Is India Becoming More Democratic? Author(s): Ashutosh Varshney Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Feb., 2000), pp. 3-25 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2658582 . Accessed: 04/02/2011 16:22

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http://www.jstor.org Is India Becoming More Democratic?

ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

(A) long traditionof ideologicalsubjection has made (the lowercastes) stagnate.... Centurieshave instilledinto them a meek acceptanceof the existing(order).... This can change.In fact,this must change. The revoltagainst caste is theresurrection ofIndia or,shall we say,the bringing into being of a uniquelyand hithertounrealized occasion,when India shall be trulyand fullyalive. Is such a revoltpossible? RammanoharLohia, The CasteSystem

A great deal of confusion exists on how to discuss, and theoreticallycharacterize, political developments in India during the last decade and a half. There is, of course, a consensus that the Congress party, a towering political colossus between 1920 and 1989, has unambiguously declined. While there are legitimate doubts about whether the decline of the Congress partywill continue to be irreversible,it is clear that much of the political space already vacated by the Congress has so far been filled by three differentsets of political forces. The firstforce, Hindu nationalism, has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention (Basu 1997; Hansen and Jaffrelot1998; Jaffrelot 1993; Varshney 1993). The second force,regionalism, has also spawned considerable researchof late (Baruah 1999; Singh forthcoming;Subramanian 1999). A third force, not so extensivelyanalyzed, covers an arrayof political parties and organizations that encompass groups normally classified under the umbrella category of "lower castes": the so-called scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes, and the "other backward classes" (OBCs). How should we understand the politics of parties representingthese groups? How far will they go? What are the implications of their forwardmarch, if it does take place, for Indian democracy? In an attempt to answer these questions, this essay compares political developments in Northern and Southern India. My principal claim is that our judgments about contemporaryNorth Indian politics will be wrong if we do not place at the center of our analytic attention. In this century, the South has experienced caste-based politics much more intensely than the other regions of India. If the Hindu-Muslim cleavage has been a "master narrative"of politics in North India formuch of the twentiethcentury, caste divisions have had the same status in Southern

AshutoshVarshney is an AssociateProfessor of Governmentand InternationalStudies at the Universityof Notre Dame. For comments,the writeris gratefulto Hasan Askari-Rizvi, JagdishBhagwati, Kanchan Chandra,Robert Hardgrave,Pratap Mehta, Philip Oldenburg, Vibha Pingle, Sanjay , AlfredStepan, the late MyronWeiner, Yogendra Yadav, and two anonymousreviewers of this journal. TheJournal of Asian Studies59, no. 1 (February2000):3-25. C) 2000 by the Associationfor Asian Studies,Inc.

3 4 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

India (Dirks 1997; Varshneyforthcoming).' Partly because electoralpolitics was organizedaround caste lines in theSouth and notaround a Hindu-Muslimaxis, lower castes,constituting an electoralmajority, came to powerin virtuallyall southernstates by the 1960s. Our analysisof recentNorth Indian politics will be deeper if we appreciatehow theempowerment of lower castes took place in theSouth. An exclusive focus on Hindu-Muslim divisionsdeflects attention away fromwhat is clearlya significantcaste-based churning in the North. The majorSouth Indian conclusionabout casteis culturallycounterintuitive but politicallyeasily grasped. Socially and ritually,caste has alwayssymbolized hierarchy and inequality;however, when joined with universal-franchisedemocracy, caste can paradoxicallybe an instrumentof equalization and dignity(Beteille 1996; Dirks 1997; Kothari1970; Rudolphand Rudolph 1987 and 1967; Weiner 1997). Weighed down by tradition,lower castes do not give up their caste identities; rather,they "deconstruct"and "reinvent"caste history,deploy in politicsa readilyavailable and easilymobilized social category ("low caste"),use theirnumbers to electoraladvantage, and fightprejudice and dominationpolitically. It is the uppercastes, beneficiaries of the caste systemfor centuries, that typicallywish caste did not existwhen a lower castechallenge appears from below. North India today,and in future,may not follow in South India's footsteps entirely,but the rise of lower-castepolitics in the North alreadybears striking similarities.Even Hindu nationalism,though fundamentally opposed to lower-caste politicsin ideologicalterms and quite formidablein the North,has not been able to dictateterms to northernlower-caste politicians. By implicationas well as intention, Hindu nationalismstands for Hindu unity,not forcaste consciousness.Lower-caste partiesare againstHindu unity.Arguing that Hindu uppercastes have long denied power,privilege, and even dignityto the lower castes,they are advocatesof caste- based social justice and a caste-basedrestructuration of power. Such has been the powerof lower-castepolitics in recentyears that it has forcedHindu nationaliststo makeideologically distasteful but pragmaticallynecessary political coalitions. For the sake of power, the Hindu nationalists-afterthe twelfthand for the thirteenth nationalelections held in 1998 and 1999, respectively-hadto team up with other parties,several of whomwere based among the lowercastes. The latter,among other things,ensured that the ideologicallypure demands of Hindu nationalism-the building of a temple in Ayodhya;a common civil code and no religiouslybased personallaws forminorities; abolition of the special statusof Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim majoritystate of Indian federation;elimination of the Minorities Commission-weredropped and a programmore acceptable to thelower-caste parties was formulated. Thus, in theirmoment of glory,the Hindu nationalistshave been ideologically deceived. As they have ended their long isolation in Indian politics and formed governmentsin Delhi, theyhave also been forcedby lower-castepoliticians to make programmaticcompromises. While Hindu nationalistshave indeed come to powerin Delhi, Hindu nationalismas an ideologyhas not. Can Hindu nationalismfinally overpower the lower-castemobilization in the North? Alternatively,are lower-castepoliticians strong enough to defeat Hindu

'With the prominentexception of the formerprincely state of Hyderabad (Varshney 1997). As to how Britishrule may have turnedcaste into a masternarrative of South Indian politics,paralleling the Hindu-Muslimnarrative in NorthIndia, see Dirks (1987). In strictly politicalterms, Dirks says,Hindu Brahminscan be describedas "the Muslimsof South India" (Dirks 1997, 279). IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 5 nationalists,or, less radically,transform the characterof Hindu nationalismas it tries somehow to accommodate a lower-castesurge? Our understandingof India's democracywill be shaped by how thesequestions are answeredin the comingyears. Hindu nationalismis majoritarianin impulse.In its ideologicalpurity, it is deeply threateningto non-Hindu minorities,who constituteabout 18 percent of the country'spopulation. Lower-caste politics also endeavorsto be majoritarianbut, much as working-classpolitics was in late nineteenth-centuryWestern Europe, its ideological aim is to put togethera plebeian, not a religious, majority.It is nonthreateningto religiousminorities and inclined towardsthe socioeconomically disadvantaged. More thanever before, we need to pay greaterattention to the determinantsand dynamicsof India's plebeianpolitics. As is becomingincreasingly clear, lower-caste partiesmay not be able to come to poweron theirown, but it is unlikelythat any governmentin Delhi in the foreseeablefuture can be formedwithout them. Even if the Congressparty returns to power,it is almostcertain that such a returnwill either incorporatethe lower-casteparties in a coalition,or havemany lower caste politicians as visiblepower-centers in the Congressparty hierarchy.

