Upholding the veil: Hindu women's perceptions of gender and caste identity in rural Pakistan

Abstract

The data for this thesis derive from the Kutchi Koli, a Hindu Scheduled Caste, currently domiciled in rural Sind, Pakistan. Surrounded by the dominant Moslem majority and several different Hindu groups, the Kutchi are regarded as inferior by the former, and themselves regard the latter as inferior. There is no social or religious contact between the Kutchi and any other group in Sind, direct interaction being limited to the economic sphere.

The ethnographic and theoretical foci of the thesis are Kutchi women's perceptions of gender and caste identity. The ideology and practice of female seclusion being powerful on the Indian sub-continent, and perhaps especially in Pakistan, Kutchi women are isolated and encapsulated within their villages. They are thus able to maintain a perhaps surprising pride in their caste identity and in their own rituals and traditions. The women have their own world-view, forms of communication, and private sphere. They have no need to denigrate themselves or change codes to cope with external society, as do their menfolk who have to face regular ridicule and discrimination.

The interesting and resultant social situation is one of different perceptions of reality and value between the sexes. The women consider themselves important in terms of practical and symbolic reproduction. The men regard themselves as superior in relation to their womenfolk, but have comparatively low self-esteem vis-a-vis the men from many other groups.

In short, my thesis is that where there is differential access to the "outside" and where the sexes belong to one group, but to two distinct parts of that group, the sexes do not share a social context, nor indeed a similar ideology.