tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/caste-17834/articlesCaste – The Conversation2021-02-19T13:19:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1531782021-02-19T13:19:19Z2021-02-19T13:19:19ZWomen of color spend more than $8 billion on bleaching creams worldwide every year<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382789/original/file-20210205-13-1d5k6lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Skin-lightening creams for sale in a shop in New Delhi, India, in 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photo-taken-on-july-8-2020-shows-packages-of-unilever-news-photo/1226007169?adppopup=true">Sajjad Hussain / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
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<p>The idealization of light skin as the pinnacle of beauty <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/fashion/skin-bleaching-south-africa-women.html">affects self-esteem</a> for women of color around the world. In many cultures, skin color is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01516">social benchmark</a> that is often used by people of color and whites alike in lieu of race. Attractiveness, marriageability, career opportunities and socioeconomic status are directly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/health/16skin.html">correlated</a> with skin color. </p>
<p>As a result, many women of color seek chemical remedies to lighten their complexion. They have created a booming global business in bleach creams and <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2019-july-2019/paying-high-price-skin-bleaching">injectables</a> valued at <a href="https://www.strategyr.com/market-report-skin-lighteners-forecasts-global-industry-analysts-inc.asp">US$8.6 billion</a> in 2020; $2.3 billion was spent in the U.S. alone. The market is projected to reach $12.3 billion by 2027. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lfBeq78AAAAJ&hl=en">work</a> in behavioral science and colorism, I studied the phenomenon of skin bleaching during a decade of travel around the world during which I visited every major racial group – and tracked the <a href="https://theconversation.com/bleached-girls-india-and-its-love-for-light-skin-80655">growth of this industry</a>. The practice has both significant racial implications and health concerns. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A new Netflix documentary called ‘Skin’ explores the practice of skin bleaching in African culture.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A common practice</h2>
<p>As I stated during my interview on Oprah’s 2015 “Light Girls” documentary, while bleaching the skin is common, it’s both <a href="https://tubitv.com/movies/514763/light-girls">dangerous and potentially life-threatening</a> because products contain steroids, hydroquinone bleach and mercury. The World Health Organization <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/15/dangerous-skin-bleaching-has-become-public-health-crisis-corporate-marketing-lies-behind-it/">warns</a> that skin bleaching can cause liver and kidney damage, neurological problems, cancer and, for pregnant women, stillbirth.</p>
<p>The practice is not new. It became <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2019-july-2019/paying-high-price-skin-bleaching">popular in many African countries</a> in the 1950s; today, about 77% of Nigerians, 27% of Senegalese and 35% of South African women bleach their skin. Indian caste-based discrimination was outlawed in 1950, but dark-skinned women (and men) are still <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-05/even-harvard-pedigree-caste-follows-shadow">persecuted</a> – and fair skin remains a distinguishing social factor, associated with purity and elite status. </p>
<p>In the Middle East, the practice of bleaching is most common in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-4632.2010.04463.x">Jordan</a>, with 60.7% of women bleaching. The Brazilian government seems to sanction white skin over dark by encouraging <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1551&context=law_globalstudies">immigration from Europe and discouraging persons of African descent</a>. </p>
<p>Light skin is idealized in North America, but the phenomenon is contentious because bleaching is perceived as a desire to be white. So bleaching creams are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-aug-30-na-skincream30-story.html">marketed in the U.S.</a> not to lighten skin, but to “erase blemishes” and “age spots.”</p>
<p>Their <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-americas-bleaching-syndrome-82200">use in the U.S. spiked</a> after the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5103666188878568597&q=Loving+v.+Virginia&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33&as_vis=1">ruling</a> that legalized interracial marriage. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the civil rights movement, dark-complected immigrants from developing countries flocked to the U.S., carrying with them an ideal of light-skinned beauty – and they <a href="https://www.law.uci.edu/lawreview/vol3/no4/Jones.pdf">bleached their skin to attain it</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Ideals of light-skinned beauty stemming from European colonization contributed to a lucrative bleach cream industry.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Perpetuating ‘colorism’</h2>
<p>Bleach cream manufacturers now face growing pressure to address racism, with activists arguing that their products perpetuate a preference for lighter skin. In 2020, Johnson & Johnson announced that it will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/business/johnson-and-johnson-skin-whitening-cream.html">no longer sell</a> two products marketed to reduce dark spots that were widely used as skin lighteners. </p>
<p>L’Oreal, the world’s largest producer of bleach creams, pledged to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/26/loreal-unilever-reassess-skin-lightening-products-but-wont-quit-the-multi-billion-dollar-market/?sh=5481ae19223a">remove</a> the words “white,” “fair,” and “light” from labels – but it will still manufacture these products. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Some among African countries have moved to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/archive/east-african-countries-move-ban-skin-bleaching-products">ban</a> bleaching creams. The success of the blockbuster film “Black Panther” has likewise sparked a movement celebrating dark skin, with hashtags including #melaninpoppin and #blackgirlmagic. </p>
<p>As I see it, public education and activism on this issue must prevail to protect the health and self-esteem of women of color. The failure of either will only prolong the problem – while sustaining an $8.6 billion bleach cream beauty industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald E. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fair skin as a beauty ideal underpins the global bleach cream industry – valued at $8.6 billion. There is a nascent backlash against the practice, which endangers health and can perpetuate racism.Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444412020-09-03T13:54:40Z2020-09-03T13:54:40ZIndian Matchmaking: a show about arranged marriages can’t ignore the political reality in India<p>Sima Aunty, the central figure in Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking, facilitates the tradition of the arranged marriage by finding suitable matches. As she meets with clients and their families, the programme outlines the parameters of what constitutes a suitable and desirable match and how to find one. According to her:</p>
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<p>If you want a good and happy family, you have to adjust, have to compromise </p>
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<p>While men are told to lower their standards and women to be less “choosey”, the show’s biggest compromise is not made by those looking for their ideal match. Instead, it comes with how it glosses over the politics of contemporary India to fit the format of a reality dating show and appeal to a wide international audience. </p>
<p>The programme gives the appearance of prioritising how well people get on rather than how socially (and politically) acceptable matches are. Instead, social conservatism and <a href="https://scroll.in/global/970262/casteism-continues-to-thrive-among-indians-abroad-through-surnames">casteism</a> (a system of social stratification, based on a hierarchy of social status and ritual purity or pollution) are surreptitiously promoted to an unaware international audience. These ideas are shrouded within notions of family love, cultural affinity and desires for children to be happy. </p>
<p>While advertised as a dating show, it is questionable whether Indian Matchmaking should wade into this territory at all. However, with the unsightly social context and political reality in India omitted from the discussion, Indian Matchmaking covertly upholds the ideas of Hindu nationalism.</p>
<h2>The family lines of authoritarianism</h2>
<p>Indian Matchmaking was filmed and aired during a time of deep fascism in India.</p>
<p>The last two years have seen <a href="https://scroll.in/article/966775/from-planning-murder-to-praising-modi-whatsapp-chats-offer-a-window-into-the-minds-of-delhi-rioters">violent pogroms</a>, far-reaching <a href="https://scroll.in/article/962526/in-delhi-violence-investigation-a-disturbing-pattern-victims-end-up-being-arrested-by-police">state orchestration and complicity</a> and <a href="https://thewire.in/education/jnu-public-university-system">the dismantlement of liberal institutions</a>.</p>
<p>The <em>Sangh Parivar</em>, or the “family” of Hindu nationalist organisations in India, includes the ruling far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party, led by Narendra Modi, has been implementing its vision of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/opinion/modi-india-election.html">Hindu nation</a> since its electoral landslide in 2014. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-50670393">Exclusionary citizenship laws</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-51382414">anti-Muslim hate speech</a>) and <a href="https://time.com/5617161/india-religious-hate-crimes-modi/">hate crimes</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/05/devastating-siege-kashmir-colony-india-crushing-dissent">the illegal abolition of Kashmir’s special status</a> are some of the key features of the BJP’s platform. It has welded social conservatism, caste ideology, territorial sovereignty and Hindu supremacy together to create India’s brand of fascism and authoritarianism called <em>Hindutva</em>. </p>
<p>By not featuring any conversations about the fraught politics of this time, the programme by default contributes to the denial of the violence being <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/73-years-on-violence-is-reimagined-in-modi-s-india-38919">perpetrated against minorities</a>. These groups are also excluded from the show to present a quaint and simplistic picture of love in India and the diaspora. </p>
<p>It could be understood that such omissions were made to fit within the genre of reality TV. The protocols and idiosyncrasies of this system of matchmaking provide a source of entertainment for viewers – such as first dates where parents and other relatives are embarrassingly present. However, while it might seem odd for what is essentially a dating show to wade into such political territory, these omissions propagate and normalise some of the dangerous thinking espoused by <em>Hindutva</em>.</p>
<h2>Love and hate in a time of fascism</h2>
<p>The programme’s honesty lies in how it exposes how social boundaries and preferences are brazenly stated at the onset. Clients name their traits and then identify those they desire in potential matches. Going against the wishes of parents or crossing social boundaries by considering a match outside of the categories of acceptability is beyond the realm of possibility. </p>
<p>Instead, <a href="https://www.hloom.com/resume/templates/biodata">biodatas</a>, which function as dating profiles or personal CVs, are shared and examined in great detail. Religion, education, regional or ethnic background, height, age, profession and more are listed for participants and viewers to scrutinise.</p>
<p>In this process, viewers come to understand the codes and categories of suitability and desirability. Personal and parental foibles distract viewers from considering which groups are missing and what traits are placed on a pedestal. </p>
<p>The stigmatisation of inter-community cohesion and relationships under <em>Hindutva</em> has been a key feature of the BJP government’s social agenda. Many of these ideas lurk across the episodes of the programme. </p>
<p>One particular desire that repeatedly comes up is for a “fair skin” match. This is an idea of beauty that can be <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/unfair-love-skin-colour-and-caste-bias/cid/1784266">traced back to caste ideology</a> and a desire to move upward or maintain status in a society where caste oppression is a daily reality.</p>
<p>Marriages across caste or religion are predominantly frowned upon in India. According to the India Human Development Survey, only around <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47823588">5% of Indian marriages are across caste</a>.</p>
<p>This deeply held and entrenched idea of maintaining caste “purity” is part of the BJP’s social agenda for a Hindu nation. The party loudly seeks to stigmatise and stoke violence against those who transgress caste and religious boundaries. </p>
<p>One popular conspiracy theory shared by the Hindu right is “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1057/s41305-018-0120-0?casa_token=duvcP3dSvggAAAAA:w0NgK4Or1WgkmoSMVRJ6U5djrFwO2XgS3ddFnmojrzhVzr6S2ClFJYD03EMefpATNVQ-NVPyilHr">Love Jihad</a>”. This is the idea that Muslim men target women belonging to non-Muslim communities to convert them to Islam by feigning love. It is an invention to incite suspicion and hatred against Muslims in India. </p>
<p>Love Jihad is based on the idea that mixed relationships between Muslims and Hindus will threaten the “purity” of the Hindu nation. In Indian Matchmaking, <em>Hindutva</em> as a social and political project prevails as an international and subtle follow-up to Love jihad.</p>
<p>Social conservatism’s preference for and adherence to categories go hand in hand. Many viewers would have laughed at the behaviour of anxiety-ridden Preeti from Mumbai whose unabashed ambition is to settle her younger son Akshay with a “homely” match who will look after the family. Despite his reluctance, towards the end of the programme her son admits that he wants a wife who will not only please his mother but also be like her. He, like many other clients, are looking for someone just like him and his kin. </p>
<p>All in all, the programme is disingenuous for suggesting that a system of matchmaking in an era of fascism, without naming or referring to the broader political backdrop, can do anything but collude with the forces of <em>Hindutva</em>. Instead, the implicit social conservatism of the family, which actively fuels supremacist politics, goes completely unexplored and unchecked.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Navtej K Purewal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While a lighthearted dating show, can Indian matchmaking get away with not exploring the turbulent politics of caste oppression and violence against Muslims in India?Navtej K Purewal, Professor of Political Sociology and Development Studies, SOAS University of London, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1372962020-07-08T14:41:44Z2020-07-08T14:41:44ZHow the dimensions of human inequality affect who and what we are<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343562/original/file-20200623-188891-5rq20f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Black Lives Matter protester in Senegal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JOHN WESSELS/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does it mean to be human today? It is an <a href="https://stias.ac.za/2017/08/what-do-we-wish-to-change-with-regard-to-race-racism-and-racialism/">excellent starting point</a> for thinking about human inequality. </p>
<p>To be human, in an elementary sense, means three things.</p>
<p>First, you are a sexed living organism, capable of feeling pain and pleasure and of reproduction, with a delimited lifespan of development and decay, subject to vicissitudes of health and illness.</p>
<p>Secondly, you are a person, with a self and a reflexive capacity, flourishing or suffering in social environments.</p>
<p>Thirdly, you are a creative, goal-oriented actor, collective as well as individual, endowed with resources of varying size and kind.</p>
<p>The possibilities of flourishing as a human are shaped by processes of (in)equality. Differences are either given – by God or by Nature – or chosen as lifestyles. </p>
<p>Unlike difference, inequality is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-racism-prevail-leading-scholars-apply-their-minds-138363">historical social construction</a>.</p>
<p>The three-dimensionality of humanity gives us three kinds of human inequality. These are vital, existential and resource.</p>
<h2>The three kinds of human inequality</h2>
<p>Vital inequality refers to socially determined distributions of health and ill health and of your lifespan. It can be measured in life expectancy and in health expectancy or your years without serious illness. Where demographic life tables are missing, infant and child mortality are more accessible indicators.</p>
<p>Existential inequality sums up the unequal social treatment of persons. On one end of the spectrum resides denial of recognition, autonomy, existential security, dignity and respect. These can be achieved through acts of neglect, bullying, degradation and humiliation. The ultimate result is a denial of their humanness. At the opposite end are selective attention, freedom, emotional security, encouragement, respect and admiration.</p>
<p>Existential inequality is structured and processed by categories and lenses of othering – such as sex, race, ethnicity, caste or religion. It is arguably the most hurtful and wounding of inequalities. It has given rise to a range of egalitarian movements – feminist, anti-racist, nationalist, anti-caste, anti-bigotry. It has been an important driver of workers’ movements, in which the demand for recognition of workers’ human dignity has been central.</p>
<p>So far, however, existential inequality has received little systematic <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235388737_The_Killing_Fields_of_Inequality">analysis</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Between_Sex_and_Power.html?id=7oQlkfj_MKkC&redir_esc=y">study</a>. </p>
<p>It is hardly quantifiable and is difficult to compare. Legal practices and public norms, recurrent demographic and health surveys, opinion surveys, anthropological studies, autobiographies and media reporting provide qualitative evidence.</p>
<p>Resource inequality expresses the unequal allocation of resources to act among human actors. It is most frequently gauged through distributions of income and wealth and of so-called human capital. Less studied in this context, although highly relevant, are distributions of power and rights.</p>
<p>The three dimensions of inequality are interconnected and interact or “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersect</a>”, but each has its own dynamic and trajectory, globally and nationally.</p>
<h2>What othering does</h2>
<p>Othering means seeing and treating a set of people as being of a different kind than you and your type of people, as strange, peculiar and (usually) inferior.
