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Matters Journal 2004, 6 (2).
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Under the shadow of guns. Negotiating the flaming fields of caste/class war in Bihar, India.
George J. Kunnath (Department of Anthropology, SOAS, University of London)
This paper emerges out of my year long (August 2002 to September 2003) fieldwork among the Dalits [1] in Jehanabad district of Bihar, India, where caste and class violence has claimed hundreds of lives since the 1970s. The Marxist rebels, the private armies of the upper caste landlords and the police have turned this region into what is known as the 'killing fields of Bihar'. Conducting fieldwork in a context of an ongoing caste and class war has thrown up a number of questions that challenge the conventional fieldwork practices in anthropology and opens new avenues for exploration. This paper, after laying out the context of the research, examines and discusses the issues of the researcher's identity, anthropological objectivity, ethics, fieldwork methods and personal commitment in the 'fields under fire'.
Locating the field
| Figure 1: Dalit labourers working for an upper caste landlord in Jehanabad. 10th July 2003. |
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Geographically and culturally, the present state of Bihar may be divided into the three linguistic and cultural zones of Mithila, Bhojpur and Magadh. My primary focus was on the Magadh region, which before the separation of Jharkhand state in 2000, formed the central part of Bihar and lies south of the river Ganga. Since the 1970s, this region has been in turmoil with agrarian unrest and violence. The Hindu upper castes (Brahmin, Rajput, Bhumihar, Kayasth) which constitute 18.89% of the population of the region, own most of the land, followed by the 'upper backwards' (Yadav, Kurmi, Koeri) who form 24.33%. Other 'backward castes' make up 22.13%. Scheduled castes or Dalits constitute 34.45% and they are also the landless agricultural labourers (Prasad 1989, based on the census of 1981). Thus caste and class are invariably linked in the Bihar context.
In an agrarian society, ownership of land is not only the source of economic dominance but also political power and social prestige. So it was inevitable that land became the bone of contention among the different classes. Since the late 1960s, the landless victims of economic and social exploitation have rallied around Marxist-Leninist organizations, raising the issues of unequal ownership of land, sexual exploitation of women, low wages, caste discrimination, and various other wrongs suffered in the hands of the landed. The Magadh region witnessed the rise of three radical left organizations-the Maoist communist Centre (MCC), the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) popularly known as People's War (PW) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) Liberation. These groups are generally known as the 'Naxalites' [2]. Their mass base was the landless agricultural labourers and the poor peasants. They began a policy of annihilation of the oppressive landlords and redistribution of their land among the landless.
Hitherto unchallenged dominant castes and classes formed their own private armies, to protect their landed interests and dominance in the region. Every dominant caste group had its private army or sena, as they are called in Hindi, (Table 1) and weaponry that included AK 47s and SLRs (Self Loading Rifles).
Table 1. Major Caste senas of Bihar
| Name of the Sena | Caste affiliation | Years of formation | Operational districts |
| Kuer Sena | Rajput | 1979 | Bhojpur, Rohtas |
| Kisan Suraksha Samiti | Kurmi | 1979 | Patna, Jehanabad, Gaya |
| Bhumi Sena | Kurmi | 1983 | Patna, Nawada, Nalanda, Jehanabad |
| Lorik Sena | Yadav | 1983 | Patna, Jehanabad, Nalanda |
| Bhramarshi Sena | Bhumihar | 1984 | Bhojpur, Patna, Jehanabad, Aurangabad |
| Kisan Sangha | Rajput Bhramin | 1984 | Palamu |
| Kisan Sevak Samaj | Rajput | 1985 | Palamu, Aurangabad |
| Sunlight Sena | Pathan Rajputs | 1989 | Palamu, Gaya, Garwal, Aurangabad |
| Swarna Liberation Front | Bhumihar | 1990 | Gaya, Jehanabad |
| Kisan Sangh | Bhimihar | 1990 | Patna, Bhojpur |
| Kisan Morcha | Rajputs | 1989-90 | Bhojpur |
| Ganga Sena | Rajputs | 1990 | Bhojpur |
| Ranvir Sena | Bhumihar | 1994 | Bhojpur Rohtis Gaya, Patna, Jehanabad, Aurangabad |
Source: PUDR Report 1999.
