- 03 July | Enrich Your Ethics Answers with GS Knowledge: IAS Rank 1 Shruti Sharma | Click Here to Watch →
- 04 July | The Reality of Writing UPSC Mains by Ayush Sinha | Click Here to Watch →
- 05 July | The Right Time to Start UPSC Answer Writing by IAS Rank 39 Rohin Kumar | Click Here to Watch →
- 06 July | Why You Should Prepare for Mains Before Prelims by IAS Rank 28 Prachi Honey | Click Here to Watch →
POWER 50 is fifty capsules across fifty days — the entire PSIR syllabus revised once, in the order the syllabus is actually built, one topic a day. The method is simple and not negotiable: read the capsule, write a little the same day, and don’t break the chain. Running alongside it are PSIR Dynamics 2026 and the PYQ Vault — 560 previous-year questions spread across the fifty days, roughly eleven a day — so that revision and answer-writing move together.
Day 24 — Caste, Religion & Ethnicity in Indian Politics
Today’s capsule takes the three identity axes on which Indian democratic politics is actually fought and works through each in turn. It opens with identity politics and development politics — Calhoun, Fraser and Gitlin, and Yogendra Yadav’s “Identity Plus” reading of the Indian voter. Caste follows: Dumont, Srinivas and Dirks on the sociology; Rajni Kothari on the politicisation of caste; the Rudolphs on caste associations; and the arc from Mandal to reservation and the caste-census debate. Religion runs from nineteenth-century reform through Bipan Chandra’s three stages of communalism to Hindutva, Islamic reform, and Rajeev Bhargava’s “principled distance”. Ethnicity closes the day — the North-East, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir, with Gurr on relative deprivation and Sanjib Baruah on federation-building. Between 2016 and 2025, this unit carried 3 × 10-markers, 5 × 15-markers and 2 × 20-markers — ten formal questions in ten years, which is why it repays careful revision.
Write before the evening:
- Caste remains a vital axis for political mobilisation in India. How would the caste census address the aspirations of people? Discuss. (UPSC 2025, 15m)
- “Relative deprivation is a major source of ethnic conflict.” Elaborate the statement with relevant examples. (UPSC 2024, 10m)
- Ethnicity is the underlying cause which poses a great challenge in the resolution of the problems in the North-East region of India. Comment. (UPSC 2022, 20m)
If you go blank on a scholar or a stage, it is covered in full in the Foundation and OGP class notes and handouts — revise that page first, then write the answer.