The Larger Picture: From a North-SouthDivide to an Emerging Southernizationof North India

Let us begin with a briefcomparison of the caste compositionof Indian politics today with the situationsoon afterindependence. In the 1950s, India's national politicswas dominatedby English-speaking,urban politicians trained in law. Most politicianscame fromthe uppercastes, and manyleaders were trained abroad. Lower down the politicalhierarchy, an agrarianand "vernacular"elite dominatedlocal and statepolitics (Weiner 1962), but even the lower-levelpolitical leadership tended to come fromthe uppercastes in NorthIndia. South India was different.Southern politicians were not only "vernacular"but, as the 1950s evolved,they were also increasinglyfrom the lowercastes (Hardgrave 1965; Subramanian1999). By the 1960s, much of South India had gone thougha relativelypeaceful lower caste revolution: the Dravida Munetra Kazgham (DMK) came to powerin as an anti-Brahminparty in the 1960s, and the Communist party,first in powerin in 1957, was primarilybased in theEzhava community, a low casteof traditional toddy-tappers engaged in theproduction of indigenous liquor (Nossiter1982).2 The social indignitiesinflicted on the Nadars of Tamil Nadu, anothertoddy- tappingcaste of traditional South India, are all too well known(Hardgrave 1969). To appreciatehow much the stateof Kerala has changed,it would be instructiveto get a sense of the humiliationthe routinelysuffered until the earlydecades of this century: Theywere not allowed to walkon publicroads.... Theywere Hindus, but they couldnot enter temples. While their pigs and cattlecould frequent the premises of

2in the two otherSouth Indian states,Karnakata and AndhraPradesh, the lower caste thrustof politics, though present, has been less pronounced.For ,see Manor(1990); forAndhra, Ram Reddy (1990). 6 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

the temple,they were not allowed to go even there.Ezhavas could not use public wells or public places...... An should keep himself,at least thirtysix feet away froma Namboodiriand twelvefeet away froma Nair. ... He must addressa caste Hindu man, as Thampuran(My Lord) and womanas Thampurati(My Lady).... He must stand beforea caste Hindu in awe and reverence,assuming a humble posture.He should neverdress himselfup like a caste Hindu; neverconstruct a house on the uppercaste model.... The womenfolk of the community ... wererequired, young and old, to appear beforecaste Hindus, always topless.About the ornamentsalso, therewere restrictions.There were certainprescribed ornaments only which they (could) wear. (Rajendran1974, 23-24)

By the 1960s, in much of the public sphere in Southern India, not simply in Kerala, such egregious debasement and quotidian outrage had been radicallycurtailed, if not entirely eliminated. A democratic empowerment of the lower castes was the catalytic agent forthe social transformation.The lower castes were always numerically larger than the Brahmins, but were unable to use their numbers before the rise of universal franchise. A classic distinction between horizontal and vertical political mobilization proposed by Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph (1967) captured the essence of North-South political differencesat the time. In South India, lower castes had already developed their own leaders and parties by the 1950s and 1960s, whereas in North India the model of mobilization was top-down, with lower castes dependent on the upper castes in a clientelistic relationship. At the national level, the Congress party aggregated horizontally, as it brought together differentlinguistic and religious groups, but at the local level, it was a typical clientelistic party,building a pyramid of caste coalitions under the existing social elite (Weiner 1967). In the 1980s and 1990s, a southern-styleplebeian politics has rocked North India. The names of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Yadav, Kanshi Ram, and Mayawati-all "vernacular" politicians who have risen frombelow-repeatedly make headlines. They are not united. Indeed, substantial obstacles to unity, both vertical and horizontal, remain. Vertically, though all lower castes are below the upper castes/varnas (Brahmins, Kshtariyas, and Vaishyas), there are serious internal differentiationsand hierarchieswithin the lower-caste category.And, horizontally,even though castesystem is present all over India, eachcaste has only local or regional meaning, making it hard to build extralocal or extraregional alliances. Thus, horizontal mobilization tends to be primarily regional or state-specific,not nationwide. Nonetheless, these and other lower caste leaders have often made or broken coalitions in power. Their total vote share continues to be lower than that for the Congress and (BJP) respectively, but it is enough to force concessions fromthe two largest parties. In the three national elections held between 1996 and 1999, the various parties explicitly representing lower castes, in the aggregate, received between 18 to 20 percent of the national vote, as against 20 to 25 percent forthe BJP, and 23 to 29 percent forthe Congress Party.3Disunity at the

3Basedon the Election Commission1996, 40-51, and Election Commission1998, 49- 56. The 1999 data are provisional.The explicitlylower-caste parties are: JD (variousversions), RJD, SP, BSP, JP, ADMK, DMK, MDMK, PMK, BJD, and RPI. IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 7 level ofpolitical parties notwithstanding, lower-caste politics has come to stay.4It has pressedthe polity in new policydirections, and introduceda new coloringof phrases, diction,and stylesin politics. The powerof the new plebeian politicalelite is no longerconfined to the state level, thoughthat is whereit is most prominent.The centerhas also been socially reconfigured.Delhi has twicehad primarilylower-caste coalitions in power-between 1989 and 1991 and between1996 and 1998. In K. R. Narayanan,India todayhas its firstex-Untouchable President. In a parliamentarysystem, of course, the President is onlya head of state,not a head of government.What lendsNarayanan's election a special politicalmeaning is that no politicalparty in India, with the exceptionof a regionalparty (the Shiv Sena), had the courageto oppose his nomination.Narayanan was electedPresident by a near-consensusvote in 1997, a featnot easilyachievable in India's adversarialpolity. Governmentpolicies and programshave also acquireda new thrust.An enlarged affirmativeaction program and a restructuringof the power structure on theground- street-levelbureaucracies and police stations-have been the battle cryof the new plebeianelite. By far,their most striking national success is the additionof an extra 27 percentreservation for the lowercastes to centralgovernment jobs and educational seats.In the 1950s, only22.5 percentof such jobs werereserved, and morethan three- fourthswere openly competitive. Today, these proportions are 49.5 and 50.5 percent, respectively.At the statelevel, the reservedquota has been higherfor a long time in much of southernIndia. Indian politicsthus has a new lower-castethrust, now prevalentboth in muchof the North as well as the South. Democracyhas been substantiallyindigenized, and the shadow of Oxbridge has left India's political center-stage.Does the rising vernacularizationmean that India's democracyis becomingmore participatory and inclusive,or simply more chaotic and unruly?Or, are such developmentsmere cosmetic changes on the surface,a political veneer concealing an unchanging socioeconomicstructure of powerand privilege? To understandwhat the riseof lowercastes can do to politics,state institutions, and policy,we needto understandthe twentieth-century history of South India, where thelower castes have exercised remarkable power since the late 1950s and early1960s. Plebeian politicsin South India was primarilyconceptualized in termsof caste,not class. Even the ideologicallyclass-based Communists in the stateof Kerala foundit necessaryto plug into a discourseof caste-basedinjustice in the 1930s and 1940s, and they relied heavilyon the traditionallydepressed Ezhava caste for their rise (Nossiter1982). Indeed, with isolated exceptions,caste ratherthan class has been the primary mode of subalternexperience in India. The risingmiddle class of a low caste has customarilyhad to fightsocial discriminationand disadvantage.For contesting hierarchyand domination,therefore, the emerging elite of lower castes has everyreason to use caste identitiesin politics.Whether this strategymeans thatin the long run caste itselfwill disappear,as some lower-casteintellectuals and leaders have long wished (Ambedkar 1990), remainsunclear. What is clear is that, relyingon a horizontalmobilization, a large proportionof the lower castes would ratherfight prejudicehere and now,whatever the long-runconsequences.

