IIIInnntttrrrroooodddduuuuccccttttiiioooonnnnshodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/28538/8/08_introduction.pdf ·...

IIIIIIIIIIIInnnnnnnnnnnnttttttttttttrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooodddddddddddduuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccttttttttttttiiiiiiiiiiiioooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn

InInInIntroductiontroductiontroductiontroduction

1

INTRODUCTION

All human beings are born Equal in dignity and rights,

Years have passed since these nice words were inscribed in Article 1 of the

Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United

Nations. The world has progressed a great deal since then. But, unfortunately, neither

in the God-created ‘first world’ nor in the man’s creation-‘the Third World’- does

anything substantial seem to have been done to give effect to these words. As a result,

we find people divided almost everywhere into the same old bipolar castes, ‘superior’

and ‘inferior’ or ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’ on the basis of distinctions like religions,

sects, races, castes, tribes or ethnic or cultural groups. But of course with one

difference: earlier the bipolar world was ‘peaceful’; there were docile and

understanding. Now things have started changing under the impact of modernism.

In India, the urge for the democratic socialism to have a just order has come

from Marxist socialist tradition with influence of Marx and Gandhi. Jawahar lal

Nehru (1889-1964), Jay Prakash Narayan (1902-1979), Acharya Narendra Dev (1889-

1956), Ram Manohar Lohia (1910-1967), Ashok Mehta and Minoo Massani were all

influenced by democratic socialism and strove hard for the dissemination and

inculcation of those values. Nehru was seen as the champion of socialism in India. He

was an ideologue of socialism, secularism and economic development. He is also seen

as the champion of equality, social justice and freedom. Ram Manohar Lohia

highlighted the concepts of equality, freedom and social justice. He insisted on the

democratic decentralization of economic and political power. It was he who for the

first time raised the demand of preferential treatment for the backward castes in

Independence India. He advocated that democratic planning would root out the

differences and disparities. Ashok Mehta put emphasis on economic planning to

remove social and economic disparties from our society. He also emphasized on

planned development, social reforms and democratic decentralization to attain social

justice.1

1 Bagchi,Santanu, Ideas on Socialism and Social Justice, 2002, p. 182


2

The lower caste movement in the Southern and Western India started much

before independence. Polarisation of caste affiliations was easier in the south, given

the absence of a complex caste middle order in the region. Also, the anti-brahmin

movement coincided with an anti-Aryan movement. Primarily an idea floated by the

British, the association of brahmins with Aryans and non-brahmins with Dravidianism

allowed for an alternative ethnic identity to emerge. Caste differences were equated

with racial and ethnic differences. Lower castes were the autochthones, forced into the

Hindu fold by the Aryan invaders. The category 'non-brahmin' gained administrative

legitimacy under the British policy of positive discrimination for lower castes in

education as early as the 1880s when the Madras education department classified the

population into 'brahmins' and 'non-brahmins'. This further consolidated the

movement, where in a number of dominant cultivating and merchant castes sought

cover under the umbrella notion of the 'non-brahmin'. The composition of the

Congress Party in Tamil Nadu reflected the anti-brahmin sentiments of the times. As

early as the 1950s, brahmins represented only 5 per cent of the MLAs in the Congress

government as against 17.2 per cent in 1937.

This work attempts at giving a comprehensive account of Uttar Pradesh caste

politics as a whole. It provides a comparative perspective on why the lower caste

movement did not develop earlier in UP, as it did in the other parts of the country.

Some scholars and politicians (like the late C.B. Gupta) claim that the state did not

have any caste tensions or politics until many years after the independence. This is not

wholly true. During the pre-independence days there were ramblings of discontent

among the backward castes. Leaders like Swami Achutananda (1879-1933) of

Kanpur, Swami Ram Charan Mallah, S.D. Singh Chaurasia were trying to politicize

the backward castes. Swami Bodhananda Mahasthavir started the Adivasi Hindu

League in the twenties. Many delegates from UP have been attending the depressed

classes conferences. E.V. Ramaswami Naicker presided over the conference held at

Kanpur in 1946. The UP backwards, staying in the Hindu Sanskritic heart-land, and

surrounded by the famous shrines and places of pilgrimage, could not be persuaded to

reject Brahminism.

B.S.Cohn2 argues that colonial state pursued the policy “introduction by

classification”, i.e., colonial state classified through the systems of census,

2 Cohn, B.S., An Anthropologist among the Historian and Other Essays, Oxford University Press,

1987


3

reservation, separate electorate etc., thereby, dividing the sections along lines of caste,

religion etc., thus colonial state through the system of census, reservation and separate

electorates etc. challenged the homogenous Hindu identity and paved the way not

only for emergence of caste ideology but also communal ideology.

During the colonial period, the issue of casteism, fall under the notion of

secondary contradiction and the primary motive during the colonial period was not in

real terms to truly address the grievances of untouchables but to prepare them for

being part of the Indian national movement. The neglect of social development in UP

is closely related to the entrenched class structure of the state, particularly the

uncompromising character of its upper class elite. This elite has proved resilient to

social compromises. It has not shown the foresight to ease its dominant political

position in order to accommodate the new social groups that emerged on the political

scene.

In UP, the ruling classes have not gone down this route. During the 1970s and

1980s, the high-caste elite found it unnecessary to compromises as they were firmly in

control. This was, among other things, due to the fact that the high castes constituted a

much more significant proportion of the population than elsewhere in India.

Brahmins, Rajputs of various kinds and Banias, Kayasthas and Khatris make up

around 20 percent of the UP population compared to 3-5 percent in states like

Maharashtra. When their dominance over certain client social groups (Muslims,

Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Castes) finally collapsed in the late 1980s, it was

too late for realignments. At this time, political alternatives had evolved both for the

modern farmers and for the “subaltern” groups.

The Zamindari Abolition followed by the Green Revolution was a turning

point in the caste rivalries in as much as the economic power in rural India passed in

the hands of certain agriculturist castes, who were educationally backward and

consequently underrepresented in government services. They have been called as

Kulaks, Bullocks cart capitalist by various Scholars. This new rural elite has had

assumed the leadership of the so-called backward classes and claims a larger share in

political power. This new elite has had a vested interest in caste-based reservations

because it was able to corner all the benefits made available to the backward caste.


4

The label of social justice given to the demand for caste-based reservation has given

an ideological edge to what is basically a struggle for greater share in power and jobs.

While it is difficult to deny altogether the legitimacy of the demand of the hitherto

deprived for a better deal, this demand has to process in a rational and democratic

manner. It is significant that the demands made by backward castes are meeting with

stiff resistance from the ‘forward castes’ giving rise to a conflict situation.

The expansion of political participation in the 1970s and 1980s has placed

historically disadvantaged and marginalized groups at the centre of the political

system and governance at all levels. The rapid politicization and accelerated

participation of groups such as the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Dalits raise

question about inclusion, exclusion and varied patterns of empowerment and the

impact of the latter on the growth and consolidation of democracy. One aspect of

these changes has to do with the processes and strategies that have inspired the

induction of marginal groups into the political decision-making process. The second

concerns an assessment of the significance of political empowerment for the

disadvantaged groups.

This thesis explores some of these themes in the unfolding drama of social and

political change in Uttar Pradesh during 1930-1990. It has attempted to explore a

history of the political fortunes of three different and historically underprivileged

social groups in Uttar Pradesh viz. the ex-Untouchables, officially named Scheduled

Castes by India’s constitution, and often also called the Dalits; the Other Backward

Classes (OBCs) among the Hindus and Backward classes among the Muslims, who,

of late have started calling themselves, Pasmanda.

There are, however, many reasons, why I selected the state of Uttar Pradesh

for the study of Ph.d topic. First, the state is diverse and most populous, with

substantial variation in socio-religious cleavages most often associated with intra and

inter caste and community conflicts. Second, the state witnessed the multiplication

with the mobilization of lower castes and the minority communities in this period.

Third, it was because the key political debate regarding Muslim issues such as the

status of Urdu, minority character of the Aligarh Muslim University, the issue of cow

slaughter, anti-Shah Bano Campaign, the infamous Ayodhya-temple-mosque dispute


5

were engineered in UP and for these problems caste question among Muslims were

suppressed. Fourth, in Western India, Phule (1827-1890), Ambedkar (1891-1956),

Prakash Ambedkar presents the Dalit Movement in strong way, in southern India anti

Brahmin movement started in colonial era and in Eastern India like Bengal raised up

the Namasudra Movements. But in Northern India, particularly in the region of Uttar

Pradesh, the question of caste remains? Present study aims at exploring this

phenomena in Uttar Pradesh from the 1930s to the 1980s. The subject has been

explored comprehensively by the Scholars like Susan Bayly (1999), K.C. Yadav

(1994), Christophe Jaffrelot (2003), Mendelson and Vicziany (1998) etc., who have

worked on the rise of Dalits and Other Backward Castes mainly in north India. But

such studies are not focusing specifically on Uttar Pradesh, Zoya Hasan (1998) has

also worked but only on certain aspects of the subject which focuses more on the

decline of the Congress in U.P. that too only in late 1980s, and hers is not a work of

history. This study, therefore, attempts to explore this aspect focusing exclusively on

Uttar Pradesh, with a historical continuum from 1930 to 1990.

I

The issue of identity of untouchables has been a recurrent theme especially

during the colonial and post-colonial period. Frequent change in the nomenclature or

identity is characteristic of “untouchables” history than any other community in India

and interwined with the intellectual developments in the wider milieu. In addition to

their caste or sub-caste (or jati) identity, homogenous categories expressing generic

identity of untouchables cutting across regional and intra untouchable distinctions

have been deployed by various agencies during the colonial period. For instance, they

have been categorized as Depressed Classes, Harijans and Scheduled Castes serving

multifarious contexts, ranging from official documentation necessitated by the

colonial structure to the cultural movements of the caste Hindu and untouchable

communities. The following section seeks to understand in a historical context as to

how these multiple identities/nomenclatures evolved from time to time.

During the 1930s emerged a new set of British official euphemisms for Dalits,

such as Depressed Classes, Exterior Castes, Scheduled Castes. In 1930, the Indian

Statutory Commission defined that in origin, these castes seem to be partly functional


6

comprising those who followed occupations held to be unclean or degrading. Such as

scavenging, leather working and partly tribal i.e., aboriginal tribes absorbed into

Hindu fold and transformed into an impose caste.3 The term “exterior castes’

appeared for the first time in the census of India, 1931, finally all these untouchable

groups were listed (i.e., scheduled) in 1936 for the purposes of giving effect to the

provisions for special electoral representations in the Government of India Act, 1935.

These Scheduled Castes, adopted by the Indian Constitution, which legalized the term

to use its all official purposes. The concept Dalit is comparatively more recent

appearance, although is not very recent coinage as some of the scholars suggests. But

the recent theological research shows that the concepts such as Dalit, dal, dalah etc.,

have been extensively used in the Hebrew Language.4 But in Indian case, the concept

Dalit came into vogue in 1972 in Maharashtra with the formation of the Dalit

Panthers movement.

