Contributions to Indian Sociology

In India, gold’s uniqueness lies in its dual demand for ‘sacred’ ritual purposes as well as ‘profane’ economic security. As a scarce commodity, gold is continuously monitored and regulated by the state. This study investigates how communities associated with the craft and trade of gold jewellery cope with state regulations, an aspect that has largely gone undocumented in sociological literature. The article traces the transformation of the goldsmithing sector in post-independence India. The repeal of the Gold Control Act 1968 in 1990 and high demand during the post-liberalisation period gave a tremendous fillip to the gold jewellery sector. The study captures the occupational recasting as a new community of goldsmiths emerged during this period replacing the traditional goldsmithing castes. It contributes to the under-studied field of goldsmithing in India providing an ethnographic account of a triadic relationship between an informal manufacturing sector, state regulation and a self-organised workforce based on regional ties and village networks.

The article explores how retail workers envision and pursue aspirations for social mobility through employment in Delhi malls. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation, this study examines how retail store employees cultivate professional occupational identities as a way of distancing themselves from informal and manual workers and claim a new class identity. The article also shows how workers come to view the job as dhoka (deceit), once they experience humiliation and disrespect at the hands of customers and managers and realise that such employment does not allow them to transcend their social class positions. However, they continue to stay on in these demeaning jobs because they believe that employment in the new service economy is their best option. By exploring retail workers’ narratives of majboori (constraint or compulsion) in this context, the article unpacks their contradictory experiences of work in the service sector and sheds light on youth aspirations and mobility strategies in post-liberalised India.

This article adds to the emergent picture of caste practices among Indian Muslim communities through a focus on caste-based discourses and practices in the contemporary OBC Muslim Chhipa community (OBC, short for ‘Other Backward Class’, is an Indian-government designation). The article examines Muslim Chhipa origin stories, marriage practices and language strategies and shows the ways in which these phenomena—and attitudes about them—allow Muslim Chhipas to articulate and enact strategies of upward mobility and respectability. Central to these strategies is the idea of ‘Islam’, though not in its expected guise as a religion of equality. The article also shows that Islam plays a different but ultimately complementary role in intra-Chhipa relations, allowing for continued caste pride. However, the upward mobility achieved by some suggests that caste practices and beliefs in Muslim communities remain linked to pan-South Asian notions of purity and pollution and, as such, perpetuate discrimination against dalit Muslims.

Health behaviour of the people is said to be shaped by market forces, scientific or religious institutions or the state. It is pertinent to examine the dominant institutions that shape health cultures in any society, at any given point in time. While public health has not been a priority for the Indian state, the COVID-19 pandemic created an unmistakable opportunity for state regulation. It is the argument of this article that the state has been central to the framing of the COVID-19 pandemic and the identification of relevant interventions, such that the borderline between the political and medical is blurred. The influence of these institutional decisions on the health behaviour of the people indicates that compliant health behaviour is a symbolic resource for the state in societies like India, irrespective of whether the government actually delivers on its health care delivery.

The COVID-19 lockdown was a frenetic period for inmates of the night shelters in Delhi. The difficulty in maintaining employment, social distancing, sanitation, safety measures and sanity that were regarded as critical factors could not be ensured. Yet, it was apparent that the residents’ experiences during this time varied, and their lives were differentially affected by the pandemic. The following piece presents glimpses from encounters with the residents of these night shelters that took place soon after the lockdown.

Sujata Patel, ed. 2020. Exploring Sociabilities of Contemporary India: New Perspectives. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. 328 pp. Notes, index. Rs 945 (hardback)

Sudha Sitharaman and Anindita Chakrabarti, eds. 2020. Religion and Secularities: Reconfiguring Islam in Contemporary India. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. 240 pp. Rs. 795 (hardback).

Sasanka Perera. 2020. The Fear of the Visual? Photography, Anthropology, and Anxieties of Seeing. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. 260 pp. Photographs, references, index. Rs 850 (hardback).

Dwaipayan Banerjee. 2020. Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi. Durham and London: Duke University Press. x + 224 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $25.95 (eBook).

Amita Baviskar. 2020. Uncivil City: Ecology, Equity and the Commons in Delhi. New Delhi: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd. (with YODA Press, New Delhi). 300 p. Bibliography, figures, glossary, illustrations, index. ₹1,195 (hardback).