Born to be a Butcher?
A Study of Social Mobility and Symbolic Struggles of Low Castes in the Kathmandu Valley

Benedicte Lie

Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen
Thesis submitted for the Cand. Polit. degree in Social Anthropology, 1999

Contents

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Gunnar Haaland, whom I admire for his extensive knowledge on people and society, for his theoretical insights, valuable suggestions, and not least his enthusiasm and interest in my work. He has advanced my knowledge and understanding through questions and  suggested readings, and always made time for me in his busy schedule.

I also owe my thanks to the Nepalese government and Tribhuvan University for granting me a research-visa. At Tribhuvan University, I would like to thank in particular Dr. Prem Kattri, head of Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies, for welcoming me and assisting me.

I want to thank my interpreter, Shamsher Bahadur Nuchhen Pradhan for working with me, for his flexibility, and patience, during the field work, and during all the long hours translating and transcribing the recorded interviews, and for continuously updating me on events of relevance to my thesis after the fieldwork.

I must acknowledge a dept of gratitude that can never be repaid to all the Khadgis I have got to know; Thank you for your hospitality, for letting me into your lives, for giving me generously of your time, and for putting up with all my questions.

I would also like to thank the three fellow student who have been my discussion partners in a working group. You have offered valuable suggestions, comments and criticisms.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family: my son, my husband, my sister, and my mother and father, who have all shared my enthusiasm for Nepal, and helped me with caring for my son, both during fieldwork and when writing the thesis. A special thanks to my father who has corrected the English, a precondition for writing this thesis in English, and making it available to those it is about.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Nepal has seen a lot of changes over the last half century, changes in many different sectors, such as communication, tourism, technology, politics, economy and trade. The country is increasingly influenced by foreign impulses through television, tourism and foreign aid agencies. During the last decades a liberal market economy has been introduced in Nepal. The introduction of market economy and wage labour is affecting the system of production.

Within a society where caste is an important social institution, many of a person's attributes are defined by what caste that person is born into. The ascribed caste status is closely connected with ritual status, occupation, economic status and power. Although the caste system was legally abandoned in 1951, caste is still an evident feature in Nepalese society. A society where division of labour is related to caste status, is often referred to as Jajmani systems. The Jajmani system is thought to be a relatively complex division of labour where people are tied to each other in patron-client relations. Although it is unclear to what extent a Jajmani system has characterised the division of labour in Nepal, it is clear that new occupational and distributional relations are developing. Contractual patron-client relations are being challenged by market forces of supply and demand. Changes in the system of production and the division of labour have turned many people's lives upside down. Occupational caste groups are faced with new situations. Some are benefiting from the changes, others losing out. Some have completely changed their occupational habits, by choice or force. Below are three examples of changing labour relations, one of which will be followed throughout this thesis.

The Manandhars are known as oil pressers. With the opening of the market a new oil was introduced, and the imported product completely ousted the Manandhar oil. Consequently, their caste based profession was wiped out by international trade, mass production and new requirements of efficiency. The Manandhars had to abandon their traditional profession and find other means of making a living. My second example is an occupational group that has benefited from the changes. The sweeper caste was ranked at the very bottom of the caste hierarchy. They were a deprived group with few prospects of a comfortable life. Urbanisation and the increasing waste problems in the city forced the government to employ street sweepers on a regular basis. Cleaning streets is considered a defiling activity and not many people were willing to take these jobs. Thus, the people from the sweeper caste have been provided secure and well paid jobs working for the government and private companies, taking jobs that other people hesitate to take. Cases like these are much discussed among Nepalese.

There is a lot of talk on the matter of low castes aiming at social mobility, and on the strategies they employ. The third example is at the apex of such discussions. According to caste rules the Khadgis should be butchers. The Khadgis rank as low caste and are, accordingly, by some considered untouchable. Gangalal Shresta has published an article on the history of the Khadgis. He notes the following:

The Khadgis were to have cowsheds, rare the cows and sell the milk from them. They were titled Kasahi; butcher, and forced by royal order to do the butcher job. This was a big insult to the Newar community. According to the rules of Jayasthiti Malla the Khadgis should not wear shirts with sleeves (that cover the arm) and not wear shoes with sole. They should slaughter buffalo, and in return get payments. They should do the business of meat (Gangalal Shresta, undated).

In the Kathmandu Valley the demand for meat has grown enormously during the last years. Many factors have contributed to this increase in demand. They include general population growth, urbanisation, changing food habits, increased purchasing power, and immigration. The demand has provided the butchers with a valuable source of income. Allegedly, some have become extremely wealthy and now enjoy a lifestyle traditionally unthinkable to a caste of such low ritual rank. The Khadgis are often held out as an example of how low castes may attain upwards social mobility, and how the caste status and economic status no longer coincide. The phenomenon stimulated my curiosity.

1.1 Working Hypothesis and Objectivities

I decided to study the Khadgis first to establish the facts: what processes of change were taking place: How wealthy had they become? Then I would try to see what had made the acquisition of wealth possible, and how they had acquired it. I would also try to find out how they used their acquired capital. How did they spend their money? What did they invest in? Would they move to fashionable areas, buy expensive cars, and get an education? Would they use a lot of money on religious participation? Finally, I wanted to try to see how the economic capital was affecting their overall rank and position in society. If their rank is affected, is it due to changes in their economic status, in their occupational choices, or in ritual practices? What is the relation between economic status, social status and caste status? How are the changes perceived by the Khadgis, and how are they perceived by other groups?

A change in rank and social status might imply that new criteria for evaluating and acquiring status are gaining foothold. The situation and questions touch on issues of modernisation, development and change. According to the new laws of Nepal no one should be discriminated on the grounds of caste, religion, race or gender. This represents an egalitarian way of thinking quite different from the hierarchical ideology dominant in the caste society. Enforcing these principles would in theory give individuals equal opportunities. What then becomes of the ascribed status of caste, that has provided different groups with such different opportunities?

This thesis is a study of the Khadgis in the context of a changing society in the Kathmandu Valley. The Khadgis are affected by, and are part of the changes that are taking place. Changes in their frames for action, their limitations and opportunities will be dealt with. The information may reveal aspects of the changing significance of caste, norms and values, both within Khadgi communities, and in the society as a whole. Changes in the Khadgis' lifestyle and strategies must be seen as part of the wider process of globalisation and modernisation that is affecting the Nepalese society as a whole, and the Khadgi socio-economic position in particular. The working hypothesis will be as follows:

How do changes in present contexts (economic, technological, political and communicative) open for possibilities for members of certain low castes in the Kathmandu Valley to engage in new economic strategies which can be expected to have significant repercussions on their socio-economic position in Nepal society, as well as on the symbolic legitimacy of caste hierarchy?

1.2 The Fieldwork

The questions presented above guided my preparations for the fieldwork. There is a lot of information available on Nepal. The Khadgis are Newars, a fairly large ethnic group, that are considered the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley. Quite a bit of research has been done on the Newars, but not much on the Newar low castes per se. Gellner and Quigley have published several books and articles on the Newars. The writings on the low castes, however, they admit, is not written on the basis of an in-depth study or prolonged personal experience. Gellner comments: "There is a considerable need still for fieldwork on Newar low castes, and, if it is ever done, it will certainly modify and quite possibly overturn some of the assertions of this chapter" (Gellner 1995:265). Quigley has done a comparative study of Khadgis and Shrestas in Dhulikhel (Quigley 1985), and Levy has written an extensive ethnography on Newars in Bhaktapur, dealing briefly with the Khadgis (Levy 1992). There is not much literature available on the Khadgi group, and when preparing for the fieldwork I had to limit my preparations to basic reading on Nepal and the Newars at large, and to improve my general knowledge on regional ethnography, on anthropological theory and methodology.

By the beginning of January, 1998, the fieldwork could begin. Scott Cook gives a schematical description of the process of anthropological fieldwork and research (Honigman 1973:805). This schema is presented in box 1.1; "The epistemological situation of the economic anthropologist".

Box 1.1 The epistemological situation of the economic anthropologist

The table is developed for use in economic anthropology, but might be applicable to other research as well. The figure describes how the fieldworker from his/her own culture (Matrix Society) brings with her on the one hand, (A) popular culture, personal opinions, impressions and assets, and on the other hand (B) received wisdom as a student and scholar. Both these aspects affect the way the student accumulates knowledge, and how he/she interprets and perceives phenomena in the social context in which the fieldwork is carried out (Context Society).

During fieldwork external social phenomena are observed and experienced trying to learn the action perspective (C), and information is gathered through interviews and participation, to ascertain the actor's view of the field (D). Through the fieldwork, there is an ongoing dialectical process that includes all these relations (between A, B, C and D) through which the researcher tries to gain successive approximations and successive abstractions.

When doing participant observation the researcher inevitably becomes part of the research material. It is important to reflect on and try to understand what role one has, and how one affects the research material through interaction, personal experiences and reflections. Anthropologists, particularly in the post-modern period, argue that reflexivity should be present at all stages of the research work, when gathering data, analysing data, and when transforming data into ethnographic texts. According to Nader the representation of "the other" should include reflections on one's own participation. (Nader 1994:88). I will throughout my exploration, try to show how my perceptions, my accumulated knowledge from my Matrix Society (A + B) are gradually altered and expanded by experiences and discoveries during fieldwork. Some of my revised or achieved knowledge will be presented in this thesis, as a result of the analysis. The "answers" I provide here are mine, limited by my views, my questions and by how I go about exploring the field. The product must be seen as a result of the dialectic process (between A, B, C and D), and may hopefully provide a new point of departure for researchers and for others interested in these questions and people.

The fieldwork was carried out over a period of eight months, from January, to the end of august, 1998. The first two months were spent taking intensive language courses in Nepali, getting to know the area, people, acquiring general knowledge of the society and culture, and applying for research visa (a very time consuming task, nevertheless instructive as it gave me insights into Nepalese bureaucracy and hierarchy). As I started contacting people from the Khadgi caste it turned out that my Nepali skills were not sufficient for conducting in depth interviews, neither was I learning enough through participation. I kept up my Nepali lessons, but I realised that I would have to get someone to help me with the interpretation. After a few months, and some considerations, I engaged an interpreter. There are some classical problems involved in doing fieldwork with the use of an interpreter, and they are elegantly described by Berreman (Berreman 1962). The social positions of both the interpreter and the fieldworker affect the situation and the information revealed. The social position does, however, not only limit access to information. Social position is a necessary requirement for access to information all together. It is important to try to understand what characterises the relation between the fieldworker and the informants, and how it affects the information conveyed. For several reasons the use of an interpreter, in my case, was a success. The relation between the interpreter and my informants provided me with considerable information. This will be further explored in section 3.2, 3.3, and 7.5.3.

Participant observation includes as the word implies both participation and observation. The anthropologist observes events. The events are analysed, interpreted and abstracted. The events that the anthropologist observes must be put into a context, a frame of reference. Events and actions must be analysed as meaningful acts, meanings that are reproduced within and across social fields. The anthropologist tries to find out what meaning is imbedded in the text and make out of what he or she observes. Part of understanding what the events mean, and how they are perceived, is to see the intentions. What values, interpretations and possibilities do the actors see in the moment of action? What social constraints and limitations are there? How do events and actions form the basis for new events and actions? In order to understand the individuals and their frames of action, empathy and involvement are needed. It is at the same time important to keep a certain analytical distance. It is the selection, abstraction, and presentation of events that makes the observed events into data. The requirements of distance must be seen in relation to requirements for empathy, sympathy and engagement, that is the basis for understanding "the other" (point taken from Borchgrevink 1997:27).

Throughout the fieldwork, I participated in many of the Khadgis' professional activities, following their daily routines. I participated in various informal social gatherings and special activities like marriages, private rituals, festivals, and organisational activities. I also carried out a number of formal and informal interviews. The Khadgis have an organisation established for the improvement of their community. It is called the Nepal Khadgi Sewa Somity (The Nepal Social Services Committee, hereafter abbreviated NKSC). The fact that the committee celebrated its 25th anniversary, or silver jubilee, during the year of my fieldwork, was strongly in my favour. The occasion provided me with the opportunity to participate in their meetings, in the elaborate celebrations and the activities organised on that occasion. I was introduced to a large number of Khadgis, otherwise difficult to meet, within the time-limits of a fieldwork of eight months.

Doing fieldwork and ethnographic analysis includes many processes of selection; selecting hypothesis, questions, informants, data, and interpretations. Interviews and participant observation with Khadgis form the main body of data. Informants have been chosen by different criteria. About half of the informants were randomly chosen, the other half were chosen to cover the variety in occupational activities, economic status, levels of education and political involvement, in order to cover the diversity of the group and their different experiences. The impressions and experiences of similarities and diversities that I encountered, had to be interpreted, selected, noted down and presented as data. I focused on collecting many types of data, quantitative and qualitative, oral and written, life stories and careers, mythologies and historical stories, economic situations and commodities used, speech and action, self-presentations, formal speeches and social interaction. Some information has been drawn from interaction with people outside the Khadgi group to get an idea of the nature of their relation to and perception of the Khadgi caste. My interpreter represented a valuable source of information. Other sources of information have also been useful. These are listed in box 1.2.

I have gathered quantitative data that can give valuable insights to qualitative data and vice versa. It is my opinion that anthropology, in its basic nature, should be exploratory in the use of approaches and material. It opens up rather than closes off the continuos process of understanding and ascribing meaning.

Box 1.2. Additional Sources of Data

1.3 Bourdieu, Theoretical Framework and Analysis

It is traditional to make analytical distinctions between culture and society, organisation and structure, patterns for and patterns of behaviour etc. Culture is often described as a system of ideas or meanings, that a person needs to know to operate in a society. Society has, on the other hand, been described as what actually manifests itself empirically. Overemphasising culture as a meaning system that structures society, might lead to a static view of culture, explaining only the recurrence of order in everyday life, not changes and deviations. Some anthropologists focus more on society, on the empirical level, and the complexity of the agents' everyday life. Too much of an emphasis on behaviour and the manifestations of social life may lead to problems of generalisations. Anthropologists commonly try to capture the dynamics between these two analytical dimension.

Bourdieu seeks to avoid or transcend the oppositions both between culture and society and between objectivism and subjectivism. He calls his approach "stucturalist constructivism" or "constructivist structuralism" (Bourdieu 1990:123, 124). By constructivism Bourdieu means a social genesis that is constructive on two dimensions: on the one hand a social genesis of patterns of perception - on the other hand a social genesis of social structures, life fields and groups, social classes. By structuralism he does not mean structure in the sense of classical structuralism à la Levi-Strauss and Saussure.

Bourdieu holds that in the social world itself objective structures exist that are independent of agents and are capable of guiding and or constraining their practices and representations. This is how he describes objective structures:

"The objective structures which the sociologist constructs in the objective moment, by setting aside the subjective representations of the agents, are the basis for subjective representations and they constitute the structural constraints which influence interactions. These representations have also to be remembered if one wants to account above all for the daily individual and collective struggles which aim at transforming these structures." (Bourdieu 1990:125,126).

In this way he proposes to explain both stability and change. I will not elaborate on the implementation of Bourdieu's focus of objectivity and subjectivity, although it reaches into the many anthropological meta-theoretical and methodological discussions on epistemology, interpretation, relativism, universalism and comparison. Jenkins criticises Bourdieu for not transcending the objectivist-subjectivist dichotomy but remaining firmly rooted in objectivism (Jenkins 1992:175).

Anthropology, Bourdieu holds, should be an analysis, a systematic way of thinking about social life, and more than merely a representation of representations, and thus a secondary representation. One must go beyond actions and events and see patterns or parameters that structure people's lives, and structure structures. One should discover and suggest possible connections. Bourdieu, like Lucien Goldman, suggests a sociology of world views: There are world views or common sense constructions of social reality that have constructive power, he holds.

Bourdieu has made important contributions to social science, although not all of his arguments and insights are new. I shall make use of his substantial theories, and use some of his concepts as a framework for interpretation and presentation. I find some of Bourdieu's theoretical framework useful for describing and analysing my research material. The concepts I have found particularly useful and will apply to my analysis are the concepts social space, social groups and social fields, the various concepts of capital; both symbolic, cultural, social and economic, and the concepts of symbolic power and symbolic struggles.

To conceptualise culture and society Bourdieu introduces the concepts of social space and social fields. Through these concepts he is able to describe social units and their distribution in the social "topography". A social field is made up of agents sharing many of the same properties. The agents, groups or institutions "…have more properties in common the closer they are to each other in this space; and fewer common properties, the further they are away from each other… People close to each other in social space tend to be closer together - by choice or necessity - in the geographical space" (Bourdieu 1990:127). Interactions that take place in geographical space must not be taken as face value, since interaction itself is not a sign of proximity in social space, and might conceal the structures that are realised within them.

According to Bourdieu there exist objective homogenities of conditions and dispositions that form a basis for the formation of social fields. "A field, therefore, is a structured system of social positions - occupied either by individuals or institutions - the nature of which defines the situation for their occupants." (Jenkins 1992:85) The individual's position in a field is determined by internal constructions of value within that field. Jenkins interprets Bourdieu's social field in this way;

A field, in Bourdieu's sense, is a social arena within which struggles or manoeuvres take place over specific resources or stakes and access to them. Fields are defined by the stakes that are at stake - cultural goods (life-style), housing, intellectual distinction (education), employment, land, power (politics), social class, prestige or whatever - and may be of differing degrees of specificity and concreteness. Each field, by virtue of its defining content, has a different logic and taken-for-granted structure of necessity and relevance which is both the product and the producer of the habitus which is specific and appropriate to the field. (Jenkins 1992:84) (I will not apply Bourdieu's concept "habitus", as it in my opinion obscures more than it clarifies)

A field is structured internally in terms of power relations. There also exist power relations between fields, powers that govern the field's structure and define the relation and rank between them. Some fields are more dominant than others. The power to define world order, to impose this order (and thereby the formation of groups) and define values, Bourdieu calls symbolic power. The formation of groups is only likely to succeed when they are based on reality; that is, on the objective homogenities that exist in the world. The dominant fields' view of world order is more likely to gain dominance the more it corresponds to the experiences and situations of the individuals and of groups (or fields). Construction of a world order is not made in a vacuum, but is developed in a process, along with existing views of the social space, and by concepts such as high/low, pure/polluted, male/female.

Social structures are internalised and tend to be seen as "natural". However, perceptions of social reality vary with the agent's perception. The perceptions of the social world always include a degree of indeterminacy and vagueness. The social world does not present itself as totally structured. The social world may be described and constructed in different ways in accordance with different principles of division - e.g. economic, ethnic, religious, or national principles. The uncertainty provides a basis for the plurality of world views and thereby a base for symbolic struggles. These struggles may be individual or collective. I will return to these struggles and the forms they can take in chapter 9 and 10, when discussing the strategies and symbolic struggles of the Khadgis.

Power and domination, in Bourdieu's work, are closely associated with different forms of capital. Capital is seen as different goods or resources that can be used to maximise wants and needs. The different forms of capital that Bourdieu distinguish are; economic capital, social capital (various kinds of relations to significant others), cultural capital (legitimate knowledge), and symbolic capital (prestige and social honour). Cultural capital is understood as legitimate knowledge on areas of importance and value. Cultural capital involves power over words, pictures, opinions, appearances and behaviour. The uneven distribution of cultural and economic capital results, according to Bourdieu, in two fractions, one economic based position and one cultural based position. Important social relations such as contacts, networks, family, acquaintances form the social capital. Capital is not given, but constructed differently in various social fields. According to Bourdieu symbolic capital is different from the other forms of capital in the sense that it is unquestioned, and therefore more powerful. Symbolic capital is the sum of economic, cultural and social capital.

According to Bourdieu agents are distributed in the overall social space, in the first dimension in accordance with the overall volume of capital that they possess, in the second dimension in accordance with the structure of the capital. Some of the capital is inherited, some capital is achieved or lost during that actor's life.

These concepts seem to be useful in identifying the individual's position in the social structure and for thinking systematically on what types of strategy are available for maximising this position, or what on the other hand minimises the position in the social field. Strategy will here be understood as conscious or unconscious attempt to protect, convert or gain capital on the part of individuals or groups. The concepts are also useful for discovering what kind of capital is approved within and between social fields. The concept of capital can be used to discover how power and status is constructed within and across social fields.

Capital is to be seen as properties and assets that agents possess. Bourdieu's concepts of properties and capital are very similar to the analytical concepts and framework developed by anthropologists in Bergen, e.g. Haaland, Barth, Grønhaug and others (e.g. Barth 1992, Barth 1994). They were concerned with distinguishing assets such as social relations, economic capital, expertise, honour and so on. They tried to discover and distinguish the conversion barriers between these different spheres of activa, noting that the conversion of capital from one form to an other is not a simple one-to-one exchange, but guarded by complex mechanisms. Bourdieu's use of the different terms of capital opens for discovering conversion barriers, although this is not something he elaborates on. I will use Bourdieu's concepts of capital to see what type of capital the Khadgis acquire, how it is acknowledged and what difficulties or barriers they face when trying to convert one type of capital to the other.

Within social fields, Bourdieu holds, people have "a sense of one's place", "a sense of other's place". These notions are the basis for all forms of co-operation; friendship, love-affairs, marriages, associations etc. Bourdieu also discusses how markers are used for identifying and distancing, displaying sympathies and antipathies; markers such as clothes, habits, ways of acting etc. The strategies agents employ for gaining and converting capital are affected by the agents' position in social reality, to what extent the social structures are internalised, and to what extent they find the world structured differently than within the dominant "world view". The Khadgis' actions may be seen as expressions of their sense of place and as attempts to manipulate their position in the social space. The actions either confirm or contest the dominant world view and the classifications, and as Marcus suggests, they take the form of resistance or accommodation (Marcus 1992).

I shall throughout the presentation and analysis, return to Bourdieu's concepts, and use them to present and order the data. Although the theoretical framework is developed in a very different social context (France and Algeria) it seems helpful when analysing aspects of the social life of the Khadgis.

1.4 Caste, Jati and Varna

Before I move on, I find it necessary to comment on the very complex and delicate phenomenon of caste. To deal properly with caste, a number of clarifications need to be made. This is essential in order to get a proper understanding of the analytical problems involved in the study of caste, and the practical problems involved in doing fieldwork in a "modernising" society where caste is an important social institution.

The word caste was first used by the Portuguese travellers to describe a social and cultural complexity they encountered when they first came to India:

The Portuguese seafarers who traded mainly on the west coast of India in the 16^th and 17^th centuries described groups they called castas (from which derive the English and French word caste), meaning "species" or "breeds" of animals or plants and "tribes", "races", "clans" or "linages" among men (Marriott and Inden 1985:348).

The term "caste" must be seen as concept from my matrix society, as scholarly knowledge (B), and is to be distinguished from the term "jati", that can be said to be "host" concepts, from the Context Society.

The nearest equivalent in the indigenous concepts of India and Nepal are jati (or jat) and varna. The term jati derives from an Indo-European verbal root and can be used to designate a distinct sex, a race, a caste, or a tribe, a population, the followers of an occupation or a religion, or a nation (Marriott and Inden 1985:349) or birth, origin or genesis, and refers to a strictly regulated social group or community into which one is born. Each jati has its own customs that restrict the occupation and dietary habits of its members and their social contact with members of other castes and outsiders. In general, a person is expected to marry within the jati, and follow a particular set of rules for proper behaviour according to one's jati.