Viewing “race” as a category of existential othering means highlighting its character as a socio-cultural construction that is subject to change. This occurs alongside <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them">many other constructs</a> such as gender, ethnicity, caste and religion. </p>
<p>In early 20th century Europe, “race” was often synonymous with ethnicity. For example, “the British race” or references to geo-ethnic groups, such as the “Alpine” or “Mediterranean race”. In continental Europe today, “race” is hardly used at all. </p>
<p>This does not mean that discriminatory and hateful othering has disappeared. It means it is now operating with other labels like Arabs, Muslims, immigrants, Africans…</p>
<p>The existential perspective leads us to human self-formation and its connection with capability formation. The very meaning of racism and of patriarchy is to deny self-esteem and self-confidence – indeed any self at all – especially to black (or any other racial target) and girl children. It installs shame, self-contempt and fear instead. </p>
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<p>Such punitive processes are, of course, not always successful. But they often inflict lasting wounds. Prejudice and stigma act as stressors on the victims and have both somatic (bodily) and psychological <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4901753_Discrimination_Social_Identity_and_Durable_Inequalities">effects</a>. They also, by themselves, cause under-performance by the targets. Psychology experiments have shown that when marginalised groups are told they are inferior, they <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247505973_Stereotype_Threat_When_minority_members_underperform">perform badly</a> on given tasks. Conversely, when told they are expected to be superior, their performance improves.</p>
<h2>Two sets of burdens</h2>
<p>Children of poor, oppressed and/or discriminated populations are loaded with two sets of heavy burdens. These cause many or most of them to under perform. One is the burden of social determinants, of ill-health and stunted development, which goes along with not enough emotional security and positive social stimulation. In other words, vital inequality, which bears upon capability formation. The other operates through the negative impacts on self-development of esteem, confidence and ambition by existential processes of stigmatisation, humiliation and fear. </p>
<p>Both these childhood experiences tend to have lifelong effects, beginning life-curves of cumulated disadvantages. Furthermore, they provide reinforcing and reproducing confirmatory evidence of inferiority of the race, gender or caste. </p>
<p>And when some individuals of the put-down race, gender or caste manage to break through their discrimination and oppression, this is often used as further evidence of the inferiority of the category in question. The losers are regarded as deficient persons, of low-life existence. To hardcore racists, this is inherent and inherited. But after the liberation of Auschwitz, existential inequality is more effective when leaving its genetic background unnamed.</p>
<h2>Why racism prevails</h2>
<p>Unequal personal selves are produced by existential inequality. And they are fortified by early cognitive and social capability formation. This can explain much of the enduring longevity of racism, patriarchy, caste and religious disadvantage, even after their formative institutions are abolished. </p>
<p>Such institutions of inferiority-cum-superiority have no internal dialectic of change. Change comes exogenously, from the outside, from contingent cracks of the pillars sustaining the institutions. </p>
<p>Sub-institutional change, of everyday existential inequality, will require broader social and cultural <a href="https://stias.ac.za/2015/08/goran-therborn-singles-out-health-and-education-as-key-long-term-solutions-to-inequality/">transformations</a>. It will require equalising processes of self and capability formation. The current hardening of nationalism in power – the existing nation-states nationalism – and fundamentalist religious revival tend rather in the opposite direction.</p>
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<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=RaceSeries&sort=relevancy&language=en&date=all&date_from=&date_to=">series</a> of six. Other authors include Nina Jablonski, Barney Pityana, George Chaplin, Kira Erwin, Kathryn Pillay and Njabulo Ndebele.</em> </p>
<p><em>The three edited volumes of essays published by African Sun Media in 2018 (<a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/publications/volume-11-the-effects-of-race/">The Effects of Race</a>, edited by Nina G. Jablonski and Gerhard Maré), 2019 (<a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/publications/stias-series-volume-13-race-in-education/">Race in Education</a>, edited by Gerhard Maré), and 2020 (<a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/publications/stias-series-volume-15-persistence-of-race/">Persistence of Race</a>, edited by Nina G. Jablonski) contain the complete representation of the project’s scholarship.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Göran Therborn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A leading sociologist explains how different dimensions of humanity produce different kinds of inequality - and what that does to the least equal in society.Göran Therborn, Professor emeritus of Sociology, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170552019-05-20T21:31:18Z2019-05-20T21:31:18ZDespite political setbacks in India, Dalit voices grow stronger<p>In India’s 2019 legislative elections, Mayawati Kumari, a Dalit woman and former chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), has been a major and fierce opponent of prime minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). </p>
<p>Whether or not citizens support her politics, <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/blog/story/india-news-mayawati-honourable-prime-minister-why-the-heartburn/4091">Kumari has set an example</a> and <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/making-mayawati-indias-prime-minister-in-2019-will-fix-its-casteist-past-and-present/236380/">shown the success</a> of a long-standing anti-caste and Dalit movements. Although caste and male domination coupled with hyper–Hindu nationalism currently <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/who-trolls-mayawati-on-twitter-and-what-it-says-about-the-indian-society/191196/">guide politics in India</a>, these subversive movements have been successful in creating a dent.</p>
<p>Today, as India is about to elect a new government, how do these movements improve social justice in the country and play a role in the political game?</p>
<h2>Who are the Dalits?</h2>
<p>Dalits form a cluster of communities formerly called “untouchable” castes, the lowest in India’s infamous hierarchy. In Sanskrit and Hindi, <em>dalit</em> means ground down and broken. For the Dalits, the self-chosen name defines a <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520257610/the-caste-question">rebellious political identity</a> and connotes the confrontation against the <a href="https://www.thequint.com/news/india/dalit-history-of-term-political-social-usage">unjust segregation</a> that still lingers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.indiaspend.com/over-a-decade-crime-rate-against-dalits-rose-by-746-746/">National Crime Record Bureau data from 2016</a> shows that over the last decade, crime against Dalits has increased 25%, and most are committed against <a href="https://thewire.in/caste/ncrb-crimes-against-dalits-women">Dalit women</a>. </p>
<p>Atrocities and discrimination against Dalit are <a href="https://scroll.in/search?q=dalit%20atrocities&page=1">still routine</a>. Just one example took place on May 3: While the cyclone Fani devastated India’s eastern coast, <a href="https://scroll.in/article/923211/cyclone-fani-dalits-in-puri-say-they-were-turned-away-from-shelters-at-height-of-storm">Dalits were turned away from a shelter</a>.</p>
<p>Still, with 200 million Dalits in India – nearly 17% of the population – they constitute a strong political force that cannot be ignored.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Dalit feminists and activists speak about fighting atrocities and injustice based on castes.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A strong movement since the 19th century</h2>
<p>The anti-caste movement, with the Dalit movement at its forefront, has been central to the democratisation of the Indian society. <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/Dalits_and_the_Democratic_Revolution.html?id=leuICwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Since the 19th century</a>, the Dalit movement has attacked the system of exploitation at all levels – culturally, economically and politically.</p>
<p>This critical questioning of the caste hegemony and the exploitation of the lower-caste labour continues to guide the Dalit politics to this day. The recent alliance between the Samajwadi Party (led by Akhilesh Yadav) and the Bahujan Samiti Party (led by Mayawati) in UP reveals a <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/politics/modi-factor-cong-spoiler-sp-bsp-math-caste-gamble-turns-complex-in-seventh-and-last-phase-as-parties-jack-up-their-up-game-2145543.html">strong coalition of citizens who believe in the anti-caste stance</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Dalit political affiliations and behaviour are difficult to cast under the same monolithic pattern. Dalits themselves comprise of a range of castes and many of these are <a href="http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readings/aoc_print_2004.pdf">subject to the same system</a> that maintains a certain hierarchy between each group. This can <a href="http://www.afsp.msh-paris.fr/publi/ficheslivres/jaffrelot05.html">prevent the communities from forming alliances</a> for political representation. </p>
<p>My research has shown that caste members can vote according to <a href="https://www.vub.ac.be/events/2019/caste-and-gender-inequalities-policy-and-dalit-women-in-maharashtra-india-swati-kamble">regional differences or clientelism toward political parties</a>. For example, votes by Dalit Buddhists in Maharashtra are divided along Dalit-Bahujan political parties, whereas the Dhangar (shepherd), Matang (ropemaker) and Charmakar (cobbler) of Hindu castes in the same state traditionally favoured Shiv-Sena-BJP alliance, located on the right end of the Indian political spectrum.</p>
<h2>Challenging the upper castes</h2>
<p>Many still follow the footsteps of <a href="https://archive.org/details/UnderstandingCaste-FromBuddhaToAmbedkarAndBeyond">Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar</a> alo called Babasaheb Ambedkar, a scholar born into an untouchable caste who went on to become the first law minister of independent India and also crafted the constitution of India. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275444/original/file-20190520-69169-1lo7s1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Babasaheb Ambedkar with women delegates of the Scheduled Caste Federation during a July 1942 conference in Nagpur.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Scheduled_Castes_Federation#/media/File:Dr._Babasaheb_Ambedkar_with_Women_delegates_of_the_Scheduled_Caste_Federation_during_the_Conference_of_the_Federation_on_July_8,_1942_at_Nagpur..jpg">Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>One of his major achievements was to convince Dalit populations to leave Hinduism for Buddhism, as he realised that as an organised religion, Hinduism promotes the caste system. This is a threat for the Hindu fundamentalist ideology, which perceives any Dalit assertion as a challenge to upper-caste authority.</p>
<p>This is why parties such as the BJP have either tried to lure the traditionally Hindu Dalit votes or have systematically suppressed the Dalit voices of dissent. For example, it has been reported that millions of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/allegations-mass-voter-exclusion-cast-shadow-india-election-190427103455251.html">Muslims Dalits</a> and <a href="https://qz.com/india/1592598/many-muslims-dalits-women-may-not-vote-in-2019-indian-election/">Dalit women</a> may have not being able to vote despite being eligible to do so.</p>
<h2>The “Akola pattern”</h2>
<p>A year and a half ago, Prakash Ambedkar – grandson of Babasaheb Ambedkar – who has successfully led a political party in Akola district of Maharashtra for three decades, re-emerged as a strong voice.</p>
<p>In 2018 he created <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanchit_Bahujan_Aghadi">Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi</a> (VBA), “the party of excluded masses”. With the goal of appealing to all minorities, including tribes, women and transgenders, he sought an alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi’s <a href="https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/prakash-ambedkar-says-vba-will-contest-all-288-assembly-seats-in-upcoming-state-election/articleshow/69255485">All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen</a>, a Muslim-dominated party.</p>
<p>His political strategy proved successful in the district, and it is now dubbed the <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/prakash-ambedkar-future-dalit-politics-maharashtra">“Akola pattern”</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of Babasaheb Ambedkar, reacts to riots that took place in Maharashtra in 2018.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Dalits and a broad range of other excluded castes and tribes <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/vanchit-bahujan-aghadi-prakash-ambedkar">extended their support to the VBA</a>. For example, the 10-million-strong Dhangar caste, which is categorised as nomadic tribes, previously loyal to the BJP, has <a href="https://indianexpress.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections-maharashtra-devendra-fadnavis-major-parties-ignore-dhangar-community-vanchit-bahujan-aghadi-set-to-capitalise-on-unrest-5653817/">sought an alliance with the VBA</a>, hoping to improve its status within the castes and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India">quota system in India</a>.</p>
<p>Despite such efforts, a strong coalition of BJP and its allies <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/video/exit-poll-results-modi-magic-works-in-maharashtra-bjp-shiv-sena-likely-to-win-38-42-seats-1529027-2019-05-19">is expected to sweep the votes</a> in Maharashtra.</p>
<h2>Dalit women’s voices</h2>
<p>In this struggle for rights and to build a coalition that can stand up to upper-caste and Hindu far-right, Dalit women play a critical role. Mayawati is one example of Dalit leadership, and there is also a <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/Writing_Caste_Writing_Gender.html?id=Msaki69NQHsC&redir_esc=y">long history</a> of Dalit women’s resistance to both gender and caste discrimination.</p>
<p><a href="https://unige.academia.edu/SwatiKamble">My research</a> on the influences of Dalit women’s activism on policy process and <a href="https://scroll.in/video/865980/video-how-the-black-panthers-inspired-dalits-in-maharashtra-to-start-their-own-militant-outfit">grassroots mobilisation in Maharashtra</a>, a state of 112 million residents on India’s west coast – has shown that <a href="http://www.india-seminar.com/2018/710/710_sharmila_rege.htm">Dalit women’s political involvement</a> goes beyond elections and traditional political processes.</p>
<h2>Influencing public policies in a Mumbai slum</h2>
<p>As I witnessed it on recent fieldwork in urban slums in Mumbai, lobbying and advocacy can influence the policy process and empower Dalit women. Even when activists have a minuscule presence in the committees formed by the government to formulate policy and programs, <a href="https://feminisminindia.com/2019/02/02/dalit-women-interim-union-budget-2019/">they actively question</a> members of parliament about misappropriation of budgets intended for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes">Schedules Castes</a> or program implementation gaps.</p>
<p>Activists also use their political networks to link Dalit women beneficiaries to government development programs. In so doing, Dalit women can move beyond the caste-based social network of politicians and bureaucrats, reaching leaders of ministries and departments.</p>
<p>Pradnya (name changed)n an activist I have met during my research worked her way through such networks to to improve women’s livelihood through what we call a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344890802080407">strategic partnership or “velvet triangle”</a>.</p>
<p>With the support of the <a href="https://mavimindia.org/">Women’s Economic Development Corporation</a> (MAVIM), which implements micro-credit schemes for women self-help groups, she organised a federation of 200 self-help groups of Dalit women in the slums of south-central Mumbai. </p>
<p>It functions as an independent, community-managed resource centre (CMRC) under the MAVIM scheme. While her education and political awareness have been crucial, so too is the support of the other Dalit women members from the community. One of them worked in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) department of a supermarket chain and gave tips to the federation about how to make and effectively market products.</p>
<h2>From a slum to Amazon</h2>
<p>Pradnya recently obtained funds for every group associated with her federation. With the funds they started home-based activities such as food stalls in local markets and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Ghe-Bharari-1602788546689857">packaged foods</a>. Some of the products made within this initiative <a href="https://www.amazon.in/MAVIM-Tejaswini-Homemade-Shengdana-Chutney/dp/B07G7CQP8M">are now sold on Amazon</a>. In terms of politics, Pradnya states that majority of the women’s groups in her federation have voted VBA.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275457/original/file-20190520-69209-1sqvd9l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The activists funded Dalit women livelihood activities, and some even sell to Amazon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook Ghe-Bharari</span></span>
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<p>Pradnya’s community-managed resource centre is just one example of how Dalit women can gain confidence and obtain policy benefits with the support from other Dalit women positioned in strategic locations.</p>
<p>Dalit women are aware of their political power and right to representation as well as their share in the wealth of the nation. They may have to struggle to seek these benefits but they seek out these benefits strategically. As the long history of Dalit activism in India reveals, there are many other ways than elections for oppressed minorities to fight and make a difference.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Swati Kamble received funding from the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship and Swiss National Science Foundation Doc-Mobility Grant. She is affiliated with Dalit women's movement in Maharashtra. She formed an NGO called Alliance of Dalit Women in 2011 based in Mumbai. </span></em></p>Anti-caste and Dalit movements have emerged as a voice to count on as India’s 2019 legislative elections unfold.Swati Kamble, Phd Student, Université de GenèveLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170242019-05-14T12:38:51Z2019-05-14T12:38:51ZIndia Tomorrow part 6: what young Indians want<p>Like many young people around the world, young Indians have big dreams for their future. But for a lot of people in India in their 20s and 30s, there is a large gap between their aspirations and the jobs and opportunities available to them. </p>
<p>In part six of <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">India Tomorrow</a>, a series from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/the-anthill">The Anthill podcast</a>, we’ll examine the concerns and demands of these young Indian voters. </p>
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<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anthill/id1114423002?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321534/original/file-20200319-22606-q84y3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/265Bnp4BgwaEmFv2QciIOC?si=-WMr1ecDTsO_6avrkxZu8g"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321535/original/file-20200319-22606-1l4copl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="268" height="70"></a> </p>
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<p>One in eight people in the world is an Indian under the age of 30. It’s an astonishing statistic – and the reason, according to Craig Jeffrey, why India’s young people are such an important demographic for the future of Asia and the world. </p>
<p>In this episode of India Tomorrow, we feature an interview that Jeffrey, the director of the Australia India Institute and professor of development geography at the University of Melbourne, did with Bageshri Savyasachi, an editorial intern at The Conversation Australia, for their podcast <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/trust-me-podcast">Trust Me I’m An Expert</a>. </p>
<p>Jeffrey says that jobs, education and healthcare will be driving the decisions of India’s young people as they vote in the 2019 elections.</p>
<p>In this episode, we also hear some examples of what young Indians want their future to look like. Sneha Krishnan, assistant professor in human geography at the University of Oxford, explains that many of the young women going through college who she’s interviewed wanted a “sophisticated” life. She said this largely referred to a desire to: “Being able to live a life where they felt kind of able to make their own choices.”</p>
<p>And we hear from Suryakant Waghmore, associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, about the organisations working to turn caste into community for young people moving into large urban environments. Waghmore also explains what he found during a research project on inter-caste marriage which analysed the preferences of 2,000 profiles on marriage dating websites. </p>
<p>You can listen to a longer version of Savyasachi’s interview with Jeffrey on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-election-2019-millions-of-indian-youth-are-underemployed-and-going-to-the-polls-113563">May 6 edition of Trust Me I’m An Expert</a>, a podcast from The Conversation Australia, available wherever you get your podcasts from.</p>
<p>You can read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-young-indians-want-india-tomorrow-part-6-podcast-transcript-117045">transcript of this episode here</a>, and also find out more about past and upcoming episodes in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">series episode guide</a>.</p>
<p>This is the last episode of our India Tomorrow series before the results of the 2019 election results are due to be announced on May 23. Stay tuned for our special results episode in which a panel of academic experts will discuss the results. Do get in touch with any questions for the panel via podcast@theconversation.com or reach out on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/anthillpod">@anthillpod</a>. </p>
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<p><em>The Anthill is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Editing by Alex Portfelix. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record The Anthill, and to Sunanda Creagh at The Conversation Australia for her production help.</em></p>
<p><em>Picture source: Sanjeev Gupta/EPA.</em></p>
<p><em>Music: <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Living_With_Trauma/Lee_Rosevere_-_Living_With_Trauma_-_05_Intervention">Intervention by Lee Rosevere</a>, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Tranko/VA_-_Clinical_Jazz_excerpt_3/Flying_Cat_amp_Sitar">Flying Cat & Sitar by Tranko</a>, and <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar/Super_1222/07_Endeavour">Endeavour by Jahzzar</a> all via <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/">Free Music Archive</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indrajit Roy receives funding from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annabel Bligh works for The Conversation.</span></em></p>Part six of The Anthill podcast's India Tomorrow series focuses on the concerns of young Indians.Indrajit Roy, Lecturer in Global Development Politics, University of YorkAnnabel Bligh, Host of The Anthill Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170452019-05-14T12:38:48Z2019-05-14T12:38:48ZWhat young Indians want: India Tomorrow part 6 podcast transcript<p><em>This is a transcript of part six of The Anthill podcast series, India Tomorrow. <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-6-what-young-indians-want-117024">Click here to listen to the full episode</a> and also find out more about past and upcoming episodes in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">series episode guide</a>.</em></p>
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<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/craig-jeffrey-114246">Craig Jeffrey</a>:</strong> One in eight people in the world is an Indian under the age of 30. It’s worth repeating that. One in eight people in the world is an Indian young person. Someone under the age of 30. Now that’s an extraordinary statistic. And it gives a sense of the importance of that demographic for the future of Asia and of the world. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> This is Craig Jeffrey, director of the Australia India Institute and a professor of geography at the University of Melbourne. He’s done decades of research on young Indians and social change. </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> Now, unlike the same generation 25 years ago, that set of young people are very well aware of events in other parts of the world, which are streamed to them via their mobile phones or on the internet. They are increasingly in secondary school, including young women. And in school they’re learning to obviously dream big. And the government is also encouraging those young people to see themselves as part of a new India, that’s modern, in which people are based often in urban areas doing kind of what historically has been described as middle class work, service work.</p>
