Fielding Fire : The farm laws are an assault on Shudra power (Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd)
Jai Sen
Monday, March 29, 2021
India in movement…, Farmers in movement, Peasants in movement…, Caste in movement…, Resistance in movement…, Neoliberalism in movement…, History in movement…, Herstory in movement…
[For those on WSMDiscuss, I’m not sure whether this essay has already been posted on the list – most likely by Umakant -, and if so, my apologies for the duplication; but I think that that this is a vital essay, and issue, that in any case bears reading twice – and also needs to be reached out widely : The question of the caste location of the farmers / peasants who are leading the farmers’ strike in India – and the vicious, deeper social meanings and implications therefore, of the so-called ‘agrarian reform laws’. If you want to understand what is happening in India now – and of course, that has happened across the world over the past several centuries with caste and class struggle being an integral part of the so-called ‘modernisation’ -, please read this essay :
It serves the Sangh’s [RSS’s] plans to hand over agricultural commerce, now to a large extent in Shudra hands and under the control of Shudra regional parties, to select monopolistic corporate houses that support the Sangh in turn.
Without English—the lingua franca in much of the national and global media and academia—Shudras cannot become national or global intellectuals and thought leaders. The Shudra agrarian castes, many of them excluded from reservations given their relative prosperity, are almost wholly frozen out of the national bureaucracy because, lacking high-quality English education, they cannot compete with Dwijas [twice-born; upper castes – js] who have had generations of English education since the days of the British rule. Since the liberalisation and globalisation of the economy, English is essential to access the upper reaches of the economy as well. The internet, another vital tool, is largely an English-language domain as well. English and the internet have become Dwija properties as Sanskrit and temples were in classical times.
Fielding Fire
The farm laws are an assault on Shudra power [1]
28 February 2021
https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/farmer-protests-caste-modi-shudra-obc
[1] For a quick reference, see Wikipedia : “Shudra or Shoodra is the lowest ranked of the four varnas of the Hindu caste system and social order in India. Various sources translate it into English as a caste, or alternatively as a social class. … Theoretically, Shudras have constituted the hereditary labouring class serving others. In some cases [however], they participated in the coronation of kings, or were ministers and kings according to early Indian texts. … Traditionally, Shudras were peasants and artisans. The ancient texts designate the Shudra as a peasant. Shudras were described as the giver of grain and ancient texts describe a Shudra's mode of earning as being "by the sickle and ears of corn".” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudra.] Just so that this is clear, in the caste system, Dalits “fall’ even below this – the caste system treats them as ‘outcastes’, outside the caste system; as is perhaps well-known.
SEE PHOTO AT LINK TO ARTICLE
The Jat leader Rakesh Tikait at a mahapanchayat in Haryana in 2021. The massive protests against the new farm laws have been organised and headed by farming communities traditionally seen as Shudras in the varna system. (Danish Siddiqui / Reuters)
As Christophe Jaffrelot wrote in a recent piece in the Indian Express, after the implementation of the Mandal commission’s recommendations, in 1990, Hindutva forces worked out an agenda to stop the advancement of the Shudras. The government, then under VP Singh, extended reservations in public universities and government employment to a large section of the Shudras that was officially labelled the Other Backward Classes. Organiser, the mouthpiece of the [right-wing] Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, wrote at the time of “an urgent need to build up moral and spiritual forces to counter any fallout from an expected Shudra revolution.”
In the varna-fixated ideological view of the Sangh and its electoral appendage, the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shudras are immoral and unspiritual. The “moral and spiritual” forces, in other words, meant Dwijas—the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas who are above the Shudras in the varna ladder. Jaffrelot described how the Sangh has managed to mobilise greater support from the OBCs and deploy it in the service of upper-caste politicians, who are greatly over-represented in the BJP. The rise of Narendra Modi and the BJP, he concluded, has meant “a post-Mandal counter-revolution that has enabled upper-caste politics and policies to stage a comeback.”
The farm laws enacted by the Modi government last year, which propose a radical reconfiguration of agricultural commerce, have opened another front in this contest. Once again, Shudras are in the crosshairs. The massive protests against the new laws, ongoing for months in the northern states and on Delhi’s borders, have been organised and headed by farming communities traditionally seen as Shudras in the varna system. In Punjab, the Jutt Sikhs are in the lead. In Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, it is the Jats, under the leadership of Rakesh Tikait. The new laws are connected to the Sangh’s core agenda—not just reducing the power of the Shudras, but also reducing the power of the states, a number of which are under the control of regional parties that draw their strength from a Shudra agrarian base. Even in states where the BJP is in power—in Karnataka, for example—Shudras assert themselves, often in opposition to the Sangh, from their agrarian caste base.
