The caste social boycott functions as lethal reverse non-cooperation against Dalits.

Evidence

In rural areas, the threat of actual physical violence sometimes paled before the spectre of the ‘social boycott’ that orthodox Hindus would proclaim against any Untouchable who dared to defy the system. (This could mean anything from daring to buy a piece of land, wearing nice clothes, smoking a bidi in the presence of a caste Hindu, or having the temerity to wear shoes, or ride a mare in a wedding procession. The crime could even be an attitude, a posture that was less craven than an Untouchable’s is meant to be.) It’s the opposite of the boycott that the Civil Rights Movement in the US used as a campaign tool; the American Blacks at least had a modicum of economic clout to boycott buses and businesses that held them in contempt. Among privileged castes, the social boycott in rural India traditionally means ‘hukka-pani bandh’—no hukka (tobacco) and no pani (water) for a person who has annoyed the community. Though it’s called a ‘social boycott’, it is an economic as well as social boycott. For Dalits, that is lethal. The ‘sinners’ are denied employment in the neighbourhood, denied the right to food and water, denied the right to buy provisions in the village Bania’s shop. They are hounded out and left to starve. The social boycott continues to be used as a weapon against Dalits in Indian villages. It is non-cooperation by the powerful against the powerless—non-cooperation, as we know it, turned on its head. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 304

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Milgrom’s claimed contrast of counter-boycott as power tool; here boycott is used against the powerless.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘Grafting & Growth’ essay’s theme of infrastructure as control — the social boycott is an infrastructure of starvation.