<p>And where you’ve got that situation of both demographic growth and a rapid revolution of rising aspirations, you need an outlet for young people so that they feel, as they move into their 20s and 30s, that they’re achieving the goals that they desire. And that’s not happening. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> From The Conversation’s Anthill podcast, this is India Tomorrow. I’m Annabel Bligh from The Conversation. And I’m joined by my co-host, Indrajit Roy, lecturer in politics from the University of York. Hi Indrajit. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Hello Annabel. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> In this, the sixth part of our podcast series India Tomorrow, we’re going to be focusing on young Indians, the concerns they face as they go about their lives and the key issues they’re likely to be thinking about as they head to the polls in 2019. We’ll also be hearing about their views on caste and marriage – and about their aspirations for the future. </p>
<p>For this episode, we’ve teamed up with our colleagues at <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-election-2019-millions-of-indian-youth-are-underemployed-and-going-to-the-polls-113563">Trust Me I’m An Expert</a>, a podcast from The Conversation Australia. It was Bageshri Savyasachi, a multimedia intern at The Conversation, who spoke to Craig Jeffrey about his research. You can actually hear a longer version of their conversation on the Trust Me I’m an Expert podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. </p>
<p>So, there will be an estimated 84m first time voters going to the polls in 2019. Here’s Bageshri. </p>
<p><strong>Bageshri Savyasachi:</strong> What do you think India’s young voters want? What are the overarching political imperatives and demands of India’s huge generation Z? </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> I think it’s a great question. Those numbers are astonishing aren’t they? And it’s very difficult I think for pundits to predict what precisely they’ll do in terms of the elections. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Craig says there are three things which are crucial in the minds of these voters. </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> One is jobs. So young people across India and particularly in parts of India where the economy’s been less successful at creating jobs. So some of the northern states, for example, are going to be really concerned with the capacity of the government to provide better employment opportunities.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> The second is education. </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> They’ll be looking to see which political parties and politicians are promising to improve higher education, tertiary education more generally, the skills environment, and school education. Because for a lot of young people who aren’t part of the elite in India there is a mismatch often between the educational opportunities they obtain in school or university and then the employment market and the demands of key private sector firms. </p>
<p>A third area that’s perhaps less obvious is the issue of healthcare and public health. And my own observations as an anthropologist and human geographer working in mainly Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand over the past 25 years on social change is that young people are often demanding access to health services that are poorly provisioned in provincial India, particularly in relation to issues like sexual health, mental health, reproductive health. And that’s an area where I think young people are looking to government for more action. And I think that will also be in young people’s minds in the lead up to the elections. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> As we heard about <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-5-economic-growth-inequality-and-jobs-116678">in the last episode of this series</a>, jobs and unemployment are a key election issue. And particularly so for young people. In rural India, 17% of men and 14% of women under 30 are looking for jobs. And, in urban India it’s 19% for men and 27% for women, according to data leaked <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-47068223">from the official statistics office</a>. And there is also a big problem of underemployment, where young people are doing jobs for which they’re overqualified. </p>
<p><strong>Bageshri Savyasachi:</strong> What jobs are available to young people? And do they want to do those jobs?</p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> Well I think one of the stories of Indian economic growth since 1990 is its failure to create large numbers of what might be regarded as white collar, or middle class jobs for the increasing numbers of young people who are getting high school matriculation certificates or degrees in India. Now India’s not especially unusual in that regard, particularly since the global financial crisis in the late 2000s economies around the world often found it difficult to create secure employment opportunities for people. Of course automation, mechanisation is changing the nature of work throughout the world. So this isn’t specific to India. But India is a almost, a very condensed or intense example of the failure of economic growth to create lots of good quality jobs. That long predates 2014 and the coming to power of the BJP. It’s a structural feature of the Indian economy since 1990 and especially since the mid-2000s period. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> But what does this mean for the jobs that are available for young people? </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> In many cases what we’re seeing in India is that people are having to realign their expectations of what work they’re going to do in that five or ten year period after they graduate from high school or university. This is not new. Ronald Dore wrote in his book <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED153584">The Diploma Disease</a> in 1970 that India was the country of the BA bus conductor. So that sense of having to downplay your expectations in light of circumstances is quite old in India. But now I would argue that a lot of people with bachelor’s degrees in India would be very keen to have a job on a state roadway as a bus conductor, so intense and cutthroat has the employment market become.</p>
<p>So you’re seeing people with master’s degrees, with PhDs having to do very small scale, entrepreneurial business work. You’re seeing them especially having to go back into agriculture, not as large scale agricultural innovators making large amounts of money and employing other people, but rather working on quite small plots of land in an environment where they didn’t imagine that they would go back into farming.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So young Indians in their 20s and 30s are struggling to achieve the goals they’ve set themselves. But just how big a problem is that for the country? </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> Well obviously for the young people concerned it’s a big problem and for their families. And young people are not passive in that situation. They actively and creatively seek ways to make do. That may be entering into fallback work in agriculture. It may be finding jobs that perhaps that they weren’t aspiring to originally, but which provide a means for establishing a family and getting by, in areas like sales and marketing.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> But, Craig says, it also means there is a lot of disappointment among young people who are living their lives in limbo – something he wrote about back in 2010 in a book called <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17650">Timepass</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> What’s surprising perhaps is that that sense of social suffering hasn’t led to more unrest in India. And I think there are several reasons for that. I think partly because India is a democracy, people have an outlet for frustration, through the political system, through voting, through demonstrating on the streets. I think the second reason why there haven’t been more political mobilisation is that people often perceive this as a personal failure rather than a failure of government or of society, or as a structural failure, as social scientists would put. They see it as, “well I didn’t try hard enough” or “I wasn’t successful enough in that examination”. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> He says that quite often this failure is personalised, people blame themselves rather than the structural problems with India’s economy or its institutions. </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> There’s a whole history of commentators on India talking about the country as being poised to sort of fall into unrest. I’m not going to do that. I think India, it holds together. And as I said people, young people are actively finding ways to make do. But I do think it’s a major social issue at the moment – the lack of capacity for young people to realise their aspirations. It should be and will remain an absolutely critical issue for government in India.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So what do young Indians, going through college, want their future to look like?</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sneha-krishnan-431019">Sneha Krishnan</a>:</strong> By and large what they want to do is find a way to live a life that feels to them, I would say “dignified”. And I think how they would put it is “sophisticated”.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> This is Sneha Krishnan, an associate professor in geography at the University of Oxford. You may remember her from <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-4-women-gender-and-love-116115">part four of this series on women</a>, where we heard about the fascinating research she’s done with young Indian women, many of whom live in student hostels or dorms under strict curfews. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Sneha’s research is ethnographic, meaning her work focuses on particular examples or case studies. She pointed to one from her research that illustrated young people mean by a sophisticated life. </p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> So there was one young woman who emphatically told me she didn’t want a job. Right. She was going to college. She was studying something like computer programming which you know is applicable across a range of industries and so on. So she could easily find herself some kind of job in the future. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> But, Sneha says this young woman didn’t really want to work. </p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> She had a boyfriend who had really wanted to study art and she threw a fit. And so he ended up in an engineering college because she was really upset at the idea that she might end up with a poor artist. And she did not fancy herself living like that. Right. So she was very emphatic that what she wanted was a husband with a well-paying job. She wanted them to be able to own a three bedroom house that she and her husband would have a room, the children they had would have a room and there would be a third room in which her parents or his parents could stay when they came to visit. And the reason she had this idea was that she had grown up herself in a one bedroom house and had shared a bedroom with her parents her whole life. And any visiting relatives ended up in the same room.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> She didn’t want that to be her future. She wanted something different. </p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> So sophistication is a word that I think meant different things to different people. But, by and large, I think what it referred to was being able to live a life where they felt kind of able to make their own choices. Whether it was choices like not working and having a highly paid engineer for a husband. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> I also asked Sneha whether she felt young people in India were actually becoming more liberal in their views – by which I meant more progressive rather than more economically liberal.</p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> So I want to cautiously say that maybe young people are getting, as you said in the English language colloquial sense of it, more liberal. And the reason I say that is because when I left field work when I initially did it in 2013, right, before the elections happened, I was seriously disappointed during that time and I wasn’t surprised at all with the BJP victory.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Sneha points to the national debates going on at the time about rape, which took place after the high-profile gang rape and fatal assault of a 23-year-old woman, Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012. This helped foster a conservative narrative which emphasised the need to protect women.</p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> A lot of upper caste, middle class young women seemed to subscribe to that sort of view and it left me feeling sort of quite negative at that point.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> While Sneha says she hasn’t done any more direct fieldwork since then, she believes there has been a shift in thinking.</p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> From the sort of smaller interactions I’ve had, that doesn’t seem to be the case this time. In that there are a lot of reasons for young people to be very disappointed with this government. One of them was demonetisation. What a fiasco.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> We heard about Modi’s demonetisation policy <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-5-economic-growth-inequality-and-jobs-116678">in our last episode</a>, in which the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were scrapped overnight in an effort to combat corruption. Sneha says it was really inconvenient for young people. </p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> A lot of young people are incredibly busy people trying to sort of make careers in a bad economy. And they just don’t have the kind of time that that moment required for them to stand in queues and still not get the money they needed. To be running around and helping you know elderly relatives stand in queues and still not get the money they needed.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> She says that the growing number of attacks in India on ex-untouchables or Dalits, and Muslims in recent years, which we heard about earlier in this series, hasn’t created a backlash against far-right Hindu nationalism. But it has given some young people pause for thought. </p>
<p><strong>Sneha Krishnan:</strong> I do think that the sort of enormous scale at which that’s happened in the last few years has kind of gotten through to people, in that I am sensing a certain sort of exhaustion with the way things are. And you know, again, urban middle class young people really like their personal rights. Right? And there’s a lot of talk about, you know, if I can’t marry a Muslim without people hounding me. If I can’t make out with the Dalit boy on the beach without someone hounding me. Do you know what I’m saying? So I think there’s a lot of anxiety that their rights to a certain sort of global lifestyle where they make choices, which are unfettered, is somehow under threat.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Bageshri also asked Craig Jeffrey for his thoughts on this issue. </p>
<p><strong>Bageshri Savyasachi:</strong> Do you think there is a growing shift towards illiberalism among India’s youth?</p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> I think that’s a really interesting question. First one has to think about well what is liberalism. And if we define that relatively narrowly in terms of a commitment to formal equality and individual freedoms, then I think there’s evidence both ways. There’s evidence of young people contesting those visions of formal equality and individual freedom. For example through their views on on areas like sexuality. So there was a recent <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/04/04/young-india-is-conservative-opposed-to-homosexuality-likes-to_a_22025362/?guccounter=1">Centre of the Study of Developing Societies survey</a> that showed that the majority of young Indians didn’t approve of homosexuality. So there’s some evidence there of a certain kind of inverted commas “illiberalism”. </p>
<p>There’s evidence of young people’s involvement in societies or organisations that are policing people’s right to eat certain foods – again which would suggest the rise of a certain form of illiberalism. But there’s also of course a great deal of evidence the other way that young people are very active in nongovernmental organisations that are seeking to protect people’s formal equality, protect people’s freedoms. The number of youth NGOs in India is growing very very quickly.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Craig says there is also an interesting debate going on about the relationship between the individual and liberalism in India. </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> An argument that’s mean made by several people is that actually liberalism in India is organised around a sense of group rights, rather than around individual rights. So it’s perfectly possible to be part of a caste organisation or religious organisation that’s about equality and freedom, but nevertheless is articulating those notions of equality and freedom through reference to caste and religion. So that would be an argument that I think lots of Hindu nationalists would make, is that even though Hindus are the majority and even though they’re making an argument in Hindu terms, it’s an argument about tolerance and about liberalism, rather than about violence or exclusion or limiting people’s freedoms.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> We asked Suryakant Waghmore, associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, to help explain more about the caste organisations that Craig mentions here. You may remember Suryakant from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-2-the-politics-of-hindu-nationalism-115494">second episode on Hindu nationalism</a>. His research looks at the way different types of caste associations work in different cities, particularly Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Suryakant explains why caste associations for so-called higher castes began. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/suryakant-waghmore-719872">Suryakant Waghmore</a>:</strong> The caste associations of the pure and privileged groups, you know, when most of these came up during the colonial rule, with cities becoming important hub of economy, of society, of politics. And these castes associations kind of negotiated this urban space for several of these rural inhabitants from the privileged caste to come to city and negotiate urbanism; especially gain education and you know become mobile so that they could kind of mimic the Western way of life. But, this was rooted in caste.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Today, Suryakant says, associations for higher castes, such as those for Brahmins, remain important, but for different reasons.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> In fact quite a few of these castes associations are also finding it difficult to attract youth in these associations. And most of the volunteers who kind of work in these associations are about 50 and are trying to attract the youth to kind of root them again in caste as their primary identity. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> He tells us they have an anxiety of people “losing their caste”. And in cities like Mumbai, which are large, cosmopolitan, urban environments, these associations are trying to turn caste into community. </p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> And the most important fear for these castes associations and these volunteers is that the female members of the caste marrying outside the caste or falling in love outside the caste.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Only around 7% or 8% of marriages are considered inter-caste marriages, according to Suryakant. In another research project on inter-caste marriage, he studied 2,000 profiles on marriage dating websites to look in more detail at how ideas of caste and marriage interact. </p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> So what a typical profile, you know, would have your caste. Then your income, then your skin colour and then your preference about the person who you’re going to marry. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> By that he means stating your caste preference. In the past, he says some of these dating profiles would state that caste was no issue, except for two important exceptions: the ex-untouchables or Dalits, and people from scheduled tribes, known as Adivasis. Now, Suryakant has found, some people say caste doesn’t matter at all. </p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> Now, what is interesting is that, when they say caste does not matter, it’s just a way of saying that they would not necessarily marry outside caste. But there are some who really mean caste does not matter. What they do is that they list out castes they would be open to marry into.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Suryakant looked at who was listing what. </p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> Now what we saw in this preference was that, that the middle castes want to marry in the middle range and upwards. The upper castes would want to marry upper range and a little to the middle order.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So even if the ex-untouchables are not specifically mentioned or barred, Suryakant says there is still an unwritten inclination to avoid them. </p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> Whoever is kind of trying to move beyond caste, even then there is this line of purity and pollution and those castes that are considered kind of permanently polluted, that would be the ex-untouchable caste, are not really preferred to be married. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> But he stresses that this also depends on which cities people live in. </p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore:</strong> Quite a few youngsters tend to think beyond caste, you know, especially in Mumbai. This is not the case in Ahmedabad, you know, there is a general kind of belief that one can not marry the ex-untouchable castes and so forth. But in Mumbai what we see is that there’s definitely adventure in the space of friendship and love. So people transgress these boundaries and do not necessary think so much about the caste. In Ahmedabad, also, it’s there too at some extent, but it is lesser.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So Indrajit, I found this idea of a post-caste society really interesting, especially in light of everything we’ve been talking about on this series. It seems that some parts of Indian society may feel threatened by a future in which caste no longer mattered, whereas others think it’s a long overdue idea? </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> That’s quite right. I think people who have been privileged by the caste hierarchy would obviously see its disappearance as a threat. But for those who’ve been oppressed under the caste system, or those who’ve found themselves being marginalised or stigmatised by it, would certainly want caste to disappear. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So is this particularly pertinent with Modi being up for re-election? </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Oh I think so. Remember a number of the people who voted for Modi actually wanted him in power because they thought he would preserve Hinduism, preserve the caste hierarchies that came with it. Others saw him as – because he was a low-caste person himself, or at least he claimed to be from one of the lower castes – they thought him being at the top position of the country would actually challenge the caste hierarchy and contribute to its dissolution. So in a way you have both groups, those who believe that caste should not matter any more, as well as those who believe that caste is disappearing too fast and it should be preserved. Both groups have ironically vested a lot in Modi and his up for re-election actually shows the contests between these two groups. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So whatever future they want for themselves, it’s clear that young Indians are a political force to be reckoned with. And Indian students have found themselves at the forefront of national politics in recent years, with a couple of high profile controversies over the way some student protesters have been treated. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, or ABVP, a student youth organisation associated with the Hindu nationalist RSS that we heard about in <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-2-the-politics-of-hindu-nationalism-115494">episode two</a>, has become an ever more powerful political force on some campuses. But all of India’s political parties have strong youth wings, which are key to their electoral efforts. </p>
<p>Back in 2014, Modi’s BJP was successful at winning the support of young people. According to the National Elections Survey – that’s a survey done with people as soon as they’ve left the booth, after casting their vote – 44% of upper-class 18 to 22-year-old first time voters preferred the BJP. This compared to 40% of middle-class voters from the same age group, 35% for lower-class voters and 24% for the poor. But the support varied widely by state – from 65% in Madhyar Pradesh, to 32% in Maharasthra. Bageshri asked Craig Jeffrey whether this is still the case going into 2019. </p>
<p><strong>Bageshri Savyasachi:</strong> Is young people support for Modi on the wane? My impression based on the conversations I have with my friends and what I read is that Modi doesn’t have a lot of support among the youth. A lot of young people supported him when he was first running for prime minister, but now a lot of young people are feeling disappointed with how he has handled Hindu nationalists and violence. What do you think?</p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> I should do that classic academic thing of saying that I’m not an expert on contemporary views of young people in India. Where I’ve done …</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Craig explains that it’s been some time since he did the bulk of his research, and most recently it’s been focused on a village in a remote part of Uttarakhand in northern India. </p>
<p><strong>Craig Jeffrey:</strong> … I try to pick up on the streets a sense of the mood but in that regard I’m an armchair or amateur interpreter of young people’s political views at the moment. And with those caveats in mind, my sense is that young people may not support Modi as much as they did five years ago, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t vote for him.</p>