Thus began a sordid tale of massacres-by the private armies, ultra left groups, and even the police. From 1976 to 2001, there have been 90 incidents of massacres in central Bihar, resulting in the death of 860 people, mostly Dalits [3]. The largest of these was the mass murder of 58 Dalits-men, women and children-in the village Lakshamanpur-Bathe in 1997 by the Ranveer Sena, the most notorious of the private armies. The Ranveer Sena is of the Bhumihar caste and since its inception in 1995 up until 2000, it has carried out 26 massacres, killing 247 people (Table 2).
| Village | District | Number Killed | Date |
| Khopira | Bhojpur | 3 | 4.4.95 |
| Sarthua | Bhojpur | 6 | 25.7.95 |
| Noorbigha | Bhojpur | 6 | 5.8.95 |
| Chandi | Bhojpur | 4 | 7.2.96 |
| Patalpura | Bhojpur | 3 | 9.3.96 |
| Nanaur | Bhojpur | 5 | 22.4.96 |
| Nadhi | Bhojpur | 3 | 5.5.96 |
| Nadhi | Bhojpur | 3 | 9.5.96 |
| Nadhi | Bhojpur | 3 | 19.5.96 |
| Morath | Bhojpur | 3 | 25.5.96 |
| Bathani Tola | Bhojpur | 21 | 7.7.96 |
| Purthara | Bhojpur | 4 | 25.11.96 |
| Khanet | Bhojpur | 5 | 12.12.96 |
| Ekwari | Bhojpur | 7 | 24.12.96 |
| Bagher | Bhojpur | 3 | 1.1.97 |
| Maachli | Jehnabad | 3 | 31.1.97 |
| Haibaspur | Patna | 10 | 23.3.97 |
| Ekari | Bhojpur | 10 | 10.4.97 |
| Lakshmanpur Bathe | Jehnabad | 58 | 1.12.97 |
| Nagari Bazar | Bhojpur | 10 | 11.9.98 |
| Shankbigha | Jehanabad | 22 | 25.1.99 |
| Naraipur | Jehanabad | 11 | 10.2.99 |
| Sendani | Gaya | 12 | 20.4.99 |
| \Miampur | Aurangabad | 35 | 15.6.2000 |
Source: PUDR Report 1999.
Another extremely disturbing factor about this region is that the three Naxalite groups-CPI (ML) Liberation, CPI (ML) Peoples War and MCC-are opposed to each other and they target the supporters of each other. Each organization claims that it is the true inheritor of the Marxist path and accuses the others as revisionists and reformists who have betrayed revolution. One interesting development that occurred in August 2003, while I was still in the field, was that the MCC and the People's War (PW) came together to form a joint front. That was considered bad news for the police, Ranveer Sena and the Liberation as this was thought to enhance the influence and strike power of this combined front in this region.
This is the picture of the 'flaming fields' where I did a year-long fieldwork from August 2002 to September 2003. During this time, I was confronted with a number of ethical and methodological questions. The following sections will detail and contextualize these issues and discuss my reactions.
Negotiating dangerous fields: the researcher's story
The volatility of this region forbids any outsider from entering it. Very few researchers have moved into the interiors of central Bihar. My well-wishers tried to dissuade me even from a short stay in this area, let alone doing one year of fieldwork. To them it sounded suicidal. While coming to terms with my own fears and anxieties of doing fieldwork in such a violent context, I was also confronted with the fact that my researcher's identity is inadequate for 'permissions' to enter these fields 'under fire' or guarantee my protection later. The permission is not granted by any Indian government agencies. The Naxalites run a parallel government here. The proposed venue of my fieldwork area 'belonged' to the People's War and its permission was essential to enter the area. Fortunately I had the 'right credentials' as I had met some of the leaders of the frontal organizations of the People's War in various justice forums. I also established 'contacts' who mediated for me with the underground leadership of the party.
Soon I had a meeting with the contact person from the party. He told me that 'my case' was put before the State Committee of the organization and it had no objection to my research. He conveyed to me that the party was very concerned about my safety, and gave assurance that it would take all efforts to protect me. Surprisingly there were no conditions put on my research goals and freedom of movement. They wanted a critical and independent assessment of the field reality.
