Indian male in his habitat

Book review of Patriarchy and the Pangolin: A Field Guide to Indian Men and Other Species

John Muir once said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” As Aditi Patil tugs at nature, she finds it connected to a complex world shaped by gender norms, caste, and other unjust realities.  Patriarchy and the Pangolin follows Ms Patil and her co-researcher Manya Singh into rural Gujarat as they attempt to discern the pros and cons of the National Agroforestry Policy, 2014.

As they research, they “run into life” and find that “the greatest threat to pangolins and imperilled species [are] Indian men and patriarchy.” Ms Patil utilises gender as a kaleidoscopic lens to exemplify that unequal gender relations characterise every aspect of life. Conservation research and even agroforestry are not exempt from this inequity. As Ms Patil ventures into Gujarat’s Anand district, the first stop in her expansive research project, she intends to interview “both men and women” working in the farms. Yet, she only gains access to a group of male farmers while the women remain relegated to the kitchen. Moreover, as Ms Patil conducts field research in Matar village of Kheda district, she discovers that women farmers were not only hard to interview but were also unwilling to answer questions, specifically those regarding gender roles.

Ms Patil even sheds light on common obstacles faced by female researchers. After losing funding for their research, Ms Patil and her co-researcher point out that the lack of funding makes women researchers more susceptible to urinary tract infections. They inform readers that “no funds meant dubious toilets, which meant possible infections, which meant stopping work, which meant no funds.”

Ms Patil’s insights into the world of conservation research do not merely end at gender. The significant advantage of the book lies in her firm grasp of intersectionality as praxis. She and Ms Singh refuse to study agroforestry in isolation “with [their] eyes shut to everything around the trees.” They emphasise the interconnected nature of everything, specifically oppressive institutions such as gender and caste.

Ms Patil recognises that caste defines her status as a researcher. Her “appropriate” caste identity becomes a pre-requisite for entering the fields of upper-caste farmers. The malaise of caste repeatedly rears its ugly head throughout Ms Patil’s fieldwork. As she explores agroforestry and the human-lion conflict, she finds that the duty of disposing of carcasses of cattle killed by lions fell on Dalit folk. However, Dalits had become fearful of even being seen near-dead cows due to rising cow vigilantism, which resulted in the murder of seven Dalits in the nearby area of Una.  Ms Patil leverages such anecdotes to assert that “research, to be meaningful, has to be both specific and comprehensive, specific in its point of entry with an agenda and comprehensive in its refusal to stick narrowly with that agenda”.

Patriarchy and the Pangolin: A Field Guide to Indian Men and Other Species 

Author: Aditi Patil

Publisher: Hachette

Pages: 215; Price: Rs 291

As Ms Patil reflects on hard-hitting topics ranging from caste to limitations of research, the last thing the reader would expect is a laugh. But  Patriarchy and the Pangolin is a book impossible to put down without laughing out loud. 

Ms Patil utilises humour, specifically sarcasm, as a subversive tool to express dissent against a patriarchal society. For instance, when made to present her research in front of an all-male panel, Ms Patil trails off into a sarcastic monologue on what she truly wanted to say to the panelists. She refers to the board as a “patriarchal party” whose “evident diversity ... is heartwarming.”

She also introduces humour through a quirky cast ensemble with which the reader becomes intimate. Ms Singh is a chain-smoking “beautiful, spherical, chubby creature with skin the colour of golden sunset dipped in caramel” who breathes life into the book. She is unapologetic about her feminism and overdramatic reactions. Chetan Bhai is a driver hired for fieldwork who is convinced that dealing with heartbreak is “possible only through intense worship of the Holy Cow and Gujarati trance music.” Then there is Praful, an upper-caste Gujrati man part of the research team responsible for “hydrating the team” and “ensuring general calm.” The four comrades find comedy in the mundane obstacles of conducting fieldwork.

What makes the book memorable, however, is the intimate and feminist bond between Ms Singh and Ms Patil. The entire “light-hearted and lightly heated tone” of the book stems from the “drama” created by Ms Singh in Ms Patil’s life. The two exchange banter but still find “warmth in each other’s company.” They take on every obstacle together, including “bureaucrats, forest guards, men with expansive mustaches, and other living species that are never as aggressive or threatening.” Their bond somehow makes being endangered by the ferocious Indian male species less taxing.

The lasting message for the reader is the need for such solidarity in this patriarchal society. Patriarchy and the Pangolin is a truly surprising book, as, despite its title, it is neither solely about the patriarchy nor the pangolin. They act as “symbols and threading leitmotifs” in a book that begins with conservation research but ends with insights into Indian society. It is a witty and nuanced book for anyone trying to navigate the complex, male-dominated jungle that is India.