<p>So one needs to maybe distinguish between support and how people will actually behave in the ballot booth. I think lots of people that I speak to recognise that given the high pitch to which Modi raised people’s aspirations in 2014 there was always going to be a sense of disappointment. That skilling hundreds of millions of people quickly was going to be a very tough ask and that the vision of new India while attractive in certain respects is not borne out in social reality for those outside of the elite and particularly in provincial parts of India, in small town and rural India. So people see on the social and economic side a kind of mismatch between promise and actuality. And I think that’s undermined a certain enthusiasm for the ruling BJP government.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> There are only a few more weeks now to find out what does happen. The final round of voting in the 2019 elections is on May the 19th, with the results announced a few days later on the 23rd. We’ll be taking a pause in this series until then, when we’ll be back with a panel discussing the election results, and answering any questions you might have. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Until then, thanks very much to everyone who’s been in touch so far about our series. And do keep those questions coming. You can get in touch via email on podcast@theconversation.com or on twitter @anthillpod.</p>
<p>You can read more of The Conversation’s coverage of India <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/indian-elections-2019-68064">by academics around the world on theconversation.com</a> or follow us on social media. And you can also find a transcript of this episode, and other episodes in this series, on The Conversation.com. </p>
<p>Don’t forget you can hear a longer version of Bageshri’s interview with Craig Jeffrey on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-election-2019-millions-of-indian-youth-are-underemployed-and-going-to-the-polls-113563">Trust Me I’m An Expert</a> podcast from The Conversation Australia. Find a link to it in our show notes too. </p>
<p>And if you’re looking for some other podcasts to listen to in the meantime, check out Pasha from our colleagues at The Conversation Africa. Pasha means ‘to inform’ in Swahili and each week features a short interview with an academic expert. Recent episodes have focused on the health impacts of cyclone Idai in southern Africa, and the social stigma facing women in Ghana who don’t have children. Search for Pasha from The Conversation Africa wherever you get your podcasts. </p>
<p>A big thanks to all the academics who spoke to us for this episode and to the journalism department at City University for letting us use their studios. The Anthill is produced by Gemma Ware and me, Annabel Bligh. Sound by Alex Portfelix. And an extra big thanks to my co-host Indrajit Roy. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Thanks Annabel. See you soon. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Thanks for listening. Goodbye!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This is a transcript of part 6 of India Tomorrow, focusing on India’s huge population of young people.Annabel Bligh, Business & Economy Editor and Podcast Producer, The Conversation UKGemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly PodcastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1141332019-05-09T10:06:03Z2019-05-09T10:06:03ZIndia: how some Hindu nationalists are rewriting caste history in the name of decolonisation<p>With India in the middle of the world’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-whats-at-stake-in-the-2019-elections-114648">largest democratic exercise</a>, universities are under the spotlight as never before. Over the past five years – as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has driven forward an agenda of Hindu nationalism – university campuses have been caught in the crossfire. </p>
<p>Some commentators have <a href="https://qz.com/india/954042/the-very-idea-of-what-universities-are-meant-to-be-is-under-severe-attack-in-india/">even wondered</a> whether the aspiration of the founding fathers of modern India – the ideals of a secular, egalitarian republic – will <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/06/indias-dangerous-new-curriculum/">endure much longer</a> under the “saffronisation of education”. </p>
<p>In 2017, the Universities Grants Commission – the higher education arm of the Indian government – pitched into the debate by <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/politics/ugc-tells-colleges-dont-miss-prime-minister-narendra-modis-speech-on-new-india-bengal-says-we-will-1513229.html">insisting</a> that 40,000 colleges across the country show a live transmission of the prime minister’s speech on the occasion of the centenary anniversary of the founder of the BJP, Deendayal Upadhyaya. In autumn 2018, Hindu nationalists in Ahmedabad <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/after-abvp-protests-ramachandra-guha-says-he-won-t-teach-ahmedabad-university-90950">protested</a> against the appointment of eminent Indian historian, Ramachandra Guha, on the grounds that he was “anti-national”. He later said <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/after-abvp-protests-ramachandra-guha-says-he-won-t-teach-ahmedabad-university-90950">he wouldn’t take up</a> the post. </p>
<p>But most alarming of all is how Indian universities have become caught up in the communal and caste politics of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-the-origins-of-todays-hindu-nationalism-55092">Hindu nationalist populism</a>, also known as “Hindutva”.</p>
<h2>Caste reservations</h2>
<p>In January 2016, Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student and anti-Hindutva activist at Hyderabad University, took his own life <a href="https://theconversation.com/suicide-of-dalit-student-sparks-rage-over-caste-discrimination-in-indian-universities-53653">following an incident</a> in which he and his fellow protesters were suspended from the university. Vemula’s death sparked a widespread reaction across Indian campuses. Universities were supposed to be delivering equality and religious tolerance, yet here was a wake-up call that low-caste – and in <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/ideological-conflict-takes-centre-stage-at-aligarh-muslim-university/story-70hVdVW1HwOATL8YibHV4N.html">other cases</a> Muslim – students were facing institutional discrimination. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/university-freedoms-in-india-under-threat-as-student-leader-charged-with-sedition-54793">University freedoms in India under threat as student leader charged with sedition</a>
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<p>In fact, despite paying lip service to uplifting <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/lok-sabha-elections-2019-in-up-bjp-woos-dalits-but-must-win-trust/story-cOSbaQNAcRVTrJhdGye2MN.html">so-called lower castes</a> in the run-up to the 2019 general election, denying the inequality inherent in the caste system has become a long-term clarion call for the BJP, the Rashstriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the militant youth wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, that it has spawned. </p>
<p>Hindutva activists have challenged the legitimacy of what are called caste reservations through which lower-caste groups benefit from quotas in the civil service and education. At independence in 1947, such reservations were a cardinal principle of the new state, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/caste-society-and-politics-in-india-from-the-eighteenth-century-to-the-modern-age/097D56E007498073B691A17EC3441FEB">compensating for</a> the thousands of years of caste deprivation, a culture in which the so-called “untouchables” (those outside the caste system) could only work impure trades – cleaning, including manual removal of domestic sewage, leather tanning, and corpse removal. </p>
<p>Yet, alongside a wider push to <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/new-education-policy-in-december-says-union-minister-satya-pal-singh/article19906224.ece">“decolonise”</a> the education curriculum, Hindutva ideologues in India and the West, have <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/RSS-chief-Mohan-Bhagwat-pitches-for-review-of-reservation-policy/articleshow/49041309.cms">gone into combat</a> against caste reservations. They have done so by re-appropriating history: by <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rss-mohan-bhagwat-hindu-dalits-tribals-muslim-invasion-293816-2014-09-22">claiming</a> that the caste system was a colonial construction or a result of foreign “<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/rss-mohan-bhagwat-hindu-dalits-tribals-muslim-invasion-293816-2014-09-22">invasion</a>”. In 2015, Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the RSS, called for a review of <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/RSS-chief-Mohan-Bhagwat-pitches-for-review-of-reservation-policy/articleshow/49041309.cms">caste reservation policy</a>.</p>
<p>Mechanisms of governance such as the census and codification of laws under colonial rule <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/caste-society-and-politics-in-india-from-the-eighteenth-century-to-the-modern-age/097D56E007498073B691A17EC3441FEB">undeniably led to a</a> proliferation of political identities based on religious or caste affiliation in colonial India. But many scholars insist that it is <a href="https://www.dailyo.in/arts/caste-conflict-shudras-brahminism-golden-age-indian-cultures-as-heritage-romila-thapar/story/1/22790.html">historically inaccurate</a> to claim that castes and a system of caste hierarchy did not exist before colonial rule. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269386/original/file-20190415-147522-tulp83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Some scholars have claimed that caste was a colonial construction. A photograph from the 1860s of Rajputs, classified as a high-caste Hindu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India#/media/File:Charles_Shepherd_and_Arthur_Robertson01.jpg">Charles Shepherd and Arthur Robertson via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>According to Hindutva supporters, in perpetuating caste reservations previous Indian governments since 1947 have maintained this colonial system. To <a href="http://indiafacts.org/decolonizing-the-humanities/">“decolonise India”</a>, as Modi’s intellectual cheerleaders <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319387604">describe their project</a>, means removing the caste system as part of a wider move of ridding India of the vestiges of the British colonial system. </p>
<h2>Dangerous decolonising</h2>
<p>Some Indian scholars, working <a href="http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/hindutva-and-historical-revisionism/">at Ghent in Belgium</a> and in <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3il9qw/hello_all_this_is_dunkin_jalki_a_member_of_sn/">Karnataka</a> in south-west India, have joined in this spurious decolonisation agenda, purporting to free modern Indians from their former rulers, Mughal (aka Muslim) “invaders” and British (aka Christian) “invaders”. Central to <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-of-hindu-nationalism-india-tomorrow-part-2-podcast-transcript-115505">Hindutva is the idea</a> that Indian religions are those born in India – and thus Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism fall into this bracket. But followers of Islam or Christianity pray to a foreign religion and so are considered by some to be outside the Hindu nationalist fold.</p>
<p>History books in schools <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/11/hindu-right-ideology-indian-textbooks-gujarat-20141147028501733.html">are being rewritten</a> to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/01/indias-new-textbooks-are-promoting-the-prime-ministers-favorite-policies-critics-allege/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c4b9047a04b4">minimise the contribution of Muslims</a>, while predominantly Muslim cities <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-46015589">such as Allahabad</a> and streets in countless towns are being renamed with more “appropriate” Hindu titles. Heroic founders of the new India, such as Mahatma Gandhi, are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38794202">now being reassessed</a> as divisive figures who undermined Hindu unity. </p>
<p>All this is deeply antithetical to current global attempts to rethink and overturn social inequality and communal conflict. So it is ironic that the language of “decolonisation” in India now means something completely different to similarly named movements in the UK and South Africa that aim to “decolonise” educational culture and public life. An ideological sea-change <a href="https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/how-rss-infiltrating-india-intellectual-spaces">is taking place</a>. In India, “decolonisation” has become the rhetoric of militant nationalism.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266588/original/file-20190329-71003-uc9saw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-2-the-politics-of-hindu-nationalism-115494">Listen to part two of The Conversation’s podcast series on India about Hindu nationalism from The Anthill.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shalini Sharma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Text books are being rewritten and the history of caste in India questioned as ‘decolonisation’ has become the rhetoric of militant nationalism.Shalini Sharma, Lecturer in Colonial/Post Colonial History, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1155052019-04-16T12:22:42Z2019-04-16T12:22:42ZPolitics of Hindu nationalism: India Tomorrow part 2 podcast transcript<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269367/original/file-20190415-147518-1b6vswy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A flag with the Hindu 'Om' symbol held by supporters of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kolkata-december-20-om-signed-flags-277358366?src=6vEj6Yq_Et7oIfpQSrenFg-1-10">arindambanerjee via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is a transcript of part two of The Anthill’s podcast series, India Tomorrow. <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-2-the-politics-of-hindu-nationalism-115494">Click here</a> to listen to the full episode and also find out more about past and upcoming episodes in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">series episode guide</a>.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anthill/id1114423002?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321534/original/file-20200319-22606-q84y3k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/265Bnp4BgwaEmFv2QciIOC?si=-WMr1ecDTsO_6avrkxZu8g"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321535/original/file-20200319-22606-1l4copl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="268" height="70"></a> </p>
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<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shalini-sharma-708497">Shalini Sharma</a></strong>: So the roots of Hindu nationalism are actually I guess the same as the roots of nationalism in India per say and we really need to go to the 19th century when a lot of people were asking questions like why you know why are we subjugated? Why are we under colonial rule? What does that mean?</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Shalini Sharma is a lecturer in colonial and post-colonial history at the University of Keele. In the decades after the unsuccessful Indian rebellion against British colonial rule in 1857, a number of new movements sprung up – some thinking hard about religion.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: Now someone like Vinayak Savarkar was very much influenced by these by these movements. He was very much a nationalist. He was somebody who was imprisoned because he was very close to people who were conspiring to assassinate British administrators. And while he was in jail he was picking up on the latent anti-Islamic sentiments of a number of Hindu reformist groups in India of the 19th century and early 20th century and he decided to pen a sort of pamphlet called Hindutva in which he defined what a Hindu was. </p>
<p>Hindutva basically claimed that a Hindu is somebody whose religion was born in the territory that we now know as pre-partition India. So. So Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Hindus of all different sort of sects within Hinduism, they are Hindus. People whose religion was not born in India, so Christians and Muslims do not constitute Hindus and are thus outside of Hindutva. </p>
<p><em>India Tomorrow intro music</em></p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: You’re listening to India Tomorrow, a series from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/the-anthill">The Anthill podcast</a>, brought to you by The Conversation. I’m Annabel Bligh from The Conversation UK. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/indrajit-roy-312163">Indrajit Roy</a></strong>: And I’m Indrajit Roy, lecturer in politics from the University of York.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: In part one of this series, we looked at how fake news fuels violence in India, and why the battle for information plays a crucial role in elections. In this episode, we’ll be finding out about Hindu nationalism, where it came from, its influence in India today, and its centrality to the politics of prime minister Narendra Modi and his BJP party. </p>
<p>When I say the word Hindutva, Indrajit, what does it mean to you?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: Hindutva has been interpreted in a number of ways. For some, Hindutva has an inclusive dimension, which suggests that everyone, irrespective of their caste, creed, language or, indeed, even religious affiliation, is Hindu. On reading some of the core Hindutva texts, however, and this is a view to which I have come to subscribe, increasingly, it’s quite clear that Hindutva is premised on the exclusion of religious minorities and people with different political ideas. One of the key Hindutva ideologues, says that Muslims, Christians, and communists cannot in fact be Indian.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-the-origins-of-todays-hindu-nationalism-55092">Explainer: what are the origins of today's Hindu nationalism?</a>
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<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: And how central has Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, been to the rise of Modi?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: Modi’s rise can be attributed to the coming together of three quite distinct groups, so to speak. One group which was supportive of economic development more broadly and thought Modi would deliver. This is not a group that was terribly taken in by Hindutva, though it could tolerate Hindutva if it meant bringing together economic growth. A group, a second constituency if you will, were those who believed Modi’s rise would lead to some sort of low caste emancipation, because of Modi’s own supposedly low-caste origins. A third group, and this answers your question, a third group that was quite key to Modi’s rise, were the Hindu nationalists, who believed that Modi would deliver some version of the Hindu nation.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: And it’s not just Modi’s political party, the BJP, which pursues this Hindu nationalist agenda. The BJP is part of a large collection of other organisations.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Yes, this “family” of organisations, if you will, is called the Sangh Parivar. One of the most powerful organisations within this family is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, which roughly means the national volunteer organisations. While the RSS is officially separate from the BJP, it wields considerable influence over the party’s politics. It was founded in 1925 by a man called Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: And Hedgewar was influenced by the idea of Hindutva and Hindu nationalism – and by the rise of fascism in Italy. Shalini Sharma explains more about its origins.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: His group of volunteers had to wear a uniform. They were very much identified as a Hindu group and influenced by Savarkar’s definition of what a Hindu was and what a Hindu needed to do, which was to become strong. It was a very sort of masculine movement. To take up arms. It identified against Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence, it was very much a military movement. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: After Hedgewar died in 1940, the RSS was taken up by a man called Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the gentleman to who I referred to earlier who made the comments about Muslims, Christians and Communists. Golwalkar stopped the RSS from becoming a political party. But the party was actually banned for a period in 1948, after the murder of the father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi, by a man called Nathuram Godse, who, it was claimed, was inspired by the RSS.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Radha d’Souza, a reader in law at the University of Westminster and an expert in the Indian constitution, explains what happened next.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/radha-dsouza-719876">Radha d'Souza</a></strong>: There was a dispute and then the ban was lifted on the condition that the RSS would accept the Indian constitution and work within a legal framework. Because RSS said we are only a cultural organisation and what kind of democracy is this that bans cultural organisations? So Sardar Patel, who was the then-home minister, his condition was OK, we will lift the ban if you agree to work within the legal framework and have some constitution for your own organisation.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: But Radha says that while the RSS agreed to these two conditions, it has implemented neither of them. And one of the central reasons why the RSS opposed India’s new constitution was because it didn’t create India as a Hindu nation state.</p>
<p><strong>Radha d'Souza</strong>: And the Constituent Assembly adopted a secular constitution and by secularism it was not just the state will refrain from supporting religions but state will be even handed with all religions. So will not privilege one religion over another, will be even handed, will allow equal freedoms to all religions. And that was in the Constitution and they never accepted that. They never accepted that. They have never accepted that even now. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> From the 1920s onwards, the politics of Hindutva were so effective, according to Shalini Sharma, because its affiliated organisations spread out, permeating different aspects of Indian society in different ways.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: So for example you know you could say that the RSS was simply a volunteering group. There are other strands to Hindutva, there’s something called the VHP which is a World Hindu Council. And also in 1951 there was there was born a political party of Hindutva which was the Bhartiya Jana Sangh, which in the 1980s became what we now know as the BJP. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: This is the party of prime minister Narendra Modi, which was elected to a landslide victory in 2014.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> At the centre of the ideas of Hindutva, that have influenced the politics of the BJP and its affiliates, is the idea that India is a country for the Hindus, at the exclusion of others. It’s an idea that has caused real violence against minority groups in India, particularly Muslims. But also against people, often Hindus, who have objected to this very, very exclusive understanding of Hindutva and of Indian nationalism.</p>
<p>Shalini Sharma explains that what has united various Hindu nationalist groups is the question “who are the enemies of Hindutva”?</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: And these enemies are identified as these different religious groups, Christians and more importantly Muslims. And what you’ve seen happen is that the political wing of Hindutva, the BJP, from the 1980s onwards, latched on to what it called historic wrongs. And the main historic wrong was this idea that the Muslim invader had historically committed a lot of acts of barbarism against Hindus. And the most poignant of these wrongs was this idea that the Emperor Barbur in the 16th century had destroyed a Hindu temple which was built to commemorate the birth place of a Hindu god, Lord Ram, the Ram that Hindus celebrate during the festival of light, Diwali. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: This temple was in a place called Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Also known as UP, it’s the largest state in India – it has a population the same size as Brazil. And it’s at the centre of what’s called the Hindi belt. In the early 1990s, UP was controlled by the BJP. Here’s Shalini again. </p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: And what the BJP did from, especially from the late 80s, was begin to call for the the destruction of this mosque that was built atop the Hindu temple. And even though the the BJP leaders Lal Krishna Advani and Atul Vihari Vajpayee at the time claimed that they weren’t calling for the destruction of the mosque, in their mass mobilisations, in the fact that they were leading whole sort of movements of people in a in what they called a <em>yatra</em>, or large processions towards Ayohdya and garnering hundreds of thousands of people to sort of meet at Ayodhya at a certain time, for them they were saying that it was to actually offer prayers to the Lord Rama at this place. But this led to the destruction brick by brick of the mosque, while the the police and ministers of Uttar Pradesh, just looked on. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ayodhya-the-history-of-a-500-year-old-land-dispute-between-hindus-and-muslims-in-india-114471">Ayodhya: the history of a 500-year-old land dispute between Hindus and Muslims in India</a>
