations exist in only very limited form in the village of Ghatiyali, located in the former kingdom of Sawar (in the southeast portion of present-day Ajmer District). 22. On the fragility of the Bhat system of patronage, see Bharucha 2003: 214 as well as Kothari 1994. 23. Bhats refer to their poetry, and speciﬁcally to their praise poetry, by many different terms. Shubhraj, which refers to the poetic blessing of a patron by referring to their ancestors, is one such term, and tarif and prasansa are others (see Bharucha 2003: 29). 24. One should keep in mind that these Bhat insults were recited to me for the most part in urban contexts, and therefore far from actual performance contexts before Bhambhi patrons. 25. I would repeat that the Bhats’ Parsi is not actually Persian. As I understand it, this language is not even a complete one. Rather, Bhats create new words for loaded nouns and verbs. For example, the police are referred to in the Bhats’ Parsi as the mavri keju. This is not a Hindi word, nor is it Marwari. So, for example, Bhats might say, “Quit ﬁghting the police are here!” The word for “police” would be in Parsi, the rest in either Hindi or Marwari. Bhats also insult those outside their caste with Parsi curses (galis). They use their Parsi also to speak in public on taboo topics. Thus, before an orthodox Brahmin, I heard, “Wouldn’t a big chunk of meat be tasty right now?” 26. This language, which we might equate with Bakhtin’s (1984) creative zone of the “lower bodily stratum,” though bringing others down, is also an idiom of rejuvenation and rebirth. These insults, despite their violence, do bring Bhats closer together. On ritual occasions, bouts of violent insulting are followed by hugs and sloppy kisses and thus by a rejuvenation of social relations. 27. Self-starvation characteristic of Gandhi’s hunger fasts suggested that low mill wages, for example, were literally destroying the bodies of Indian laborers. Being

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made aware of the damage inﬂicted on the protester’s body, oppressors would theoretically relent and change their behavior. See Inden 1986 for a discussion of how Gandhi’s nonviolence might be an orientalist construct. By contrast, see Spodek 1971; Heitler 1972; Dharampal 1971; and Irschick 1986 for the manner in which Gandhi’s protest techniques draw from indigenous South Asian traditions of “everyday” and “nonviolent” protest. 28. For a more explicit account of Bhat understandings of death and spirits as they relate to my informants’ bardic profession, see Snodgrass 2001. 29. Dumont [1966] 1980. 30. See Marriott (1976) for an elaboration of the Hindu concept of person— which he sees based on the notion of “dividuals” rather than “individuals”—implicit to Hindu notions of polluting substances. 31. Heesterman (1964), in a controversial argument, suggests that the Brahmins’ priestly detachment from the world, and thus their lack of dependence on other communities, adds to their status. 32. See Srinivas 1989. 33. Dumont [1966] 1980. 34. Dirks 1987, 1989. 35. Dirks 1989: 59. 36. For a description of a similar Balinese conceptualization of hierarchical social relations, see Geertz 1980. 37. E.g., see Raheja 1990: 85. 38. Bhat villages and patrons are inherited through the male line. 39. Given there were only three villages for four sons, each son inherited only part of a village; their families were partitioned according to the estimated generosity, and thus value, of each household.

4. venture funambulists 1. This chapter contains material published previously in Snodgrass 2001 and Snodgrass 2004c. 2. Derrida 1978. 3. For another reading of Bhat perspectives on language and bardic performance, this time in the context of spirit possession, see Snodgrass 2002a. 4. The Hindu epic Ramayana tells the story of Lord Ram, an avatar (incarnation) of Visnu, who descends from the heavens in order to save the world from the clutches of the demon Ravan. The gods had bestowed a boon upon Ravan because of his performance of religious austerities, which made him invulnerable to gods and demigods. However, Visnu incarnated as Ram, who, as the human son of king Dashrathji of Ayodhya and his ﬁrst wife, Kausalya, was immune to Ravan’s boon. Ram defeated this seemingly undefeatable demon, who was threatening both worldly and heavenly order by, for example, prohibiting priests from making sacriﬁces to the gods. Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana, which dates to 200 b.c., and Tulsidas’s Ramcaritmanas (literally, “The Holy Lake of the Acts of Ram”), a sixteenth-century Hindi retelling of Valmiki’s earlier Sanskrit story, are among the best-known versions of this epic tale (Peabody 1997). 5. The term is Rao’s (1991).

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6. On the reworking of the Ramayana from diverse points of view, see Agarwal 2001; Peabody 1997; Richman (ed.) 1991, 2001; and Shulman 1991. On the political uses of Indian origin myths, see Deliege 1993; Dube 1998; D. Mines 2002: 68, 76; and Wadley 1994. For other excellent studies on Indian oral epics, including works that examine the ways in which storytelling is being transformed in modern contexts, see Blackburn, Claus, Flueckiger, and Wadley (eds.) 1989; Babb and Wadley (eds.) 1995; Flueckiger 1996; Gold 1992; Smith 1991. 7. Prithviraj Chauhan actually preceded India’s Mughal period. Bansi Lal used the term “Mughal” in this context to refer to Muslim invader-kings such as those rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. 8. A well-known Rajput clan from Marwar. 9. Man Singh, a Rajput king who lived from 1550 to 1614, accepted service under the Mughal emperor Akbar. Man Singh is the subject of much widely known bardic lore in the region. 10. Many of this Rajput clan’s members currently inhabit Udaipur city and its surrounding area. 11. Parry 1994: 120. 12. I expand upon Bhat understandings of dan, including their refusal in certain contexts to accept gifts of alms, in Snodgrass 2001, which I cite in the following paragraphs. 13. E.g., Heesterman 1964; Trautmann 1981. 14. Raheja 1988a, b, 1990. 15. Hubert and Mauss 1964; Hocart 1950. 16. Raheja 1990: 83. 17. According to Raheja (1990: 88–93), the dangers of neg “payments” of cash and kind to client castes, as opposed to payments of dan (alms), constitute a form of “mutual” exchange that is not “substantive” in nature. 18. In Snodgrass 2001 I discuss how a Bhat fear of malevolent ghosts, and speciﬁcally disputes between Bhats and their patrons’ or relatives’ ghosts, is critical to my informants’ perception of danger in exchanges of alms. In this article, I also consider Parry’s (1980, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1991, 1994) remarkable accounts of the dangers of alms as seen from the perspective of Banaras funeral priests and other ritual specialists. Though evoking a fear of transmissible contagions, Parry’s informants nevertheless provide explanations for the dangers of alms which parallel in important respects Bhat “spiritual” views. 19. For the manner in which women, in some cases originating from client castes, use song and story to upturn Indian gender hierarchies, see Raheja and Gold 1994. 20. Depending on the puppeteer and the context, the Mughal emperor ruling during Amar Singh’s time was variously referred to as Shah Jahan, Akbar, or Aurangzeb. 21. See Bharucha 2003 for an exhaustive account of the Bhats’ Amar Singh Rathor puppet drama, and also of many aspects of Bhat puppetry that are not dealt with in this book. 22. On these plot details, see Bharucha 2003: 203. 23. Shadow and glove puppets, common throughout India, are not generally found in Rajasthan.

notes to pages 131–145

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24. Bharucha 2003: 203–204. 25. Bharucha 2003: 207. 26. Bharucha 2003: 207. 27. The story of Amar Singh Rathor is performed throughout Rajasthan as well as in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in the khayal and nautanki theatrical traditions (Bharucha 2003: 203). 28. Rustom Bharucha, in his commentary on Komal Kothari’s observations, makes this point (Bharucha 2003: 207). 29. Mathew Isaac Cohen, of the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, the University of Glasgow, recently helped arrange the 2003 visit of Bhat puppeteers to Scotland. The drama of Amar Singh Rathor was performed, as was the tale of Dhola Maru (a kind of Rajasthani Romeo and Juliet). 30. Tambs-Lyche 1997: 318.

