Rajput fortune rose with Mughal fortune in the 16th century, as the two groups collaborated. By contrast, Maratha fortune rose in the 17th century at the cost of Mughal fortune. Just before the rise of the British, in the 18th century, much of India was ruled by various Maratha families. But in the 21st century, many Maratha lobbies are demanding reservation, and see themselves as a backward, not forward, community. Similar movements are being seen across India, with erstwhile dominant caste groups, such as Jats of Haryana and Patels of Gujarat, declaring themselves backward and even oppressed. What’s going on?
Reservation as royal favour
It all makes sense if we see ‘reservation’ as a new post-industrial form of land-grants: the brahmadeya, the iqta, the mansabs, the watan, the jagir. These were given by mediaeval kings to those who served well as courtiers and soldiers. It is the equivalent of distribution of war-booty by nomadic raiders. The Mongol kings did this based on merit – the better the soldier, the better his share of the plunder. In Roman times, a soldier was rewarded with land and Roman citizenship.
Today’s kings are politicians. They need votes. The vote bank, made of castes and communities and religions, are seeking such material reciprocity. Not just gifts during elections, or subsidies to donors, but something more substantial, something long-term, like a land-grant, that benefits future generations. Seats in medical and engineering colleges, government jobs, industrial contracts, licences to resources such as land and water and airwaves.
Caste and Axis of Purity
In the old days, jobs were reserved for all Indians. One followed the father’s vocation. Sons of soldiers became soldiers. Sons of landlords became landlords. Sons of traders became traders. Sons of priests became priests. Sons of peasants became peasants. You also married within community – so peasant married peasant’s daughter, soldier married soldier’s daughter, trader married trader’s daughter. Thus the jati or community or what Europeans called caste came into being.
Some jatis owned land. Some had trade. Some had skills. Those with land dominated those with trade, who dominated communities who offered only skills or labour. Land-owners generally had political power. Traders had financial power. Where did the Vedic experts, the Brahmin, belong? What power did they have? Only ritual power.
This led to creation of an additional axis of hierarchy, over and above the economic and political axis found in most societies. This axis is unique to India. The pure and the impure axis. The ‘purest’ where the Brahmins, and the ‘polluted’ were the ‘untouchables’ who lived on the fringes of the settlement, involved in sanitation and ‘impure’ activities like cremation. Beyond were the tribals, who lived autonomously in the forests, outside the mainstream culture.
These tribals and fringe-dwelling communities, forced to do menial jobs, not given access to village resources, were the backward castes with the lowest ritual status and neither economic nor political power. They needed ‘positive discrimination’ for social mobility and social justice. Hence the need for reservation policies after India’s independence. This was the socialist vision – to uplift the oppressed. The assumption was that social respect will follow their economic and political rise.
Pure but polluted
But what about the pure, who are poor? The ritual upper caste, who is the economic lower class, without opportunities? What about them? How do they get access to reservations controlled by the state? The only way to get it is by obtaining the ‘status of backwardness’ for the caste they belong to. And the only way to get that is by turning the caste into a vote bank with negotiating power. And this is easiest for the middle castes – somewhere between pure and impure extremes.
There was a clear glass ceiling between the ‘untouchables’ and the ‘touchables’. However, amongst the ‘touchables’ there was fluidity. Many peasant communities became soldiers who were rewarded with land and political power. Despite low ritual status, they had relatively high economic and political status. But not everyone in the community had access to wealth and power. There was the creamy and the non-creamy layer everywhere.
Marathas are a case in point. In the old feudal eras, many Kunbi peasants who took up arms and were successful as soldiers rose in status. They differentiated themselves from their poor cousins, even identifying themselves with the regal Rajputs sometimes. But in the new era, they need to remind everyone of their old peasant status to get access to reservation. Likewise, Kayasthas (scribes) long mocked as ‘shudra’ or lowborn by rival Brahmins are rushing to courts demanding reservation, insisting they are backward, despite being economically and politically forward.
India has thousands of castes. The British tried to categorise them using the Brahmin chatur-varna. This placed Brahmins on top and Shudras at the bottom. Varna has more to do with ritual status and prestige and ‘purity’. But Marxists and Socialists imposed class categories on this. So suddenly all Brahmins were forward castes, even if they were poor. They are kept out of the reservation pie. This remains a great source of resentment amongst Brahmins today.
The old caste order benefited the ‘pure’ and the powerful. The new reservation order was aimed as a tool of social justice to help the ‘impure’ and the powerless. Policies overlooked the powerless ‘pure’ as well as the powerful ‘impure’. Now reservation has become a reward for those who serve the democratic process, available to anyone who can legally convince the state that their community is backward, or minority. Not tough in a poor country where a few thousand families control 80% of the resources.