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<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> The destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque at Ayodhya happened on the 6th of December in 1992.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma:</strong> And after that there were a number of I suppose you can call pogroms of Muslims especially in Bombay. And again nothing much happened, this was simply accepted. The Indian parliament which was Congress controlled at the time did condemn this, but again it was sort of complicit in that action wasn’t immediately taken against those who had perpetuated both this destruction of a 16th-century mosque as well as the actions against Muslims in Bombay in early 1993.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: So this violence, and the rise of groups like the cow protection squads that we heard <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-1-fake-news-and-the-battle-for-information-113579">about in part one</a>, have led to growing fears that Hindu nationalism is built around intolerance of and violence towards minorities, particularly Muslims.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: Hindu nationalism has been premised, as we saw earlier, on the idea that Muslims and indeed people whose faiths did not or could not claim to be of Indian origin, weren’t really Indians. So the link between Hindu nationalism and violence against religious minorities isn’t difficult to seek.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Debates rage on today about the site at Ayodhya. Hindu nationalist groups continue to call for a temple to be built on the site. Yet Uttar Pradesh has a large Muslim population, vehemently opposed to the plan.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: In early March 2019, India’s Supreme Court ruled that a prolonged land dispute over the future of the site at Ayodhya should be settled by a secret mediation process.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: That’s eight weeks from early March. So a decision is expected in early May, in the middle of the national elections. Indrajit, do you think Ayodhya land dispute will be an election campaign issue?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> I’m sure the BJP will try and make it one. We had thought it would play a much bigger role than it has at the moment. However, the issue seems to have run out of steam, but you never know.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: It’s a contentious topic, right? </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: Absolutely. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Well, let’s take a closer look at the way Hindutva has become a political force in India. Modi’s election in 2014 wasn’t the first time the BJP, an openly Hindu nationalist party, came to power was it?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> No, you’re right the BJP has been a strong political force in India since the late 20th century. Its charismatic leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was prime minister from 1998 to 2004. He’d also briefly been prime minister for a few days in 1996. But Vajpayee’s BJP never had the majority in the Lok Sabha, India’s parliament, and ruled as a part of a coalition called the National Democratic Alliance, or NDA, which was made up of regional parties with varying political orientations.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> But when the BJP came to power in 2014 it was a different story?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Yes, in 2014, the BJP won a majority of seats for the first time. Modi still governs at the head of the NDA coalition, but the BJP itself won 282 out of 543 seats, giving them 10 seats more than they needed for an overall majority. This was a crushing victory.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> To understand the role that Hindutva politics played in Narendra Modi’s 2014 landslide, we called up somebody who has been studying the politics of the BJP and its rise.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ajay-gudavarthy-719874">Ajay Gudavarthy</a></strong>: I’m Ajay Gudavarthy, I’m associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies, at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in India. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Ajay says the last ten years in India have witnessed an unprecedented rise of far-right wing groups, led by the RSS and the BJP.</p>
<p><strong>Ajay Gudavarthy:</strong> And 2019 is extremely important because the last five years I think they have made some preparatory steps in terms of actualising their vision of realising what they refer to as the Hindu Rashtra. That is a religious theocratic majority and Hindu state. And RSS for long has had plans of amending the constitution and its various liberal progressive, secular, socialist provisions in terms of creating this theocratic state. If the BJP is to return to power in 2019 with a similar kind of a majority, my own understanding is that they will be moving very fast towards realising some of these majoritarian provisions, preparation for which I think has been made in the last four or five years in terms of creating a social consent and a social consensus for that kind of a theocratic vision.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Various electoral surveys have shown a core Hindutva vote of around 20% to 25%.</p>
<p><strong>Ajay Gudavarthy:</strong> That is a core committed Hindutva group which are convinced by the social vision of this Hindu Rashtra. Anything beyond that is something that the BJP builds depending on each election.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Ajay says that back in 2014 the BJP also managed to win support from voters who may not have traditionally been drawn to the politics of Hindu nationalism – members of what are traditionally seen as lower-caste groups. To understand this, first we need to take a little detour to understand the role caste plays in the narrative of Hindu nationalism – and in Indian society today.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Hindu nationalism emerged in India at a time when people stigmatised as lower caste were demanding more recognition. Historian Shalini Sharma explains.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: The constitution writers of India in the late 1940s were trying to tackle the historic wrong of the caste system. The caste system in Hinduism was such that there was a hierarchy and at right at the bottom were the so-called untouchables, or Dalits. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> An edict was written into the constitution that guarantees “reservations”, a form of positive discrimination, for Dalits, who have historically been oppressed as “untouchables”. This means a certain percentage of jobs, and places at universities, are reserved for Dalits.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma</strong>: Now in the late 80s and early 90s at the same time as when the BJP was on the rise, some people say it was on the rise because low-caste groups were beginning to demand from their local governments, reservations. So to be seen as backward castes so that they would be able to have a way in to getting government jobs and places for their own for their children in universities. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: People from higher castes were not happy with this extension of positive discrimination to include this a group known as the Other Backward Classes or OBCs, which is a large group of people that are neither high caste or “untouchables”. The BJP latched onto this unhappiness.</p>
<p><strong>Shalini Sharma:</strong> So in that sense it was the party of the higher castes, advocating their cause and trying to unite Hindus in other ways. So to say, let’s not be divided on the basis of caste. We need to be united against these other religions who are trying to break us up and that’s sort of you know feeds into and feeds from Hindutva ideology. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> To find out more about caste politics today, we called up Suryakant Waghmore, an associate professor at the Department of Humanity and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Suryakant says Hinduism and caste are closely linked.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/suryakant-waghmore-719872">Suryakant Waghmore</a></strong>: You cannot really purge caste from Hinduism. So caste is central to making one Hindu … Status and purity are intrinsically linked in caste hierarchies. And it is the untouchables who bear the brunt of being permanently impure, therefore untouchable.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: When people from other, so-called higher castes, such as Brahmins, touch something impure, they can perform a ritual to purify themselves. But Dalits, or the so-called untouchables, are seen as permanently impure.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore</strong>: There are several reasons but one of the important reasons is said to be that because they ate beef, they consumed cow meat. And cow is supposed to be the ultimate form of purity and holy being.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Suryakant has been doing some fascinating research on the ways in which caste is experienced differently in different parts of India, particularly different cities such as cosmopolitan Bombay (or Mumbai) compared to Ahmedabad, a smaller city in Gujarat.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Part of what he studies is violence against Dalits – something he says has traditionally been seen as a problem in rural communities. But he’s finding just how much it’s taking places in cities too.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore</strong>: So what we definitely see is there’s a general trend of increase in crimes against Dalits, across India. </p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Suryakant says it would be misplaced to attribute this increase in violence totally to the rise of the BJP, and that it’s part of a much longer power struggle within Indian society.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore</strong>: But what has definitely happened is that the confidence amongst the highest castes, you now, is definitely turning into, at times, into an arrogance. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> He points to a case in the city of Pune, involving a domestic worker who gave the impression to her employer that she was a high caste Brahmin, when actually she was a Maratha, who the Brahmins consider lower caste.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore</strong>: She told the Brahmin lady that I am also Brahmin. However when the Brahmin employer got to know the caste of this Maratha woman, she went and filed a complaint in the police station saying that this woman has been part of the religious rituals in my house, and has lied to me that she is a Brahmin whereas she is a Maratha, and she has therefore, you know, hurt my religious sentiments. And the police actually filed this complaint. You know they took this complaint. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Suryakant listed a couple of other examples of everyday violence against Dalits.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore</strong>: There was this one case where a rickshaw driver who is supposed to be from an untouchable caste …</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: So the rickshaw driver was Dalit, he overtakes a guy driving a small car, who it turns out is from a so-called higher caste – in this case it was a caste known as the warrior caste.</p>
<p><strong>Suryakant Waghmore</strong>: … and asked him who are you? What is your caste? And when the rickshaw driver shared his caste, he immediately went to his car’s boot pulled out a knife, came back and kind of, you know, slashed his forehead. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: So what Suryakant is implying here Indrajit is that some supposedly higher caste Hindus feel they’ve been given a licence to try and reimpose these caste hierarchies. And while this is nothing new, it’s become more prominent under the BJP. How do you think the Modi government has dealt with caste?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> That’s an interesting question. So, in January 2019, the government announced it would introduce a 10% reservation policy aimed at the economically weak from the high castes …</p>
<p>… So SCs are what’s called scheduled castes, and the OBCs are the “other backward classes” – so these are the castes about whom we heard earlier for who certain jobs and university places have been reserved. But basically, this new policy means there will be quotas specifically for poor people from among the so-called high caste groups, such as the Brahmins for example.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> So this is something I found intriguing about caste differences. I think I always had a tendency to think of caste as similar to class that we have in the UK – so which is largely an economic thing. But, as Suryakant was saying, and as we’ve just heard, if you’re from a so-called high caste, you’re not necessarily well off and a lot of it’s to do with this idea of purity. So just how political is this move by the BJP to introduce a new reservations policy?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Hah – it’s all politics. Lets take a step back and look at the populations that we’re talking about. We know from census data that the Scheduled Castes or the Dalits, as they are more popularly called, make up 16% of the population. There are regional variations, but they’re about 16% of the population. The scheduled tribes, the other group for whom “reservations” were introduced, are at approximately 8%. Beyond these figures, we just have lots of speculation. </p>
<p>In 2011, a caste census was conducted, but the data was never actually made available to the public. Various population projections however, have suggested that the Other Backward Classes, this large chunk in between the so-called high caste and the so-called untouchables, may be between 40 and 60% of the Indian population. Now that’s huge – 40-60% of the Indian population. And so if you look at the figures, the high-caste component of the Indian people is unlikely to exceed about 20%. Now Modi’s new reservations for the poor, as he puts it, aims to woo a significant chunk of this 20%. So, the BJP’s policy stems from a deep-seated opposition to caste quotas, which the party believes would undermine Hindu unity.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: We’ve heard a lot about the history and appeal of Hindu nationalist politics in India. Indrajit, has this kind of politics permeated the whole of the political system, or is Hindutva ideology largely the domain of the BJP and Modi?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Ah, that is a really good question. So there’s a popular saying among Indians that what the BJP does by day, the Congress does by night.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: What does that mean?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: So the BJP of course has fashioned itself after a Hindutva ideology, suggesting that India is for the Hindus etc. etc, as we’ve heard. Now the Congress of course has always been secular, staunchly secular. But when it came to mobilising religion, for political ends, the Congress in some ways fashioned that art even better than the BJP has. So long before the BJP started mobilising and manipulating Hindu views, the Congress was an adept player at this game. The earliest Congress party symbols, would you believe it, what they were? Guess. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: I’m going to guess it’s something religious?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: It’s the cow. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> No?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Yes. When the Congress fought its first elections*, its electoral symbol was the the cow and the idea was that, you now, religiously minded voters would vote for the Congress because it was a party that was sort of supportive of Hindu views. So in a sense, while it’s correct to say Hindutva as an ideology is certainly within the domain of the BJP, the Congress doesn’t speak the language of Hindutva, but when it comes to mobilising Hindu sentiments, the Congress has done that long before the BJP has. And in some ways the Congress continues to do that even now.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: So do all political parties subscribe to Hindutva?</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: Not really. I wouldn’t say that all political parties subscribe to Hindutva or fan its flames. India has large number of parties that are specific to certain states, and these often tend to deliberately avoid Hindu nationalism. Some of the BJP’s own allies even avoid it, such as the Akali Dal in Punjab which is a Sikh denominational party. Leftist parties and parties espousing Dalit and low-caste emancipation such as Uttar Pradesh’s Bahujan Samaj Party, whose supremo Mayawati is a popular candidate for prime minister among many Dalits, also tend to distance themselves from Hindutva as a matter of principle. And of course, the most spectacular example of a state-level political party that has consistently taken a principled stand against Hindutva is Bihar’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, led by the firebrand Lalu Prasad Yadav.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: So we asked Ajay Gudavarthy what the best way would be to find another political narrative as appealing to the Indian electorate as Hindu nationalism. He said it was a question that the left, liberal parties in India should be applying their mind to.</p>
<p><strong>Ajay Gudavarthy</strong>: What BJP and RSS have done is to bring in and understand social psychology of the electorate, very well. They have used cultural symbols local idioms, very strongly and much of the left liberal centrist parties, in that sense, do not have that kind of a connect with local idioms, cultural symbols, religious symbols. The big question for constitutional vision what should its link be with cultural and religious symbols? Can we have a more progressive, more secular, more inclusive kind of use of these religious symbols, local idioms, beyond merely using them for prejudice and polarisation. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: The BJP and RSS use local religious rituals as part of their politics. They use the cow, for example, which is a holy symbol for Hindus. Meanwhile, some Muslims and Dalit Hindus eat beef and others work in the leather industry. There are also those who collect the bodies of dead cows.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: And as we heard in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-part-1-fake-news-and-the-battle-for-information-113579">first episode of this series</a>, fake news stories about cows have led to vigilante violence across India from groups of “cow protection” squads. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: Ajay says a robust debate is needed to pull polarising religious symbols such as the cow out of politics. Instead, he says what’s needed is to create an alternative political narrative, built around social welfare, and protections for both the middle and lower classes.</p>
<p><strong>Ajay Gudavarthy</strong>: Hindutva’s cultural agenda has a political economy. There is an economic reasoning also behind it. This kind of an aggressive shift that we’re witnessing towards hate and rage, like the United States what happened with the rust belt, there’s something very similar in the Indian context on a much larger, massive scale. Where you know your public ethics takes a beating in terms of sharing values, collapse of common neighbourhoods, idea of aggressive competition. This massive anxiety and insecurity, so that kind of a social psychology, I think aids Hindutva.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: He points to the southern state of Kerala, which has a robust welfare system.</p>
<p><strong>Ajay Gudavarthy:</strong> For instance Kerala, health system is free, education is subsidised, public transport is subsidised, food is subsidised. When you have schemes of that kind, I think the basic anxiety levels are moderated. Then you cannot very easily generate this kind of a very polarised narrative of hating the Muslims, hating the Christians, othering the Dalits so on and so forth. So I think welfare system, a strong welfare state will provide the first entry point for the liberal constitutional left political forces in India to actually check this kind of unabated rise of far right-wing aggression. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh:</strong> Central to the politics of this aggressive far right Hindu nationalism is a dislike of the Indian constitution – its secular nature and the protections it contains for India’s minorities.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Another major bone of contention is Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which the Hindu right believes offers preferential treatment to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: The history of Kashmir – and the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan – is something we’re going to explore in our next episode.</p>
<p><strong>Sita Bali</strong>: I think that there being a difficult situation with Pakistan or a tense situation with Pakistan where Modi can stand up to them and can look tough and look hard and so on, is very helpful to his election prospects. </p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: That’s part three of this series from The Anthill, India Tomorrow. Do subscribe so you don’t miss out. That’s it for this episode of The Anthill. A big thanks to my co-host Indrajit Roy.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy:</strong> Thanks Annabel.</p>
<p><strong>Annabel Bligh</strong>: You can hear and read more of The Conversation’s coverage of India by academics from around the world on <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk">theconversation.com</a> or follow us on social media. If you’ve got any questions relating to what we’ve been discussing in this series, please do get in touch via email on <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">podcast@theconversation.com</a> or find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/AnthillPod">@anthillpod</a>. We’ll be putting your questions about India to a panel of academics in an episode in the days after the election results in late May. And if you’re looking for a transcript of this episode, and other episodes in this series, it will also be available soon on theconversation.com.</p>
<p>A big thanks to all the academics who spoke to us for this episode and to the journalism department at City University for letting us use their studios. The Anthill is produced by Gemma Ware and me, Annabel Bligh. Sound editing by Alex Portfelix. And thanks to our intern Salome Pkhaladze for her editing help. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.</p>
<p><strong>Indrajit Roy</strong>: Goodbye</p>
<p><em>*Clarification: It’s asserted in the podcast that when the Congress Party fought its first elections, its electoral symbol was the the cow. In fact the party’s symbol from 1959 to 1972 was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress#/media/File:Election_symbol_two_oxen.svg">two bullocks</a>. After 1969, the faction led by Indira Ghandi used <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/research/congress-cow-politics-elections-manifesto-2018-5446682/">a symbol of a cow and suckling calf</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This is a transcript of part two of The Anthill’s podcast series, India Tomorrow, on the politics of Hindu natonalism.Annabel Bligh, Business & Economy Editor and Podcast Producer, The Conversation UKGemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly PodcastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1154942019-04-16T12:20:08Z2019-04-16T12:20:08ZIndia Tomorrow part 2: the politics of Hindu nationalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269295/original/file-20190415-147502-18q1mpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>When Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to victory in India’s 2014 elections, <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-05-16/its-landslide-hindu-nationalism-indias-election">much was made</a> of its Hindu nationalist agenda. After five years in office, some commentators now worry that the secular nature of Indian democracy is <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-indias-hindu-nationalists-worship-israels-nation-state-model-111450">being eroded</a>. </p>
<p>In this, the second episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">India Tomorrow</a>, a series from The Conversation’s podcast The Anthill, we look at the history of Hindu nationalism, its role in India today, and its influence on the politics of the BJP.</p>
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<p>We speak to Shalini Sharma, a historian at Keele University, about the history of Hindu nationalism and the ideology of Hindutva. We find out about the family of Hindu nationalist organisations, including the powerful volunteer group called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. Radha d’Souza, a reader in law at the University of Westminster, helps explain the RSS’s opposition to the secular nature of India’s constitution. </p>
<p>We call up Ajay Gudavarthy, associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in India, to discuss the appeal of Hindu nationalist politics to voters, the role it had in Modi’s election victory in 2014 and its importance in the 2019 polls. </p>
<p>We also take a look at the intersection of caste politics and Hindu nationalism – particularly around the thorny issue of caste reservations, a form of positive discrimination for certain groups. We hear about the dynamics of caste politics today from Suryakant Waghmore, an associate professor at the department of humanity and social sciences at the Indian Insitute of Technology-Bombay, who has done research on caste violence in different parts of India. He says it would be misplaced to attribute an increase in violence totally to the rise of the BJP, but that it’s part of a much longer power struggle within Indian society. </p>
<p>You can read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-of-hindu-nationalism-india-tomorrow-part-1-podcast-transcript-115505">transcript of this episode</a> here, and also find out more about past and upcoming episodes in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-tomorrow-a-podcast-series-from-the-anthill-episode-guide-114654">series episode guide</a>. </p>