5. the enduring power of praise-abuse 1. When their requests are answered by a particular god, Rajasthani supplicants drape this deity’s temple with strips of cloth. A powerful temple is thus bedecked with a multitude of ﬂuttering banners. 2. Much of this chapter originally appeared in a slightly different form in Snodgrass 2004a. 3. The birthplace of Ram is referred to as the Ram Janmabhumi. Buddhists, in turn, claim that the Ram temple was constructed over a Buddhist stupa. Adivasi Tribals make similar claims about the stupa. 4. D. Mines 2002: 73. 5. For a general description of the events at Ayodhya, which serves as the basis of my own summary, see Metcalf and Metcalf 2002: chap. 9, esp. pp. 268–276; also see Gopal 1991; Ludden 1996; McKean 1996; Nandy et al. 1995; and van der Veer 1994a; for an interesting account of the way this dispute allows Tamil Nadu villagers to “produce” themselves in relation to national and global forces, see D. Mines 2002. 6. The ﬁrst “Hindu” clan—the Carans, a gotra signiﬁcantly smaller than the other Bhat clans—was added in my informants’ words, twenty pidi, or generations, ago. This was followed by the addition of nine more putatively “Hindu” clans, the Jagahs, Bands, Parpars, Kandaras, Udansis, Ranavats, Parahdahs, Narelas, and Danavats, for a total of fourteen current Bhat clans. The addition of these clans to the Bhat fold were described to me stereotypically: a generic outsider belonging to another caste married a Bhat woman out of “love” (prem), and the offspring of this intercaste coupling formed a new line and a new Bhat clan. 7. My informants no longer refer to themselves by these terms. Instead, Bhats wield the term “Mirasi” to refer to a variety of Muslim bardic jatis. By contrast, they use the word “Dhadhi” to refer more narrowly to the Muslim bards of the Jat caste. On these terms, see Kothari 1994. 8. Bharucha 2003: 199. 9. Blended religious traditions are prevalent in the Indian subcontinent. See, for example, S. Bayly 1989; Eaton 1978; Hayden 2002; Hiltebeitel 1999; Hulbe, Vetschera, and Khomne 1976; Kassam 1995; Kothari 1994; Lahiri 1996; van der Veer 1992, 1994a, 1994b; as well as the substantial literature on Sikhism. Still, it is almost a tru-

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ism that India’s traditional syncretism has come under threat in the modern colonial and postcolonial periods. Scholars and Indian politicians alike commonly argue that communal divisions, and thus more rigid distinctions between Hindus and Muslims, were deepened and exaggerated in the colonial and postcolonial periods. For scholarly accounts in this vein, see Bhatt 2001; Datta 1999; Hansen 1999; Juergensmeyer 1993; Rajagopal 2001; Zavos 2000. For a political discourse linking the rise of religious intolerance to British rule, see Nehru 1946; for critiques of such narratives, see Hayden 2002. 10. Bhat puppet plays narrating the glories of Rajasthan’s Hindu past could be seen as exacerbating Hindu–Muslim tensions. It is therefore not surprising that these dramas, because of their pro-Hindu sentiment, are well received in the Rajasthani district of Udaipur. According to local histories and folk wisdom, the royal family of Udaipur, the Mewars, never surrendered to the Mughals nor to other Muslim invaders. Nor did the kings of Udaipur, again according to commonly held local beliefs, procure beneﬁcial, if “dishonorable,” political alliances by offering their women in marriage to these invaders. 11. On “tactics,” see de Certeau 1984; on “weapons of the weak,” see Scott 1985. 12. For a similar reading of Hindu pragmatics, see Eaton 1993: 274, cf. Hayden 2002: 215. 13. Some Bhats, however, such as Bansi Lal, hold on tightly to the story of being descended from royalty. In his case, such a history reﬂects an emerging Bhat identity that articulates desires and commitments that cannot be explained away as simple deceptions. 14. For a classic study of the use of folk performance to deliver modern messages in 1960s Uttar Pradesh, see V. Vatuk 1979. 15. Holston 1989, 1999. 16. Indeed, this Bhat drama shows how translocal institutions such as the state impinge upon the everyday lives of ordinary persons in particular local contexts—as opposed to merely focusing on large–scale structures, epochal events, major policies, and “important” people (Gupta 1995: 376, citing Evans et al. 1985 and Skocpol 1979). 17. On the Indian discourse of corruption (bhrastacar or bhrastata), see Gupta 1995. 18. This focusing of attention on the form of the utterance, and particularly on the “deformation” or “disﬁguration” of ordinary spoken language, approximates how some critics deﬁne “poetic” language. On this point, see Eagleton 1996; Herzfeld 1985; Jakobson 1960; Leavitt 1997. 19. Bakhtin (1984) makes a similar point in Rabelais and His World—how comic forms such as the sixteenth-century European Feast of Fools, in which the clergy and the nobility are satirized, allow the folk to master their fears of dominant persons. 20. E.g., Greenhouse 1996; Herzfeld 1991; Holston 1999; Thompson 1967. 21. On political organization along “communal” lines, see, for example, Freitag 1990; Pannikar 1991. Subaltern theorists such as Guha (1983), according to Veena Das (1987: 312), privilege violent peasant rebellions. My informants do not have a connection to political violence, either in the past or in the present, a fact that would further distinguish their activities from those considered by these theorists. 22. Scott 1985: 29. 23. On everyday resistance in South Asia, see, for example, Amin 1995; Dube

