BACKWARD CASTE MOVEMENT IN UTTAR PRADESH: STUDY OF SAMAJWADI PARTY THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy IN POLITICAL SCIENCE BY RAJMOHAN SHARMA UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROF. NIGAR ZUBERI DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH-202002 (INDIA) 2016 Prof. Nigar Zuberi Extension :( 0571) 2701720 Department of Political Science, Internal: 1560 Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh - 20 2002 (U.P.) India. Dated ………………… Certificate This is to certify that Mr. Rajmohan Sharma, Research Scholar, Department of Political Science, A.M.U., Aligarh has completed his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Backward Caste Movement in Uttar Pradesh: Study of Samajwadi Party ” under my supervision. The data materials, incorporated in the thesis have been collected from various sources. The researcher used and analyzed the aforesaid data and material systematically and presented the same with pragmatism. To the best of knowledge and understanding a faithful record of original research work has been carried out. This work has not been submitted partially or fully for any degree or diploma in Aligarh Muslim University or any other university. He is permitted to submit the thesis. I wish him all success in life. (Prof. Nigar Zuberi) Acknowledgement I thank to the Almighty for His great mercifulness and choicest blessings generously bestowed on me without which I could have never seen this work through. First of all, I would like to express the most sincere thanks and profound sense of gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Nigar Zuberi for her continuous support, valuable suggestions and constant encouragement in my Ph.D. work. I am deeply obliged for her motivation, enthusiasm and inspiration during the course of Ph.D. Her guidance assisted me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. Her immense patience to bear with all my shortcomings and enthusiastically correcting me whenever I went wrong, has been of great help. I could not have imagined having a better supervisor and mentor for my Ph.D. I express my gratitude to Prof. Asmer Beg Chairman, Department of Political Science, AMU, Aligarh for his formal and informal cooperation, moral support and inspiring words at every stage of this work. There are a number of people without whom this thesis might not have been completed. I am also very thankful and greatly indebted to all the faculties of department of Political Science specially Prof. Arif Hameed, Prof. Mohd Nafees Ahmad Ansari, Prof. Mohd. Abid and Dr. Irfan ul Haque. I am greatful to my father Shri S.C. Gautam for his kind support at every step. He provided me the conducive environment and consistent motivational force for pursuing higher studies and finally shaping me in the present state. I am also thankful from deep core of my heart to my friends- Dr. Amir Mahmood, Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad, Dr. Sartaz Alam Ansari, Dr. Wazid Rasheed Khan, Dr. Ali Imam and Dr. Shavez Ansari, Dr. Nadeem Akhtar, Dr. Sarfaraz Javed, Mr. Sudhir Kumar and Mr. Sanjay Sharan for their precious company in all the fronts for the completion of this work. They provided me motivation and remarkable advice for this work. I want to thank all my family members and relatives- Mr. Vikash Gautam, Mrs. Lakshmi Gautam, Mr. R.K. Gautam, Mrs. Mamta Gautam, Mrs. Beena Sharma, Mr. i R.K. Sharma, Mr. Shalabh Sharma, Mr. Ritik Sharma, Yuvraj Gautam, Moksha Gautam, Lakshya Gautam, Preetika Gautam, Princy Gautam, Ansh Sharma, Mr. N.S. Maurya, Mrs. Ramwati Maurya, Mr. Alan Robert, Mrs. Rajani Maurya, Miss Ratika Maurya, Baby Alria Robert and Baby Reuben Sharma and specially those who believe in my credentials and stand by me every time whenever I need. I am especially thankful to my wife Rashmi Maurya, who is actually the guiding force, source of inspiration, helping me to achieve all that is the best in my life. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Hammad Ahamd, Mr. Moquitur Rehman, Mr. Mohammad Asaf, Mr. Sulaiman Khan, Mr. Afzal Khan, Mohd. Atif (Aftab Hall) and other staff members of Department of Political Science, AMU Aligarh. I am also thankful to the staffs of Maulana Azad Library, AMU and Central Library, JNU New Delhi. Despite all efforts to make the thesis free from error, there may be errors still left unnoticed for what the Researcher takes all the responsibilities personally. Rajmohan Sharma ii ABSTRACT Background of the Study: The assertion of the Backward Castes/Classes has had an uneven, and sometimes uneasy, presence in the public domain in India over the years and their impact varied profoundly in different regions of the country. At the same time this assertion has had manifold expressions it has taken overt religious as well as anti- religious forms; informed the intermittent peasant movements in the country; assumed numerous egalitarian stances and a complex nexus with the overall thrust of democratic inclusion in India. While the category, Backward