Before I set out to enter the region, I had a number of meetings with my contact person from the party as a kind of preparation for negotiating the dangerous fields. He suggested that I take a different name in the fieldwork place, a name that would not make me stand out in that milieu. It was a kind of precaution to give me a certain anonymity and prevent drawing undue attention to me. After consulting my hosts, I also met the police superintendent of the district, seeking some guarantee against torture in case of arrest. However, the plan was to avoid arrest at any cost. My arrest could have meant the confiscation of sensitive data and names, which would have put many party members in danger. Moreover I did not want the police trailing me everywhere. That could have meant jeopardizing the establishment of any serious relationship with the revolutionaries. Hence assuming a different name, I thought, was a sensible thing to do, as that would create some confusion and delay for those I expected might trail me.
In such a highly fragmented and dangerous field, assuming a new identity while bracketing some others (that is my Christian and Keralite identities) or even negotiating multiple identities, became a practical necessity to me. I was aware that any association with one particular group could have meant that I become persona non grata, and worse still, an enemy to the other groups. As I wanted to record the multiple voices within the field site, I did not want my association with one group to hinder me reaching out to other stakeholders. While among the upper castes, I drew upon my upper caste background. In being with the Dalits, my preferential option for the poor is all that mattered. I had to approach the police superintendent to gain access to the police records and their versions of the stories of the blazing fields. Here I had no hesitancy in presenting my researcher's identity-'the neutral social scientist' par excellence in its strict anthropological sense. While approaching the people owing allegiance to CPI (ML) Liberation or Ranveer Sena, I had to play down my familiarities with the PW. Along with accessing data from all groups concerned, of course, I wanted to keep my head on my shoulders.
But was I being dishonest while approaching different stakeholders? What is important here is that in approaching the activists of Liberation group or landlords or police I did not present myself as being on their side. Neither did I tell them that I had entered the field through my contacts in the PW. That would have been suicidal. Sometimes, concealing certain facts is an inevitable dimension in negotiating the dangerous fields. But I never used the information I gained from one group and passed it on to the other. More importantly to all the stakeholders in the field, I made my research intentions quite clear that I intended to examine the power relations in the agrarian struggle in the area.
The concept of neutrality does not hold much relevance in a context like this. It is impossible to be an impartial observer in a society polarized by caste and class struggle, where those who live on the margins of society are being butchered every day. I had cast my lot and I shared the sentiments of June Nash, 'in a revolutionary situation, no neutrals are allowed' (1976: 150). I have entered this field with my sympathies for the Dalits and a clear focus on understanding their everyday world amidst the three decade long violence in central Bihar. I never hid that primary concern. There were other issues, which in a dangerous field, called for skilful manoeuvrings.
The participant 'insider'
| Figure 2: Supporters of a Naxalite group gathering in a rural village in Jahanabad for a party meeting. 27th July 2003. |
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During the initial days in the field, I was taken on a guided tour of the 'flaming fields' by the local cadres of PW and was introduced as a 'comrade' doing research. Later, keeping to my research plan of staying in one village for an in-depth study, I chose a village of about 400 households, where the Dalits and other landless labourers had waged organized struggles against the Kurmi landlords under the banner of the Naxalites since the 1980s. The origins of the Naxalite movement in central Bihar are also located in this village. It has a large Dalit population belonging to communities such as the Ravidasis, Dusadh, Musahar, Dhobi, and Dome. Together they comprise more than 200 households. In this village the Kurmis (more than 150 households) had also organized themselves under Bhumisena (their caste army) to protect their landed interests. Since the 1980s, more than 34 people have lost their lives in this village, from among the Dalits and the Kurmis. The Dalit struggle here has taken various forms in the course of time. Therefore, for various reasons, this village offered an interesting site for the study of the everyday world of the Dalits, centring on domination and resistance.
It was arranged for me to stay in the house of a former 'commander' of the armed squad of PW, in the Dalit 'tola' (section) of the village. Wherever I moved, I was greeted with 'Lal Salaam' (red salute). When I was being increasingly identified as belonging to the PW, I began to be concerned about the set back my public identification with an underground movement might cause to my research. However, when I had conducted a few interviews, I realized that my research participants, the majority of them, were active supporters of or sympathizers with of the party. At the same time they had no hesitancy or fear in giving a critical appraisal of the party and its role in their lives. Moreover, any attempt on my part to deny any association with the party caused more suspicion among the people than it helped the research. So I decided neither to assert nor to deny any affiliation with the PW.