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1998; Gold and Gujar 2002; Guha and Spivak 1988; Haynes and Prakash 1991; Prakash 1986, 1990; Prashad 2000. 24. Scott 1990: 44, as cited in Kulick 1996: 3. 25. On discursive resistance in Rajasthan, see Gold 2002; Raheja and Gold 1994; for a concise summary and subtle critique of Scott’s notion of “hidden transcripts,” see Kulick 1996. 26. Mencher [1974] 1991. 27. Whether audiences actually resist is another question, one requiring a study of this play’s reception, a topic beyond the bounds of this chapter. 28. On bhandai, see Emigh & Emigh 1994. 29. Incidentally, this is also said of elite panegyrist Bhats. The fact that they were, in effect, butt-kissers ready to write panegyrics for whoever paid is the reason the title “Bhat” is sometimes used as a term of abuse for Brahmins (just as “Dom” is used as a general term of abuse for Dalits). Thanks to William Sax for this comment. 30. For a similar point, and a critique of Scott’s romantic attempt to uncover the true thoughts of subalterns that lie beneath all the deceptive tropes and performances, see Gal 1995 and Kulick 1996. 31. E.g., Berman 1988; Cassirer 1951; Foucault 1984; Habermas 1983; Harvey 1989. 32. Holston 1999: 624. 33. Rabinow 1989: 361. 34. In late modernity or even postmodernity, at a moment of exhaustion with modernist projects, we supposedly see a movement from a view of language as truthful mimicry of the world to one that sees it as constitutive of reality itself (Foucault 1978; Waswo 1987), a growing recognition of the corrupt and contingent status of representation and thus an abandonment of the possibility of objective knowledge (Baudrillard 1988), and a refusal of all totalizing master narratives (Lyotard 1984). See Ortner 1999 for an elegant discussion of these perspectives. 35. Englund and Leach 2000: 225. 36. Gupta 1995: 385. 37. Bhats seem to understand, and indeed cleverly manipulate, the idea that Rajasthan, to borrow the words of another scholar, is “packaged as a feudal fairy tale . . . a place where it is possible to enter physically into realms of past royal grandeur” (Gold and Gujar 2002: xi; see also Deneve 1997 as cited in Gold and Gujar 2002). 38. For the notion of alternate, comparative, multiple, and subaltern modernities, see, for example, Appadurai 1996; Coronil 1997; Eisenstadt and Schluchter 1998. 39. A reference to the boar avatar of Visnu. 40. After Bakhtin 1984.

6. conclusion 1. See, for example, Balzani 2003; Harlan 2003; Kapur 2002; Mayaram 1997; Peabody 2003; Vidal 1997; Ziegler 1973, 1994. 2. See Tambs-Lyche 1997; Vidal 1997. 3. Sundar 1997 and Gold and Gujar 2002 are two notable exceptions. 4. The phrase is taken from the title of a well-known article by Ranajit Guha

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(1997). “Hegemony” is used in this context to imply “domination through consent,” or a situation in which subordinate persons contribute and participate in their own domination. See also Chatterjee 1989; Gold and Gujar 2002. 5. On the politics and poetics of transgression, see Stallybrass and White 1986. 6. To the work of Dirks and others cited in chapter 1 on the “ﬁctive” nature of caste and social hierarchies, I would add classic scholarship on the “multidimensional” and “perspectival” dimensions of caste relations such as that of Burghart 1978; Malamoud 1981; and Raheja 1988a, b, 1990. 7. Marx [1869] 1994.

Glossary

anndata: literally, “giver of grain”; an honoriﬁc used to refer to patrons avatar: incarnation bahurupia: actor; mimic; professional performer Balai (balai): an alternate jati name for the Bhambhis that refers to their role as village or town criers (balais) Balaion ka Nat: literally, “tumbler and acrobat of the Balais”; my Bhat informants typically no longer refer to themselves by this jati title, although they do sometimes use it to qualify for government aid as a “Scheduled Caste” Bhambhi: a jati associated in Rajasthan with leatherworking and performing services for Rajput lords, such as working agricultural ﬁelds, serving as sentries, and making announcements; Bhambhis serve as Bhat patrons and are also referred to as Balais, Meghwals, and formerly as Regars bhand dena: to abuse or mock; Bhats also refer to their poetic abuse as bhandai and inselets as well as bol or thana marte (literally, “hitting others with words”) Bhangi: a jati traditionally associated with waste removal; Bhangis were formerly judged to be “untouchable” and at the bottom of the ritual hierarchy Bharatiya Janata Party: the BJP, or “Indian People’s Party”; devoted to the goal of transforming India into a Hindu, rather than a secular, nation-state; associated with the Ayodhya mosque-temple issue bharet: bard; used particularly to connote a high-status praise-singer, storyteller, and genealogist

198

glossary

Bhat (bhat): title used particularly to refer to a community of elite bards (bhats) who once sang the praises and kept the genealogies of Rajasthan’s former Rajput kings and princes; my informants who are the focus of this book have appropriated this title and now use it as their jati name, replacing their former caste name of Nat, Nuri Nat, or Balaion ke Nat Brahmin: religious scholar and priest; one of the four varna titles mentioned in ancient Vedic texts calaki: cleverness; cunning Caran: a jati of elite poets and praise-singers daku: bandit; rendered “dacoit” in English Dalit: literally, “oppressed person”; term for India’s low-caste and formerly untouchable persons, which is associated with the political mobilization of low-status communities dan: ritual donation associated with acquiring religious merit and removing sin; ideally made without ostentation or expectation of any kind of thisworldly return; sometimes translated as “alms” devi: goddess devta: god; sometimes shortened to “dev” dhani: person of property and standing; master; sometimes used by Bhats to refer to and thus ﬂatter their patrons dharma: morality, duty, truth, law dhol: a large cylindrical drum, often played with a hand on one side and a stick on the other dholak: a small cylindrical, double-headed drum played with two hands gali: insult or abuse that is often poetic and sung in jest ghi: clariﬁed butter gotra: lineage; clan; subcaste; typically “exogamous” (outmarrying or nonintermarrying) segment of a larger jati Harijan: literally, “Children of God”; Mahatma Gandhi’s term for India’s former Untouchables haveli: a warrior noble’s mansion jagir: a pre-independence estate or allotment of land granted by a king in exchange for the performance of various services; jagiri is an adjective describing this kind of land; jagirdars are the holders of these estates, and in Rajasthan they typically originated from the Rajput community; jagirdari refers to this land tenure and revenue system as a whole jajman: patron jajmani: patron-client economy jati: caste; birth-group; collection of intermarrying clans; a category of person, plant, or animal ji: an honoriﬁc attached to the end of names in order to show respect; thus, Bansi Lal Bhat can be rendered Bansi Lalji Bhat; it is used especially when addressing, or referring to, elders

glossary

199

kathputli: marionette or string puppet; literally, “wooden doll” kathputli-wala: puppeteer Ksatriya: warrior-noble or landlord; one of the four varna titles spoken of in the ancient Vedas lakh: a quantity of 100,000 maharaja: literally, “great king” maharana: “really great king”; used to refer to the king of Mewar (Udaipur) Marwar: former Rajasthani Princely Kingdom; desert region in the west of Rajasthan Meghwal: an alternate and less denigrating jati name for the Bhambhis that refers to their descent from the Hindu saint Megh Mewar: former Rajasthani Princely Kingdom; present-day Udaipur District contains territory formally encompassed by this kingdom Nat: a member of a community of tumblers or acrobats; derived from the Sanskrit word nrtya, which means “to dance”; today, various Nat communities qualify for aid as Scheduled Castes; my informants were once called Nats (or more speciﬁcally Balaion ke Nats, “tumblers of the Balais”), though in an effort to better themselves they generally no longer refer to themselves with these terms Nuri Nat: literally, “exalted acrobat”; a name no longer generally employed by my Bhat informants, though it is sometimes still used by older Bhats to distinguish themselves from their kin, the Thuddi Nats pancayat: village or caste council; any body convened to address a speciﬁc question; linked to the Hindi word for “ﬁve” (pamc), since traditionally ﬁve or more members of a group needed to be in attendance in order to legitimate the gathering pandit: learned person; a scholar; a teacher; a Brahmin pracar karna: to publicize or make known; to praise Raj: the British Empire in India raja: king Rajput: literally, “king’s son”; martial class that ruled pre-independence Rajasthan and elsewhere in India; members of this community claim ancient Ksatriya or “Warrior” status rani: queen; as in Hadi Rani, the queen of the region of Hadi Regars: a community of leatherworkers; the Bhats’ Bhambhi patrons no longer refer to themselves by this name, which is considered degrading rupee (rupi; rupaya): money; Indian unit of currency; at the time of my dissertation research in the early to mid-1990s, there were approximately 31 rupees (abbreviated, Rs.) to one U.S. dollar sabha: caste organizations that appeared rapidly in the late nineteenth century in order to take advantage of emerging opportunities offered by the British documentation of caste afﬁliations sadhu: holy man, ascetic; the female form is sadhvi