4In the 1999 elections,it was widelypredicted that the electoratewould deal a serious blow to lower-casteparties in the North. In Uttar Pradesh,SP and BSP increasedtheir share of seats,even as theirvotes marginallydeclined; in Bihar,RJD kept its vote shareintact, but lost seats due to the BJP's superiorcoalition-making strategy. 8 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

The Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in North India

The papersin thissymposium go beyondthe aggregate profile summarized above, and addressin detail the recentpolitical fortunesof threedifferent and historically underprivilegedsocial groupsin NorthIndia:5 the ex-Untouchables,officially named scheduledcastes by India's constitution,and oftenalso called the ; the tribals, called scheduledtribes since 1950;6 and the otherbackward classes (OBCs) among the Hindus. Technically,the termOBC incorporatestwo differentdisadvantaged communities-Hindu and non-Hindu. Of these, Hindu OBCs are the low castes whosetraditional social and ritualstatus has beenabove the ex-Untouchable scheduled castes,but below the upper castes(figure 1). Hindu OBCs overlapmostly with the Sudra varna of traditionalhierarchy, a categoryconsisting mainly of peasantsand artisans. Accordingto the 1991 census,the scheduled castes constituted about 16.5 percent ofIndia's population, and thescheduled tribes 8.1 percent.Because no fullcaste census has been takenin India since 1931, statisticalexactitude on theOBCs, Hindu or non- Hindu, is not possible. We do have approximatefigures, however. The Mandal Commission,the onlynationwide source available on theOBCs, suggeststhat Hindu OBCs constituteabout 43.7 percentof the total population(OBCs hereafter,unless a distinctionis necessarybetween Hindu and non-HinduOBCs).7 These threegroups constitutea majorityof India's populationand electorate.8 Since independence,the scheduledcastes have primarilysupported the Congress partyin India. Though the leadersof the Congressparty typically came fromthe uppercastes, they were able to get scheduledcaste support partly because the Congress partywas the firstarchitect of the affirmativeaction program,and partlybecause traditionalpatron-client relationships in villageswere on the whole alive and robust. In 1984, a new political partyof the scheduledcastes-the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-was launched.Receiving 4.0, 4.7, and 4.3 percentof India's votein the 1996, 1998, and 1999 nationalelections, respectively (up from1.6 percentin 1991), the BSP may not yet be a powerfulforce in nationalparliament. However, on the basis

5Strictlyspeaking, the argumentsin this essayapply only to Northand South India but theycan, in a modifiedform, be extendedto the westernstates of Gujarat and too. Lower-casteparties may not have played a similarrole in the West, but a lower caste churningfrom below has affectedpolitics seriously (Wood 1996; Omvedt 1993). It is,however, not clearhow farthese arguments will apply to stateseast of Bihar. 6Thoughtechnically scheduled tribes are not part of the Hindu caste system,there has been a consensusin politicalcircles that along withthe scheduled castes, they were historically themost deprived group in India. It shouldalso be notedthat in somecircles, the term "tribal" is viewed as pejorative.However, we don't yet have an appropriatesubstitute. For want of a betterterm, I will use the term"tribal" in this essay,without implying anything pejorative. 7Non-HinduOBCs are about 8.40 percentof India's population.Thus, in all, the OBCs constitute52 percentof the country(Mandal Commission,1980, 1:56). 8Thereis some dispute over whetherthe Mandal Commissionoverestimated the size of theOBCs, but the natureof thatdispute does not changethe professional consensus that these threegroups together constitute a majorityof India's population.Since thepopulation growth rates,according to demographers,are typicallyhigher at lowerends of economicscale, it also means that the OBC proportionof the electorateis likelyto be higherthan theirpercentage in the population. IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 9

DominantCastes 6%

Sudras 43% HinduOBCs (mostly)

Scheduled Castes16.5% and Scheduled Tribes8.1%

Figure 1. All-India Hindu Ritual Hierarchy.Note: (1) The non- ScheduledCastes and Tribes figuresare best guesses.Beyond the ScheduledCastes and Tribes,caste censushas not been takensince 1931. These best guesses,however, are widelyviewed as statistically reasonable,if not statisticallyexact. (2) Since a fractionof Scheduled Tribesare Christians,the numbersabove add up to morethan 82%. Source:(1) For ScheduledCastes and Tribes,Government of India, Censusof India, 1991; (2) forother castes, Government of India, Reportof theBackward Classes Commission (Mandal CommissionReport), FirstPart, Vol. 1 (1980). of the shareof nationalvote, it has alreadybecome the fourthlargest party in India, followingthe Congress,the BJP,and the CommunistParty Marxist (CPM).9 More importantly,the BSP has developed a substantialpolitical presencein almostall NorthIndian states,especially Uttar Pradesh (UP), Punjab, Haryana,and MadhyaPradesh (MP). In UP, India's largeststate, the party has been twicein power, thougheach timebriefly and withthe support of other parties. By 1996, theBSP had startedreceiving a whopping20 percentof UP's vote, cripplingthe once-mighty Congressin its citadelof great historic strength. In the 1996, 1998, and 1999 national elections,the Congressparty's vote in UP was considerablybelow that of the BSP. Well until the mid-1980s, such scenariosfor the Congressin UP were altogether inconceivable.'?

9At 5 to 5.5 percent,the CPM's shareof the nationalvote has been onlyslightly higher than thatof the BSP in 1996, 1998, and 1999. But the CPM has each time won manymore seatsthan the BSP, forthe BSP's vote is not as geographicallyconcentrated as thatof the CPM. 'Oltis arguablethat if Mrs. Gandhi had not been assassinatedbarely 3-4 monthsbefore the 1984 nationalelections, the lower caste upsurgewould have shakennational politics in 1984 itself,instead of waitingtill 1989. Her assassinationchanged the issuesentirely in the 1984 elections. 10 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

