Gender, Religion and Caste
Caste and politics
Explain how caste and politics shape each other.
What made caste different. Most societies have some inequality and some passing of jobs from parent to child. The caste system takes this to an extreme. In it:
- hereditary occupations were backed by religious rituals, so people could not choose;
- members married within their caste and did not eat with other castes;
- 'outcaste' groups were excluded and suffered untouchability.
Jotiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker were among the leaders who worked for a society without caste inequality.
Caste has weakened, not vanished. Economic growth, cities, education, people taking up new jobs, and weaker village landlords have broken down much of the old hierarchy. In a city, nobody minds who walks or eats beside them. The Constitution bans caste discrimination. But:
- most people still marry within their caste or tribe;
- untouchability has not fully ended;
- groups denied education for centuries are still behind, so 'upper castes' are over-represented in the urban middle class;
- caste is still linked to economic status: in 1999-2000, 45.8 per cent of rural Scheduled Tribes and 35.9 per cent of rural Scheduled Castes lived below the poverty line, against 11.7 per cent of rural Hindu upper castes.
Who is who (Census 2011). Scheduled Castes (Dalits), once treated as 'outcaste': 16.6 per cent. Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis), communities that lived apart in hills and forests: 8.6 per cent. The Census does not count Other Backward Classes; a 2004-05 survey put them at about 41 per cent. Together, SC, ST and OBC are about two-thirds of India. These are official categories made to undo old injustice, not a ladder of who is higher.
Caste in politics.
- Parties pick candidates with the caste mix of voters in mind, and include different castes in government.
- Parties and candidates appeal to caste feelings; some parties are seen as speaking for certain castes.
- One person, one vote made leaders seek every group's support, and gave castes once treated as inferior a new sense of their own power.
But elections are not all about caste. The book's four facts:
- no Lok Sabha constituency has a clear majority of one caste, so every candidate needs many castes;
- no party gets all the votes of a caste; a 'vote bank' only means many of them;
- several parties may field candidates of the same caste;
- ruling parties and sitting MPs and MLAs often lose, which could not happen if castes always voted one way.
Rich and poor, men and women of one caste often vote differently; how the government has performed matters a lot.
Politics changes caste too. It is caste that gets politicised:
- caste groups grow by taking in neighbouring castes and sub-castes;
- they must form coalitions and negotiate with others;
- new groups appear, like 'backward' and 'forward' castes.
Good and bad. Caste politics has helped Dalits and OBCs win a bigger share in decision-making, and groups have fought for dignity, land and opportunities. But politics based only on caste is unhealthy: it distracts from poverty, development and corruption, and can lead to tension and violence.
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