Punjabi dalit youth: social dynamics of transitions in identity

摘要

This article is based on interviews with young urban dalits in the Indian Punjab and Wolverhampton, UK, and aims to chart their experience of caste border crossings in personal relationships. It links their narratives to the larger political economic context of their respective locations. It suggests that, perhaps due to their preoccupation with economic independence, dalit youth in Punjab are less concerned about maintaining caste borders in marriage than their counterparts in Wolverhampton. Dalit youth in Wolverhampton have experienced caste-related bullying during their schooling that is inexplicable to them given their location in a supposedly casteless society in the United Kingdom, and as a result they seem to be pessimistic about the erosion of caste through crossing caste borders in marriage. Whilst showing reluctance in risking further insult by crossing caste borders in marriage, in their friendships, including sexual relationships, they are willing and able to cross these borders. The paper concludes with a comparison of different explanations and remedies for dealing with caste prejudice in personal relations. It offers the suggestion that the negotiations of dalit identity are best understood by locating them in larger religious, immigrant, national contexts on the one hand and within the intra-personal on the other: radical positioning in the overt political domain may go hand in hand with the embracing of fluidity in the personal domain.