The Political Realm

Abstract

Abstract The dhobis have never engaged in any militant oppositional political activities like the Dalits of the Dalit Panther movement, nor do they subscribe to the Dalit identity. This chapter discusses in detail the reasons for the dhobis to launch their protest from within the caste system rather than trying to reject it. The tie-up of their caste and occupation and the viability of the latter even within the modern capitalist system makes them reluctant to give up their dhobi identity, which they now flaunt as a difference and a skill and not as subordinated. They have never subscribed to the upper-caste versions of caste hierarchy and now are more vocal in making their claims to equality, largely through their rituals. They have a personalized relation with their clients, and their traditional work is more of a one-to-one relation, unlike that of scavengers, who work in the public realm and have therefore developed class consciousness, which is absent among the dhobis. The conjunction of economy and politics makes the dhobis take a different path to identity than some other lower castes.