I must admit, however, that there were occasions I enjoyed being the 'comrade', and the fringe benefits that accompanied it. In the transport from the village to the nearest railway station, often the conductor of the local bus would take no money from me. At the railway station, the stationmaster treated me as the party leader and had me seated in his cabin until the train arrived. I welcomed this hospitality in a railway station where there was not even a shed to shelter the commuters from the scorching sun. His cabin also sheltered me from the prying eyes of the policemen who strolled the railway station from the neighbouring police post.
Though not a party cadre, I was doing an 'engaged analysis' of the socio-economic reality. Often I found myself mobilizing people for demonstrations, discussing with them the hegemonious designs of the rich that kept the poor enslaved, and the need for organizing themselves to continue the struggle. I accompanied the landless labourers for numerous marches in Bihar and in other states of the country. In January 2003, in an anti-globalization protest organized by the frontal organization of the PW, together with the villagers who supported the movement, I went to Hyderabad, a city more than 1500 kilometres away from Bihar. This three-day journey involved more than 200 people packed into an unreserved compartment of a train, which normally accommodates 75 people. In March of the same year, again with the Dalits and people from the economically backward communities of my fieldwork area, I travelled to Calcutta to join demonstrators from all over India, to protest against the war on Iraq. I was both an anthropologist and an activist as these were occasions in which I studied the political consciousness of my research participants as well as expressed my own political commitments.
All these involvements were gradually turning me into an 'anthropologist insider' of a banned, underground organization, members of which were labelled as 'terrorists' and 'anti-nationals'. There was growing rapport and trust among us. The party accepted my request to accompany its armed squads, a 'privilege' not even granted to the cadres of the party. I was excited. I was afraid. Marching with the squad would give me a great opportunity to study the members of the squad, their caste and class backgrounds, their activities, their dealings with the people, support base and so on. At the same time, I was aware of the dangers involved. The squad often engaged in gun battles with the police, private armies and the squads of the other Naxalite organizations. In the past, there were occasions when the entire squad was wiped out by the paramilitary forces. But then risk taking is an essential part of doing fieldwork under fire. My commitment to understanding the Dalit reality in the context of the revolutionary movement called for it. So I decided to take that risk.
Methods of data collection
In the dangerous fields, the data collection methods are constantly adjusted to unanticipated events, and to security considerations of self and the research participants. Accordingly I often had to take recourse to various informal strategies and techniques. Due to the sensitivity of the data collected, I had to follow carefully various safety methods. Each time when I had to travel out of my village to conduct an interview, I carried a fresh notebook, so that even if the police picked me up on the way, they would not have access to much information. In the house where I was staying, I gave all my field notes and tapes to the woman in the house to be locked away in her trunk. And whenever I went to Patna, the capital city of Bihar, I would have all the materials stored in my friends' rooms. I always tried to keep my room free of any materials collected from the field or related to my research. The confiscation of the sensitive data would have meant arrest, torture or even 'encounter' death of my research participants.
Another technique I was taught by the party cadres was never to make contacts with the cadres from home telephones. I had to always use public telephones. The party workers taught me to enter their telephone numbers encoded in my diary. I was also cautioned never to make any direct phone calls to any important leaders but always through various 'buffer layers'. Another lesson I learned in the course of the fieldwork was never to write down any sensitive information and names of the party cadres. There were occasions I had to memorize entire interviews before I could write them down without fear of bringing my participants potentially into danger.
I also had to be extremely sensitive during my interviews with the cadres and party leadership. There was a layer of secrecy, which had to be respected and protected. Consequently I had to refrain from asking common research questions such as name, background, family, village, status in the party, and so forth. But some of this information was essential for me, especially caste and class background. Therefore, I would try to gain such information in informal conversational settings or from other comrades. One had to learn to get used to and respect the secrecy that surrounded the organization and yet extract information, without endangering their lives.
