After Silent Revolution: Most Marginalized Dalits and Local Democracy in Uttar Pradesh,North India

Introduction

This article explores how the introduction of the new Panchayati Raj has changed the lives of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in rural western Uttar Pradesh (UP) over the last two decades. ² The new Panchayati Raj, through the 73rd amendment to the Constitution of India in 1993, has led to inclusion of the hitherto excluded social groups in the local government and has given them a space in the local power structure and decision-making. However, we know very little about how this Act has any bearing on social–cultural and economic life of the marginal groups. This article attempts to bring out a complex and contradictory grounded picture of the lives of SCs in the aftermath of the extension of reservations in village panchayats (Panchayati Raj Institutions [PRI]) and the political rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the state of UP. In June 1994, the government of UP, the largest state of the Indian republic, amended the UP Panchayat Act of 1947 to extend the recently implemented 27 per cent quota for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) ³ in administration and education to PRI or local governments as well. At the same time, the UP government also made the reservation of seats for the SCs (in proportion to their demographic profile) and women (33 per cent) mandatory at all levels of the Panchayati Raj system in accordance with the 73rd amendment. Besides devolving governmental power to the village level, this amendment also aimed at ensuring the participation of hitherto excluded castes and social groups in decision-making.

In this article, I examine the results and impacts of these policies. I am specifically concerned with how these policies have included social groups that have so far been excluded, how the policies of political inclusion have changed social life of the SCs and how the policies have produced new patterns of political exclusion in Khanpur, a multi-caste village in Meerut district and UP in general. ⁴ There has been a marked change in the lives of SCs, and relations of domination and subordination between the dominant castes and the SCs in UP and north India. However, I argue that the introduction of reservation to include excluded groups has not only transformed the lives of the SCs but simultaneously ended up creating new kinds of exclusions. The electoral politics has changed the socio-economic and political positions of the SCs in rural west UP over the last two decades. Caste groups from different socio-economic, political and ritual backgrounds have been put together under the category of SC by the Indian state in order to improve their social, economic and educational positions. ³ However, different caste groups have responded to the policies differently, and the results have been uneven. There is urgent need to understand how these policies have played out at local level. In order to demonstrate social–cultural changes in the lives of the SCs, I analyze here the political history of the village since 1949 when the first statutory panchayat was elected in Khanpur along with the sixth (1990–1995) and seventh (1995–2000) village panchayats. To gain a deeper understanding of the ongoing changes, I also reflect on the 2010 village panchayat election which occurred during the BSP regime in the state of UP. The article uses successive elections as points of entry to understand the social change occurring over the period of time, and dynamics of power relations among the various castes of the SCs and their experiences of participating in village electoral democracy.

Writings on electoral democracy and other aspects of political life emphasize the gradual deepening of democracy in India over the last 50 years (Yadav, 2000). Democracy has worked as a platform for the lower castes to launch their struggles for social justice. Yet, the existing literature largely focuses on democratic politics at the macro level. However, a study of electoral democracy at the village level may reveal a significantly more complex picture since the participation of different caste groups in PRIs is closely related to existing inequalities and their impact on the state-sponsored political inclusion. There is a need to focus our attention on the meanings and modes of engagement with democracy by caste groups with considerable difference in their sociocultural and religious backgrounds (Banerjee, 2008; Ruud, 2003; Spencer, 1997, 2007). Such an undertaking necessarily includes an analysis of the ways politics operates on the ground.

Utilizing their numerical and economic domination in the village, the landowning middle-class SCs (such as the Jatavs) have managed to exclude many of the lower SCs (such as the Valmikis) with regard to both the decision-making processes and the distribution of available resources. The modalities through which the Jatavs express their domination over Valmikis include supra-village networks, numerical strength, urban and government jobs, membership in the BSP and participation in electoral democracy through party politics. However, Jatavs are still far behind the Brahmins, Gujjars and Yadavs in terms of landholdings and economic status as a whole. In the recent past, the majority of Jatavs has been either agricultural labour on the fields of Gujjars and Yadavs or non-skilled workers in the nearby towns such as Meerut and Mawana. The political economy of agriculture has been closely linked with caste, thereby conditioning social and economic relations. Gradually, landless Jatavs have started disassociating themselves from the agricultural economy of the village and working outside. Historically, Jatavs have been ritually higher and economically better than Valmikis in Khanpur and its locale, and the rise of the BSP to the state power has changed Jatav’s access to the state institutions to some extent. But situation of the Valmikis has not changed much. Historically, Valmikis had been engaged in manual scavenging in the village and its region throughout, and a majority of them have been landless. Today, many individuals from the Valmiki community have joined municipality and Nagar Nigam jobs as sweepers. Some of them also work in the slaughterhouses in Meerut and Sahibabad, and a few work as cleaners in the emerging private schools and hospitals in Meerut and Noida.

