Explain how caste as a social category is also becoming a political category in the democratic politics of India. (UPSC CSE Mains 2021 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1)
- Caste acts both as divisive and cohesive factor in Indian Politics. It provides a basis for the emergence of several interest groups in the Indian political system each of which competes with every other grouping in their struggle for recognition and power. The caste-consciousness has led to the emergence of new trends in the India politics whereby the previous caste affiliations with different political parties are getting broken down and new caste equations are emerging to replace the old ones. Under the impact of modern politics, associations of caste have become the hall- mark of political mobilization. They have emerged with the object, of pursuing political power, social status and economic interest. Members of certain caste groups, who were considered low or the lowest in socio economic hierarchy a few decades ago, now amalgamate together into a common organization to press for their demands. With the growing confidence and status, they not only actively participate in the political process but also assert their identity and even strive for positions.
- Although all kinds of factors influence voters’ decision to support political parties, caste also is one of them. Indeed, some caste or group of castes form support base of some parties. For example, the Dalits form a substantial support base of the BSP. Till the 1980s, the Congress party’s support base in north India largely consisted of Dalits, backward classes and the High castes. Paul R. Brass termed it as “coalition of castes”. Following these strategies different parties take into consideration the caste composition of a constituency and make assessment as to which caste-candidate should be allotted tickets to contest election. Even the voters quite often take into considerations the castes of the candidates while casting votes in elections. Several studies have underlined the role of caste in empowering the people, especially those from the marginalised sections of the society. Some examples these studies include: Jaffralot and Kumar (eds. 2011) the book Rise of the Plebeians? The Changing Face on Indian Legislative Assemblies shows that in the post-Independence period the social profiles of several legislative assemblies in India has seen the increase in number of persons from plebeian or marginalized caste groups such as the Dalits and the OBCs; in his book Who Wants Democracy? Javeed Alam suggests that the low castes find caste as an empowering tool. Pratap Bhanu Mehta in Burden of Democracy argues democracy has inherited inequality and there is a gap between representation and responsiveness; scares state and more demands, more discretion of the state. Yogendra Yadav observes shift in changing participation of different social groups in terms of democratic upsurge. He divides this upsurge into two phases: phase of first democratic upsurge; second phase of democratic upsurge. The first democratic upsurge indicated the rise of backward classes during the 1960s-1970s, and the second democratic upsurge shows the increasing participation of Dalits. This has been due to the effective role played by the caste organizations.
- Rajni Kothari underscores that the alleged ‘casteism in politics’ is thus no more or no less than politicization of caste. In other words, it is not politics that gets impacted by caste, it is caste that gets politicised. Caste is one of the most important aspects of social and political life in India. As a social institution, it is strongly entrenched and despite the modernisation trends in India (as a result of urbanisation, improved means of communication and development of secular education) the caste factor persists. Although caste has undergone many changes it has become a factor to be reckoned with in politics and no political party ignores it.
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