Shudras, Caste Politics and Economic Reforms

Ancient Indian society had 6 groups: priests/Brahmanas (5%), warriors/Kshatriyas (5%), merchants/Vaishyas (5%), farmers/Shudras (50%), workers/Dalits (15%) and tribals/Adivasis (7%). So Shudras (lower castes) are the majority. In 1979, Prime Minister Morarji Desai of the Janata Party government set up a Commission under a man called Bindheshwari Mandal to look into the welfare of Shudras. The Commission submitted its report in 1983. It recommended 27% reservation for backward Shudra castes (Other Backward Classes or OBCs) in government jobs. In 1990, Prime Minister V P Singh of the National Front government implemented the Mandal Commission's report.

Shudras are mainly farmers and are made up of many castes. Some castes are big ('forward castes') and others are small ('backward castes'). The Mandal Commission gave reservation to backward castes but not to forward castes. Each state/region has its own forward castes: Uttar Pradesh (Yadavs), Bihar (Yadavs), Haryana (Jats), Gujarat (Patels), Maharashtra (Marathas), Karnataka (Lingayats + Vokkaligas), Andhra Pradesh (Reddys + Naidus), etc.

In 1991, we started changing our economy from inefficient government-controlled socialism to efficient free-market capitalism. The process is still incomplete. We freed our industry from government control. But our agriculture and inputs to industry (land and labour) are still under government control. So today, even after 3 decades of economic reforms, only 25% of our people work in industry. But 45% of our people still work in agriculture – which produces only 15% of our economic output. So on the one hand, industry has not grown to employ farmers as factory-workers and take them out of agriculture. And on the other hand, our inefficient agriculture has kept our large number of farmers poor. The worst-affected people by this double whammy are the farmer-castes who do not have reservation – ie, the forward Shudra castes.

Due to these developments, the forward Shudra castes started demanding reservations in both education and government jobs. In 2016, Jats (30% of Haryana) launched an agitation to demand for reservation. In 2018, Marathas (35% of Maharashtra) did the same. In both cases, the state government succumbed and granted reservation to the agitating forward caste. And in both states, the case went to the High Court. The Bombay High Court upheld Maharashtra's Maratha reservation but the Punjab-Haryana High Court shot down Haryana's Jat reservation. So Marathas were happy with the ruling BJP in Maharashtra but Jats were furious with the ruling BJP in Haryana. As a result, BJP won the election in Maharashtra but lost the election in Haryana.

What does all this mean for India's politics? India's politics has always been known to be based on caste – which is the fundamental unit in the social system of an agricultural society. But BJP won this year's national election by beating the equations of caste politics. The most spectacular example of this was Uttar Pradesh – where it crushed the alliance of the two biggest castes (Yadavs + Dalits). This led many people to say that caste politics has ended and we have entered the era of post-caste politics. The elections of Haryana and Maharashtra have disproved this hypothesis. Caste may no longer be a factor in national politics – but it is still a factor in state politics.

And what does this mean for India's economy? It means that as long as our agriculture and inputs to industry are controlled by the government:
1. Industry will not grow
2. Agriculture will be inefficient
3. Farmers will be many and poor
4. Farmer-castes will be angry
5. They will demand reservations
6. And they will get it – because of their numbers
The only way to get out of this vicious cycle is to free our agriculture and inputs to industry (land and labour) from government control.