Nationwide, the “upper” Shudras have a huge say in the agrarian economy and the politics of their states. In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, this includes groups such as the Jats, Yadavs, Kurmis and Gujjars. There are the Patels in Gujarat, the Marathas in Maharashtra, the Kammas, Reddys, Kapus and Velamas in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. There are also the Lingayats and Vokkaligas in Karnataka, the Nairs and Ezhavas in Kerala, the Nayakars, Nadars and Mudaliyars in Tamil Nadu, and so on. The main exceptions are in West Bengal and Orissa, where the strongest regional parties remain under the control of the Bhadralok. Here the Shudras are kept so weak that they have not come up to control the agricultural market or have a strong say in politics. This is largely a legacy of the refusal to engage with caste inequality by the elite-caste communists and leftists who have had extended stints in power in these states, and have long insisted on speaking for agrarian communities while sustaining their own Brahminical dominance. (This has also left scope for Hindutva forces to bring the Shudras and Namasudras into their fold in these states.)
The new laws are connected to the Sangh’s core agenda—not just reducing the power of the Shudras, but also reducing the power of the states, a number of which are under the control of regional parties that draw their strength from a Shudra agrarian base.
Under the Constitution, each state government is promised control over agriculture and markets within its borders—an arrangement largely respected on the ground so far. The new laws, without amending the Constitution and without any consultation with the states, strip state governments of control over agrarian production and markets, and shift this power to the central government in Delhi. Notably, they allow private companies to buy from agricultural producers without the intervention of state governments, and farmers fear that monopolistic corporate houses such as Reliance and the Adani Group will swoop in after this deregulation. As a whole, the reconfiguration will leave regional Shudra leaders unable to protect the interests of Shudra agricultural groups, and make these groups subservient to a central government where they have very little representation or power. This arrangement also threatens to erode the power of regional Shudra leaders by severing their relationship with their base.
In general, each of the major agrarian Shudra castes is concentrated in a particular region. There is no pan-Indian Shudra community with one name, though such communities do exist among the Dwijas. This gives the Shudras a hold on their respective regional polities, but limits their power on any larger scale. There is no national Shudra consciousness, and no Shudra leader with national appeal. Since 1967, off and on, regional parties formed and controlled by Shudra agrarian groups have been sharing power with the centre, which has by and large been dominated by Dwija politicians and bureaucrats. (Of the prime ministers before Modi, only two were Shudras—Chaudhary Charan Singh and HD Deve Gowda—and the rest all Dwijas.) Their share of both political and economic power gradually grew, and this trend accelerated after the Mandal moment, though many better-off agrarian Shudra castes were excluded from the Mandal reservations. Even prior to 1967, under what was effectively the one-party rule of the Congress, when both the central government and state governments were under Dwija control, regional Shudra leaders from the Congress held significant authority. This included figures such as Vallabhbhai Patel, K Kamaraj, S Nijalingappa, YB Chavan and Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. One cannot see comparable Shudra leaders in the BJP now, and with its single-party majority in parliament the BJP seldom has need to share power with regional parties.
Modi does not come from an agrarian background, but rather from a community of traders. He was never part of any agrarian movement, and in his long association with the Sangh he has engaged most closely with the business communities that have formed its most enduring political base. Though he plays up his claim to OBC status, his rise was backed heavily by Bania capital, including major corporations such as the Adani Group. Modi’s OBC certificate is purely instrumental. He uses Vallabhbhai Patel, who was from the Patidar community of agrarian Shudras, as a political tool, but Patels were marginalised in Gujarat after he became the chief minister of the state.
This duplicity is symbolic of how the Sangh treats the Shudras. The Sangh has been able to systematically fool Shudras since there are hardly any Shudra thinkers and writers to understand what it is doing and warn their fellows about it—something I explained in an essay for this magazine in October 2018. But agrarian Shudras must understand that there are no major Shudra-owned corporate houses that can move into agribusiness at the national level to match the Bania-owned Reliance and Adani Group. The new opportunities for private profit created by the farm laws will flow to entities like these.
In Maharashtra, the Marathas currently have a hold over agribusiness; in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Kammas, Reddys and Velamas; in Karnataka, the Lingayats and Vokkaligas; in Kerala, the Nairs; and in Tamil Nadu an assortment of Shudra castes. It is this agribusiness that sustains many regional parties, and regional parties’ dependence on these Shudra groups that gives them an interest in improving farmers’ fortunes. The RSS and BJP see these concentrations of regional power as a challenge to their goal of a strong centre, and so they have to go. In Tamil Nadu, for example, regional parties bolstered by Shudra agrarian forces do not allow the BJP or any national party to come to power, while upholding reservations for the oppressed castes, promoting the regional language and imposing other policies that the centre sees as a threat. The Sangh sees Tamil Nadu almost as a Dravidian Kashmir.