While reservations in PRIs have mobilized the poor from lower castes to participate in democratic politics and enhanced their bargaining power, this article demonstrates that by treating the SCs as a homogeneous group they have not lived up to their promises of including the weaker and minority groups in village democracy, especially ensuring their participation in decision-making within village panchayats. By placing these diverse castes into an inclusive and overarching ‘SC category’, the reservation in PRI has not brought the required and desired change. Reservations have given a few lower caste groups access to power, but the hierarchies within these groups, based on ritual, occupation, size of population, land and wealth, have reasserted themselves through political affiliations and antagonisms. This article demonstrates the ways in which the rural power structure of western UP has changed drastically yet many SCs remain marginal in the local politics. Further, it also brings out how electoral politics has ushered in sociocultural changes in the lives of SCs.

Caste and Democratic Politics in Uttar Pradesh

In order to understand the nature of exclusion and inclusion in Khanpur village panchayat and Meerut district, it is important to understand the recent political history of UP and the major role that caste has had in shaping its political landscape in the last 30 years. The state of UP, with its population of 200 million and one-sixth of the members of parliament, occupies a central place in national politics. At the same time, UP is considered one of the most socio-economically ‘backward’ states. The politics of UP can be viewed in three phases. In the first phase, which lasted from Independence to the late 1960s, the Congress Party dominated the political arena of UP by forging a formidable coalition of higher and lower castes (Brahmins, Muslims and SCs). Its leadership was generally monopolized by the higher castes who had control over blocs, village panchayats and cooperative institutions (Brass, 1965). In the second phase, land reforms and the Green revolution, along with the policy of positive discrimination, brought prosperity to the middle castes, such as Yadavs, Jats, Kurmis and Gujjars, and prepared them to challenge Congress domination.

In the third phase, beginning in the early 1990s, the political landscape of UP has been characterized by the rise of ‘lower castes’, which constitute the major voting blocs in opposition to the higher castes. This phase is associated with the rise of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BSP, which have mobilized the lower strata of society against the higher castes using the slogans of social justice, equality and demands for a greater share of political power. The Jatavs and the BSP under the leadership of the late Kanshi Ram and now Mayawati have been active protagonists in so-called Dalit politics and the ‘silent revolution’ in UP. Since 1995, the BSP has held power at the state level four times, and in 2007, it formed the government with a thumping majority. The BSP’s aim has been to capture state power for the benefit of the oppressed majority, and it has prioritized the agenda of opposing caste oppression. Its core constituency is the former untouchable castes, and particularly the Jatavs (Lerche, 1999; Singh, 1992). The BSP has placed Jatavs in key positions within the bureaucracy in UP and increased the speed and rigour with which crimes against SCs, and Jatavs in particular, are investigated. The BSP is also trying to win positions in the local institutions such as panchayats, municipalities and cooperatives. In the local struggles, panchayat institutions have emerged key channels which delivered goods and services to the marginalized, and have become an arena for the poor and dominant to articulate both their interests and claims.

History and Structure of the Panchayats in Uttar Pradesh

The panchayat system in its traditional form has a long history in UP. The state was the first to introduce panchayat legislation (UP Panchayat Raj Act of 1947) after independence and took the lead in the Community Development Programme (Hatim, 1976). The UP Panchayat Raj Act of 1947, drafted at the end of the colonial period as a replacement for the inconsequential 1920 UP Village Panchayat Act, intended ‘to instil in the people the spirit of self-reliance and common endeavour to ameliorate their conditions without depending too much on federal and state government’ (Panchayat Raj Act 1994, p. 1). The Act aimed to set up a gaon panchayat (also called a gram panchayat) in every village alongside panchayati adalats (nyaya panchayats) with jurisdiction in judicial matters over a dozen villages. The government hoped that ‘these panchayats once established will not only revitalise corporate life in the rural areas but will also prove efficient instruments for carrying into effect the Rural Development Schemes of the Government’ (Government of UP, 1948, p. 5; for the history, see also Hatim, 1976; Purwar, 1960; Sharib, 1944).

This Act has been repeatedly amended. The latest amendments of 1994 have brought the provisions in line with the Constitutional Amendment Act of 1993, to grant more powers to panchayats and organize them into a three-tier system. The three-tier system is composed of the gram panchayat at the village level, the kshetra samiti at the block level (khand) and the zilla parishad at the district level. The latter two samitis (councils) allow for some integration with lower as well as higher elected bodies. Apart from directly elected members, membership in these two bodies comprises chairpersons of the lower councils and local members of the Legislative Assembly and Parliament. The UP system includes two more councils covering two distinct and yet overlapping geographical areas. The nyaya panchayat, comprising mainly the deputed members of the gram panchayat, covers an area that extends over several villages but is smaller than the block. ⁵ The other institution which has been an integral part of the UP system (similar to other states in India), at least on paper, is the gram sabha (village meeting). Twice a year the entire village population is expected to meet and make recommendations and suggestions on development programmes, finances, community welfare programmes and identification of beneficiaries of government programmes.