Castes/Classes had found widespread usage in the political vocabulary of Modern India, its substantive meaning and appeal to hearts and minds, has remained deeply contested over time and in manifold. Backward Caste/ class is a category that denotes an array of disadvantage social groups that precipitated during the national movement and found ardent votaries in the Constituent Assembly and in the subsequent political developments in India. The disadvantage did not necessarily proceed from relative marginality or deprivation, but was closely related to the specificity of India' social formation. While the Back ward classes were closely bound up with the idea of the Nation, they, in turn, demanded a differential understanding of the same. In other words, while the Backward classes were internal to shared bond, they also called upon the Nation to be deferential to their disadvantage, as well as legacies of distinct cultural traditions and sometimes, even ways of life. Their movement sought a redefinition of the Nation of which its existing articulations were little sensitive of The 'backwardness' implied in the term was not merely economic but social as well. Often the concerned groups did not see the concept of class adequate to encompass the specific deprivations and exclusions that they were caught in and strove against. In several ways the rise of the Backward Caste/ Class movement is also a statement on the nature of class-based movements in India demonstrating the inability of the latter to reach out to the multiple forms of exploitation and domination embedded in the social relations in India. The Backward Castes/ classes have been an inclusive as well as an exclusive term. As an inclusive term, it connoted all social strata that were not part of the 1 dominant forward castes, although terms such as 'dominant' and 'forward' did not have the same connotations, particularly given the complexity and diversity of India's social formation. As an exclusivist term, it is used to denote social groups other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Historically, this distinction became prominent from early 1920s as the Schedule Caste Leaders became emphatic on the features of exclusion, exploitation and dominance specific to their communities across the country. The Adivasi movement in India brought of the fore issues of autonomy and cultural difference that marked them off from the central concerns of the backward Caste/class movement. The attempt of draw a legal and administrative line of separation between the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on one hand, and the Backward classes on the other affected the lower rungs of the latter deleteriously as there was no marked differentiation between the kind of marginality and cultural domination that they were subjected to, in relation to the former. Socially, the Backward classed hailed from the peasant and service castes, low in the social hierarchy. These social constituencies have been in the throes of change both during the national movement and subsequently, although, often the advocacy and legal platforms attempted to arrest such processes and attempted to essentialise a specific kind of Backwardness. Backward Classes, therefore, remained a relational category in India. It denoted a set of social relations that assigned dominance, status, exclusion, and specific modes of recognition. As social relations came to be deeply contested in the course of the national movement and the class-based movement, the social relation called backward classes came to be reformulated in several respects. Similarly, the backward class movement was to exercise a profound impact on the National movement and the kind of Democracy, it bequeathed to India, and on the class-based movements, before and after independence. The constituent assembly while registering the existence of socially and economically backward Castes/classes in India and demarcating them from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes refused to spell out who these backward classes were and what specific measures were called for to remove the concerned backwardness. We find a series of reasons being mounted in this regard: given the unevenness of the existence of backward castes in India it was felt that any specification in this regard would not be fair to the situation. While constitutionalists 2 such as Ambedkar admitted the Backward Classes would necessarily include 'a basket of castes', they were not prepared to confine the term to a specific number of castes or merely to a caste bloc as such. In fact, Ambedkar argued that this task must be left to the dynamics of the democratic process in India and the reflectivity and deliberation of democracy should lead to the identification of not merely who the backward Classes were but also to the institution of measures for their emancipation. Otherwise, they constitutionally legal structure of India is going to arrest a process and begin to dictate terms to democratic reasoning in India.