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British law and caste identity manipulation in colonial India : the Punjab Alienation of Land Act

I analyze the impact of the creation of an ”agricultural tribe” category by the Punjab Alienation of Land Act of 1901, the membership of which was almost compulsory in order to buy or sell land. Using original panel data built from the decennial census of Punjab from 1881 to 1921, I show, using various triple difference strategies, that in the districts where the law was enacted, caste groups showed a tendency to manipulate their caste identity in order to claim an affiliation to castes and tribes registered as agricultural by the British administration, pointing to both the role of the British administration in the making of caste as a salient identity in colonial Punjab, as well as the ability of caste groups to manipulate their identity in response to economic and institutional incentives.