How did the BSP breakthe dependenceof the scheduledcastes on theCongress? Kanchan Chandra,in her paper forthe symposium,provides an answerby taking researchdown to the constituencylevel. The resultsfrom Hoshiarpur, Punjab, are reportedhere, supplemented also withresearch done at theconstituency level in Uttar Pradesh. Chandraargues that the BSP's successin replacingCongress is built upon two factors.First, affirmative action for the scheduledcastes has led to the emergenceof a middle class among them. The new middle class is made almost entirelyof governmentofficers and clerks.Despite experiencingupward mobility, these officers have continued to face social discrimination.Endured silently earlier, such discriminationhas by nowled to a firmresolve to fightfor respect and dignity.Second, the scheduled castes within the Congress experiencedwhat Chandra calls a "representationalblockage." Most districtcommittees of the Congresshave been dominatedby upper-castepoliticians. Scheduled caste leaderswere mere tokens and symbols in the party structure.Since the early 1990s, such meager rewardsof clientelismhave been consideredlargely insufficient by the newlymobile scheduled castes. The new middle class eventuallytook overas local BSP leaders.Their strategy was to arguethat humiliation, rather than economic deprivation, was themain problem of the scheduledcastes, and thatgreater political representation, instead of material advantage,was the principalsolution. The scheduledcastes had to be horizontally mobilized,had to have a partyof theirown, and had to win assemblyseats. Financed by the new middle class, the BSP took offin much of North India and developeda largegroup of cadres. However,as the BSP has progressedfurther, new politicalrealities have dawned. In no Indianstate do thescheduled castes constitute even 30 percentof the population, norare theygeographically concentrated, nor forthat matter do all scheduledcastes vote forthe BSP, thougha large proportiondoes (Chandra,in this volume). As a consequence,the BSP cannotcapture power at the statelevel, unless it incorporates othergroups or developsalliances with otherparties. The need foralliance making has led to a moderationin BSP's rhetoric.Still, such moderationis differentfrom being a clientin the Congresshierarchy, for the BSP now capturesbetween 7 and 20 percentof the vote in Haryana,Punjab, MP, and UP (ElectionCommission 1996 and 1998) and thus,in a fragmentedpolitical space dominatedby no single party,the BSP has the politicalmuscle to strikebargains over legislative seats, appointments, policies,and materialgoods. In the past, benefitswere not bargainedfor, but handed top-downby the Congressparty and assumedto be sufficient. Unlike thescheduled castes, the scheduled tribes are geographically concentrated. For example,in the stateof Bihar,the site of StuartCorbridge's research reported in this symposium,they live mostlyin the South. Since 1981, Corbridge'sfieldwork among Bihartribals has repeatedlytaken him fromsome of the state'surban centers, wheremost of the tribal government and public sectoremployees work, to threetribal villages,from where they come. Combiningparticipant observation and statistical research,Corbridge is able systematicallyto compare the situationof tribals in governmentjobs withtheir rural backgrounds. He arguesthat both affirmative action and democracyhave offerednew opportunitiesto the tribes.They have made possible materialadvancement for many, and led to a new awarenessof politics and powerfor the whole group. One consequence of affirmativeaction is that the tiny middle class of the scheduledtribes has become considerablylarger. And a resultof democraticpolitics IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 11 is thata tribal-basedpolitical party has been headinga movementfor a separatestate in theIndian federation, where the tribalpopulation would be in a majority.Though several prejudices and exclusions remain, Corbridgeargues that the benefitsof democracyand affirmativeaction have been quite considerable,and mayeven expand furtherif a new state with a scheduled-tribemajority is born in the comingyears. The latterpossibility can no longerbe ruledout. The OBCs, coveredby ChristopheJaffrelot in thissymposium, are differentfrom the othertwo groups.As alreadynoted, compared to the scheduledcastes and tribes, the OBCs commandmuch largernumbers: according to the Mandal Commission, Hindu OBCs constituteabout 43.7 percentof India's totalpopulation. Being mostly Sudras,the OBCs have faced many social and economicdisadvantages, but the fit betweenthe two categories-OBC and Sudra-is not perfect. If one goes by the all-India classificationof castes,a national-levelabstraction, the picture that emerges is unable to capture the many regional variationsin dominanceand power.Sociologists and social anthropologistsconstrue the term Sudra to include,but the categoryof OBC on the whole excludes,the so-called"dominant castes": the Jats, Reddys, Kammas, Patels, Marathas,and others.The notion of "dominantcastes" was coinedby M. N. Srinivas(1966) to specifythose groups which, in a ritualisticor formalsense of the all-India castelvarna hierarchy, have been termed Sudras,but the ritualisticusage of the termis vacuous because these groups have historicallybeen substantiallandowners and ratherpowerful in theirlocal or regional settings.In any realisticsense, the termSudra can not be applied to them,nor are theytypically included among the OBCs. Jaffrelotargues that the riseof theJanata party to nationalpower in 1977 was a turningpoint forthe OBCs. Since then,the shareof upper-castelegislators in North Indian assembliesand nationalparliament has, by and large,been decliningand that of the OBCs going up, the state of Rajasthanbeing the only exception.In the first Lok Sabha (1952-57), Jaffrelotcalculates, 64 percentof North Indian Membersof Parliament(MPs) werefrom the upper castesand only4.5 percentfrom the OBCs; by 1996, the formerproportion had declinedto 30.5 percentand the latterrisen to 24.8 percent. Jaffrelotalso showshow the contradictionswithin the sprawlingSudra category have producedtwo differentkinds of plebeianpolitics in North India. For political mobilization,an urbanversus rural ideology was proposedby the redoubtableCharan Singh,and an upperversus lower caste constructionby Ram ManoharLohia. Charan Singh's was a sectoralworldview. It subsumedthe lowercastes in a largerpolitical categoryof the ruralsector, in whichthe lowercastes were a clearmajority. His main demandswere economic: higher crop and lowerinput prices in agriculture,and greater public investmentin thecountryside.11 In contrast,since both cities and villageshave lower castes,Lohia's ideologycut throughthe urban-ruralsectors as well as Hindu society.Affirmative action for the lower castes was Lohia'sprincipal thrust and a social restructuringof state institutions-especiallythe bureaucracyand police-his primaryobjective (Lohia 1964). Afterseveral ups and downs,the biggestvotaries of sectoralpolitics have been defeatedin electoralpolitics. Nonpartypolitics is now their principal arena of functioning,and caste has trumpedsector in plebeianpolitics. If demandsfor higher agriculturalprices are expressedtoday, it is the lower-casteparties that primarilydo so, not ruralparties.

11Forfurther details, see Varshney(1995). 12 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

Checkingthe further rise of OBCs, however,are two countervailingforces: Hindu nationalismand the disunitywithin the OBCs. With an ideologicalstress on Hindu unityrather than caste distinctions,the Hindu nationalistsseek to co-opt OBCs in the larger"Hindu family";and new distinctionsare also gettinginstitutionalized betweenthe upperOBCs, such as the Yadavas, and the lowerOBCs, such as the Telis and Lodhas. These differenceshave alreadyundermined the OBC cohesionevident at the time of the Mandal agitationof the early1990s. It is notyet clear, says Jaffrelot, whether the lower OBCs will risefurther, or only the upper OBCs will. But, at any rate,a reestablishmentof upper caste dominance, he suggests,is now ratherunlikely in NorthIndian politics.Political power in North India has moved downward.Even Hindu nationalists,the biggest proponentsof Hindu unity,are increasinglycaught between giving a greatershare of internal power to the OBCs and emphasizingHindu unity over caste considerations.The latter tendency, traditionallyunquestioned in Hindu nationalist politics, is being challenged.Fighting it is a new ideologicalposture- "socialengineering" -proposed by some partyideologues, who would rathergive OBCs morepower and visibilityin the BJP. "Social engineering"is not another expressionof vertical clientelism organizedunder upper caste leadership,but an attemptto build Hindu unityby incorporatinglower castes more equally.

