Caste Politics in Independent India:

The most eventful and important sphere of change has been that of caste politics in independent India. From its very beginnings in independent India, democratic politics  has been deeply conditioned by caste. While its functioning has become more and more complex and hard to predict, it cannot be denied that caste remains central to electoral politics.

Understanding the intricate interplay between caste dynamics and political processes is crucial for unraveling the complexities of Indian politics.

Caste Politics: Emergence of Caste-Based Parties

• Caste-Based Political Parties: Shaping Electoral Landscape Since the 1980s: Since the 1980s, there has been a notable emergence of explicitly caste-based political parties.
  • In the early general elections, it seemed that caste affiliations played a decisive role in winning elections.
• Complex Caste Calculations in Indian Politics: However, the situation became more complex as political parties competed to harness similar caste-based calculations.

Caste Politics in India: Sanskritisation and the Emergence of Dominant Castes:

• Social Dynamics: Analyzing ‘Sanskritisation’ and the Dynamics of ‘Dominant Caste’: Sociologists and social anthropologists coined many new concepts to try and understand these processes of change. 
  • Perhaps the most common of these are ‘sanskritisation’ and ‘dominant caste’, both contributed by M.N. Srinivas, but discussed extensively and criticised by other scholars.
• Sanskritisation: Social Mobility through rituals and norms adoption: It is a process wherein members of a lower or middle caste strive to elevate their social status by adopting the rituals, domestic practices, and norms of higher-status castes.

• Dominant Caste: Shaping Rural Socioeconomic Dynamics: It is a term used to refer to those castes which had a large population and were granted land rights by the partial land reforms affected after Independence.

• • Effects of Land Reforms: Dominant castes gained substantial status in a rural economy as a result of land reforms. 
    • These land reforms took away rights from the previous landowners, typically upper castes known as “absentee landlords” who had little involvement in the agricultural economy.
    • Often, these upper-caste landowners resided in towns and cities, rather than the villages. 
  • Land Reforms and Caste Dynamics: The land rights were transferred to the next tier of claimants—those involved in managing agriculture but not the actual cultivation.
    • These intermediate castes depended on lower castes, especially the ‘untouchable’ castes, for the cultivation and maintenance of the land.
    • Their substantial numbers also translated into political influence in the era of electoral democracy based on universal adult suffrage.
    • As a result, these intermediate castes became the ‘dominant’ forces in rural areas, wielding decisive influence in regional politics and the agrarian economy. 
  • Examples: Such dominant castes include the Yadavs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Vokkaligas in Karnataka, the Reddys and Khammas in Andhra Pradesh, the Marathas in Maharashtra, the Jats in Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh, and the Patidars in Gujarat.

Caste dynamics in Modern India: What role does Caste Politics play?

Caste Politics in Modern India: Understanding Visibility and Invisibility:

• Paradox of Caste Invisibility in Urban Upper Classes:  The Upper Caste, Urban Middle, and Upper Classes, One of the most paradoxical shifts in the caste system is its tendency to become “invisible” for the upper caste, urban middle, and upper classes. 

• Post-Colonial Development and Caste: For these groups, who have benefited from post-colonial developmental policies, caste appears to have diminished in significance because it has fulfilled its role effectively.
• Caste Status as a driving force: Caste status has been ensuring that these groups, shaped by caste politics, possess the necessary economic and educational resources to fully exploit the opportunities presented by rapid development.
  • In particular, the upper caste elite have benefitted from subsidized public education, especially in fields like science, technology, medicine, and management.
• Caste Advantages in Post-Independence Public Sector Jobs: They have taken advantage of the expansion of public sector job opportunities in the initial post-independence decades. 
  • Their educational advantage prevented them from facing substantial competition during this period.
• Generational Privilege: Progress, Perception, and Caste Disconnection: As their privileged status consolidated over subsequent generations, these groups, influenced by caste politics, believed that their progress is detached from caste. 
  • For the 3rd generation from these groups, their economic and educational capital alone is sufficient to secure favourable life opportunities.
• Caste in Retreat: A Shifting Paradigm in Public Lives: For this group, it now appears that caste plays no significant role in their public lives, confined mainly to the personal sphere concerning religious practices or matters of marriage and kinship.
• Nuances of Privilege: Complexity in Upper-Caste Differentiation: However, the situation is more complex due to the group’s differentiation. 
  • While the privileged segment is predominantly upper caste, not all upper-caste individuals are privileged, some being poor.

Caste Politics in India: Understanding the Dynamics of Visibility and Dominance:

• Visible resurgence of Scheduled Castes, Tribes, and Backward Castes: Exactly the opposite has happened for the scheduled castes, tribes and backward castes.
  • Caste has become exceedingly visible, often overshadowing other facets of their identities.
• Caste Dominance: Impact of Capital Deficiency on Identity: Their caste identity, deeply intertwined with caste politics, has tended to dominate because they lack inherited educational and social capital. 
• Strategic Retention: Caste Identity in a Competitive Landscape As they must compete with the already entrenched upper caste, they cannot afford to abandon their caste identity, as it represents one of their few collective assets.
• Double-Edged Remedies: Caste Identity in Pursuit of Equality: Moreover, these groups continue to suffer from various forms of discrimination. 
  • State policies such as reservation and protective discrimination measures, implemented in response to political pressure and shaped by caste politics, serve as lifelines for them.
  • However, reliance on these measures tends to emphasize their caste identity as the primary and sometimes the sole aspect of their identity that the world recognizes and acknowledges.

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