4 - (Non)Negotiating Caste in Digital Encounters

Summary

Abstract This chapter presents ethnographic narratives highlighting how children's experience with caste-based discrimination informs their quotidian digital practices—how they present themselves online, how they use social media, for what purposes, and why and when they choose to be silent or invisible. I debunk the neoliberal idea of development based on the assumption that access to new technologies will help Dalit-Bahujan children overcome caste-based inequities and historical systems of discrimination. Children used a multi-modal and non-resistive approach to conceal their caste identity and avoid discrimination online. The conclusion expounds that the strategies of negotiation children used in their digital encounters to engage with their caste identities reflect the scope of jugaad as a selfdesigned tactical approach to navigating constraints.

Keywords: caste, Dalit, Bahujan, savarna, marginalisation, enclaved online spaces

In 2018, I met Ishu, a 17-year-old girl from Azad Nagar. Ishu worked as a domestic helper in a middle-class home in Andheri West, Mumbai. She worked full-time at Mr and Mrs Purohit's house. She washed utensils, did laundry, mopped the floors, and cooked for the family. As a part of my ethnographic fieldwork, I sought Mr and Mrs Purohit's permission to hang out with Ishu at their home. Ishu insisted that her employers were generous with her. She was allowed to eat food from their kitchen, use a fan while cooking and doing other domestic chores, and was also allowed paid leave of three days every month.

Ishu was given a separate set of utensils for her meals at her employer's house. She was not supposed to wash her utensils with those the family members used. She was also expected to store these utensils in a separate cabinet in the kitchen. Ishu was not allowed to switch on the television, listen to the radio, or use tube lights during the day. She was allowed to use a fan only during unbearably hot weather. What was particularly striking in her interaction with Mr and Mrs Purohit was the cleanliness protocol she followed every time she used any technological device in their house. For instance, after using Mrs Purohit's mobile phone to call and inform her mother that she would be working late, Ishu wiped the mobile phone with a kitchen towel before handing it back to Mrs Purohit. Similarly, whenever she used the television or AC remote control, she had to wipe it down using sanitiser and a piece of cloth.