The panchayat is composed of the pradhan, deputy pradhan and ward members, each representing a ward ⁶ in the village. The gram panchayat is chaired by the pradhan and, in his or her absence, by the deputy pradhan. While the ward members elect the latter, the pradhan is elected directly by the electorate. The panchayat—which comprises a village or a group of villages with a population of around 1,000—is divided into a number of territorial constituencies (wards) from which the members are elected. These constituencies are rotated in order to comply with the provisions of reservations based on gender and caste (Lieten & Srivastava, 1999).

Over the years, powers and duties of the gram panchayats have grown considerably. The 1994 UP Amendment Act gave the panchayat a wide-ranging set of responsibilities in the agrarian economy (agricultural extension, land consolidation, land reforms, soil conservation, water management, animal husbandry, social forestry and fisheries). In addition, duties related to the provision of rural housing, education, electricity, electrification, village roads, sanitation, social welfare, public distribution system and poverty alleviation programmes have been entrusted to the panchayats. The panchayats are expected to constitute a number of committees to assist them in the execution of their duties, such as the Vikas Samiti (agriculture, rural industry and development schemes), the Shiksha Samiti (education) and the Samata Samiti (welfare of women, children, SCs/STs and backward classes, and protection of these groups from ‘social injustice and exploitation in any form’).

In order to finance the various schemes the panchayats, apart from the limited amount of grants received from the higher levels of administration, have considerable powers to impose taxes and acquire property. Taxes can be levied on land, animals, vehicles, entertainment establishments and market transactions. Additionally, imposing surcharges on cleaning, street lighting, irrigation and other facilities, which the panchayat may provide, can also generate income.

Social and Political Structure in Khanpur

The focus of this study Khanpur is a revenue village in the district of Meerut. It is located about 100 km northeast of Delhi in Western UP. In generic terms, Khanpur is part of a larger Gujjar belt, which is called ‘Gujrot’ in the local parlance. In 2015, the village had a population of 3,491, distributed among 530 households (see Table 1). People of 15 different castes live in three mohallas—Gujjar, Yadav and Jatavs—which have overlapping boundaries. These castes can be divided into the upper castes, the OBCs and the SCs. The Jatavs comprise the largest group in the population, followed by the Sainis, the Gujjars and the Yadavs. Gujjars and Yadavs, who are ranked next to each other in terms of ritual status, constitute the dominant castes of the village. ⁷ These caste groups constitute 19 per cent of the households in the village and own about 42 per cent of the agricultural land. A couple of Brahmin households used to serve them as their ritual priests, but the majority of the Brahmin households were landowning farmers. Currently, none of the Brahmins works as a ritual priest, and the people of Khanpur use the services of a priest from the neighbouring village. The Jatavs and the Valmikis have their own priests. While 50 per cent of the total Jatav households have land (largely these are marginal farmers along with a couple of middle farmers), none of the Valmiki households owns land. In the recent past, Gujjars and Yadavs generally dominated the everyday affairs of the village and panchayat in terms of decision-making and controlling resources.

Khanpur had its first statutory panchayat in 1949 under the UP Panchayat Raj Act of 1947. Prior to 1949, Khanpur had two kinds of panchayats: one was a village panchayat with a fluid council of elders, and the other were informal caste panchayats, one for each caste. The two panchayats differed significantly in their constitution and function. For example, the village panchayat dealt with the issues of the whole village, whereas the caste panchayat dealt mainly with caste issues such as marriage and divorce or intra-caste disputes. This council of caste elders would also keep an eye on the day-to-day socio-judicial affairs of their caste members. The new statutory panchayat created in 1949 was different in nature and scope from both the previous panchayat systems as its members were elected and served a fixed term. Under the Panchayat Raj Amendment Act of 1994, as per the roster system, the pradhan’s seat was reserved for an SC candidate in 1995 and an OBC candidate in 2000. The SC person elected as pradhan in 1995 was a Jatav, and in 2000, the pradhan who was elected belonged to the Gujjar caste. However, a Jatav also was elected pradhan in 1990 before the reservation was introduced. I shall return to this later.

The Khanpur village panchayat is divided into 13 wards. In the village panchayat election, besides the pradhan, a Block Development Councillor (BDC) is also elected. Ward members elect the deputy pradhan or up-pradhan. In some cases, a ward is coterminous with a particular caste. For instance, ward 3 is practically coterminous with the Dhimvar’s street. And yet the village panchayat does not have representatives for each caste. The BDCs elect a block pramukh (block head) from among themselves. A block is the second tier of the PRIs. The third tier is the district panchayat for which members are elected at the same time as the village panchayat elections are held. Members of the district panchayat elect the District Panchayat President.