The New Plebeian Upsurge and Democracy

Has the rise of lower castes in the North, now added to their southern empowerment,changed Indian democracy?The collectivejudgment above, as well as the view of severalothers, is thatIndia's democracyhas become moreinclusive and participatory(Sheth 1996; Nandy 1996; Varshney1998; Weiner 1997; Yadav 1996a and b, 1999). A relative professionalconsensus is building around Yadav's characterizationthat India is going thougha "seconddemocratic upsurge." The first upsurge,for him, was the beginningof the end of Congressdominance in the mid- 1960s. In a century-longperspective, however, it is perhapsfair to say thatthis is the fourthdemocratic upsurge in India. The rise of mass politics in the 1920s under Gandhi's leadership was the first,and the universalizationof franchiseafter independencethe second. Such judgments,of course, have not remaineduncontested. Even thosewho agree thatpower has decisivelymoved down the caste hierarchyare unsureabout what it meansfor the country's democratic health or longevity.India's English-languagepress has, on the whole,bemoaned the rise of the new plebeianpoliticians, holding them oftenresponsible for the decline of political standards. The anxiouschorus of everyday criticismhas acquiredstandard refrains: how thelanguage of politics has becomemore coarseand the stylemore rough, compared to the sophisticationof political dialogue and conductunder Near; how men of "dubiousprovenance" have taken over electoral politics;and howthe governmental stability of a previousera has given way to unstable and unruly coalitions,in which mutual differencesquickly turn into unseemly bickeringand intemperateoutbursts. Though rarelyopenly stated,the subtextof English-languagecommentary appears to be that a democracymoving downwards maywell be a poorerand shakierdemocracy. Such anxietyis genuinelyfelt and shouldnot be lightlydismissed. It is notsimply a swan song of an anglicized,globally linked, upper-casteelite, dominatingthe IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 13 powerfulEnglish-language press but findingits politicaldecline frustrating. We do, however,need to put the anxietyin perspective. A large number of political theorists today, not simply the so-called communitarians,lament the declineof moralvalues, or "civic virtue,"in all liberal democracies.No currentlyfunctioning democracy in the world seems to have institutionsor mechanismsin place to ensurea durablemoral or civic enhancement ofthe political life. Democratic politicians, say these theorists, are increasingly turning politics into a marketplace,paying attentionmerely to the utilitariancalculus of routinepolitics: winning elections regardlessof what it takes to do so; making promisesto citizensthat cannot be fulfilled;"misbehaving" while in officebut seeking coverof legal principlesand technicalformalities. If the qualityof goals pursuedin politics becomes immaterial,these political theoristscontend, even procedurally correctdemocratic politics can only weaken the moral and civic fiberof nations. Democraciestoday are ceasingto be "civic republics";they are becoming"procedural republics"(Sandel 1996; Taylor 1998). Lest it shouldbe believedthat such lamentis confinedonly to theinsulated ivory towersof universities,consider some of the populardiscourse, reflected in the press. "How low can theygo?," moanedNorth America's leading business newspaper in its editorial,reporting on campaignsin the U.S. forthe November1998 electionsand highlightingthe corrupt electoral practices still followed in someparts of the country: (V)oterfraud is slowlyundermining the legitimacy of more and more elections.... Sincealmost all statesdon't require a photoID, it is fairlyeasy to votein thename ofdead people, vote if you are an illegalalien, falsify an absenteeballot or vote more thanonce. ... Twoyears ago, groups using federal funds registered hundreds of non-citizens in OrangeCounty, California. The HouseOversight Committee . . . cameup with thename of 1499 voterswho should be removedfrom the rolls, but election officials claimit is toolate to purgethem for today's election. This month, the Los Angeles Countryregistrar identified 16,000 phony registrations submitted by twogroups alignedwith the Democratic Party. (The Wall StreetJournal,3 November 1998)

Unvirtuouspolitics, in otherwords, is notspecific to Indiandemocracy. A decline in moralityand a debasementof political practices and languageare indeed significant problemsfor any society,as they have been for India. But unless they entirely invalidatecitizen preferences,they do not amount to a negation of democracy. Fortunately,the latteris not the conclusionof India's English-languagepress. It is a call forcorrection, which we mayall share,not an argumentthat democracy in India has becomemeaningless.

Democratic Authoritarianism?

A second challenge to the view that India's democracyis becoming more participatoryis rathermore radical in conceptionand thrust.Simply put, itsprincipal claim is thatIndia's democracyis a sham. In Jalal (1995), we have the mostdetailed statementof this view, thoughsofter versions can also be foundin Bonner(1994), Brass (1990), Lele (1990), Shah (1990), and Vanaik (1990). Accordingto thisview, changes at the level of electionsand electedinstitutions are oflittle consequence so long as the social and economicinequalities of civil society 14 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY remainunaltered, and the non-electedstate institutions,especially the bureaucracy and police, continueto act in an authoritarianmanner vis-a-vis the citizens,much as theyused to whenthe Britishruled. For democracyto functionin a real,not formal, sense, therehas to be greaterprior equality among its citizens.A deeply unequal societycannot check the authoritarian functioning of the state structures and therefore cannothave a politythat is "really"democratic. "Democraticauthoritarianism," Jalal argues,is the best way to describeIndia's polity, and there are no fundamentaldifferences between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, except at the level of political superstructure.All have profound socioeconomicinequalities and all have inheritedinsensitive, colonial state structures in whichthe nonelectedinstitutions easily trump the electedpowers-that-be:

The simpledichotomy between democracy in Indiaand military authoritarianism in Pakistanand Bangladesh collapses as soonas onedelves below the surface phenomena ofpolitical processes. . . . (P)ost-colonialIndia and Pakistanexhibit alternate forms ofauthoritarianism. The nurturingofthe parliamentary form of government through themeticulous observance of theritual of electionsin Indiaenabled a partnership betweenthe political leadership and the non-elected institutions ofthe state to preside overa democraticauthoritarianism. (Jalal1995, 249-50)

Thus, evenwhen meticulously observed, elections are basicallya "ritual."At best, theycombine "formaldemocracy and covertauthoritarianism" (99). If societiesare unequal, the poor will inevitablybe manipulatedby the politicalelite:

Unless capable of extendingtheir voting rights beyond the confinesof the institutionalizedelectoral arenas to an effectivestruggle against social and economic exploitation,legal citizensare morelikely to be handmaidsof powerfulpolitical manipulatorsthan autonomous agents deriving concrete rewards from democratic processes. (48)

In its theoreticalanchorage, we should note,this kind of reasoningis not new. Commonlyassociated with Marx,Lenin, Gramsci, Mosca, and Pareto,it has a long lineage lastingover a century.The argumentsof Gramsciand Mosca are the most elaborate.12Gramsci (1971) reasonedthat so long as the economicallypowerful had controlover the culturalmeans of a society-its newspapers,its education,its arts- theycould establisha hegemonyover the subalternclasses and essentiallyobfuscate thesubaltern about their own interests.And Mosca (1939) arguedthat in democracies, given theirmany inequalities, domination of a small elite was inevitable. For our discussionabout caste and democracy,there are two levels at whichthe claim about the emptinessof Indian democracycompels attention:theoretical and empirical.The key theoreticalissue is: Should we considersocioeconomic equality a preconditionfor democracy? And sincea changein thesocial base ofparties-to reflect a closer correspondencebetween party politics and India's caste structure-and a change in the compositionof state institutionsthough affirmative action-to make the staterespond better to the needs of the deprived-are the two principalaims of lowercaste politicians, the key empirical questions are: Is therise of lower-caste parties onlyformal, not real?And is affirmativeaction illusory?

'2Fora detailedtreatment, see Dahl 1989, ch. 19 IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 15

Is Socioeconomic Equality a Precondition forDemocracy?

