In UP, caste is a catalyst of power

Politicians and analysts are obsessed with the caste calculus when discussing the upcoming assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, the so-called cockpit of Indian politics. Which way would the non-Yadav backward class/caste vote go? Will the Kurmis go with the Congress? And the Kushwahas with BJP? These seem to be inevitable issues in understanding the political battle in the most populous and backward state in education, health facilities and economic mobility. But the backwardness of the state literally takes a back seat when discussing UP.

Though Rahul Gandhi seems to be involved in a Herculean task of pushing the Congress, which has been out of power for more than two decades now, and he does speak of improving the lot of the people, in the party war room it is the caste moves that matter more. BJP leaders might speak of good governance and point to the bad performance of the BSP and SP, but they too are aware that their pseudo-cultural talk of Hindutva does not mean much and that they have to get down to the tough issue of caste arithmetic.

Chief Minister Mayawati thrives on talk of taking everyone along, including Dalits, Brahmins and Muslims but she too has to get her caste combination right. Mulayam Singh Yadav may look at the Muslim vote, but he has to make sure that his Muslim support base is not undermined by the attempts of others to wean away the backward class/caste Muslims.

It would be futile to express indignation over this caste talk in the second decade of the 21st century in a country that is now an enviable economic powerhouse in the world. Even the hope that a booming economy will wipe away the traces of anachronistic and atavistic caste system seems misplaced because evidence from the developed parts of India, especially the South, reveals that prosperity has only strengthened caste, and that it is also serving as a storehouse of cultural traditions when a deracinated generation looks back for emotional anchorage. Non-resident Indians are not only rabid supporters of the degenerate Hinduism of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, but they are also attached to their caste affiliations as a form of soft cultural power.

What is worrying about UP is not so much the intransigent caste system but the inability of caste to help in modernisation of livelihoods. Whatever their caste, do not the people of the state want better urban amenities in their little towns, better opportunities in the job market, and do they not want to enjoy life?

Do they not want good schools, jobs and health facilities? And do they not feel energetic enough to do things for themselves as caste collectives what the governments are failing to do?

Sociologist MN Srinivas’ seminal insight that caste was a vehicle of modernisation in the south seems to fail the UP test. And it is this social puzzle that is more intriguing than even the retrogressive caste politics in the state. The largest state cannot get out of the backwardness trap if the classes and castes do not get into the act of moving forward. What should be of great interest to the sociologist, economist and the political scientist is this cultural inertia of the people of the state.

A larger number of people, mostly the poor, migrate to metropolises like Mumbai and Delhi and they are absorbed into the urban whirligig like anyone else. Would they not want to transform their homesteads with things they see around in the big city?

It seems that they do not. A taxi driver in Mumbai, who has his family and land near Varanasi, was recalling with fondness the slow life on home and farm. The un-modernised home that he had left behind seems to become a sanctuary for him, to which he returns from the stress and storm of his marginalised existence in the city.

A Varanasi resident explained on a train journey that Varanasi has not expanded as a city and no new suburbs have come up because people do not want to move away from the cramped heart of the city for sentimental reasons. And there is the strange island of Mau, near Varanasi, a town with the largest number of doctors and private clinics. What is true of Varanasi seems to hold good for many other urban habitations in the state. Lucknow is changing but at a very slow pace.

Politics in UP is backward because the state is socially backward. The upper and the oppressed castes are trapped in cultural inertia. Do not blame politicians for the problems in the state. They are playing the power game within the existing social framework.