Better Must Come political systems was only observed among a minority, 145 and given that the UpCountry Tamil population numbers nearly one million, 146 it would be irresponsible to state with authority that resignation is how this population as a whole responds to these systems, or that dissensus does not exist in the UpCountry. Moreover, the short time spent with each interviewee along with how interview questions were structured may not have allowed for methods of negotiating hegemonic systems apart from direct confrontation to emerge in the responses provided by those consulted, and for this reason the claim that resignation is the primary response to such systems advanced above should not be read as conclusive. 147 As Scott reminds us, ‘much of the politics of subordinate groups falls into the category of everyday forms of resistance’ which include such acts as ‘foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, feigned ignorance, desertion, pilfering, smuggling, poaching, arson, slander, sabotage, surreptitious assault and murder, anonymous threats, and so on’. 148 Such resistance is decidedly clandestine and unlikely to do more than marginally affect the various forms of exploitation that subordinate groups encounter, 149 though it is precisely because of ‘the nature of the acts themselves and the self-interested muteness of the antagonists’ 150 that social scientists preoccupied with directs threats to power, the author included, are unable to uncover the forms of everyday resistance surreptitiously deployed to advance the interests of subordinate groups or to thwart the claims of those who dominate the exercise of power. 151 What is more, the absence of direct confrontation or organised social movements to challenge prevailing power hierarchies may be wrongfully observed by researchers as quiescence or submission, thereby overlooking ‘the slow, grinding, quiet struggle’ 152 against exploitation that relies on public displays of submission as a necessary tactic in those circumstances where open defiance is either impossible or entails mortal danger. 153 For these reasons, this study may not have captured the fine-grained totality of the methods used to respond to hegemonic social and political systems by those consulted, such that resignation in the face of adversity is only a provisional finding. 145 Four of 30 interviewees revealed inaction, accommodation or resignation as a response to 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 difficulties with negotiating access to healthcare, education and formal employment beyond the estate. Department of Census and Statistics, Census of Population and Housing — 2012 (Report, 30 June 2015) 4. Interviewees who revealed they had encountered discrimination or other less explicit barriers that prevented them from accessing healthcare, education and formal employment beyond the estate, and from engaging the political process, were asked how they responded to these barriers so as to gauge whether interviewees had undertaken to construct a dissensus against the denial of rights they suffer. Still, by concerning itself with only open, immediate and direct responses to such hostility and discrimination, this line of inquiry may have not captured the covert methods of negotiating and responding to hegemonic social and political systems that operate to deny Up-Country Tamils their rightful access to healthcare, education, formal employment and political participation. James C Scott, ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ in Forrest D Colburn (ed), Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (M E Sharpe 1989) 5–6. James C Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press 1985). ibid 36. Scott, ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ (n 148). Scott, Weapons of the Weak (n 149) 37. Scott, ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ (n 148). 33