The meaning of varna is quite different. In India four varnas are distinguished; Brahman, Kshatriya, Vishya and Sudra. Hindu myths tells how Shiva created the four varnas from different parts of his body; 1)The Brahmans were created from the mouth, and are thus associated with the head, and function as thinking and speaking; 2)The Kshatriya were created from the shoulders, and are associated with physical power and fighting; 3)The Vishya were created from the hips, and are associated with lust and trade; and 4)The Sudra were created from the feet, making them the service people. Untouchables or "outcasts" fall outside the varnas and can be said to make up a fifth group, coming from underneath Shiva's feet. The basic idea is one of function, functions that are needed to ensure that the social harmony and cosmic stability is maintained (Srinivas 1967).

While jati can be said to be the empirically identifiable unit, varna usually operates on an ideological level. The varnas do not form the basis of interactional and operationally joint groups. All essential units of caste operate on a jati level; as for instance marriages, commensal taboos, rituals and occupations. Football might serve as a metaphor for understanding the differences between jati and varna. While a jati can be said to form the different teams that are actually competing against each other, varna can be said to be the leagues or divisions they compete within. Rank between leagues, and varnas, is given and not contested. Leagues do not form a basis for co-operative action against other leagues. The teams, or jats, compete within the different leagues or varnas, and barriers between the leagues and varnas are relatively stable and hard to cross.

Social scientists have been criticised of putting too much emphasise on caste. This was also my concern when planning my fieldwork in Nepal. I was afraid to give it significance in situations where it might not be relevant. I did not want to make assumptions about its role and importance, but gradually let its importance unfold where I was made aware of it. However, caste for more than one reason became a very central theme in my fieldwork and in this thesis. The fact that the empirical unit I had chosen to study was in fact a specific caste group made the focus inevitable. I had to confront caste issues all the time. Secondly, I soon realised that it was important in an overwhelming number of situations. Caste in Nepal is such an obvious feature that it is impossible to ignore it. Even if I did not bring up caste issues, they were constantly brought up by others, in all types of situation and in discussions. Thirdly, I had read a lot about caste, but I had to find out how it functioned in practical life. To understand its importance in different situations and contexts, I had to put it on the agenda. I wish to let the role and importance of caste to the Khadgis unfold throughout the presentation of my ethnographic data. I shall, however, give a brief presentation of some different approaches to the study of caste, as it forms the scholarly knowledge (B) available in Matrix Society, and is important to my perception of the phenomenon in Context Society, and subsequently, to the result of the analysis.

Social scientists have proposed different ways of analysing and studying caste. There has been, and still is, a lot of disagreement on the issue. Definitions of caste vary with theoretical positions and what aspects one chooses to emphasise. Early studies focused on explaining and describing the caste system (Dumont 1970). The descriptive studies basically try to account for one aspect of the system, either it's hereditary character and the clear-cut separation between groups, or the division of labour, or hierarchy, or much more rarely, the religious aspect. Dumont criticises them for trying to grasp caste in some immediate way by starting from our own civilisation, and for trying to derive the whole from the part. The period 1900-1945 is, according to Dumont, characterised by progress in comparison, understanding and analysis, and by better appreciation of the place of religion. With Hocart the place of religion was heavily emphasised. Bouglé insisted on the presence of three characteristics: hierarchy, separation and interdependence. He based all three aspects on the opposition between the pure and the impure. Max Weber's work on caste was focused on the distinctions between economic class and status group, the nature of the division of labour, and comparison between the western and the Hindu universe.

Later approaches can be sorted in two groups, based on the focus, the aspects, and the problems they are concerned with. "Ideological" approaches and "sociological" approaches can be seen as two main tendencies, under which much of the work on caste can be categorised. I hold Dumont and Pocock as the most outspoken representatives for what I will call the "ideological approach". Ideological or "cultural" approaches to the study of caste emphasise ideology and religion. Many of the scholars of this tradition are of the conviction that the phenomenon of caste has to be linked to Hinduism. Dumont holds that caste is structured by an underlying and all-encompassing system of ideas and values, whose basic element is the principle of ritual purity, rather than secularism, politics and economy. In his view caste was a unique Hindu phenomenon that was to be understood on the basis of Hindu ideology. According to Dumont it is easy to isolate the principles behind the Hindu's view. Central to Hindu philosophy is the thought that all living beings are differentiated into genera, or classes, each of which is thought to possess a defining coded substance embodying its code of conduct or moral action (dharma). Dumont's analysis of caste is consistent and logical, and describes a system of ideas, but his theory entails a static view of caste society. Dumont is not concerned with the individuals and their actions, but with a system of ideas, and the relation between ideas.

Other social scientists, such as Barth and Berreman, argue for using the term caste sociologically, as a term applicable to all societies sharing certain elements of social structure. They argue for understanding caste as fundamental to social organisation, a hierarchical structure, where the term can designate similarly divided societies. The focus is more on empirical manifestations and variations. Sociological approaches to caste often focus on power and control of goods. Some have conceived of politics and power in non-monetary economies as the prime movers in the emergence of a caste system. It is often held that a caste hierarchy is an interaction in the form of exchange of goods and services, between inferior and superior parties. Scholars of this tradition emphasise the importance of elaborate jajmani systems. It is commonly argued that ritual rank and power has been over-emphasised at the expense of secular, economic and political rank and power. Béteille argues that caste is not only a ritual phenomenon where dominance is manifested through levels of purity and pollution (Béteille 1991). He stresses the importance of material dominance and exploitation. Caste should, according to the sociological tradition, be considered a system of social stratification where statuses appear in clusters. Berreman holds that caste should be used as a cross-cultural tool, applied without sacrificing the cultural context; "Caste systems are rigid systems of social stratification, but they are also systems of socio-cultural pluralism and both of these facts can best be understood in terms of distinctive patterns of social interaction" (Berreman 1985:333). McKim Marriott & Inden (1985) see caste as a moral system that defines rank, descent, marriage and occupation. They argue for using the concept of caste for comparative purposes, but not without taking the cultural context into consideration. While the ideological approaches focus on the relation between ideas, the sociological approaches focus on relations between people, but not without also considering ideas. In the study of caste, scholars have attempted to transcend the earlier dichotomies by focusing both on the ideological and the empirical levels. As I see it, caste can not be seen purely as a fundamentally religious or ideological phenomenon, nor as a purely political, occupational or organisational phenomenon. It is both at once. Ideology is available, produced and reproduced through social life, and social action is also motivated by ideology. As Bourdieu and many other scholars have pointed out; the distinction is useful, but the two levels must be seen in a dialectic relation to each other. In my opinion Bourdieu's theoretical framework lends itself to encompassing both levels, and the dynamics between them. With this framework we can identify the ideology and the practice of the Brahman, as well as the ideology and practice of other groups, and so the relations between them. Bourdieu's concepts of social fields and different constructions of capital allow us to see the competing ideological views, and the relation between them, and so discern the caste ranking system as contested.

At this point the term "caste" should be interpreted very loosely. I will introduce Bouglé's definition of caste to point to the complexity of the phenomenon. It covers what is often held to be the main characteristics of caste:

To fix our ideas we must have an initial definition. Let us take Bouglé's and say that the caste system divides the whole society into a large number of hereditary groups, distinguished from one another and connected together by three main characteristics: separation in matters of marriage and contact, whether direct or indirect (food); division of labour, each group having, in theory or by tradition, a profession from which their members can depart only within certain limits; and finally hierarchy, which ranks the groups as relatively superior or inferior to one another. (Bouglé in Dumont, 1970: 21)

Throughout the following chapters when dealing with the Khadgis, caste will refer to the indigenous term jati or jat, and should thus be considered as such when used by informants. I seek to use the word caste as they use the word jat by trying to find out what it means to them. It should therefore be seen as a concept from Context Society. In the concluding theoretical and comparative discussion, caste will be used as an analytic anthropological concept, and should be seen as a concept taken from Matrix Society, as scholarly knowledge (B).

1.5 Disposition

This introduction presents the focus of the research. I have presented the starting point for the fieldwork, and some methodological problems related to fieldwork and analysis. The theoretical framework and important concepts that shall be applied throughout the analysis have been presented. A clarification of the terms caste, jati and varna has also been given. Some main trends in the anthropological debate on caste have been dealt with, to give an indication of the analytical problems involved in the study of caste.

Chapter two deals with ethnographic contextualisation. Various context are described, first situating Nepal in a global context, and then closing in gradually on a local level, the Kathmandu Valley. Aspects of the different levels are described to identify the frames for action the different people in Nepal have to operate within. Some general characteristics of Nepalese society are presented briefly, and the Newars and the Khadgis are introduced. At the end of chapter two I discuss how the Khadgis can be said to form a group, and how I wish to apply the concept of field to the group and to caste. The last part of the chapter also seeks to apply Bourdieu's concepts of social space, capital and symbolic power to the phenomenon of caste.

In chapter three I have attempted to show how my first encounters gave me a basis for understanding some aspects of social life in Nepal, insights that only gradually became clear to me. These encounters were crucial to the focus of my approach and my exploration of the field. I attempt to give a preliminary understanding of how objects, persons, activities and places, and particularly in our case, the butcher, the butcher activities, animals and the animal's bodily substances, are associated with the concepts of purity and pollution, touchability and untouchability. I attempt to show how these concepts have had, and still have, a profound impact on the structures of the old city and the settlement patterns of the Khadgis.

The concepts dealt with in chapter three are crucial for understanding the constraints and situations under which the Khadgis live their lives, and among other things, for understanding their occupational choices. But in order to understand the occupational choices strategies it is essential to take many practical considerations into account, and try to see what their caste ascribed occupation, the butcher occupation, implies. Chapter four seeks to uncover what it implies for a Khadgi to be a butcher by occupation, and what advantages and disadvantages the butcher occupation face. This will be discussed in some detail.

In chapter five I shall present the occupational distribution of the Khadgi group, and what characterises it. Many factors affect the Khadgis' occupational choices. Among these are their experiences of opportunities and discrimination, and their attitudes towards education. Social rank, capital, and assets are crucial to individuals' and groups' opportunities. This is discussed in the concluding part of the chapter.

Chapter six takes up the issue of the Khadgis' role of being service providers towards other castes. Their "traditional" duties are discussed, and the extent to which these duties are performed today. The discussion includes the duties and traditions of drumming, toenail cutting, milk selling, and midwife services, among others. The Khadgis' attitudes towards the "traditional" duties, and other types of services, are discussed and analysed with the use of the concepts of cultural and economic capital.

Chapter seven takes account of the Khadgis' social organisation, describing the most important units for interaction and what criteria they are based on. Different levels and units of social organisations are discussed, from family and household to local groups, and larger organisations based on caste identity. The chapter seeks to discover to what extent inter caste relations are dominant and what characterises the inter caste relations. In the concluding part of the chapter social relations are analysed in relation to the concepts of capital.

In chapter eight I will deal with the Khadgis' construction of identity, traditions and ritual practice. History and various myths are presented to explain how the Khadgis through misfortune got low status, and how they became associated with the butcher occupation, stories through which they claim royal descent. Naming or names are central to caste identification, and is a very intricate matter. The chapter also deals with variations in ritual practice; what rituals are performed at present, how they are performed, how the present practice departs from the "traditional" practice, and how new ritual practices have developed. Religious practice, and strategies for gaining religious merit can be seen as strategies for converting and gaining cultural capital.

In chapter nine a further exploration of Bourdieu's theory on symbolic power and symbolic struggles is given, before reviewing the institutionalisation of caste hierarchy. Scholars have used several concepts when describing change and structures of power in societies with caste institutions. Some of these concepts will be reviewed critically with reference to my empirical data. "Westernisation" is a concept often applied. It is a problematic one, but nevertheless relevant. In the last part of the chapter I shall show how it is relevant to change and the symbolic struggle in Nepal.

Chapter ten attempts to show how the symbolic struggle is taking place in the Kathmandu Valley, and how the Khadgis' strategies for social mobility are part of this symbolic struggle. Their strategies, individual and collective, are summed up and discussed in relation to the concepts and the discussion introduced in chapter nine. The strategies are formed in the process of the struggle, and as battles are won and lost the strategies change and become more or less effective. Throughout the process of the struggle the Khadgis social position is affected. New criteria for rank and for defining and evaluating capital are introduced. The changes have consequences for the categorisation of social fields, for the role of caste and the legislation of caste hierarchy, and it has significant repercussions on the social position of the Khadgis.

Chapter 2: Orientations and Context

This chapter seeks to situate the Khadgis' lives in a wider context and to describe some conditions that frame the lives of the Khadgis and other people in Nepal. The chapter deals with the various contexts, from the global to the local. After placing Nepal in a global context, I will close in on the Kathmandu Valley, the Newars and the Khadgis. A short political history of Nepal is given, describing some of the periods that are of particular importance and interest for this study. The ethnographic description of Nepal will be brief and somewhat superficial, but it will function as a description to those not familiar with the ethnographic area. It represents the knowledge I had acquired when starting my ethnographic research, and the scholarly knowledge that was available to me in Matrix Society. Bourdieu's concepts of capital will be applied throughout the chapter, and in the last section I shall apply his concepts of social group and social field to the Khadgis.

Map 1. Nepal
(http://travel.yahoo.com/Destination/Asia/Countries/Nepal//map.html)

2.1 A Global and Comparative Perspective

The world is undergoing rapid change due to processes of globalisation. The world becomes a "smaller" place, as people from different parts of the world are brought in closer contact with each other. As Hannertz puts it: "Culture travels in our time quickly and over great distances." (Hannertz 1992:43). Even though Nepal has many remote corners, all Nepalese people relate to different levels in various ways; the nation state, world economy, world ecology, global forces of power, etc. Their lives are affected by the country's financial situation, the country's development strategies, the foreign political situation, imported technology, and so on.

Nepal is undergoing, and is about to undergo, enormous changes. There are many factors contributing to this: modern technology, improved communication (e.g. roads, air traffic, media), and tourism, migration (e.g. Gurka military service, labour and other migration, urbanisation), foreign and domestic investments. Nepal has established many global and international relations during the last decades. The engagement of other nations and international organisations in Nepal has integrated Nepal in the world economy. The majority of the population still, however, live in a traditional way without access to modern communication, technology and transport. There are innumerable remote villages with many days' marches to the nearest road. You can find children who have never seen a car, but who see jumbo jets daily.

Nepal is classified by the United Nations as one of the least developed nations, with a per capita income of US$ 210. This is among the six lowest in the world (Nepal Human Development Report 1998, hereafter abbreviated NHDR). This reflects the fact that there is little circulation of capital, little production in the service- and industrial sectors, and little wage labour. The growth in domestic production is less then the annual population growth. Nepal is poor in economic capital, in the terms Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It also has few natural resources and is dependent on economic aid. The population have a potential in hydroelectric power, but do not have the means of utilising it without assistance. The human development index (HDI), was 0.378 in 1996 (see box 2.1). The Human Development Index can be seen as an indicator of the level of social and cultural capital, as it takes into account not only economic development, but health, knowledge, social and political participation and gender empowerment. In a regional perspective, all countries, except Bhutan and Bangladesh, are better off than Nepal. The HDI values for Pakistan and India are higher than for Nepal by nearly one fourth (ibid.). The table in box 2.1 also shows Nepal's capability poverty in a comparative perspective (CMP). The level of CMP reflects deprivation due to mortality, undernourishment, lack of information and knowledge. "CMP draws attention to a set of capabilities which are basic for human functioning: capabilities to lead a life free of avoidable morbidity, to be informed and educated and to be well nourished and able for healthy reproduction." (NHDR 1998: http://www.nepali.net/undp/keydoc/nhdr-c03.html#3.2) The level of capability poverty in Nepal is very high compared to the levels for Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Only Bangladesh is poorer in capability than Nepal. Many Nepalese lack education and technology, and much of the population is poor, undernourished and without access to resources.

Box 2.1 Nepal Human Development Report

Both HDI and the CMP (Box 2.1) may serve as indicators of the level of cultural capital. The small amount of social capital can also be seen in the country's unfavourable position with regard to foreign policy. They do not have strong alliances, as they are relatively powerless in relation to neighbouring countries in the South Asia region. For some indicators on human development and lack of capital see Box 2.2 and Appendix.

It can be said that Nepal, in a global and regional perspective, is a country with an extremely small amount of capital, both economic, cultural and social, in the way these forms of capital are defined in Western terms. To this comes the problem that what Nepal has of capital, economic or otherwise, is very unevenly distributed, and concentrated in the hands of a very few of the country's 21 million inhabitants.

Box 2.2 Indicators on Human Development in Nepal

Development measurements raise as many critical questions as they answer, questions of both quantitative and normative character; What is the relation between the local and the global? What kind of influence and exchange is taking place and through what channels? What kind of power is maintaining the relations? How relate to the asymmetrical stream of information and influence? What kind of modernisation is favourable, and to whom? Who lays down the premises? Such questions represent a great challenge for researchers in many fields, both thematically and methodologically. In my opinion, anthropology as a social science has an important role to play in these matters. While other sciences can contribute to understanding some aspects of the development, anthropology with its wide and comparative approach can tell us something about how different forces work together, and often reveal connections beyond disciplinary boundaries. The global context and global issues represent more than one challenge. Macro questions are often hard to operationalise and limit. Many anthropologists hesitate to work with macro questions for fear of becoming too theoretical, too abstract and too general, and so lose the grip on concrete reality. Anthropologists' fear of macro questions might lead to too much concern with micro-studies. The research may become too concrete, limited and thereby lose some of its relevance. The challenge is, as I see it, going from the local to the global, or as Hylland-Eriksen puts it; "Fra små steder til store spørsmål" or "from small places to big questions" (Hylland-Eriksen 1994, my translation). One should raise topical hypotheses and problems, and answer them with solid empirically grounded arguments.

It is my hope that this thesis can be of importance and relevance to anyone interested in development problems, questions on cultural diversity, aspects of power and influence, caste and modernisation, as well as to the Khadgis and people in the Kathmandu Valley.

I will return to the discussion of the importance of the global context and macro-questions in the final chapter.

2.2 Diversity, the Land and the People

Nepal is situated in South Asia, between India and Tibet. Although it is a small Himalayan state of 147,181 square km, it possesses a striking cultural and geographical diversity. Nepal has one of the worlds steepest landscape profiles, reaching from the altitude of 8849 meters, to the tropical plains at 100 meters above the sea level. 15% of the land is cultivated, 13% is forest, 31% is forest, and the rest is mountain area (Lauridsen 1995). The Kathmandu Valley is situated at 1350 meters above sea level. Temperature and climate varies immensely with altitude and topography.

The population is no less varied than the country's nature. People are socially segmented along lines of caste and ethnicity. Nepal has been a gathering point for many different peoples, in particular Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan. The largest Tibeto-Burman groups are Gurung, Limbu, Rai, Magar, Newar, Sherpa, and Tamang. The largest Indo-Aryan groups are Indian, Brahmin (Bahun), Chetri, pilgrims, travellers, traders, and service-providing low caste groups. The National Ethnic Groups Development Committee has identified 61 different groups, and the National Language Policy Advisory Commission lists 60 living languages (NHDR 1998: chapter 1.2.4). The languages and dialects can be traced to four language families; Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian. Through the establishment of the Nepalese Kingdom, all the various groups have been subsumed to the nation state, and Nepali as a unifying language has been introduced.

Although Nepal has a strong development of local communities, there are many overarching cultural themes. The cultural features briefly presented in the following, touch different aspects of social organisation, such as caste, kinship, religion, system of production, economy and political organisation. The description of social elements is, as mentioned, very general, but none the less relevant for the fieldwork and analysis, as it represents the knowledge of Context Society, available in Matrix Society.

2.3 Descriptive Elements of Social Organisation

In Nepal people commonly order and group people into castes, tribes and ethnic groups. There is a complex relation between the categories. The Newars are considered an ethnic group, but they have their own hierarchy of caste groups.

In Nepal there is a tradition of listing castes in order. Hierarchical and ladder-like presentations and symbolism of caste is thus a native, and not only an anthropological construction. The division of the people into castes can be seen in the country's old laws. Box 2.3 shows the ordering of castes and ethnic groups according to the 1854 Law Code (Muluki Ain). This law code has been studied by Höfer, and is presented by Gellner (Gellner 1995:11). Other schemes are more detailed and have other ways of separating "clean", "unclean" and "untouchable" castes. The hierarchical order of society applies to most fields of life, within the family, in rituals, in organisations, at work, in companies, institutes and universities, the government, and so on. Castes, tribes and individuals are ranked according to several principles of inequality; purity and pollution, religion, economy, political power, seniority and gender.

As castes are thought to consist of exogamous patrilinages, kinship and caste are closely connected. Caste ranking is further closely associated with religious concepts and religious practice, and very often with Hinduism. In Nepal's case the phenomenon of caste is complicated by the fact that Buddhists and various ethnic groups are incorporated into the caste system. There is a syncretism of religious practice and traditions. Some hold that, in Nepal, Hinduism is concentrated in the south and Buddhism in the north, but they are tied together and interspersed by tantrism, animistic rituals and shamanic traditions. Officially 90% are Hindu, 8% Buddhists and 2% Muslim (Lauridsen 1995), but these numbers vary due to the complex relation between the different religious practices. The major cults are Vajrayana Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism. Both creeds have been established since antiquity in the Valley.

Nepal is sometimes characterised as having the world's most ritual culture. Religion is a dominant cultural trait that penetrates a majority of social institutions in Nepal. An enormous number of rituals, festivals, religious statuses and religiously motivated tasks contribute to the rich religious life and cultural variation of Nepal. Through religion frames for action, identity, world view and moral codes are constructed. In western societies it is possible, both analytically and practically, to draw a line between many religious, political and economic activities. In Nepalese society these lines can not be easily drawn. This is reflected in the Nepalese word for religion, dharma, which also means morale and duty. Different people have different levels of ritual purity assigned to them on the basis of their caste identity, and have different codes for proper moral behaviour.

Box 2.3 All-Nepal Caste Hierarchy of the 1854 Law Code

The ordering of people into castes is also important to the distribution of rights and duties. According to the old laws each caste group had prescribed duties and occupational specialities. As mentioned in the introduction, such a division of labour is often referred to as a jajmani system. In a jajmani system services and goods are thought to be exchanged within a local context, in contractual, personal and hereditary relations, between a patron and a client. The payment is made in grain or other products. This form of distribution has stronger resemblance to feudalism than to a modern market economy. Many anthropologists hold that the jajmani system has been overemphasised and simplified, stating that it is not at all a pan-Indian phenomenon, that it does not refer to a systematic set of relations that may be isolated from others, and that it is seldom found in a "pure" form. Jana Fortier holds that it should not be considered a system, but merely an important part of a network of labour exchange practices. The jajmani system, she continues, is bound up with other labour exchange practices; reciprocal labour, sharecropping, labour parties, or group labour, bonded labour and so on (Fortier 1993). Critics hold that the term obstructs rather than facilitates a comparative framework. The caste prescribed division of labour and exchange of services have characterised many villages and communities in Nepal. However, in Nepal, the system of exchange is complex and woven with many threads. Jajmani systems are, in Nepal, part of larger systems, and there are many examples of this type of "closed" exchange systems existing side by side, and integrated into, modern market systems. New modes of production, technology and regulations introduce different kinds of relation between people.

The dominating modes of production are farming, crafts and industry. At least 80% of the population engage in farming. Many live on an existential minimum, often by cultivating small terraces carved out of the hillsides. Most of the businesses are situated in the cities. These are mostly small companies with only a few employees. Subsistence production where goods and services were exchanged through contractual relations, is slowly being replaced by larger units of production, with wage labour and production for a market. The carpet industry and tourism are Nepal's largest industries.

