International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS)

CROOKED STALKS is an examination of the moral dimensions of development projects in India, with implications for how development is studied throughout the third world.  During the colonial era in India, conformity to Western values was thought essential for moral perfection, and the settlers took upon themselves the task of elevating the colonial subject into the realm of reason and maturity. In present day India, local pre-colonial traditions blend with influences from the British colonial state and modernist development regimes to form contemporary understandings of morality.   In this innovative ethnography, anthropologist Anand Pandian draws from a diverse body of sources, ranging from contemporary Indian literature, film, and music to meticulously assembled colonial records of family histories, as well as his own interactions with the people of an agrarian community in South India to examine how morality plays into development discourses.   Specifically, Pandian looks to how people talk about farming, which has long been identified as a source of virtue in Indian society, and is a key component in economic reform initiatives.  Farming appears not only as a practical means to improve the agrarian landscape and livelihood of India’s poor but also as a labor to cultivate the self.  This relationship is integrated into the organization of the book, as the chapters are structured around idioms of virtue, including civility, propriety, restraint, toil, and sympathy, as they relate to contemporary agrarian practices. 

Pandian’s fieldwork was conducted with the Piramalai Kallar people in Tamil Nadu, South India.  This ethnic group, which numbers around one million members, was legally classified by the British as a criminal tribe in 1918 and continues to be described in terms of criminality by members of other tribes.  Outsiders often contrast the Kallar with traditional farming castes, whose members are seen as virtuous and peaceful, and the Piramalai Kallar people have largely internalized the perception that they are a lawless, immoral group.  The Kallar have consequently been targets of numerous reformist initiatives both during and after the colonial period.  Rather than resist, as many other tribes have, Pandian reveals how the Kallar have bought into these imperialist projects in an attempt to change perceptions of their culture.  In the chapters, he conveys the ways in which Western conceptions of morality inherent in state policies motivate the Kallar to improve their virtue.  In one chapter, the author relates how clearing the environment for agriculture is seen to be an act of preparing the community and individuals for civility.  Later, Pandian shows how irrigation projects that involved cooperation with neighborhing tribes were thought to cultivate sympathy.  Throughout, Pandian shows how moral and material uplift are frequently intertwined in development projects, and argues that unraveling the two is essential for understanding what is at stake and who benefits in such endeavors.