India’s Silent Revolution --- Christophe Jaffrelot

 

In this remarkable book, Political Scientist Christophe Jaffrelot studies developments in the first fifty years of Independent India, focusing on the dramatic transformation of the power structure in the North Indian Hindi belt, including Bihar, UP, MP and Rajasthan.

By the end of the 19th century, the Colonial state began gradually permitting political representation to Indians and a semblance of power was up for grabs by local players. The principal player -- politically and otherwise -- was the Indian National Congress. It was an umbrella organization that incorporated people with a wide range of ideological commitments united in a rising tide of nationalist fervor, that over time morphed into a movement for independence.

From the beginning, the INC was led by an elite group comprising urban, mostly western educated professionals, and rural landowning elite and traders and businessmen. These ‘natural leaders’ belonged largely to the upper Varnas, the ‘twice born’, and constituted a group that was primarily conservative. This pattern was marked in North India -- the Hindi belt -- where the population composition included a significant proportion of the upper varnas. The Zamindari system and the existence of many ‘Princely states’ also helped ensure the domination of the upper castes in the socio-political and economic space. This was in sharp contrast to regions that were part of the Madras Presidency and, to an extent, the Bombay Presidency. Here the challenger elites (lower castes) had rejected upper caste domination of power positions and using the affirmative action policies of the colonial state, worked to dislodge the established elites from positions of power.

Elite domination of political power in the Hindi belt was reinforced by the careful cooption into the power structure, of major leaders of the Scheduled Castes and elements of the landed Muslim elite. This pattern of elite dominance continued in North India roughly two decades after Independence.

Despite the socialist rhetoric adopted by the Congress in the 1970s, the dominance of ‘notables’ in the party and its power structure continued, as did the ‘vote bank’ politics that depended on existing power structures. In this pattern of power distribution what was missing was space for the cultivating peasantry, the bulk of which was subsumed in what were called ‘Other Backward Classes’.

The Constituent Assembly had made provision for setting up a Backward Classes Commission to identify and suggest measures for improving the conditions of these ‘classes’. The first such Commission was set up in 1953 but its suggestions -- conflicted as they were -- were largely disregarded by the government. The issue of caste as the basic criterion for assessing backwardness was shelved until Morarji Desai appointed the second Backward Classes Commission in 1978 -- the Mandal Commission, as it came to be known after its Chairman. The Mandal Commission set down caste as the principal factor underlying backwardness. Caste, too, was the defining criterion for identifying Other Backward Classes. The basic measure recommended for the upliftment of the OBCs was affirmative action -- reservation in government and the public sector and in technical, scientific and professional educational institutions. This report too was put on the back burner, until VP Singh as Prime Minister of the Janata Dal in its second incarnation announced its implementation in 1990. Quota politics came into its own and the ‘lower’, not ‘twice born’, cultivating castes found place in the structures of power.

There were geographical differences in this relatively quiet revolution and dissensions within the broad OBC category, but a major change had taken place.

Dalit politics too evolved during the half century after Independence. The Congress pattern of cooption that ensured a willing compromise with the ruling elite was effectively opposed by the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party. This party was founded in 1984 and sought to unite all lower castes against the Upper in a relentless drive for political power. The Dalit resurgence was marked in UP, but suffered from internal factionalism and organizational indiscipline.

In sum, there was a marked shift in power from an upper caste elite to OBC and Dalit political formations. Jaffrelot’s analysis is detailed and data driven, which makes it an educative and convincing read, although a difficult one.

 A blog post can only pick up a few major highlights of a long and densely packed book and trust that it will stimulate interested readers to pick up the book and work through it themselves.

The effort is well worth the education it provides.

Happy reading.