Formally, Nepal is a constitutional monarchy. Traditionally the power of the king was ritually legitimised. The king was thought to be a reincarnation of Vishnu. King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev has somewhat more power then e.g. the British Queen. After the revolution in 1990, Nepal has been struggling to established a workable democracy. Nepal has a parliamentary multi-party system. The Nepalese Communist party and the Congress party are the major fractions. As Gellner remarks, caste has been little politicised.

Although caste no longer has the force of law in Nepal, there has been nothing like Mahatma Gandhi's campaign to overcome prejudice. Nepal has no equivalent to the Indian Constitution of 1950, which supports positive discrimination, or of the different states' Temple Entry Acts of the 1930s and 1940s, forcing clean castes to admit Untouchables to their temples (Galanter 1972). Low castes in Nepal have until now remained very little politicized. Politicians have refrained from advocating positive discrimination, presumably from fear of antagonizing their clean-caste supporters, but also from fear of promoting divisiveness (Höfer 1979:205-7). (Gellner 1995:289)

With democracy and a multi-party system, where also low castes hold mandates, this is liable to change. New ideas on equality, human worth, and equality before the law are emerging.

Box 2.4 A Brief History

Plates 2-1 -  2-3:
Plate 2-1 The Colourful Culture of Nepal
Plate 2-2 Newar Stucco Work
Plate 2-3 A Typical Newar House

2.4 The Kathmandu Valley and the Newars

The Kathmandu Valley houses the capital and 1 million people. This number is growing rapidly, due to the general population growth and the process of urbanisation. Gellner gives the following description of the situation in the Kathmandu Valley:

Since 1951 the Kathmandu Valley has experienced rapid development, benefiting far more than the rest of the country because it houses the capital. The Valley now has electricity, drains, metalled roads, hospitals, schools, colleges, a university, numerous businesses, scores of foreign aid agencies, hundreds of hotels, digital telephones, cinemas, video parlours, and television. There has been a massive immigration by Nepalese from the hills, by refugees from Tibet, and more recently by poor Indians from Bihar. Overcrowding, inadequate drainage, pollution, traffic jams, water and electricity shortage have all worsened since the end of the 1980s. Land prices have spiralled, especially within or near the Kathmandu-Lalitpur conurbation enclosed by the ring road. Tourism, "development" and entrepôt business between Hong Kong and India have become major "industries". (Gellner 1995:13.)

There is a fascinating mixture of old and new, and the contrasts are striking. Internet cafes and traditional clay houses stand side by side. Many people who live in the city reside in traditional houses, without running water and electricity, others live in new armoured houses with all the modern equipment imaginable. One sees people wearing saris and traditional dresses, teenagers wearing jeans and t-shirts with bragging western brands, local tea-shops and American styled fast food restaurants. The sounds of traditional ritual music and western pop music drown each other out. One can see young ladies on new scooters with their hair and the saris fluttering, and old men carrying loads for a living, without other means of transportation. The city also displays the contrasts between rich and poor. A couple of blocks away from the enormous Royal Palace, poor children spend the night sleeping on cardboard and the day begging or searching the garbage piles.

There is, furthermore, a striking contrast between urban and rural areas. Kathmandu is the political, economic, educational and communicational centre of Nepal. It is considered the most developed part of Nepal along with some areas of Terai. Box 2.5 shows how human development is unevenly distributed according to geographical districts. The human development index for the Kathmandu Valley is considerably higher than for instance that of the hills. Most of the economic and social and cultural capital is concentrated in the urban areas, and the urban areas are the locus of symbolic power.

The Newars are considered the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley. After the caste system was abandoned there is no statistic record covering and classifying the different caste groups. The Newars form a very large group and it is estimated that they make up 60 % of the population in the Kathmandu Valley (NHDR 1998). The Newari culture is notably urban. The Newars have a high degree of specialisation of labour. There was and still is to a large extent, various specialists who inherit their profession according to caste: e.g. priests, astrologers, masons, painters, stone workers, bronze workers, copper workers, silver- and goldsmiths, carpenters, traders, gardeners, dyers, washer men, tailors, butchers and sweepers. There is often a concentration of certain specialists in certain localities (tole).

The Newars are proud of their culture and tend to think of themselves as being the true culture bearers of Nepal, referring to the development of crafts, the cities, and the complicated network of kin and Guthi relationships. They form a highly self aware group, with many distinct traditions that mark them off from other ethnic groups and peoples. They have their own calendar, festivals, food traditions, clothing, house style and settlement pattern. They even have their own Tibeto-Burman language, Newari. Most Newars speak Newari in addition to the official language of Nepal (Nepali), but very few can write it using the original script (Løwdin 1986:7).

Box 2.5 Human Development at District Level

The Newars are comparably well off. box 2.6 (fig 3.7) shows how per capita income is distributed among certain groups. The figure shows how capital is unevenly distributed, and concentrated in the hands of a small part of the population. The Newars score highest and above the Brahmins. This was a surprise to me. I believe this further indicates the difference between urban and rural areas, since Brahmans are found in all parts of the country, whereas Newars are found basically in the most favoured part of the country, the Kathmandu Valley. They therefore benefit from, and contribute to, the high level of development of the area. This clearly shows that there is not a one-to-one relation between caste status and economic status. I would have thought that the Brahmins would score considerably higher than all other groups, due to their high status, the assumed high level of symbolic capital, and the cumulative effect of the different types of capital. This illustrates the fact that high caste rank is no guarantee for material success.

One problem with the index in Box 2.6 is that the Newars are treated as one group, while there is great variation among the Newars. Although the Newars are considered as one ethnic group, they are highly diverse. The Newars are divided into sub-groups by caste, religion, dialect and locality.

As mentioned above, the Newars have a caste system of their own, separate from the caste system of Parbatiya castes and that of the Indian plains. According to popular belief and various historical sources, the Newar caste system was first institutionalised and codified by Sthiti Malla who gave the country its laws, in the 14th century. There is good reason to regard the fourteenth century and Sthiti Malla's laws, mythical or not, as a turning point in the valley's history. The laws indicate that caste became a legalised institution sanctioned by Royal authority; that profession was one of the guiding principles when establishing the division of the population into castes; that taking another caste's profession became a crime; that the caste system was to be supported by prescribed customs for different castes (sumptuary laws, etc.); and that the economy had reached a stage where it was regarded by the rulers as necessary to make inherited property alienable. Great changes have taken place from the times of Sthiti Malla up to the present day. Today many of the castes mentioned in the Vamsavali account are extinct, whereas others have merged. The Newars have also become integrated into the larger multi-ethnic Nepal since 1768.

The Newars have a term for the caste system; jati vyavastha. In Newari the idiomatic way to refer to high and low castes is thajat and kujat (though the latter term has considerable pejorative force), meaning precisely high caste and low caste. The Newars were classified as rather low caste by the Parbatiyas. Fürer-Haimendorf (1956:34) recorded the Nepali expression sidhi cadnu, to climb the ladder, used to describe the social climbing of Shresta or would-be Shresta Newars. My informants spoke of "lifting their caste".

The Newar caste hierarchy is complicated because og being twin-headed. Also among the Newars there are two major religious currents, Vajracharya Buddhism and Hinduism, and the relation between them is intricate and complex, and mixed with tantrism. There are two competing priestly or religious castes, the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans on the one side and, on the other the Vajracharya-Sakya-caste. Just as the Brahmans are the guardians, propagators, and indeed embodiment of Hinduism, so are the Vajracharyas and Sakyas of traditional Buddhism in the Kathmandu Valley. The fact that the Buddhist castes are systematically ranked below the Hindu equivalent castes, underlines the dominance of the Hindu tradition in respect to caste. Among the Newars there are many Buddhists, and Patan (Lalitpur) particularly is associated with Newar Buddhism. Some hold that more than 60% of the Newars are Hindu, but the categorisation is highly problematic.

Newar language and traditions are heavily influenced by Indo-Aryan dialects and traditions. There has been a process of Hinduisation among the Newars, especially under the Ranas when Hinduism was made the national religion and caste rules were strongly upheld. This is debatable, however. As Gellner remarks, it is not possible to scrape off a layer of Hinduisation to uncover a tribal past (Point taken from Gellner 1995:32). The Newars' origins are complex, and shrouded in mystery, and so have never been fully established. They are considered a Tibeto-Burman group, but many of them claim descent from the plains to the south, as is the case with the Khadgis. "It is evident to the most casual observer that Newars are of diverse racial origin, different physiognomies being evident both within and between castes." (ibid. 1995:5).

Newar society can be described as ascriptive hierarchical. Central hierarchical principles are based on caste, seniority and sex. The social standing of a Newar is to a large extent determined by these variables, as they put constraints on profession, relationship to others, ritual role, and so on. Yet another variable in this context is socio-economic standing. It is the objective of this thesis to investigate how these statuses affect their lives, to analyse the relation between them in various context, and to see whether or not the ascriptive status of caste in some situations may be overridden. This brings us to the main theme of the thesis and the particular case of the Khadgis.

2.5 The Khadgis as a Social Group and as a Caste

Bourdieu describes how groups manifest themselves in social reality:

"The class (or the people, or the nation, or any other social reality ungraspable in any other way) exists if there exist people who can say that they are the class, by the mere fact of speaking publicly, officially, in its place, and of being recognised as justified in doing so by people who thereby recognise themselves as members of the class, people or nation, or of any other social reality which a realist construction of the world can invent or impose." (Bourdieu 1990:139).

The Khadgis exist as a social group in a "social reality". It is possible to speak of the Khadgis as a group for several reasons. First, an awareness of Khadgi identity exists, both among the Khadgis themselves and among others. They can be counted, and according to the estimate of the Nepal Khadgi Social Service Committee (NKSC) they number 10.900 in the Kathmandu - Lalitpur conurbation. They can be conceptualised as a caste group, and in Newari they are referred to as Nay. The Nepali word used to refer to the butcher caste is Kasahi. I will not use these words to designate them as they have pejorative force. Caste identity is often revealed through the surname. I have chosen to speak of the caste as Khadgi, although they use the names Khadgi and Shahi both (The problem of names will be discussed in chapter 8).

In general one can say that all Khadgis are aware of their Khadgi identity and how they are identified when it comes to caste and ethnicity. However, the significance they and others invest in this identity, varies. According to the Panchyat system and caste rules, the Khadgis should be butchers, and they are still associated with this profession (Chapters 4 and 5). They have a collective idea of their traditional role as service providers (Chapter 6), as well as common ideas of a historical and mythological past (Chapter 8). Their caste identity and the association with a certain level of ritual purity and pollution, involves certain ritual roles, and they are supposed to be served by a special Khadgi priest. They have a collective and widely recognised idea of what their position was according to caste rules and hierarchy. The Khadgi group identity forms a basis for interaction and social organisation (Chapter 7). Most Khadgis live in fairly concentrated areas, and they marry mostly within the caste. The extended family, that consequently will consist mostly of Khadgis, is an important social network and the arena for much of the day-to-day interaction and co-operation. The Khadgi organisation (NKSC), established for the betterment of their community, can be seen as a manifestation and a symbol of Khadgi identity, as well as a forum for interaction among them.

In conclusion, I present Gellner's overview of low caste ranking, which also includes the various professions (Gellner 1995:267), box 2.7. This information formed the starting point of my investigation. I used the tables presented by Gellner to find out whether they could be applied to the social reality today, and how informants would respond to such classifications. The tables represent the scholarly knowledge I had gained in my own society (B), and formed the basis for formulating questions and directing my research. My experiences throughout the fieldwork have been compared to the picture I tried to draw of them before I left, and it is against this backdrop that I have formed my own knowledge of them. The "traditional" role of the Khadgis will be compared to their current situation throughout the various chapters dealing with different aspects of Khadgis' social life. My point of departure was that the Khadgis ranked as an impure, water unacceptable low caste, but their touch did not require purification.

Box 2.7 Low Castes and Specialities

Chapter 3: Conceptualising the Social Reality of the Khadgis

The first encounters with the Khadgis led to the discovery of some cultural concepts of importance to how the Khadgis perceive their social reality, and how others perceive the Khadgis. Certain concepts, like those of purity and pollution, high and low, "backward" and "educated", are of importance for understanding how actions, objects, persons and places are positioned in the social space. There is a close association between the Khadgis and the butcher profession, and because of that, it is essential to see how the objects involved in the butchering are interpreted. These interpretations are important for understanding how the Khadgis think about themselves, and how others think about them. They are important for understanding how the Khadgis want to be conceptualised and characterised, and for understanding their actions. Their actions may be seen as strategies for gaining capital, or for getting recognition for alternative forms of capital - and thus as symbolic struggles - actions to contest the dominating constructions of social reality.

After describing my first encounters I shall deal with the social construction of objects of relevance to butchers; how people think about the butcher activity and the objects involved. Thereafter I shall deal with the position of these objects, and the butchers, in the social space, and see what properties and qualities the Khadgis and the butchers are associated with. Bourdieu has noted that "People close to each other in social space tend to be closer together - by choice or necessity- in the geographical space" (Bourdieu 1990:127). In the last part of the chapter I shall, analyse their settlement patterns, and show how the Khadgis are close to each other in geographical space.

3.1 Fumbling and Funambulating

Originally, my plan was to start the fieldwork by doing observations while taking language lessons. I walked around to get to know Patan and soon found the areas where the butchers had their shops. I wanted to observe the daily activities in the meat shops and the butcher areas. This turned out to be more complicated than I had foreseen. These areas were not commonly visited by tourists or foreigners and my presence attracted a lot of attention. As I stood and watched, even from a distance, activities halted and I attracted lots of attention was drawn towards me. It made me feel aware of the fact that I was a stranger, with seemingly nothing to do there.

I asked around to get information on the butchers, to find out what people knew about them, whether they knew anyone, and to see what their attitude was towards them. A common reaction was; "Oh, yes, the butcher caste! Well, they are really making their way up!" Very few people actually knew anyone from the Khadgi caste. Neither had they heard of any Khadgis living in new, fashionable, and "upper class" areas.

The next step was to actually try to get in touch with some people from the Khadgi caste. My Nepali was still not fluent enough to explain to them why I wanted to talk to them. I was hoping to learn the language better after spending time with them. I had chosen to learn Nepali even though their mother language is Newari, because not all Khadgis speak Newari, and about 99% of the Newars speak Nepali. By learning Nepali I would be able to speak with most of the Khadgis and others as well. Through my contacts at the Tribhuvan University, I met a woman who's maternal home was just across the street from a butcher store in Kathmandu. They arranged a meeting to introduce me to the butchers. The first encounter is described in box 3.1.

Box 3.1 The First Encounter

3.2 The Next Step

I felt the first encounter had been unsuccessful. It did not result in further contact with the family I had been introduced to. However, after a while I realised that it had given me valuable insights into crucial issues and I did get to know the young man in the shop next door, Binod Shahi. He was a college student and spoke fairly well English. Together with his mother and sisters they where running a business, selling sweets, detail and wholesale. He provided me with a lot of information throughout the fieldwork. He introduced me to many of his friends in Kathmandu, who were both from the Khadgi caste and from other castes (see plate 7-2). He also took me to his mother's village, so that I could see how the Khadgis in the villages lived. He also helped me by translating what they said.

After the first encounters I realised that I could not learn Nepali just by being with the Khadgis. They basically spoke Newari among themselves. I continued taking language lessons, but I decided to get an interpreter. This turned out to be a major turning point in the fieldwork. An interpreter had been recommended to me by a Norwegian anthropologist who had done fieldwork among Newars in Bhaktapur. The interpreter was high caste Newar. I had some hesitations employing him, because of his high caste status. I had Berreman's accounts of in fresh memory (Berreman 1962). Berreman gives a description of some of the problems involved doing fieldwork with interpreters in a Hindu caste society. During his fieldwork Berreman used two different interpreters, one high caste Hindu and one Muslim, and got a totally different access to information (ibid.). I was afraid the difference in caste rank between the interpreter and my informants would limit my access to important and sensitive information.

Being of high caste the interpreter should not, according to traditional caste rules, accept water and certain foods from the informants. According to these rules he should also have as little to do with them as possible, to avoid pollution, and having done so he should seek purification through rituals. We talked about these matters, and I asked him if he thought it would be a problem. He convinced me it would not be a big problem for him, nor did he think it would be a problem for the informants:

For me it will not be a problem. I am prepared. But there is one thing you should know. Whenever you are invited into a Newar's home, you will be offered both food and drink. I will accept, and you should do that too. It is necessary, or else they will not feel confident.

It is necessary to accept food and drink from them in order to show them due respect, make them feel comfortable and to establish a mutual relation, he explained.

I decided to ask his assistance. This became a very valuable co-operation, and the fact that the interpreter and informants were of different caste ranking provided me with the opportunity to see a lot of inter caste interaction. This became a valuable source of information. Besides, the interpreter's behaviour towards the informants, his ability to socialise and treat informants with respect, made them feel all the more comfortable and appreciated. He had the ability to create confidence, trust and seriousness, an ability that governs access. He was also hard-working, resourceful, and had an amazing ability to establish contacts. He knew someone who had a good relation to a Khadgi in Patan, where I lived and had planned to do most of my fieldwork (see map 2 and 3). As we got to know some people from the Khadgi community, we were soon introduced to others. When introduced to Khadgis by Khadgis, I was never again turned down when trying to make appointments. I knew then not to call them by the wrong words, and having learnt the importance of accepting the invitation for food.

The other Khadgis I met were very happy that I wanted to write about them. They were happy that someone was interested in their traditions and practices, and told me I did a very important job, that they should be doing themselves. I met with the members of the executive committee of the NKSC. The president took me under his wings and helped me with whatever information and contacts I needed. I was informed about all important events and invited to take part in official as well as private ceremonies. Everyone welcomed me with open arms. The only rejection I experienced was the one accounted for above.

3.3 Important Findings

As the fieldwork proceeded I realised that I had learnt a lot from these first encounters, experiences that guided my further explorations. First, when I started my fieldwork I did not want to assert what I had read about caste too easily (the picture that I had gained in Matrix Society). I had read a lot about caste, the hierarchical order, how rules had guarded inter-caste relations and the division of labour, and how important the levels of purity and pollution were. I had been trying to keep these interpretations in the back of my mind, for fear of asserting them too easily. I wanted to be open to the possibility that things had changed, that caste would not be so important to much of the social interaction. I did not want to take anything for granted. Openness to alternative interpretations of actions, events and relations was my dictum. I was there to study the effects of modernisation and change on the lives of the Khadgis, and I was afraid to put too much emphasis on caste. I wanted to let the significance of caste, hierarchy, and purity/pollution present itself where, and if, it was relevant. Now I had encountered my informants, and already I had been confronted with many caste related issues.

I gradually understood more of what had happened during the first encounter in the butcher shop; what I had done wrong, and why it turned out as it did. Secondly, I had become aware of the problems of naming. I had felt the tension and hostility. The butcher occupation is considered a defiling and a low ranking occupation by many people, including Khadgis, and it is not strange that some butchers may feel defensive when a party of high caste university people brings a western lady who wants to study them, as if they were a curiosity. I realised the importance of being introduced in the right way by the right people. Third, in the preliminary investigations, I had found that the Khadgis did not seem as wealthy as I had been led to believe. I felt the rumours were exaggerated. If the Khadgis had become rich, they certainly were not employing strategies that made them stand out in the way I would have thought, such as driving expensive cars and living in fashionable villas in upper class neighbourhoods. They seemed to still live in the traditional segregated areas, where their wealth was not particularly evident. After a while I realised that the rumours had to be seen in the light of caste hierarchy, and caste associated properties. There were other people who were just as wealthy, but they were of higher caste rank. The Khadgis had acquired more economic capital than associated with their low caste rank.

Fourth, through the first meeting in the butcher shop I had encountered the problem of inter-commensal relations (if someone offers you food and you don't accept they feel rejected), but I did not realise the importance of this until later. A lot of restrictions regulate the acceptance of food and drinks between castes and inter-commensal relations between caste are of significance. I was also confronted with these issues by the interpreter. When accepting food and drink from the Khadgis he was not behaving according to inter-commensal caste rules, but the rules were, nevertheless, important to the interpretation of the situation and the interaction. If he had not eaten with them they would have been insulted and interpreted it as discriminating behaviour. In fact, he told me: "You have to eat, even if you are not hungry. It is not possible to reject the food without rejecting them".

Through these first encounters I experienced that much of what I had read about caste rules and restrictions, caste hierarchy, and purity and pollution, seemed highly relevant, but in a different way. I had discovered their relevance, but I still had to find out how they directed actions, and the role of such concepts in practical life. Through this "fumbling" I had become aware of the actuality and sensitivity of caste issues and relations between people of different castes. When moving ahead it seemed like a better strategy to be "funambulating" on the line of sensitive caste issues, balancing my words and actions. I had been drawn into a caste based construction of social reality. Caste group identity and issues related to caste are important to the social reality of the Khadgis. In the next section I will examine these concepts more in detail. They are important for understanding how actions, persons, places, food and objects may be interpreted. They structure and guide actions and strategies.

3.4 The Ritual Context of Butchering, Animals and Meat

In this section I shall attempt to show how the concepts of purity and pollution have been, and are still, relevant and important to understanding the socially constructed reality of the people in the Kathmandu Valley. One of the reasons for the strong focus on the religious aspect of caste is perhaps that in the Hindu context it is closely associated with concepts of ritual purity and pollution. Different physical laws, different hierarchical positions and moral codes are applied according to the different levels of purity and pollution. Concepts of purity and pollution are often seen in relation to cosmology, to god, or gods, and demons, and so govern the relation between people and the relation between people and objects. It is at the basis of the construction of a moral person.

The institutionalisation of caste rules may be seen as attempts to control purity and pollution. Laws regulated the interaction between castes, secluding them, and limiting, as we shall see, the low caste's freedom in many ways. Caste laws regulated and defined frames of action for people, depending on which group one was born into, and the level of purity/pollution that was associated with that group. The rules controlled how people should behave towards each other, and towards objects, each person and object inhabit different levels of purity and pollution.

Some groups are associated with a polluting activity and are therefore conceived of as permanently "unclean" and in some cases "untouchable". Occupations, as castes, are ranked with social status, and with levels of purity and pollution. There is some agreement within and across social fields on what occupations are considered prestigious. In Nepal, the butcher activity is regarded as polluting, both because the animal blood and parts are regarded as polluting and because it is considered sinful to kill. Whether one is a practising butcher or not, the activity is associated with one's group, and the moral code that applies is established through this group belonging.

Both human beings and animals are in ritual contexts associated with levels of purity and pollution. Animals are associated with gods and demons, and many are given ritual significance in different situations. Nepal has a rich tradition of animal sacrifice. Different animals have varying significance, and are assigned different roles and varying importance. For instance, no female animals are supposed to be sacrificed or slaughtered for food purposes. The cow is also considered holy and should not be killed. Traditionally one received the same punishment for killing a cow as for killing a human being.

The most common animals for consumption are ranked according to levels of purity and pollution in the following order, starting at the top with the purest: duck, chicken, goat, buffalo, pig. The level of purity of animals and the level of purity of people correlates to some degree as to who should eat what animals. The highest and purest people should not eat meat at all. High castes often eat duck or chicken but consider buff and mutton too polluting. According to my informants many high caste people eat mutton, and an increasing number of high caste people are eating buffalo meat. This is, according to my informants, a result of the high prices of mutton compared to the relatively fair price of buffalo. Pork is considered very polluting and not suitable food for most castes. There is also a distinction between white and black pigs, as the white pig is considered more "clean" than the black one.