Dehumanizing world of suspicion
Amongst the various suspicions, the most common one we are subjected to as anthropologists during fieldwork is that 'we are spies' (Sluka 1995). This reaches epidemic proportions in a conflict zone. Due to my association with the PW leaders, I was often labelled as an informer of the PW. There were other labels too. Some thought that I was gathering intelligence for the government or for the Ranveer Sena. Some of these suspicions during the course of my fieldwork gave way to understanding and trust. I made conscious efforts to alleviate the fears of the people by handling sensitive issues with care and being as honest as possible.
I was appalled by the level of suspicion that prevailed in the field, not only regarding me and outsiders in general, but of everyone. Human trust became the worst victim of three decades of violence. People suspected their neighbours and members of other castes, to be police informers or working for rival Marxist groups. PW carried out a 'witch-hunt' of the police informers and supporters of the CPI (ML) Liberation. As a result, many landless agricultural labourers were killed, a class for whom PW claimed to be carrying out the revolution.
I was disturbed to encounter the suspicion I felt within me when I met people whose 'backgrounds' I could not verify immediately. I was throwing a defensive layer around me. In this war zone, mutual suspicion and the silence that accompanied it, seemed to be the strategy for survival. The perpetrators of violence in this field-the police, the upper caste militia and the Marxist rebels-all have created a situation in which everyone, including themselves, is condemned to the inhuman world of mutual suspicion and hatred.
The reversal of roles
The moment I entered the dangerous fields, I realized that there is no room for entertaining any aura of sensationalism or heroism. I was living in constant fear and often indulged in less than heroic ways of saving my own skin. My research participants were more heroic than me. They risked their lives to shelter and feed me for one year. Whenever a police van or patrol passed by, they would warn me. The words of the PW local secretary make a lot of sense here. In one of my interviews with her, she said, 'People are the sea and we (revolutionaries) are the fish living in it. As long as they want us, we are cared for and protected.'
I saw a reversal of roles here. It was no more the 'powerful anthropologist' who had the backing of institutions, law-enforcing agencies and financial resources who played the 'protector'. The Code of Ethics of the Anthropological Association may state that 'Anthropologists must do everything in their power to protect the physical, social and psychological welfare and to honour the dignity and privacy of those studied' (AAA 2000: 1). Such underpinnings of colonial legacy that anthropologists were in a position to protect the research subjects or at least mediate or negotiate the danger away from them had not much relevance in the dangerous fields (Kovats-Bernat 2002). I saw a dramatic shift in power here, in which I came to rely on the people for protection.
The 'grey zone': experiencing fear and guilt
One night while with the armed squad, I was sharing a room with the members. It was a village common room, which had no doors. We were all tired after a long march. The comrades were sleeping. I realized I was lying on the open doorway with a couple of others and thus a 'sitting duck' for an 'enemy' bullet. Quietly I moved to a comparatively safer corner of the room, leaving my two other companions lying in the doorway. I thought I was being 'smart'. But the truth was I was afraid. When the dogs barked at night, while passing near a police station, hearing news of the arrest of comrades, and torture and 'encounter' deaths of the members of the party, I was constantly living in a state of fear.
It was in May 2003; I was participating in a demonstration along with 2000 PW supporters from different villages, leaders of the frontal organizations and cultural activists, to protest against the ill treatment of a top Naxalite leader in prison. We were 'occupying' a busy road junction in Patna. Soon the paramilitary forces descended on the place, arresting and dragging people away to their waiting police vehicles. I ran for my life. Then I pretended to walk normally again, as though I had nothing to do with the road blocking and protest. I saw a friend of mine who was the leader of the cultural team of the party, being dragged away by five or six policemen. I just turned back, pretending to buy a cigarette from a roadside vendor. I was afraid that the police would notice signs of recognition in him when he saw me.
I could not sleep that night. The images of the police dragging him on the road kept popping up. I knew he was being tortured at the police interrogation room while I was comfortably lying in my bed. I felt guilty. Primo Levi, an Auschwitz survivor, speaks of the 'grey zone' in narrating the stories of concentration camp inmates who were often forced into mutual betrayal and complicity with the enemy in exchange for the smallest of favours (1988). In turning my back on my friend for my survival, I was trapped into that 'grey zone'. This action arouses feelings of inadequacy and guilt even today: a lasting fall out of the dangerous fields.
