Ethnic Parties, Material Politics and the Ethnic Poor: the Bahujan Samaj Party in North India
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Ethnic Parties, Material Politics and the Ethnic Poor: The Bahujan Samaj Party in North India Sohini Guha, Department of Political Science McGill University, Montreal December 2008 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) © Copyright Sohini Guha, 2008 Abstract Many studies explore the determinants of support for ethnic parties, and the consequences of such parties for democracy. This dissertation addresses these questions through a study of the Bahujan Samaj Party (B.S.P.) in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh (U.P.). The BSP is India's only successful lower caste party, and gained greatest support over the last two decades in U.P., which it now rules. The dissertation argues that material benefits, delivered on a programmatic basis, account for the success of the B.S.P., and perhaps other ethnic parties too, among poorer groups. It also indicates that the B.S.P.'s consequences for democracy -on the whole positive- have depended both on its ties to society, and the breadth of visions of community reigning among its core supporters. The conclusions are based on analyses of electoral results, the caste background of party candidates, patterns of ownership of land and other resources, extensive interviews with party leaders and activists, and ethnographic studies of representative villages in U.P. The argument about the reasons for support questions an assumption common to psychological theories of ethnic voting- that poorer groups vote for ethnic parties because they draw symbolic empowerment from the material ascendancy that ethnic parties secure for coethnic elites. On the contrary, I find that the poorer of the B.S.P.'s low caste voters support the party largely for material reasons. These voters vary in the kinds of benefits they receive and that motivate their support - patronage benefits in some cases, as many studies of ethnic mobilization in developing contexts predict ; and programmatic benefits in others. Such asymmetric representation could be common among parties with ambitious redistributive goals. The dissertation also takes issue with the view that strong party-society ties, ipso facto, facilitate a democratic politics. It shows that the breadth of visions of community prevailing at the party's base are also crucial. The B.S.P. has been equally 11 tied to the Chamar caste, its core constituency, in Eastern and Western U.P. But, Chamars have facilitated the party's efforts to widen its subaltern base in the East, and obstructed these efforts in the West. This variation has arisen because Chamars have embraced broad and diffuse notions of subaltern community in Eastern U.P., but narrow and parochial visions in the West. ill Resume De nombreuses etudes se penchent sur les facteurs expliquant l'appui citoyen aux parris ethniques ainsi que les consequences d'un tel appui en ce qui a trait a la democratie. Cette these aborde ces questions a u·avers une etude du Parti Bahujan Samaj (PBS) dans le plus grand Etat indien, !'Uttar Pradesh (UP). Le PBS est le seul parti de basses castes ayant connu un succes electoral en Inde, et dirige maintenant l'UP, resultat d'une popularite croissante au cours des deux dernieres decennies. Cette these argumente que les avantages materiels, distribues de fa<;:on programmatique, expliquent le succes du PBS, et sans doute celui d'autres parris ethniques representant les couches les plus pauvres de la societe. L'impact du PBS sur la democratie, dans !'ensemble positif, depend de ses relations avec la societe ainsi que de l'etendue des visions d'une communaute subalterne regnant au sein de ses principaux partisans. Les conclusions sont fondees sur une analyse des resultats electoraux, des origines des candidats electoraux en terme de caste, et de la distribution demographique des terres et des ressources, ainsi que des entrevues approfondies avec leaders et activistes du patti, et une etude ethnographique de villages pertinents en UP. L'argument remet en question une hypothese courante dans les theories psychologiques du vote ethnique, selon laquelle les plus pauvres votent pour des parris ethniques parce qu'ils tirent de l'ascendance materielle d'un parti, une formed' "autonomisation" symbolique. Cependant, !'etude demontre que les plus pauvres parmi les basses castes appuient le patti pour des raisons surtout materielles. Les electeurs varient en fonction des types de benefices qu'ils re<;:oivent, du patronage (sur lequel mettent l'emphase de nombreuses etudes liees ala mobilisation ethnique) aux avantages programmatiques. Ces representations assymmetriques pourraient etre courantes chez les parris ayant des objectifs de redistribution ambitieux. lV La these remet egalement en question !'hypothese selon laguelle des relations solides entre parti et societe promeuvent la democratie. Le PBS est tout aussi lie a la caste chamar dans l'Est et dans !'Ouest de l'UP. Pourtant, a l'Est, la ou les Chamars ont epouse une vision englobante et diffuse d'une communaute subalterne, le parti a reussi aetendre son appui populaire; inversement, a !'Ouest, la vision etroite de la communaute subalterne adoptee par les Chamars a pose un obstacle a l'etendue de l'appui au parti. v Contents Acknowledgements . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. v11 Abbreviations . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. xt Glossary . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. x111 Terminology............. ......................... ... ......... ....... .. ..... .. xv Chapter 1 : Introduction . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 Chapter 2 : Theory . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 31 Chapter 3 : The Bahujan Samaj Party : Emergence, Mobilizational and Electoral Strategies, and Policy Efforts . .. .. 73 Chapter 4 The Politics of Mobility and Subaltern Disunity : The Bahujan Samaj Party in Western Uttar Pradesh .......110 Chapter 5 : The Politics of Equality and Subaltern Solidarity : The Bahujan Samaj Party in Eastern Uttar Pradesh ....... .. 164 Chapter 6 : Conclusion ................ ......................... ..............215 Appendix A : Ethics Certificate ....... ..... .... ............ .. .... ..... .. .. 225 Bibliography ...... .... ........ ................. ............ .... ..... ............ 227 Vl Acknowledgements This thesis has taken a long time to write, which explains the many debts I have picked up along the way. I wish to thank, first, my thesis supervisor, Narendra Subramanian, on many different counts. Naren has been unendingly patient, as he has watched me limp my way through this dissertation, sometimes at an excruciatingly slow pace. The road, as he knows, has been long and hard, for many different reasons. But never, at any point, has he made me feel that it was not mine to make, and indeed, here I am today. He has also been an excellent supervisor, a hard and exacting taskmaster, but excellent nevertheless. Striking a fine balance between intervening when he had to, and letting me do my thing, he let me own my dissertation in a very special way. I also thank Jacob Levy and Khalid Medani for engaging with my work ; their questions have proved challenging, and have provided a template along which to think as I go about further refining my arguments in future. Elizabeth Elbourne's comments led me to think about the question of ethnic violence in new ways, while Hudson Meadwell encouraged me to further theorize the issue of sacrifice by political actors. And I thank Jan Kubik for helping me research the issue of trust, and Edward Schatz for allowing me to cite the paper he presented at the 2006 APSA Annual Conference. I received financial support from a variety of sources while registered in the Ph.D. programme at McGill. During my first four years as a doctoral student, I received generous funding from the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship Programme. My fieldwork-related expenses were met in part by a Research Travel Grant, administered by the Commonwealth Scholarship Office, and an Internal SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) Grant, administered by the Research Grants Offtce, McGill University. In the year 2006- 2007, I benefitted from a Graduate Student Fellowship, awarded by the Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill University. I also received funding in the final year .. Vll of writing, courtesy the Arts Insights Dissertation Completion Award, granted by the Faculty of Arts, McGill University. The best part of my research had to do with my fieldtrip to India, where many different people came to my aid. In Delhi, I received help from teachers, both old and new: CP Bhambhri, Ashwini Deshpande, Zoya Hasan, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Surinder Jodhka, Vivek Kumar, Sudha Pai, Jagpal Singh, Ravi Srivastava and Sukhdeo Thorat. Sudha Pai, in particular, was very generous with her firsthand knowledge of Uttar Pradesh, and the BSP: it was at her encouragement that I chose Azamgarh as a fieldsite. And this project could not have taken off without the generosity shown to me by Vivek Kumar, who put me in touch with my first contacts in the BSP. In Lucknow again, I benefitted a great deal from conversations with DM Diwakar, GP Mishra, and Ajit Kumar Singh, at the Giri Institute of Development Studies. In the field itself, innumerable strangers took me into their homes, and looked after me like family, as I went about my work. I wish to thank, in particular: DK Guha Roy, SK Seal, Major VS Verma and their families in Meerut ; Hoshram Singh and his family in Mawana ; Geeta Kakran, Rajveer Singh and their families in Muzaffarnagar ; and Sukhvir