The buffalo has great practical and ritual significance to the Newars. Most Newars eat buffalo and it is a necessary ingredient in most rituals and festivals. Different parts of the buff are given ritual significance. At certain Guthi arrangements (see section 7.3) parts of the buffalo head are distributed among the participants according to seniority and social status. In the boys' hair shaving ritual a whole buffalo head is needed, while in the girls' Bahratayagu ritual only half the head is needed. Such differences in ritual practice express a ranking between men, and between men and women. Buffalo meat is a necessary ingredient in many of the Newars' most important ritual ceremonies. It is sometimes used as part of a set meal, in addition to and in combination with other ingredients, such as flattened rice, egg, ginger, fish, black soy bean, and buffalo meat. The set meals are called Sataras, Manjuriseri or Pugucasa. The fact that Newars need buffalo for important rituals and eat it regularly, but still do not value the butcher job, is intriguing to the Khadgis. "In the Khadgis' view this is sheer hypocrisy: "They tell us killing is wrong and yet queue up for meat every morning"" (Gellner 1995:274)

Although buffalo meat is considered traditional Newar fare, some have, for various reasons, stopped eating it. On the other hand, many people other than Newars, have started eating buffalo meat. One of my informants commented on the changing food habits of the people of the Kathmandu Valley (He is a middle-aged, wealthy business man living in Kathmandu. He was engaged in the butcher business earlier, but has left the occupation to engage in other types of business):

In the past buffalo was eaten only by Newars, but nowadays anybody, and even the priest are eating buffalo. Well, the Newars have started to stop eating buffalo, but the priests eat it regularly. They eat buffalo momo (a dish made with minced buffalo meat) every day because it is cheap.

Animal sacrifice plays a vital role in much ritual activity. Roosters and goats are most commonly used for animal sacrifice. Buffalo are normally sacrificed only on special occasions. When performing animal sacrifice the head of the animal is sprinkled with water. If the animal shakes the head it gives consent to being slaughtered. If not, more water is sprinkled onto the head. The animal's throat is cut and the family can bring the carcass with them home. The people performing the ritual sacrifices at the temples are not necessarily Khadgis, but may come from any caste. In the city context animal sacrifice does not form an important part of the butcher's work. There are however cases when a party orders a whole buffalo from the Khadgis, and have the Khadgis come and slaughter it. There is reason to believe that in the village the butcher plays a larger role in animal sacrifice. According to my informants, in the past, most of the slaughter was done for sacrificial purposes. Today, buffalo meat is almost staple food in the Kathmandu Valley. The focus of this thesis is therefore on the latter type of slaughter.

According to both Hindu and Buddhist ideology it is to some degree sinful for butchers to kill animals, even when it is a sacrificed to a god (Point taken from Gellner 1995:274). Meat, blood and bodily substances of the animal are considered polluting. The pollution from the activity, and the "pollution" from the objects, is transferred to the people handling the substances and performing the activities. The pollution can be said to be "contagious". It not only affects the butchers, but areas of the city (tols and slaughter places) and even people passing by or through these areas. High caste people have told me that they do not like to be observed in the butcher shop or area, for fear of what others might say and because of the ritual pollution. Several butchers told me how high caste people hesitated to come to the shop to buy the meat. One informant, as can be seen from the quotations below, told me how the customer stopped at the end of the block, shouted for the butcher, and had him, or someone else, come over to him with the meat. Kanchha is an old man who has been running a meat shop for thirty years. He has struggled to keep the business running (Present at this interview was the old man, Kanchha, the interpreter, Shamsher and myself):

Butchering leads not only to ritual "pollution" but also to a pollution problem in a more literal sense. People in general have a negative attitude towards the butcher activities, complaining about smell, dirtiness and waste. There is some sort of correlation between the concepts of ritual and physical pollution, but the relation is complex and sometimes contradictory. Many butchers do the slaughtering in the open street and on the banks of the river. This causes the holy rivers of the Valley to become polluted in a double sense, both ritually and physically. In addition to the ritual pollution there is a practical problem, that the pollution becomes a threat to the public health. A television program was broadcasted on the issue, and the following statements were recorded (Reporter, high caste persons P1 and P2):

The whole Khadgi caste is "contaminated" by this "pollution". All the members of the caste are associated with the butcher occupation and are thus considered "unclean". The close association of caste and occupation can be seen in statements like; "He is a butcher but he is working as a driver; He is a butcher, but he is working as a shopkeeper; He is a Shresta, but he is working as a butcher…" The association is also reflected in the interpreter's translation of caste names into occupational labels, however, not all castes are this closely associated with a specific occupation. Generally, the "unclean" state is applied to the members of the caste, whether they work as butchers or not. The ethnographic data will provide us with evidence whether it is possible for members of the Khadgi caste to avoid the degrading generalisations and the ritual pollution associated with the butcher activities and the caste.

The formerly law regulated segregation and seclusion of castes may, as mentioned previously, be seen as a step to control the pollution and prevent it from spreading to people and places. Khadgis have told me how their movement had been highly restricted. There were many places, houses and areas they where not allowed to enter. They told me how they were kept outside the classroom as kids, having to wash their own cup in the tea shops, not being allowed to enter high caste's houses, and so on. Although such seclusion no longer has the force of law, social sanctions are still feared. Some Khadgis accept the segregation and exclusion, and even think it is for the better that castes are kept separate. Differential treatment is not necessarily experienced as discrimination. Some of the Khadgis would never dream of entering a high caste person's house, and are of the opinion that it would be better if the caste system remained unchanged. However, most Khadgis I have met do not share this view. They feel in some way discriminated and treated badly because of their caste identity. In general, old and middle aged people have the worst experiences of being excluded, more so than most young people. They agree that people's attitude towards them have changed for the better. Khadgis have several times told me about the differences between Bhaktapur and the other two cities in the Kathmandu Valley, Kathmandu and Patan. They consider Bhaktapur "backwards" and stricter in the upholding of caste rules. When Binod took me to his mother's village to show me how the Khadgis traditionally lived, they wanted to tell me "how it really was". The Khadgis we visited in one of the villages hesitated to walk around the upper parts of the village, the areas known to be high caste areas. The city boys enjoyed walking freely around the upper parts of the village. They could do so, they told me, because the people in the village did not know them, and that they had no way of telling that they were Khadgis. In the village it is possible to know what caste a person belongs to, whereas in the city the number of people, the impersonal relations, and the different lifestyles, makes it more difficult to tell. During the fieldwork I went to several villages and found that the Khadgis there, were worse exposed to caste seclusion and discriminatory behaviour than people in the cities. People in the villages often have a more traditional attitude than people in the city.

3.5 Settlement-Patterns

In the centre of the three great Newar cities, the Royal Palace is the heart. The centre of the city was considered holy. High castes lived there, in Bahals, usually in three story houses with courtyards and small temples in the middle. On the edges of the old cities one could find the "unclean" castes such as the Khadgis, and well outside the city wall the "untouchable" groups (Løwdin 1986:42, and others). There were certain quarters or tols that were considered pure Khadgi settlements. The Khadgis were allowed to settle just inside the city walls, but not further in towards the holy centre of the city (See map 2). They were allowed to live slightly closer to the centre than other low castes like Pode. The ideal plan of the Newar city may be schematised like a Mandala (Levy 1992:166, Gellner 1992:48), with the ritual centre in the middle, and with an increasing level of pollution, towards the periphery. In this way the idiom of caste and hierarchy is expressed in Newar city planning and architecture. The arrangement of separate living areas not only reflects the hierarchy, the separation of castes has been deeply rooted in peoples daily activities.

In many parts of the world rich people tend to cluster in high status areas, and newly rich seek to get acceptance among other rich people in those areas, a well known strategy of social mobility. I assumed that this would be the case also in Nepal. However, I was not able to find any Khadgis in such areas during my early investigations. If they had moved to other areas, they could have been able to conceal their caste identity. I had to turn towards the traditional Khadgi areas to find the Khadgis. Only later was I able to find Khadgis living in new areas where there were a mix of castes.

3.5.1 Gathering Information

I set out to discover the Khadgi social networks. Through progressive contextualisation (Vayda 1996), I wanted to find out what were the basic units of interaction, and what characterised the interaction with different people. This seemed to be a way of finding out important things about Khadgi life. What persons are included in their day to day interaction? Bourdieu warns against taking interaction at face value (Bourdieu 1990). It is important to ask what characterises the different forms of interaction. Are they based on religion, politics, economy, education, marriage, friendship, neighbour relations? Who do they socialise with? In what contexts do they socialise with people from other castes? To what extent do they socialise with people from their own caste? Are they basically family members? Where do people draw the lines between themselves and significant others? Is the Khadgi community divided in some way? Looking at social interaction and organisation one can discover the social fields. I soon discovered that much of the interaction of the Khadgis took place within Khadgi neighbourhoods and within kin and family networks. I shall return to basic elements of social organisation in chapter 7, but at this point I need to outline the Khadgis settlement patterns as they were are important for my investigations of the fields and for perceiving the social reality of the Khadgis.

Throughout the fieldwork I had been gathering information on settlement patters through observation, and through formal and informal interviews. I had access to information both through Khadgis and people from other castes. Together with some of my informants I have walked the whole city of Patan, and been shown every major Khadgi settlement area. My Khadgi informants come from many settlement areas, most of them in Patan, some in Kathmandu, and some in villages in the Kathmandu Valley. We have discussed settlement, patterns, preferences and changes.

About half ways into the fieldwork I was able to get hold of the most recent voter's list for the whole district of Lalitpur (The district of Lalitpur covers the area of the city of Patan and beyond, see map 3). The voter's list has provided me with a lot of information. The list gives information of the voters' ward, area, house number, numbers of households in the house, and number of voters within the household, in addition to listing the voters' names, age, and civil (marriage) status. It further identifies the voter's father, and in the cases where the voter is a married woman, it identifies her husband. This has made it possible find out the composition of each household, and how the members were related to each other. It went through the list of all the 77.279 voters of Lalitpur, written in Nepali. With help of my interpreter and informants I managed to sort out all people belonging to the Khadgi caste, and find out where they lived. I have double checked the information from the list through observations, and with my informants, to check for reliability. The information from the voter's list basically agreed with my own and my informant's information.

Some salient observations will have to be mentioned concerning the list. First of all, the voter's list does not include persons below the age of eighteen, a considerable number of persons given that half of Nepal's population is below eighteen (Central Bureau of Statistics 1997, about 1991). Secondly, there is a problem with names. People from the Khadgi caste use the surnames Khadgi or Shahi, spelled in various ways, as Shahi, Sahi or Saii. There are also certain other castes that use the name Sahi. They are, however, not Newars (see section 8.2). My interpreter was able to establish with relative certainty who where Newars and who where not. There might be Khadgis who have managed to change their last name completely. These are not included in my data as Khadgis. To change the name, however, is not socially accepted and very difficult to register with the authorities. Third, the numbers of households depend on to what extent households within the same house and family are distinguish from one another.

The information I have been able to sort out from the voter's list is presented in an ordered form in fig 3.2, at the end of this section. Most of the Khadgi settlements mentioned in the list are shown in map 2 and 3.

3.5.2 Drawing up the Map

Some Khadgis are of the impression that many Khadgis are moving to new areas. I have not found evidence to support this. Within the limits of the old city structure there have been few changes. The settlement patterns and the structure of the old city is basically intact. I have found only two new Khadgi settlements within the borders of the old city, in addition to one or two settlements that had already been there for generations. Except from a very few cases, people from higher castes do not settle in the Khadgi areas. The stable settlement pattern within the old city centre can be seen in map 2 where all the settlement areas of the Khadgis are marked. The number of households in the different areas are included.

Map 2. The Old City of Patan, with the Khadgi Settlements

Map 3. The city of lalitpur, with the names of the areas where the Khadgis live

With the rapid urbanisation and an explosive population growth Patan has have grown far beyond the limits of the old city walls. New settlements have emerged outside of old city, beyond the settlements of the untouchable castes. High, middle and low castes in new the areas form mixed settlements. It is not possible to apply the picture of the mandala to the city.

There are some few new Khadgi settlements outside the old city, such as in Nakhkhubazar (this was traditionally a Maharjan area), Ekantakuna, Talchhikhel, Kumaripati, Thasikhel and Lagankhel (see map 3). These are all Khadgi settlements in mixed caste areas. There are probably more Khadgis living in new areas, renting rooms or flats, that I have not been able to identify through my informants and that do not feature in the voter's list as they have failed to register their new address with the authorities. The new settlements are not to be confused with areas outside the city where the Khadgis have resided for long, such as Kusunti, Satadobato, Sanchal, Sanepa and Kupondole (map 3).

The total number of Khadgis, above 18, living in Lalitpur is 2295 (see fig. 3.2). Of those, 1850 persons (80.6 %), live in the traditional areas on the edge of the old city. When adding the number of Khadgis living in traditional areas within the greater Lalitpur, it comes to 2090 (91.1 %). The remaining 205 Khadgis (8.8%), have settled in new areas. Some of these settlements may be considered expansions of old areas. We can conclude that the Khadgis remain in their traditional areas. Only the occasional Khadgi moves to new areas, although the number is on the increase.

Box 3.2 Data from the voter's list

3.5.3 Why Stay?

There might be several reasons for the relatively stable settlement pattern. One reason might well be the spiralling land prices in the Kathmandu-Lalitpur-conurbation. It is difficult to find reasonably priced properties for sale at within the ring road. However, even the Khadgis who actually have inherited or bought land, and those who can afford to buy land and houses in new areas, seem to prefer to stay in the traditional Khadgi areas. Khadgis who own property in different areas of the city, often keep on living in their traditional area. Instead of moving, they build new and improved houses on their old grounds, and/or build new levels. Subha Ratna does not believe the high price of land is the main reason for the stable settlement pattern (The interview was conducted in English. Present: Subha Ratna, Shamsher and myself):

Most Khadgis I have talked to agreed that they still live in traditional areas. When asking informants why they stayed in their traditional areas many reasons were given. As also indicated by Mr. Subha Ratna in the interview above, the Khadgis do not move to other areas for fear of social rejection. When working as a butcher, it becomes even more difficult to adjust in areas with higher castes. This view is confirmed by everyone I have discussed the issue with. Purna is of the same opinion and told me it would be difficult to put up a butcher business in another area (Present: Purna, Purna's wife, Shamsher and myself);

In cases where Khadgis have moved to new areas, there is reason to believe that they do not work as butchers. Attitudes towards other castes and prejudice are strong factors affecting the settlement patterns. The Khadgis prefer to live in the same area as the family and close friends. A high caste Newar had this to say about living in the same area as the Khadgis:

Normally we don't want Khadgis to live in the same house. Especially not to have a shop, but also from the residence point of view. The Khadgis are still considered untouchable, so when someone is touchable in the house they have difficulties doing purification. Even if you go through whole villages you won't find any from higher caste with Khadgis living in the same house.

Such attitudes to butchers is one reason why other castes do not mix with the Khadgis in the Khadgi area. They find it too polluting, both ritually and literally. Once I met a Shresta who was working as a butcher's helper and lived in the Khadgi area. The rent of his room was very low compared to other places. The house owner kept chickens in the same house. The helper stated : "No one else is willing to stay among the chickens because of the smell."

The new settlement areas consist of a mix of people from different ethnic groups such as Tamang and Rai, and middle ranked castes, but never high castes. Despite of the population growth, also among the Khadgis, there are not many new Khadgi settlements in new areas. The population growth seems to be mainly swallowed up by already established settlements, and by expanding areas of already existing settlements. I take this as a sign that caste stigmatisation, prejudice and caste discriminating attitudes are relative strong, and that one's own caste form an important unit of interaction, with a "sense of place". Mr. Subha Ratna suggested that the Khadgis stay in their traditional areas because they enjoy their own community. This is where they feel comfortable and do not have to face harassment or negative attitudes. Subha Ratna held that most of the Khadgis chose to stay among themselves, except the educated and "well established". I will hold that, for the Khadgis who want to move to new areas, it is not sufficient to have only the means to do so (economic capital). They face barriers because they are treated as "untouchables". The few who have adjusted in other areas have high levels of both economic and cultural capital.

3.6 Signs of Distinction and "Sense of one's Place"

It is only by understanding the meanings of interactions that one discovers people's sense of place and their sense of others' place, and how this guides their choices. Although most Khadgis identify with their caste, they do not have the same views about what it means to be a Khadgi. Their sense of place differ. Their choices differ, they involve in different interactions, and invest them with different significance.

The "sense of one's place" leads people to keep to their place in society and the others to "keep their distance" or "respect their rank" and "not get familiar". The "sense of one's place" and the "sense of others' place" is central to the classification of people, behaviour and objects. This "sense of one's place" and sympathies and antipathies are at the heart of man's actions (Bourdieu 1990:128). As Bourdieu notes;

Agents classify themselves, expose themselves to classification, by choosing, in conformity with their tastes, different attributes, clothes, types of food, drinks, sports, friends, which go well together and which they also find agreeable or, more exactly, which they find suitable for their position. More exactly: they classify themselves by choosing, in the space of available goods and services, goods which occupy a position in this space homologous to the position in the social space. This means that nothing classifies somebody more than the way he or she classifies (Bourdieu 1990:131,132).

In our case the Khadgis' "sense of their place" and their sympathies and antipathies, guide them in their choice of food, occupation, friends, spouses, ritual practices, all that they find agreeable and suitable for their position.

The social world, according to Bourdieu, presents itself as a highly structured reality due to the simple mechanism of association and statistical connections. Bourdieu gives many examples from the French cultural context; Those who drink champagne are more likely than those who drink whisky, to have antique furniture, play golf, ride horses or go to see light comedies at the theatre. Khadgis are associated with certain characteristics; Khadgis are more likely than Brahmans to drink alcohol, eat buff, work as butchers, play the Naykhibaja (their ritual drum, see section 6.3), live at the edges of the city etc. Brahmins are associated with desisting from drinking alcohol and eating buffalo meat, playing the tabula and living in the centres of the old city. Such actions function as signs of distinction.

The Khadgis' central occupation is perhaps the most significant sign of distinction for the group, and the nature of the work forms the basis for the construction of stereotypes regarding butcher personality and behaviour. According to the stereotypes the butcher is brutal, physically strong, vulgar, aggressive, loud, badmouthed, dishonest, immoral and not very religious. This picture has been presented to me by persons from various castes. Khadgis themselves are aware of the way others perceive them, and the perception is constantly reinforced. If the children of higher caste Newars are badmouthed or vulgar, their parents tell them not to behave like butchers. The word Naycupi means "a sharp-tongued person" (see section 8.3.3).Vulgar behaviour is associated with low caste identity. The stereotype even includes certain physical features. The Khadgi women are known to be beautiful and sexually attractive. Khadgis are in general thought to be broad faced, have small eyes, fleshy lips and cheeks, and flat noses. They are also thought to have darker skin than people of higher castes.

Although some Khadgis have become wealthy, people of low caste are not initially associated with wealth. A statement like "Oh, yes! The butchers have really become wealthy. They are making their way up!" is a classificatory judgement. It presupposes that one is capable of seeing the relations between practices and positions in the social space, in our case, that low caste status does not imply economic status, and that the Khadgis originally are not associated with a position in social space that involves economic wealth.

The interview with Mr. Kanchha Khadgi quoted above, includes comments on the personality of the butchers and on the attitude and behaviour towards them. They shed light on some of the stereotypes. In the following part of the interview Kanchha's second and much younger wife expressed her views (Interpreter Shamsher, Kanchha and Kanchha's wife, Meena):

Stereotypes are just stereotypes. Physical appearance among the Khadgis vary enormously. Some could match the description given above, others have pointed noses, square faces and light coloured skin. As for personality, the Khadgis emphasise other personal aspects when they talk about themselves. They generally consider themselves proud, strong willed and independent. This is evident in the passage above, as well as in numerous other statements made by other Khadgis. A middle aged and wealthy informant, Govindra (see Box 4.1), expressed his opinion of the Khadgis:

Of course there are Khadgis that confirm to the stereotype, but the associations are not statistically supported. This will be clear evident in the following chapters that deal with aspects of the social life of the Khadgis.

Bourdieu notes that even though the world does not present itself as pure chaos, it is not totally structured either. There is a certain semantic elasticity, a degree of indeterminacy and vagueness in the associations and connections. There are different views on how the social world is constructed. The different perceptions of connections and associations open for symbolic struggles. Old people, like Kanchha, have a different "sense of his place" than many young people. The difference between the village people and the city people, between old and young people, display widely different attitudes and "sense of place". Khadgis who accept the social regulations and caste rules are often thought to have a traditional and conservative view and are often spoken of as uneducated and backward. These people's views in the main conform with the stereotype. Khadgis who do not accept the associations will insist on a different understanding of the social reality. They are aware of the stigmatisation, and often the grounds on which it is based. They will probably present characteristics and attributes according to what they feel is their position in the social space, or what it ought to be, and avoid choosing attributes that conform to the stereotype. A strategy for manipulating one's position in the social space, would conform to what Bourdieu calls a symbolic struggle. Conscious of caste relations, notions of purity and pollution, and stereotypes, we are better able to understand of under what frames for action the strategies of the Khadgis enfolds. In the following chapters we shall see how the Khadgis live their lives and how their strategies for survival and self-esteem unfold: strategies for gaining capital, avoiding stigmatisation, and negotiating their position in the social space. Such strategies may be seen as strategies also in the symbolic struggle, the struggle to define social order and capital.

Chapter 4: The Butcher Occupation

The Khadgis are associated with the butcher occupation whether they work as butchers or not. In order to understand the problems and opportunities the Khadgis are facing occupationally and socially, it is necessary to see what it is like to be a butcher by profession. To understand the Khadgis' choices, their considerations and experiences must be taken into account. A detailed inquiry into the butcher profession is essential, both to understand the stereotyping, and to understand the motivating factors behind many of the Khadgis actions and strategies in the symbolic struggle.

4.1 Categories of Butchers

There is a great variety in the butcher occupation. Some have a good businesses, some not. Normally they sell only one or two types of meat. Most of my informants sold only buffalo. Some sell chicken, some mutton, and some sell both, exclusive, or in addition to buffalo. I have also met a few Khadgis who sell pork. I have heard Khadgis implying that selling pork is not suitable for the Khadgis, because pork is more polluting than buffalo. I have already mentioned the different levels of purity and pollution assigned to animals. This also applies to the people handling them. Only people from the sweeper caste (Pode) were supposed to keep pigs and sell the meat.

Most butcher enterprises are family run. Outside helpers are sometimes employed. Khadgi people working as butchers can roughly be divided into the following categories:

1. Butchers, wholesale dealers and retailers; who do the slaughtering, and sell meat wholesale to other shopkeepers and in detail.

2. Retailers; who buy the meat wholesale, and sell in detail.

3. Helpers; who do not have their own business, but work as helpers to other butchers.

4. Processors; who buy the meat from the butchers, process it (vacuum packing, making sausages and other products) and sell to supermarkets, restaurants and hotels.

Quite a few butchers can be placed in the first category. They do the slaughtering themselves and then sell the meat to retailers and in detail. These butchers, if they have a good business, often employ outside help. I was surprised to find that several of my informants had employed helpers from castes ranked above their own, such as Shresta, Chetri and Tamang (see plate 4-2). I was told that they would employ anyone who had difficulties finding work, and was willing to take the job. There are not many Khadgis who are willing to work as helpers. Khadgis often explain this by referring to the nature of the Khadgi people. Some told me that Khadgis are too proud to work as helpers to other Khadgis: "They do not like to be dominated". Some of my informants told me that the Khadgis preferred employing people from other castes than Khadgi, because they were more hard working and easier to handle. Mr. Govindra Khadgi has employed many helpers, but very few of them are Khadgis. He has this to say about employing Khadgi helpers:

It is significant that in category four I have only found one Khadgi. He does not do the butchering himself, but buys the meat from other butchers, processes it and sells it to supermarkets, restaurants and hotels. He has engaged a companion and has employed many helpers from other castes. His business is described in Box 4.1 (see plate 4-7). There are others running a butcher business in a similar way, but they are not from the Khadgi caste.