The Dalit problem at once an old question and a new challenge. It has been

with us as an existential social reality, but the magnitude of the crisis assured by it is

relatively a new occurrence. Several social reformers and concerned intelligentsia,

both Dalit and non-Dalit, have tried their best to eradicate it from the social fabric.

The study of Dalits has often been left to anthropologists and sociologists.

They do valuable studies, but the historical point of view is often incomplete and

incoherent. Lower caste history has not yet become a part of Indian historiography,

even though the study is of immense importance with regard to its inherent radical

democratic identity and its inter-relation with the contemporary movements.

Available studies on Dalit history in India suffer from lack of historical and written

documentation, providing scope for ambiguity. Mainstream historical works suffer

from apathy to the Dalit consciousness and maneourings in different parts of the

country during the colonial period. Many works dealing with the stratification of

Indian society, do give a chapter or a section on Dalits of a particular region or of a

country as a whole as historical antecedents.

3 Indian Statutory Commission, Report, 1931, Vol. 1, Calcutta 1930, p. 37 4 Massey, James, Towards Dalit Hermeneutics: Re-reading the text, the history and the Literature,

Dalhi, 1994.


7

Dalits have always been a subject of interest for missionaries, social historian

and social anthropologists, Studies on Dalits started as early as the late nineteenth

century. They mostly emerged as the outcome of missionaries’ travel records and

personal accounts,5 official papers, district Gazetteers, ethnographic notes, census

reports and such sources. These sources provide some account of the conditions of

these communities.

Perhaps the earliest exhaustive and systematic work on any Dalit caste was by

G.W. Briggs.6 Drawing from variety of sources he examined in detail the socio-

economic and religious life while also focusing on the private or what he terms the

‘domestic’ sphere of Chamars, the leather-workers in United Provinces. Other

significant contributions to studies on social change and works of Epstien,7 Beteille,8

Alexander,9 Lynch,10 and Zelliot.11 They have described the impact of social change

among Dalits. While Esptein shows the impact of economic development in the

overall political structure in two Mysore villages, Beteille describes the process of

Sanskritization among Dalits that resulted in renounciation of their traditional

occupations. Alexander analyzes the multi-faceted impacts of economic

independence, modern education and various public welfare programmes on the

Pulayas, an important Dalit community of Kerala, similarly Lynch describes the

process of social mobility among the Jatavs of Agra (U.P.), Zelliot depicts the process

of Dalit utilization of emerging political change in Maharashtra.

Many studies in the era of post colonial societal development concentrated

primarily on assessing the impact of Constitutional safeguards and various public

welfare measures and programmes to bring about change in the position of Dalits,

5 Perhaps first in its kind was of Abbe J.A. Dubois a French Missionary’s experiences of early

decades of 19th century of Indian people, society and culture. In Chapter five of his work contains one of the earliest documented description of Dalits. This was originally written in 1815, translated by Henry K. Beauchamps, See Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, London, 1953, third edition, 1906

6 Briggs, George Weston, The Chamars, London, 1920 7 Epstein, G. Scarlett, Economic Development and Social Change in South India, Manchester, 1962 8 Beteille, Andre, “The Future of the Backward classes: The Competing Demands of Status and

Power” in Philip Mason, (ed.), India and Ceylone: Unity and Diversity, London, 1965, pp. 83-120 9 Alexander, K.C., “Channging status of Pulaya Harijans of Kerala”, Economic and Political

Weekly, Vol. III, July, 1968, Special Number, pp. 1071-74 10 Lynch, Owen M., The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a city of

India, New York, 1969. 11 Zelliot, Eleanor, Learning of the Use pf Political Means: The Mahars of Maharashtra” in Rajni

Kothari (ed.), Caste in Indian Politics, New Delhi, 1970, pp. 29-69


8

need specific mention. Locating change in his specific context, Oommen12 perceives

that they have so far served a “negative purpose” of creating ‘caste consciousness’.

Ramaswamy13 concludes that they led to the establishment of a separate identity as

helpless, dependent and destitute community rather than integrating them into the rest

of society. She argues that provisions like reservations and educational facilities have

benefited only the urban and semi-urban dwellers while the lots of rural Dalits remain,

more or less the same as centuries ago.

None of the above studies mentioned are, however, concerned about the Dalit

Political Movement. Dalits were often categorized either as marginal people without a

history of their own or as objects, rather than subjects of the history of India as a

whole. The Dalit movements have not fared much better in the histories of modern

India by Indian historians, who generally relegate Dalits to chapters on social reform

and portray them as passive victims, recipients and beneficiaries rather than active

participant in their own struggles.14 This brief survey would seem to strongly suggest

that there was no such thing as a Dalit movement, particularly during the colonial

period.

The Indian historians by and large do not acknowledge the positive role of the

Dalits either in their own movements or in anti-colonial struggles. The only paragraph

that Mazumdar15 devoted to Dalits, describe them as objects of philanthropic and

social work conducted by others. In his later work16 Mazumdar refers to Ambedkar

and Dalits as mere political bargainers of the 1930s and 40s struggles which

ultimately led to independence. However his long depiction of Dalits portrayed social

reformers Congress and Gandhi as the primer movers while Ambedkar is caste in the

role of perceptive critic.17 R. R. Sethi refers to the Dalits only in connection with the

12 Oommen, T.K., “Strategy for Social Change: A Study of Untouchability”, Economic and Political

Weekly, vol. III, no. 25, 1968, pp. 1959-1964 13 Ramaswamy, Uma, “Scheduled Castes in Andhra: Some Aspects of Social Change”, Economic

and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 29, 1974, pp. 1153-1158; “Self-Identity Among Scheduled Castes: Study of Andhra”, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 9, no. 47, 1974, pp. 1959-1964.

14 Webster, C.B. John, “Understanding the Modern Dalit Movement”, Sociological Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 2, September 1996, pp. 189-204

15 Mazumdar, R.C., ed., An Advanced History of India: Modern India, part III, London, 1958, pp. 959-960

16 Mazumdar, R.C., The History and Culture of the Indian People: Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, 1969, pp. 479, 494, 521, 696, 731

17 Ibid., pp. 523-525 and 1000-1012


9

Communal Award of 1932 and as objects of ‘uplift’ work.18 Bipan Chandra confines

his treatment of Dalits to a three page section on the struggle against caste in his

textbook,19 but he gives them a more activist role his predecessors. However this

cannot be said of his recent work20 which is concerned only with Gandhi’s “Harijan

uplift movement”. Finally, Sumit Sarkar reluctantly includes a brief treatment of the

Mahar movement but in his discussion of the 1930s only the Gandhian Harijan

campaign is highlighted.21

The few writings which are especially concerned with the history of Dalits in

the partition years also tend to ignore their history. Jurgensmeyer’s account of the

struggles of Ad-Dharmis in the Punjab is one such study. In ‘the final struggle for

independence’ he writes, ‘issues regarding the lower castes were all but forgotten’.22

But, forgotten by whom? Only by caste Hindu leaders and historians, it seems to me.

The politics of the Congress, the Muslim League, the Sikhs, the princely states and

the British during these years have received extensive scholarly attention. The

dynamics of Dalit politics have largely been ignored. Sekhar Bandyopadhyaya’s study

of Namasudras of Bengal from 1937 to 1947 is ‘one’ of the few works that address

the issue of partition and independence.23 He argues that Namasudras politics moved

away from a position of ‘alienation’ in the 1920s and 1930s to one of ‘integration’

with the Congress and the nation in the 1940s.24 The term ‘alienation’ is defined with

reference to the Congress and the position of the Namasudras towards it. In the

context of Bengal, Bandyopadhyay has argued that until the 1930s Namasudras

remained indifferent towards the Congress and in fact supported the policies of

Colonial power and in the process earned safeguards from them. In the 1940s, he

18 Sethi, R.R., “The Last Phase: 1919-1947” in H.H. Dodwell, The Indian Empire, 1858-1918, vol.

VI, Delhi, 1958, pp. 630-32, 685-686. 19 Chandra, Bipan, Modern India: A Text book of History for Secondry Schools, NCERT, New

Delhi, 1971, pp. 231-233. 20 Chandra, Bipan, ed., India’s Struggle for Independence, op.cit. 21 Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India, 1885-1947, Delhi, 1983, pp. 56, 243, 328-330 22 Juergensmeyer, Mark, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th

Century Punjab, Berkeley, 1982, p. 164 23 Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of Bengal, 1872-

1947, London, 1997. See his article, ‘From Alienation to Integration: Changes in the Politics of Caste in Bengal, 1937-47’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, 1994

24 Bandyopadhyay, ‘From Alienation to Integration’, p. 350. Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity, p. 174


10

claims their politics moved towards integration with the Congress and the nation. Joya

Chatterji identifies another similar stream of integration, the Namasudras’

participation in the ‘communal battles over their religious right as Hindus’.

Virtually, all in the works of the above mentioned historians dalits were not

significant and even if they were referred to, Dalits were not seen as acting on their

own but in the wake of socially concerned members of the dominant castes. Dalit

maneuvering and consciousness was perceived as mundane or at most selfish and

negative. Such interpretations of Dalits as passive indicate a failure of these scholars

to get into the intricacies of Dalits is elitist and often patronizing. Metaphorically

speaking, nationalist historians and caste Hindu sociologists, visited village India

while the Marxist and subaltern historians visited Dalit hut and wrote about their

history. But reality of the Dalit history is yet to come.

Beginning with the pioneering effort of Eleanor Zelliot25 a growing number of

historical monographs have recently offered a necessary corrective. These provide

ample evidence of a dalit movement prior to the enactment of the 1919 constitutional

reforms which grew in proportion and political significance throughout the 1920s and

1930s. Dalits may not have had a single organization parallel to the Muslim League or

the Hindu Mahasabha but they did have strong grass-root organizations with common

demand for their own political representation as well as for dignity, equality, and

justice and a recognized leadership Pre-eminent among them was Babasaheb

Ambedkar.

The Dalit struggle in colonial India understood in the simplest possible terms

is the organizational or institutional efforts made by Dalit leaders for the liberation of

untouchables.26 At a time when profound economic and political changes were

opening, new critical perspective to review the situation of various movements for the

empowerment of Dalits, not many works are available by the Indian intelligentsia.

The available sources reveal the fact that the positive roles of Dalits in their

movements, especially during colonial times, were acknowledged only by western

scholars and Dalits themselves. One of the common denominators of this new reality 25 Zelliot, Elearnor, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement, New Delhi,

1992. 26 Kshirsagar, R.K., Dalit Movement in India and its Leaders, 1857-1956, New Delhi, 1974, pp. 4-5


11

is the Dalit assertion that the time has come to delineate social, economic and

political realities from a Dalit perspective continues to be highly brahminical both in

its approach to social sciences as well as in the formulation of various state policies. It

is therefore a question of projecting a new Dalit vision capable of providing a new

and more realistic understanding of tradition history and culture.

