The Political Construction of Caste in South India

Vijayendra RaoDevelopment Research Group, The World Bank

And

Radu BanLondon School of Economics

and Development Research Group, The World Bank

The Trope

• Abbé Dubois 1806

• James Mill 1820

• HH Risley 1915

• Max Weber

• Karl Marx

• “Homo Heirarchicus” – Louis Dumont (1966) tr. 1980

Trope in Economics

• Most papers that look at caste discrimination, e.g.:

• Akerlof (1976)

• Frietas (2006)

• Rao and Walton (2004)

• Hoff and Pandey (2004)

• Etc. etc. ……

Trope in Policy

• Deepak Lal – Hindu Equilibrium

• Mancur Olson – Rise and Decline of Nations

• Harrison and Huntington – Culture Matters

CRITICS

Rudolph and Rudolph (1969)

Veena Das (1981)

Susan Bayly (1999)

Nicholas Dirks (2002)

Natural Experiment

• Bayly, Dirks – Political/Administrative History

• Land Reform History (Dharma Kumar, 1962)

• Jati – Language/Kinship

• Geography

Natural Experiment

• Reorganization of Indian States – 1956

Old States:

- Hyderabad – Mughal Governor (18th Century), with much longer prior history (12th century

- Madras Presidency – 18th century, but again much longer prior history

Natural Experiment

• New States

• Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala

• “Mistakes” along the Border

• Language Matching – Block

• Language Matching- Village

Natural Experiment

• Control for Administrative History

• Control for Language Kinship Structures

Data Collection (Nov. 2002)

• Village Level – Focus Group Discussion/PRA

• Test: Population is almost perfectly correlated (0.83) correlated with census population despite imperfections in overlap.

• Household Level – 20 households per village

Table 7: Difference in difference in fraction landlesswithin state difference between states difference D in D

1951 0.1717 0.1757 0.0090(0.1438) (0.1337) (0.0304)

55 63

2002 0.1292 0.1975 0.0703(0.1119) (0.1460) (0.0340)**

55 63D in D in D 0.0642

(0.0342)*Note:

1)Cell size indicated at bottom of each cell

2) The D in D estimations include border f ixed effects, standard errors clustered by 2nd village in pair

3) The D in D in D estimation includes village pair f ixed effects, standard errors clustered by village pair

4) * 10% signif icance, ** 5% signif icance

5) The one sided test, D in D in D < 0 can be rejected at 5% signif icance

CASTE OVERLAP

Two measures:

1) Overall Overlap: Ratio of population of overlapping caste names in both villages to total population in both villages

2) Top 5 Overlap: Ratio of population in overlapping caste names in five most populous castes in both villages

Table 8. Ethnic diversity measures : difference in difference based on best matched villageswithin state between states

a. Absolute differences in village level variablesNr castes 3.1818 6.0350 2.8531

(3.0573) (4.4995) (0.7467) ***Fractionalization (ELF) 0.1554 0.2280 0.0726

(0.1564) (0.2325) (0.0334) **Polarization (RQ) 0.1563 0.1906 0.0344

(0.1442) (0.1605) (0.0246)Fraction b/w caste inequality (GE 1) 0.1555 0.2332 0.0777

(0.1681) (0.1633) (0.0349) **Fraction b/w caste inequality (GE 2) 0.1617 0.2371 0.0754

(0.1795) (0.1488) (0.0315) **

b. Caste name matching metricCaste overlap (all castes) 0.6157 0.1945 -0.4212

(0.2991) (0.2204) (0.0439) ***Caste overlap (top 5 castes) 0.5015 0.1598 -0.3417

(0.3269) (0.2303) (0.0459) ***N 143 143 286Note:

1) The D in D estimations include border f ixed effects

2) D in D standard error clustered by 2nd village in the pair in parenthesis

3) * 10% signif icance, ** 5% signif icance, *** 1% signif icance

D in D

Caste “Broadening”

• Social Movements – “Dalit”, “Harijan”, “Adi-Karnataka”, “Lingayat”

• Affirmative Action – “Schedule Caste”, “OBC”

• Modernization – “Malayalee”, “Tenant”, “Muslim”

Table 10: Correlates of individual broad caste name(1) (2) (3)

SC/ST 0.074 -0.038 0.073(0.050) (0.026) (0.048)

BC/OBC -0.022 0.162*** -0.018(0.034) (0.048) (0.034)

Fraction upper caste land -0.238*** -0.239*** -0.234***(0.053) (0.051) (0.053)

female 0.013 0.012 0.012(0.010) (0.010) (0.010)

politician -0.034 -0.023 -0.036(0.032) (0.030) (0.032)

Age 0.001* 0.001* 0.001*(0.001) (0.001) (0.001)

Education 0.004* 0.003 0.004**(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)

Respondent landed -0.034* -0.025 -0.039(0.017) (0.016) (0.024)

Household size 0.007** 0.005** 0.007**(0.003) (0.003) (0.003)

AP -0.024 0.232*** -0.118**(0.053) (0.080) (0.054)

KA 0.126** 0.378*** 0.088*(0.049) (0.073) (0.052)

TN 0.043 0.053 0.071(0.038) (0.052) (0.045)

AP * SC/ST -0.118(0.084)

KA * SC/ST 0.010(0.084)

TN * SC/ST 0.441***(0.100)

AP * BC/OBC -0.385***(0.080)

KA * BC/OBC -0.466***(0.073)

TN * BC/OBC -0.151***(0.056)

AP * Respondent landed 0.122***(0.043)

KA * Respondent landed 0.053(0.045)

TN * Respondent landed -0.097*(0.055)

adjR-squared 0.077 0.186 0.085N 2950 2950 2950