The typical butcher runs a small scale family business that involves only a few people, depending on whether they engage in wholesale or retailing. The section below deals with how these family businesses are run.

4.2 The Butcher's Workday

The butchers run their businesses in a traditional and not very hygienic way, using simple tools and techniques. They slaughter the animal in the back yard, if they have one, in the open street or on the river bank. They start in the morning around four, and finish preparing the meat after about two hours. The buffalo is finished off by a blow of a sledge to the back of the head. Big buffaloes are skinned, while small buffaloes often have their skin burnt with the help of a gas burner. Traditionally this skin was burnt by making up a fire of straw. The skin is stretched out on the ground, upon which the buffalo is parted by simple tools; small knives and axes. The butchers work quickly and with an amazing technique. Intestines are cleaned in water and the contents of the stomach are stored in a pile in a corner of the yard. The pile is collected once a week, and it is full of maggots that make their way around the butcher place. The buffaloes are often kept in the same court as the slaughtering takes place, or in a rented place not too far away.

At around six or seven a.m. the meat is brought to the place where it is sold, which is either a permanent shop, a small wagon, or simply a street corner. If the shop is at some distance, the meat is loaded onto blood dripping carriages or into bicycle baskets, and transported to the shop. The butchers who do not perform the slaughter themselves, come either to the slaughtering place or the shop to buy pieces of meat at a wholesale price.

In the shop the meat is arranged, inner parts and muscles together. The best time for selling meat is in the morning, when the meat is fresh. Particularly in the hot season, the colour and quality of the meat changes quickly, and the smell can become quite intense. Refrigerators are not used in ordinary meat shops. Some but very few have a freezer where they can store the meat until the next day, in case it is not sold out. This however, is not a great advantage, since the customers want fresh meat. Meat that has been frozen is more difficult to sell. Some butchers stay in the shop until all the meat is sold out, others close the shop around noon, and reopen in the afternoon. The shop is given a quick wash and the butchers return to feed the animals, clean the yard, sharpen knives and prepare for the next day's work. Very often several families and households co-operate in the slaughtering. If helpers are employed they are put to the physically demanding and the "dirty" work, and they are usually not allowed to handle money.

4.3 Adjusting and Modernising

While some Khadgis have very profitable businesses, others struggle and have to face periodical loss. Slaughtering for wholesale gives perhaps the best opportunity to make a good profit. Khadgis working as a retailers have perhaps the least chance of making a profit and few opportunities to affect the outcome. Profit depends on how much meat they are able to sell, the prices of the animals and meat, the cost of transportation, and on the butcher's ability to make necessary arrangements to maximise profit. To maximise profit, the butchers can make use of bi-products such as bones (sold to be used as fertiliser and buttons), skin (leather industry) and fat (which they melt and sell to the soap industry). The dirt and contents of the stomach is collected and used as fertiliser. Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi, saw a business opportunity in the use of by-products. Several years ago he started a bone mill. This is now a large enterprise, with many employees, and with a large revenue.

Although the work of the butcher is run basically in the same way as it has for generations, some new technology has entered the profession. Some Khadgis have managed to invest in electrical meat grinders, kerosene lamps (instead of straw) for burning the skin off the small buffaloes, in motorised vehicles for transportation of people and goods, and a few have invested in a freezer. Because of the Nepalese food habits, the butchers have not felt the need or pressure to modernise their businesses. Only one or two Khadgis have modernised their businesses, and by doing so they have adjusted to the demand of meat from the growing number of foreigners and people with different food habits. Only one of my informants, Mr. Dayananda Khadgi, is presently running a modernised meat business employing new technology. His business is described in box 4.1.

Plate 4-1 -  4-7:
Plate 4-1 Mr Tirtha Khadgi is cleaning the inner parts
Plate 4-2 Parting the buffalo
Plate 4-3 The meat is transported in bicycle baskets
Plate 4-4 The Chetri and Tamang helpers
Plate 4-5 In the meat shop
Plate 4-6 Prem in his shop
Together with the Tamang helper and his sister's husband
Plate 4-7 The workshop at Vishnumati cold store

Box 4.1 Vishnumati Cold Store

4.4 Practical Problems

The butchers' experience with the meat business varies between and within the four different categories of butchers, but some problems are experienced by all categories of butchers: wholesale dealers, retailers, helpers and processors. Some are of the opinion that slaughtering is a relatively hard and demanding work. Others find it a relatively easy way of making a living. Retailers often find the work not too demanding, but as mentioned, do not generally have a large outcome. Those butchers who sell the meat from goat or chicken, keep the live animals at the store and slaughter according to the day's demand. In this way they usually do not get stuck with leftovers. However, they complain about marginal profits, and even loss. Butchers in the first category have a better chance of making a profit, but may have a more physically demanding work that entails difficult working hours. If, however, they employ helpers, the physically demanding task often falls to the helpers, but the helpers do not have to risk the loss. There is sometimes a problem with unreliable business partners and with people who buy on credit. According to one of my informants, the helpers do not represent a stable workforce and work only one year on the average. His wife commented: "As soon as they become fat they leave".

It is common to hear Khadgi butchers complain about the increased competition, not only from among the Khadgis, but from other castes and groups entering the profession. Some meat shops, selling both buffalo and other varieties of meat, are run by people from the sweeper caste, and there are several higher caste people having chicken shops. Khadgis have told me about several meat shops that are run by high caste people. When asking, I have been told that very high caste people hesitate to get involved in handling the meat themselves, but try to employ helpers. Personally, I have only met one high caste person in the business, the companion of Dayananda Khadgi (see Box 4.1).

According to many of my informants it is a big problem that the Muslims have started engaging in the butcher business, selling meat according to "Halal". Mr. Purna Khadgi, a butcher with a wholesale business, expressed his view in this way (Purna, Shamsher and myself):

The Khadgis blame many of the changes on the Muslim engagement in the business. They used to be able to sell all the different parts of the animal in one mix, but as the Muslims started to sell inner parts and better parts separately at varying prices and according to the customers' wish, the customer demands and expectations have changed. According to my informants, the Muslims were are able to sell the meat at a cheaper price.

I have not found evidence to support Khadgi fear of the Muslims entering the profession. I have been to the area where the Muslims allegedly dominate the meat selling activity. All the shops were covered with Muslim calendars and one could recognise Muslims working in the shops. I wanted to talk to some Muslim shop owners, but surprisingly, I found that all the shops, except one, were actually run by Khadgis. There was only one very small shop that was run by a Muslim. It had opened just recently, and was run by a Muslim who had employed no helpers. All the shops in the area were run by Khadgis who had hired Muslim staff to conduct the "Halal" slaughter. In this way the Khadgis were able to meet the demand for meat by Muslims. However, the high competition among butchers, both Khadgi and others, is unquestionable, and has led to a situation where it is difficult for the individual butchers to influence price formation.

One problem has to do with animal supply. First of all, Nepal is not self-supplied with buffaloes. Nearly all the buffaloes available in the Kathmandu Valley are imported from India. According to my informants, Nepal does not have a trade agreement with India on the import of buffaloes, and consequently, the buffaloes are available only through illegal import. This causes a lot of problems for the business. At the borders and checkpoints trucks with loads of buffaloes are often stopped and held, sometimes overnight. Allegedly many bribes are paid. Secondly, the road to Kathmandu is long, narrow and winded, and in poor condition. Numerous earth slides damage the roads. Traffic accidents are frequent due to road conditions, the vehicles and reckless driving. Third, the transportation is costly. To get value for money, as many as 20 buffaloes are stored into one truck. This puts an incredible stress on the animals. If the truck is delayed animals die. Finally, the supply of buffaloes to the Kathmandu Valley is monopolised. The buffalo are brought into the Kathmandu Valley through the south-west main gate road. The buffalo are collected in a field just off the ring road (see plate 4-8). This is where the butchers come to pick out animals and negotiate prices. The buffalo marketplace is controlled by an Indian who charges a fee of 500 RS for every buffalo that is delivered there.

Plate 4-8 The Buffalo market in Kathmandu

Mr. Purna Khadgi told me he disliked his work as a butcher, and informed me about some of the problems the butchers are facing:

According to law and custom no female animals should be killed. To prove that the butchers are not selling meat from female buffalo the genitals of the male buffalo are arranged on top of the meat. The butchers may be fined and for selling the meat of female buffalo. Still, female buffalo is available at the buffalo market in the Kathmandu Valley and the price is less then for male buffalo. Female buffalo is sold all the time, and although this is generally known, most people seem not to notice. An old butcher reports:

The practice of killing female buffalo has been going on for long. When the buffalo is not good for milk it is sold to us. One has to kill it secretly. If one kills it in the open one will be arrested. When they have to sell such meat it is mixed with the meat of the male buffalo, and with the male buffalo's sexual part. Because in the past the authorities (the police) came to check.

There was an article in the newspaper describing the problem, on the occasion of the Dashain (Nepal's largest festival). The article raises the problems of illegal buffalo import and bribing. The article is presented in Box 4.2.

Box 4.2 The Kathmandu Post

4.5 New Requirements Towards Hygiene

Some Khadgis complain about the government's lack of initiative to help out in different matters. Others are happy that the government is not interfering, as it would mean that the butchers would have to change their practice.

By the time of my fieldwork there were no hygiene requirements, and no regulations on the slaughtering and the sale of meat. Some butchers, complaining about the government's lack of initiative, feel that the responsibility for the lack of hygienic and healthy practice in the business rests at least partly with the government. The secretary of the NKSC, Mr. Bidyah Bahadur Khadgi, expresses his view on this:

In my point of view one should provide the very healthy and hygienic meat to the customers. We have still not been able to do so and this is the reason why we are hated in the society, and people have a negative attitude towards us. But the Khadgis are not the only cause of this problem. If we got the healthy and good buffaloes we would definitely provide the healthy and good meat. But we are getting only the buffaloes that are already rejected in India. They are sending us the buffaloes that are not suitable either for meat or milk purposes, or for pulling carts, and the very old ones. Then how can we supply good meat? We do not get the good materials. The government is not able to import good buffaloes. I have strongly emphasised that the government should focus on buffalo production in our own country so we can be independent and self-supplied.

People in the vicinity are complaining about the smell, poor air quality, and all the waste from the slaughter places. Students in schools near the butcher areas complain that they have to sit and study in the unbearable smell. Many people are complaining to the local municipalities demanding that they take action.

The NKSC has, together with the government, tried to arrange a slaughter house where the butchers can come and do the slaughtering. It is difficult to arrange slaughter houses in the city, because land is expensive and difficult to come by. The secretary, Mr Bidyah Bahadur, told me about the problems involved (Bidyah, the President of the NKSC Mr. Indra Prasad, Shamsher and myself):

At the time of my fieldwork, the government presented a law proposal that poses hygienic requirements on the slaughtering and the selling of meat. On the completion of my fieldwork, on the 22^nd of march, 1999, the law was accepted. The law poses many demands both on the government follow-up, and on the butcher business.

According to the law, all butchers must have a licence. Slaughterhouses must be approved by the authorities. Animals must be examined before being slaughtered, then properly marked, and again the meat has to be examined by the authorities after the animal has been killed. Subsequently, the meat seller is not allowed to sell meat that hasn't been examined and properly marked. All slaughter has to take place in an approved slaughter house, or at a particular time and place prescribed by the authorities. The law also includes prohibitions against slaughtering and selling meat of unsuited animals (such as cow, ox and bull), meat of already dead animals, sick animals and meat with skin (except birds, hug, pig and so on). Breaking the law, the butcher will have to face fines varying from 5,000,- RS. to 20,000,- RS., and may risk from one to three months imprisonment.

These laws, if implemented efficiently, will have great consequences for the butchers. The imposing of new requirements may lead to an increased feeling of harassment, and to even more bribing of corrupt government officials. Just after the law was proposed, a newspaper article raised some issues concerning the butcher's situation such as unhygienic practices and the problem of implementing the law. The article also includes some statistics on the sale of meat. It is presented in Box 4.3, at the end of this chapter.

Summing up, the butchers' most commonly stated problems and critical factors are (1) increased competition among butchers (now also from people from other castes); (2) low price of meat; (3) location of shops; (4) increasingly demanding customers; (5) high cost of renting shop and place to keep animals; (6) high price and unstable availability of animals; (7) monopolisation of the buffalo import; (8) unfavourable work hours; (9) low price on bi-products as skin, bone and fertiliser; (10) unattractive work due to dirtiness and smell. The new requirements towards hygiene will probably present the butchers with new challenges and difficulties. However, in the long run, more hygienic practice will possibly make the profession more socially acceptable.

Although the butchers are facing many problems there are also some advantages with being a butcher. The butcher work and the increased demand for meat has provided many Khadgis with a steady source of income. Many emphasise the advantage of being self employed and not having to work for others. Commonly stated reasons for running a butcher business are: one is ones own master; not much investment is needed; it gives quick payback; it is not too demanding. These are all practical considerations that the Khadgis relate to when making occupational choices.

4.6 Butchers and Economic Capital

The butcher occupation has provided many Khadgis with a valuable source of income and a good economic starting point. Many of my informants have told me that the meat selling business is the main reason the Khadgis have become wealthy. The amount of economic capital among the Khadgis should, however, not be seen wholly as a result of success in the butcher business. Some have started out as butchers, but changed their occupation as they acquired enough money to invest in other lines of business, and others have run other businesses for generations. Many have become wealthy through engaging in other businesses, and there is some evidence that some of the Khadgis have been relatively wealthy for a long time. Many Khadgis owned land in the Kathmandu Valley, land whose value has increased considerably.

According to the old caste laws, the king could confiscate Khadgi wealth, but there is reason to believe that this was not done. An old, wealthy and highly respected Khadgi, Mr. Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi, told me how some Khadgis did not go down in economic standards even during the most difficult period when caste rules were followed strictly. Sidhdi Bahadur is involved in politics, and has even acted as an advisor of the King (Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi, his two daughters Shashi and Karuna, his son Kiran, Shamsher and myself):

Their relatively high amount of economic capital is thus probably achieved partly through recent economic strategies and partly through inherited funds and the administration of funds.

Getting a complete overview of the economy of their various businesses, and the Khadgis' financial situation, turned out to be more difficult than I had foreseen. They do not have the habit of doing accounting. Furthermore, economy is considered strictly a family concern and is guarded by the most senior males. When I asked them to list all their expenses, I was only given spurious information, and I continuously found other revenues to include in the accounts. I was basically left to judge their financial situation through observing their possessions, daily expenditure and expenditure on ritual occasions.

The Khadgis live in good and solid houses, either traditional Newar style houses or new and modern ones. The new houses are armoured and have several stories. Some have built large apartment houses, and stay there with their large extended families, or let flats to others. In every Khadgi house I have been to, there are television sets, electrical fans and large metal closets where all the family valuables are kept under lock and key. Quite a few Khadgis have motorbikes and a few even have private cars, something that is not common in Nepal. Some Khadgis are taxi or rickshaw owners and have several vehicles. They generally dress well, the young ones in western style clothing such as sneakers, jeans and branded T-shirts, older men in traditional suits, and the women in colourful saris and Punjabis. The Khadgis proudly hold that people from their caste are not found in socially marginal groups such as beggars, prostitutes, street children, and criminals.

The Khadgis seem well off according to Nepalese standards. The Khadgi priest, who serves almost all the Khadgis has a good overview of how they live, told me the Khadgis can be described economically as upper middle class, and only 10 to 15 % are poor. As I showed in chapter two, the Newars score very high in HDI, and the average Khadgi seems not to be below the average Newar. The estimate of the Khadgi relative wealth is not based on economic data, but a general impression. I shall move on to see how the relative wealth of the Khadgis has been accompanied by other changes. According to Bourdieu's theory, capital has cumulative effects, as a high level of capital in one field leads to the achievement of capital in other fields. There is, however, a complex relation between the different forms of capital. One type of capital might not be easily converted into another form. Even if the Khadgis have economic capital, this does not necessarily entail the acquisition of other forms of capital, including symbolic capital. There are certain conversion barriers, e.g. caste identity. Conversion barriers are different from one caste to another. Brahmins do not have the same problems as low castes. I have already shown that the average Khadgi does not use economic capital to gain upwards social mobility by moving to expensive and fashionable areas. The conversion of capital is complex and intricate, influenced by many factors, and one-to-one relations between the different forms of capital do not exist.

Throughout the following chapters I shall try to show what the economic capital does for the Khadgis, whether or not it may be converted into other forms of capital, and, if other forms of capital are gained, whether the Khadgis have become more accepted in society at large, whether it opens up new opportunities for them, and whether or not they are acknowledged to possess symbolic capital.

Box 4.3 Kantipur

Chapter 5: Occupational Distribution, Choices and Opportunities

One of the caste-prescribed, and even law-regulated, duties of the Khadgis, was to be a butcher. According to the Bhasa Vamsavali account "Sthiti Malla established it that there should be punishment if a caste (jat) abandoned its own prescribed duties (karya) for those of another." (Gellner 1995:267). This law is now repealed and the Khadgis are in theory free to choose whatever occupation they like.

The first part of this chapter seeks to uncover the occupational distribution of the Khadgis, and to what extent the distribution corresponds to the division of labour according to caste rules. I shall show what types of work the Khadgis have, and the sectors in which they work. Throughout the rest of the chapter I shall discuss some of the factors that affect and determine the occupational choices of the Khadgis.

Changes in occupational distribution can provide us with a lot of information on changes occurring in a society, such as changing levels of specialisation and complexity, new criteria in the underlying principle of division of labour, and in our case, changing attitudes towards caste, both among the Khadgis and in the society as a whole. The study of the occupational opportunities and choices of the Khadgis might tell us something about changes that are taking place throughout the Kathmandu Valley, as well as other places.

I am analysing the occupational situation mainly through the experiences and the eyes of the Khadgis (and the anthropologist's and the reader's) the scenario will tell us something about "the others" and their construction of social reality, as well as the Khadgis'. Through the "scenario", where the Khadgis meet "the others" in search for jobs, attitudes, opportunities and differences are displayed.

5.1 Occupational Distribution

The fact that the Khadgis live fairly concentrated in their traditional areas at the edge of the old city (80%), made it easy to get an overview of how many families were engaged in butcher activities. I have gone through all the Khadgi settlement areas in the old city area of Patan (se map 2.), and recorded how many families or households were engaged in butcher activities. These figures are presented in Box 5.1.

A note has to be made on the distinction between family and household. Usually several generations, and many individuals, live in the same house. They might cook separately and have relatively separate private economies. However, they usually share a kitchen and co-operate in many ways. In everyday language, my informants usually understood family/household to mean all related people living in the same house. In the voters list large families living in the same house were, in some cases, divided into several household units. These divisions, given in the voter's list, basically correspond to the information from my informants and my own observations.

Box 5.1 Numbers of households and meat shops

The figures in Box 5.1 show that out of 332 households only 92 of the families have meat shops. From this we can assume that 27.7 % of the Khadgi families in Patan engage in the meat selling. For the number of individuals the percentage will be even less. The Khadgis basically live as extended families. Based on data from the voters list, on the average a household consists of 4.7 members above 18. In a family of this size there are usually several income generating members. With a regular or small meat shop, such a number of adults are not required to run the meat shop, at least not full time. There will probably be other sources of income than the butcher business. In Nepal division of labour between the genders is extremely traditional. Women are engaged in household activities such as looking after the children, cooking the food and washing the clothes. The wives and daughters do not normally help in the slaughtering, but sometimes in the meat selling. Basically, the men try to manage it themselves. I have seen instances where widows run shops by themselves, or with the help of their children.

Through interviews and genealogical charts I have gathered information on what a large number of individuals do for a living. When mapping out their genealogies in genealogical charts, I have noted down the occupations of all of my informants and all their family members. The occupational distribution among the first ten families I got to know is presented schematically in Box 5.2. The overview gives an indication of the Khadgi occupational typology. The ten families may belong among the top economic strata of the Khadgis, but I believe, when it comes to occupational distribution, the data in Box 5.2 can be considered representative. Data gathered later in the fieldwork would not be representative, as I chose informants on the basis of their special career choices.

Box 5.2 Occupational Distribution

As we can see from Box 5.2, the majority of people work as traders of some kind. Businesses vary in size and scale, from the selling of small quantities of goods in the street or market, to the managing of small and big shops. Only a handful have larger enterprises with several employees. Some of the traders are employed by others, but most of them, as can be seen from the last column, are self-employed. Many Khadgis work as drivers, and some are taxi and rickshaw owners. Most of the Khadgis are engaging in investment based occupations, 113 out of 142 individuals are self-employed. In some few cases they also work for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and in a very few cases the Khadgis work with the government. Some Khadgis have told me that 90 % of government posts are occupied by Brahmans, others estimate at least 50 %.

Sthiti Malla is believed to have regulated the occupations of the different castes by law, but it is difficult to say how strictly the law was carried out. It is also difficult to say how many of the Khadgis have been involved in the butcher work at different times. There is reason to believe that some Khadgis have engaged in other lines of work for generations. According to one of my very old informants, most of the Khadgis were landowners from the beginning and had other jobs than butchering.

We all were farmers more or less. And everyone had buffaloes in their house, and we used to sell milk. But those who were not able to keep buffaloes had to carry bricks and do labour work. As far as I know everyone had land. We were also selling fruit from the beginning.

From my data it is evident that the Khadgis engage in many types of business. Surprisingly few work as butchers, given the close association between group and occupation. The butcher occupation is still, however, the largest single occupational choice among the Khadgis, and it is still the basis for occupational and stereotype associations. The occupational distribution among the Khadgis does not correspond to the caste ideal or the caste-prescribed division of labour. It is clear that the Khadgis now occupy a higher occupational status than they used to, and are mainly engaging in private businesses of various types.

5.2 The Khadgis' Attitude Towards the Butcher Occupation

The last chapter dealt with the butchers experience of the butcher occupation. Running a butcher business might in many ways may be advantageous, but there are also many factors contributing to dissatisfaction. Comparing the butcher occupation to others available, I shall first refer to one of my informants, Mr Purna Khadgi. He is working as a wholesale butcher. He had for a period left the work to engage in other activities. By the time he got married he had a bicycle repair shop. Later he started to work as a driver for a dairy business run by a Khadgi. However, he returned to the meat selling business after some time. The following passage from the interview with Purna and his wife illustrates the satisfaction they feel running their own business. The interview also includes comments on some of the problems mentioned in the last chapter, such as the increased competition from other castes, and the issue of incompatibility of ritual purity of people and activities (Purna, his wife, Shamsher and me):

Purna emphasises the advantage of being self-employed and independent. However, he told us he disliked the job, and that he did not want his children to continue in it. The children themselves find the butcher occupation dirty and smelly:

The negative social attitudes towards the butchers and the slaughtering activities in Kathmandu are evident. The negative stereotypes cling to the group, as they are associated with a regarded a polluting activity. The Khadgis also to some extent see the butcher occupation as a low status occupation and a defiling activity. Most Khadgis give the impression that they would be happy to leave the butcher business if they had better alternatives. The negative attitudes are important for understanding their occupational choices. These are, however, sensitive issues, and not all are willing to talk about them. One Khadgi who had become a very successful businessman was not willing to admit that he had been working as a butcher. Others are more open about the butcher occupation and its low status and feel that the Khadgis should leave the butcher occupation altogether to raise the social status of the caste. Dayananda, the owner of Vishnumati Cold Store, expressed his view on this (Dayananda, Shamsher and myself):

Some Khadgis do not attribute their raised status to the economic success in the butcher business, but to the fact that they have succeeded in getting other jobs. Mr Subha Ratna Khadgi runs a Thanka store in the tourist area of Kathmandu (Thanka is a special Buddhist painting). He is a member of the executive committee of the NKSC. He reports that both the improved social position of the Khadgis and the occupational changes have taken place only within the last 15 years. (Mr Subha Ratna Khadgi, Shamsher and myself, the interview was conducted in English).