200

glossary

sati: literally, “a good or true woman”; widow who ritually immolates herself on her husband’s funeral pyre Scheduled Caste: the government of India’s ofﬁcial term for former Untouchables; the state has “scheduled” these communities for advancement, and as a result, members of these low-status communities, who originate from hundreds of distinctive jatis including those associated with leatherworking and street sweeping, qualify for various afﬁrmativeaction privileges; also referred to as Dalits and Harijans Sudra: serf, manual laborer, or servant; the lowest of the four varnas discussed in ancient Vedic texts Thuddi Nats: “degraded acrobats”; a term used by my Bhat informants to refer to their kin who continued to praise and entertain those Bhambhis who did not abandon their leatherworking Tribal: in Hindi, Adivasi, which literally means, “First Inhabitants”; these are Native communities, which are associated with semi-isolated hill and forest regions; because of their poverty and “backwardness,” many of these groups are classiﬁed by the Indian state as “Scheduled Tribes” and thus qualify for government aid and reservations Vaisya: merchant or moneylender; this ancient varna title once also referred to farmers and cattle herders though it is now associated primarily with merchant communities varna: literally, “color” or “class”; sometimes translated as “caste” or “supercaste”; an idealized fourfold scheme of ranked social orders (Brahmins, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras) as set out in ancient Hindu scriptures Vedas: India’s ancient religious scriptures, compiled around 2000 b.c. yacak: clients in the jajmani economy; beggars; also referred to as mamgats, a term related to the Hindi verb mamgna, “to beg”

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Index

Italicized page numbers refer to illustrations. Abuse. See Insults; Praise-abuse Afﬁrmative action, 64, 65 Agriculture Bhambhis and, 24, 81, 84 caste and, 61 colonial period and, 61 Alms, as reﬂecting opposing caste theories, 126–127, 128 Amar Singh Rathor, 8 in Bhat puppet plays, 131, 133–136, 137, 146 Amba Lal, 3–4 learning genealogies of father, 105– 106 Ambedkar, B. R., 62 as Untouchable/drafter of constitution, 63 Ascriptive status, caste and, 31 Ayodhya, mosque/temple dispute of, 143–144, 193n3 Babu Lal, as Jaipur Bhat leader, 53 Babur, 143 Bansi Lal Bhat, 5, 15, 42, 44–45, 114 as adopted father, 45 ﬁrst opportunity/success of, 49 refusal to admit Bhambhi link, 25– 26, 27 U.S. trip of, 138

Bard(s) battles of reputation and, 21, 122 on Bhambhi generosity and thirsty bard, 91 Bhats as descendants of royal, vii, 22–24, 38, 69, 136–137, 141 Bhats as “real” royal, 165 birth/death records and, 24 on blinded king, 114–119 Caran community of, 67, 68, 69, 70 as center of Hindu society, 140– 141 displacement of, 68–69 gifts/payment for services of, 22, 94–95, 119–121, 128, 129 of kings, 21, 22, 23, 34, 111, 122 legacy of, Bhats’ caste relations and, 36, 72, 73, 74, 110, 129, 159 linguistic skills of, 117, 122, 168 literacy of, 25, 184n5 as literate/illiterate castes, 25 of Man Singh, 119–122 other names for, 21, 25 patrons as dependent on, 129 of Rajasthan, 67–72 of Lord Ram, 112–114, 145

216

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Bard(s) (continued ) on Sisodian king insult, 122–125 supremacy of, 137, 170 Bardic recitation, 2. See also Genealogies at births/deaths, 22 Carans’, in battleﬁeld, 67 caste and, 36, 72, 73, 74, 110, 129, 130, 159 in colonial Rajasthan, vii, 21, 67–72 genealogies in, 22, 24–25, 27, 57, 87, 89, 105–106, 138, 144 insults/gifts and, 94, 95 linguistic cunning in, 117, 122, 168 payment for services of, 22, 94–95, 119–121, 128, 129 poetic reversal in, 152–153, 154, 155, 156, 161–162, 167 praise-abuse in, 112–114, 163–164 Rajasthan’s history inﬂuenced by, 21 in reputation battles between kings, 21, 122 village reputation and, 92 Battles bardic Carans in, 67 of reputations, 21, 122, 136 Bedamiji, 15, 8, 27, 45 Beggars Bhats seen as, 29 jatis of, 85 Bhagavad Gita (Song of God) on duty/dharma and purity, 83–84 Bhambhis, 80 as agricultural laborers/grain givers, 24, 81, 84 Bhat poetic insults of, 93. 94, 95, 96 Bhats’ admission of link to, 27, 28 Bhats’ genealogies for, 27, 87, 89 as Bhats’ patrons, 25, 27, 68, 82–83, 84, 87–88, 127, 140 Bhats’ praise poems of, 89, 90, 91 Bhats’ view of, 79, 81, 82, 89, 92, 127 as Brahmins, 136 caste and, 24, 25, 81–82 discrimination against, 24, 73, 182n22 as farmers/landowners, 81 generosity to thirsty bard story, 91

gifts in Bhat relations with, 79–80, 84, 89 high-caste Hindus’ view of, 81–82 on Hindu sacred thread ritual, 82–83 leatherworking of, 24, 70, 80–81, 188n72, 189n5 as little kings, 99, 111 physical strength/moral superiority of, 82 as Rajput slaves, 81 seasonal lifestyle of, 41 as Untouchables, 27, 79, 81 as Warriors/Ksatriyas, 73 weddings of, 89 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ayodhya mosque/temple destruction and, 143–144, 145 Bhats’ puppetry used by, 145–146 Bhat(s), 5, 8, 13, 16, 17, 28, 42, 45, 47, 51, 90, 91, 138 ancestral travels of, 22 bardic skills’ impact on caste of, 129, 130 as bards for Bhambhis, 25, 27, 28, 68, 72, 73, 74, 87–88, 140 as beggars/pickpockets, 29 Bhambhi patrons and, 25, 27, 68, 79, 81, 82–83, 84, 87–88, 89, 92, 127 Bhambhi praise poems of, 89, 90, 91 as Brahmins, 67, 73 v. Carans’ link to Vedas, 67 caste institution relations/views of, 36, 58–59, 72–74, 111, 129, 130, 159, 165 castes of, 59, 73 cities of residence of, 43 cleverness of, 12, 100, 105, 148 in colonial/postcolonial Rajasthan, 32, 67–72 deceptions of, 7, 27, 38, 49, 69, 146– 148, 160, 194n13 democracy and, 71–72 Dumont/Hocart caste theory and, 99 dwellings of, 3, 5, 46–47, 50–51, 52, 52, 156 farming attempt of, 83 genealogies as recited by, 27, 87, 89, 105–106, 138

