Other Brahminical Castes

Consequently, the degree of correspondence between the ritual and economic status of castes changes a great deal. The cross-correlations between ritual rank, economic status and literacy rate of castes vary a great deal over space and time. Actually, the ritual hierarchy is found to be flexible. Castes rising in economic status succeed in achieving higher ritual rank after a time lag.

The castes designated as OBCs are found to be the most heterogeneous. Some of the middle-ranking, agriculturist castes 8212; for example, Jat and Gujjar in the north, Vokkaliga, Lingayat, Vaniyar and Kamma in the south 8212; attained very high economic status by the end of the 19th century. Clearly, these castes benefited a great deal from the progress of agriculture brought about by canal irrigation and commercialisation. At the same time, most other cultivating and artisan castes suffering from decline of traditional industry, enjoying similar ritual ranks as the materially more successful group cited above, occupied much lower economic positions. This resulted in an amazing degree of socio-economic heterogeneity among the backward castes. Remarkably, in some regions 8212; for example, UP, Bombay and the Telugu-speaking areas of Madras 8212; the lowest economic positions were occupied by some shudra backward castes, not by untouchables. Clearly, caste is not a good indicator of economic, educational or social deprivation, even at the beginning of the 20th century. This gives rise to a fundamental question: why did the southern states, namely Mysore and Madras, adopt the policy of caste-based reservations in the early decades of the 20th century?

Scholars have argued that the anti-brahmin movements, which led to the policy of reservations for the OBCs, first arose in the south because of the greater ritual repression there by the brahmins, compared to the north. However, this explanation raises further questions. Why did the lower castes not rise earlier in protest against the ritual repression by the brahmins, which had obviously gone on for long? Besides, this argument is inconsistent with the fact that these movements were organised by the castes ranked just below the brahmins, not by the most oppressed and the lowest castes in the ritual hierarchy. Furthermore, recently the lower castes started rising in the north. Clearly, differences in ritual hierarchy, if any, do not explain this phenomenon.

Other intellectuals argued that the major and upper backward castes of northern India, namely Yadav and Kurmi, have been too much in the grip of 8220;sanskritisation8221; ritual emulation of the upper castes, which has hindered their cohesion with the lower backward castes, and their political mobilisation. But sanskritisation is neither an alternative nor a constraint for political mobilisation. In fact, M.N. Srinivas coined the phrase in the context of south India, where sanskritisation did not at all hinder backward caste movements. And it has not prevented their political rise in the north in recent times.

Economic factors form a vital part of the explanation. The existence of a sizeable, well-to-do group is a prerequisite for successful political mobilisation. The major low castes, namely Vokkaliga and Lingayat in Mysore and Vaniyar, Chetti and Vanian in Madras, had achieved higher economic status than the brahmins, when their political mobilisation met with success in the early 20th century. A large part of land and wealth was with the upper-shudra castes listed above. In addition, their shares in the population were much larger than the brahmins. In contrast, brahmins had a disproportionately large share of government jobs. Both the government of the day and the new elite belonging to the lower castes resented the brahmin predominance in the administrative apparatus. Reservations for non-brahmin castes were essentially designed to procure a larger share of the coveted jobs for the new elite. For this purpose, about 95 per cent of the population was clubbed together as backward and treated as a homogeneous group! It needs to be emphasised that the state and the new elite collaborated to squeeze the now weaker old elite, strengthening the state in the process. Not surprisingly, backward caste movements never seriously articulated any problem of material deprivation facing the majority, namely, provision of employment, minimum wages, primary education and health for all, not to speak of land redistribution.

In the north, in contrast, the numerically important backward castes 8212; namely, Yadav, Kurmi, Lodha, Kahar and Gadariya 8212; lagged far behind the upper castes in the economic hierarchy during the first three decades of the 20th century. Those lower castes which had achieved high economic status, namely, Barhai, Gujjar, Jat, Kisan, Lohar, Mali and Sonar, had relatively small demographic weights and were geographically scattered.

The point to be noted in all this is that the reality militates against an easy conflation of caste and socio-economic backwardness.

The writer is visiting teacher in global economic history, London School of Economics and professor of economics, JNU