Because of the low social status that accompanies the butcher occupation many Khadgis want to leave the profession, even if it can be a good source of income. Leaving the butcher occupation may be seen as a strategy for upwards social mobility, avoiding the social stigma attached to the butcher occupation. Another strategy initiated both by the NKSC, and individuals involved in the butcher business, is to focus more on making the butcher practice more clean and hygienic. I will return to the importance of having a "clean" appearance later.

In spite of the negative attitudes towards the butcher occupation both among Khadgis and others, there are still many that work as butchers, and who do not seem particularly bothered by the fact that many regard it as a defiling and polluting activity. With the large problems of unemployment and underemployment in Nepal, the butcher occupation may seem as an easily available occupational opportunity for the Khadgis. The butcher occupation is usually inherited. Children learn the skills by helping their relatives. It is a business most of them are acquainted with and they already know others who are engaged in it. The occupational choices and strategies depend on how opportunities are experienced, and the butcher occupation is often seen as the only choice available.

5.3. New Attitudes Towards Education

The negative attitude towards the butcher occupation both within and outside the Khadgi caste, make the Khadgis ease the pressure on their children to take over the family business. Instead, many encourage their children to seek education so that they can have other lines of work. Education is highly valued by all, not only the Khadgis.

Among the generations of adults and old people I met very few who had any formal education. Many were illiterate and had not completed primary school. Mr Govindra Khadgi told me about the possibilities of getting education in the past:

In the period of the 1970's we, the Khadgis, did not have any opportunity to study. We were not allowed to make any meetings to discuss about our caste. Khadgis were separated and thrown away among other castes because of water and untouchability matters. If we wanted to study we were not allowed to stay together with colleagues. We had to stay separate, far away from other colleagues. People don't accept the water from us. We are considered a low and untouchable caste.

Mr. Subha Ratna Khadgi got his education many years ago. At that time it was very unusual for Khadgis to have education. He told me how he experienced discrimination then and how this has changed now that his children are going to school (Mr. Subha Ratna Khadgi, Shamsher and myself):

Today the Khadgis and other low castes are admitted to both private and public schools and to universities. They have even started several private schools themselves. Khadgi children in average continue their schooling for many more years than before. Education is increasingly valued highly and Khadgis want their children to have more education than they had growing up. According to Sidhdi Bahadur "Everyone has developed the concept of getting as much education as they can". Very few Khadgis have higher education, but the trend is clearly changing. So far, according to the NKSC, 33 Khadgis have passed bachelor level, 8-10 have completed a masters degree, and one has completed a Ph.D. There are about 77-78 Khadgi students at the university. The NKSC encourages Khadgis to have an education by honouring students who have passed the SLC level.

Education is a question of economic possibilities. It is a widely shared opinion that governmental schools are of poor quality. Many try hard to afford private schools with a better reputation. After primary school many young Khadgis now go on to college. Some wealthy Khadgis even send their children to universities and colleges abroad, like e.g. in Australia, the U.S.A. and England. Because of their improved financial situation Khadgis are able to enter good schools. Many Khadgis can afford giving their children an education that many high caste families can not afford. However, not all Khadgis can afford sending their children to either private or public schools. Some need the children's help for domestic tasks at home, and for running the family business.

Education is generally valued highly and can be seen as acknowledged cultural capital. The Khadgis can no longer be excluded from educational arenas on the grounds of caste identity, and their financial situation has opened new possibilities in education. The economic capital is being converted into cultural capital. However, as we shall see, the Khadgis still have to face other barriers on the labour market. Their cultural capital is not automatically acknowledged.

5.4 Education and Job Opportunities

A motivating force for education would be social recognition and to increase the job opportunities. Education is a means of getting a better job, but not a guarantee. Khadgis' experience their job opportunities very differently, and their trust in education varies. In the sequence below, Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi and his son Kiran express their views on how education may or may not increase job opportunities (Sidhdi, Kiran, Shamsher and myself);

Some experience that for a Khadgi job barriers are almost impossible to overcome. Some doubt that taking education has any use as they would still not get better jobs. This is the view of old Kanchha and his younger wife Meena:

Kanchha and his wife can not afford to keep their children in school, and they need the manpower to run the butcher business. They would send their children to school if they could afford it, but nevertheless have doubts as to what job they would get. Their attitudes towards education and opportunities are ambivalent, but may be dominated by their current financial situation.

Many educated Khadgis have difficulties getting employment with others. They feel discriminated and excluded because of their caste identity. It is a widely shared opinion that it is almost impossible for a Khadgi to get employed by the government at any level. In Box 5.3 I have presented an example of an educated Khadgi who has difficulties finding a job and feels discriminated when applying for jobs with the government.

Box 5.3 Education and the Experience of Opportunities

Most educated Khadgis are self-employed. This could be their own choice, but very often it is not. They have not been able to get jobs where they can make use of their education. One Khadgi has a Master in Business Administration, he is a principal and runs a private school. One has a B.A., and is unemployed. One is a doctor of yoga and is running a private Yoga Institute. One has a diploma in law, but runs a Thanka store, together with his Khadgi friend, who has a Bachelor in History. One of the Thanka store owners told me how he experienced the difficulties:

I finished my education, and my brother too, at the university 15 years ago. We tried to find a job many places, but we did not get it because we had no man… protection ("apnhu manchhe"), no one to support us by any means.

Many Khadgis feel their opportunities are strongly limited, even after getting education, and at this point in time I believe their fear is accurate. The following statement put forward by Govindra illustrates some of the points I am raising here. He comments on how even the President of the NKSC would be excluded and discriminated against if he had been involved in the meat business. Because of the barriers they encounter on the labour market, they are somehow forced to follow the butcher occupation:

The meat business is going to change because the present generation, who are educated do not want to involve in the meat business. Indra Prasad himself [the president of NKSC] might be refused if he had been involved in the meat business. But the educated manpower does not get the other jobs, so somehow they are forced to stay with the meat business. They don't get the official work, and the parents don't give them money or financial support to run any industry. In this way they are compelled to follow the same occupation.

Govindra also claims that the possibilities of the Khadgis are limited, because they do not know how to go about getting other jobs:

Normally we are weak in economic status so somehow we have to run this meat work. But somebody has already started other businesses and industries, who have progressed in economic status. But most of them still work with meat. We need someone to instruct and advise us how to choose better jobs but we do not have such persons. And we Khadgis are not much interested in getting involved in industrial sectors. And we still haven't united.

There are some examples of educated Khadgis who have managed to overcome the barriers, and to get employment in high status jobs. Some Khadgis have succeeded in getting employed in foreign companies and aid agencies. A few have also been employed by the government. One is a medical doctor and works at a renowned hospital. One is engineer and works in the government road division. Some work in public offices and in private companies. Some are teachers, and there are at least three principals. I will return to these cases when discussing successful occupational strategies.

5.5 Women, Education and Job Opportunities

Because of the rigid division of labour between the genders, the children are socialised into different roles. Girls have to help the women in the house, carrying water, firewood, cleaning, cooking and looking after other small children in the household. Boys are given plenty of time to play, and they do not have many duties. Because of the practice of patrilineality and virilocality, boys are needed to ensure the renewal of the patriline, and to take care of their parents when they grow old. Sons usually stay in the household, and therefore represent the workforce, the income generators, and they constitute the potential for recruiting more members to the extended family. Daughters move to their family in law as soon as they are married. There has been, and still is to some extent a strong pressure to have boys. Boys are given priority in many other situations, also in educational opportunities. If the family can not afford to give all their children education, the boy is normally given priority.

Although girls now are given more years of schooling than before, there are not that many women with higher education among the Khadgis. This might be the women's own choice, and a result of the lack of support and encouragement by their family and others. Women should marry and have children. I have met three educated Khadgi women who had regular jobs. They were above 40 and unmarried. They had younger sisters who had not been educated, but had married and had children.

There are several reasons, I believe, that the educated women have not married. First, according to the norms of isogamy, couples should be matched according to economic positions, social position and individual preferences. From the Khadgi caste there are not many men with a level of education and social standing to match these women, and consequently not many potential spouses. Secondly, I believe that the strong focus on family and having children, make the men, educated or not, hesitate to choose women with education who want to work outside the home. Thirdly, according to their dharma women are supposed to be obedient, self-sacrificing and submissive towards their husbands (Bennet 1983). Men may be reluctant to marry women that are self-assertive, and who represent a threat to the men's position as heads of families.

The situation for women is likely to change, as it is getting more common, for girls and boys, to acquire both a primary and a secondary education, but the women face even more barriers than men in educational and occupational matters. They are certainly in a less favourable position to acquire symbolic capital.

5.6 Jobs and Discrimination

The Khadgis experience difficulties getting employment. Many people hesitate to mix with the Khadgis, and therefore also hesitate to employ them. Practical difficulties and conflicts may arise when having people from high and low castes working together. If all the employees, and the boss, have a very relaxed attitude towards caste, it can work. If not, there may be problems with social intercourse, for instance at social events some may feel offended by the Khadgi presence and stay away or leave, or the Khadgi might not be invited.

When being employed by others the Khadgis may have to face harassment both from their boss and from colleagues. Khadgis often feel that they are not given the same opportunities and treatment as people from other castes. One of my informants, was employed in the university administration. He felt discriminated because of his caste identity. He had not got the promotion he felt he deserved through his long time employment. He felt he was not given more than the most basic promotions, and that he was bypassed by less qualified but higher caste colleagues (The informant, Shamsher and myself. Parts of the interview was conducted in English):

I had joined the office as a non-graduate second class officer and I was promoted only after 10 years. I did not get promoted like the others even though I was more qualified than them. I got one more compulsory promotion, and not any other promotion, even if I am fit for the upper post. I was rejected because I belong to the Khadgi caste. So myself, I am a victim.

An other Khadgi working as a senior officer in government, in the district, told me his colleagues did not know he was Khadgi. He used another name, and because of that name they could not tell he was from the Khadgi caste (Names will be discussed in section 8.3). If they had known he was Khadgi they would not take him seriously as a boss, he told me. His caste rank did not allow him to treat them as subordinates.

Being promoted, or holding a high position, the Khadgis might raise their social position, but there is still no guarantee they will be treated with respect. Some Khadgis, however, report that if they have a powerful enough position others won't dare to harass them. Mr. Sundar Lal Khadgi is the owner of a large scale dairy business, and has many employees from many castes. I was curious to know how he experienced the relation with the high caste staff, and if he ever felt any inconvenience or discrimination because of his caste. He replied: "How can they do that? I am their boss!!"

The Khadgis prefer and choose to be self-employed, and most of them are. Then they do not run the same risk of being discriminated against. The same holds for Khadgis working for foreigners, or in sectors such as the tourism.

There are Khadgis who report never having felt discriminated against because of caste. If the Khadgis work as butchers, "stay in their place", "respect other's rank", "not get familiar", and mix with people from their own caste, they might avoid discrimination. The more they socialise with people outside their own caste, and particularly with people who have a conservative attitude towards caste interaction and caste rules, the more chance of experiencing harassment. Besides, the more they are associated with, and fit the stereotype picture of butchers, when socialising with others, the more of a chance of suffering discrimination.

5.7 Opportunities and Capital

Occupational choices and recruitment to jobs is guarded by and determined by many and complex factors. It is impossible to account for all factors involved in all the Khadgis' individual choices and careers, because there is variation both in how the Khadgis experience their opportunities and what opportunities they see, as well as in other people's attitudes towards the Khadgis and towards inter-caste interaction. Some feel they have the same possibilities as others, some feel their opportunities are very limited because of caste discrimination. Most Khadgis feel being "modern", "developed", "educated" and "clean" is a precondition for employment, but no guarantee, and that they will still be discriminated against. I have been given numerous examples of this. A few report that this does not happen; "If one is qualified enough one will surely get the job". One "educated" and "developed" Khadgi even suggested that it might be an advantage to be from a low caste. There are also differences in the Khadgis assets and the levels of capital that can be activated in the search for jobs.

Even though the Khadgis' choices and opportunities vary considerably, some factors may be generalised. Many Khadgis experience or fear caste discrimination on the labour market. "Being Khadgi is a minus" Kiran stated. The fact that most of the Khadgis who have had successful careers have managed on their own, by creating their own opportunities through entrepreneur businesses, serve as evidence that they face many barriers. The Khadgis' occupational choices and opportunities are limited by their own, and others', perception of opportunities. Many Khadgis have emphasised that a weakness of the group is that the Khadgis themselves act depressed. Being low caste can be seen as a negative asset, and a capital with negative impact.

The Khadgis' opportunities are not only affected by attitudes, but also by the individual Khadgis' situation, the amount of capital and assets he/she possesses, such as financial situation, individual personality, skills, education, capability, and contacts. The more economic, cultural and social capital as defined by the "nobiles" the individual possesses, the better opportunities when addressing the labour market.

Low castes are not associated with acknowledged capital, and the more "low caste" attributes the Khadgis display, and the more they may be associated with the stereotype picture of low caste and butchers, the more difficult it would be to get employment.

When talking about appearance and personal characteristics, the Khadgis, and others, often use the terms "backward" and "uneducated" to describe someone negatively, and "modern", "developed" and "educated" to describe someone positively. The Khadgis characterise people who are poor, uneducated, without awareness of being cleanliness and propriety, as backward people. They would say that the more "backward" the person is, the more difficult it is to get employment. Some hold that the "main thing is to be clean". The more "developed" the Khadgis are, the better opportunities they have. The more educated, clean, well dressed, and polite the person is, the better are the chances for getting white collar jobs, and the more prominent the hesitation to take low status jobs.

Traditionally, only the King had the power to neutralise the negative effect of caste capital. By gaining high levels of other capital the negative impact of caste capital can be downplayed, and perhaps also overridden. It seems the Khadgis have to mobilise even more economic, social and cultural capital than people of higher castes to compete at the same level, if at this point in time, it is at all possible. The attempts to escape the social stigma of caste, and the butcher occupation, confirms the hierarchical construction of social reality, where the butcher occupation and what it is associated with is of low social value. There are several examples of Khadgis who have achieved occupational merits and social acceptance by hiding their caste identity.

As I mentioned in the last section there are Khadgis who have managed to get high ranked and respected occupational positions. They have a high amount of acknowledged capital through which they have gained social acceptance. They have gained enough acknowledged social, cultural, economic and symbolic capital to manage to play down the role of caste identity, or to diminish its importance. Their strategies for getting recognition and capital, and to overcome the barriers and the negative effects of low caste rank, are not all easy to account for.

For the Khadgis, economic capital seems to be an important factor in determining and expanding occupational opportunities. But the conversion of capital is not a one-to-one exchange: You do not get a certain amount of cultural and social capital for a certain sum of money. However, the economic capital represents an asset for gaining other forms of capital. It opens for other occupations. Economic capital may be converted into cultural capital in the form of education, something that is generally highly valued. Through education they may develop skills that can be used as assets for entering other sectors.

Even with high levels of both cultural and economic capital the Khadgis face barriers on the labour market. It is also critical to have social capital. Some have remarked that Khadgis have more difficulties getting jobs than higher castes because they are not well connected. This is a distinctive feature in Nepal. One has to have the right contacts (aphnu manchhe, lit.: one's own people). Contacts with other people may be established in school and in other businesses. Social capital is gained by establishing relations with high levels of symbolic capital. As more Khadgis engage in many fields they establish contacts, and act as contacts to other Khadgis, thus adding to the strategic social networks and the social capital. On the other hand, many Khadgis in important positions say that they do not want to follow this "corrupt" practice, and that they will not give posts and benefits to Khadgis if they are not qualified and can not compete with others.

Most Khadgis feel that their opportunities have become considerably better, as their caste has become more "developed", as changes in society are taking place, and attitudes towards caste is changing. The university employee referred to above, stresses the importance of having economic capital (this part of the interview was conducted in English):

In this way the cumulative effects of capital may be seen to have a spiralling effect on the occupational opportunities of the Khadgis. As the Khadgis see themselves as advancing in society, above their position as assigned by caste rank, they wish to avoid taking low caste, low status jobs. "Developed" or "educated" Khadgis do not find the butcher occupation suitable for their position in the social space.

The government is working with a proposal of positive discrimination of low castes to increase their chances of employment. I have discussed this proposal with the Khadgis and asked if they think that they should be included in the group. Most Khadgis do not want the Khadgis to be included, stating that they are not as low as the other castes included in the programme. Although they feel discriminated they feel better off than other low castes and do not want to be associated with them.

As we saw in the last section, there are Khadgis who have succeeded in getting high status jobs. They seem to have overridden the negative effect of their caste capital. Those few cases, where Khadgis have been employed into high status jobs, show that the barriers in some cases may be overcome. They are examples where the Khadgis are "educated", "clean", "developed", "adjusted in society" and have developed some special skills that are highly valued. The cases where Khadgis have got high status occupations are successful attempts at upwards social mobility.

Chapter 6: Service Provider or Self-Employed

A fundamental aspect of the Newar society was the high level of specialisation. Each group had certain prescribed duties, occupations and specialised tasks they should perform. The Khadgi caste was associated with several duties and specialities in addition to being butchers. They were seen as service-providers for other castes. Hiroshi Ishi has studied the specialisation and exchange of services among Newars in a Newar village in Nepal. He has systemised the information and presented it schematically (Ishi 1995: 116). The list that Ishi provides is given in Box 6.1, along with my additional findings (no. 8-10). In addition to listing the services, Box 6.1 also shows who were the receivers of the various services.

Box 6.1 Traditional duties of the Khadgis

I have used Ishi's scheme as background material when gathering data. I have discussed the duties with my informants, how the duties were carried out in the past, and how they are carried out today. The knowledge Khadgis have on these matters varies enormously. Old people could tell me a lot about them, whereas young people had generally less, or no, knowledge of them. Some of the caste specific "duties" or services are still being carried out, but as with the butcher work, on a different scale, and effected by various processes of change. Some of the traditional duties and tasks seemed to be disappearing and I had a hard time tracing people who where still carrying them out. This chapter seeks to show how the duties are carried out today. I will also discuss why the practice has changed, and why many of the tasks have disappeared.

6.1 Traditional Duties and Services

The Khadgis' duties as service providers included many tasks. The main duties of the Khadgis are often considered to be butchering and providing music for the funeral processions. The All-Nepal Caste Hierarchy of the 1854 Law Code (Box 2.7) lists milk selling to be a caste specific duty of the Khadgis. The listing of such tasks as traditions will always be questionable, and will depend on how they are perceived, how they are remembered, what periods one refers to, and to what extent they have been carried out at different times. It has been quite difficult to get a picture of what duties were carried out in the past, as all remember them differently and there is much disagreement. Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi and his daughters comment on the traditional duties of the Khadgis below. Some of the services listed in Box 6.1 are mentioned (Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi, Karuna Khadgi (daughter1) and Shashi Khadgi(daughter2), Shamsher and myself):

Others denied that the Khadgis had performing nail cutting and naval cutting for other castes. Mr. Boudha Ratna Khadgi is an advisor of the NKSC. He has a Master of Business and Administration, and is running a primary school in Kathmandu. He expresses a different view of what the Khadgis' traditions should be considered to be:

When Boudha Ratna was a boy his family kept buffalo and sold the milk. Some hold that the Khadgis traditionally were farmers, buffalo keepers, and milk sellers, and that these were their duties. Others hold that it has never been a caste specific duty of the Khadgis to be milk sellers, because they are ranked low and are to be considered polluted. The sections below deal with the various tasks listed in Box 6.1 (The numbers in parenthesis refers to the numbers in Box 6.1).

6.2. To Supply Meat and Sacrifice Buffalo

The duties directly related to the butcher task, were the duties to supply meat (1) and to sacrifice buffalo in main festivals (2). During the numerous Newar festivals the Khadgis have been responsible for testing and sacrificing buffaloes and goats. They played an important role in the sacrifice at the Taleju temple, where animals were sacrificed to the Taleju Goddess. The main sacrifice of animals, however, happened during Dashain (Nepal's largest festival) and other important festivals. In such ceremonies the Khadgis were to wear their traditional frocks, belts, and hats (plate 6-1). Numerous buffalo were sacrificed and carved up in the name of different gods. Flowers and pieces of meat were distributed to the crowds. These pieces of meat were believed to be powerful remedies against ghosts and evil spirits residing in the houses. In return for all the duties the butcher leaders were provided with rice and occasionally some white cloth for the traditional dress.

Some butchers from the Khadgi caste still perform ritual slaughter in the annual sacrifice at the temple of Taleju. They used to be selected among the most honourable and respected men among the Khadgis, who also used to settle disputes and give advice to people. They were titled Nayo, which means respected leader. Today, according to my informants, the "Nayos" are recruited through acquaintances.

As we have seen in the previous chapter less than 28 % of the Khadgis work as butchers. The Khadgis who provide meat, do so on a regular basis, and not primarily during festivals and as animal sacrifice (at least not the Khadgis in the city). The butchering they conduct is basically an occupational activity and not a ritual sacrifice. It is hardly regarded as a duty, but as a way of making a living. Today, buffalo sacrifice at festival does not form an important part of the Khadgi tasks. As seen earlier, the business of butchering has been modernised only to a small extent. The traditional butcher task has been affected by processes of urbanisation, population growth, governmental politics, international trade agreements, market processes, and increased demands for meat.

Plate 6-1 - 6-3:
Plate 6-1 The Khadgis in their ceremonial dresses
The Prime Minister receives flowers
Plate 6-2 Ratna plays the Naykhibaja
Plate 6-3 The drummers
Aroj is sitting in the middle

6.3. Drummers

The Khadgis are known for their special drum, the Naykhibaja. The drum was used for several purposes and played an important role in many of the Khadgis' caste specific tasks and duties. It was used for ushering in festivals and funeral processions with music (3), when being messengers of the village (7), and for the annual worship at Taleju (9). The drumming tradition is in rapid decline, and it is difficult to find Khadgis who play the drum well. Fortunately I got to know a group of old men who played the drum on a regular basis (plate 6-2, 6-3). They provided me with a lot of information on how the drumming tradition had been carried out in the past, and how the tradition was carried out today. One of the old drummers told me of the drum's ritual significance:

There are several performances. Sometimes we have to play this drum during a whole month, during festival time. And the drum is necessary for the funeral processions. It is believed that when the god Indra hears this music he comes to see the dead body and opens the gate to heaven. The music helps the deliverance.

Dr. Gert-Matthias Wegner, a musicologist who has studied the Khadgis' drumming tradition in Bhaktapur, describes the drum and the music:

The Naykhibaja of the Newar butchers (Nay or Kasai) plays a prominent role during many town rituals of Bhaktapur. The repertoire always corresponds closely with the event and the location. The expressions range from mere signals to the extreme sadness of sibaja (death music) or to the rhythmic ecstasy of the and joyful indulgement of calti (a dance piece). The instruments are the naykhi, a two-headed drum of varying shape (barrel to cylindrical), played with a stick and a flat left hand, and the pair of sichyah-cymbals which are called kay by the Nay. Occasionally, for some prestigious death-procession, the number of players and instruments can be multiplied. Compared to the boisterous dhimaybaja and dhabaja of the Jyapu and other castes, Naykhibaja has a kind of subdued quality, which immediately identifies it during processions. (Wegner 1988:9)

The drum is made by members of the Kulu caste. According to Wegner the Naykhibaja is so closely associated with the butcher caste that it inevitably stigmatises the player as being from the butcher caste.