In 2010, of the 13 members of the village panchayat, two were Gujjars, one Yadavs, two Saini, one Dhimvar, one Fakir and six Jatavs (SC). One of the six Jatav members was the deputy pradhan. There were four women ward members, and one BDC was a Gaderiya woman. The pradhan was a Saini. Thus, four groups emerge as the main political players in the village: the Gujjars, Yadavs, Saini and Jatavs. But Valmikis had no place still in the village government. Despite having the second largest group of people after the Jatavs, the Sainis could get pradhan seat only in 2010. The Gujjars and Yadavs used to manoeuvre the panchayat elections and used to head the main factions in the village. However, things have changed after the 1990s since Jatavs have emerged a new powerful bloc in the village. It is within this backdrop that I examine the 1990 and 1995 election and their far-reaching consequences in the politics and social life of Khanpur.

Table 1 provides the detailed demographic profile of the village.

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Table 1.

Caste Groups in Khanpur

Caste Group	Religion	Households
Upper Castes
Brahmin	Hindu	21
Bania	Hindu	01
Total		22
OBCs
Gujjar	Hindu	48
Yadav/Yadav	Hindu	47
Saini	Hindu	92
Gaderiya/Pal-Baghel	Hindu	37
Dhimvar/Kashyap	Hindu	34
Lohar/Safi	Muslim	05
Badhai/Safi	Muslim	05
Kumhar/Prajapati	Hindu	06
Nai/Salmani	Muslim	14
Dhobi	Muslim	06
Fakir/Alvi	Muslim	28
Total		322
SCs
Jatav/Dalit	Ex-untouchables	179
Bangi/Valmiki	Ex-untouchables	07
		186
Grand total		530

Source: Field data (2015).

The 1990 and 1995 Village Panchayat Elections and the Emergence of the Jatavs

The village’s electoral politics have largely moved along the same lines as the politics of UP state since 1949. In the first village election for the new statutory panchayat, held in 1949, a Brahmin landlord was elected pradhan. In the second panchayat election, a Gujjar defeated the incumbent Brahmin pradhan, bringing about a political shift. This intensified the political competition in the village’s politics. In the third election, a Yadav defeated the incumbent Gujjar pradhan.

In the first two elections, there was no polling booth or ballot box. The villagers gathered, both men and women, and sat in separate groups at the baithak (of the Brahmin landlord) in front of the polling official and the candidates. The polling official announced the names of the candidates one by one and asked those who supported each candidate to raise their hands. For poor and socially marginalized people, this was a very harsh voting system, since they could not dare to go against their patrons openly, as many of the villagers told me. The Gujjars wielded considerable muscle power. Thus, many of the villagers either did not attend the polling due to fear of the Gujjars or raised their hands against their will. In the first and second elections, the participation rate of women was very low, many of my respondents said. The presence of women, particularly upper caste women, was not socially acceptable. On top of that, the womenfolk were not even properly informed about the polling. The same was the case among the Jatavs, Valmikis and Sainis, who were not given the details of how the polling worked. Many of them came to learn about it only because some of their patrons wanted their clients and wage labourers to be present at the scene of the polling and raise their hands in favour of the Gujjar or Brahmin candidate.

The Gujjars, Yadavs and Brahmins always stressed village unity and decision-making by consensus, which helped the Gujjars and Yadavs remain in control of the village pradhan for a long time. In subsequent elections, the Gujjars and Yadavs manipulated village politics without facing much resistance from the other castes, since they had a good understanding with each other despite factional infighting. This sort of Gujjar–Yadav-generated roster system continued until the 1980s, when long-delayed political and economic changes began to unfold. The new political parties mobilized hitherto sociopolitically marginalized caste groups on platforms of caste-community identity and horizontal solidarity. They ran against the Congress Party, which tried to maintain vertical alliances between upper-caste patrons and lower-caste clients. For new parties, such as the BSP, strength was in numbers. While these parties spoke about citizenship, equality, justice and the importance of numbers to the people in the village and its neighbourhood, the emerging economic opportunities outside the village and the farm connected more villagers to the wider economic system and made them more independent of repressive village economic ties.

