Identity Politics & Development Politics

Meaning

Identity politics = political mobilization around a shared social identity — caste, religion, language, region, ethnicity, tribe, gender or minority status. It emerges from shared experience of exclusion, humiliation, historical injustice, lack of representation, cultural insecurity and unequal access to state resources. It differs from purely ideological or class-based politics and gives voice to groups ignored by universal claims of nationalism, class or development. Craig Calhoun treats it as a modern phenomenon — an effort to consolidate individual and group identity in an impersonal world.

Merits

• Political voice to historically marginalized communities.
• Expands democratic participation.
• Builds self-respect among excluded groups.
• Secures reservations, representation, welfare claims.
• Pressures the state to address social injustice.

Limitations

• Hardens group boundaries.
• Produces competitive victimhood.
• Weakens common citizenship.
• Elite capture for narrow electoral gain.
• Reduces individuals to caste / community categories.

“Recognition is a matter of justice, not only because it provides self-respect and social esteem but also because it is a precondition for participation in democratic politics.”

Nancy Fraser

“Identity politics often reduces individuals to their group affiliations, limiting their freedom to express their varied identities.”

Todd Gitlin

Brian Barry and Amartya Sen caution that identity politics may slide into sectarianism if group claims override broader democratic principles.

“Identity Plus” Politics — Yogendra Yadav

Indian elections show neither pure identity politics nor pure development politics. Caste, religion and region remain important, but voters also weigh welfare delivery, employment, inflation, public goods, corruption, leadership, governance and national security. Yogendra Yadav calls this “Identity Plus” politics — caste and religion do not disappear; they combine with development claims. Fred W. Riggs’s “prismatic society” model fits India: tradition and modernity coexist rather than replace each other. Suhas Palshikar flags regional-identity themes (“Bihari vs Bahari”); Milan Vaishnav sees voters weighing economics more seriously; Pratap Bhanu Mehta warns excess identity politics can weaken the governance frame development needs.

Where Indian elections actually sit. Pure identity (dignity · recognition · caste / religion / region) → “Identity Plus” (Yadav) (identity + development together · 2014/19 Vikas · Bihari vs Bahari · UP/Gujarat coalition + Hindutva + welfare · AAP bijli-paani-shiksha) ← Pure development (welfare · governance · growth). Riggs’s prismatic society — tradition and modernity coexist, not one replacing the other.

Assessment

Identity politics deepens democracy when it gives dignity to excluded groups; it weakens democracy when it becomes a permanent instrument of polarization. Development politics turns thin if it ignores social injustice. The Indian pattern is a dynamic balance — identity gives voice; development gives legitimacy.

Caste in Indian Politics

Meaning & Sociological Basis

The word caste comes from Spanish/Portuguese casta — “race” or “lineage”. In India it is expressed through jāti: a hereditary, endogamous group with a shared name, ritual status, occupational association and social hierarchy. The varna scheme runs Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras and the historically excluded “untouchables” — now widely referred to as Dalits or Scheduled Castes.

• Louis Dumont (Homo Hierarchicus) → caste through hierarchy, purity and pollution; the Indian model of stratification, contrasted with the Western class model and tied to religious ideology and ritual rank.
• M. N. Srinivas → challenges Dumont’s rigidity; caste is flexible and dynamic. Gives Sanskritization (lower castes adopt higher-caste practices to raise status), Westernization, and the dominant caste (numerically strong + economically powerful + politically influential).
• Nicholas Dirks (Castes of Mind) → caste became a single, unique, rigid category under colonial modernity — enumeration, ethnography and administration hardened identities (not that caste did not exist earlier).

Historical Transformation

Andre Béteille’s sharp question: the Constitution abolishes untouchability without abolishing caste — making caste both a target of reform and a basis of public policy.

Caste Associations & Federations

Single-caste associations work on one caste’s education, welfare, representation and status. Caste federations combine castes for bargaining — e.g. Kshatriya Sabhas uniting Rajputs and Kolis in Gujarat. Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph argue caste associations nominate their own members for office, influence cabinets and legislatures, shape welfare / education / economic policy, organize previously excluded electorates and educate large sections in democratic values.

Caste as a Political Category — Rajni Kothari

Kothari’s core idea: politics has not merely been influenced by caste — politics has transformed caste. Three dimensions:

Kothari’s politicization of caste — three dimensions. Secularization (ritual purity/pollution → secular bargaining for reservation, jobs, tickets, leadership, welfare, state power) → Integration (fusion & fission — castes combine / split by calculation · Triveni Sangh · AJGAR · KHAM · MAJGAR) → Secular consciousness (lower castes grasp their political weight; numerical strength = bargaining power).

Coalitions: Triveni Sangh · Bihar · Kurmi + Yadav + Koeri · AJGAR · Ahir + Jat + Gujar + Rajput · KHAM · Gujarat · Kshatriya + Harijan + Adivasi + Muslim · MAJGAR · Muslim + AJGAR

“Casteism in politics is no more or no less than the politicization of caste.”

Rajni Kothari

UPSC 2021 · 15 marks — Explain how caste as a social category is also becoming a political category in the democratic politics of India.

Caste in Electoral Politics

Caste shapes ticket distribution, candidate selection, booth-level mobilization, vote banks, caste coalitions, campaign language, reservation claims, local leadership recruitment and social engineering.

Paul R. Brass describes the old Congress base as a “coalition of castes”. Christophe Jaffrelot calls lower-caste mobilization “India’s silent revolution”. Yogendra Yadav maps three democratic upsurges:

Yadav’s three democratic upsurges. 1st upsurge (1960s–70s · OBC & intermediate caste participation) → 2nd upsurge (1980s–90s · rising Dalit assertion) → 3rd upsurge (more marginalized groups enter democratic institutions).