index gifts in Bhambhi relations with, 79– 80, 84, 89 gotras/clans of, 144, 147–148 Gulf War’s impact on, 7 Hindu religion and, 140–141 as Hindu/Muslim, 144–147 history and, 168 identities of, 71, 88, 112, 136, 138, 140, 141, 144–148, 162–163, 165, 168, 169, 171 in Indian society, 29, 39 insult poetry/art of, 92–96, 159, 167– 168 Islam ties of, 146, 147 Jain family’s view of, 48 jajmani and, 35, 99–100, 105–106, 130, 140, 169 jati and, 59, 70–71 kings, speaking of, 38, 99–100, 112– 114, 121–122, 148 languages of, xix–xx linguistic cunning of, 36, 110, 111, 113, 122, 141–142, 154–156, 160, 168 Marwar, travels out of, 42–43 Marxist views applied to, 172–173 as members of Dancer/Nat caste, 70, 71, 72, 189n80 modern world/puppetry and, 149, 150, 154–157, 160–163 Muslim gotras/clans of, 144 natal villages of, 73, 99–100, 169, 184n1 neo-Hocartian caste theories and, 128 number of, 54 origination of, xix other communities’ views of, 48 v. other low-caste communities, 130 politics and, 145–146, 158 poverty of, 5, 148, 181n3 as praise-singers, 72, 73, 74, 113, 114, 136–137, 149, 167–169 professions of, 46, 49, 69, 71, 87–88, 140–141, 162–163, 169 puppetry of, 10, 14, 70, 88, 149–163 Rajput/royal heritage of, 17, 23, 24, 27, 28, 45, 69, 136–137, 138, 139, 148, 165, 182n18, 194n13

217

Rajputs’ treatment of, 32 royal roles/status of, 22–24, 35, 68, 69, 165 self-mutilation of, 93–94 as seminomadic, 42, 54 as squatters, 47, 50, 138 as tent dwellers, 3, 5 term usage, xxii time/future and, 158 tourism and, 9–10, 12–13, 15, 28, 48, 49, 137–138, 140, 146 tradition and, 138–139, 169 Tribals and, 138 Bhat(s) of Jaipur, 5, 8, 17, 49, 50 homes/tents of, 50–51, 52 number of, 52 slums/communities of, 50–53 Bhats of Udaipur, 3, 28, 42, 43–49, 45, 47, 91 Birth certiﬁcates bardic recitations as, 24 Rajput genealogies as, 22 BJP. See Bharatiya Janata Party Bose, Subhas Chandra, 62 Brahminization, 71 Brahmins/priests Bhambhi patrons as, 136 Bhats’ identiﬁcation with, 67, 73 British caste census and, 61, 62 kings as superior to, 98, 111 royal/elite bards associated with, vii sacred thread ritual of, 82–83 vedas and, 32, 55, 56 Bribes, 51 British Census Bhats’ status in, 72 Brahmins and, 32–33, 61, 62 caste communities’ exploitation of, 60, 71 as caste documentation, 33, 60, 71, 72 The British East India Company, 59 British Empire Brahmins and, 32–33, 61 Carans and, 68, 69 Carans’ immolation/self-mutilation and, 68 caste as invention of, 32–34

218

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British Empire (continued ) caste census of, 60–61 caste relations transformed by, 60–62 Rajasthan/Rajputs and, 60 start of, 59–60 Buffalo, 82–83 Candalas. See Untouchable(s) Carans v. Bhats’ connection to Vedas, 67 in colonial Rajasthan, 67, 68, 69, 70, 188n70 Caste(s). See also Gotras/clans; Varna(s); speciﬁc caste names agriculture and, British Empire’s inﬂuence on, 61 alms/gifts and, 98, 126–127, 128 ancient v. modern, 56 as ascribed at birth, 31 bardic communities and, 24–25 bardic skills’ impact on, 129, 130 Bhambhis and, 24, 25, 81–82 Bhat jatis and, 59, 70–71 Bhats’ new identity and, 168, 171 Bhats’ relations to, 36, 58–59, 72–74, 111, 129, 130, 148, 159, 165, 168, 171 Bhats’ use of language and, 172 British Empire’s transformation of, 60– 62 as British invention, 32–34 buffalo in Hindu views of, 82–83 census of British, peasants’ exploitation of, 60, 71 as central political issue, 66 clothes/shoes as symbols of, 32 councils, 71, 188n72 democracy and, 67, 71–72 dharma and, 83–84 Dirk’s writings on, 98 discrimination against Untouchables, 73, 98 Dumont’s v. Hocart’s theory of, 30–31, 96–99 economy and lowest, 149 as English word, 54, 186n30 ﬁctional v. static perspective of, 31–35, 171

four varnas of, 56 generations’ views of, 106 gifts and, 98 gotra and, 56, 57, 58, 193n6 hierarchy in Hindu view, 29 high/low/Scheduled, 64 historical/scholarly perspectives on, 30– 37 Hocart/Dumont middle path view of, 34–35, 171 Indian constitution and, 63–64, 65, 67, 73, 98 as invention of British, 33 jati and, 58, 59, 144, 185n18 kings/patrons as central to organization of, 35 low, mockeries of high, 65 manual labor and, 83 marriage and, 30, 49, 57–58, 144, 183n32, 185n16 meat-eating and, 73, 81, 84, 98 neo-neo Hocartian view of, book as, 37 as nonexistent in Indians’ view, 65, 187n60 occupation as deﬁning, 30, 58, 81, 97 petitions for higher ranking of, 60 purity/pollution and, 80, 81 Rajasthan’s current strata of, 64 in Rajput society, 57–58 Scheduled, 64, 65, 66, 70, 72, 73, 187n53 as translation of varna/jati, 54–55 varnas and, 55–56 Vedic origin of, varnas and, 55–56 word usage in this book, xxii, 58 Census. See British Census Clans. See Gotras/clans Cleverness. See also Deceptions, of Bhats Bhats’ bardic, 36, 105, 110. 111, 113, 122, 141–142, 154–156, 160, 168 of Brahmins, 100–104 poem on, 143 as valued by Bhats, 12, 104, 146, 148 Colonial Rajasthan agriculture in, 61 autonomy of, 63

index bards as praise-singers in, 21 Bhats/Carans in, 32, 67–72, 188n70 Bhats in changing jajmani/economy of, 87–88 elite bards of, vii patrons in, 85–86 Rajputs’ reliance on bards, 21 Warrior/Ksatriya caste of, 61 Competition(s) bardic, 43, 69 between bards, 119–121 of entertainers in Rajasthan’s jajmani, 86 Congress Party, 62, 145, 148 Councils, on caste, 71, 188n72 Curses, insults as, 96 Dalits. See also Untouchable(s) Bhats’ claim to be, viii as Scheduled caste/former Untouchables, 64 Dancers/Nats Bhats’ acrobatic skills as, 188n76 high v. low castes of, 71 as Scheduled castes, 70, 188n77 Death(s) bardic insults and, 96 bardic services for, 22 v. births, bards connected to, 25 genealogists of, 24 of Rajputs, Bhats and, 32 Deceptions, of Bhats, 7, 12, 23–24, 27, 38, 49, 69, 146–148, 160, 194n13 Democracy Bhats’ response to, 141 caste and, 67, 71–72 Dharma/duty, purity and, 83–84 Dialects of Rajasthani language, xix, xx Dirks, Nicholas, on caste, 98 Discrimination against Bhambhis, 24, 73, 182n22 against Untouchables, 73, 98 Discursive construction, of modernity, 161–162 Dowries, 89, 153