The panchayat elections of 1990 brought long overdue changes to the power structure of Khanpur. Until then, the Jatavs, who constituted the largest voting bloc, had been divided into factions and rival groups, which were used by the Gujjars and Yadavs in village and regional politics. The strong ‘Janata Dal (JD) wave’ of 1989 provided the push the Jatavs needed. During the election campaign, contacts were established between the JD leaders of the district and state and the Jatav leaders of Khanpur. The JD won the parliamentary and assembly seats for Meerut District. ⁸ Jhaggad was elected MLA (member of the legislative assembly) for the Mawana–Hastinapur assembly seat. ⁹ After the election, the MLA visited the village several times. He was often accompanied on these visits by Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Labour and Welfare in the Government of India. The Jatav leaders started looking at themselves through the eyes of the state and national leadership of the JD, which was trying to organize them and deny the Congress Party their support. Before the 1990 elections for the village panchayat, the Jatav leaders of Khanpur called a caste/biradari meeting in which they announced they were putting up their own Jatav candidate for the post of pradhan, while disassociating themselves from the old village factionalism run by the Gujjar and Yadav groups. In the meeting, the Jatav leaders brought out the importance of the numbers of voters that they already had, and stressed their share in village government. The Jatav leaders dwelled upon the discourses of citizenship, equality and social justice, while underlining the importance of the political unity of a caste-community. ‘Why can’t a Jatav become a pradhan when Jatavs are the biggest caste in the village? The Jatavs have just as much haq (right) to head the village as Gujjars or Yadavs do,’ one of the Jatav leaders said. The Jatavs felt that they had been voting according to the dictates of the Gujjars and upper castes. ‘Many of the Jatavs felt that if they could vote for a Gujjar candidate, why couldn’t the Gujjars vote for a Jatav?’ ex-pradhan Bhopal said. He added that

many Jatavs realized that Babasaheb (Ambedkar) gave them a very important right which is we can vote at our will as citizens of India. This right has enhanced our value in a democracy in which numbers matter, and we have large numbers in the village and country.

The Jatav leaders made the Jatav community realize how they had been excluded from the top positions of the village government. In the keenly contested three-pronged pradhan election that followed, the Jatav candidate defeated the Yadav-supported candidate, a Muslim, by a narrow margin, demonstrating the power of the new Jatav political unity. ¹⁰

For the first time in the village’s known history, an ex-Untouchable Jatav man had become the head of the Gujjar-dominated village. The world of village politics was forever changed. State officials had to visit the Jatav mohalla where the new panchayat house was built. From that point on, a Gujjar needed to visit the house of a Jatav pradhan to get a signature on a bank loan application or see state officials at the panchayat house. For the first time in village history, Gujjars realized that Jatavs were more than just labourers and voters, and that they could no longer be used to carry out the Gujjars’ will. The pradhan’s office shifted to the Jatav mohalla—a space which used to symbolize untouchability. A space Gujjars had always avoided visiting had turned into a legitimate space of authority. ‘Pradhani had gone to the Jatav mohalla in 1990’, as one of the Gujjar leaders told me. Moreover, the Gujjar mohalla was dislocated from the centre of village’s political, social and ritual life, and multiple centres and meeting spots emerged. This indicated the decline of the Gujjars as the sole political power.

Overall, the age-old political supremacy of the Gujjars and Yadavs was broken, and the Jatav leadership appeared on the scene as strong contenders for the top position. Besides the rivalries between elite factions, there were also other forces at work that were to have an impact on the configuration of power. Three major developments that had come about in the meantime were causing significant structural changes in the configuration of power. The first was the strong intervention of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its institutional support. The ECI made attempts to make the election fair and free by enforcing a code of conduct. This empowered hitherto excluded caste groups such as the Jatavs, who despite their large numbers had not been able to fully participate in the electoral process, as mentioned above. In the elections before 1990, almost the half of the Jatavs, Valmikis, Dhimvars and Fakirs (who did not support the Gujjars) were not allowed inside the polling booth. The second major development was the polarization of caste-community identity of the Jatavs, Sainis and Muslims based on a caste ideology of distinctiveness and horizontal solidarity against the vertical alliance combined with notions of citizenship and social justice. A third major development was the availability of resources for development and welfare purposes under the Ambedkar Scheme, along with a growing understanding that their allocation was related to political power. This intensified the quest for power among new groups as well as within existing groups, thus increasing the amount of political conflict in the village, and led to the emergence of new political leaders among the Jatavs and other lower castes. In the process, the concept of ‘village unity’ or a ‘vertical alliance’ started giving way to the slogan of ‘caste unity’. While the village panchayat elections of 1990 gave birth to a Jatav political community in the village, the assembly elections of 1993 and subsequent elections connected them to the larger Jatav community outside the village and its region.

