Caste is not that decisive in Indian elections at the national level

The latest issue of International Journal of Tantric Studies (IJTS) vol.10, n.1 (http://asiatica.org/ijts/10-1/india-elections-2014-end-caste-and-politics/#section-3) has an article by Alessandro Cissilin, India Elections 2014: The End of “Caste Politics”, which argues that in India, though ‘the narrative on caste and politics still persists among intellectual circles with a great deal of analytical debate’, politics as well as society is basically a matter of ‘multiple memberships and overlapping identities’.

 

This I think is what I tried to express vis-a-vis Arundhati Roy’s apprehensions about India becoming a totalitarian state. But, of course, with much less academic rigor. Fortunately, history does not follow any individual’s anxiety or even dictates.

 

My conviction is that castes do not bind people into any pan-Indian groups worth taking note of. They had always been exclusivist clubs, evolving locally and relevant only in their respective immediate locales.

 

The notion that in the beginning there were only four meta-groups (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras) called ‘Varnas’, and the various castes and sub-castes were born out of inter-Varna marriages, I am convinced, is a canard planted by the ‘Sastris’. ‘Sastris’ like Manu or Yajnavalkya or Apastamba, who had composed and prescribed the social laws, were extremely adept at classification. They literally divined a near perfect system of castes with a fool-proof formula for fixing social hierarchy. The colonial interlocutors of India borrowed and popularized this story as well as the scheme, which eventually became the given knowledge the world over.

 

 Caste as practiced in India now does not substantiate any of the features traditionally associated with it. Caste markers such as rules of pollution, occupational restrictions, and codes of dress and food are now less visible and are observed more in breach.

 

But, as marriage circles, caste is still extremely virulent. Marriage circles earlier were purely local. The writ of caste rules ran only within those narrow circles. Choice of the spouse was not extended to any distant groups, even those with identical occupations, rituals or names. In the last quarter of the 19^th century, however, there were movements within many castes in many parts of India to co-opt identical castes and enlarge their size and also their political and social bargaining power. This did succeed to some extent, but not to the extent to which Indian elections could be decided by caste formations alone. As far as I could make out from the abstract, which alone I could access, this is what Alessandro Cissilin has argued. Indian elections are still largely unpredictable.

 

Hope I will be able to access the full paper some time soon.