SEE PHOTO AT LINK TO ARTICLE
BJP supporters demonstrating after the government implemented the recommendations of the Mandal commission, in 1990. (RK Sharma / Indian Express Archive)
It serves the Sangh’s plans to hand over agricultural commerce, now to a large extent in Shudra hands and under the control of Shudra regional parties, to select monopolistic corporate houses that support the Sangh in turn. India is no longer a feudal country where elections can be fought just with feudal resources. It is now a capitalist country where monopoly corporations, mainly in Bania hands, have a critical influence over electoral results. The RSS and BJP know the nature of this political economy, and have historically been very friendly with Bania capital.
The threat to the Shudras is especially severe because agribusiness is the backbone of their politics and economy. Indian society, still bearing clear varna lines, systematically denies them social mobility or power via other paths. Historically, from the days of the writing of the Rig Veda, Shudras have been defined and limited as the labouring classes, engaged primarily in farming. Even today, when we talk about agrarian communities, we do not include Brahmins, Banias, Khatris, Kayasthas, Rajputs or other Dwijas. Among the Dwijas who live in villages, hardly any are involved in the processes of agrarian production. Beyond agribusiness, the rural economy is outside of Shudra hands. Kirana stores and general retail are dominated by Banias and Marwaris, and even if Shudras try to enter this business they are typically frozen out.
In the cities, Shudras are confined to menial service positions and the few factory jobs. When it comes to the top intellectual spheres—including the national media and central institutes—the Shudra presence is minimal. There are hardly any Jats, Gujjars or Yadavs working as editors or writers or professors of economics or political science, to say nothing of Shudras from groups less well off than these. The same is largely true in top corporate offices and the stock markets.
The roots of this marginalisation go deep. Ideologically and spiritually, in line with the tenets of Brahminical thought, the Dwijas have always looked down on physical work as mean. Shudras, even while their labour is essential to the country’s productivity and food supply, carry the burden of this prejudice, and other pernicious legacies of caste culture.
Under the Brahminical system, Shudras were denied access to Sanskrit and formal learning. This was reinforced by their exclusion from priesthood, reserved for Brahmins alone. Under the British, Shudras were cut off from education in English, and with it from government employment. Meanwhile, the Dwijas embraced the language and took government jobs. Even the few Shudras who controlled some princely states did not make it a priority to educate their children in England, as many rich Dwijas did. Today, Dwija administrators and intellectuals want the Shudra masses to study in Indian languages in the name of nationalism or linguistic identity, even as their own children go to private English-medium schools and foreign universities. The New Education Policy privileges regional languages over English in public schools, where many Shudras—and also Dalits and Adivasis—get their only opportunity for education.
Without English—the lingua franca in much of the national and global media and academia—Shudras cannot become national or global intellectuals and thought leaders. The Shudra agrarian castes, many of them excluded from reservations given their relative prosperity, are almost wholly frozen out of the national bureaucracy because, lacking high-quality English education, they cannot compete with Dwijas ['twice-born'; upper castes - js] who have had generations of English education since the days of the British rule. Since the liberalisation and globalisation of the economy, English is essential to access the upper reaches of the economy as well. The internet, another vital tool, is largely an English-language domain as well. English and the internet have become Dwija properties as Sanskrit and temples were in classical times.
This system of Shudra exclusion was entrenched during the years of Congress rule. The Mandal recommendations allowed some space to OBCs, but even that space was small and soon came under assault. The Shudras outside the reservation system hardly saw any change. Shudra political leaders were never allowed to outgrow their regional pockets. This approach by the Congress leadership— avowedly liberal and secular, but always a Dwija bastion—created favourable conditions for Hindutva forces to hijack Shudra support. The Sangh’s Dwija strategists tapped into Shudras’ frustration at their predicament by offering them a chance at muscular assertion and chauvinistic pride. Without a vision of uplift of their own, many Shudras went along despite being unequal partners. Especially since the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, the Sangh has deployed Shudras as muscle against those it projects as internal enemies—Muslims first among them. Shudras have effectively been re-educated to work within their varna role, as manual power in the service of Dwija designs.
On the national scale, the subjugation of the Shudras has been achieved and consolidated. The remaining resistance is in the Shudra-dominated regional parties. These must be quashed because of their potential to weaken the centre and the BJP, as they have done in the past when challenging national Congress governments and ending the Congress’s period of single-party domination. That happened in 1967, when the Congress lost numerous state elections to regional powers even though it retained its predominance at the centre. The Sangh hopes for the BJP, armed with the twin weapons of Brahminical social control and Bania capital, to step into the shoes of the pre-1967 Congress.
The Sangh’s first priorities after the BJP took power were to weaken the Congress and reduce Muslims to an underclass. Now it is the turn of the regional parties and the agrarian Shudras, starving them of funds and further confining their power. The farm laws are the first major step in that direction. Many more could be in the pipeline.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a social scientist, academic, and writer. He is the author of books such as Why I Am Not A Hindu and Post-Hindu India.
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Jai Sen
Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa
jai...@cacim.net & js...@uottawa.ca
Now based in Ottawa, Canada, on unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) and in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325)
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Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press; hard copy only also at The Movements of Movements
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