A theoreticallydefensible notion of democracyis not possible based on the exampleof SouthAsia, a regionin whichonly two countries-India and Sri Lanka- have had the institutionsof democracy,formal or real, in place forany substantial lengthof time. Any reasonablesense of theorymeans that we should cast our net wider, especially if the larger universe is where most of the actually existing democracieshave historically existed. Either South Asian materialscan be interpreted in the frameworkof a larger,more historically embedded, democratic theory, or their empiricalspecificities can be used to modifythe broader insights of democratic theory (Varshney1998). In and of themselves,South Asian instancesof democracycannot make democratictheory. In the leading textsof democratictheory (Dahl 1998, 1989, 1981, 1971), the two basic criteriaof democracyhave been: contestationand participation.The first principle,in effect,asks how freelydoes the political oppositioncontest the rulers, and the secondinquires how manygroups participate in politicsand determinewho the rulersshould be. The firstprinciple is about liberalization;the second about inclusiveness(Dahl 1971, ch. 1). Contestationand participationdo not requiresocioeconomic equality; they may affect,or be affectedby, inequality.Democratic theorists expect that if sociallyor economicallyunequal citizensare politicallyequalized and if the deprivedconstitute a majorityof the electorate,their political preferenceswould, sooner or later,be reflectedin who therulers are and whatpublic policiesthey adopt. By givingeveryone equal vote irrespectiveof priorresource-endowments, universal franchise creates the potentialmechanisms for undermining vertical dependence. In Europe,labor parties pushingfor workers' interests emerged in politics,once franchisewas extendedto the workingclass. Anotherwell-known theoretical point is germaneto a discussionof inequalities and democracy.If inequality,despite democratic institutions, comes in the way of a freeexpression of political preferences, such inequalitymakes a polityless democratic, but it does not make it undemocratic.So long as contestationand participationare available, democracyis a continuousvariable (expressedas "more or less"), not a dichotomousvariable (expressed as "yes or no"). Variationsin degreeand dichotomies shouldbe clearlydistinguished. In theclassic formulation of Robert Dahl, theUnited States was less of a "polyarchy"(Dahl's preferredterm for an actually existing democracy)before the civil rights revolution of the mid-1 960s, thoughit can in future be evenmore democratic if inequalities at thelevel ofcivil societycome down further (Dahl 1971, 29). Similarly,by allowing a greatdeal of contestationbut restricting participationaccording to genderand class, England in the nineteenthcentury was less democraticthan it is today, but it was democraticnonetheless, certainly by nineteenth-centurystandards. Given contestationand participation,greater equality certainlymakes a politymore democratic, but greater equality, in and ofitself, does not constitute democracy.There is no democracywithout elections. The claims above are empirical,not normative.They are not a defenseof inequalities,nor do theyimply that having universal franchise is betterthan having equality.Relative economic equality, for example, may well be a value itself,and we may wish to defendit as such. But we should note that economicequality and 16 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY democracyare distinct categories. Societies with high levels of economic equality may well be quite authoritarian:South Korea and Taiwan until the late 1980s, China under Mao, and Singaporetoday come to mind. And societieswith considerable economic inequalitymay have vibrantdemocracies: India and the U.S. are both believed to have a Gini Coefficientof 0.4-0.45, as opposed to a more equal Gini Coefficientof 0.2-0.25 forthe pre-1985, authoritarianSouth Korea and Taiwan."3 Preciselybecause economicequality and democracyare analyticallydistinct, some people may quite legitimatelybe democratsbut not believersin economicequality; othersmay believe in democracyas well as economicequality; and still othersmay be democratsbut indifferentto thequestion of economic equality. A similarargument can also be made about social inequalities. In lightof the theoreticaldiscussion above, let us now turnto India. Has Indian democracybecome more inclusive or not? And hasn't greaterinclusion reduced socioeconomicinequalities? In case inequalitieshave come down as a consequenceof thepolitical process, it will, in the theoreticalterms proposed above, make India more democratic,even though an inabilityto reduceinequalities more will notmake India's polityundemocratic.

Are the OBCs an Elite Category?

If "the so-calledother backward castes (OBCs) are in manyregions the betteroff farmersand peasant proprietorswho benefitedfrom the Zamindari (absentee landlordism)abolition in the fifties"(Jalal 1995, 205), theirrise would indeed not constitutea significantchange in the patternsof "social and economicexploitation." An old set of "exploiters"would simplybe replacedby a class onlyslightly less rich and privileged.Are the OBCs an elite group in the lattersense of the term? To call the OBCs "better off farmersand peasant proprietors"is a serious conceptualand empiricalerror, for it conflatesOBCs with "dominantcastes." Most OBCs are notdominant castes. The latterterm, as alreadystated, represents those groupswhich in the national-levelabstraction of a varnalcastehierarchy have been termedSudras, but fora whole varietyof regionalor local reasons,this termmakes no sense forthem. Their powerand statushas farexceeded anything that the term Sudraimplies (Srinivas 1966). The all-Indiahierarchy was simplyirrelevant for groups of substantiallandowners such as the Jats, Patels, Kammas, Reddys, Nairs, and Marathas.They have been muchtoo powerfuland rich,even if they are notBrahmins, Kshatriyas,or Vaishyas, the customary upper three Hindu varnas/castes.Many of these castes did indeed benefitfrom the abolitionof Zamindari,if the Zamindarisystem prevailedin theirareas.14 The dominant castes and OBCs have some intersections-forexample, the Okkaligasand Lingayatsin Karnatakacount as both-but thetwo are not overlapping sets(Figure 2). By and large,the category ofOBCs is equalto the Sudras minus the dominant

13Measuringincome distribution in a society,the Gini Coefficient ranges between 0 and 1. The closera countryis to 1, themore unequal it is, and thecloser to 0, themore equal. Givensimilar Gini Coefficients, countries with higher per capita incomes (USA) wouldhave farless poverty than those with lower per capita incomes (India). 14This,however, would not be trueof theRyotwari areas, where the Marathas, Reddys, Kammas,and Patelshave been dominant for a verylong time. IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 17

