Socio-Economic Implications of the Rajasthani Traditional Folk Drama Gavari: A Poverty Trap or a Revival of Social Capital in the Indian Tribal Community?

This chapter examines the economic rationality of the poor's individual religious behaviours who belong to a non-organized religion in India. The poor's expenditure on religious events is likely to be treated as a “poverty trap,” not as an investment for economic growth in mainstream development economics. We conducted the economic survey on participants and host communities of the traditional folk dance-drama “Gavari” performed collectively by the Bhil males, Schedule Tribe in Rajasthan. Gavari performers from the same community need to be absent from their work for 40 days while touring around neighbouring communities. Our survey in 2016 reveals that participation in Gavari reduces their income because rewards from hosting communities could not compensate for the 40-day income loss. Nevertheless, participating performers show their willingness to join the next Gavari occasion. It suggests performing Gavari would not be motivated by the temporary economic gain. We then clarified the long-term investment effect in Gavari by the treatment effect of performers and found out that investing their time and cost for performing Gavari is not for the short-term economic incentive but presumably the long-term investment for the social capital, bonding within the Bhil community and bridging over with other communities, in the region.