One drummer I met, Mr. Ratna Khadgi, at the age of 83, could remember the Khadgis playing the role as mediators and announcers: "I was a very young boy when I started to play that piece. It is called Naykhin Chwoyakegu. This piece was used in the Malla ruler's period." When there were important announcements to be made Khadgis were to play their drums to get people's attention. Now that newspapers, radio and television have taken over the role as news mediators this task has disappeared, and the Khadgis no longer play the role of messengers of the village (7).

The Naykhi drum is to some extent still played in funerals (3). The piece called sibaja is played only during the funeral procession and should not be played on any other occasion. The piece is thought to have strong spiritual powers and may seriously harm those who play or listen to it outside the ritual context. Wegner describes in his book on the Naykhibaja, how he was affected by these spiritual powers;

The day after the completion of my sibaja apprenticeship I fell seriously ill and was restored to health only twelve days later by some spiritual medicine (vibhuti) which counteracted the deadly spell within minutes. I decided to publish the material only after consulting with a spiritual guide who made me realise that it was not the music but the reputation of the piece, which had worked on my mind and led to physical destruction. (Wegner 1988:5)

Because of this, the music can be taught only during the funeral procession, or after taking a number of precautions;

The learning of sibaja requires a special setting: a lonely room, soundproof and inaccessible to any outsider. The reason for these precautions is the black magic which is said to work on those who listen to this piece outside its ritual context, i.e. the actual death procession. People may fall ill and die. Even those who teach this piece are risking their lives. No wonder Kajilal hates to teach sibaja. Whenever he is compelled to, either his own health suffered severely or he lost one of his close family members. (ibid:14)

Wegner reports that in Bhaktapur the sibaja music, with few exceptions, seems to be played exclusively in the butcher caste's funerals (ibid:14). In Patan this does not seem to be the case, at least not in the recent past. The sibaja-music also accompanies the death processions of castes ranked above the Khadgis in the caste hierarchy. According to the old drummers they serve all the castes ranked above themselves, mostly the Syo Syo (high caste Hindu Newars), but also Vajracharya (Buddhist priest caste) and Maharjan (farmer caste). The drummers serve certain areas of the city and should not be hired in someone else's territory. Long ago the drummers were not given good payment for their services, only about 18-20 Paisa (1Rs=100 Paisa), but now they are paid fairly well considering the time and nature of the work. There is no fixed payment, the customers pay according to their financial position. Some pay 200 RS., others as much as 500 RS. The old drummers I met, use the money they earn for the Holipuni Guthi. As it is getting increasingly difficult to find drummers, the drumming tradition is disappearing and the sound of the Naykhibaja is becoming rare not only in Bhaktapur, as Wegner reports, but in Patan and in Kathmandu as well.

The traditional duty of the drummers also included playing the drum at festivals (7). The old drummers told me how this practice also was disappearing (Mr. Ratna Khadgi, three other old drummers, Shamsher and me);

The Dapha music groups are no longer found in every locality in Patan. According to my informants the Khadgi drum is not supposed to be played in happy ceremonies (weddings etc.), but during important festivals such as Dashain. It seems the tradition of playing the Naykhibaja at festivals is also disappearing.

Another occasion for playing the drum, that perhaps today is the most common one, is at the Guthi celebration (for information on the Guthi organisations see section 7.3). Guthi celebrations are held once a year, and last for three days. This is an occasions where the participants can learn to play the drum (but not the Sibaja piece). Usually the oldest men in the Guthi play the drum, and the others chant along. Only the senior most male of the household are obliged to take part in the Guthi, and it seems there is a problem of recruiting. Many Khadgis are concerned about the disappearing traditions, including the drumming tradition. The old drummers were very worried about the recruitment of drummers, and Mr. Ratna has this to say about the problem:

There may be many reasons for the problem of recruiting Naykhibaja players. Wegner points to the stigmatisation of the Naykhibaja players as a chief reason:

The caste stigma surely is a chief reason for the Nay boys to refuse the learning of the Naykhibaja. I have been requested desperately by some to teach them to play dhimay or tabla instead, which would make them look and sound like upper-caste (1988: 9).

Another reason for the decline of the art form may be, as Wegner also remarks, the failing "funding plight of the Naykhibaja performances.":

Since the land reforms connected with the guthi samsthan act in the 1960s most of the land was lost, which until then had financed the groups. The centralised payment through the guthi samsthan often remains a theoretical one. So the sound of Naykhibaja is becoming rare in Bhaktapur." (1988:9-10)

Subha Ratna also holds payment as a reason why the Khadgis are not interested in playing the drum: "It should be preserved. It is of course difficult, because it is not a good source of income, so how can it be preserved? We think it should be preserved. It is one of the glories of our society." In Patan there does not exist a Guthi that provides funds or a centralised payment for the drum services.

The interest in the drumming tradition, however, is not completely dying out. There is an awareness among the Khadgis that the old drumming tradition should be preserved. Many of the Khadgis, not only the old drummers themselves, consider the drumming tradition important to their cultural heritage. They are concerned and worried that the tradition will disappear. Getting young Khadgi boys to realise this and spend time learning to play the drum, however, is difficult. Many young boys are interested in music, but instead of playing the traditional instruments they play electrical guitars and modern sets of drums. There is reason to believe that some initiative will be taken to make a teaching programme.

With the development of the media and modern communication technology such as radio, television and newspapers, playing the drum to gather people when announcements were to be made, has become unnecessary.

6.4. Women's Duties

All the tasks discussed up to now were considered men's duties. The Khadgi women were also ascribed certain duties of providing services for other castes, and also among their own caste. According to some it had been the Khadgi women's duty to perform purification by cutting nails (8), to cut the umbilical cord (5), and to put away polluted things at childbirth and at death (6). The old drummers had some knowledge on the women's duties;

Toenail cutting was to be done by specialists at both auspicious and inauspicious occasions (see Chapter 8, Box 8.3). The service of toe nail cutting is performed both for practical reasons, and for ritual purification of the feet. The nails are cut and the toes are painted red (see plate 6-6). The red paint is an auspicious sign, and should be applied as long as one's parents are still alive. According to my information the Khadgis' duty was to provide the service for their own caste and to all castes below Napit, while the Napits should provide the service among themselves and to all castes above their own.

Some people still go to see a specialist to have the services performed, but more and more people cut their nails themselves. Today there are not many Khadgi women who still perform this service. I was, however, able to find a woman who was still performing the tasks. She could tell me of only one other family still performing the service.

Plate 6-4 - 6-5:
Plate 6-4 Karuna is having her feet purified by the Ganga Devi
Plate 6-5 The toes are painted red

Mrs. Ganga Devi Khadgi was 58, and lived in a Khadgi area where, as she said: "all the local people are the brotherhood of my mother". Her grandmother and her mother had both performed the nail cutting service. When she was a girl she had often gone with her mother and watched her perform the service, but she had only taken up the job 6-7 years ago. This was to support the household economy, as her husband drank a lot and was unable to hold down a steady job. He had been working as a helper to other butchers, but as he got old and his health was poor, the job became too demanding. Ganga Devi was living in a joint household together with her two sons, daughters-in-law, one daughter and her grandchildren. Her husband had passed away nine months ago. Her daughter also knew how to do the service of toenail cutting, but she was busy selling fruit in a fruit shop. The oldest son was running a chicken shop, and the youngest a mutton shop, but they were both struggling to make a profit.

Although there were a lot of clients, she was not able to serve more than 6-7 households. The clients were, as she said; "…young pretty ladies, pretty women, men, and in fact all those people who are still following traditional customs and rules. The teenagers don't come to cut their nails. People are more and more cutting their nails themselves." The castes she provides service for are Napit, Newar blacksmiths, Tandukar, and Khadgi. The clients call her on a regular basis every 1- 1 ½ months for toenail cutting (inauspicious occasion). In addition to this she is called at different occasions, such as rituals and festivals (auspicious occasion) to perform both purification and other services. The occasions she mentioned were; the fourth day after childbirth, boy's head shaving ceremony, girl's fruit marriage ceremony (the Khadgis do not celebrate this ritual, but instead a ritual called Bahratayagu), marriage, old age ritual, and at death rituals at the 10^th, 12^th, 45^th day, after six months and annually for 10 years after a close relative's death (see section 8.3 for details on religious practice and ceremonies). The payment varies from 100-400 RS., depending on the capacity of the family. Sometimes she is also given some kilos of beaten rice. When serving a family of 8-10 persons she can for example be paid 4 kg of beaten rice and 100-200 RS. cash. Usually she is served tea, and because her clients "loved her so much" she is sometimes also served some food. Some clients, about 35 of them, also come to her house to have their nails cut, and usually pay 5-10 RS per person. Mrs. Ganga Devi believes that in the future people will purify their feet and cut the nails themselves, and that her services will be superfluous. She told me that this was also the case with the Napits' services. They were discontinuing their head-shaving services, as their clients have started to use the barber or do it themselves.

Mrs. Ganga Devi sometimes also acts as a midwife to her clients, cutting the umbilical cord and putting away polluted things at childbirth. These task are not performed often, as nearly all births are hospitalised. At birth, or after the mother returns from the hospital, she massages oil into the new-born baby's skin. She has to get breast milk from the mother and offer it. The work also includes preparing certain varieties of food and doing worship. Sometimes she works together with a midwife, and sometimes alone.

There used to be a Guthi land to govern this service, from which the performers could get some crops for their household (see chapter 7). Through land reforms most of the Guthi land has become private property. This is also the case with the Guthi land in the name of this service.

Many young Khadgis have no knowledge of this being a caste specific task performed by women in their community. Some Khadgis told me this had never been their caste specific duty, and that I had been misinformed. Several of my informants, particularly old people, knew about these tasks, but told me they were no longer performed. It is a widely shared opinion that only some poor Khadgis perform the service, and only if they were not able to find other means of support. Toenail cutting is generally not a highly valued and respected task.

As births to a great extent occur in hospitals, the ritual role of cutting the umbilical cord has almost completely disappeared. This makes the task of putting away polluted things at childbirth also superfluous. Because people have started to cut the nails themselves, as part of their personal hygiene, the service of toenail cutting is also disappearing.

6.5. Milk Selling

There is a lot of disagreement on whether milk selling has been, and should be, considered one of the Khadgi caste specific specialities. Many Khadgis I have talked to do not have any knowledge of the tradition of selling milk. Some of my informants have told me about how most Khadgis traditionally owned a piece of land, and how they used to keep buffalo and supply milk. Several of my informants remember having had buffalo and distributing the milk some decades ago. Mr. Boudha Ratna Khadgi told me his family had been milk sellers when he was a child:

We kept the buffalo, not for the meat, but for the milk. We did that business for a long time. It continued until my mother and father both passed away. The channel of distribution was very primitive. We did not have any connection with the dairy farms and such things. We used to distribute the milk from door to door and collect money from them after each month.

People do not agree whether milk selling activity should be considered a caste specific activity, both because it is uncertain how many Khadgis sold milk in the past, and because of arguments on the levels of purity and pollution. Milk and curd are associated with purity. They are both used as purifying substances. According to Løwdin, to give someone curd on ritual occasions is to say "I wish you purity" (Løwdin 1986:109). Many people of higher castes hesitate to accept milk from Khadgis. They fear that it might be adultered with water. This is even more intriguing to the Khadgis. Kanchha's wife Meena expressed her view on this:

Even though they hate us they must buy the meat from us. They should drink the milk we sell, but they try to hate us. What is the use of it? They don't mind drinking the milk but they reject to drink the water from the butchers. Don't they know the milk is adultered with water?

I have only found one family in Patan who still keep animals, goats, for the sake of the milk. Mr. Sundar Lal Khadgi, is running a modern dairy, collecting milk from people all over the Kathmandu Valley, and mass producing milk products (see Box 6.2). I have heard that he had problems selling milk in the beginning, because it was known that he was Khadgi. Several informants told me that as he changed the name of the dairy and the products, the business became a success. The dairy owner himself did not confirm this. He denied having problems because of caste, and did not want to discuss caste issues: "To me", he said, "there exist only two castes; male and female".

Box 6.2 Himalaya Dairy

The milk selling task is sometimes put forward by the Khadgis as a "proof" that they are not really untouchable. Commensal relations are often used as arguments for and against caste ranking. The Khadgis argue: "We have been distributing milk since the beginning of history, so how did we become untouchable?" According to the commensal taboos high castes may accept milk from unclean castes, but not from untouchable castes. Defining the Khadgis as untouchables, people from other castes claim that milk selling has never been a Khadgi caste specific duty. To others, the Khadgis are considered unclean but not untouchable. In practice they are not treated systematically as untouchable or unclean. I believe this is some of the reason why people do not agree whether milk selling can be considered a caste specific task of the Khadgis. Some of my informants told me about Khadgis having been held for cheating the customers by putting water in the milk. The Khadgis told them they had only been putting water in the milk, but milk in the water, and not pretended that it was milk.

Regarding milk selling, it is clear that urbanisation has made it difficult to keep animals, and to carry out the task of selling milk in a traditional way. The milk production and distribution has been modernised and is based on large scale dairy businesses. Milk selling can not be said to be a significant activity, particularly associated with the Khadgis.

6.6. Carrying the Bride at Weddings

The Newars had a tradition that the bride should be carried to a certain spot where she should be handed over to the groom's family. Only one of my very old informants, Mr. Ratna Bahadur Khadgi, could tell me that this task was performed when he was very young:

Other Khadgis could tell me that they have a tradition that the oldest brother should carry the bride in wedding processions, but that they did not perform this service or duty towards other castes. In one of the weddings I attended the bride was carried pony-back by her brother from the temple to the car that was waiting outside the courtyard. As modern transport is becoming available, the practice has become superfluous. It is not carried out as a service to other castes, but is carried out among the Khadgis themselves, as a mere symbolic act.

6.7 Service Providing and Capital

It is obvious that most of the Khadgi associated duties are disappearing. Some have completely disappeared, and others are vanishing quickly. Many factors have contributed to this. First, there is no longer a law that regulates the "duties" of the different castes, and the Khadgis can choose not to perform them. Secondly, modernisation within sectors such as technology, media, transport, and health care has made many of the duties and services redundant. Thirdly, I will propose that there has been a change in people's attitude towards religion. Many of the tasks were carried out, and found necessary for religious purposes. They were regarded as religious duties. Old Ratna found the drumming important because it summoned the gods, while many younger Khadgis find the drumming important to the cultural heritage. While most of the slaughtering in the past took the form of a sacrifice to the gods, it is now largely conducted on a business basis. Most people do not find it necessary to have a ritual purification of the feet on a regular basis. Religion, or Dharma, is no longer motivating the Khadgis to perform these tasks. Fourth, The Khadgis leave the duties because they are associated with low caste and low social rank. They are not forced to perform them, either by law or by their economic condition, and therefore try to avoid them. Performing the tasks implies low rank, also independent of caste. Khadgis performing services to other Khadgis are considered lower. My interpreter suggested that the service providing role accounted for the Khadgis low social rank. Mr. Subha Ratna confirmed the association, but indicated that the tasks had not been given negative social value in the past (Shamsher, Subha Ratna and myself):

We have also seen in the previous chapters that the Khadgis want to be independent, and that they do not want to be associated with low status tasks. The Khadgi present themselves as a very proud people that are not easily dominated. When performing the caste ascribed "duties" they feel belittled. Not performing such services is a way of demonstrating their worth. Because most Khadgis have enough economic capital they choose not to be service providers to other people, and not acting as servants to other castes, they are reinforcing their confidence and self-assurance. Their denial of service functions in the present and in the past may also be seen as a psychological mechanism that, together with their unwillingness to take orders from others and be self-employed, supports their amassing of symbolic capital.

Wegner pointed to the possibility that young boys do not want to play the drum because of the stigmatisation of the players. I believe the stigmatisation also may be applied as the reason for the disappearance of some of the other tasks. The Khadgis themselves are of the opinion that only poor and disfavoured people perform these types of services for others. Not only the Khadgis' "duties" are disappearing. Boudha Ratna and Shamsher told me how they had experienced other castes' unwillingness to perform defiling services:

Performing the formerly caste ascribed services the negative capital of low caste rank is activated, both for the Khadgis and the other low castes. As we saw in the previous chapter, being a butcher does not necessarily mean being a service provider, but a self-employed business man. The Khadgis can, on the basis of the caste ascribed services no longer be characterised as service providers. Only very few Khadgis work as service providers on a contractual basis.

6.8 New Services

Although the Khadgis in general are unwilling to perform the services, there are some that have a different attitude towards the drumming. The Newars are often though to be the "true culture bearers of Nepal", and the Khadgi drumming may be seen as an important part of their cultural tradition. With the rising awareness of Newar ethnicity, the Khadgis, because they are part of the Newar ethnic group, are proud of their culture. Certain aspects of culture may be appreciated as cultural heritage and cultural traditions, even if they are low caste tasks. In this perspective the drumming can be seen as cultural capital, a knowledge and skill that is an asset with a positive value. This change may at least partly be attributed to the important role of tourism, and foreign influence in Nepal. I believe it symptomatic that it was a Khadgi working in the tourist business who said; "I am proud to be a Nay!" (Nay is the Newari word for the caste). I shall return to this discussion in the final chapter.

One more thing should be mentioned in relation to services. Although the Khadgis are not willing to perform services associated with low caste, they are eager to do other types of social service. The Khadgis wish to act as social helpers and social workers, and do things for the benefit for all Nepalese people and the country. Some services give more social and ritual prestige, and more cultural and symbolic capital. Such services are for example donations to temples and for religious purposes, starting schools for disadvantaged children etc. Such services are both privately initiated, and initiated by the NKSC. The NKSC' strategies include donations of water tanks, blood donations, donations for religious purposes, providing ambulance services, schools, training programmes and so on. Characteristic for many of these services are that they involve actions, and transactions of objects, with high levels of ritual purity, and many taboos attached to them. Many of the social services include donations for ritual purposes. Mr. Sundar Lal has given enormous amounts of money in such ritual donations. In 1991 he donated 1.5 million rupees for new materials for the chariot of the Rato Machhindranath, that is celebrated in Patan's largest festival (plate 6-6, 6-7 and Box 6.3). Mr. Sundar Lal's generous donations for religious and social purposes may be seen as an example of an attempt to convert economic capital into cultural and symbolic capital. With the disassociation of services and from the low rank, some of the services may be turned into Newar or Nepali cultural capital, thus retaining some of the Khadgi traditions. It will be interesting to see if this will happen.

Box 6.3 The rising Nepal

Plate 6-6 - 6-7:
Plate 6-6 The chariot of Rato Machhindranath
Plate 6-7 Celebrating the Rato Machhindranath

Many Khadgis do voluntary work at temples and at festivals. Many of my informants were very eager to do social services of many kinds. Wealthy Khadgis families have done many important things for the betterment of the people of the Kathmandu Valley. There are several Khadgis who have started schools, and Sidhdi Bahadur and his family, run a school for the children of the sweeper caste and other disfavoured groups. There is no school fee, and it is financed through other sources.

The Khadgis' reluctance to perform low caste associated services and their willingness to initiate new types of social services that give more prestige may be seen as attempts for upwards social mobility, and for gaining symbolic capital.

Chapter 7: Social Organisation

This chapter deals with the social institutions that are important to the Khadgis, how they are organised, and to what extent they have important interaction with people from other castes. There are different units for interaction, from the smallest units like the household and the family, to larger units such as the Guthi and the NKSC. I move on to discuss to what extent the Khadgis have important interactions outside their caste, before discovering social organisation and capital.

Characteristics of basic interaction and transactions may reveal the relative social importance of the caste group, caste rules and norms, and people's "sense of place".

7.1 Household and Family

When I started my fieldwork I had two ideas on what the role of house hold and family might be. First of all, I believed that family and kin would play a more important dominant role in people's daily lives in Nepal, than it does than in my own country. But I also believed that the extended family, and it's role, would be in decline as Nepal was modernising. Many scholars have a theory that increased monetarisation of the economy and occupational diversification facilitates the emergence of an individual or a nuclear family as an independent economic unit (Quigley 1985). Quigley has studied social organisation in Dhulikhel, a Newar village in the Kathmandu Valley, and found that the Khadgis had a larger preference for establishing nuclear households than the Shrestas. With these notions in mind I set out to find how the Khadgis in the city organised their households and what role the family and household played in their lives.

Based on the data from the voters' list, the average Khadgi caste household has 5.48 members above eighteen, again I remind the reader of the problem of distinguishing households within the house and family. Basically "household" is used to designate all the family members living in the same house. According to the statistics, half of Nepal's population is below 18 (Central Bureau of Statistics 1997). If these figures are added to my calculations, the average Khadgi household would have 10.96 members. This must be said to be very large households, even in a Nepalese context. According to statistical information of 1991, the average household in Lalitpur consisted of 5.6 members, including all people (ibid.). Whether the Khadgis prefer to live as extended families, or if they do so by necessity, one can claim that extended families dominate. I am in agreement with Quigley's conclusion, that the joint household has not significantly suffered in the recent years (Quigley 1985).

The high degree of joint families can be at least partly explained by the Khadgis' preference to live in Khadgi areas, and to the high concentration of people in the these areas. There are few possibilities of expanding the already existing Khadgi areas further. According to my data young couples stay with the husband's family, but they often form a relatively separate household within the same house. They rarely form separate households in new houses.

Throughout my fieldwork I have seen households of different sizes and composition, but most of them were joint families, consisting of people of several generations, connected through the patrilinage. Patrilineality and agnatic solidarity is the dominating principle of family organisation, and according to this ideal the household should consist of a man, his wife or wives, their unmarried daughters, sons, the son's wives and their children (Bennett 1983:22). Some Khadgis, however, live as singles, some as couples, some as nuclear families, and some as extended families. The smallest household unit I encountered consisted of one person, and the largest "household" consisted of thirty six persons above eighteen.

The composition of the household is not necessarily very stable. It may vary as members move to other relatives for shorter or longer periods. Young girls are sometimes sent to stay with relatives for a period, to help in with the household chores. One old man lived periodically with his four different sons in different Khadgi areas. Joint households consist of potential nuclear households. If the house is large the nuclear units usually occupy different rooms or floors. The greatest tension is often between these nuclear units. Joint families do not necessarily break up because of such tensions, but the members take steps to ease these tensions between them. Such tensions may have several causes of, and there are several ways to handle them.

The household members co-operate in many ways, and may be seen as corporate units, with shared property, economy, production, and management, and with the senior most male as household head, the focus of authority and respect. Officially the household head takes all major decisions, and all the members of the household are hierarchically organised under him. Disagreements may lead to tension between the members, or the potential nuclear units. The potential nuclear units normally share the same hearth and cook jointly. The women of the household co-operate on household tasks, cooking, fetching water and fire-wood, if necessary. Daughters in law are in some sense outsiders in the family. They labour the hardest and yet have the least to say in how the family resources are spent. If the conflicts between the affines and the agnats becomes unbearable, the affines may choose to go back to their maternal home, permanently or for a period. Formal divorces, however, are rare. When disputes or tensions occur the nuclear units may choose not to co-operate. The nuclear units may choose to cook separately and carry out the household tasks and occupational tasks without involving the rest of the family. In one case the son and his wife established a new settlement, while their children for some reason kept living in the house with their grand parents, uncles, aunts and cousins. Whether one chooses to define household by those who share the same hearth, by those who cook jointly, or by the basic unit of production or consumption, it will be difficult to draw the lines, because the units are shifting. Tensions or not, the family members living in the same house co-operate in some way or an other. They form units of interaction. In many cases the family has one or two family businesses. If the family members have different jobs they sometimes pool their earnings, or pool some of it and keep the rest for themselves, their wives and their children. It is common to have relatively separate economies, but still share the most important and largest expenses.