In the 1995 village panchayat election, the pradhan seat became reserved for the SCs, and again a Jatav was elected as pradhan, although Gujjars and Yadavs mobilized Valmikis to contest for the pradhan seat. However, when Jatavs put pressure on Valmikis given their financial weakness combined with low numbers, they could not assert their right and finally withdrew their candidature. The Jatavs prevailed over the Valmikis. This is similar to the state level scene too. In the recent 2012 assembly elections, Valmikis were not given proportional representation by any political party. ¹¹ In the 2010 panchayat election, pradhan seat became ‘general’ (meaning that anyone could contest for it) and a Saini won the election with the help of the Jatavs. In this election, the Valmikis could not get even a ward seat. Valmikis’ continued marginalization in the village politics is quite visible in the light of the emergence of Jatavs. While the emergence to the power brought to Jatavs material goods such as pucca roads, housing, scholarships, land and protection from the formerly dominant castes, it did not help much the Valmikis in Khanpur. ¹² Particularly, none of the Valmiki households benefitted or got land patta during the BSP regime.

Social Change, Village Public Sphere and Invented Ways of Untouchability

The panchayat elections of 1990, 1995 and 2010 had larger sociocultural consequences which were manifested in the different domains of village life later on. This election gave birth to new rituals and ceremonies. For example, the Jatavs started celebrating the Ambedkar Jayanti (birthday of Dr Ambedkar) every 14 April, staging a procession through the entire village, including the Gujjar mohalla, which was never possible before. This gives the Jatavs an occasion to come together and reimagine their caste-community. This is an exclusively Jatav celebration, giving them a unique character in the village’s public life. On Ambedkar Jayanti, Jatavs cook, eat and drink all day, and in the evening, they take out statues and cut-outs of Ambedkar, which are pulled in chariots by two horses, accompanied by DJ music and drunken dances before the chariot in the village streets. This procession goes on until midnight. During my fieldwork, I was struck by this vivid image of the Jatavs’ newly acquired power and its unruliness—drunken small farmers and landless labourers roaming freely in the village streets, while other people particularly the Sainis, a most backward caste, remained hidden away. However, the drunken Jatavs did not venture around the Gujjars’ mohalla. This underscores the fact that they still avoid open confrontation with the Gujjars, but not with other castes such as the lower OBCs.

Another very significant social development is that the Jatav bridegrooms have begun riding horses in wedding processions in the village streets, which was not allowed before. This is a historical change in the village’s social life and practices. It has large symbolic and practical value for the Jatavs. While the elections brought all three factions of the Jatavs together and helped them form a new collectivity, they have also generated new conflicts over the new resources, such as the building of the Ambedkar house. The new panchayat built the Ambedkar house in the Jatav mohalla, but it was taken over by men from the pradhans’ extended family. This encroachment on public property was protested by some of the educated unemployed young men among the Jatavs, who wanted to open a library there but were denied access. Jittu (29), an unemployed young man, led a protest and eventually emerged as a new leader among the Jatavs. Jittu was sought by the police in several cases of forgery and fraud. Later, he joined the BSP, was appointed as a district co-ordinator of the Party and was patronized by the local BSP MLA.

During the 1995–2000 period, the pradhan seat was reserved for an SC as I mentioned earlier, and Khanpur was declared as an Ambedkar village. Under the Dr Ambedkar Rural Development Scheme, the village panchayat received good amount of funds from the government of UP to build houses for the poor, and 20 houses were built for such families. ¹³ ‘Ten Dalit students received fellowships for postgraduate studies. A panchayat house was built in the Jatav mohalla including pucca roads and a drainage system, and a statue of Ambedkar was installed in the Jatav mohalla,’ as told by Bhopal, the former Jatav pradhan. None of the Valmikis benefited from the scholarships or housing scheme between 1995 and 2000, as told by Valmiki respondents and the village secretary, and later confirmed by the then pradhan. It is interesting to note that while Jatavs installed the Ambedkar statue at the intersection of their mohalla, a public space in the village, they did not build their own temple in the village as has been a case in rural Punjab where Dalits have been setting up their own Gurudwaras (Jodhka, 2002). Instead, the Jatavs contributed their share (cash and grain) for the extension and beautification of the existing Lord Shiva temple in the Gujjar mohalla, and demanded safe entry for their women against the Gujjar hooligans. However, many Gujjar, Yadav and Brahmin elders criticized the Jatavs for being not clean enough during the performance of pujas and artis and aired the opinion that ‘if the “low castes” do not know how to use temple space these caste should build their own temple’. The temple priest raised the issue of dirt and uncleanness underlining that many Jatav and Valmiki devotees did not bathe before coming to the temple. But the Jatavs rubbished it saying it was a total lie and was circulated because the temple priest did not like the Jatavs’ entry into the temple. However, a section of Gujjars and Yadavs supported the Jatavs’ demand for safe entry. In Khanpur, Jatavs and Valmikis wanted to perform pujas and their rituals in the common temple rather building their own temple.

