This article investigates the growing marginality of pastoralism using the Gujar agitation of 2007–08 in India as a point of entry. Although the process began with colonialism, pastoralism is currently witnessing a crisis in postcolonial India as the consequence of a progressively sedentarising state, intensification of commercialised agriculture and urbanisation. The Gujars of Rajasthan have made claims for recognition demanding scheduled tribe (ST) status to counter inequality. Clearly, this inequality has been historically constituted. Hence, the play of inequality and resistance is addressed through an examination of two clusters of events around the years 2007 and 1857. Currently, the state defines tribes in terms of indices that have been subject to neither review nor public debate. It is not only the vision of the state that is compromised by colonial anthropology and history, but also that of civil society and community. Tragically, communities are forced to format their histories in terms of an archaic indigeneity. Further, claims to social justice and equality are reduced to demands for quotas rather than addressing critically and creatively the violence of development and knowledge. Thus, the politico-administrative category, ST, itself becomes a mode of violence, pointing to the need to debate afresh the grounds on which tribality is constituted.
AgarwalArun. 1999. Greener Pastures: Politics, Markets and Community among a Migrant Pastoral People. Durham: Duke University Press.
2.
BannerjeePrathama. 2006. ‘Culture/Politics: The Irresoluble Double-bind of the Indian Adivasi.’ The Indian Historical Review33 (1): 99–126.
3.
BaylyChris. A.1983. Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
BarthFredrik. 1959. Political Leadership among the Swat Pathans. London: Athlone Press.
5.
BeteilleAndre. 1991. ‘The Concept of Tribe with Special Reference to India.’ In Society and Politics in India, edited byBeteilleAndre, 57–78. London: Athlone.
6.
BharuchaRustam. 2003. Rajasthan—An Oral History: Conversations with Komal Kothari. New Delhi: Penguin.
7.
BhatiKhurshid. 2007. Āzādī ke Bād Sāmājik Manyatāon ke Ādhar Par Ārakshan kā Itihāsa Gurjaron se Prārambh Huā (After independence the history of reservation began with the Gurjars on the basis of social beliefs). Jodhpur: Shyam Printing Press.
8.
BingleyA.H.1978 (1899). History, Caste and Culture of Jats and Gujars. New Delhi: Ess Publications.
9.
ChakrabartyDipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
10.
DasVeena. 2003. Introduction. In The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology (vol. 1), edited byDasVeena, 1–29. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
11.
DirksNicholas. 2001. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
12.
DubeAbhay Kumar. 1991. Krāntī kā Ātmasangharsh: Naksalvādī Āndolan ke Badalte Chahre kā Adhyayan (The inner conflict of revolution: A study of the changing face of the Naxalite Movement). Delhi: Vinay Prakashan.
13.
DumontLouis. 1970. Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
14.
EscobarArturo. 2007. ‘“Post-development” as Concept and Social Practice.’ In Exploring Post-Development: Theory, Practice, Problems and Perspectives, edited byZiaiA.18–31. London: Routledge.
15.
GadgilMadhavGuhaRamachandra. 1992. This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
16.
GellnerErnest. 1991. ‘Tribalism and State Formation in the Middle East.’ In Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, edited byKhouryPhilip S.KostinerJoseph109–27. London: IB Tauris.
17.
GoldAnn G.2013. ‘Ainn-Bai’s “Sarvadharm Yatra”: A Mix of Experiences.’ In Lines in Water: Religious Boundaries in South Asia, edited byKassamTazim R.KentEliza, 300–29. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
18.
GoldAnn G.GujarBhoju Ram. 2002. In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan. Durham: Duke University Press.
19.
GommansJos J.L.1998. ‘The Silent Frontier of South Asia, c AD 1100–1800.’ Journal of World History9 (1): 1–23.
20.
Government of India. 2007. Report of the Working Group on Empowerment of Scheduled Tribes for the Eleventh Five Year Plan 2007–2012. New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India.
21.
GuhaRanajit. 1983. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
22.
GuhaSumit. 1999. Environment and Ethnicity in India 1200–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
HiltebeitelAlf. 1999. India’s Oral and Classical Epics: Draupadi among the Rajputs, Muslims and Dalits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
24.
HobsbawmEric. 1969. Bandits. New York: Delacorte Press.