Castes\ about e.g. 6.3% Okkaligas, Lingayats

Hindu OBCs 43.7%/o

Figure2. OBCs and DominantCastes. castes.The dominantcastes in northernand westernIndia-the Jatsand Patels, for example-have in factopposed the extensionof reservationsto the OBCs. Can the argumentabout the relativeelitism of the OBC categorybe extendedto anyOBCs at all? The upperOBCs, suchas theYadavas, are indeedpeasant proprietors and also beneficiariesof Zamindariabolition. Much like the Patels in Gujarat at the beginningof the twentiethcentury, the Yadavas have achieved sufficientupward mobilitysince the green revolution,and have used theirnumbers to considerable effectin a democracy.One can indeed say that theyare fastbecoming a dominant caste,and will in all probabilitybe viewed as such in the comingdecades. But the lowerOBCs, such as the Lodha, Pal, Mali, Teli and Maurya,are not as privileged. This bifurcationof the OBC categoryraises an importantquestion: what proportionof the OBCs can be called economicallydeprived? Though landholding data forcastes has notbeen collected for decades and thereforeprecise estimates cannot be given,simple calculations-combining the separate caste and landholdingstatistics in an empiricallydefensible way-can show that a majorityof the lowerOBCs are mostlikely to be marginalfarmers (owning less than2.5 acresof land) orsmall farmers (less than 5 acres). In 1993-94, about 36 percentof India was below thepoverty line (Ravallionand Datt 1996; The World Bank 1997). Therewould virtuallybe no OBCs in thisgroup if we assumed that (a) all scheduledcastes (16 percentof India's population),all scheduledtribes (8 percent),and all Muslims (12 percent)were below the poverty line; and that (b) all upper caste householdswere above it. Both assumptions,we know,are wrong.First, as Chandraand Corbridgeshow in thissymposium, both the scheduledcastes and tribesnow have a middle class. Moreover,there is a substantial Muslim middle class in India: especiallyin southernand westernIndia fromwhere migrationto Pakistanwas minuscule,but also in northernIndia wherea Muslim middle class has reappearedafter the late 1960s. Let us supposefor the sake of argumentthat of the 36 percentpopulation below the povertyline, nearly30 percent(of the total) comes fromthe scheduledcastes, 18 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY tribes,Muslims and a tiny numberalso fromthe upper castes. With this more reasonablesupposition, about 5-6 percentof the population falling below the poverty line would consistof the OBCs. Since thepoverty line is primarilynutritional in thedeveloping world-meaning thatbelow the line one could not even buy enoughfood to get a basic minimumof calories (The World Bank 1997, 3)-another 15-20 percent of the country's population,widely believed to be onlyslightly above the povertyline, would also be quite poor.The OBCs thuswould constituteat least 20-25 percentof the population thatis below, or just above, the povertyline. That, in turn,would make up 50-55 percentof Hindu OBCs (constituting,as theydo, 43 percentof Indian population). We also knowthat marginal farmers, having less than2.5 acresof land, constitute about 50 percentof all landed householdsin India (Visariaand Sanyal1977).15 Thus, puttingthe caste and landholdingdata together,we can safelyinfer that marginal farmersconstitute an overwhelmingproportion of OBC households.Even afterthe greenrevolution, the level ofproductivity in Indian agriculturehas not reachedsuch a level that we can justifiablycall these latterclasses "peasantproprietors or better offfarmers." 16 In agrarianpolitical economy,the terms"peasant proprietors"and "betteroff farmers" do not indicatedebilitating economic disadvantage, but rather considerableadvantage. These are termsthat cannot be applied to marginaland small farmers. In short,to say that peasant proprietorsor better-offfarmers benefited from Zamindariabolition is correct;but to concludethat peasant proprietors and better-off farmersare by and large the OBCs is a nonsequitur.Most lowerOBCs are not only sociallysubaltern but also economicallyso, and onlyslightly better in both respects thanthe scheduled castes. That is why,as Jaffrelotargues, a keyquestion increasingly is: can the lower OBCs be incorporatedwith the scheduled castes in a BSP-led coalition,as opposed to partiesled by the upperOBCs?

Is AffirmativeAction Illusory?

Theoreticallyspeaking, it is possible that affirmativeaction leads to the co- optationof a tiny lower caste and scheduled caste elite into the existingvertical structure,without any widely dispersed welfare-gains for their castes. After all, India's affirmativeaction concerns only government jobs, not the privatesector. In 1992, of the nearly300 millionpeople in the work-force,only 20 millionwere in the public sector.One can thereforesay thataffirmative action in the public sectorwill directly benefitonly a small proportionof the deprived,and one can, in principle,suggest that "access to education,government employment and state patronagebased on reservationsmay in facthave hampered rather than strengthened the autonomy of the moreprivileged and talentedmembers of the scheduled castes and tribes"(Jalal 1995, 209-10; also Gokhale 1990, and Sachchidananda1990). Is there evidence that this theoreticalpossibility holds up empirically?This questioncan, in turn,be brokendown into two parts:(a) affirmativeaction for the

"5Theseproportions have not significantly changed in thelast two decades-at anyrate, nottowards larger holdings which, if true, would have changed the conclusions of this para- graph. '6Onlyin Punjabis it possibleto generatea surpluson a 2-3 acrefarm today (Chaddha 1986). IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 19

OBCs (in additionto the scheduledcastes), which has taken the formof quotas in muchof South India sincethe 1920s; and (b) affirmativeaction for the scheduled castes, implementedall overIndia since 1950, to whichthe OBCs have been added outside the South only after1990. Clearly,it is far too early to evaluate the impact of affirmativeaction for the OBCs beyond southernIndia. For the scheduledcastes, however,our empiricaljudgments can be nationalin scope. In southernIndian states, over and abovethe scheduled caste quota, close to 50 percent of the stategovernment jobs have been reservedfor OBCs in the stateof Karnataka since the 1960s; in Tamil Nadu, the OBC quota was 25 percentto begin with,and was increasedto over50 percentlater; in Kerala,the OBC quota has been 40 percent; and in AndhraPradesh, 25 percent.What has been the impact of such large-scale reservations?Have the nonelectedstate institutions changed? No detailedbreakdown of statebureaucracies, according to caste,is availablefor South India, but thereis no mysteryleft about the results.It is widelyknown that many Brahminssimply migratedout of South India as the OBC quotas were instituted.Once access to governmentjobs, their traditionalstronghold, was substantiallyreduced, some Brahmins went into the private sector, becoming businessmenfor the firsttime, but a large numbermigrated to Delhi, Bombay,the UnitedKingdom, and theUnited States. Indeed, so largewas theflight and so capable were the Brahminsof gettingjobs anywherethat theirmigration to, and rise in, Bombayled to a seriousanti-southern movement in the late 1960s and early1970s (Katzenstein1979). By now,bureaucracies of southern states have become remarkably, thoughnot entirely,non-Brahmin.17 Moreover, though systematic empirical studies have not been undertaken,it is also widely recognizedthat the South is governed betterthan North Indian stateslike Bihar and UP. Large-scaleaffirmative action in bureaucraticrecruitment does not appear to have underminedgovernance in the South. Let us now turnto the impact of reservationsfor the scheduledcastes. Kanshi Ram, the leading scheduledcaste politicianof India todayand the leader of BSP, arguesthat affirmative action has "now done enoughfor the scheduled castes," noting thatin the stateof UP, of the 500 officersin the elite Indian AdministrativeService, 137 are fromthe scheduledcastes (Mendelsohn and Vicziany1998, 224). However, affirmativeaction, Kanshi Ram adds, is "usefulfor a cripplebut a positivehandicap forsomeone who wantsto run on his own two feet";instead, he says,the scheduled castesshould focuson winningpower through elections, for "the captureof political powerwill automaticallytransform the compositionof the bureaucraticelite" (224). Compared to the theoreticalpossibility of affirmativeaction leading to co- optation,notice how differentthe claim of India's leadingscheduled caste politician is. Affirmativeaction, in his judgment,is alreadyquite considerable,though it is at the same time an inadequate tool for empowerment.In a new sign of political confidence,affirmative action, he says,is forthe disabled,whereas it is time now to play the game of democraticpolitics more equally. Finally,his politicsare premised upon the assumption that nonelected institutionsdo not trump the elected institutions;rather, capturing elected institutions will transformthe bureaucracyand police much morefundamentally. It is the elected institutionsof India that set the

17Andthe faculties of Science and Engineering in manyAmerican universities, as well as Americansoftware companies, have a lot ofSouth Indian Brahmins! 20 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY tonefor the nonelectedstate institutions of bureaucracy and police,not theother way round.18 Afterall is said and done, the most tellingevidence of the impactof affirmative actionon the scheduledcastes may well be indirect,not direct.Affirmative action, as Chandraand Corbridgeargue, has produceda new counterelite,which has started leading political mobilization.Chandra shows that scheduled caste government officers,beneficiaries of affirmative action, financed the BSP and wereits earlyleaders. Rather than leading to a verticalco-optation, affirmative action, by producinga scheduledcaste elite, appears indirectly to have facilitatedhorizontal mobilization. A hamperingof autonomyfollows directly from vertical client-patron links, not from horizontalmobilization.