UPSC 2023 · 20 marks — The rise of caste politics is to be attributed to both regional aspirations and electoral manifestations. Comment.

Caste in Non-Electoral Politics

Caste organizations also act outside elections — as pressure groups, welfare associations, educational trusts, hostels, scholarship networks, marriage-regulation bodies, health, cultural and dispute-resolution institutions; they run schools, hospitals, dharmashalas, libraries, festivals and welfare funds. Caste also produces conflict: land disputes trigger caste violence. Mendelsohn & Vicziany connect violence against Dalits with land and power; Dag-Erik Berg reads the Karamchedu massacre as status competition; Bihar’s caste armies of the late 1970s–80s show how land and caste dominance became armed conflict.

Dalit Politics

Pratap Bhanu Mehta (“New Dalit Challenge”): Dalits are no longer satisfied with mere constitutional recognition; they reject the “managerial” approach of symbolic co-option without real power; they build counter-hegemony by rewriting history; they move from survival politics to dignity politics — Bhima-Koregaon reflected this, colliding with upper-caste strategies of containment. C. P. Bhambri holds rising Dalit consciousness is positive but needs alliances with progressive forces. Further readings: Anand Teltumbde (mainstream appropriation dilutes radical Dalit politics), Sukhadeo Thorat (economic uplift essential), Kancha Ilaiah (education + economic empowerment central), Jaffrelot (Dalit parties = an alternative to mainstream politics).

Backward Classes & Mandal Politics

OBCs are not a single caste — internally heterogeneous, with dominant OBCs and Most Backward Castes differing sharply in access. Basis: zamindari abolition weakened landlord power; Green Revolution empowered intermediate peasant castes; Charan Singh mobilized Jats, Yadavs, Kurmis; Ram Manohar Lohia used quota politics against upper-caste dominance; Devi Lal and Karpoori Thakur added momentum. The B. P. Mandal Commission identified OBCs and recommended 27% reservation in central government jobs; V. P. Singh implemented it in 1990.

Kisan politics

Charan Singh — peasant solidarity against urban India.

Quota politics

Lohia & Janata Dal — caste-based affirmative action.

Christophe Jaffrelot argues Mandal enabled lower-caste people to vote for leaders from their own milieu. Limits: OBCs are not cohesive; Yadav dominance created internal tension; MBCs often felt excluded; Hindu nationalism offered a competing identity; BJP used social engineering to include non-dominant OBCs.

Reservation Politics & Caste Census

Supporters

• Caste inequality remains entrenched.
• Merit is shaped by structural disadvantage.
• Representation needs institutional support.
• Social justice requires compensatory policy.

Opponents

• Benefits may go to dominant OBC segments.
• Economic criteria should matter.
• Quotas may affect efficiency.
• Caste politics may deepen divisions.

Ghanshyam Shah’s study of Gujarat anti-reservation agitations shows middle-class anxieties + electoral calculation fuelling protest; Nikita Sud notes elites expand or reduce reservations to appease crucial voting blocs.

Caste census — the data points: credible data on OBCs and EBCs; Mandal estimated OBCs at 52%; other estimates vary between 36% and 65%; the Rohini Commission identified around 2,633 castes covered by OBC reservation. It can redistribute quota benefits within OBCs, expose upper-caste over-representation and support evidence-based welfare — while raising fears of sharper caste competition.

“90 out of 100 are exploited and 90% belongs to us.”

Babu Jagdev Prasad Kushwaha

UPSC 2025 · 15 marks — Caste remains a vital axis for political mobilisation in India. How would the caste census address the aspirations of people? Discuss.

Caste, Class & Democracy

Caste and class overlap but are not identical. M. N. Srinivas and F. G. Bailey link land ownership with caste status; globalization and urbanization produced intra-caste stratification — rich and poor within the same caste; dominant agrarian castes demand backward status as agrarian income falls. Rudolph & Rudolph’s “bullock capitalists” explain politically influential small landowners. Sudipta Kaviraj reads India as moving from a hierarchy of castes towards a democracy of castes.

Caste strengthens democracy when it

• brings marginalized groups into politics,
• broadens representation,
• breaks upper-caste monopoly,
• supports affirmative action,
• creates political voice.

…and weakens it when it

• hardens identities,
• fuels communal counter-mobilization,
• promotes factionalism & violence,
• weakens class politics,
• reduces citizenship to group claims.

Ashutosh Varshney (Battles Half Won): caste-based mobilization has made elections successful, but democracy between elections remains weak — the next task is deepening democracy. Pratap Bhanu Mehta warns of the gap between representation and responsiveness: symbolic representation expands, policy responsiveness lags.

Assessment

Caste has moved from hierarchy to negotiation — secularized, politicized and democratized. It has empowered Dalits, OBCs and lower castes, but also produced fragmentation, violence and competitive populism. Indian democracy cannot be understood without caste; yet democratic justice cannot end with caste arithmetic.

Developmental vs Ascriptive Politics

Ascriptive politics rests on caste, religion, region, birth, ethnicity and social status. Post-liberalisation, development issues moved centre-stage: jobs, entrepreneurship, FDI, infrastructure, business sentiment, inflation, welfare delivery.

• Changes — ideological dilution of parties; wider acceptance of the growth agenda; rise of pocket-book voting; leaders judged on economic performance; higher turnout; a shrinking gender gap; social media diversifying political information.
• But ascription persists — caste and religious mobilisation, dynastic parties, weak rule-of-law institutionalisation, poor representation of weaker sections, findings of the Sachar Committee.
• Kanchan Chandra — ethnicity has been modernised, not eliminated, by technology and modernisation.

Developmental politics has expanded — it has not displaced ascriptive politics.