Quigley stresses the independence of households. According to his material people preferred to seek loan from a bank rather than from one's relatives. I have not found this to be a characteristic of family organisation among the Khadgis I have met. To most people kin play a vital role in everyday life, including kin related through the patriline and the matriline. Even if they do not live in the same house as extended families, they often live nearby and take part in each other's everyday life. They often co-operate in occupational and economic matters and in domestic tasks, like looking after the children. Kin are also tied together through numerous ritual tasks and duties. They gather and arrange parties on the occasion of festivals and private rituals. There are special ritual occasions where certain family members should great each other and show each other respect. Most of the co-operation takes place within the patrilinage. Women move to the husband's family, and thereby often to new settlement areas, but they usually keep close contact with their maternal home.

The close relationship and importance of kin is reflected in the kin terms. Cousins are called brothers (bhai, dhai) and sisters (didi, bahini). Aunts and uncles are called big mother, thulo ama (mother's oldest sister), small mother, sanu ama (mother's youngest sister), and big or small father. They count kin up to seven generations back, and at the old age ceremony they should all pay their respects. At marriage ceremonies it is not unusual to invite several hundred guests, most of them kin.

In many western countries, other social institutions have taken over many of the roles of family and kin. LeVine and White write about the importance of family and kin for basic social security both in Asia and other parts of the world:

Third world families share the problems of dealing with government bureaucracies that range from being neglectful to oppressive. Except for the hope of employment, the government civil service is seen by the average citizen as representing an environmental hazard, rather than a source of protection, support or opportunity. The bureaucracies in the Third World countries have been criticised of being excessively large, badly run, inefficient and corrupt. Specifics vary, but in each case it amounts to the following:

1. Expectable services are not provided - police do not protect against crime, mail goes undelivered, telephones do not work etc.

2. Personal contacts, available only through kin or close friends, are required to obtain the official permissions or other documents regulating many activities, including property claims.

3. It is therefore essential to maintain and cultivate strategic relationships with kin and friends in the bureaucracy as a basic adaptation to one's social environment.

This means that people fear - and are - unprotected and insecure unless they have these strategic relationships, grounded in networks of kin and neighbours." (LeVine and White 1986:176-177).

These aspects may also describe the government and the social welfare programme in Nepal. The fact that the government is dominated by high caste people, represents a barrier for the Khadgis to establish important relations to kin and close friends within the government, as well as for, as we have seen, getting employment with the government. The kin and neighbours become the most important relations for the Khadgis, and represent their social capital.

7.2 Marriage-Patterns

The Newars practice arranged marriages between people from the same caste, and, according the practice of isogamy, where the parents choose a suitable spouse for their sons and daughters, and they are matched as equally as possible. This practice is seen as opposed to "love-marriages" where the spouses choose to marry each other, with or without their parents consent. Polygamy still occurs, but is not socially accepted. It is prohibited by law, but punishment is lenient. I know of Khadgi men who have two wives. People generally believe that 90 % of all marriages can be characterised as arranged marriages. Mr. Subha Ratna expresses his impression of the marriage trends:

Love marriages are still few, I think. Maybe 10-15%. More than 80% are arranged marriage. Arranged marriages have good results. When making an arranged marriage one looks at all the aspects. But love marriage is only from girl to boy. Because of this, arranged marriages are still completed.

The general attitude is that arranged marriages are the best, because, as Mr. Subha Ratna remarks, it takes all things into consideration. Most marriages are agreed upon by all parties, and are arranged with varying involvement of the different parties. The girls and boys have their say, and the parents try to arrange a marriage that they will accept. Arrangements are seldom forced upon the young people who are to be married. Almost all the people I met hold that arranged marriages are the best, even young people.

When studying the Khadgis' social organisation and marriage practices, I looked for the practice of hypergamy, and thought it might be a strategy employed to gain upwards social mobility. However, I found it was not. Marriages are never arranged with people from castes above their own. I have only heard of one incident where a Khadgi tried to arrange such a marriage. I do not know if he succeeded. This incident was discussed during an interview (Mr. Subha Ratna, Shamsher and myself);

There were instances where Khadgis had married people from higher castes, but these were "love-marriages", and not arranged. I have heard of instances where Khadgis had "love-marriages" with married people from castes ranked below their own, but I met no Khadgi who had actually married downwards in the caste hierarchy.

Purna and his wife would not like their children to marry with the lower caste, because of the social sanctions they would have to face:

My interpreter was very eager to express his view that if they wanted to be equal with other castes, and expected to be accepted by other castes, they, themselves had to accept the lower castes: "If you want to make it equal then make it equal. If you expect to be accepted by higher castes you also have to accept the lower castes".

The attitude towards "love-marriage" and inter caste marriages has changed during the last decades, and "love marriages" are more accepted than before. Most of my informants told me they would prefer their children to have arranged marriage, but if they chose to have a "love-marriage", they would probably accept it. Several of my informants had "love-marriages". They had married Lamas, Maharjans, Shrestas, and people from many other castes. The woman generally get the caste of her husband, as when a Khadgi woman had married a Shresta, she and her children became Shresta. "Love-marriages" may experience some difficulties getting accepted. If their family has a "conservative" attitude they might risk being excluded. I have seen instances both of complete acceptance, and of complete condemnation and exclusion. The most commonly stated problems with inter-caste marriages, is that interaction with the family. The children of such relations may face hostility. When a Khadgi woman marries a man from other caste she has to live with the man's family, if the couple are not able to settle by themselves. Either way, it might be difficult.

One of the Khadgis working as a helper in a butcher business had entered into a "love-marriage" with a Chetri girl. They had experienced difficulties when they wanted to marry (Arjun Khadgi, Arjun Shresta (also helper), Shamsher and me):

The Chetri wife and their one year old son were for the time being living with Arjun's family outside Kathmandu, because the son was sick. Arjun sent half of what he earned to his family for support.

In another case a Khadgi woman had married a man from a Buddhist caste called Lama. He had already been a good friend of her brother before they married. Both families accepted the marriage. The couple lived in a rented room in the area of her family, but they often went to see his family (Lama, Shamsher and me):

We also discussed what could be problematic when having inter-caste marriages:

The cases where Khadgis marry with higher castes are "love marriages", and can not be considered commonly employed strategies for social mobility. When arranging marriages, capital and assets are activated in the strategic search for a "good and suitable" spouse. However, only members of the same caste are considered "suitable". It is not possible to activate capital and power to make strategic marriages with people from another caste. There are barriers for converting cultural and economic capital into social capital by marrying someone from another caste. This underlines the barriers and the complex relation governing the conversion of capital. The low castes' economic and cultural capital is not easily recognised and acknowledged across caste groups, to the point where it can be converted into social capital, through inter caste marriages and the practice of hypergamy. This can also be seen from the examples in section 5.5, where Khadgi women with a high amount of capital were not able to find a suitable spouse from their own caste, and were not able to activate the capital to arrange marriages with people from higher castes. In marriage relations the conversion barriers of caste are evident.

The barriers and the dominating practice of endogamy further strengthen the bonds and the solidarity within the caste group.

7.3 The Guthi

According to my informants, the Guthi organisations played a vital role in the Khadgis' social lives in the past. There were many types of Guthies that were established to regulate numerous tasks and interests. Today the Khadgis and other Newars are complaining that the Guthi institutions are disappearing. The most important and common Guthi among my informants is the "death-Guthi". The membership in a death-Guthi is considered necessary, because its plays an important role at the death of a family member. If someone in the family dies, the Guthi members are responsible for arranging the funeral, and for taking care of the family, if necessary. The senior most male of the household participates in the Guthi. Most of the senior most male Khadgis I have met, belong to a Guthi organisation. The Guthies I have recorded vary from the very big ones, with 80 - 90 families, to the small ones, with around 25 members. Only to very few the Guthi is important in other situations as well. There is an annual fee, and the funds of the Guthi are used for such different purposes as maintaining Guthi property or loans to the members for periods of allotment.

The Guthies are based on caste membership. Once a year they have a Guthi celebration that lasts for several days. The celebration includes worshipping, animal sacrifice, ritual meals, playing the Naykhibaja and singing. One of my informants was a member of a Guthi called Dharma Guthi. The main purpose of this Guthi was to achieve religious merits. The membership fee is symbolic. As a social service they offer funeral services to families that are not members of a Guthi. The Guthi may be seen as an institution that provides social security. The practice of engaging in Guthies express reliance on and solidarity with caste and kin. Hesitation to engage in a Guthi may express reluctance to socialise and mix with people from the caste, but there may as well be other reasons. Many Khadgis complain that young Khadgis do not show any interest in the Guthi, and they are afraid the tradition will disappear. In a hectic business life it is becoming increasingly difficult to carry out the Guthi celebrations and responsibilities. Subha Ratna expresses his view on the changing role of the Guthi:

It appears that people today do not see the Guthi activities mainly as a religious duty to worship the Guthi god. They see the importance of the Guthi as an institution providing social security and as a forum for establishing important social relations.

7.4 The Nepal Khadgi Social Service Committee

The Khadgis have an organisation called the Nepal Khadgi Sewaa Somiti. They have translated the name into English, as the Nepal Khadgi Social Service Committee (NKSC). I have gathered a lot of information on this organisation and its activities. At the time of my fieldwork the Committee celebrated its 25^th anniversary. For this occasion they had arranged a Silver Jubilee programme with many arrangements. This provided me with the opportunity to meet hundreds of people from the Khadgi caste, and to be introduced to all the people actively involved in the organisation, or who were in some way were important for the Khadgi caste.

At the time of my fieldwork the Committee had 108 members. Out of these 27 members are involved actively in the executive committee, which consists of 7 on the executive board and 20 regular members. The organisation has nine local branches in Kathmandu, one in Patan, and one in Bhaktapur. More local branches are planned, and they are also trying to establish contacts with Khadgis in Pokhara. In Patan, the main area of my fieldwork, there are four active members, from three different localities.

Box 7.1 The History of the Nepal Khadgi Social Service Committee

7.4.1 Aims

The declared aim of the organisation is to develop the social community of the Khadgis. Sidhdi Bahadur Khadgi was involved in the establishment of the committee and told me that this had been the aim from the beginning: "We have to organise and keep up the interest in our society. We should think to upgrade and uplift our social status". The aim is declared to be motivated by social welfare, not political ideas. The organisation works to improve the Khadgis' situation, and promote the caste by helping themselves and other people. The secretary of the Committee, Mr. Bidhya Bahadur Khadgi commented on the aims and goals of the committee in his welcome speech in the City Hall on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee:

I would like to thank and give high respect to those ancestors who formed the NKSC, through hard struggles, to develop, upgrade, promote and work for the welfare of our Khadgi community. At the time they established the NKSC they aimed at establishing our Khadgi society as an ideal or model society. They wanted to make our community self-dependent and respected. They also wanted to provide creative programmes for all the ethnic communities in Nepal. The NKSC has adopted all these agendas and guiding principles, and we are still trying to fulfil them. It is difficult to reach these aims, as we still have not managed to unite all the Khadgis living in the Nepalese Kingdom.

7.4.2 Programmes

During the first years of the organisation's existence it was, as Bidhya describes, difficult to organise and arrange programmes (Box 7.1). The government suspected that they were organising political meetings and activities. When the Panchyat system was overthrown and democracy was introduced, it became easier for the organisation to function. Now the committee has several programmes running on a regular basis. First, they honour every Khadgi who completes a SLC (School Leaving Certificate is given after 10 years of schooling). This is announced in the newspaper. The programme has been running on a regular basis for four years, and almost 200 students have been honoured. The committee has also collected 56.000 RS. to provide scholarships for two talented Khadgi students. This is to encourage Khadgis to have an education. Secondly, to help families manage the enormous costs of arranging rituals, the committee has arrange joint ritual programmes. Both the boys' head shaving ritual and the girls' Bahratayagu ritual are arranged by the committee. The boys' ritual has been arranged several times, and the girls' ritual once. A third type of programme is blood donation. This has also been arranged on several occasions. Camps are put up, where the Khadgis and other people can come and donate blood. Fourth, as Bidhya mentioned, they have also had programmes of donating and putting up water tanks to supply localities with clean water. A fifth type of programme arranged by the NKSC, are the various culture programmes and competitions. The largest such programme has so far been the Silver Jubilee. The programme lasted for many days and a number of activities were organised, including several competitions, e.g. a table tennis tournament, a song contest, a chess competition, and a quiz contest. In the quiz contest the competitors were questioned on their knowledge on the Khadgi caste, Khadgi people, the NKSC and on Khadgi history and mythology. Competitors both from the Khadgi caste and others where allowed to participate in all the competitions. The Silver Jubilee Programme also included two arrangements in the city hall. The first one was the song contest final, which also included a culture show with singing and dancing. The second arrangement in the city hall was the main ceremony, attended by the prime minister, and broadcasted on Nepali television (see plate 7-1). This was a very solemn ceremony with not only the prime minister, but other politicians and government officials, all the former presidents of the Khadgi committee, and other "important" Khadgis seated on stage. There was a ceremonial presentation of trophies and diplomas to all the Khadgis who had achieved something special, and to all the winners of the various competitions.

Plate 7-1 Prime-minister B.P. Koirala attended the Silver Jubilee
From the left; Minister of Local Development, Mr. Prakash Man Singh, Prime-minister B.P. Koirala, President of the NKSC, Mr Indra Prasad Khadgi.

Finally, a series of programmes have been launched to help those who work as butchers. The NKSC want to raise the butchers' status and social acceptance. They have distributed leaflets to increase the butchers' awareness on hygienic matters, and provided a place where butchers in the city can keep their buffalo, before slaughter. The place is provided in co-operation with the municipality. The NKSC have also initiated a co-operation with the government, to get them to provide slaughter houses, so the butchers do not have to do the slaughtering in the open air. From a television programme on the problem of the pollution from the butcher activity, a representative from the Kathmandu Municipality said:

First of all we are going to start a slaughterhouse, by which the meat sellers can make more profit and they can feel proud of their business, too. We have made an agreement with the "Nepal Bar and Restaurant Association". According to that agreement all the restaurants have to buy the meat that is supplied through the slaughter house. In this way the market force itself will make the pressure to produce the hygienic meat.

A Khadgi woman reacted positively to the proposal; "We have been slaughtering the animals here in this place for long. It is a traditional place for slaughter. But it will be much better if somebody arranged a slaughterhouse in the area." However, as we have seen, not all the Khadgis are happy about such changes.

The NKSC has planned some programmes that have not yet been realised. One such plan is to provide an ambulance service. The dairy owner, Mr. Sundar Lal Khadgi has already promised to donate 300.000 RS, but the Committee is still lacking funds. The NKSC are planning to cover all costs of running the ambulance service, so that it will be free of cost for the users.

7.4.3 Problems

The NKSC has reported certain difficulties running the organisation and arranging various programmes. During the Panchyat period, the Khadgis had a hard time convincing the government that the organisation was not politically motivated. After 1990 the number of organisations has exploded. A few years later the organisation was officially approved, and has since then been able to work without facing problems from the government.

But there are other problems. I was surprised that out of the 10.900 Khadgis (according to the estimates of the organisation) in the Kathmandu Valley there where only 108 members in the NKSC. When I asked why there were so few members, they answered: "How can all participate?" I was also told that it was enough for one member of the family to enter. The practice is not to enrol members who do not participate actively. The 108 members all engage in the organisational activities.

There is a problem of recruiting, and the Khadgis hesitate to get involved in the organisation for several reasons. Some told me they do not want to get involved because they believe the organisation is biased, as most of its active members are affiliated with the Nepali Congress Party. Others criticise the committee saying that they are not providing efficient programmes to help the poor, but are only showing off. I was often told that many people hesitated to get involved in the organisation because they did not want to be associated with the caste. Sidhdi Bahadur saw this problem already before the organisation was founded:

The effort will not be worthy because our community is not a co-operative one - because I knew the nature of our community. I started to visit all Toles. I kept up this work for 10 years but I knew it would not be durable for long.

It is common to refer to the Khadgi nature as a reason why it is problematic to unite them. Another member of the NKSC explains about the problem (Mr. Raj Bhai Prakash):

The committee has declared itself a social welfare organisation that seeks to raise the status of the Khadgi caste, and provide social services to the Khadgis and to other people. As mentioned in the last chapter, many of the services they provide touch sensitive issues of purity and pollution, and involve objects such as blood, water, holy places, etc. The committee has experienced difficulties when wanting to arrange programmes at holy places. In the incidence referred to by Bidhya (Box 7.1), the Khadgis tried to put up a camp at Pashupatinath, one of the most holy places in Nepal, for the celebration of Shivaratri, the birth of Shiva. On this occasion pilgrims come from all over Nepal, and even from India. The Khadgis wanted to serve the pilgrims water and food, but the government would not let them do that. According to the concepts of ritual purity even the Khadgi presence would disturb the holy event. There is also a story of some Khadgis breaking into the Pashupati Temple and being arrested.

After the law changes, the authorities no longer have legitimate arguments to reject such services, and discriminate on the grounds of caste. The Khadgis are now free to perform services, such as donating blood, providing water tanks etc. The country is also badly in need for them. The performing of such tasks can give recognition, and may be used as arguments for arguing rank and acknowledgement. The presence of the Prime Minister at the silver jubilee was also important for the recognition. In fact, the whole programme in the city hall was rescheduled to fit the Prime Minister's agenda.

The NKSC plays and important role in raising the social status of the caste, and in converting and gaining capital and recognition. The programmes the NKSC initiate are important to the struggle to gain upwards social mobility, and to the symbolic struggle of the Khadgis. The alternative, implicit in the behaviour of the opposition among the Khadgis is to deny their caste and so contribute to its elimination.

7.5 Inter-Caste Relations

Khadgis and others report that the caste groups have been very strictly segregated in the past, but not all had the same impression of the strictness of the implementation of the restrictions. Neither did they have the same experience about the functions of the restriction on social intercourse today. I have recorded many different attitudes toward caste interaction and many different practices. Some Khadgis interacted a lot with people from other castes, both on an occupational and a private basis. Some have many friends from other castes, others have very few. Others interacted almost exclusively with people from their own caste.

Old Ratna, for example, told me how he used to be loved by higher castes, and emphasised that he had been allowed inside their houses. However, he did not eat with them. In his opinion people from different castes can interact, but they should not eat together, nor should they intermarry. He has not experienced being discriminated against people from other castes, but then again, he has accepted and followed rules regarding inter-caste interaction and commensality. I have included some sections from the interview with him and the old drummers below, because they have a rather different attitude towards inter-caste relations than most of my other informants. They would probably characterise Ratna's attitude as conservative. Many Khadgis are of the opinion that caste restrictions on social intercourse and commensality should not be accepted. However, they are still followed, and are certainly important for interpreting behaviour and action.

I shall give three examples of how people relate to the questions of inter caste interaction: The first one is a young and "modern" college student; Binod. The second takes issue with the old drummers, and the third is the educated high caste Newar, the interpreter.

7.5.1 The Young Khadgi

One of first Khadgis I got to know was Binod Khadgi. He spoke English quite well. He lived in Kathmandu, and studied in college, when he was not helping his mother run the family business of selling sweets wholesale. Most of Binod's friends where from other castes, only a few were from the Khadgi caste. In plate 7-2 he can be seen with his friends outside his house in Kathmandu. Binod told me how he experienced the difference between his situation in the city, and his relatives' situation in the village:

In the village area people are grouping more. They are not allowed to touch the water pots. In the city inter-caste mingling is less problematic. In the village people live more separate. Mainly it is not a problem with business. But one does not enter others house or business. There are differences in opportunity between me and the villagers. I walk about freely- also in the village. I go wherever I like. Sometimes I will get problems, but then I will use education and strength to stand against it. They will recognise me as someone from the city. More intellectual and educated. In the city I am not recognised by caste so it is not really a problem. The boys from the village can not walk about as freely, but I can in the city. It was like that here also, in the past, but now it is changing, so now we can go inside. People are more educated.

He told me that, in the city, interaction did not depend on caste, but on the behaviour of the person. I spent some time with Binod and his high and middle caste friends, and it seemed that the caste differences did not affect their relationship. They told me they did not feel any hesitation about mixing, and that they would eat together and sleep together. I also had other young informants who had this close relationship with friends from other castes.

Plate 7-2 Binod and his inter-caste friends
(Binod to the left, his brother's son, ego, and three of his high caste friends)

7.5.2 The Old Khadgi

The drummers expressed a different attitude towards caste interaction than Binod and his friends. They still wanted to follow the practice of not eating together with other castes. The old drummers told me how people have different attitudes and habits now than before.

Ratna went on to tell me about his good relation to the priests, and how he used to lend him books. Shamsher told me how this was exceptional, because the untouchables were not allowed to read or listen to religious texts in the past.

7.5.3 The High Caste

The interaction between the interpreter and the informants represented an important source of information with regard to inter caste relations. Already in the our first conversation Shamsher wanted to make me aware of the problem of intercommensal restrictions guarding the relations between castes (see chapter 3).

When doing interviews in the homes of new informants, I could sense the tension whether Shamsher would accept food and drinks from them, and relief after he had done so. They also expressed this relief. The interpreter was polite and friendly with all the informants, and he always addressed them in a respectful manner. They clearly appreciated his behaviour towards them. When I came without him, they would ask for him, and told me to bring him next time. One of my informant's mother was thrilled about Shamsher coming to their house and addressing her in such a nice way (Shamsher):

He told me that his mother often remembered and talked about us, "because", she said, "I (Shamsher) was the only person who had addressed her in the polite way", in a respectful manner, like she was my friend's mother. I used the respectful, high way of addressing. She said; "what a nice friend you have". She feels so touched, so impressed when someone from the higher caste addresses her in this way.

Only one time did I experience Shamsher having problems with the inter caste relations. We were both invited to a wedding. When we came there Shamsher recognised some Khadgis from his village in the Kathmandu Valley. He felt uneasy about accepting food from them at that time, because it could cause a lot of talk in the village and problems for his family. His family did not mind him working with the Khadgis, but one of his old family members requested him to avoid eating with the Khadgis, if possible.

7.5.4 Rank and Commensal Relations

When discussing inter caste relations with my informants the questions of inter commensal relations come up. Crucial to inter caste relations is whether one accepts to eat with people from other castes, and accept food and water from them. Different food, and the act of eating together, is embedded in ritual, and has strong social and symbolic value. Restrictions on commensal relations are still of relevance to inter caste interaction. However, not everyone follows them. I experienced the importance of inter commensal rules throughout the fieldwork. In many of the discussions with my informants, the question of caste rank was taken up when different castes were mentioned. Commensal practice, and service relations are used to argue rank. A critical point is who accepts rice and water from whom. Løwdin has analysed food symbolism among the Newars (1986):

Most important in this context is boiled rice, which, significantly, also is the most commonly eaten food… [Newars ideally have rice and lentil soup twice a day] …Although there are some exceptions, eating boiled rice together generally signifies shared caste identity while not eating together by proscription marks caste differentiation and hierarchical distance. (Løwdin 1986:43)

He goes on to note that most cooked foods and water could be passed on from one "clean" caste to an other, but not from an "unclean" caste to a "clean" caste. Raw food could be accepted from