India's silent revolution : the rise of the lower castes in North India / Christophe Jaffrelot.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Jaffrelot, Christophe.

Contributor:

• Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.
• Edith E. Clark Endowment Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Dalits--Political activity--India.
• Dalits--Political activity.
• India.
• India--Politics and government--1947-.
• Politics and government.

Physical Description:

xiv, 505 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2003]

Summary:

Since the 1960s a new assertiveness has characterized Indias formerly silent majority, the lower castes that comprise more than two-thirds of the population. Today Indias most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is controlled by lower-caste politicians, as is Bihar, and lower-caste representation in national politics is growing inexorably. Jaffrelot argues that this trend constitutes a genuine "democratization" of India and that the social and economic effects of this "silent revolution" are bound to multiply in the years to come.

Contents:

• The North-South opposition 5
• The two ages of democracy in India 6
• Part I. Congress in Power or India as a Conservative Democracy 11
• 1. The Gandhian sources of Congress conservatism 13
• Reformism and social organicism in Gandhi's thought 14
• The conflict between Gandhi and Ambedkar 19
• The conservative influence of Gandhi on the Congress in North India 25
• Congress and social transformation: an empty discourse? 31
• The thwarting of land reform: the case of Uttar Pradesh 32
• The problem of planning and the agricultural cooperatives 45
• 2. The Congress: party of the intelligentsia, or party of the notables? 48
• The Congress intelligentsia
• unevenly progressive 52
• Congress 'Vote Banks' politics 64
• 3. The Congress Party and the Scheduled Castes: reservations and co-option 89
• The reservation policy: the smokescreen of the egalitarian discourse 91
• What party for the Scheduled Castes? 102
• 4. Indira Gandhi, the populist repertoire and the aborted reform of Congress 115
• Towards a new Congress? 116
• How to transform Congress into a cadre-based party? 131
• The Emergency: suspending democracy, a condition for social reforms? 136
• Part II. The Uneven Emancipation of the Lower Castes: Non-Brahmins in the South, OBCs in the North 144
• 5. Caste transformations in the South and West: ethnicisation and positive discrimination 147
• The non-Brahmin movement in Maharashtra: an ideology of empowerment 153
• From non-Brahminism to Dravidianism in Tamil Nadu 166
• The Non-Brahmin as a bureaucratic creation: the quest for empowerment 172
• Caste federations: the case of Gujarat 180
• 6. Were there Low Caste movements in North India? 185
• The Kayasths as Chandraguptas 185
• Sanskritisation and Division among Yadavs and Kurmis 187
• The North Indian Untouchables, Sanskritisation and bhakti 199
• 7. Caste as the building block of the 'Other Backward Classes': the impact of reservations 214
• How to discriminate positively? The constitutional debate 215
• The first 'Backward Classes' Commission or the partial concealment of caste 221
• The AIBCF and the quotas: an ephemeral low-castes front 229
• Reservation policies: the North-South contrast 237
• Part III. Quota Politics and Kisan Politics: Complementarity and Competition 254
• 8. The Socialists as defenders of the Lower Castes, Jat politicians as advocates of the peasants 254
• The Socialists and the Low Castes 256
• Kisan politics and the mobilisation of the Jat farmers 271
• Charan Singh's marginalisation within the Uttar Pradesh Congress 289
• 9. The quest for power and the first Janata Government 305
• The BLD: a joint venture 305
• The Janata experiment 309
• The Mandal Commission: the reservation issue revisited at the Centre 320
• When the North lags behind: reservation policies outside the Hindi Belt in the 1980s 324
• The Lok Dal fighting for Mandal 327
• 10. The Janata Dal and the rise to power of the Low Castes 335
• Quota politics takes over 335
• Caste polarization around Mandal 343
• The electoral fallout of the Mandal affair 349
• Geographical unevenness 352
• Are the OBCs a social and political category? 363
• 11. The renewal of Dalit politics: The B.S.P. party of the Bahujans? 387
• Kanshi Ram and the Bahujan Samaj: from interest group to political force 388
• Towards a 'bahujan' front? 396
• Using Ladders to Attain power... and Consolidating the Dalit vote bank 409
• Part IV The Upper Castes' Political Domination on Trial: The Congress(I), the BJP and Mandal 426
• 12. The Congress(I) and the 'Coalition of Extremes' revisited 427
• The end of a catch-all party 428
• The Congress accommodating strategy in Madhya Pradesh: a new version of the 'Coalition of Extremes' pattern 435
• 13. The Hindu Nationalist division of labour: Sewa Bharti and the BJP between Sanskritisation and 'social engineering' 453
• The welfarist strategy of Sewa Bharti 454
• The BJP from Sanskritisation to graded 'social engineering' 462
• 1.1. Distribution of operational holdings in India by size group, 1953-72 44
• 2.1. Caste and religion of delegates to the Annual Sessions of the Congress, 1919-23 49
• 2.2. Profession of Delegates to the Annual Sessions of Congress, 1919-23 50
• 2.3. Caste and community of non-Muslim members of the assembly of Bombay Presidency, 1920-37 51
• 2.4. Caste and community of Uttar Pradesh Congress MLAs, 1952-62 67
• 2.5. Caste and community of Congress Cadres in Uttar Pradesh, 1964-8 68
• 2.6. Caste and community of members of the Uttar Pradesh Government, 1937-67 70
• 2.7. Caste and community of Congress MLAs in Bihar, 1957-62 72
• 2.8. Caste and community of members of the Pradesh Congress Committee of Bihar, 1947-60 73
• 2.9. Caste of Congress candidates to the Rajasthan Assembly, 1952-67 75
• 2.10. Caste and community of Congress MLAs and in parentheses of all MLAs in the Rajasthan Assembly, 1952-67 76
• 2.11. Caste and community in the Congress Government of Rajasthan, 1952-67 77
• 2.12. Caste and community of Congress MLAs and (in parentheses) of all MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, 1957-67 81
• 2.13. Caste and community of members of the Congress Government in Madhya Pradesh, 1953-67 82
• 2.14. Caste and community of Congress MPs and (in parentheses) of all MPs elected in the Hindi Belt, 1952-67 83.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 497-500) and index.

Local Notes:

• Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.
• Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edith E. Clark Endowment Fund.

ISBN:

0231127863

OCLC:

50064516

Online:

• The Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund Home Page
• The Edith E. Clark Endowment Fund Home Page