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<p><em>Clarification: It’s asserted in the podcast that when the Congress Party fought its first elections, its electoral symbol was the the cow. In fact the party’s symbol from 1959 to 1972 was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress#/media/File:Election_symbol_two_oxen.svg">two bullocks</a>. After 1969, the faction led by Indira Ghandi used <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/research/congress-cow-politics-elections-manifesto-2018-5446682/">a symbol of a cow and suckling calf</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Credits</strong></p>
<p><em>The Anthill is produced by Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh. Editing by Alex Portfelix. Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record The Anthill.</em></p>
<p><em>Picture source: <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kolkata-december-20-om-signed-flags-277358366?src=6vEj6Yq_Et7oIfpQSrenFg-1-10">arindambanerjee via Shutterstock</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Music: <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Living_With_Trauma/Lee_Rosevere_-_Living_With_Trauma_-_05_Intervention">Intervention by Lee Rosevere</a>, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Tranko/VA_-_Clinical_Jazz_excerpt_3/Flying_Cat_amp_Sitar">Flying Cat & Sitar by Tranko</a>, and <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar/Super_1222/07_Endeavour">Endeavour by Jahzzar</a> all via <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/">Free Music Archive</a>. Plus, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrdzK5l25dw">RSS Coimbatore Route March</a> via YouTube.</em></p>
<p><strong>Archive news clips:</strong></p>
<p><em>Election Results 2014: Modi wins India, NDA crosses 300 seats, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so7IvcXC7FQ&feature=youtu.be&t=119">NDTV</a></em></p>
<p><em>Dramatic shift in Indian politics with Modi set to win landslide election victory, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuzR6HUdCsc">euronews</a></em></p>
<p><em>Mediation For Ayodhya Dispute: Is This The Best Way Forward?, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cPgyPSpS3o">NDTV</a></em></p>
<p><em>Modi Govt Approves 10% Reservation For Economically Weak In Upper Castes | India Development Debate, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELjUqUFDYiQ&feature=youtu.be&t=16">ET Now</a></em></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL3VrL3BvZGNhc3RzL3RoZS1hbnRoaWxsLnJzcw%3D%3D"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation/the-anthill"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indrajit Roy receives funding from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annabel Bligh works for The Conversation.</span></em></p>The second part of this series from The Anthill podcast looks at the trajectories of Hindu nationalism in India.Indrajit Roy, Lecturer in Global Development Politics, University of YorkAnnabel Bligh, Host of The Anthill Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/891182018-01-26T11:20:52Z2018-01-26T11:20:52ZDoes America have a caste system?<p>In the United States, <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significant-racial-ethnic-disparities/">inequality</a> tends to be framed as an issue of either class, race or both. Consider, for example, criticism that <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-little-known-ways-gop-tax-bill-would-make-chasm-between-rich-and-poor-even-wider-88515">Republicans’ new tax plan</a> is a weapon of “<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/04/26/tax-cuts-are-gop-weapon-choice-class-warfare/d3jjYHuaOLsdpRRM0Tt8GL/story.html">class warfare</a>,” or accusations that the recent <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-bardella-government-shutdown_us_5a62d025e4b0e563006fd287">U.S. government shutdown was racist</a>. </p>
<p>As an India-born <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9757-9780824867218.aspx">novelist</a> and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/36728">scholar</a> who teaches in the United States, I have come to see America’s stratified society through a different lens: <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/ebook.php?isbn=9780520952348">caste</a>.</p>
<p>Many Americans would be appalled to think that anything like caste could exist in a country allegedly founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. After all, India’s atrocious caste system determines social status by birth, compels marriage within a community and restricts job opportunity.</p>
<p>But is the U.S. really so different?</p>
<h2>What is caste?</h2>
<p>I first realized that caste could shed a new light on American inequality in 2016, when I was scholar-in-residence at the <a href="https://www.uhd.edu/academics/humanities/news-community/center-critical-race-studies/Pages/ccrs-index.aspx">Center for Critical Race Studies at the University of Houston-Downtown</a>. </p>
<p>There, I found that my public presentations on caste resonated deeply with students, who were largely working-class, black and Latino. I believe that’s because two key characteristics differentiate caste from race and class. </p>
<p>First, caste cannot be transcended. Unlike class, people of the “low” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mahar">Mahar caste</a> cannot educate or earn their way out of being Mahar. No matter how elite their college or how lucrative their careers, those born into a low caste remain stigmatized for life. </p>
<p>Caste is also always hierarchical: As long as it exists, so does the division of people into “high” and “low.” That distinguishes it from race, in that people in a caste system cannot dream of equality. </p>
<p>It’s significant that the great mid-20th-century Indian reformer <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Writings-B-R-Ambedkar/dp/0195670558/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1516759629&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=essential+works+ambedkar">B. R. Ambedkar</a> called not for learning to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuvEijvTXuw">live together as brothers and sisters</a>,” as Martin Luther King Jr. did, but for the very “annihilation of caste.”</p>
<p>Caste, in other words, is societal difference made timeless, inevitable and cureless. Caste says to its subjects, “You all are different and unequal and fated to remain so.” </p>
<p>Neither race nor class nor race and class combined can so efficiently encapsulate the kind of of social hierarchy, prejudice and inequality that marginalized Americans experience. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203289/original/file-20180124-107974-96ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Babasaheb Ambedkar fought for the ‘annihilation of caste’ believing that social equality could never exist within a caste system.</span>
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<h2>Is America casteist?</h2>
<p>In Houston, that sense of profound exclusion emerged in most post-presentation discussions about caste. </p>
<p>As children, the students there noted, they had grown up in segregated urban neighborhoods – <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-federal-government-intentionally-racially-segregated-american-cities-180963494/">geographic exclusion that, I would add, was federal policy for most of the 20th century</a>. Many took on <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/why-debt-balloons-after-graduation-for-black-students/505058/">unpayable student loan debt</a> for college, then <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/poor-students-drop-even-financial-aid-covers-cost">struggled to stay in school</a> while juggling work and family pressures, often without a support system.</p>
<p>Several students also contrasted their cramped downtown campus – with its parking problems, limited dining options and lack of after-hours cultural life – with the university’s swankier main digs. Others would point out the jail across from the University of Houston-Downtown with bleak humor, invoking the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0331/School-suspensions-Does-racial-bias-feed-the-school-to-prison-pipeline">school-to-prison pipeline</a>.</p>
<p>Both the faculty and the students knew the power of social networks that are essential to professional success. Yet even with a college degree, evidence shows, Americans who grow up poor <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02/19/a-college-degree-is-worth-less-if-you-are-raised-poor/">are almost guaranteed to earn less</a>.</p>
<p>For many who’ve heard me speak – not just in Houston but also across the country at book readings for my 2017 novel, “<a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9757-9780824867218.aspx">Ghost in the Tamarind</a>” – the restrictions imposed by India’s caste system recall the massive resistance they’ve experienced in trying to get ahead.</p>
<p>They have relayed to me, with compelling emotional force, their conviction that America is casteist. </p>
<h2>Caste in the US and India</h2>
<p>This notion is not unprecedented. </p>
<p>In the mid-20th century, the American anthropologist Gerald Berreman returned home from fieldwork in India as the civil rights movement was getting underway. His 1960 essay, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2773155?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Caste in India and the United States</a>,” concluded that towns in the Jim Crow South bore enough similarity to the North Indian villages he had studied to consider that they had a caste society. </p>
<p>Granted, 2018 is not 1960, and the contemporary United States is not the segregated South. And to be fair, caste in India isn’t what it used to be, either. Since 1950, when the Constitution of newly independent India made caste discrimination illegal, some of the system’s most monstrous ritual elements have weakened. </p>
<p>The stigma of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-18394914">untouchability</a> – the idea that physical contact with someone of lower caste can be polluting – for example, is fading. Today, those deemed “low caste” can sometimes achieve significant power. Indian President Ram Nath Kovind is a Dalit, a group formerly known as “untouchable.” </p>
<p>Still, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/36728">caste in India remains a powerful form of social organization</a>. It segments Indian society into marital, familial, social, political and economic networks that are enormously consequential for success. And for a variety of practical and emotional reasons, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3379882/">these networks have proven surprisingly resistant to change</a>. </p>
<h2>Casteist ideologies in America</h2>
<p>At bottom, caste’s most defining feature is its ability to render inevitable a rigid and pervasive hierarchical system of inclusion and exclusion. </p>
<p>What working-class Americans and people of color have viscerally recognized, in my experience, is that casteist ideologies – theories that produce a social hierarchy and then freeze it for time immemorial – also permeate their world. </p>
<p>Take, for example, the controversial 1994 <a href="https://www.intelltheory.com/bellcurve.shtml">“The Bell Curve”</a> thesis, which held that African-Americans and poor people have a lower IQ, thus linking American inequality to genetic difference.</p>
<p>More recently, the white nationalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/nov/06/gary-younge-interviews-richard-spencer-africans-have-benefited-from-white-supremacy">Richard Spencer</a> has <a href="https://altright.com/2017/07/04/the-metapolitics-of-america/">articulated</a> a vision of white identity marked, caste-like, by timelessness and hierarchy.</p>
<p>“‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created unequal,’” he wrote in a July 2017 essay for an alt-right website. “In the wake of the old world, this will be our proposition.”</p>
<p>Add to these ideological currents the evidence on <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-stubborn-race-and-class-gaps-in-college-quality/">the race gap in higher education</a>, <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/0001/01/01/pursuing-the-american-dream">stagnant upward mobility</a> and <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significant-racial-ethnic-disparities/">rising inequality</a>, and the truth is damning. Five decades after the civil rights movement, American society remains hierarchical, exclusionary and stubbornly resistant to change.</p>
<p>Caste gives Americans a way to articulate their sense of persistent marginalization. And by virtue of being apparently foreign – it comes from India, after all – it usefully complicates the dominant <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/in-search-of-the-american-dream/305921/">American Dream</a> narrative. </p>
<p>The U.S. has a class problem. It has a race problem. And it may just have a caste problem, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Subramanian Shankar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An Indian scholar makes the case that caste explains inequality in America better than race and class.Subramanian Shankar, Professor of English (Postoclonial Literature and Creative Writing), University of HawaiiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/842162017-10-06T14:40:54Z2017-10-06T14:40:54ZThe caste politics curse that India just can’t shake off<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188799/original/file-20171004-28664-pj9fm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Maratha Kranti Morcha, a rallye for Marathi castes demanding respect of their rights in Mumbai last year.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Kranti_Morcha#/media/File:Maratha-Kranti-Morcha.jpg">Mhidanesh/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>India is still not able to do away with its caste politics as demonstrated by <a href="https://thewire.in/184271/gujarat-dalits-attack-watching-garba-sporting-moustache/">recent attacks</a> on members of lower caste in south-western state of Gujarat during a festival.</p>
<p>Yet Narendra Modi’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is making a dramatic effort to woo such lower castes. Three of these are especially important: <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/government-to-find-out-if-scs-obcs-receive-benefits/articleshow/60316113.cms">reviewing social justice schemes</a>, <a href="http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/revisiting-the-obc-quota-scheme/468809.html">revisiting job reservations</a>, and the <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/caste-and-class/article19555387.ece">sub-categorisation of lower castes</a>. </p>
<p>These measures will eventually deepen India’s caste politics and strengthen the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/caste-social-differentiation">caste system</a> – the world’s oldest surviving social hierarchy. </p>
<p>In India, society is divided among higher castes, lower castes (known as Other Backward Castes or OBCs, among the socially and “educationally backward” sections of Indian society), Scheduled Castes (known as Dalits, formerly “Untouchables”), and Scheduled Tribes (known as Adivasis). </p>
<p>Today, the BJP is strategically working to win the heart and the vote of millions of lower castes, who make up <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/OBc-count-52-or-41/articleshow/263918.cms?referral=PM">41% of the Indian population</a>. However, the BJP’s outreach initiatives are not born out of a concern for social justice; they are part of an electoral agenda. </p>
<h2>Changing the BJP’s image</h2>
<p>The BJP’s defeat in the 2009 general election proved a turning point for its engagement with lower castes. While still playing the Hindu nationalism card with dominant upper castes, the BJP is now deploying multiple strategies to win over lower castes too. </p>
<p>For example, Amit Shah, now the party’s president, first highlighted Modi’s own lower-caste background in the 2014 election in Uttar Pradesh. Later on, as prime minister, Modi was projected as the champion of <a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/column/ls-election-sheela-says-is-narendra-modi-really-an-obc/20140510.htm">lower caste groups</a>. The party’s support for a Dalit presidential candidate was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-president/modis-party-backs-low-caste-leader-for-president-of-india-idUSKBN19A13L">internationally hyped</a>. Similarly, a recent <a href="https://thewire.in/48854/modis-cabinet-expansion-decoded/">cabinet reshuffle</a> brought in more lower-caste leaders to appropriate the “numerical demographic” of OBCs for political gain.</p>
<p>The BJP is also making lower caste-friendly gestures in assembly elections campaigns in <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bjp-plans-rally-two-yatras-in-gujarat-to-attract-obcs/articleshow/60520004.cms">Gujarat</a> and <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/FXeAY2FhQfn0Z5DpsArG3N/BJP-trying-new-caste-equations-ahead-of-Karnataka-elections.html">Karnataka</a>. It highlights its commitment to <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/FshuANlM65TidXucWIo3RJ/Lok-Sabha-approves-bill-to-accord-constitutional-status-to-N.html">provide constitutional status</a> to the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), a statutory body that works for the welfare of lower castes.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the BJP is also pushing the idea of revisiting the existing system of reservation, which allocates 27% of governmental jobs and seats in educational institutions to lower castes. This the party proposes to do by <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/govt-approves-panel-to-examine-sub-categorisation-of-obc-in-central-list-too-arun-jaitley-4810047/">setting up a committee</a> to sub-categorise these groups into “backward”, “extremely backward” and “most backward” classes.</p>
<h2>Lower caste identity through history</h2>
<p>These are big developments. For decades, most political parties – including the Jana Sangh, which morphed into the <a href="http://www.bjp.org/about-the-party/history">BJP in 1980</a> – played their politics in the usual framework, excluding the lower-caste categories from the power structure of the state.</p>
<p>The notion of “affirmative action through reservation” only appeared in the mid-1970s when socialist parties led by politicians <a href="http://www.epw.in/journal/2010/40/politics-and-ideas-rammanohar-lohia-special-issues-specials/remembering-lohia.html">Ram Manohar Lohia</a> and <a href="http://chaudharycharansingh.org/sites/default/files/2015-23-December%20Chaudhary%20Charan%20Singh%20-%20A%20Brief%20Biography_Harsh%20Singh%20Lohit.pdf">Chaudhary Charan Singh</a> started using it to mobilise and consolidate the lower castes as a separate political identity. </p>
<p>The identity of lower castes only began to coalesce in 1955, when the first <a href="http://www.ispepune.org.in/PDF%20ISSUE/1991/JISPE2/report-backward-classes-comission.pdf">Backward Classes Commission under Kaka Kalelkar</a> recommended various reservation quotas in technical, professional and government institutions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188800/original/file-20171004-6713-5nryiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lower castes in India have been associated with menial work and high rates of poverty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sharadaprasad/19672920365/">Sharada Prasad CS/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then in 1990, lower-caste mobilisation was galvanised when the Second Backward Classes Commission – popularly known as the <a href="http://www.ncbc.nic.in/Writereaddata/Mandal%20Commission%20Report%20of%20the%201st%20Part%20English635228715105764974.pdf">Mandal Commission</a> – recommended that 27% of positions in educational institutions and public employment be reserved for OBCs. </p>
<p>This was violently opposed by non-political bodies, including conservative <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/student-groups-spearheading-anti-reservation-stir-a-disorganised-bunch/1/315774.html">student organisations</a>. Many of these were close to the <a href="http://rss.org/">Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh</a> (RSS), an ultra-nationalist ideological group that supports the BJP. In 2006, these student wings fiercely opposed the Congress-led government’s decision to <a href="http://test.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/quota-for-obcs-in-elite-educational-institutes-dominates-2006/440002">implement 27% lower caste job reservations</a> in premier higher educational institutions.</p>
<h2>Towards a universal Hindu identity</h2>
<p>But now, India’s right-wing organisations have <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/back-to-the-bahujan-model/article17788513.ece">made peace with lower-caste aspirations</a>. This has proved electorally rewarding, with the BJP successfully winning a greater share of the OBC vote. A third of the OBCs <a href="http://www.csds.in/sites/default/files/Interpreting%20the%20electoral%20verdict%20of%202014%20Lok%20Sabha.pdf">shifted to the BJP in the 2014 election</a>, and in subsequent <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/YfaZFWuenE9U4ScnusVAWK/Why-the-rhetoric-of-caste-vs-development-in-UP-polls-rings.html">state elections</a>. </p>
<p>Strategically, the BJP has focused on dismantling the caste-based parties’ monopoly over lower-caste votes. The tactic of painting other parties as <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-39227822">corrupt bastions of single-caste politics</a> worked wonders, as did an effort to compress the existing <a href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/dec/08/central-obc-list-to-include-15-new-castes-1547010.html">2,479 lower castes</a> into a smaller unit of individualised caste identity to diminish their collective heft.</p>
<p>The BJP also supported the aspirations of lower castes’ leaders through either finance or <a href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/bjp-firms-up-up-alliance-with-an-eye-on-the-obc-dalit-vote/article9500210.ece">political alliance</a>, <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/We-gave-first-OBC-PM-most-OBC-CMs-BJP/articleshow/48026470.cms">accommodating OBC leaders</a> in the party or ministerial portfolios at local, state and national level. </p>
<p>At the same time, the party is building a network of lower castes cadres in both rural and urban areas, as well as among young people and women. To penetrate the lower castes’ social base, the BJP formed an <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/bjp-forms-obc-morcha-to-fight-for-rights-of-backward-classes/905876">OBC Morcha or “special wing”</a> in July 2015. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188802/original/file-20171004-1134-1opomb2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Religious ceremonies are organised to include lower castes back into the folds of Hinduism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/asianu/6219355802/in/photolist-atzPNs-vxdow-7pTBWN-PuP3B-atxaqD-au5Qd6-YRnawY-8388Ns-h1kyDp-q8rtyD-3AT5ta-5tUAkm-Bo7io-h1jE2w-azsEkt-5uk12i-Wdvb5-5uk12K-vg9ty-3AVQRy-atxay2-7pPGFT-h8cCtA-au5Q2B-h1jytQ-h1jBZA-h8cGt7-h1jzBR-h8dLRn-sqBHq-vALjj-dUTRkM-dUTT8t-h1jxsa-atxamk-7wMhSZ-z21cLQ-vALi6-vgah4-rehT6-HBGZi-3AQ85n-3AXjxC-5uk12P-3ARFTK-4bwKyk-atxagX-MDww4-3AUnGS-z1ZXtb">Asim Chaudury/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the one hand, right-wing Hindu organisations are engaged in the radical Hinduisation of lower castes and Dalits through programmes such as <a href="http://www.epw.in/mr/journal/2015/11/commentary/hindutvas-psychological-warfare.html">“Ghar Wapsi” or “Home Coming”</a>, rituals of conversion to Hinduism, and running <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/04/bjp-dominate-caste-politics-170412085718269.html">religious, spiritual and service programmes</a> in lower caste areas. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the BJP’s core clientele of higher castes are satisfied thanks to the works of its right-wing support organisations. They continue spreading messages they want to hear, such as tactically portraying Muslims as a common enemy.</p>
<p>With many of its much-acclaimed policies <a href="https://thewire.in/142453/modi-three-years-the-cracks-are-showing/">failing to deliver</a>, the BJP knows it has to sustain the charisma of Narendra Modi long enough to fight the 2019 legislative elections. </p>
<p>The party’s central challenge is to retain its support base while simultaneously supplementing it enough to ensure electoral victories. To do this, it must mobilise the emerging middle-class OBC vote – and it’s clearly prepared to do almost whatever it takes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Afroz Alam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>India is not able to do away with its caste politics. It has been apparent in the dramatic turn of Narendra Modi’s regime to woo lower castes through multiple policy measures.Afroz Alam, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/671992016-10-27T08:15:36Z2016-10-27T08:15:36ZIndia’s slow-brewing political storm is steadily gathering strength<p>When Narendra Modi was elected as head of India’s BJP government in May 2014, he was expected to usher in a period of stability and development. But midway into his term, he and his party are lurching from one crisis to another – and the atmosphere is getting worse.</p>
<p>When the government recently announced that it had <a href="https://theconversation.com/kashmir-flare-up-puts-india-under-new-pressure-to-deal-with-pakistan-65741">attacked terrorists based in Pakistan</a> to avenge the murder of Indian soldiers in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, it set off the latest in a series of unpleasant political rows. While functionaries of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) gloated, several opposition politicians not only <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/amid-protests-criticism-kejriwal-defends-demand-for-proof-of-surgical-strikes/story-LpFsrwCor8971mjt5A2cbM.html">questioned the truth of the government’s claims</a> but also accused it of stirring up “<a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/mayawati-attacks-pm-narendra-modi-govt-over-natakbazi-on-surgical-strikes-army-pakistan-loc/">war hysteria</a>” ahead of 2017’s elections in key states.</p>
<p>The government’s attitude is belligerent, and the BJP is increasingly dependent on electoral manoeuvring. The casualty in all this is India’s increasingly beleaguered democracy, which is at risk of cracking under the pressure. </p>