The purpose of S.K. Gupta’s study27 was to present a detailed and analytical

account of the multi faceted struggle of the Scheduled caste the odyssey of the

transformation occurring between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the

Government of India Act of 1935, the precursor for Dalits of the constitution of India

in the post colonial era. He analyzes with painstaking data to prove his point that this

transformation passed through three stages. The Dalits initiation into politics by 1916;

their establishing a political identity by 1927; and a marked changed in their political

status secured by the 1935 Act. A.C. Pradhan28 tells essentially the same story but

with a different frame work. Pradhan considers the developments prior to 1917 to be

preparatory and treats them in a very summary form but he then extends his period

beyond 1935 to 1947. Another significance of his framwork is the manner in which he

organized his account less around the various British initiated announcements mission

and commissions than around the three key parties to the emergence of Depressed

classes as a social reality and a political force to be taken increasingly serious by these

parties were the British policy makers the Congress Gandhi and caste Hindu religious

organizations and the Depressed Classes leaders and their organizations.

Later on, the birth centenary year of Babasaheb Ambedkar (1991) has seen a

plethora of publications adding to the growing literature on Ambedkar on the one

hand and Dalit politics and Dalit movement on the other. Though the number of

monographs written on the Dalit movement in the 1990s is small in the quantitative

terms it gives us much more in qualitative terms. The whole decade of the 1990s saw

more of micro-level studies on the various aspects of dalit life. Often they are either

related to the post colonial era Dalits in general or centered around Ambedkar.

27 Gupta, S.K., The Scheduled Caste in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as Political Power,

Delhi, 1985 28 Pradhan, A.C., The Emergence of the Depressed Classes, Bhubaneswar, 1986


12

A holistic interpretation is offered by Gail Omvedt, who locates the Dalit

movement in the frame work of Immanuel Wallerstein,29 as “anti systematic”, which

in the language of functionalist sociological theory indicates a “value oriented

movement” as opposed to “norm oriented movements”.30 Among sociologists it is

possible to discern a dominant ideological current that has bearing on the study of

Dalit movements. There is a “Liberal” trend among a group of scholars, who believe

that it is the ancient Hindu reactionary traditions and the deep-rooted prejudice against

Dalit by the caste-Hindu that has led to the protest from the Dalits. This trend views

Dalit protest as a necessary outcome of an obscurantist Hindu traditions. This liberal

views also has a strong tendency to assume that the Dalit movement is limited to

achieving the partial advance that it has in the socio-economic, civic and political

fields within the existing social order, without any thought regarding its radical

transformation in order respects. It is due to this ideological position that concepts like

“social mobility”, “reference group” and “relative deprivation” figure so prominently

in their writings on Dalit movement,31 becoming a major frame of reference for

studying Dalit movement.

While analyzing the typology of Dalit movements, Ghanshyam Shah32

classifies them into (a) reformative and (b) alternative movements. The former tries to

reform the caste system to solve the problem of untouchability and the alternative

movement attempts to create an alternative socio-cultural structure by conversion to

other religions or by acquiring education, economic status and political power. Both

types of movements use political means to attain their objectives. The reformative

movements further divided into; (i) bhakti movements; (ii) neo-vedantic movements;

and (iii) sanskritization movements. The alternative movements are divided into: (i)

conversion movements, and (ii) religious or secular movements.

In spite of various approaches and hypothetical frame works used to locate the

Dalit Movement during colonial time, it would be most appropriate to perceive it in 29 Wallerstein, Immanuel, “Anti-Systematic Movements and the Three Worlds”, Lanka Guardians,

June 1, 1985, cited in Gail Omvedt, Ibid., p. 10 30 For details see Neil Smelser, A Theory of Collective Behaviour, New York, 1963. 31 Among those notable scholars who fall into this liberal category is M.S.A. Rao, who has used

similar concepts for understanding the emergence of the protest movements among Dalits and Backwards. See M.S.A. Rao, Social Movements in India, Delhi, 1982, Vol. I, p. 4

32 Shah, Ghanshyam, “Anti-Untouchability Movements”, in Vimal Shah, ed., Removal of Untouchability, Ahmedabad, 1980


13

the frame work of Wallerstein anti-systematic movements” this signifies the

revolutionary ideology of the anti-caste movements that “challenged and sought to

transform the basic structure of Indian social system, replacing caste and

accompanying social oppression economic exploitation and political domination by

egalitarian society,” The simplistic classification of the Dalit movement as

“reformist”, “casteiest” or “divisive” movements is an inadequate frame work for a

crucial movement which strove to establish an egalitarian society.

During the decade of the 1980s and for a major emerged, part of the 1990s, a

new trend of historiography identified as the “subaltern” school, which dismisses

previous historical writing as “elite” historiography, but has little to offer by way of

an understanding of the comprehensive history of the people.

Two major themes that have emerged in the writings of the scholars writing

under the subaltern banner are (a) peasant resistance and peasant consciousness in

colonial India and (b) the relationship between the peasantry and the national

movement. The term “subaltern” categorizes under its fold “the lesser rural gentry,

impoverished landlords, rich peasants and upper-middle peasants”. The socially

oppressed, economically exploited, politically marginalized, land less agricultural

labourer, Dalit does not fall within the ambit of their ideological construction.

Consequently the “subaltern” sections of Indian society constitute rural gentry and

impoverished landlords, the direct oppressors and exploiters of Dalit masses, Marxist

being limited to a class perspective, could not reach out to caste, to visualize the

Indian social reality. Neo-Marxists or subalterns could speak only of intermediary

classes of Indian social setting. Dalitist or Dalit perspectives of Indian history can be

invariably distinguished from the subaltern. I prefer to call this trend as the sub-

subaltern, which is, of course, yet to emerge as a major discourse in historiography.

Chinna Rao Yagati (2003), argues that the dominant historiograhies find no

place to locate the Dalits in historical writings, it is high time for the Dalits to

articulate and reconstruct their own past. The sub-subaltern perspective calls for a

Dalit interpretation of history, with a dual purpose. Firstly, to deconstruct the Dalits’

passive identity throughout the historical writings and secondly, to construct a Dalit

positive identity and Dalits’ appropriate place in Indian historiography.


14

There is a need to the role of various political agencies in providing the

capacity for political talk to the dalit politics in UP. In UP, Dalits experienced a

number of important positive changes since the nineteenth century, and were

increasingly able to assert their rights. Their aspirations were emerging through the

then popular sects, which were gaining popularity, as these were in congruence with

social reforms of that time.

Maren Bellwinkel- Schemp33, who studies the Dalits of Kanpur ,observes that

Ravidas became the most popular saint among the Dalits in Kanpur, and was the

reason why veneration for the two other Bhakti saints—Kabir (1398-1448) and Shiv

Narayan (1716-90), a Kshatriya from Ballia district—receded into the background.

Around 1900, Ravidas became increasingly more popular.34 In Kanpur, the Kurils

established a caste association and named it after Ravidas. In 1925, Swami

Achhutananda (1879-1933) arrived and made his home in Kanpur. He was a jatav

chamar, who grew up in the cantonment in western UP and joined the Arya Samaj.

He build up the Adi-Hindu Movement in UP, reversed the so called ‘Aryan Theory of

Race’35 and claimed that the untouchables were highly civilized and peaceful original

inhabitants of India, who used to rule the country. Achhutanand made Ravidas the

flag staff of his movement as the Adi Dharm had done in Punjab at the same time.

Achhutanand brought the ‘Chaudhuries’ of the untouchable caste together and

through Chanda (Collection), a small temple built in Harbans mohalla (ward) in 1924.

This ward was predominantly inhabited by Kurils, Ravidas temples were also built in

Etawah, Lucknow, Allahabad and Ayodhya.36

When Dr B.R.Ambedkar arrived on the scene, casteism became a real political

issue. He himself having experienced the brutalities perpetrated on the untouchables

found that the problem could not be solved by making any compromise with the

upper-castes. In the course of empowering his Dalit caste fellows, Ambedkar was

drawn into an epic conflict with Gandhi, on the critical question of the Dalit location

within the Hindu social order. Ambedkar felt that once India got freedom, his people,

33 Bellwinkel-Schempp, Maren, ‘From Bhakti to Buddhism: Ravidas and Ambedkar’, Economic and

Political Weekly, Vol. XLII, No. 23, 2007 pp. 2177-83 34 Briggs, George Weston, The Chamars, Associated Press, Calcutta, 1920, p. 210 35 Bayly, Susan, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age,

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 127 36 Bellwinkel-Schempp, Maren, ‘From Bhakti to Buddhism: Ravidas and Ambedkar’, op.cit.


15

the untouchables, would once again be subjected to the hegemony of caste Hindus and

be forced to scavenge and sweep for them. To safeguard their interests, he proposed

that there should be a number of special seats in parliament for the Depressed Classes

which would be filled through elections from special Constituencies.37 While a new

constitution for India in the 1930s, the British extended to the Dalit communities the

privilege of voting as a separate electoral constituency.38 Gandhi opposed this

constitutional provision with all the strength at his command, since a separate harijan

electorates would damage Hindu society beyond repair instead,39 he offered the Dalits

reserved seats in the central and provincial legislatures on a scale more generous than

promised by the British. The so-called Poona-pact of 1932 was a triumph for the

Mahatma because it ensured the social cohesion of Hindu society.40

Shankaranand Shastri’s statements “the awakened untouchable today is

repeatedly asking them (the Congress) if they could not remove the ‘Social-evil’ of

their own creation without political power, how do they expect us (the untouchables)

to liberate ourselves without political power,”41 help us locate two related

propositions that came to constitute Dalit Politics in Uttar Pradesh in the 1940s.42

The first proposition deals with claims made by Dalits to acquire political

power specifically in the form of adequate representation in the provincial legislative

assemblies and in the Constituent Assembly. They demanded positive discrimination

37 M.S. Gore, The Social Context of an Ideology:’ Ambedkar’s Political and Social Thought ,New

Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London, 1993, p. 111. 38 Ambedkar, B.R.(1930). Proceeding of Round Table Conference: (1) In the Plenary Session-Fifth

Sitting-20 th November 1930, Need for Political Power for Depressed Classes. (2) In Sub-Committee No. III (Minorities) Second Sitting, Government of India, in Vasant Moon (ed.). Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches. Vol. 2 Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1982, pp. 502-9, 528-45.

39 Young India, November 12,1931 40 Kumar, Ravinder, ‘Gandhi, Ambedkar and the Poona Pact’, Occasional Papers on History and

Society, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi. 41 Shankaranand Shastri, Poona Pact or Gandhi, first published in 1946, Bahujan Kalyan Prakashan

(Hindi), Lucknow (U.P.) Eleventh edition 1994. In 1946, the Dalit activist, Shankaranand Shastri, wrote a passionate political history of the Dalit struggle from 1932 to 1946. The second edition, published in 1965, was revised to include political developments up to 1956. The book provides a Dalit perspective to the events between 1932 and 1956. ‘Shastri’ is a Brahman title for learned persons appropriated by the author to question their sole claim to learning. Shankranand Shastri was a prominent leader of SCF of UP, based in Lucknow.

42 I have used the term achhut and Dalit interchangeably. Dalits gave a new radical meaning to the term achhut or ‘untouchable’ to mean ‘pure’ or untouched’ in their struggles around this time. This term was used in opposition to Harijan or Scheduled Castes, the former a Gandhian category and the latter a state category. Shastri also underlined this point. He issued an appeal to Dalits that they should organize under a separate achhut identity and discard their disparate caste identities.