219

The Dream of the Orient, 138 Drums, in puppet shows, 8, 150 Dumont, Louis, caste theory of, 30–31, 37, 80, 96–97 Economy. See also Jajmani British Empire and Rajasthani, 61 lower castes in modern, 149 rural, as patron–client/jajmani, 69, 80, 85–86 themes of, in puppet plays, 149, 150, 151–152 Entertainers patronage of, 86–87 in Rajasthani economy/jajmani, 86 as Scheduled castes, 70 Europeans, in India, 59–60 Farmers Bhambhis as, 81 Bhats as, 83 as patrons in colonial Rajasthan, 85– 86 Feudal lords, of colonial Rajasthan, 85, 86 Five Fingers of the Hand, 110, 111 Gandhi, Mohandas caste discrimination and, 63 Congress Party and, 62 hunger protests of, compared to Bhats’ self-mutilation threats, 93, 190– 191n27 Genealogies bardic recitation of, 24–25 in Bhats’ current profession, 138 Bhat’s recitation of, for Bhambhi patrons, 27, 87, 89 as birth certiﬁcates, 22 of Muslim Bhats, 144 of Rajputs, 22, 57, 186n24 Sun/Moon in, 186n24 tradition of, as dying, 105–106 Genealogists for births v. deaths, bardic reputation as, 25

220

index

Gifts alms as, 126–127, 128 in Bhat/Bhambhi relationship, 79–80, 84, 89 dangers of, 126–128 hierarchy and, 126–127 insults for inadequate, 93–95, 96, 167– 168 in jajmani, 85, 86 of kings/bards, 17–20, 119–125 of kings to poet-bards, 22, 119–121, 128, 129 low caste and, 98 v. purity/pollution in family status, 90 reputation and, 92 Gods/Goddesses of Grain, solar eclipse myth and, 76– 77, 189n2 patrons seen as, 94 puppets as incarnations of, 11 Ram as Hindu, 143, 144 Sati Churi, 75–77, 189n2 Gotras/clans of Bhats, discovery of, 147–148 Muslim, of Bhats, 144 varnas/caste and, 56, 58, 193n6 Grain Bhambhi patrons as givers of, 84 god of, 75–77, 84 as money/rent, 85, 86 Gulf War, Bhats and, 7 Guljar as informant, 53 on solar eclipse and god of grain myth, 74, 77, 78 Harji Bhat, 53–54 Havelis/mansions, 7 Hegemony, 23, 170, 195–196n4 Heritage bardic, Bhats’ claims of, 17, 21, 23 of Bhats, as seminomadic, 42 discovery of Bhats’, as linked to untouchable caste, 25, 27 Hidden transcripts, in puppet plays, 159, 160 Hierarchy, 66, 67

bardic language/skill and, 110 bards’ place in Hindu, 129 as complementary in varna system, 55 as discursive construction, 111 as human construct, ix, 130 imagination and, 111 Raheja on alms and, 126–127 Hindi as language of Rajasthan, xx rhymes, Bhats’ political use of, 145, 146 Hindu(s) Bhambhis viewed by high-caste, 81–82 dharma/purity and, 83–84 gods/goddesses, 76–77, 143, 144, 189n2 gotras/clans and varnas, 56 jatis/species and varnas, 56 Muslim temple/mosque of Ayodhya, 143–144, 193n3 Muslims and, Bhats as both, 144–147, 193n9 nationalism of Bhats, 165 sacred thread ritual, 82–83 sati/widow immolation practice, 68 Vedas/caste and, 55 worship in puppetry, 11 History Bhats’ elusive, 27, 28 Bhats’ role in maintaining, 168 praise-singers and, 21 Hocart, A. M., 30, 31, 35, 36, 80 Dirks’s writings inspired by, 98 Home(s) in India, 48, 53 of Jaipur Bhats, 50–53, 52 of Udaipur Bhats, 3, 5, 43, 46–47, 156 Hubert, H., 127 Hussein, Saddam, 7 Identities, of Bhats, 71, 88, 112, 136, 138, 140, 141, 144–148, 162–163, 165, 168, 169, 171 Immolation, 68 Indian constitution. See also Democracy Ambedkar as Untouchable/drafter of, 63

index caste and, 63–64, 65, 67, 73 discrimination under, 98 Indian Independence, 62, 72 Rajasthan and, 87 Inequality, caste as inherited, 35 Informants of Jaipur, central to research, 53–54 literacy of, 25, 46 reliability of, ix–x of Udaipur, in research, 44–46, 47 Insults v. alms’ purity as dangerous, 128 Bhats’ use of, 92–96, 159, 167–168 gifts and, 93–95, 96, 167–168 of King Sisodia’s bard, 122–125 as weapons/curses, 96 Intermarrying, 49, 70, 71, 183n32, 185n16 of clans, 57–58, 193n6 of Muslim Bhats, 144 Islam Bhats’ connection to Hinduism and, 146, 147 Jagirdari/feudal system, 85, 86 Jain family, Bhats viewed by, 48 Jaipur Bhats of, 5, 8, 5, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 characteristics of, 50 informants, 53–54 Jajmani (rural/patron-client economy) bardic compensation in, 94–95, 128 bards and, 86 in Bhats’ lives today, 10, 35, 99–100, 105–106, 140, 169 Bhats v. other low-caste communities in, 130 in British Empire, 87–88, 139–140 entertainers’ patronage in, 86–87 feudal lords in, 85, 86 gifting in, 22, 79–80, 84, 126–128 grain as money/gifts in, 85, 86 jatis in, 58, 59, 66, 85, 86, 87 population of India’s impact on, 88 travel restrictions of, 139–140 Tribal patrons in today’s, 138 villages and, 99–100, 140

221

Jati(s) beggars v. patrons, 86–87 Bhats and, 59, 70–71, 144 Carans as, 70 caste/varna system and, 56, 58, 185n18 Muslim, in Bhat caste community, 144 in Rajput society/economy, 58, 59, 66, 85, 86, 87 Jinnah, Muhammed Ali, as leader of Muslim Independence, 62–63 Joshi, O. P., 27 King Resamji, 17–20. See also Stories/ myths Kings arrogance of, 125 bards’ power over, 21, 34, 111, 122, 128, 163–164, 165 Bhambhis as little, 99, 111 Bhats’ hiding links to, 148 Bhats’ speaking of, 38, 99–100, 112– 114, 121–122, 148 ﬁctive reputations of, 165 gifts of, 22, 119–121, 128, 129 in Hocart’s caste theory, 35 as modern hoteliers, 23 praise-singers and, 112–125, 168 v. priests as central power, 98, 111 subaltern view of, 170 tales of, 112–125 Kothari, Komal, puppetry and, 27, 144 Ksatriyas/Warriors. See Warriors/ Ksatriyas Language(s) of Bhats, xix–xx, 67 Bhats’/bards’ skill in poetic, 36, 110, 111, 113, 122, 141–142, 154–156, 160, 168 Bhats’ political use of Hindi, in puppet plays, 145, 146 Bhats’ power over, 172 dual nature of, 164, 167–168 Parsi, xx in puppet shows, 154 puppetry and poetic use of, 117, 145, 154–156