Deeper,but Unfinished'9

None of the above should be construedto mean thatIndia can not be made still moredemocratic. There is no doubt thatmany battles for social dignityand equality forthe lower castes still lie ahead, even in South India (Bouton 1985); and so do strugglesfor women and minorities.The continuinghostility between the upper OBCs and scheduledcastes in severalparts of India is anotherexample of an unfinished social transformation.However, the papers here,as well as earlierstudies (Frankel 1990; Omvedt 1993), show that democracyhas alreadyenergized India's plebeian orders.They have challengedthe traditionalforms of clientelisticpolitics and started fightingfor greater power. Whetheror not economicinequalities have gone down,social inequalities certainly have,even for the scheduledcastes (Mendelsohn and Vicziany1998). This is a serious achievement.If in South India it was not possible forEzhavas to walk on public streets,if it was impossiblefor Nadar womento covertheir breasts when walking in frontof higher caste Hindus, if scheduled castes in much of India could not traditionallyhave access to schools,public transport,and public wells, then the emergenceof the notion of basic dignity among, and for,the lower castes in thepublic spheremust be takenextremely seriously, even though economic inequalities may not have lessenedto the same degree.There is no uniquelyacceptable reason to suppose thateconomic inequalities must be givenprimacy over social inequalities.The battle forsocial dignityis being increasinglywon in the public sphere. By all accounts,India's democracyhas made such social victoriespossible. In India, unlikemany other democracies in theworld, the incidence ofvoting is higheramong thepoor than among the rich, among the less educated than among the graduates, in thevillages thanin thecities (Yadav 1996a and b, 1999). The deprivedseem to have greaterfaith in India's electionsthan the advantaged.Unless we assume short-sightedness,the subalternseem to thinkthat the electoralmechanisms of democracycan be used to fightsocioeconomic disadvantages.

l8Jalal(1995) arguesthe opposite.During thecolonial period, the nonelectedinstitutions wereindeed more powerful than the institutionsbased on limitedelections. The reasonsimply was thatthe formerinstitutions were British-dominated, whereas the lattersaw manyelected Indiansat thetop. Universal-franchisedemocracy has reversedthe colonial relationship between the electedand the nonelectedinstitutions in India. 19This sectionhas been inspiredby discussionsof Americandemocracy and its achieve- ments.Indeed, it comesvery close to the last paragraphof a greatbook on Americanpolitics: "Criticssay thatAmerica is a lie because its realityfalls so shortof its ideals. They are wrong. Americais not a lie; it is a disappointment.But it can be a disappointmentonly because it is also a hope" (Huntington1981, 262). IS INDIA BECOMING MORE DEMOCRATIC? 21

It should also be noted that many scholars who accept these claims have nonethelessbeen quite criticalof some otheraspects of Indian polity.But we should specifyhow theircriticisms are differentfrom the claim thatIndia's democracyis a sham.The threemost common criticisms are: (1) That a seriouscrisis of ungovernabilityhas arisendue to increasingpolitical participationand the inabilityof the stateto respondadequately to the risinggroups and demands(Kohli 1991). (2) That India's politicalelite has focusedfar too much on narrowidentities on theone handand purelyeconomic goals on theother, but fartoo littleon usingpublic policy to expand social opportunitiesfor the deprived(Dreze and Sen 1995). (By "social," I might add, Dreze and Sen primarilymean educationand health, not everydaydignity and ritualstatus, the sensein whichthe termhas been used in this essay.Though the social performanceof Indian democracyis undoubtedlypoor at the level of educationand health,its social performanceat the level of everydaydignity and respect,as arguedhere, has been rathersubstantial.) (3) That thereis nothingunnatural about thepoliticians making use ofidentities in democraticpolitics, but that does not explain why India's politicianshave paid such inadequate attentionto issues of public policy in general, bothconcerning educationand healthon the one hand and incomeson the other(Bhagwati 1993; Weiner 1991, 1986). Nothingin India's democracyprecluded a switchfrom dirigisme to a market-orientation,as was demonstratedin 1991, nordoes democracyrule out a greatereffort at universalprimary education and public health,as Sri Lankaand some Indian statesshow. Failuresof public policyhave less to do with democracyper se, more with the ideologyand mind-setof India's political and bureaucraticelite (Bhagwati 1993; Sachs, Varshneyand Bajpai 1999; Weiner 1986). Quite different ideologieshave been,and can be, pursuedin a democracy. Moreover,sensible welfare-enhancing public policies do not alwayshave to wait forpopular pressures to build up; theycan emergewith an ideologicalchange from above.20Though the subaltern,through the electoralprocess, have not so farpressed India's decision-makersfor better incomes, education and health,only foreveryday dignityand respect,such a lack of pressureon the formerobjectives did not dictate relativeinaction, or lack of boldness,on the partof the government.India's greatest failureis one ofimagination and awarenesson thepart of the political and bureaucratic elite. Notice the implicationsof the thirdcritique. It acceptsthat elections have a real, not simplyformal and ritualistic,value and yet it claims thatif popular demands were differentorif thestate responses were, the resultsof India's democracywould be so much more impressive.The admittedlyunremarkable functioning of the Indian state in enhancingeconomic, educational, and healthopportunities for its massesis viewed not as a negation of democracy,but a problem analyticallyseparable and one attributableto eliteideologies. For a balancedrecord, such failures must be contrasted with the success of India's democracy,reflected in rising participationand inclusivenesson the one hand and victoriesat the level of social dignityand respect on the other.By privilegingnumbers and giving freedomto organize,democracy

20Theshift in India'sagricultural policy in themid-1960s is an example(Varshney 1995); so isaffirmative action enshrined in India's constitution. Both came into force without a popular movementin favorof either. 22 ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY has become the biggest enemyof the hierarchiesand degradationsof India's caste system.

Conclusion

Insteadof arguingthat only relativeequality can producea democracy,a much more empiricallygrounded claim would be that democracycan help reduce inequalities,at least social if not economic.Understanding how this happenedin South India in the 1950s and 1960s is increasinglya necessityfor a deeper understandingof contemporaryNorth India. Not onlyhave social humiliationsgone down significantlyin the South,but thereis a consensusthat South India is on the wholeless unequal todaythan the Hindi-speakingNorth (as well as bettergoverned). It is clearthat the riseof lowercastes to powerbetween the 1950s and 1960s has had a greatdeal to do with the transformationof South India since then. Whether the North will replicatethe South is still an open question; the proportionof the upper castes,for one, has alwaysbeen substantiallyhigher in the North,and lower caste movementsin the South, foranother, did not have to contendwith Hindu nationalism.However, should the northernoutcomes even approximatesouthern outcomesin the comingyears, as would seem likely,both votariesof the liberating potentialof democracyand those of reducinginequalities will have much to cheer about. India is, indeed, still far from becoming a democracyfrom below, but democraticpower is increasinglymoving downward. Democracy is no longera gift fromabove.

List of References

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