16

in the form of reservations within legislative and executive institutions, safeguards for

Dalits, it was argued, should be incorporated into the proposed constitution for Indian

citizens. The second proposition concerns achhut identity, through which Dalits

hoped to reconstitute their polity in UP. The Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) and

even a section of Congress Harijans staked a claim for achhut identity to distinguish

their difference from ‘other communities’,43 Dalit writings increasingly depicted the

Poona Pact as a great betrayal by the Congress and the British.44 From their

experience of the two general elections of 1937 and 1946, they argued that the

electoral mechanism worked out under the aegis of the Poona Pact was structured

against the Dalits.

In the 1940s Dalits of UP articulated an inclusive achhut identity to mobilize

diverse sections of Dalit society: Jatav, Chamars, Ad-Dharmis, Pasis and so forth.

This new agenda defined by a claim for political power, became the focal point of the

mobilization.

Dalits, ignored by the Colonial state, have also been neglected by much of

mainstream historiography. The historiography of the freedom struggle maintains a

peculiar silence about Dalit society and politics of the partition years.45 The questions

raised by Dalit leaders like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, P.N.Rajbhoj, J.N.Mandal and

Jagjivan Ram (1908-1986) and by provincial leaders are not even noted or

acknowledged. Especially worth noting here is Dr. Ambedkar’s pointed criticism of

43 The All- India Scheduled Castes Federation was established in Nagpur, 18-20 July 1942, R.B.N.

Shivraj (Madras) was elected as its President and P.N. Rajbhoj (Pune) as its General Secretary. 44 The Poona Pact was signed on 24 September 1932 between the representatives of caste Hindus led

by Gandhi and Dalits led by Ambedkar. Under the pact, Ambedkar gave up his demand for separate electorates in favour of a system of primary and secondary elections, which allowed separate electorates for Dalits in primaries and a joint electorate in the general elections. It was signed in response to the MacDonald communal award of 16 August 1932 and Mahatma Gandhi’s decision to ‘fast unto death’. The MacDonald award extended separate electorates to the ‘untouchables’ of India. Besides conferring upon the untouchables the right to vote with other members of the Hindu community in what were defined as general constituencies, it also created ‘a number of special seats filled from Depressed Class electorates in the areas where these voters chiefly prevail’. Mahatma Gandhi announced his decision to ‘fast unto death’ in protest against the provision of separate electorates for the ‘untouchables’. Which he claimed sought to divide the Hindu community between the caste Hindus and the Dalits.

45 Satyapal and P.Chandra, Sixty Years of Congress: India Lost; India Regained (Lahore, 1946). Sumit Sarkar, Modern India: 1885-1947 (Delhi, 1947); Ravinder Kumar, ‘Structure of Politics in India on the Eve of Independence’, Occasional Papers in History and Society, Second Series, No. XVI (NMML); Robert J. Moore, Escape from Empire: The Atlee Government and the Indian Problem (Oxford, 1983); D.A.Low (ed.), Indian National Congress: Centenary Hind sights (Delhi, 1988).


17

both the Cabinet Mission plan and moves initiated by the Congress. The coming of

Independence along with the Constitution and the Republic has a particular

understanding of its liberating potentialities for the deprived sections of Indian

society. The key role played by Dr. Ambedkar in drafting the Indian constitution is

taken as one generous interpretation of the role of the Congress and the incipient

nation state towards the welfare of the Dalits in India. Achhut concerns are reduced to

a footnote in a grand master narrative; more seriously, the many alternative strategies

with which they experimented have disappeared from historical accounts.

In UP, from the 1930s onwards, leftist organizations raised demands on behalf

of tenants and labourers, such as abolition of begar, debt annulment, and rent

reduction. Campaigns against landlords’ large scale evictions of tenants in the 1930s

represented an intensification of the struggle, especially in east UP, direct action

against landlordism culminated in widespread communist-led struggles around and

after independence in many parts of India, including some incidents in UP.46 In the

1970s, and the 1980s, there were reports of more conflicts. Most of these were

protests for higher wages, refusal to do begar, reactions against social oppression,

attempts by Dalits to bring beating and atrocities to court, and attempts to assert their

right to vote. The upper caste landowners retaliated. Dalits and poor peasants were

mobilized for the ‘land grab’ movement by the communist parties in the 1970s but

this movement failed.

The most important aspect of this is that around one-third of all agricultural

labourers in UP belong to lower castes caste other than the untouchable castes47 and

that, among the Untouchables, a new petit bourgeoisie has emerged. The 1950s and

the 1960s were a time of optimism, industrial expansion and intellectual fermentation

in Kanpur. For the second generation of educated Dalits, there were new openings in

government service, education and politics through reservation. Many of those who

had been members and supporters of the Adi Hindu Sabha, first, joined the Scheduled

Caste Federation and later, became members of the republican Party of India, which

was conceptualized by Ambedkar, but established only after his death in 1957. 46 Lerche, J., ‘Politics of the Poor: Agricultural Labourers and Political Transformations in Uttar

Pradesh’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 26 No. 2 and 3, pp. 182-241. 47 Omvedt, Gail, Capitalist Agriculture and Rural Classes in India’, in Iqbal Khan (ed.), Fresh

Perspective on India and Pakistan: Essays on Economics, Politics and Culture, Bougainvillea Books, Oxford, 1985, p. 128


18

Politically, they became Ambedkarites but socially, they still followed the Adi-Hindu

notions.48 In the late 1980s, nearly 1.5 million Dalits nationwide found government

employment through this reservation scheme. Even earlier, the Jatavs had emerged as

a small petit bourgeoisie class in Agra. They were engaged in the shoe and leather

industry. Some groups amongst the Dalits have been able to take advantage of the

reservation policy, separating them from the rest.

Until the late 1980s, the Congress Party was the dominant political force in UP

(and the rest of India). It based its electoral strength on an alliance led by the high-

caste upper classes and supported by the Dalits, along with religious and ethnic

minorities. In the 1950s, Ambedkar inspired a successful attempt to organize the

Dalits as a radical force. The Republican Party of India gained a foothold in Agra,

amongst the Jatavs, in the urban areas, spreading to the rural areas and other districts

like Aligarh and Meerut in west UP.49

However, another interesting phenomenon was germinating all this while. The

seeds of the BSP were sown in the 1980s. It marked a strong political assertion by

Dalits in this state in the form of the BSP, which is presently ruling this state under

the leadership of Mayawati, UP’s current Chief Minister. The political assertion by

the Dalits of UP has resulted in the conversion of Dalits, even those living in remote

villages, into a ‘political public’.

II

The Other Backward Castes

The intermediate and backward castes together constituted the largest social

group accounting for nearly 45 percent of the total population, they did not count

anywhere. They were by and large deficient in education and material resources. They

had no place in the corridors of power. They were in short ‘the labour pool’ for the

high castes. As elsewhere, the high castes were never in large number here but in

matters, social, economic and political, they were almost all in all. They exercised 48 Bellwinkel-Schempp, Maren, ‘From Bhakti to Buddhism: Ravidas and Ambedkar’, op.cit. 49 Lerche, J., ‘Politics of the Poor: Agricultural Labourers and Political Transformations in Uttar

Pradesh’, op.cit., p. 206.


19

tight control over natural resources trade, commerce and jobs. They were better

educated.

In the 1930s, Yadav, Kurmis and Koeris formed a joint front-Triveni

Sangha50in the province of Uttar Pradesh to combat the opposition of Brahamans and

Rajputs. There was also a Backward Class League in 1929.51 There were some

smaller outfits also. But all these organization proved to be weak and ineffective. The

Triveni Sangh therefore failed because of the co-option of its leaders by Congressmen

who were to become adept at doing so, and also because of the strength of the caste

system and its pervasive ethos of graded inequality’; the upper ware prompt to

mobilize in order to preserve their domination, but the low caste of the Triveni Sangh

were unable to unite effectively. Their leaders used pseudo- historical grounds for

lending weight to their claim they argued that their caste fought against upper caste

exploitation. Surprisingly, the situation did not change even a bit after India became

free. According to an official report: “In the 1937-39 Cabinet, the Brahmanas held

three out of six posts and OBCs none… Sampurnananda, C.B. Gupta and Sucheta

Kriplani also continued this pattern…” There was no change in the later ministries

either-of Tripathi, Bahuguna and Tiwari. There is, thus, an element of truth in the

saying which was very popular in the sixties and seventies that ‘the decline of

Congress also meant the decline of the high caste representation in the government’.52

Nehru used the term ‘Other Backward Classes’ during his first speech, on

December 13, 1946, before the Constituent Assembly, in his objectives Resolution.

He announced that special measures were to be taken in favour of ‘minorities’,

backward and tribal areas and depressed and Other Backward Classes.53 Surprisingly,

all the other terms in the statement-minorities, backward and tribal areas and

depressed classes were discussed in and defined by the Constituent Assembly;54 but

not the OBCs. Despite the fact that the matter was raised in the Assembly, neither

Jawaharlal Nehru nor the Constituent Assembly thought it necessary either to define

the terms as such, or to make an arrangement to devise any method or agency to

identify these castes/classes.

50 Pinch, W, Peasants and Monks in British India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1996, p. 134 51 Report of the Backward Classes Commission, 1980, Vol. VI, pp. 173-225 52 Report of the Backward Classes Commssion, 1980, Vol. I, p. 35 53 Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. 1, New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1989. p. 59 54 Galanter, Marc, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India, Delhi, 1984, p.

VII


20

The OBCs had high hopes of acquiring something worthwhile under the new

Constitution of their Republic. But, they got only a promise of help (in the form of

Article 340), if the President of the Indian Republic ever thought in his wisdom that

such aid was really required by them. What did it really mean? Implicitly this: when

the Article was drafted, the OBCs had no clear case for being helped; they did not

suffer from social in-justice, or deprivation in national life; but if any such eventuality

visited them in future, then the President of the Union would take care of them.

It was the first Backward Classes Commission (headed by Kaka Kalelkar55),

appointed under Article 340 of the Constitution, that made use of caste as a criterion

for determining social backwardness.56 It identified 2,399 backward castes, which

included 837 ‘most backward caste’. One of the reasons for the then government

rejecting the recommendations of the first Backward Classes Commission was the

fact that it disagreed with the selection of caste as a criterion for determining social

backwardness.57 In the absence of a Central law or directive, the states arbitrarily

enlarged the benefits accruing to the backward classes.

The history of backward caste mobilization in Uttar Pradesh in the post-

independence period dates back to the late 1950s and the 1960s under the leadership

of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, Kanshi Ram, and the Chaudhary Charan Singh.

In the world of politics, Lohia is remembered today as the originator of Other

Backward Classes (OBC) reservations;58 the champion of backward castes in the

politics of north India;59 The first to recognize the importance of the Other Backward

Castes was probably Rammanohar Lohia. He decided to fight for the cause of the

Backward Castes.

55 The other members of the Commission are: Messrs. N.S. Kajralkar (M.P.); Bheeka . Bhai (M.P,);

S.S. Chaurasia; Rajeshwar Patel (M.P.); A. Quiyam Ansari (M.L.A.); T. Mariappa (M.L.A.); L.Jagannadh; A.S.Namdhari (M.P.); N.R.M.Swami (M.P.); and Arunagshu De (member secretary).