<p>Nothing better illustrates this than the proliferation of “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34634892">cow protection vigilantes</a>” across the north and west of the country. Various people accused of slaughtering bovines or eating beef have been harassed, humiliated, beaten and even killed since 2015. Most of the victims were from Muslim or Dalit communities, both of which depend on cows for their <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34513185">livelihood</a> and sometimes <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/gujarat-dalit-protests-una-gau-rakshaks-mohammad-akhlaq-modi-govt-2954324/">food</a>. </p>
<p>The latest atrocity came to light in July 2016, when seven Dalit labourers who were carrying cattle carcasses in the village of Una were <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/20/protests-rock-gujarat-after-hindu-vigilantes-brutally-beat-low-c/">rounded up by cow protection vigilantes</a>, stripped, dragged through the streets and thrashed with iron rods. In a telling measure of the impunity they enjoy, some of the vigilantes filmed the entire episode and uploaded it on social media as a warning to all those who slaughter cows and eat their meat. </p>
<p>As the chilling video went viral, Dalits across the state of Gujarat responded with unprecedented protests, <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/at-una-rally-attended-by-kanhaiya-dalits-warn-of-fresh-protests/story-TibFTTXAvgHKC3Lod3wZbM.html">culminating</a> in an assembly of over 20,000 people in Una on India’s 69th Independence Day. Gujarat’s chief minister was ultimately forced to resign.</p>
<h2>Boiling point</h2>
<p>The cow protection vigilantes have once again inflamed India’s ancient caste hatreds, pitting the self-styled “high castes” against those stigmatised as “low caste” and “untouchable”. Complementing such vigilantism are Hindutva-affiliated student organisations, such as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (<a href="http://www.abvp.org/">ABVP</a>), who are taking the battle to India’s university campuses. </p>
<p>In 2015, high caste ABVP students at the University of Hyderabad complained about a Dalit student at the university, Rohith Vemula, who regularly organised readings and seminars on social justice and human rights. He was involved in a campus beef festival and funeral prayers for a terrorist convicted of the Bombay blasts of 1993. His activities got him suspended from the university along with three other Dalit students, and he eventually killed himself in January 2016. </p>
<p>In response, 14 student unions <a href="http://scroll.in/article/804834/six-weeks-after-rohith-vemulas-death-hyderabad-university-students-maintain-a-precarious-unity">launched joint protests</a> against the university administration and the ABVP, and soon, India was convulsed with student protests the like of which it has not seen since the so-called <a href="http://scroll.in/article/804673/this-time-its-different-recalling-the-anti-reservation-mandal-protests-of-1990">Mandal protests</a> of 1990. </p>
<p>Along with pursuing the cow protection agenda and campaigning to safeguard caste privilege, Hindutva ideologues have made no secret of their <a href="http://www.rss.org/Encyc/2015/4/7/334_03_46_30_Bunch_of_Thoughts.pdf">disdain for affirmative action</a>. To keep the issue from coming to a head, Modi’s government has successfully stalled demands to release data on India’s caste census. </p>
<p>It’s widely assumed that if those data were published, they would confirm what most Indians already believe: that the best jobs, assets and other productive resources are controlled by a tiny fraction of the population, namely members of the self-styled “high castes”. </p>
<p>Exposing the reality of the situation is a crucial prerequisite for truly inclusive growth. But if it made such data public, the BJP government would almost certainly infuriate its core constituency of “high caste” middle-class urban Hindus – and that puts the party in a dangerous electoral bind.</p>
<h2>From bad to worse</h2>
<p>The perception that the BJP is committed to preserving “high caste” privilege bears down on the party’s prospects in three crucial states that will go to polls in 2017: Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Taken together, Dalits and Muslims make up a significant share of the population in all three states, and the violence directed at both communities is driving them towards a new alliance – ending two decades of social hostility <a href="http://thewire.in/59011/dalit-asmita-yatra-unites-dalits-muslims/">carefully nurtured by the BJP</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/its-mayawati-versus-modi-in-up/article9022511.ece">Ms Mayawati</a>, three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and one of the country’s most recognisable Dalit leaders, has advised Dalits to form joint fronts with Muslims so as to <a href="http://www.dailyo.in/politics/mayawati-up-polls-dalit-muslim-samajwadi-party-bjp-akhilesh-yadav/story/1/11714.html">contain the Hindu nationalist parties</a>. Dalit organisers of the Gujarat protests consciously sought to reach out to and include Muslims, while joint Dalit-Muslim-Sikh efforts recently thwarted attempts by Hindutva activists to <a href="http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/2/8302/Sikhs-Dalits-Muslims-Unite-Against-Shiv-Sainiks-in-Phagwara">assault a mosque</a> in a sleepy Punjab town. </p>
<p>As these minorities join forces, and with a general electorate angry at <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/business/where-are-the-jobs-mr-modi-2731002.html">slow job growth</a> and the rising prices of <a href="http://factchecker.in/arhar-modi-prices-up-200-in-5-years-farm-problems-older/">key</a> <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/tomato-prices-skyrocket-but-data-shows-glut-in-production-1420129">staples</a>, the BJP may well be facing some galling electoral losses in these three crucial states. </p>
<p>Modi’s increasingly hawkish position on Pakistan is a bid to drum up war hysteria on the eve of crucial provincial elections. As protests against the BJP regime <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/02/indian-workers-strike-in-fight-for-higher-wages">mount</a>, and as opposition parties find some semblance of organisation independent of the leadership of the moribund Congress Party, Modi hopes to bolster his party’s prospects by taking recourse to nationalism, jingoism and warmongering. It all adds up to a stifling atmosphere of mutual antagonism, with government ministers and sympathetic journalists regularly accusing their opponents of sedition.</p>
<p>Four decades ago, another Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, was faced with similar political opposition to her once-popular regime. She responded by declaring a <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/specials/in-depth/the-emergency-imposed-by-indira-gandhi-government/article7357305.ece">state of emergency</a> that effectively suspended democracy. The war hysteria Modi and his government are drumming up are all too reminiscent of that era; the consequences could be catastrophic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Indrajit Roy receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK and International Growth Centre. </span></em></p>Narendra Modi’s government is drumming up war hysteria on the eve of crucial state elections. The gathering storm threatens India’s increasingly beleaguered democracy.Indrajit Roy, ESRC Research Fellow, Department of International Development, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610512016-06-27T19:09:17Z2016-06-27T19:09:17ZBehind the God-swapping in the South African Indian community [part 2]<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127706/original/image-20160622-7196-lfrkl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Hindu devotee prepares to participate in a fire-walking ceremony to honour the goddess Draupadi in Durban, 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Rogan Ward</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The first group of Indian indentured labourers <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/history-indians-south-africa-timeline1654-2008">arrived</a> in South Africa in 1860. The majority settled in Natal because they were originally requested by local farmers. Like India, Natal was a British colony. Most of them were Hindus, although not exclusively so. The 19th century immigration of Indian labourers brought two types of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/indian-indentured-labour-natal-1860-1911">immigrants</a> – “indentured” workers and “passenger” Indians. The latter group came at their own expense. They were largely traders and over time became an economic force to reckon with.</em></p>
<p><em>South Africa’s <a href="http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/population.htm#.V2AIc7t97IU#ixzz4BYpLOyAt">Indian population</a> currently stands at 1,286,930 (2.5% of the overall population). The Indian community can be culturally divided into four broad groups along linguistic lines: Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Gujarati. They are divided along the following major <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/SAStatistics/SAStatistics2012.pdf">religions</a>: Hindu (41.3%), Muslim (24.6%) and Christian (24.4%).</em></p>
<p><em>The interplay between Hinduism and Christianity in the predominantly Hindu Indian community, and in particular the contentious issue of conversion, has been the subject of great debate and intense research. In this second article of a two part-series, Professor Pratap Kumar, of South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal, assesses whether the mainly Pentecostal conversions of South Africa’s Indian community provided a new social identity to the converts.</em></p>
<p>It isn’t just the doctrines of South Africa’s mainstream and Pentecostal churches that differ. The way they have been trying to convert members of the South African Indian community to Christianity since the early 20th century has contrasted widely.</p>
<p>Back then, the mainstream Christian churches provided clinics, hospitals and schools. Yet these material benefits yielded hardly any converts, as is evident from the low percentage of Christians (4% of the total Indian community) in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. </p>
<p>The Pentecostals had a different approach. Instead of being involved in community service, they placed emphasis on critiquing Hindu belief systems and caste practices. They also focused on healing and exorcism. It paid off. Between 1925 and 1980 the Indian membership of the Pentecostal churches grew larger than all the other Christian denominations put together.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ZyZYTCpnyKsC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=Gerald+Pillay,+writing+in+Christianity+in+South+Africa&source=bl&ots=BlDCKXgSQj&sig=R1IG-h9mFWCVpioYmOh67TD93Fc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzu_2p06fNAhVC2xoKHbeoDD4Q6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=Gerald%20Pillay%2C%20writing%20in%20Christianity%20in%20South%20Africa&f=false">three main Pentecostal groups</a> active in the Indian community in the earlier part of the 20th century:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the United Pentecostal Church;</p></li>
<li><p>the Apostolic Faith Mission; and</p></li>
<li><p>the Assemblies of God.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Making Hinduism more attractive</h2>
<p>In response, Hindu reform organisations worked hard to <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ZyZYTCpnyKsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA286#v=onepage&q&f=false">make Hinduism more attractive</a> to their own followers.</p>
<p>Many of these organisations, such as the <a href="http://aryasamajsouthafrica.org/">Arya Samaj</a>, the <a href="http://www.ramakrishna-sa.org.za/">Ramakrishna Centre</a> and the <a href="http://www.sivananda.dls.org.za/">Divine Life Society</a>, have emphasised the departure from old ritual belief systems to a more philosophical understanding of Hinduism.</p>
<p>These neo-Hindu movements believed that ordinary Hindus lacked the more enlightened understanding of Hinduism – an understanding, they maintained, that was present only in the sacred texts of Hindu philosophy. These texts emphasised the oneness of divinity. They also dismissed worship of multiple gods in temples, saying it was based on ignorance.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PpbDx1dXDhsJ:scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/REL/Hinduism/Books/Hofmeyr_JH_Oosthuizen_GC_Religion_South_African_Indian_Community_1981.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=za">research</a> conducted by JH Hofmeyr and GC Oosthuizen in 1981, a shift towards a more philosophical approach to Hinduism was visible. More than 88% of Hindus affirmed a monotheistic understanding of God in Hinduism as opposed to only about 11% admitting to polytheistic notions.</p>
<h2>Pentecostal inroads</h2>
<p>Despite the Hindu reform efforts, the Indian Christian number grew from 4% in 1925 to 24.4% in 2011, with the Pentecostals making the most significant inroads. For a comparative perspective on the different dogmas’ performance, let’s take three churches from each of the two different persuasions as per South Africa’s 2011 national census. There were 8,520 Indian <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/SAStatistics/SAStatistics2012.pdf">members</a> of three mainstream churches, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church and the Methodists, together.</p>
<p>It is a different story on the thriving Pentecostal side of the pew. Indians in the Full Gospel Church, the Apostolic Church and the International Fellowship of Christian Churches (an umbrella body of charismatic churches, including the prominent Rhema church) together constituted 36,371 members.</p>
<p>The penetration of the Pentecostal movements into Hindu society is felt especially in the KwaZulu-Natal Indian townships. According to the Hofmeyr and Oosthuizen survey, the majority of Hindus in the Durban township of Chatsworth seemed to acknowledge that “Jesus was the only son of God.”</p>
<p>In other words, they seemed to know the claim by Christians that Jesus is the only son of God and hence the path to salvation. The authors tempered their analysis by suggesting that “assent to the belief did not imply consent to the exclusivist claim of Christianity”.</p>
<p>Still, the Hindu religious life based on rituals in temples and shrines continued to flourish. It continues to be evident during the festivals of fire-walking rituals at which some Hindus illustrate affirmation of their faith in their deities. In more recent times the <a href="http://www.sahms.org.za/">South African Hindu Maha Sabha</a>, now the official organ under which all Hindu associations in the country fall, has held conferences on Hinduism to educate the faith’s youth.</p>
<h2>Absence of caste</h2>
<p>In South Africa, Indians who were Christian largely came from the barracks and mill stations during the colonial period. It is commonly perceived that they belonged to a lower order of society. </p>
<p>In the case of Indian Anglicans in Natal, Arun Andrew John in his <a href="http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/1086/thesis.pdf">doctoral thesis</a> argued that the converts were more interested in a change of social identity. They hoped that the conversion would bring them from being lower-caste groups to social equality. However, it must be noted that neither in India nor in South Africa was a significant change in social identity visible as a result of conversion to Christianity.</p>
<p>It is important to note that a new social identity, which the converts to Christianity sought through conversion to escape social discrimination, did not seem to have come to fruition.</p>
<p>Old social disparities continue to plague the local Indian community, despite the absence of caste as an organising social unit. The discrimination now seems based on religious distinctions as well as class.</p>
<p>Within the Indian community it is difficult to separate religious and class distinctions, as most Christians happen to be from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore, Christian identity implicitly follows the status of a lower rung.</p>
<p>Conversely, not all Hindus may be economically better off. But there seems to be a sense inherent in the Indian society that those who became Christian through conversion were not only poor but also socially inferior. And this perhaps has to do with the remnants of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19438192.2012.675726">caste consciousness</a> that prevails even after its formal demise as a social unit.</p>
<p>In addition to this, Christians feel that the majority Hindu community has hijacked the linguistic identity. The result is that they keep Christians of the same linguistic background on the periphery. For example, the <a href="http://www.amssa1931.org.za/">Andhra Maha Sabha</a> in South Africa is an organisation of the Telugu-speaking community. Yet it is solely Hindu in its orientation, notwithstanding its linguistic signification. Likewise, the <a href="http://satamilfed.org.za/#home">Tamil Federation</a> of South Africa is Tamil only in name, and is Hindu inherently.</p>
<p>All of this points to cultural alienation of one group, as <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ZyZYTCpnyKsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA286#v=onepage&q&f=false">Gerald Pillay writes</a>. It offers ample opportunity to the alienated party to find social identity elsewhere, which is to affirm a Christian identity.</p>
<p>For as long as this tendency to monopolise linguistic identity by the Hindu majority persists in the Indian community in South Africa, the issue of conversion will remain a thorny one both for the Hindu and the Christian communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>P. Pratap Kumar receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa.</span></em></p>Religious conversion sometimes has the added bonus of upward social mobility. But for many in South Africa’s Indian community it had the opposite effect.P. Pratap Kumar, Emeritus Professor, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/551932016-02-24T14:12:18Z2016-02-24T14:12:18ZCaste protests in Delhi spring from deep economic distress<p>After days of stalemate, the Indian army has <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/indian-army-regains-control-of-delhi-water-supply-after-deadly-riots/a-19064722">taken control of the water supply</a> to the capital New Delhi. The canal had been damaged by protesters from the Jat caste, who are demanding they be added to the list of castes eligible for reserved government jobs. </p>
<p>So far, <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/india-protests-jat-reservation-idINKCN0VW0C2">19 people are confirmed to have died</a> in the protests. Freight trains and buses were set on fire, as were <a href="http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/more-than-800-trains-hit-after-7-stations-in-haryana-set-on-fire-due-to-jat-stir-1205544.html">at least seven railway stations</a>, and hundreds of people had to flee their homes.</p>
<p>These shocking protests have come from a seemingly unlikely source. The Jats of north India are traditionally a farming community. In the state of Haryana, where the protests are concentrated, Jats are the dominant landowning caste. Since independence, they have been able to use their dominance over the ownership of land to wield influence in politics and other sectors of the economy; today, they are without doubt the single most powerful community in the state.</p>
<p>So why then are the Jats asking for reservations in public sector jobs, usually a form of positive discrimination reserved for the socially and economically disadvantaged castes?</p>
<h2>Left behind</h2>
<p>The Jats of Haryana have been hit hard by the decline of agriculture both as a source of income and as a source of social status in the last two decades – and they are only the most recent farming community that has agitated for reservations. The <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/simply-put-who-are-gujarats-patidars-and-why-are-they-angry/">Patidars</a> in Gujarat and the <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/andhra-pradesh-kapus-quota-protest-turn-violent-train-bogies-torched/story-o3XPw4SO3u5xP1LTtCFvAI.html">Kapus</a> in Andhra Pradesh have adopted a similar strategy in the last few months. The Marathas in Maharashtra might be next – especially if the government of Haryana grants reservations to the Jats, which it seems inclined to do.</p>
<p>After more than 20 years of economic stagnation, India’s agricultural sector, which still employs the majority of the population, is in crisis. Sluggish growth, increasing competition from abroad and fragmentation of landholdings across generations – the average size of a field <a href="http://thewire.in/2016/02/22/the-absurdity-of-jat-reservation-22396/">shrunk by over 60% in the last four decades</a> – have left a trail of extreme rural distress throughout the country. The <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/05/india-shocking-farmer-suicide-epidemic-150513121717412.html">suicides of nearly 300,000 farmers</a> in the last two decades are some indication of the depth of despair.</p>
<p>Farming castes, then, have gradually seen their economic and social status declining. In many cases, the most dynamic sections of the community have expanded their economic interests outside agriculture. The Jats of Haryana are an example, and they now dominate other sectors of the economy as well. However, the shift towards the urban sectors of the economy does not involve the totality or even the majority of the community.</p>
<p>This is all compounded by the Indian economy’s failure to generate enough jobs for one of the fastest-growing working-age populations in the world. </p>
<h2>Jobless growth</h2>
<p>Between 2004 and 2009, only 25m jobs in total were created in non-agricultural sectors – this against an estimated need of <a href="http://www.epw.in/journal/2014/32/special-articles/explaining-employment-trends-indian-economy-1993-94-2011-12.html">17m jobs a year</a>. Although there are some signs of improvement, the Indian economy is still unable to generate enough work, especially <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-good-is-in-the-detail/article6206815.ece">in the formal sector</a> – that is, formally listed organisations that pay tax – which employs just 7% of the country’s workforce. </p>
<p>This jobless growth makes it extremely difficult for young people to board the train of India’s economic miracle. Especially for those belonging to dominant communities such as the Jats, being left behind is something hardly easy to stomach.</p>
<p>To make things worse, Haryana has one of the most unequal sex ratios in the country, with only <a href="http://www.census2011.co.in/census/state/haryana.html">879 women per 1,000 men</a> – it is increasingly difficult for young men to find a bride. In some north Indian states, women <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13331808">are literally imported</a> from other parts of the country to meet the demand for brides. It is clear then that, in a context where the overwhelming majority of marriages are arranged, families prefer to marry their daughters to men employed in the formal economy. </p>
<p>The declining status of agriculture is making this more difficult for the Jats and other farming communities. The fact that people from other castes, even ones lower in the hierarchy, have government jobs and can marry more easily is, again, not easy to stomach.</p>
<p>It seems the government of Haryana will agree to the Jats’ demands, but that will hardly mean the end of economic caste conflicts. Other farming castes throughout the country will feel discriminated against and might well resort to protests of their own. And as per <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/quota-should-not-exceed-50-says-supreme-court/article1246701.ece">a Supreme Court order</a>, no more than 50% of the available jobs can be reserved for particular groups. Therefore, including an additional community means eroding the available jobs for those who already are on the list. </p>
<p>Haryana’s Ahirs, Gujjars and Lodhas are on the warpath. The Indian government should be very careful before opening the Pandora’s box of job reservations once again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diego Maiorano receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the Swedish Research Council. The opinions expressed are his own.</span></em></p>Young Indians have been left desperate by an era of jobless growth.Diego Maiorano, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/524022016-01-18T13:16:10Z2016-01-18T13:16:10ZWhy are there so few Dalit entrepreneurs? The problem of India’s casted capitalism<p>In July last year I was in Gandhinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Gujarat, at the monthly meeting of a credit cooperative. It has 1,300 members, all drawn from Dalit families at the bottom of <a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/how-does-indias-caste-system-work">India’s caste hierarchy</a>. It’s the kind of organisation where you might expect to see a host of entrepreneurs and business people in charge, but of the nine board members sitting around the table, just one was a businessperson. </p>
<p>Most are serving or retired civil servants, and the pooled resources of the credit society are used principally for loans for marriage, housing, and higher education. When I asked why there were so few active entrepreneurs, there was an uncomfortable silence, before a torrent of comments revealed the widespread discrimination Dalits face in being able to access credit from both public and private banks. This is casted capitalism at work, or rather, failing to work.</p>
<h2>Caste of thousands</h2>
<p>The credit cooperative in Gandhinagar is part of a broader Dalit cooperative movement, but it hasn’t solved problems of access to capital, and the realities of business life for Dalits are still harsh. While all sectors are difficult for Dalits to enter into, some are almost completely closed to them, such as owning a restaurant in a non-Dalit area or opening a dairy business, where according to numerous Dalit sources in Gujarat, the dominant caste Patels are preferred. </p>
<p>This discrimination extends into other areas as well, such as medicine, with openly Dalit doctors receiving fewer upper-caste patients. The lone businessman in the group said he did not face problems as a share broker, but it quickly emerged that he dealt with the stigma by adopting the surname Mehta, linked to the well-respected and highly educated professional <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Jains-steal-the-show-with-7-Padmas/articleshow/46856659.cms">community in India</a>, the Jains. That way, he explained, clients are automatically more at ease.</p>
