Threads of Change: Dahwna-Ruathi and Saori in the Evolving Labour Landscape of a Bodo Village in Assam
By Mizinksa Daimari and Rajshree Bedamatta
The dominant narrative about Northeast India often frames Tribe societies as inherently egalitarian, especially in gender and socio-economic terms. Recent scholarship, however, challenges this view by revealing complexities. Indeed, Tribe societies have seen positive transformation in their socio-economic outcomes over time with increased household incomes on average and reduced absolute poverty rates. This study focuses on the Bodo community, a prominent Scheduled Tribe, to examine how it has fared amid ongoing agrarian transformation. The persistence of semi-feudal labour arrangements like dahwna and ruathi within the Bodo community during a particular historical time challenge such conventional views. This paper examines the nature of agrarian labour contracts within a Bodo village, uncovering quite contrastingly, evidence of differentiated peasantry, informal tenancy, and feudal-like structures despite being categorized as a Scheduled Tribe in contemporary times. By analyzing under-reported and informal agrarian relationships, this paper situates Bodo society within the broader discourse on agrarian transformation, challenging the exceptionalist lens while highlighting its specificities. Given the internal differentiation within the Bodo peasantry, which strata emerge as employers of wage labour and who labours? Which segments of the Bodo population are most likely to engage in out-migration from the hinterland? Furthermore, despite observable processes of capital penetration in agriculture, what forms of labour contracts currently predominate in contemporary Bodo villages?
Forthcoming