56 Jawaharlal Nehru address to the Backward Classes Commission, 18 March 1953, AIR Tapes, NMML, Excerpts

57 Report of the Backward Classes Commission, 1956, vol. I pp. 46-47 58 “Quota Marshall” is how an otherwise sympathetic life sketch was captioned in The Times of

India, 3 April 2010,This was not unrepresentative of the attention Lohia has received from the mainstream media in the last two decades or so. The debate on women’s reservations did not remind people of Lohia, one of the fi rst advocates of preferential opportunities for women, but Mandal did bring him to mind.

59 Chapter 8 of Christophe Jaffrelot’s India’s Silent Revolution (2003) carries a detailed account of the evolution of the Socialist Party’s policy on the backward classes.


21

Kanshi Ram’s initial focus was on mobilizing the entire backward class,

including OBCs, SCs/STs, and Muslims. He founded a new movement on 14 October

1971 through the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other

Backward Classes (OBCs) and Minority Communities Employees Association in

Poona.60 On 6 December 1978, he officially founded the All India Backward (SC, ST,

OBC) and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF)61, whose aim

was to organize the elite of the bahujan samaj, that is, essentially wage earners with

educational qualifications who had benefited from quotas.62

Charan Singh (1902-1987), however, was the first Congress politician to

recognize the political discontent of the OBCs, most of whom belonged to the

cultivating classes. As early as 1947, he had proposed reservation of 60 percent of

jobs in public services for sons of cultivators on the plea that ‘due to the town and

village contradiction, towns and urban middle classes suck all the resources and

wealth while passing on the burden of taxation to the villages, the only producers of

wealth’.63 The All India Jat Mahasabha strongly backed Charan Singh’s proposal. In

1956 he presided over a Backward Classes Conference – the first overt expression of

OBC political activity after Independence. Chaudhary Charan Singh’s role in the

mobilization of the middle castes, especially the Jats and the Yadavs in the 1960s, too

should not be ignored, although his area of operation was limited to the western

districts of Uttar Pradesh, particularly Meerut. After his break with the Congress,

Charan Singh founded the Bharatiya Kisan Dal (BKD) in 1967.64 The success of the

latter lies in the fact that Charan Singh used peasant rather than class as a strategy of

political mobilization. Pai quotes Gould with approval, pointing out that the BKD was

originally perceived as just another caste movement that was meant to appeal

primarily to those castes in rural areas that as cultivators and herders (Jats, Yadavs,

Kurmis, Koeris, etc.) enjoyed a status in the traditional caste system. In 1967, the

middle and backward castes were still class; they acquired the characteristics of a

60 Jaffrelot, Christophe, India’s Silent Revolution, op.cit, p. 391 61 The Times of India, October 10, 2009 62 Verma, A.K., ‘Backward Caste Politics in Uttar Pradesh’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.

XL, No. 36, September 3, 2005, p. 3889 63 Charan Singh Papers, File no. 504. 64 See Francine Frankel, ‘Problems of Correlating Electoral and Economic Variables: An Analysis of

Voting Behaviour and Agrarian Modernisation in UP’, John Osgood Field and Myron Weiner, eds, Electoral Politics in Indian States: The Impact of Modernisation, Delhi, Manohar, 1997.


22

class by the end of the 1970s thanks to the gains of the Green Revolution.65 However,

Charan Singh had always been regarded with suspicion by the Dalits, who saw him as

anti- dalit.

From the early 1970s there was a strong pressure to do something about the

OBCs from OBC leaders in the Congress who played a significant role in the

appointment of Backward Class commission, as well as from the effects of electoral

democracy. The initiative was taken by Chhedi Lal Shathi who, along with several

members of Republican Party of India, joined the Congress party, and obtained an

assurance that the UP Government would appoint a Backward Class Commission. It

was increasingly difficult to disregard pressure from the OBCs because they had

become the political category and reservation was an issue of prime concern initiative

assertion. This worried the Congressmen a great deal and they tried to make amends

in their dealings with the OBCs. Hence, the 1975 Commission headed by Cheddi Lal

Sathi to identify the OBCs and to make recommendations for bettering their lot.66

By contrast, the OBCs were not very visible in UP politics until the late 1960s

and early 1970s. Backward caste politics lacked an ideological and progressive

content.67 From the mid-1970s, the crystallization of political conflict was manifested

in increasing opposition by middle and Backward castes to Congress rule. Between

1967 and 1974 the percentage of upper castes in the state Legislature declined from

40 percent to 37 percent, while the share of peasant castes increased from 20 percent

to 30 percent in 1974.68 The BLD received the core of its support from jats, yadavs

and kurmis. In the 1977 elections its share of support from middle and Backward

castes increased further. Against this background, the victory of the Janata Party in

1977 was interpreted by some as the triumph of the middle and Backward castes who

had finally succeeded in breaking the opposition of the upper castes centered in the

Congress. The decline of the Congress was most pronounced in areas of the upper

Doab which had a large concentration of peasant castes. The social base of the Janata

in this region rested on the rich and middle peasantry who were dissatisfied with the

65 Pai, Sudha, Uttar Pradesh: Agrarian Change and Electoral Politics, Shipra, New Delhi, 1993, p.

52 66 Hasan, Zoya, Quest for Power, op.cit., p. 143 67 For a comparison of backward caste politics in the north and south, see Frankel, Middle Castes and

Classes in India’s Politics, pp. 226-61; and also Hebsur, Uttar Pradesh, pp. 159-61. 68 Statesman, October 15, 1974


23

Congress governments’ failure to provide further subsidies and higher procurement

prices.

The Janata Dal indeed tended to adopt the socialist program for social justice:

it concentrated its attention less on class than on ascriptive groups and turned towards

affirmative action as the main remedy. The program adopted by the party during its

inaugural session promised that "Keeping in view special needs of the socially and

educationally backward classes, the party (if voted to power) shall implement

forthwith the recommendations of the Mandal Commission".69

The party was prepared to show the way and promised to allot 60 percent of

the tickets in the general elections to "the weaker sections of society." Before that, V.

P. Singh had promised to apply this 60 percent reservation to the party apparatus. The

main achievement of V. P. Singh was to make a broad range of castes coalesce under

the OBC label. In fact, he made it a relevant category for the lower castes, as per the

quotas recommended by the Mandal Commission report.

Soon after V. P. Singh announced the implementation of the Mandal

Commission report recommendations, upper-caste students formed organizations such

as the Arakshan Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti and the Mandal Ayog Virodhi Sangharsh

Samiti in Uttar Pradesh. Students, who were from the upper castes but from the lower

middle class protested against a new quota that would deprive them of some posts in

the administration. They wanted to "abolish all reservations including reservations for

the Scheduled Castes,"70 a demand that brought the Dalit and OBC leaders closer. At

the same time, the students "feared that their hopes of government patronage would be

thwarted by a coalition of lower-castes",71 which they were largely shaping

themselves by provoking a new cleavage between forward castes (including Jats)72

and lower castes.

Other Backward Castes have always been a subject of interest for social

historian and social anthropologists. Consequently, there is, as indicated in the

69 Singh, V. P. "The Emergence of Janata Party-A Watershed in Post- Independence Politics." In

Evolution of Socialist Policy in India, edited by S. Mohan et al., Bapu Kaldate, New Delhi, 1997 70 Hasan, Zoya, Quest for Power, op.cit, p. 155 71 Ibid. 72 The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) was explicitly against caste-based quotas and favored, like the

BJP, an economic criterion for jobs reservations.


24

preface, a huge number of books, monographs, reports, private papers, personal

accounts, official papers, district Gazetteers, ethnographic notes, census reports and

such sources. These sources provide some account of the conditions of these

communities.

The report of the first national Commission for Backward Classes (1953),

popularly called the Kalelkar Commission. The President of India had assigned the

following jobs to the Commission (29 January 1953):

1. To determine ‘the criteria to be adopted’ to identify the Other Backward

Classes;

2. To prepare a list of such classes in accordance with these criteria;

3. To note the suffering of these classes and make recommendations to

remove it.73

The commission finished its work in a little over three years (30 March 1955).

Although the Chairman of the Commission expressed feelings of ‘joy’ and ‘relief’ for

having prepared a three-volume document74 on the subject, a cursory look at its

content shows that a work of great national importance, it was handled very casually.

The report of the second Backward Classes Commission-the Mandal

Commission (1980), though much maligned by the academia press and ‘thinking

public’, is, however, a definite improvement over the Kalelkar commission report.

Besides these reports, there are a large number of books, monographs and

write-ups, as noted earlier, on the subject. Of these, the best is Mark Galanter75,

bearing a stamp of painstaking research, this monograph presents a masterly study of

positive discrimination in the form of reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs. A careful

perusal of work shows, however, that the author was perhaps not as familiar with the

OBCs as he was with the SCs and STs. This perhaps owed to the fact that his study,

though published in 1984, had stopped at 1979, when the problem of the OBCs had

73 For terms of reference of the Commission, see Report of the Backward Classes Commission, 1955,

Vol. 1, pp. 23 74 Ibid., p. 1 75 Galanter, Mark, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India, Delhi, 1984


25

not gained sufficient momentum and importance as it has acquired today. Secondly,

Galanter did not go to field where the OBCs really lived he confined himself mostly

to the courts. His lament in the preface seems to be in order.

Another study of the same type, but of a little later date, is Parmanand Singh.76

Like Galanter, Singh also gives a little space to the OBCs in his work. Nor does he

study their problems from the politicio-social dimensions. Ishwari prasad,77 an

economist from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, has in a brief but forthright

study, made a strong case for the policy of positive discrimination in favour of the

OBCs for a short while, to be followed by restructuring of the economic systems in a

just manner.

Besides these all-India studies, there are some treatises covering different

states, like those of I.P. Desai,78 Haroo Bhai Mehta and Hansmukh Patel79 and

Ghanshyam Shah80 on Gujarat; and of P. Radhakrishan on Tamil Nadu81 and

Karnataka.82 Intelligent and thorough, these studies have, however, too narrow a

scope to help us comprehend the problem at the UP region level.

After the announcement of the partial implementation of the Mandal

Commission Report, there came up, as noted above, a vast crop of literature on the

subject. A bulk of it comprised newspaper writings, editorials, leaders, views points,

etc.83, which, excepting a lone favourable voice here or there, were mostly dissenting

notes: one-sided, biased and prejudiced, as we will see later.

Surprisingly, most of the books, monographs, tracts, etc. which were

published during those days are also not very different from the newspaper material.

76 Singh, Parmanand , Equality, Reservation and Discrimination in India, Delhi, 1985. 77 Prasad, Ishwari, Reservation: Action for Social Justice, Delhi, 1986. 78 Desai, I.P., Caste, Class Conflict and Reservation, Surat, 1985 79 Mehta, Haroo Bhai and Hansmukh Patel (eds.), Dynamics of Reservation Policy, Delhi, 1985 80 Shah, Ghanshyam, ‘Middle Class Politics: Case of Anti-Reservation Agitation in Gujarat’,

Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXII, 1987, pp. 155-172 81 Radha Krishnan, P., ‘Tamil Nadu: Ambasankar Commission and Backward Classes’, Economic

and Political Weekly, vol. 24, no. 10, June 1989; ‘Backward Classes in Tamil Nadu: 1872-1988’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 25, no. 10, March 10, 1990;

82 Radha Krishnan, P., ‘Karnataka Backward Classes’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 25, no. 32, August 11, 1990

83 There is a rich crop of writings on reservation for the OBCs and the Mandal Commission Report in almost every newspaper and journal. It is not possible to review them all here. We have, however, taken some of them which have some worth. Most of these writings are one-sided and biased.


