ABSTRACT
As a young anthropologist hoping to do fieldwork in Bihar in 1979, I waited through a long application period while one by one all the applications for Fulbrights and Indo-US Subcommission Fellows were processed—except mine. I was the sole anthropologist that year, and the hang-up turned out to be some passages in Gerald Berreman’s Hindus of the Himalayas (1972). Buried deep in the book were references to high caste men taking sexual advantage of low caste women. Although Berreman’s book was published in 1972, and had nothing to do with me or my research site, someone in the UP state legislature had just discovered it, and outrage ensued. Why were foreigners coming here and writing these things about us? My visa was put on hold. At the last minute someone was prevailed upon to sign off on it, and I was on the plane a week later. But it was an early lesson learned.
