Mainstream Weekly1. Introduction:
As economists, they generally glean statistics and data. These data are assumed to replace a portion of reality in quantification and non-malleability. Quantification and malleability are the basis of any economic discourse. In these very true points, the social anthropologist shies away from the truths unfolded by economists.
Long ago, Prof. Pranab Bardhan tried to open up a dialogue among economists and anthropologists (2006). In this book, he attempted to bring out a common area of discussion among the true disciplines. The quantifiability of economists and the flexibility and non-rigidity of social anthropologists help us to understand the better way our surroundings behave. The general concept devised by economists is instrumental in understanding reality. Unfortunately, this concept has to be rid of their rigidity and homogeneity to capture the waves in our social infrastructure that are constantly throbbing us.
For example, economists use the concept of utility and its maximization to understand consumer behaviour. But the problem is the real meaning of the term utility. A person who goes to the market to buy a commodity to satisfy his/her wants does not only consider the physical and chemical features of the good. Generally, he/she develops a symbolic relationship in which the shopkeeper is selling the commodity. Jackson (1996) shares information (useful/not useful) about the social environment, and a feeling of pity and sympathy for his/her purchase. In understanding why, a person will not visit high-rising shopping malls but rather go to his neighbourhood shop even though he may be able to pay for the former lies in the mall all its structures often appear to be rather mechanistic and fidgetingly impersonal in comparison to his neighbour shop which is more homely and conducive to his/her desire.
This may be carried forward to all sectors of economics- labour market, other factor input markets, trade, commerce, finance, and social services (education, health science). The same logic may be applied to other views of economics (radical/behavioural, etc). To keep an example, the concept of class, though crucial to the Marxian economists, is also non-rigid and malleable. A poor shopkeeper may employ another person in his/her shop. He/she is not only an employer but also a friend/ guardian to him/her.
Prof. Koushik Basu (1983) in his study of agricultural labourers and Atchi Reddy (1996) argued how a relationship between a so-called exploitative landlord and her tenant transforms in a village in Andhra Pradesh. In this case, the landlady is an old woman who is a widow and has any children.
The old landlady is dependent on his young tenant in times of health crisis. These tenants are also dependent on her in times of economic crisis. This symbiotic relationship transgresses the border of exploitative landlords and exploitative tenants as posited by some orthodox Marxists (Utsa Patnaik,1976).
Recently, the second author had a (mis) fortune to travel to rural Bihar by bus while going to the TIES conference in BHU, Varanasi, from Purulia in West Bengal. Actually, the conference was just after the auspicious Maha Kumbh Mela, and she was quite confused about the situation of the huge rush and would be able to go to Varanasi or not. Hence, she did not get a train ticket to Varanasi and travelled by a local bus from Kolkata with her aunt. It was an overnight journey from 7.30 p.m. on 01.03.2025 to 3.00 p.m. on the very next day. That one-night travel had taught her a lot.
2. The Journey:
Our journey begins from the Babughat Bus Stop of Kolkata via a local travel agency on 01.03.2025, around 7.30 p.m. They got two sleeper seats, and unfortunately, it was the last two seats. The bus has both sitting and sleeper arrangements. At the very first of the journey, she was happy to think that at least she was going to attend my TIES conference, though there were some problems with sanitation within the bus and overloaded with a lot of baggage. It took some time to move out of Kolkata city as the roads were busy. She was watching outside the window all the lampposts, landmarks, and scenery to enjoy the beauty of the journey. But very shortly, as time passed away their journey started to be miserable. Not because of the poor seating arrangements or jackings or poor sanitization, but rather because the environment within the bus started to become uncomfortable. As they entered Bihar, they started to feel a little scared as there were a bit changes in the crowd and some people looked at them very suspiciously. It was clear to her that they could not sleep at night easily, even though it would be better for them to sit down on the bed cautiously. So, she started to talk to a lady sitting on a chair seat beside her with her husband. She was a housewife having three children, going to Sasaram. She asked her during the journey. Where are your children? She said they are in the upper deck sleeper seat with their father. She was surprised for a minute and asked her, then who is the man sitting behind you? She said she does not know him. He is just an unknown traveller to her. She told her to ask her husband to exchange his seat with her, but she replied that he wanted to sleep in the night, so she would sit the whole night. She cannot disturb him; it is okay to sit here, as the lady replied. It felt very heartless how the husband treated his wife, and the wife was just compromised during this journey.
Around 11.00 p.m., the bus stops at a Dhaba, and people go for dinner and toilets. She (the second author) went down from the bus, but the atmosphere was not very homely. So, she again came back and completed her dinner with some dry foods she had already carried in a bag. She was very tired because that morning she had gone out from Purulia at 5.30 a.m. to Kolkata via Purulia Express and then started this bus travel to Varanasi. So, for 2 to 2.30 hours, she fell asleep. However, her aunt was still sitting and noticing everything. Around 3 p.m., when she woke up, she told her that the bus was continuously standing in different odd places, and people went down and came back continuously by taking food, liquor, or anything they wanted.
What to do? Now they are in the middle of Bihar. She started to see again outside the window, but this time not with the excitement of the journey, but to normalize her overwhelming heart rate. When their bus is running on the highways, she sees that people are walking on the roads by having torchlight in their hands, but they hold it at the level of their heads. Later, she got to know that they are poor manual workers and they use the torch lights as headlights because if they do not use them, then the running buses or trucks cannot identify them. So, they do this regularly with a life risk. As their torchlight lights out, there is a high chance of having an accident. But to feed their families, they have to do this. Being a student of economics, she just felt ashamed to think why they are shouting that our economy is the fastest-growing economy? Is that what actual growth seems to be?
