Caste politics
In India, a caste is a social group where membership is decided by birth. Broadly, Indian castes are divided into the Forward Castes, Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes. Indian Christians and Indian Muslims are also function as castes. With castes separating individuals into different social groups, it follows that each group will have conflicting interests; oftentimes putting those with lower social standing in less favorable positions. An attempt to address this inequality has been the reservation system, which essentially acts as affirmative action to provide representation to caste groups that have been systematically disadvantaged. There have also been other cases where political parties, like the Bahujan Samaj Party, was formed to challenge the power of the upper castes.
The role that castes play in India's political system was institutionalised by the British colonist where upper-caste dominance within government was perpetuated and reinforced. Although there were efforts to address this discrepancy through measures like the Communal Award and educational empowerment, this remained the status quo until the 1990s when an economic liberalisation in India diminished state control and fueled the rise of caste-centric parties focused on empowering lower castes. However, these parties were often rife with corruption as it was seen as a way to level the playing field. Leaders of what came to be known as 'caste mafia' took advantage of lower caste dissent towards upper caste institutions and openly robbed state institutions.
Caste not only determines one's role in political institutions; it also influences access to resources like land as well as police and judicial assistance. Despite the traditional dominance of upper caste parties, the concentration of lower caste individuals in specific areas can lead to regional dominance, impacting political representation. However, this mainly impacts male members of the lower castes as women from lower castes have traditionally been excluded from participating in the political sphere. This discrimination has continued in recent times as women from lower castes are continued to be looked down upon for their low educational levels. Organizations such as the Gulabi Gang as well as the United Nations are currently working to improve lower caste women's social mobility and independence.
History
Historically, it has been very hard to change the structure of caste politics in India. More recently however, there has been a flux in caste politics, mainly caused by economic liberalisation in India. Contemporary India has seen the influence of caste start to decline. This is partly due to the spread of education to all castes which has had a democratising effect on the political system. However, this "equalising" of the playing field has not been without controversy. The Mandal Commission and its quotas system has been a particularly sensitive issue.Colonial history
The British institutionalised caste into the workings of the major government institutions within India. The main benefactors of this indirect rule were the upper castes or forward castes, which maintained their hegemony and monopoly of control and influence over government institutes long after independence from the British. The state of post-colonial India promised development, rule of law, and nation building, but in reality, was a complex network of patronage systems, which solidified the upper-caste position of dominance over civil service institutions. This network undermined the very promises of 'nation building' that post-colonial India had made and ushered in an area of upper-caste dominance that lasted for the next four decades.In August 1932, the then Prime Minister of Britain, Ramsay MacDonald, made what became known as the Communal Award. According to it, separate representation was to be provided for communities such as the Dalit, Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans. These depressed classes were assigned a number of seats to be filled by election from special constituencies in which only voters belonging to these classes could vote.
Caste-based mobilisation
The rise of caste-based mobilisation allowed marginalized caste groups to move past the mere consolations of legislative abolition, extending caste into the political frameworks. The term refers to the 'second democratic upsurge' from the late 1980s with high voter turnout and representation of lower-caste communities in state and national assemblies. Caste-based political mobilizations carried out by regional parties, like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, especially in agrarian settings. The objective was caste-empowerment, aimed at resisting the inequalities perpetuated by the oppression of powerful upper-caste bureaucracies and governments. Regional political parties tapped into frustrations of marginalization by lower-caste communities. However, the rise of caste politics has not necessarily resulted in developmental gains for those at the bottom of the caste ladder.Published studies have presented evidence suggesting that the influence of caste has been declining since the mid-1990s, including areas in rural India where the higher class castes held greater dominance over lower class castes, and also in urban interaction and hereditary occupations. Rather than a long-established, unchanging institution, caste is subject to political influence. Changes in political leadership throughout the history of India have led to changes in the structure of the caste system. India's colonial past has shaped caste into a flexible institution, generating a new system that has crucial influences on political mobilisation. In some regions of India, strategic reconstructions of the caste system have taken place. For instance, the Bahujan Samaj Party in the state of Punjab was first initiated by urban political entrepreneurs who belonged to the former lower caste groups. The pliable caste system in the post-independence era acts as a tool for identifying marginal groups and political mobilisation. Various political leaderships can alter and influence the caste system to give different groups of people unequal rights in accessing public services and political competition.
A distinct feature of lower caste mobilization in North India is the importance of 'Sanskritization' as ideological grounds; by comparison, 'ethnicization' has been more prevalent in West and South India. Sanskritization refers to the process of emulation that lower castes may adopt, to enhance their status in society by mirroring Brahminical rituals and values. In contrast, ethnicization endeavors to establish a separate identity for a lower caste group because the objective is to produce "nonhierarchical social imaginaries." For instance, the Yadav caste group did not resort to inventing a Dravidian identity to position themselves against the Aryan identity, as leaders in the South and the West had done. Instead, the key logic was to enhance their status by identifying themselves within the Aryan group. At the same time, it is important to note that the two processes are not mutually exclusive and in fact, most leaders wanted to develop separate identities from the dominant culture. The prominent influence of Sanskritization meant that mobilizations in the North were restricted by conforming to the existing hierarchies, and in practical terms, this reinforced the dominance of elites within a specific region.
Education
Education spread to the lower castes after India gained independence. The younger generations of all castes have had access to educational resources since the 1980s. The number of the Scheduled and Backward Castes people receiving education increased at a faster rate than that of the upper caste groups. The spread of education to all castes generated democratizing effects. Some representatives of the SC and ST groups obtained access to Congress in the 1950s~1960s. Due to their higher education levels, they are less likely to respond to the upper-caste patrons, but to the needs and interests of the lower castes.Caste and political power
The removal of the boundaries between "civil society" and "political society" meant that caste now played a huge role in the political arena and also influenced other government-run institutions such as police and the judicial system. Though caste seemed to dictate one's access to such institutions, the location of that caste also played an important role. If a lower caste were concentrated enough in one area, it could then translate that pocket of concentration of its caste members into political power and then challenge the hegemony of locally dominant upper caste. Gender also plays a significant role in the power dynamic of caste in politics. Women's representation within the political system seems to also be tied to their caste. Lower, more conservative castes have less female participation in politics than upper, more socially liberal, castes. This has caused a disproportionately large number of upper-caste women to occupy political office when compared to their lower caste counterparts. The hierarchy of caste and its role in politics and access to power and resources has created a society of patron-client relationships along caste lines. This eventually led to the practice of vote banking, where voters back only candidates that are in their caste, or officials from which they expect to receive some kind of benefits.The caste system has traditionally had significant influence over people's access to power. The privileged upper caste groups benefit more by gaining substantially more economic and political power, while the lower caste groups have limited access to those powers. The caste system distributes to different castes different economic strengths. The upper caste groups can then manipulate the economic and political system to transfer economic strength into political power.
It has been argued by Professor Dipankar Gupta that the role of castes in Indian elections have been overplayed.