The Paradox of Caste Federations in Indian Democracy

Caste assuming associational forms is not a new concept. It can be dated back to the Caste Sabhas of colonial India, where communities needed to organise along caste lines in order to advance their interest. This saw the emergence of these communities, community councils or conferences for a particular class. For example, the Kayastha Mahasabha or the All India Yadav Mahasabha aimed at social reform and sought cast solidarity. The sabhas aimed at presenting histories and glorifying their community past and mobilising to seek higher status by claiming their lineage as Kshatriya or Vaishya instead of their Shudhra heritage. This reinforces cast consciousness even while trying to improve their caste status, and by banding together, these castes saw a chance to negotiate with the rigid system, but they did not work to destroy it - they just sought to find a better place within itit

Post-Independence, direct community associations took a backseat because of the national rhetoric in the country that tried to subsume cast into a broader identity of that of Indian or linguistic identity. Among the backward and minority communities, learned employees created a federation founded to build a network of educated lower caste employees that would come together to uplift their communities and support political action, this federation became so powerful that it eventually produced a political party that meant by the name of the Bahujan Samaj party or the BSP. The BSP marked a new chapter in caste associations since it was an ambitious attempt to federate various poor castes and communities into a single political platform, led by those who had always been made to remain subordinate. The success of the BSP was a revolutionary assertion with a Dalit government in India’s largest state. This was seen as a blow to the caste hierarchy.

In a democracy with the universal franchise, numbers matter highly. Caste groups, especially in regions where they form a significant part of the population, realise the strength in voting as one bloc. Often, people trust leaders from their own caste to represent them because they believe those leaders understand their community's specific issues. This trust fosters a caste based voter base. Political entrepreneurs coming from the community’s elite found it effective to organise a federation on a union basis, to negotiate parties or from their own parties to a pattern of voters that are still aligned by caste and politicians whose campaigns appeal to cast identity, leading to vote bank politics.

Caste associations persist because they provide valuable social capital to caste members. The members share kinship-like bonds and depend upon each other for support in their political and personal lives. In finding jobs, arranging loans, marriages or social security in times of crisis. Migrant families from a village will form a caste based hometown association, although not overly political, these actions solidify cast identity by making it the basis of mutual help and support.  When these caste channels allow economic and social benefit access, people are incentivised to maintain these channels. Similarly, it created a notion for upper caste communities to develop associations that serve their interests.This functional role of codependence makes it hard for caste identity in society to be eradicated until broad structures replace the need for caste based support in India.

Marginalised castes view forming associations as a survival strategy in their quest for empowerment. According to these groups, caste identity is not a stigma but a banner of resistance. However, it is vital to recognise how this becomes isolating because every caste focuses only on itself, building solidarity within itself. Building solidarity across communities then becomes a challenge.

Certain features of Indian institutions also intentionally keep caste at the forefront. For example, reservations, vital for representation, require identifying caste categories.This means people must attest to their caste to avail benefits, thereby keeping the category relevant. Even village council structures have informal power-sharing arrangements among local castes that normalise the idea that caste is a natural unit of representation. It is not to say that these measures are wrong.Many are protecting against discrimination, but the unintended effect that it creates that allows cast to remain as an organisational principle and at times even backed by policy leads to the conundrum that is playing out in society, which is furthering caste’s position in Indian society to keep it away from being eradicated in India. Cast Federations in their current form do not achieve the humanitarian goals of individual worth and humanity.. Although they’ve been crucial in eroding inequity, democratic fraternity must be realised through dissolving all caste associations and by creating a larger federation of anti-caste values, which realistically seems unlikely in today’s political climate.

While caste associations transforms caste from a ritual hierarchy to an interest group that bargains and rationalises for its interests in the public sphere, this transformation makes other aspects of identity like language, class or region overshadowed in local contexts because it is natural that people will organise with others who are similar to them in social experiences, thereby standing in the way of caste being eradicated in India unless these cast associations evolve to create larger and more inclusive umbrella identities.