222

index

Language(s) (continued ) Rajasthani, xix, 67 Sanskrit, 55, 67 upside-down, 117 Laws of Manu, 56, 84, 185n16 Leatherworking of Bhambhis, 24, 70, 80–81, 188n72, 189n5 Literacy of Bhats, 25, 46 in Rajasthan, 184n5 Loans, to informants, 4–5, 6 Macy’s, Bansi Lal’s puppetry and, 138 Mahals, 7 Maharana of Udaipur, 43 boat trip to Lake Palace Hotel of, 49 Mala Nur, 147 as Muslim poet of Hindu lord, 145 Man Singh, 119–122 Mandal Commission, 66 Mandalization, 66 Manu, Laws of, 56, 84, 185n16 Manusmriti (Laws of Manu), 56, 84, 185n16 Marathas, marauding Rajasthan, 61, 186– 187n40 Marriage, arranged, 30. See also Intermarrying Marwar Bhats’ travels out of, 42–43 as home to Bhats, 41 puppeteers and, 21 Marwari as Bhats’ language, xix–xx, 67 middle, 67 Mauss, M., 127 Meat-eating, 73, 81, 84, 98. See also Stories/myths Merchants/Vaisyas, 55–56, 186n28 Messengers, elite bards as, 68 Miracles, in puppetry, 11 Modernity, 160–163 Moon, Indians’ landing on, 3–4, 6, 16 Mughals Babur, 143 invasions by, 57, 185–186n23

Music, in puppet shows, 151 Muslim(s). See also Mughals characters in puppet shows, 131, 132, 134 as genealogists, 144 Hindus and, Bhats as both, 144–147 Independence, 62–63 intermarriages of, 144 poet of Hindu lord Ram, 145 puppetry’s origin as, 15, 144 Rajput leaders and invasion by, 57, 185n22 Turks, as ﬁrst Rajasthan invaders, 185n22 Myths. See Stories/myths Nagaur district, xix, 22, 135 Narayan Bhat, as informant, 5, 46, 105– 106, 119, 144, 145, 163, 164 Nats. See Dancers/Nats NGOs. See Nongovernmental organizations Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) puppetry/folk arts used by, 49–50, 149 OBCs. See Other Backward Castes Occupation(s) of Bhat merchants, 73 caste deﬁned by, 30, 58, 81, 97 Dalits/Untouchables’ changing, 65 of three-caste strata, 64 Other Backward Castes (OBCs), 64, 65, 66, 188n64 Outcasteing, 70 Outcastes. See Untouchable(s) Pakistan, as origin of Bhat puppetry, 15, 144 Palaces, 7 Panna Lal, as oldest informant, 17, 17– 20, 53 Parsi, xx Patronage of Bhats by Bhambhis, 25, 27, 68, 82– 83, 87–88, 89, 189n7 four systems of, 86–87 v. freedom, 140

index gifts and, 22, 79–80, 84, 86, 89, 126– 127 grain and, 86 Patrons. See also Jajmani bards’ dependence on, 129 bards’ self-mutilation and, 93–94, 188n70 Bhambhis as, 25, 27, 68, 82–83, 84, 87–88, 127, 140, 189n7 Bhats’ poetic insults of, 94, 95 Bhats’ praise-abuse of, 167–168 Bhats’ present-day, viii, 138 in colonial Rajasthan, 85–86 farmers/lords as, 85–86 Tribal landlords as Bhats’ new, 138 Petitions, for higher caste ranking, 60 Pink city, 50 Poems collecting of, xx of insult, 94, 95 moral messages of, 168 in praise of Bhambhis, 89, 90, 91 of praise-abuse, 112–114, 163–164, 167– 168 Poetic reversal, 152–153, 154, 155, 156, 161– 162, 167. See also Cleverness; Hidden transcripts Poetry contests, 43, 69 praise-abuse, 73, 112–114, 167–168 Poets. See Bard(s) Politics Bhats and, 158 Hindi rhymes and, 145, 146 OBCs and, 188n64 puppet shows and, 145, 149 subaltern, 170–171 tradition and, 169 Population Bhats/jajmani inﬂuenced by, 88 of Jaipur, 50 of Udaipur, 43 Poverty, of Bhats, 5, 148, 181n3 Praise-abuse in bardic recitation, 164, 167–168 poetry of, 73, 112–114, 163–164, 167– 168

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Praise-singers Bhats as, 72, 73, 74, 113, 114, 136–137, 149, 167–169 as genealogists of all castes, 24–25 generations of, 106 importance/vulnerability of, 113, 114, 122, 128, 163–164, 168 in pre-independence Rajasthan, 168 Rajputs/kings and, 21, 112–125, 168 royal bards’ abandoning positions as, 168 Priests. See Brahmins/priests Prithviraj Chauhan, 114 Privy Purses Abolition Act, 63 Profession(s) of Bhats, present-day, 69, 70, 71, 73, 87–88, 140–141, 162–163, 169 genealogies in Bhats’ present-day, 138 of Rajputs, present-day, 23 of royal bards, present-day, vii, 168 Puppet plays, 131–136, 137, 149–152. See also “Your Daughter’s Wedding” abroad, 138, 139 Amar Singh Rathor as central ﬁgure in, 131, 133–136, 137, 146 audiences at, 150, 162 Bhat identity and, 136–137, 169 characters in, 8, 137 Congress Party and, 145, 148 content of, 8 as educational, 159 hidden transcripts in, 159, 160 linguistic cunning in, 154 location of, 7–8 Rajputs in, 137 as resistance, 158–160 as social reform/political tactic, 49–50, 145–146, 149 tourists and, 9 Puppeteer, 132 bardic caste of, 21–22 v. praise-singer, as Bhat profession, 162–163 as profession v. caste, 21–22 skills of, 137

224

index

Puppetry as ancient/sacred art, 11 BJP and, 145–146 Kothari’s legends on origin of, 27, 144 miracles and, 11 as new career, 70, 88 Pakistani/Muslim origin of, 15, 144 v. praise-singing for Bhambhis, 162– 163 in Rajasthani community, entry of, 70 as social reform tactic, 49–50, 145– 146, 149 tradition/nostalgia and, 9, 10, 169 Puppets, 8, 14, 133, 134 construction of, 131 as gods/goddess incarnations, 11 male/female switching of, 8 manufacture of, 12, 13–14 sale of, 12–13, 138 Purity/pollution, 96, 98, 189n7 Bhagavad Gita on, 83–84 Bhats and, 127 in caste theory of Dumont, 31, 37, 80, 96–97 dharma and, 83–84 gifts and, 126 v. gifts in family status, 90 leatherworking and, 80–81 Sati Churi myth and Bhats’ view of, 75– 77, 78, 79 Purusa, 55, 109, 110 Raheja, Gloria, neo-Hocartian views of, 126–127 Raj. See British Empire Rajasthan autonomy under British Empire, 63 in British Empire, 21, 60, 61, 62, 139– 140 caste communities in modern, 64 colonial/postcolonial, 21, 61, 67–72, 85– 86, 87–88 dialects of, xix, xx formation of modern state of, 63, 187n49 Hinduism, BJP and, 146 history and, 21, 168