Despite all the changes, there are various ways through which untouchability is practised between the upper castes and SCs. Still Jatavs are avoided in private sphere through invented ways. They are not invited by any Gujjar/Yadav/Brahmin or other lower OBCs for a meal at home. However, in so-called clean caste’s wedding parties Jatavs eat together with other castes in buffet system barring Valmikis. For them, the entry into the male spaces, baithaks is more common. The Jatavs at the baithak of a Yadav or a Gujjar are generally offered chairs. In Khanpur, untouchability is practised at public space in indirect and in private space in direct manners. Efforts are made to maintain some kind of distance in subtle ways, such as an old chair or one that is no longer used for people of the other castes, higher than the Jatavs or Valmikis being offered. On several occasions during my fieldwork, I observed that the Valmikis are the worst treated and are not even offered chairs at some houses of Yadavs or Gujjars. What is most revealing is that even the Jatavs do not like to offer a chair or cot to a Valmiki visitor. In general, the Jatavs avoid offering a seat to a Valmiki visitor. It is worthwhile to note that the practices of untouchability still continue within the SCs. In Khanpur, a Jatav openly claims superiority over a Valmiki in day-to-day life on the basis of hygiene rather than on the basis of religious sanctions.

One of the Jatavs articulated his practice of untouchability with Valmikis in the following words:

Valmikis live very dirty and keep pigs. That is why I still hesitate to eat or sit with them. If they maintain proper cleanliness I would perhaps give them a seat at my place but in the village no one likes to sit with Valmikis.

In general, upper and lower OBCs avoid sitting with Jatavs but cannot openly deny a seat to them. A separate cot or chair is placed for them. It was a moment of far-reaching consequences when in 1995 elections the village panchayat meetings were held in the Jatav mohalla and some Gujjars had to go there.

In the village, except Nais and Dhobis, no caste members want to share food with Jatavs or eat with them or accept their food. It is interesting to note in the context of Khanpur that while Jatavs condemn and criticize the practice of hidden untouchability against them, they openly practise it against Valmikis. However, many Brahmin, Gujjar and Yadav respondents expressed their view about Jatavs and Valmikis in terms of attires and mannerism saying that, ‘A Valmiki will spend more money on liquor and pork rather than a good pair of clothes, and a Jatav will spend more money on colourful clothes than the sober ones, and education cannot change the outlook of the both.’ It seems to me that consumer goods in terms of clothes and food emerge an expression of caste and class distinction.

Caste hierarchy is expressed in the public sphere differently from the way it is in the home (ghar and gher). Most visibly, it is articulated through the ways that villagers interact with unknown people in public places outside of the village such as on roads, in weekly and biweekly markets, and in local towns such as Meerut and Mawana. In these places, markers of high caste and class are clean and expensive dress, fair complexion and sharp features, soft and sweet speech, quickness to greet and feet touching. Particularly for women, covering the head and face, speaking quietly and avoiding eating in the open are also considered high caste public behaviour. Outside the village, my Brahmin, Gujjar, Yadav and even Jatav respondents paid attention to the above behaviour and characteristics, rather than religious ritual status, in order to choose whom to befriend. Largely they befriend people from their own caste or sub-castes/clans, but when friendships transcend caste boundaries, still, the upper OBCs prefer to interact with the upper caste or wealthy, and largely avoid Jatavs and Valmikis. Dirty clothes, naked feet, rough language, oily hair and bright yellow, blue and pink attire are all indicators of ‘lower caste’. In order to make distinction and exclusion, caste is appropriating a language of hygiene and civility.

From the foregoing analysis of the village panchayat election of the 1990s, it is clear that this sociopolitical transformation was only possible when the ‘democratic imaginary’ or ideas of citizenship and social justice were combined with the dynamics of electoral politics that privilege numbers over status and horizontal caste unity over vertical unity (e.g., Chandra, 2004; Corbridge & Harriss, 2001; Jaffrelot, 2003; Mendelsohn & Vicziany, 1998). In Khanpur, democratic ideas and practices profoundly transformed everyday social relations. Political mobility and economic prosperity also created the new factions and rivals among the Jatavs. The 1990 and 1995 elections which brought control over the panchayat resources created new political aspirants within the Jatavs who have joined different political parties not finding suitable space within the BSP. The middle-class Jatavs are demanding more space not only in the village society but also in the BSP which has failed to include all these new emerging leaders and their aspirations. This resulted in drifting of a section of the Jatavs away from the BSP. This has been the case in the recent 2012 assembly elections in UP. In future, the BSP has to face a big question whether it has to be a party of the Jatavs or SCs or a rainbow coalition of the Sarvajan.