As morning blooms, the author and her aunt felt at least quite comfortable that their journey would end soon. But who knows, there is another challenge waiting for them? As usual, the bus stops at different points aimlessly, and whoever wants to get down and have some tea, breakfast, or anything else, or go to the toilet can do so. However, the facility is only for males, and she felt quite neglected as a female traveller. She told the conductor to stop at a point where any kind of toilet facility is available, but he replied to her, "Maidam, idhar to sab aise hi jaate he, ap bhi manage karo" (Madam, everyone here handles things this way, you also please manage it). At first, she didn’t understand his point, but after some time, she realized what he meant to say. She saw that the ladies of the bus go openly on the side of the roads and fields, just with a small shelter of a standby truck or sometimes even without it for a toilet, and they are very comfortable with it, just as it is their daily life journey. It becomes more horrible for her than the previous night.
She requested the bus conductors and the driver many times to stop at a petrol pump so that they could use it comfortably. But they just told it is just a few minutes to go to the dropping point and cross every petrol pump inhumanely. After a lot of patience, she started to ask that you please stop the bus at the next petrol pump, you men can stay anywhere as per your wants, but do you not have a minimum respect for ladies? It was a time when pain started in her lower abdomen as she had not urinated for the last 18 hours. She felt very bad for her aunt as she was an old lady of 60 years. After all this drama, they stop at the nearest petrol pump.
Again, they started our journey, but this time the roads were heavily crowded with loaded trucks. The conductor told the driver that move the bus to the next best road, but it was just the opposite of the traffic rules. The driver does so, facing trouble, and again moves the bus to the previous position. Traffic police were present there, and she thought now today they could not go to Varanasi, but surprisingly, the policeman said nothing to the conductor and the driver. It was a very victorious incident for them.
Then the bus stopped at a point in Mounia, and they advised hiring a toto or an auto to Varanasi. She asked them why. My ticket is up to Bhabua, and at the time of purchasing the ticket, you told me that you would make the contact for the buses of Varanasi from Bhabua. But they denied it and said that they can only do is to arrange the Auto. She replied with anger that my ticket was up to Bhabua, and they would go up to that point.
Now the bus is almost empty, only a few people are there, and most of the conductors and workers seem like they are drunk and taking rest in sleeper seats. They were sitting down steadily and waiting for the great moment when Bhabua would come. Finally, at 1.00 p.m., they came to Bhabua, and the conductor told them this local bus was going to Varanasi. It seemed like a great point of achievement for her. Then on that local bus, they went to Varanasi almost at 3 p.m., but luckily that journey was as usual as we are habituated to public transport.
3. In Lieu of Conclusion:
This bus journey opened in front of her in one snapshot of various structures and sub-structures embodied in the society of northern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, that our grand statistics could not capture. Past in the sense of insecurity and risk involved in job searching for poor people in the low-skilled labour market. The people have to take a risk of life to meet their daily livelihood in an unorganized and unsecured labour market. The high literature of mainstream economists, surrounded by shady and well-percolated mansions, failed to capture this risk in the analysis of the job search market of the unskilled poor. No light is thrown on assessing and calculating this risk by the top-brow economists using sophisticated mathematics and econometric techniques. The data that is provided to us is like a fossil from an ancient world. The economists are behaving like archaeologists and anthropologists trying to make meaning out of this fossil. Unfortunately, economists deal with the information of the real world that exists just outside of his/her curtained window.
To analyze them like an anthropologist or an archaeologist is, in a sense, very akin to the French noble who chucks away coins to be hapless poor citizens in Charles Dickens’s "A Tale of Two Cities". Fossilized data and high-brow mathematics make sure that the sigh of poor people does not enter our corridor.
Second, she observed the brazen, unsympathetic attitude towards the females. The patriarchal attitude is so embedded in our minds that there is little scope for understanding the problems of women, even by their near and dear ones.
Women in these parts of India live in a heartless and soulless world that is heavily biased against them. The so-called statistics of women’s empowerment would hardly be able to capture this regime’s injustice. This is the attitude in various TikTok and reels that portray women as helpless beauty pageants. In all these TikTok and reels, the women are stripped of all their mental achievements, educational degrees, or professional status. Whether she be a school or college student, lawyer, professional, doctor, teacher/professor, or any other position, they are brought down to mere blood and flesh in all these popular TikTok and reels.
Recently, we saw that even a policewoman in her uniform was treated like an object of lust. Surprisingly, she nodded to do it. Probably all these reels and TikTok are not real, but are acting. Yet this does not remove art from the society’s brutish attitude towards women, reminding us of the old pictures such as ’Manusmriti’.
A familiar cavalier attitude is transmitted towards the consumers and citizens. In the economic textbooks, consumers are the sovereigns. In the Ganges plain of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, they are helpless fellows only to be pitted on. The sellers feel that they are benevolent dictators freaking out a service to people. They readily forget the income they generate in the process. Probably in the Indian rural market, this is the attitude of the sellers to the buyers, at least to those who are marginal. If the market is structured in such a way all the tall talk of welfare improving perfect competition and its far distinction with monopoly, and oligopoly nearly fizzled out in the air.
This journey has opened to her only a small tunnel to the huge, uncharted world of real India. Unless we can fathom this reality, our economic and social sciences will remain a mormon