26

The Mandal Report X-rayed (1990) by K.N. Rao and S.S. Ahluwalia84 is one such

example. The work has no perspective. Most of its material comprises straight lifts

from the Mandal Report or its criticism that appeared in the press those days. It has an

ex parte approach to the whole thing. Its language is interperate and criticism of

certain personalities (e.g. Dr Lohia) highly personalized and unwarranted. The two

other works, The Mandal Commission and Mandalization: A Critique85 by a Delhi

University don, S.K. Maheshwari and The Educational and Social Upliftment of

Backward Classes: At What Caste and How? Mandal Commission and After by S.P.

Aggarwal and J.C. Aggarwal,86 published soon after the above work (1991), also

belong to the same class. There is no in-depth, dispassionate analysis of any aspect of

the problem in either of these looks. Asghar Ali Engineer’s Mandal Commission

Controversy87 (1991), though again a reproduction of different articles that appeared

in the press in the wake of the Mandal agitation, is however, a shade better than these

works, for it brings a good deal of material on different aspects of the problem written

from differing viewpoints at one place.

Anirudh Prasad’s Reservation Policy and Practice in India: A Means to an

End88 (1991) is an effort to update and expand Marc Galanter’s work. It is not that

sound, however, Hiranmay Karlelkar’s In The Mirror of Mandal: Social Justice,

Caste, Class and the Individual89 (1992), which seeks to examine what constitutes

social justice, how it should be distributed and among whom-castes, classes or

individuals, is, as put by Dilip Simeon ‘an incompetent polemic’90. Another recent

84 Rao, K.N. and S.S. Ahluwalia, Mandal Report X-Rayed, Delhi, 1990 The study is divided into three parts: (i) The Commission and its Recommendations-a summary

taken from Mandal Report itself; (ii) Factual analysis-a summary of what has already appeared in newspapers highlighting some inaccurancies; and (iii) Legal analysis of the Commission and its work-again on the basis of old newspaper reports. It is an uncritical work: biased and one-sided.

85 Maheshwari, S.K., The Mandal Commission and Mandalization: A Critique, Delhi, 1991. It is an ordinary work. Its five core chapters are more in the nature of appendices than analysis of the phenomenon and the next three chapters (33 pages) are ‘previously published in the form of two articles’ in the newspapers. How objective the learned professor has been in dealing with a highly controversial problem is demonstrated by the dedication of his work; for the students making “sacrifices for the integrated Future of Mother India”

86 Aggarwal, S.P. and J.C. Aggarwal, The Educational and Social Upliftment of Backward Classes: At What Caste and How? Mandal Commission and After, Delhi, 1991

87 Engineer, Asghar Ali, Mandal Commission Controversy, Delhi, 1991 88 Prasad, Anirudh, Reservation Policy and Practices in India: A Means to an End, Delhi, 1991 89 Karlelkar, Hiranmay, In The Mirror of Mandal: Social Justice, Caste, Class and the Individual,

Delhi, 1992. 90 Indian Express, May 12, 1992


27

addition to the literature, The Backward Classes in Contemporary India91 (1992) by

Andre Beteille, is, however, a scholarly work. But it only recapitulates Beteille’s old

conclusions, like the problems of the OBCs should be taken separately from those of

the SCs/STs; the OBCs may be given special opportunities, like education, improved

conditions of life, health care and so on, but not reservations in jobs, which should go

on merit, nd all rights should belong to individuals and not to ‘castes or communities’.

Even when caste and community-based discrimination thrives in a society for

thousands of years? Even if it gets inbuilt into the individual personality?

Unfortunately, such relevant questions do not find a place in the present study.

Unlike most of the full-length studies, there are some essays by scholars, like

Dev Nathan92, Sharad Patil,93 Ramaswamy R. Iyer,94 Ghanshyam Shah95, Pradhan H.

Prasad,96 A Ramaih,97, et al which, though small and limited in scope to sharpen out

total persepetion of the problem, do help us in understanding some important

components of and some complex issues related to it.

The above survey shows that there is a voluminous literature on the OBCs.

Almost all their problems have been discussed at length by scholars from different

nooks and crannies of the academic world. And yet-surprisingly-our picture is far

from clear.

I have focuses on another set of important questions: How did the suffering

people come to have a correct perception and feel of their problems in modern times?

How was some really enlightened persons among them-the ‘Backward elite’ or ‘social

activists’ or ‘reformers’ came out, individually, to improve the situation? Next, How

was new ideologies develop and group consciousness based on them grew among the

OBCs in Uttar Pradesh? And ultimately, how did these groups come together to start a 91 Beteille, Andre The Backward Classes in Contemporary India, Delhi, 1992. 92 Nathan, Dev, ‘Reservation and Class Structure of Caste’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.

XXV, No. 2 January 13, 1990, p. 83; ‘Dominant Castes, Ruling Classes and the State’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXV, No. 45 November 10, 1990, pp. 2467-70

93 Patil, Sharad, ‘Should ‘Class’ be the Basis for Recognizing Backwardness’ Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXV, No. 50, December 15, 1990, pp. 2733-44

94 Iyer, Ramaswamy R., ‘Towards Clarity on Reservation Question’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 9-10, March 2-9, 1991.

95 Shah, Ghanshyam ,‘Social Backwardness and Politics of Reservation’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVI, Annual Number 1991, pp. 601-10

96 Prasad, Pradhan H., ‘Rise of Kulak Power and Caste Struggle in North India’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVI, No. 33, April 17, 1991, pp. 1923-26

97 Ramaih, A., ‘Identifying OBCs’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVII, No. 23, June 6, 1992, pp. 1203-7


28

movement-the OBCs movement for changing their world by restoration of the rights

and privileges denied to them for countless centuries? Next, we move on to some

other important question: why do the high castes show anger whenever the OBCs ask

for social justice or historical compensation for their age-old deprivation and

suffering? How long will they afford to do this? And with what result?

III

Politics of Muslim Communities

It is interesting to note that the studies on caste by the most scholars have

confined to a study of the caste system among the Hindus only and very little

attention has been paid even by the sociologists and social anthropologists to the form

and pattern of caste-like groups among other religious minorities of the country, in

particular the Muslims98 who occupy an important place in the Indian social structure.

The Historians have paid even lesser attention to the issue of caste, particularly among

the Muslims.

It is common knowledge that Muslims, with 14% population of India are not

only the largest minority community, but also highly noticeable in the entire length

and breadth of the country. They are, indeed, a National Community. Nearly one-

fourth of the population of Indian Muslims (22% of total population of Indian

Muslims) lives in Uttar Pradesh. Muslims of Uttar Pradesh and of other parts of India

have contributed tremendously in the evolution, development and transformation of

society, culture and civilization of India. Their role in the freedom struggle of the

country is unparalleled. This significant minority community has been reduced to the

lowest socio-economic stratum in post-independent India. They have lagged behind

(and are continuously lagging behind day by day) the Scheduled Caste in many walks

of life. They are educationally most backward, economically poor and politically a

powerless community of the country. More often than not communal violence is

98 Ghaus Ansari’s Muslim Caste in Uttar Pradesh (1960) has been the only reference on caste

among the Muslims for over two decades. Ansari’s source materials were censuses and reports of British administrative officials which were always superficial, and occasionally, not quite accurate. The kind of data which Ansari used led him to view castes as separate entities and he did not realize sufficiently that caste was a highly localized phenomenon and needed to be analyzed within the context of a local community. It must, nevertheless, be admitted that Ansari was the first sociologist to focus on the presence of caste among the Muslims.


29

organized against them in which innumerable Muslims are maimed and killed; their

women are raped and their hard earned property is demolished and looted. They are

forced to live in dingy lanes and slums. Constitutional guarantees are dream for them.

Governmental agencies appear to be indifferent and discriminatory towards them. No

political party seems to be sincere for ameliorating their condition and ensuing them

safety and security. Indeed, they have become a ‘Colonized Community’.

The Muslim elites’ position in U.P. in the mid-1930s appeared to be

fundamentally sound. They were guaranteed shares of recruitment to civil service

jobs; the education of their children was becoming more attuned to the times; though

still possessing a declining share of the rural land in the provinces, the rate of decline

had eased and there were three or four mechanism to protect what they retained; they

had a large and separate share of the seats in the local bodies as well as in the

provincial and central legislatures and they believed they would have a share of the

cabinet posts in the new government arising out of the 1935 Reforms.

By the mid-1930s, articulation of the Muslim difference and distinctive

identity lost its way in the corridors of power politics. The Indian Congress, by then,

began moving away from the agenda of an inclusive secular nationalist politics. The

policy of majoritarianism triumphed within the Congress because they perceived it as

an antidote to the rising influence of Muslim identity politics. The congress saw a

tactical benefit in portraying Muslims as “religious communalists,” which in turn

would establish the Congress as the sole representative of “secular nationalism.” This

binary mode of identification was also intended to denigrate the quest of Muslims and

rob their efforts of legitimacy.

In the socio-political mobilization of Muslims OBCs, Muslim weavers’

movement seems to be the first attempt by any such Muslim group. The first

convention of Momin Conference was formally held in Calcutta in 1928 mainly by

the UP, Bihar migrants. From this year onward the Momin Conference gained an all-

India stature and became the representative organization of 3-4 crore Momins of

undivided India.99

99 Hasnain, Nadeem, Muslims in India: Caste Affinity and Social Boundaries of Backwardness in

Ashfaq Hussain Ansari (ed.), Basic Problems of OBC and Dalit Muslims, Seials Publications, New Delhi, 2007, p. 39


30

In pre-independence days, the only politically organized party of the Muslims

with massive support was the All India Momin Conference which representing within

its fold forty five million Muslim or fifty percent of the total Muslim population of

India openly and aggressively confronted the Muslim League and its two-nation

theory and came to the rescue of Congress and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who was

its President from February 1940 to July 1946. Then the following among Muslims of

Maulana Azad was negligent. The Momin Conference under the stewardship of Abdul

Qaiyum Ansari by supporting the Congress and its nationalist movement enabled the

Congress to retain its national status and secular image or character and reinforced the

personality of Maulana Azad as a Congress President with massive support of the

Muslims comprising Momins and other backward Muslims. In the absence of the

active support of the Momins the image of the Congress would have been reduced to

that of a ‘Hindu body’ and Maulana Azad would have been a ‘Muslim show boy

Congress President’ and ‘Puppet President of the Congress’ as branded by M.A.