<p>In fact, it appears that the price of business success often hinges on staying firmly inside the “Dalit closet”. The sole woman in the group had also encouraged her son to change his surname. If you have a <a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080506/jsp/nation/story_9231504.jsp">Dalit surname such as Rani</a>, this is not an uncommon scenario.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107773/original/image-20160111-6996-19m8nx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hiding from view. Dalits choose pragmatism over pride.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nevilzaveri/2351490865/in/photolist-3hSXZ6-4zN1iX-Qt6Cb-mgy9bv-4CcvSt-68LAwE-bxK9dc-nxMt1M-8XS3ss-MhMB5-AVCpx-yxU62G-xMezD-7spDG1-6wGvRv-8D8p81-6As899-7dDSZj-dufGjv-cVkdj7">nevil zaveri</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Other side of the fence</h2>
<p>A short distance north of Gandhinagar, in the city of Ahmedabad, I witnessed a similar scene, but this time among the dominant caste Patels. They were meeting, not in a credit cooperative but, in one of their village or “gam” associations. The Patels are dominant politically and economically in Gujarat. Traditionally peasant farmers, they have <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/india-who-are-patels-why-are-they-demanding-downward-mobility-gujarat-1517365">experienced great social and economic mobility</a>, and are now associated with business sectors such as textiles and diamonds. While the gams predominantly function as sub-caste marriage circles, they also serve as informal business networking associations.</p>
<p>The Kadva Patel gam members stress their internal solidarity and ethos of mutual self-help. Here, young men entering business for the first time can turn to fellow gam members for low interest loans, as well as mentorship and contacts. While a Dalit surname is a potential obstacle in establishing oneself as an entrepreneur, a Patel surname opens doors and indeed is a mark of pride for those who bear it. </p>
<p>There have been success stories for Dalits, and prominent ones at that. Soon after the liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991, articles began appearing in the Indian and foreign press describing rags to riches stories of Dalits, who against all odds had transformed themselves into wealthy businessmen (and sometimes businesswomen), <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-05-06/news/49661411_1_dalit-indian-chamber-board-exams-dalit-businessmen">from very humble beginnings</a>. The tone <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-18186908">is often triumphant</a>, alluding to how the free market is liberating Dalits from centuries of oppression, accomplishing in a short period of time what the Indian government <a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa776.pdf">failed to achieve</a> through quota systems in the public sector. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107791/original/image-20160111-6961-s0y4fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In the balance. India’s free market isn’t working for everyone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/x_ray_vision/15089688381/in/photolist-nqsJWs-NdLyf-oZqAD4-5qbe5L-ryjeKz-rA5jsQ-rSw8mA-ryjdTz-rAbHx4-qVDcVU-rA3Y9U-rSD2mD-rA5h6f-rSD1H4-rQm4GY-rSymQK-rB9Bpj-qWWvv2-rBhmg8-rBhsbK-9NKVq9-6BxAua-9kFZh4-9SqrXX-4UeheE-7yjeST-e6hQDa-7ts2FN-fPRFqG-9Nv8dj-9m4arX-7dT73q-7dT7Ym-dMFaJu-cS1rYs-7dPpGz-9SqETr-ztsqi1-7dPdNr-7dPd7n-9Stqjf-9StFyw-9StnXS-9Sqsxn-9SqwRM-9StCRd-9Styhw-6eeta-549Emo-f1PSHr">Ashish</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>This assumption of an inherent meritocracy and “caste blindless” in the free market led some Dalit leaders to argue that capitalism will <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103056,00.html">sound the death knell for the caste system</a>. Some <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/indias-boom-creates-openings-for-untouchables.html?_r=0">also assert</a> that Dalit entrepreneurship will lead to greater social acceptance as they start to ascend the economic ladder. </p>
<p>This is comforting, but entirely false. The opening of the Indian economy has enabled a small number of Dalit entrepreneurs to make it to the top, but the majority continue to encounter institutional and social discrimination that translates into a share of business ownership that is not <a href="http://www.dalitstudies.org.in/wp/1002.pdf">proportionate to their population</a>. The 2005 Economic Census shows that Dalits in India own just 9.8% of enterprises despite constituting 16.4% of the population. And the vast majority of these are <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/12-028_0e6e69ba-da4d-4abc-b66a-9611dc07c53b.pdf">small single-person businesses</a>. </p>
<h2>Free and fair markets</h2>
<p>Speaking with dominant business people in Gujarat, it becomes clear that Dalits are seen as untrustworthy, synonymous with government benefits, rather than seen as serious business partners. While it is common in business for caste groups to mistrust each other, Dalits will often not even be considered as potential business partners. </p>
<p>Free financial markets are presumed by some to be great levellers, where ambition and hard work clear away obstacles, but just like all other areas of social life in India, capitalism is profoundly casted. Young Dalit men I spoke with said that many Dalit youth do not even aspire to being an entrepreneur due to a lack of role models in their communities. </p>
<p>Relatively new Dalit organisations, such as the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Dicci.official/">Dalit Chamber of Commerce and Industry</a>, need to be strengthened so that there are more active branches across the country. Ultimately, building the social and economic capital of Dalits across India is a long-term process that needs dedicated government support and deeper grass-roots initiatives that provide networking opportunities and financial support. </p>
<p>Promoting Dalit pride is another important long-term strategy, so that a new generation can visualise a future in which setting up a business does not mean turning their backs on their communities. The idea that the free market will act as an antidote to the caste system is wildly optimistic; it is time to recognise that the market economy’s dominance by upper and locally dominant castes makes business a terrain in which the majority of Dalits struggle to gain a foothold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Lum has received funding from the European Union (DevCo). </span></em></p>India’s former ‘untouchables’ are struggling to make a mark in business – despite some high-profile successes.Kathryn Lum, Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/516882015-12-07T04:23:59Z2015-12-07T04:23:59ZPope Francis in Africa: he came, he saw, now what?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104414/original/image-20151204-29711-1slj78y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crowds cheer as Pope Francis arrives at Kololo airstrip in Kampala, Uganda.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Giuseppe Cacace</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pope Francis was hailed around the world as a <a href="http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-i-went-to-africa-with-message-of-hope">“messenger of hope”</a> during his historic visit to Kenya, Uganda and Central African Republic. The visit to the three African countries was replete with gestures of reconciliation and peace. </p>
<p>He pushed all the right buttons on religious liberty, climate change and reforms to the annulment process of divorced Catholics. The visit came soon after he recently met Fidel Castro in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/20/pope-francis-meets-with-fidel-castro-cuba-visit">Cuba</a> and his visit to the US, where he <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34376771">celebrated mass</a>. </p>
<p>Pope Francis took a stand against poaching in Africa as well as corruption. He even visited a mosque in Central Africa. This had particular significance given the ongoing inter-religious conflict and violence in the region. </p>
<p>The pope’s visit has been profiled as a “message to the world”. The <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/02/13/the-global-catholic-population/">explosive growth</a> of the Catholic population in Africa despite religious, ethnic and political conflicts is a hint of the growing significance of Africa for the Catholic Church. </p>
<p>According to the Pew Research Centre, the Catholic population in sub-Saharan Africa grew from 1% in 1910 to 16% in 2010. Globally, <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/?utm_content=buffer13107&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">31.5%</a> of people are Christians.</p>
<p>Given the phenomenal growth of Catholicism on the continent those of us who live in Africa need to be asking some important questions. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>What does Pope’s visit mean for Africa? Is it merely a goodwill visit or will it have any fundamental impact?</p></li>
<li><p>Will the Catholic Church lead us through a path of a greater socialistic view of society in Africa? </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The Catholic church and socialism</h2>
<p>Jesus of Nazareth could easily have been construed as a socialist in his approach to society.</p>
<p>But the church that became so powerful in the aftermath of the conversion of <a href="http://www.roman-empire.net/decline/constantine-index.html">Emperor Constantine</a> in 312AD has not only been at the helm of holy wars – in the postindustrial revolution it became an ally of capitalism.</p>
<p>In more recent times, the modern church – including the Catholic denomination – has also been at the forefront of liberation movements in Latin America, notably Columbia and Peru. </p>
<p>In South Africa the Catholic Church participated along with other Christian denominations in the struggle against apartheid. In India, the Catholic Church has been at the forefront of the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/6761571/Dalit_liberation_struggles">Dalit struggles</a> against the caste system.</p>
<p>Given the current pope’s particular historical roots in Latin America, specifically Argentina, it is not surprising that his speeches are leaning toward social and political transformation with key words such as “solidarity” and “justice”.</p>
<p>Since 1961, with the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/23050547">papal encyclical</a> (Mater et Magistra of Pope John Paul XXIII), which is a formal pronouncement from the pope’s office, the social teaching of the Catholic Church has become increasingly significant.</p>
<p>The Catholic Church’s gradual move towards socialistic thinking really began in 1849 with <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/24457478">Pope Pius IX</a>. But whether socialism is contrary to Catholic doctrine is an interesting question and has particular reference to the conflict- and poverty-ridden continent of Africa. </p>
<p>Scholars have pointed out that what the Catholic Church was against was not so much socialism, but Marxism as embedded in the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/24457478">critique</a> of Pope Leo XIII.</p>
<p>In the context of South African politics and the need for social reform and the tendency of some South African politicians to emphasise a form of socialism, it must be remembered that what Leo XIII in the late 18th century rejected was <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/24457478">“a theory of collective poverty”</a> and “class struggle”. </p>
<p>While the former eliminates “economic stimuli”, the latter “assumes that the different classes of society are natural enemies”, with, for example, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/24457478">labour pitted against capital</a>.</p>
<p>We now need to ask if Pope Francis has a clear socialist message for Africa that he can send to the West and to the rest of the continent. If the recent papal visit is hailed as a “message to the world”, we need to figure out what the content of that message really is and what structures can facilitate it to become a reality.</p>
<h2>What Africa needs from the church</h2>
<p>The pope spent a great deal of time visiting conflict and poverty stricken regions. This is obviously in line with his socialist leanings. </p>
<p>But socialism is not only about economic issues. It is also about fundamental equality in society in religious and cultural realms. </p>
<p>Given the conservative stand of the Catholic church on gay and lesbian communities, Pope Francis had a wonderful opportunity to extend his message of tolerance not just to the religious realm, but to the social realm as well. This would have meant addressing issues of persecution and intimidation of homosexual people in conservative societies of Africa. </p>
<p>Homosexuality is <a href="http://www.loc.gov/law/help/criminal-laws-on-homosexuality/homosexuality-laws-in-african-nations.pdf">criminalised</a> in the three countries he visited. While the issue of divorce featured in his comments, the issue of homosexuality was glaringly absent. </p>
<p>Obviously one cannot expect the leader of the Catholic Church to make radical departures from the past traditions at one go. But the pope could have at least hinted at some possibilities for reform within the Church in this area. </p>
<h2>Talking truth to power</h2>
<p>On a broader level, Pope Francis rightly sits squarely in the middle of an evolving socialist message of the Catholic Church. But it would remain a mirage if the Catholic Church does not engage governments – in Africa and in the West – to bring about urgently needed political and economic changes. </p>
<p>If the Catholic Church is growing faster in Africa than elsewhere in the world, it means that the people of Africa expect the Catholic Church to be with them in their struggle for daily existence. </p>
<p>The ongoing realities of African migration to the west forces the Catholic Church to deliver on its promise of economic and social liberation in the post liberation period.</p>
<p>Political liberation has done nothing more than change faces of political leadership in Africa. What needs to be achieved is for people to realise their simple dreams of a society where their children and women can be safe and fed. </p>
<p>The pope’s visit has perhaps unwittingly thrust the Church into solidarity with the people and committed itself to fight corruption and poverty as well as all forms of social inequality on the continent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>P. Pratap Kumar receives funding from National Research Foundation of SA.</span></em></p>Given the conservative stand of the Catholic Church on gays and lesbians, Pope Francis had a wonderful opportunity to extend his message of tolerance to both the religious and social realms.P. Pratap Kumar, Professor of Hinduism and Comparative Religion, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/377102015-06-19T10:18:03Z2015-06-19T10:18:03ZRacial and caste oppression have many similarities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84609/original/image-20150610-6817-1kav3a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Systems of oppression have much in common.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfataustralianaid/10704037854/in/photolist-hiSZwN-pKU7xq-9Syz5f-6WQkvX-8rToTc-dtMFFE-7TXhS7-347557-juRZ2w-4VaYPb-4XGGLf-ifvfqv-evzE4p-8rE8pc-eiZwbu-9uKAQF-9PjRyc-4RZkK1-cmDTR3-2LgQTD-BR7W-8ENDrh-8AzDYr-6HHBGd-bzofcK-ap6JhZ-ofNdGA-fdMMYY-oryGSy-9xSTCc-o1CxxM-9uKAQR-9uNBSE-pzRTf6-9u6nW6-aPC766-ohh5gw-bGNiwK-rB2BGN-4AJGuE-bGNit2-4XAt5M-8rSDD4-9u9oLu-4Uqp7U-4xcMcF-5HHLcM-9uhk6g-9uhkex-9uhkrX">Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Comparisons can be risky, but not impossible.</p>
<p>Consider for a moment India’s Dalits, or “untouchables,” and African Americans. </p>
<p>Racial inequality in America has its parallel in caste inequality in India even though by definition, race and caste are not the same thing. The story of one struggle for social justice can illuminate the pitfalls and prospects of success of another.</p>
<p>As a researcher in applied ethics, human rights and global development studies, I am leading an ongoing research effort that will compare and contrast the nature of exclusion and marginalization faced by African Americans and Dalit Indians in their respective historical and contemporary contexts. </p>
<h2>The Dalit story</h2>
<p>Although the Indian constitution bans discrimination on the basis of caste, the social, religious and cultural practice of “untouchability” continues unabated. </p>
<p>Formerly known as “untouchables,” Dalits are excluded from social and public spaces, prevented from drawing water from public facilities and segregated in schools.</p>
<p>Since the caste system was formed over 2,000 years ago, a noticeable percentage of the <a href="http://idsn.org/india-official-dalit-population-exceeds-200-million/">200 million “Dalits”</a> have been thrust into the lowest occupations of society, such as scavengers and sanitation cleaners, with little upward mobility. </p>
<p>While there has been some progress since India’s independence from the British Empire, the pace of economic growth in mitigating social inequality has been <a href="http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Documents/SIG_WP13-1_InclGrowth.pdf">uneven</a>. </p>
<p>So, in an Indian nation that is rapidly modernizing and urbanizing, opportunities for the Dalits still remain limited. The degradation and the health risks of performing menial tasks are substantial. </p>
<p>Furthermore, with the <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/to-be-a-fundamentalist-hindu/">rise of Hindu fundamentalism </a>in national politics, the continuous expansion of liberty and equality of opportunity is by no means a foregone conclusion. </p>
<h2>Discrimination, exclusion, privilege</h2>
<p>One can draw parallels in different systems of oppression. </p>
<p>Despite 50 years having passed since the Civil Rights movement, the condition of the majority of poor, urban African Americans is <a href="https://www.aclu.org/infographic/school-prison-pipeline-infographic">dire</a>, and chances for survival are diminishing over time while the prison pipeline is increasing.</p>
<p>Let’s look at how both caste and racial discrimination perpetuate hierarchy, privilege, discrimination, marginalization and exclusion. </p>
<p>Data from the last few years show <a href="http://stateofworkingamerica.org/fact-sheets/poverty/">27% of African Americans at the poverty line</a>, which is much higher than <a href="http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/">other groups</a>. In India, the <a href="http://newint.org/books/reference/world-development/case-studies/inequality-dalits-in-india/">condition of Dalits</a> has been extremely dire for centuries.</p>
<p>Several African American economists in the US have looked at structural and institutional forms of racial exclusion in terms of wealth and poverty. They have also opened a dialogue with economists in South Asia, where exclusion and inequality <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=U5LL8JVqu8QC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=Darity+racial+inequality+and+caste&source=bl&ots=9wueZ3x7yP&sig=aHI-c_ePKl6nBGOs1WZ2Wbx92Qo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBWoVChMI1pnt6syIxgIVhCisCh0DlADD#v=onepage&q=Darity%20racial%20inequality%20and%20caste&f=false">relate to caste</a>. </p>
<p>Although some progress was made in the 20th century that allowed greater inclusivity and equity – particularly in higher education – many issues remain despite constitutional bans on caste discrimination. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84612/original/image-20150610-6801-1b1tke8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dalits in India still struggle for their rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/82898203@N08/8650310763/in/photolist-ebp722-4XmxKf-ebuFuG-ebuJ3N-ebuJXG-ebp1ZZ-ebp3En-ebuFPU-ebuDrj-ebp1YD-ebp5fH-ebp33R-ebuKSj-ebp63r-ebuHaQ-ebp3kR-ebuGUE-ebuGbm-ebuKk9-ebuDwd-ebuDRd-ebuDtY-ebp6jK-ebp4Zr-ebp2DH-NU5F9-ebpBKB-qzo3gM-qRJbT5-6a77Xd-4BxFa3-kTFdcz-ebv9HY-ebpKvi-ebpAXV-ebvkfY-ebpCRc-ebv8EQ-ebpC3k-ebpAsz-ebveQ3-ebv9ru-ebvsuQ-ebpN2R-ebpDq6-ebpuHe-ebpMkM-ebvj3U-ebvhjw-ebvh2m">ActionAid India - Campaigns</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In America, cultural and political segregation of the public space continues to occur despite anti-segregation laws. </p>
<p>For example, there are concerns among some Supreme Court justices that redistricting of voting districts can lead to further <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/25/politics/supreme-court-rejects-alabama-redistricting/">racial inequality</a>. </p>
<p>In India, Dalits in rural villages are forbidden near Hindu temples or disallowed with their shoes on in higher-caste neighborhoods. Mob violence is committed against them with impunity, and a disproportionate number of rapes are committed against <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/rape-of-dalit-women-registers-500-increase-since-2001-rti-reveals/">Dalit women</a>. </p>
<p>In comparison, post-Civil War white mob violence against blacks has morphed into what one could describe as the state-condoned violence of homicides of African Americans by police today. As of June, out of 467 Americans nationwide who had been <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-police-have-killed-americans-in-2015/">killed</a> by cops since the beginning of 2015, 136 were African American. </p>
<h2>How race and caste work</h2>
<p>Looking at exclusion in America forces us to grapple with issues of violence against African Americans, racial inequality and racial injustice at a time that is often deemed “post-racial,” namely, five decades after the Civil Rights movement. </p>
<p>We see a similar pattern in India, wherein the Dalits are asked to believe that the Indian constitution bans discrimination, even though it does not abolish the caste system itself. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84613/original/image-20150610-6817-1qzwda1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Racial tensions continue in America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenmelkisethian/16581479664/in/photolist-rgfqdq-snFD7z-rrw5LX-rgrTkZ-s6LcdL-rVEmX5-rVNoWv-sdfvwn-smHsf7-bJFHhV-sdfx2B-rTVoyc-rTVtmt-rTVtF6-so91VH-sd752s-rVEkZ3-rVEhN3-rTVu3Z-rgrWj4-rTVsoX-rVFm77-sdcD2K-sdfAYz-rgfpQS-rrjTch-s68Af9-rrweLk-s6JX1j-rrwjr2-rriQsG-s6Ad79-rrac2q-s6JL5v-soaxK6-rruYw4-s4R9zi-sogTox-soaTiW-skqY2W-s4oMUn-snyxnd-snyxDf-rqHH3u-s8dqDo-spXTZ6-snn2bg-sncyZd-s5MMCS-rqxYYX">Stephen Melkisethian</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is after the successes of the African American Civil Rights movement that we have witnessed the birth of the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/what-school-prison-pipeline">school-to-prison pipeline</a>, state violence against a disproportionate number of African American men in police killings, and the turning back of affirmative action at public universities in some states’ constitutional amendments, such as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/justice/scotus-michigan-affirmative-action/">Michigan</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, with right wing conservative political power in India, caste discrimination is intensifying. </p>
<p>For example, Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims are not eligible for reservations, or what we in the US would call affirmative action benefits at universities, because technically “untouchability” exists only in <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-not-in-favour-to-give-sc-reservation-to-christian-and-muslim-dalits-government-2042306">Hinduism</a>, when in social reality it occurs <a href="http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/indias-christian-and-muslim-dalits-say-they-are-more-untouchable-than-hindus-22756">across religions</a> in India. </p>
<p>Historically, both race and caste have been used to divide society in many ways to the unfair advantage of certain groups over others. Again, there are similarities in the construction of how people have been forced into these categories. </p>
<p>Here in America, people are born into a “race,” and America uses race as a defining demographic category in its census. Biological race by nature, for now, is inescapable, even though some would say that “race” is an artificial category that is socially constructed.</p>
<p>Dalits, too, are born into a caste, which is unalterable, as they are told, and it is due to the sins of a previous life that they are paying the price in their current life. Hinduism believes in the transmigration of the soul, in which the soul enters a new body after death. The caste that one enters into depends upon the actions of a previous life. </p>
<h2>The two democracies should learn from each other</h2>
<p>So how can the US and India learn from each other in order to solve some of the most pressing problems for the world’s two largest democracies, both of which consider themselves secular and free? </p>
<p>If nations can cooperate on trade and development, there is no reason that they cannot participate in a global dialogue on minority rights through the lens of their religious, cultural and social heritages. </p>
<p>They must learn to come to grips with the fact that the mere assertion of a democratic society does not necessarily translate in to a free and equal one.</p>
<p>Modern democratic superpowers with sizable national wealth, such as the US and India, also have a dark side, involving what some would consider gross human rights violations. </p>
<p>My work will set out to explore how different democracies can promote tolerance, inclusion and pluralism while combating various forms of discrimination and exclusion based on race and caste. </p>
<p>The question will be how to evaluate the claim that both societies make, as the two largest, most “peaceful and successful” democracies in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37710/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rajesh Sampath does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Racial inequality in America has its parallel in caste inequality in India. What can the world’s two largest democracies learn from each other?Rajesh Sampath, Assistant Professor of the Philosophy of Justice, Rights, and Social Change , Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.