Conclusions: Inclusion of the Excluded Groups

The introduction of the new Panchayat Raj has certainly accelerated the processes of inclusion of the hitherto socio-economically and politically excluded groups. It has made possible political visibility of invisible people such as women and ex-untouchables at village public spaces. The emergence of a new and assertive rural public, irrespective of caste and sex, as a result of panchayat positions is a definite trend today (Ciotti, 2010; Krishna, 2002). In Khanpur, the village panchayat had been dominated by upper castes since the first election took place, but it was soon taken over by upper OBCs who rose due to larger economic and political processes unleashed by the democratic forces in the postcolonial society. However, the new provisions made to include the marginalized groups into the local political system and government benefited the dominant and more resourceful caste groups such the Gujjars, Jats, Yadavs and Kurmis who continue to corner larger benefits of decentralization and development across UP (Jeffrey, 2010; Michelutti, 2008). Further, the political inclusion of the Jatavs is one of the commendable achievements of the new PRI. But it has failed to include other SCs such as the Valmikis who lack not only economic but also social and political resources. This underscores how exclusion within the SC category is structurally similar to the processes of exclusion among the OBCs. While Jatavs had won the pradhan’s election twice, one in general and another on a reserved seat in 1995, no Valmiki ever got a chance to stand as a candidate. The Valmikis remained excluded from the formal village politics. Neither have they had decisive numbers nor resources for entering in electoral alliances. Moreover, the Jatavs and Valmikis failed to emerge as a coalition of groups against the dominant castes due to their deep socio-ritual divisions. The past association with scavenging and ritually polluted acts made Valmikis the lowest in caste hierarchy even in the eyes of the Jatavs who still are not ready to accept Valmikis as their equal brethren and political partners. The Jatavs act like a dominant caste by emulating Gujjars and treat Valmikis as a subordinate group which further alienate the Valmikis from the Jatavs. Dominant castes use this division against the Jatavs, by siding with Valmikis who can be manoeuvred easily being the newcomers to the village electoral politics. In the last couple of years, inequalities between Jatavs and Valmikis have increased. Largely, benefits of the government schemes have been cornered by the Jatavs. These two groups are used against each other by Gujjars and Yadavs in the village politics and in larger politics political parties such as the SP prefers to give tickets to Valmikis rather Jatavs. Thus, both have a different experience of participating in electoral politics due to their different socio-ritual and economic position in the village and its locale.

Socially, economically and ritually, caste has always produced hierarchy and inequality. However, when conjoined with democracy with its guarantee of universal franchise, caste can paradoxically become a vehicle of egalitarianism and dignity (Beteille, 1996; Gupta, 2004; Kothari, 1970; Rudolph & Rudolph, 1987; Weiner, 2001). Weighed down by tradition, the lower castes are not giving up their caste identities. Rather, they are ‘deconstructing’ and ‘reinventing’ caste history, deploying in politics readily available and easily mobilized social categories, using their numbers to electoral advantage and fighting prejudice and domination politically. Commenting on caste and politics, Srinivas argued that caste was moving towards a ‘horizontal consolidation’ (Srinivas, 1962). Horizontal mobilization and organization of caste played an important role in Khanpur in doing away with factional politics based on the vertical unity of patron–client relationships that had perpetuated the dominance of the Gujjars and Yadavs. New politics based on ideologies of social justice and demands for proportional representation and redistribution made the castes increasingly conscious of their numerical strength as we have seen in the case of Jatavs.

Individuals of the SCs are joining emerging new political parties based outside the village with regional and national importance. These marginalized actors are trying to exert pressure on village politics through party membership, loyalty to their political leaders and political networking. Many also attend meetings and rallies organized by their caste leaders in towns and cities adjoining the village. These members of the marginalized castes strategically negotiate their socio-economic interests with the village leadership extending issue-and interest-based support rather than permanent and stable loyalty. This shift in the relationship of patrons and clients is described as a move from ‘clientalism’ to ‘brokerage’ (Gupta, 1998; Jeffrey, 2000). Old style village politics that was based on two or three fluid political factions is no longer applicable for a fruitful understanding of contemporary village politics and processes of political exclusion. Factors such as secret ballot and the emergence of new political parties based on caste and religious identity, in conjunction with decreasing economic dependency on the village economy and emergence of off-farm employment, have changed the villagers’ sociopolitical behaviour in a drastic manner and have altered established patterns of exclusion. Electoral democracy has created multiple power centres in the village. Realizing their marginality in the regional and state politics and not finding much space, Valmikis are trying to connect either to BJP or SP. While caste associations of the Valmikis are busy rewriting their ‘histories’, they are also being mobilized by the political parties such as BJP, SP and BSP using selective narratives and myths. The marginalized caste groups of the SCs and OBCs are constantly struggling to define their identity and aspirations of development simultaneously. In the meantime, practices associated with untouchability and casteist discrimination not only continue but are often unchallenged in the land of ‘silent revolution’.