Caught in the spiral of violence
I entered these flaming fields with strong beliefs in just violence-the violence carried out by the oppressed against their oppressors, for dignity and justice. I shared the sentiments of Franz Fanon (1963) and Sartre (1963), and believed in the beginning that Dalit mobilization into armed struggle was an essential dimension of their individual and social emancipation. But gradually I was disturbed and depressed by the spectrum of violence around me. It was no more black and white violence-an armed struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor. Increasingly the Dalits and other marginalized sections became victims of the 'revolutionary' violence between different groups of 'comrades in arms'. Violence has become an instrumental necessity, in the words of many a research participant of mine, for barchasv (a Hindi word for supremacy).
I began to have doubts about the political dynamics advocated by Fanon and Sartre. A prolonged exposure to violence has resulted in its internalization rather than liberation. In Pascalian Meditations, Bourdieu (1997) analysing the impact of such early and constant exposure to violence, identifies an inclination to violence, leading to destructive and persistent patterns of interpersonal violence that reinforces the legitimacy of violence itself. Both the victims and perpetrators are all caught in spiralling conflicts that their actions have set in motion but that they can no longer control.
Why choose the flaming fields?
I have come back from the field with a heavy heart. And I am gradually becoming more aware of the complexity of the violence I witnessed in the field, and its various layers. Having lived with people in such situations, I ask myself, how do I represent their conflict and pain, hope and despair? Do I have a responsibility to them beyond the thesis I am writing up? My research participants, as with most of our anthropological research, are the starving and the persecuted. Are they just 'raw materials' for my academic reputation?
Not that these questions are new. Bourgois (1990, 1995), Scheper-Hughes (1992, 1995), Starn (1992), and Farmer (1997, 2003) to mention just a few, have proposed a morally and politically engaged anthropology. I think the majority of our discipline, under the veil of objectivity and anthropological ethics, shy away from engaging with the unequal power relations, structural violence and socio-economic mechanisms that ravage the subjects of our inquiry. Our theoretical orientations find safer expressions in an apolitical liberal relativism. Starn (1992) writing from Peru points out that anthropologists in that country were busy studying rituals, kinship organizations, reciprocity and Andean cosmology, paying least attention to the sufferings, state persecutions and massacres of the Andean people. Clifford Geertz, when asked why he did not publicly denounce the loss of life and human rights violations of the families and villagers he studied in Indonesia where he produced one of his celebrated works, The Balinese Cockfight, responded that he had not wanted to distract attention from the theoretical points he was making by engaging in a media fray or a politics of advocacy. This was after more than 500,000 Indonesians were massacred, following an unsuccessful Marxist inspired coup in 1965. Their anthropologist did not want to take away people's attention from the theoretical points (Scheper-Hughes & Bourgois 2004)!
Today, if anthropology has to avoid a descent into triviality and irrelevance, it has to engage with topics most relevant to the suffering of its research participants. Anthropological responsibility should extend to empowerment of the people in whose lives we have become participants. People in my field kept telling me that they were not interested in the book I was writing about them. But they wanted me back, engaged in a permanent solidarity with their everyday world. I am in no way suggesting that all the anthropologists go back to the fieldwork places and become anthropologist activists. But continued solidarity can take manifold expressions. The anthropological community needs to discover them. Thus to me, my 'fieldwork under fire' is an invitation to redefine anthropology itself-its ethics, epistemology and practice.
References
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Notes
[1] Dalits are the former 'untouchables'. Etymologically, the word Dalit has its roots in Sanskrit. The root dal (dri) means to break, to crack, to split open, or to crush. In the current socio-political discourse, the term is used for people belonging to the scheduled castes (Indian constitutional term for the untouchables). back
[2] They are so called because for the first time people owing allegiance to the Marxist-Leninist ideologies, organized themselves into an armed revolt against the landlords in a small village named Naxalbari in West Bengal. Ever since, this term has come to stand for those who advocate armed struggle through communist ideologies. back
[3] I have only mentioned the loss of lives in the massacres that occurred between 1976 and 2001. There have been also mass killings after 2001 and numerous killings of individuals by these groups. Details of these will be analysed in subsequent papers. back
George J Kunnath is a Ph.D student in Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. His work explores the everyday world of the Dalits in the midst of agrarian unrest and caste/class violence in Bihar, India.