Indian independence and, 87 literacy of, 25, 184n5 Marathas’ invasion of, 61, 186–187n40 medieval period of, 22, 56–57, 185n19 modern palaces/mansions of, 7 praise-singers of pre-independence, 168 royal/elite bards of, modern careers of, vii, 168 tourist industry of, Bhats and, 9–10, 12– 13, 15, 22, 23, 28, 48, 49, 137–138, 140, 146 Rajput(s) Amar Singh Rathor as disinherited, 131 arising in medieval period, 56–57 Bhambhis as slaves of, 81 Bhats’ ancestral link to, real/imagined, 17, 23, 24, 27, 28, 45, 136–137, 138, 139, 182n18, 184n43 Bhats’ denying links to, 148 in Bhats’ natal villages, 73 Bhats’ recent treatment by, 32 caste in society of, 57–58 colonial bards’ relations with, 21 in contemporary society, 23, 168 deaths of, Bhats and, 32 as feudal lords, 85, 86 genealogies of, 22, 57 jatis of, 57, 58, 66, 85 modern professions of, 168 in puppet shows, 137 Sun/Moon and, 57, 186n24 tourism and, 137–138, 185n7 Warrior varna/caste of, 56 Ramayana, 114, 143, 191n4 Ramu, as informant, 53 Recitation. See Bardic recitation Religion, Bhat afﬁliations with, 82–83, 140, 141, 144, 146, 147 Reputation bards’ inﬂuence on, 89, 92, 93, 95, 96, 121–122 battles of, 21, 122, 136 gifts and, 92, 98 of kings, 21, 98, 122, 165 Rig Veda, 55 Rushdie, Salman, 43

index Sacred Thread (ritual), 82–83 Sanskrit, 55, 67 Sati, 68 Sati Churi deity, 75–77, 78, 189n2 Scheduled Castes and Tribes, viii, 64, 65, 66, 70, 72, 73, 187n53 as entertainers, 70 Scott, James, 159 Self-mutilation, 93–94, 188n70 Servants. See Servants/Sudras Servants/Sudras Bhats as, 59, 73 services of, 58 in Vedic varnas/caste groups, 55, 56 Shah Jahan, 8, 23 Sharma, Davendra, 53 Sikar district, 22 Singh, V. P., 66 Sitayana, 114 Slums, of Bhats, 51–52, 53 Social reform, puppet plays as tactic for, 49–50, 145–146, 149 Solar eclipse, myth on, 75–77, 84 Species. See Jati(s) Squatters Jaipur Bhats as, 50 Udaipur Bhats as, 47, 138 States Reorganisation Act, 63 Stories/myths of Bhambhi generosity to thirsty bard, 91 Bhat’s farming attempt, 83 of blinded king’s poet, 114–119 collecting of, xx of demon Ravana’s challenge to Ram’s bard, 112–114 Five Fingers of the Hand, 110, 111 of Indians landing on moon, 3–4, 6 of king of Sisodia’s bardic insult, 122– 125 of Man Singh’s gift to his bard, 119– 122 of Purusa, 55, 109, 110 of Resamji and four bards, 17–20 of solar eclipse/god of grain and the ant, 76–77, 189n2 of the stingy Bhambhi’s turban, 95

225

of two bards’ name-calling their king, 163–164 Subaltern consciousness politics of, 170–171 as term for peasant perspective, 183– 184n41 Sudras. See Servants/Sudras Tactics. See also Deceptions of bards/performers, 38, 45, 148, 170, 183n29 Hindi rhymes of Bhats as, 145, 146 Tailors, jatis and, 85 Taxes, in British Empire, 85 Temple/mosque, 143–144, 193n3 Tourism Bhats and, 9, 22, 49, 140 as modern venue of kings/bards, 7–8, 23, 48, 137–138, 185n7 puppetry/Bhats and, 9–10, 12–13, 15, 28 traditional society/stories and, 169 Tradition Bhats as keepers of, 138–139, 169 politics and, 169 puppetry and, 9, 10 sacred thread, Bhambhi v. Brahmin in, 82–83 Tribals, Bhats and, 138 Trickery, in bardic stories, 23–24 Turban as caste symbol, 32 story of stingy Bhambhi and his, 95 Udaipur Bhats of, 3, 28, 42, 43–49, 45, 47, 91 Bhats settling/squatting in, 43, 47, 48 characteristics of, 43, 48 Maharana Udai Singh as founder of, 43 old, 48 UNESCO, 49–50, 149 Untouchability, as illegal, 65 Untouchable(s) Ambedkar as, 63 Bhambhis as, 27, 79, 81 Bhats’ view of, 79

226

index

Untouchable(s) (continued ) as children of God, 63 constitution and, 64, 65, 98 discrimination against, 73, 98 rights/freedoms of, 65 as Scheduled Castes and Tribes, 64 services/occupations of, 58, 65 in Vedic varnas/caste groups, 56 Upside-down language, 117 Vaisyas. See Merchants/Vaisyas Varna(s), 55–56, 72–73. See also speciﬁc caste names Bhats’ belonging to all, 24–25, 73 clans/species/caste and, 56, 58, 185n18 ﬁfth, as surreptitious, 56 four, described, 55, 58 Vedas, 32 Bhats’ v. Carans’ connection to, 67 four varnas as castes of, 55–56 Purusa and, 55 varnas of, v. modern India’s caste system, 56 VHP. See Vishwa Hindu Parishad Villages of Bhambhis, Bhats’ ties to, 88 Bhats’ returning to natal, 99–100, 169 Bhats’ status in, 29 caste in, 65 inheritance of, 191n39 jajmani and, 169

natal, of Bhats, 73, 99, 184n1 v. slums, of Bhats, 51–52 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Ayodhya mosque/temple and, 143–144 Warriors/Ksatriyas Bhambhis as, 73 Carans as, 67, 68 caste in colonial Rajasthan, 61 in Vedic varnas/caste groups, 55, 56 Weddings, of Bhambhis, 89 Workers, jatis and, 85 World Hindu Council, temple/mosque dispute and, 143–144 “Your Daughter’s Wedding” (puppet play), 149–152 Amar Singh Rathor in, 131, 133–136, 137 Bhat resistance evidenced by, 158–160 Bhats’ philosophy revealed in, 157–158 economic themes of, 149, 150, 151–152 form/content of, 154 modernity views revealed in, 156, 157 poetic reversals in, 152–153, 154, 155, 156, 161–162 subversion/improvisation in, 154, 155, 157, 159 tradition and, 10 UNESCO and, 49–50, 149 urban sponsors of, 149–150