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.

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