25.
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). 2005. The Bakkarwals of Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi: INTACH.
26.
KavooriPurnendu. 2005. ‘Environmentalism, Development and the Crisis of Pastoral Legitimacy: Rajasthan’s Nomadic Pastoralists and the Forests of Madhya Pradesh.’ Senri Ethnological Studies69: 215–26.
27.
KavooriPurnendu. 2007. ‘Reservation for Gujars: A Pastoral Perspective.’ Economic and Political Weekly42 (38): 3833–35.
28.
KolffDirk.H.A.1990. Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
29.
LewisD.L. ed. 1994. The Portable Harlem Reader. New York: Viking.
30.
LuddenDavid. 1994. ‘History outside Civilisation and the Mobility of South Asia.’ South Asia17 (1): 1–23.
31.
LuddenDavid. 2003. ‘Maps in the Mind and the Mobility of Asia.’ The Journal of Asian Studies62 (4): 1057–78.
32.
MahbubaniKishore. 2008. The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. New York: Public Affairs.
33.
MalikAditya. 2004. Divine Testimony: A Study and Translation of the Rajasthan Oral Narrative of Devnārāyan. New York: Oxford University Press.
34.
MayaramShail. 2003. Against History, Against State: Counter Perspectives from the Margins. New York: Columbia University Press.
35.
MayaramShail. 2009. The Other Global City. London: Routledge.
36.
MooreBarringtonJr.1966. Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
37.
RadhakrishnaMeena. 2001. Dishonoured by History: ‘Criminal Tribes’ and British colonial Policy. New Delhi: Orient Longman.
38.
RaoAparnaCasimirMichael J.2003a. ‘Nomadism in South Asia: An Introduction.’ In Nomadism in South Asia, edited byRaoAparnaCasimirMichael J.1–38. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
39.
RaoAparnaCasimirMichael J.2003b. ‘Movements of Peoples; Nomads in India.’ In The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology (vol. 1), edited byDasVeena, vol. 1, 219–61. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
40.
RatnagarShereen. 2003. ‘Our Tribal Past.’ Social Scientist31 (1–2): 17–36.
41.
RudolphLloyd. 1965. ‘The Modernity of Tradition: The Democratic Incarnation of Caste in India.’ American Political Science Review59 (4): 75–89.
42.
RudolphLloyd I.RudolphSusanne H.1967. The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
43.
SaberwalVasant. 1999. Pastoral Politics: Shepherds, Bureaucrats and Conservation in the Western Himalayas. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
44.
ScottJames. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
45.
SharmaDashrath. 1966. Rajasthan through the Ages: A Comprehensive and Authentic History of Rajasthan. Bikaner: Rajasthan State Archives.
46.
SharmaSuresh. 1994. Tribal Identity and the Modern World. London: SAGE Publications.
47.
ShethD.L.2004. ‘Globalisation and the New Politics of Micro-movements.’ Economic and Political Weekly39 (1): 45–58.
48.
SinghKumar Suresh.1983. Birsa Munda and his Movement 1874–1901: A Study of a Millenarian Movement in Chota Nagpur. Calcutta: Oxford University Press.
49.
SkariaAjay. 1999. Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
50.
SmithJohn D.1991. The Epic of Pabuji: A Study, Transcription and Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
51.
StokesEric. 1978. The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.
52.
SundarNandini. 1998. Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar. New York: Oxford University Press.
53.
TsingAnna. 1993. In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-Way Place. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
54.
Unnithan-KumarMaya. 2001. Identity, Gender and Poverty: New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe. Jaipur: Rawat Publications.
55.
WerbnerPnina. 1990. ‘Manchester Pakistanis: Division and Unity.’ In South Asians Overseas: Migration and Ethnicity, edited byClarkeColinPeachCeriVertovecStephen, 331–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
56.
XaxaVirginius. 2003. Tribes in India. In The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology
, edited byDasVeena, 373–408. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
57.
YagnikAchyutShethSuchitra. 2005. The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva and Beyond. New Delhi: Penguin.
58.
ZiaiAram. 2007. ‘Development Discourse and its Critics: An Introduction to Post-development.’ In Exploring Post-development: Theory, Practice, Problems and Perspectives, edited byZiaiAram, 226–34. London: Routledge.
