Disputes and arguments amongst nomads : a caste council in India
This book provides the first detailed analysis of a traditional Indian legal institution, a caste panchayat. It discusses the organization of the panchayat, the cases handled by it and the rationale behind its decisions and also the reasons why such institutions are not compatible with the Indian democracy.
State, Pastures and Rice-Fields: The Gaddi Shepherds of Colonial Himachal Himalayas (North India)
This paper tries to map the transformations that take place in the process of mobility — in structure and attitudes. It scans the linkages between the seasonally mobile shepherds on the one hand and the sedentary peasants on the other over a time frame of a century. It emphasizes the impact of economic interaction in terms of social change and comprehends how the occupational class society becomes segmented. The paper brings into a sharp focus the complex interplay, at various levels, among the forces of state, the agriculturists, and the pastorals by considering the shepherding economy in itself and as a constituent of the larger economic and social system. The larger argument is that the shepherds bring into economic equation the resources that were beyond the 'revenue' demand and marketing strategies that are beyond 'fixed markets and bazaars'. An attempt has been made to understand the process of interaction within different ecological zones and how the state, particularly colonial rule, intervened to control the pastorals in their attempt to 'Hinduize' by ritualizing and locating them in a caste hierarchy. In the process the dynamics of herding — alpine-temperate migratory cycle; the rights and obligations in relation to herding practice; the evolution of herding tax structure; and the socio-economic basis of herding — has been analyzed.
Homo Hierarchicus, Homo Equalis
I should like to pay my tribute to the memory of Kingsley Martin by calling in question a part of the conventional wisdom of what passes for comparative sociology. I hope I shall not appear unduly contentious in doing so. I should not like to speak badly of comparative sociology. At the same time, it has to be admitted that a truly comparative sociology exists less in the work that scholars actually do than in the ideals they profess. The principal obstacle to its growth is, in my opinion, neither lack of wit nor lack of words: it is prejudice.