Jinnah and the Muslim League. In such a view and the Congress Party were in fact,

representative of the Indians irrespective of Hindus and Muslims and Jinnah was

patently wrong in claiming the Muslim League as the sole representative body of the

Indian Muslims.100

Abdul Qaiyum Ansari (1905-74), who belonged to the julaha (weaver)

community, challenged. The “two-nation theory” and Muslim League politics

squarely, but failed to see through the caste composition of the Congress politics and

was ultimately subsumed by it. Ansari argued that the Momins wanted nothing less

than a ‘proper and legitimate’ share and representation in the services and

legislature.101 His Nukate Momineen (Six Points) was as follows: at least one minister

of the central and the provincial governments was to be Momin. Half the seats allotted

to Muslims in the federal and provincial legislatures were to be reserved for the

Momin biradari, and seats in local self government bodies and government and semi-

government services in proportion to their population in the areas concerned. Also,

100 Ansari, Hasan Nishat, Social Classification of Indian Muslims: Genesis and Consequences in

Ashfaq Hussain Ansari (ed.), Basic Problems of OBC and Dalit Muslims, Seials Publications, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 283-284

101 Searchlight, May 23, 1940


31

special government facilities were demanded for the technical education of Momin

boys and girls and state protection and aid for the handloom industry.102

Commenting on the changing profile of Momin Conference, Anwar (2001)103

points out that up to 1937 its activities were confined to promoting social

consciousness and welfare among the Momins. The turning point came in 1938 when

it started assuming political overtones when the Muslim League came out with the

demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims, the backward Muslims adopted an

aggressively nationalist posture and opposed the demand for Pakistan. Right from its

caste character of the Muslim League and its leaders and it had no doubt that the

League and its demand were promoting the feudal and elitist vested interests and the

lower strata of Muslims were only being harnesses as cannon fodder. The feudal

lords, capitalists, nawabs and jagirdare felt threatened by the mass upsurge of Indian

masses and they knew that the Congress Party had not much in its socio-economic

and political agenda for these vested interests, its corollary in the post-independent

Indian polity may be seen in the form of promotion of Ayodhya issue to blunt the

impact of implementation of Mandal Commission’s recommendations. It was an

intelligent diversionary tactic. Together with Jamat-e-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), the

Momin Conference exposed the claim of the Muslim League of representing the

entire Muslim population and promoted the nationalist secular agenda of the Congress

party with partition of the country the Momin Conference aligned with the Congress

Party along with the Jamat-e-Ulema-e-Hind backed by the Ulema of Deoband who

contributed significantly to the freedom the passage of time, the Momin Conference

lost its strength and became almost defunct. Besides the Momin Conference, the

Raeen Conference representing the caste of vegetable vendors and the Mansoori

Conference representing, the oilseed pressers, also played their role in the socio-

political mobilization of Muslim OBCs between 1930-1950.

The socio-economic condition of the Muslims has not changed much in free

India. The various reports and research studies clearly show that the Muslims in India

are economically and educationally backward. The economic backwardness of the

Muslims is a cyclical and ongoing process leading to educational and social

102 Ibid., May 16, 1939 103 Ali, Anwar, Masawat Ki Jung: Bihar Ke Pasmanda Musalman, Vaani Prakashan, New Delhi,

2001


32

backwardness and in turn to economic backwardness. Moreover, Muslims are not

only backward, but also a minority community of the country.104

For the sake of empowerment and equality some southern states have proposed

or implemented reservations for Muslims as a backward community while some states

implemented reservations for Muslim OBCs only. The Muslims those specified as

backward are usually the occupational groups of traditional ajlaf or arzal category

such as weavers, oil crushers, cotton crushers. Carpenters, washer men, barber and so

on. The situation of such a complex and contradictory nature leads to arguments and

counter arguments between political leaders and social activists of the Muslims. The

issue of Muslim empowerment is debatable owing to factions within the Muslims of

the country. The over-lapping identities of the Muslims in the form of 'caste like' or

'class like' categories further make the situation more complicated. Some

organizations are arguing for Muslims as a whole to be declared as backwards thus

demanding reservations for them while Muslim groups already categorised or under

the process of categorisation under OBCs are seriously opposing these demands.105

The neglect of socio-economic dimensions of Muslim backwardness is said to

be failure of the Muslim leadership in the country.106 In 1955, the Kaka Kalelkar

Commission's Report of Backward Classes (1955) had, for the first time, recognized

the Muslim OBCs at par with the Hindu counterparts. The commission noted the

existence of number of communities amongst the Muslims who have been suffering

from social inferiority in their own society and also examined the extent of their

backwardness. The commission recommended their eligibility for job reservations.

But the recommendations remained on paper owing to some handicaps on the part of

the government.107 Later on, in 1980, the Mandal Commission Report, gave

recognition to the problems of backwardnesses among the Muslims.108 The

Commission treated almost 90 percent of Muslim population in the country as OBCs

104 Engineer, A. Ali, ‘Socio-Economic Backwardness of Muslims in India’, an Occasional Paper, No.

5, Vol 7, May, Institute of Islamic Studies, Bombay, Government of India (1983), Report on Minorities of High Power Panel on Minorities, SC, ST and Other Weaker Sections, June 14

105 Jenkins, Laura D., 'Caste, Class and Islam: Boundaries of Backwardness in India', The Eastern Anthropologist, 2000, Vol. 53, No. 3-4, pp. 328-39.

106 Framing of the India’s Constitution, B. Shiva Rao, Vol. V, pp. 198-99 107 Government of India (1955), Report of the Backward Classes Commission (K. Kalelkar,

Chairman), 3 Vols, Government of India Press, Simla 108 Mandal Report, Vol. I, p. 55


33

and proposed reservations for them in government jobs and educational institutions.

The Mandal Commission had declared 82 Muslim groups to be backward and had

recommended them for economic and educational facilities at par with the OBCs

among Hindus.109 According to the data they used, the backward Muslim castes made

8.4 per cent out of the total 11.2 per cent of the Indian Muslim population. Much later,

when Supreme Court upheld the Mandal quota, the Muslim OBCs had attracted the

attention of the state. All these processes have awakened the Muslim OBCs which

enabled them to organise movements at local, regional and national level. In recent

times we notice an awakening among many communities in India, those are

categorized as OBCs. They have become aware of the need for political power and

socio-economic development of their respective groups. Muslim OBCs in India are

also a part of this larger OBC awakening. Many young Muslim leaders of several

parts of the country have taken initiative to organize the backward class Muslims as

against the traditional so-called upper class leaders of the community and challenging

the elitist notion of their political vision. In fact, their movement is on the ground of

socio-economic backwardness rather than emotional and religious issues. Their

demand is for empowerment of the subalterns. There is also a conscious effort to

relate OBC Muslims and Hindu dalits and to create a bond of solidarity of subalterns

of the country across religious divides and commercial politics. Therefore, it is

necessary to enquire the issues of Muslim OBCs, the nature of their struggle, and the

role they play in contributing to longer struggle of the 'oppressed'.

The awakening of Muslim backward classes can be seen from a very recent

publication by journalist and social activist Ali Anwar Ansari. The book, written in

Hindustani language titled Masawat ki Jung (crusade for equality) vividly depicts the

social inequality in Muslim society and the plight of the Dalit Muslims. It focuses on

the movement that the “Dalit” Muslims of Bihar have launched against the

'exploitative' upper caste and ulemas in their own society under the banner Pasmanda

Muslim Mahaz (PMM), 1998.110 The author illustrate show upper caste Muslims who

constitute about 10-15 per cent of total Muslim population in India have been

enjoying control over religious, political and social institutions of the country for

centuries. The author also identified the Dalit groups in his community and described 109 Report of the Second Backward Classes Commission Vol. I, 1980, p. 55 110 Anwar, Ali, Maswat ki Jung (in Hindi), Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2001


34

their pitiable condition. Ali Anwar strongly advocates reservation in government jobs

for Dalit Muslims on the line of quotas provided for Hindu Dalits including scheduled

castes and scheduled tribes. He describes the Muslim leaders' failure to demand

provisions in the Constitution for reservation in government jobs for Dalit Muslims as

a 'design' to conceal social inequality. According to the book the vested interest of the

Muslim leaders have harmed the Muslim society. They also deviated from the path of

equality. The book asks why donot the ulemas and Muslim leaders wage a crusade

against inequality in Muslim society which go against the basic tenets of Islam.

A process of change in the system of stratification of the Muslim society as

observed by S.R. Mondol in rural West Bengal shows that under the impact of

islamisation as also of industrialization and urbanization ‘status group’ distinction was

emerging which is based on achievement. This is quite distinct from the ascriptive

model of the traditional Indian society.111

It was strongly felt at the Convention that there should be a common forum for

the Muslims to discuss their grievances and to work unitedly for the well being of the

Muslims. The organization, thus formed, was named Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat-

Muslim Consultative Committee-that is indicative of the fact that this was merely a

consultative body for the Muslims all over the country. The Majlis’ demands were a

combination of distinctively Muslim concerns such as retention of Muslim Personal

Law, election rather than appointment of religious endowment boards, removal of

unsecular textbooks, preservation of the Muslim character of Aligarh Muslim

University, recognition of Urdu as a second language in Bihar, UP, Delhi, Rajasthan

and Madhya Pradesh, and creation of Minority Boards to redress grievances, along

with general moral and welfare improvement measure: prohibition of alcohol,

censorship of obsence literature and films, abolition of untouchability, free education

and medical care, unemployment insurance and accident compensation, finally it

included proportional representation, an obvious device to increase minority and

small party strength and bargaining power. This was undoubtedly a new trend in

Muslim politics, for this was the first occasion that Muslims had placed certain

conditions for supporting candidates and parties hankering for their votes. As a result

111 Mondol, Seik Rahim, ‘Social Structure, OBCs and Muslims’ EPW, Vol. 38, No. 46 (Nov. 15-21,

2003), pp. 4892-4897


35

of its policy, the Mushawarat supported a number of candidates belonging to various

parties.

The political situation in the 1980s witnessed growth of communal politics.

One of the striking features of this period was the important part played by religion in

UP and other parts of north and western India in the redefinition of nationalism and

culture.112 Religion entered politics with a new force. The most dramatic event in this

process was the demolition of the disputed Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December

1992. Supporters justified the action as the liberation of a sacred Hindu site to unify

the nation. Critics decried the violence as an attack on India’s modern, secular, multi-

cultural society.113

Hindu communal identity in the 1980s was not a sudden phenomenon in the

Uttar Pradesh, but has its roots in socio-economic and political developments in the

colonial period. The rise of the BJP and its construction of the ideology of Hindutva

in the 1980s in UP has rekindled an interest among scholars in exploring the roots of

this phenomenon in the colonial period. This has led to new literature in recent years

on the ‘creation’ of Hindu and Muslim identities, their relationship, and the reasons

for the rise of communalism in the colonial period.

In the 1930s, nationalism came to be viewed as secular and democratic and

was defined largely in opposition to growing politics of communalism or the ‘politics

of religious communities’, leading to tension and strife.114 Hence communalism in

UP, as experienced in the post-independence period, is rooted in the late colonial

period arising concurrently with nationalism. In short, the germs of communalism are

found in the late colonial period and resurfaced on a large scale in the 1980s.115

112 Vanaik Achin, Communalism Contested: Religion, Modernity and Secularization, Sage

Publication, Delhi, 1992, Chapters 3 and 6. 113 Arun Poorie, India Today, February 15, 1993, commented: ‘Since its gates were unlocked in 1986,

Babri Masjid has become a touchstone to secularism and indeed, to the character of the nation…when it was destroyed, so was a symbol of India’s secular identity, the structure was a symbol of the sense of security of Indian’s secular identity, the structure was a symbol of the sense of security of Indian Muslims and in its destruction a large proportion of Hindus misguidedly saw a vindication of their right to assert their dominance. The result is that the structure and symbol have been reduced to a heap of rubble, but the issue the Babri masjid represented has been vastly aggravated’.

114 Pandey, Gyanendra, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1990

115 Pai, Sudha, Political Process in Uttar Pradesh: Identity, Economic Reforms and Governance, Longman, Delhi, 2007, p. XXVII


36

Paul Brass argued that the ideology of Muslim separateness did not flow out

of the objective differences between Hindus and Muslims but out of the use made of

those differences through a conscious process of symbol selection. Not was it the

consequence of the objective circumstances of Muslims in UP, who were better

placed than Hindus in urbanization, literacy, English education, social

communications and government employment116. Francis Robinson arrived at similar

conclusions; the threat of becoming backward, rather than backwardness itself,

encouraged UP Muslims to organize themselves separately. Their influence in the

province helped them to do so with much effect117. More recently though, Robinson

has sought to establish a ‘fundamental’ connection between Islamic traditions and

‘political separatism’. In a lively debate with Paul Brass, he rejects the

‘instrumentalist’ view to assert, in much the same way as Farzana occasions, a

motivating role to play amongst the elite of UP.118

Visalakshi Menon’s119 argues that the 1930s and the 1940s were crucial

decades in shaping the strong organization ‘machine’ and ideology of the Congress

party in UP. Two events played an important role in building the Congress

organization in the 1930s: increased political mobilization during the campaign prior

to the 1937 elections, and the first Congress Ministry (1937-39), which enthused both

Congress workers and the people. A variety of mobilizational techniques used by the

Congress, such as mass contact programmes, training camps, district political

conferences, and literacy and prohibition drives, were important in building the party

organization, thus keeping it free from the virus of communalism. However, from the

mid-1940s onwards, communal riots increased in frequency and intensity and

Congress leaders became involved in the transfer of power. Menon argues that there

was a decline in the Congress organization, characterized by a weakening of

ideological commitment on the part of Congress members and a shift in focus from

mobilization to power politics. In contrast to Kudasiya’s120 more positive reading of

116 Brass, Paul, Language, Religion and Politics in North India, Cambridge, 1974, p. 178 117 Robinson, Francis, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United

Provinces’Muslims, 1860-1923, Vikas, Delhi, 1975, Ch. 1 118 Robinson, Francis, ‘Nation Formation: The Brass Thesis and Muslim Separatism’, and reply by

Paul Brass, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 215-34 119 Menon, Visalakshi, From Movement to Government: The Congress in the United Provinces, 1937-

42, 2003 120 Pai, Sudha, Political Process in Uttar Pradesh: Identity, Economic Reforms and Governance,

op.cit., p. XXIX


37

the Congress, Menon argues that all evidence points to the fact that by 1947 the

earlier sense of discipline and selfless service that had animated Congress workers

had disappeared. Communal tension reached a level never seen before in the province.

Consequently, the Congress party in UP entered the post-colonial period with a

weakened organization badly affected by communal politics and divided by mutual

rivalries and factionalism.

Finally, Mandal Commission Report was the culmination to address and to

remove the inequalities persisting among the OBCs among Muslims. Thus after a

long wave of struggle relaxation was provided by Mandal Commission and thereby

bring the social justice for the communities oppressed by the upper caste dominate for

a number of centuries and providing the OBCs among Muslims to carve out an

independent identity of their own. But to a some extent, Muslims found themselves in

a trauma situation due to the parallel development of communalism and casteism. But

the concept of Hindutva was challenged by the coming of Mandal Commission,

which provided reservation to the Muslim OBCs during 1980s and thus the focus of

Hindutva ideology diverted towards the Mandal commission’s recommendations and

further, they focused their full attention towards the Ayodhya controversy which was

the result of direct implementation of Mandal commission which was challenged

homogenous Hindu identies therefore, the Muslims political fortuness did not

received much strength and cohesion, in comparison to Hindu OBCs and SCs. The

key political debate regarding Muslim issues such as the status of Urdu, minority

character of the Aligarh Muslim University, the issue of cow slaughter, anti-Shah

Bano Campaign, the infamous Ayodhya-temple-mosque dispute were engineered in

UP and for these problems caste question among Muslims were suppressed.

V

This study begins with chapter 1, by examining the social, political, religious

and demographic structure of Uttar Pradesh. In this process, it explores the historical

geography of the state and the validity of it being called a heartland of India. Focus is

also on the issue of land distribution, religious profile, and caste structure with deep

caste cleavages persistent in the state.


38

The chapter 2, evaluates the Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh. This chapter

explores the conditions of the untouchables in colonial era and after Independence till

1980s. It discusses the circumMN stances before the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi

on the Congress platform, the new ideology of the Congress created by Mahatma

Gandhi, beginning of nationalist propaganda by the Congress leadership against

untouchability, the ‘Constructive Programme’ of the party and the public response to

the Congress efforts for the upliftment of Dalits. It critically analysed the

confrontation between Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar at the Round Table

Conference on the problem of Dalits. It discusses at length, the circumstances leading

to the signing of the Poona Pact (1932), i.e., the fast-unto-death by Mahatma Gandhi

and political developments before, during and after his fast. We also try to focus the

‘social justice’ justified for the Dalits through the Constitution of India and successful

in practices. It also evaluate the role of political parties in favour of Dalits and finally

formation of a Dalit party, Bahujan Samaj Party (1984) in Uttar Pradesh which was

preceded by the BAMCEF. Four distinct phases can be identified in the politics of the

Dalit Caste in Uttar Pradesh. (i) From 1930 to 1947, studies on identity formation of

SCs in the United Provinces rooted in the quest for tracing the roots of Dalit assertion.

In these studies, emphasis has been given to role of important personalities and their

contribution for making Dalits a powerful political force. (ii) From 1947 to 1969,

when after an initial period of accommodation in the immediate post-independence

period with the dominant Congress party, a section of the SCs decided to form their

own party, viz., the Republican Party of India (RPI). (iii) The failure of this

experiment led to co-option into the Congress under the leadership of Indira Gandhi.

As a result, up to 1977, SCs supported the Congress with its radical doctrines of

‘Garibi Hatao’ under which a number of welfare schemes were put forward to help

Scheduled Castes. (iv) Since the early 1980s, the SC movement has entered into a

period of revolt leading to the formation of a separate party, ideology and identity.

There has been criticism of, and movement away from Hinduism, though this phase

has been more political than social.

The chapter 3, discusses the politicization of the peasantry in Uttar Pradesh. It

explores the role of The Congress for the Zamindari abolition and its impact on the

peasant castes. It also evaluate, the role of Charan Singh for the politicization of


39

peasant classes and impact of the Green Revolution. The politicization of backward

and middle castes in the wake of the Green Revolution, the formation of the Bhartiya

Kranti Dal (BKD) in 1969, the victory of the Janata Party in 1977, and the impressive

performance of the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) now Lok Dal in 1980. It also explores

the nature and pattern of political mobilization. Accelerating the unequal distribution

of wealth and resources, the Green Revolution was expected to speed up the

mobilization process. We have tried to present a more nuanced account of the

Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) in western Uttar Pradesh.

The chapter 4, discuses the difference between backward castes and backward

classes. It explores the role of the Triveni Sangh and factors of its failure during late

Colonial era. After Independence, Ram Manohar Lohia has raised the question of

Other Backward Castes whereas, Charan Singh had followed it through peasant

movements. This chapter explores the role of Kanshi Ram for the rise of Other

Backward Castes. It also discusses the state Backward Class Commission in Uttar

Pradesh and its impact. In the 1980s, the role of Mandal Commission and through it,

the reservations for the Other Backward Castes, and finally the formation of the

‘Samajwadi Party’.

The fifth chapter seeks to examine the Politics of Muslim Communities in

Uttar Pradesh. It explores the role of Momin Conference and its difference with the

Muslim League and Abdul Qaiyum Ansari, who belonged to the julaha (weaver)

community, challenged the “two-nation theory” and Muslim League politics squarely.

It also discuses, difference between the Congress and the Muslim League in the

election of 1937, and trauma of Partition. After independence minority question was

not tackled adequately by the Constitution. It also explore the neglect of socio-

economic dimensions of Muslim backwardness, which has largely been ignored by

the Muslim leadership in the country. In 1955 Kaka Kalelkar Commission's Report of

Backward Classes had for the first time recognized the Muslim OBCs at par with the

Hindu counterparts. The Commission recommended their eligibility for job

reservations. But the recommendations remained on paper owing to some handicaps

on the part of the government. It also discusses the growing phenomenon of

communalism in the state of Uttar Pradesh during the 1980s. It discusses this problem

in the UP of pre-independence India, the role played by the Muslim League in UP, the


40

analysis of riots of the 1980s, implications of the judgement in Shah Bano case and

communal mobilization of the masses on the Ayodhya dispute as well as its

repercussions.

This chapter looks into various policies of affirmative action available for the

Muslims or a segment of them and the impact of these policies on their living

conditions. Since the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report for Central

Government services, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) among Muslims have been

identified and, along with backward groups from other religions, the benefit of OBC

reservation has been extended to them. The present attempt is to compare the socio-

economic status of Muslims who are not listed as OBCs (named Muslim-General) and

do not avail reservation of any kind with those who are OBCs. The status of both

these social groups is also compared with those of Hindu OBCs, who form bulk of the

OBC population in the country. The attempt is to comprehend the extent of respective

relative deprivation, i.e., their location in the political process of UP.

The conclusion draws out the implications of this argument for social justice

behind the mobilization of caste and community in the political processes of colonial

and post independence in Uttar Pradesh. During the colonial period, the issue of

casteism, was not address the grievances of backward castes but to prepare them for

being part of the Indian national movement. And thus, very little has been achieved by

the backward castes and minorities during the colonial period, whatever achieved was

confined to their private domain i.e., status quoist, but very little has been achieved in

the public domain i.e., political achievement remained confined in the form of Poona-

pact (1932) and separate electorates. But during the post colonial period one can

witnessed a real shift and that too after 1980s towards social and political uplift of the

lower caste (SCs and OBCs) and minority. Finally, Mandal Commission Report was

the culmination to address and to remove the inequalities persisting among the SCs,

OBCs among Hindus and Muslims. Thus after a long wave of struggle relaxation was

provided by Mandal Commission and thereby bring the social justice for the

communities oppressed by the upper caste dominate for a number of centuries and

providing the OBCs among Hindus and Muslims to carve out an independent identity

of their own.

IIIInnntttrrrroooodddduuuuccccttttiiioooonnnnshodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/28538/8/08_introduction.pdf ·...

Documents

Transcript of IIIInnntttrrrroooodddduuuuccccttttiiioooonnnnshodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/28538/8/08_introduction.pdf ·...