“Democracy,” writes Amit Ahuja, “rests on the tantalising prospect that political equality can be leveraged to remedy social and economic inequality.” But how do the marginalised go about ‘leveraging’ their political equality (one person, one value) to remedy their social exclusion and economic exploitation?
By mobilising, of course. In modern democracies, such mobilisation has taken two forms: social movements, directed at the state and society; and electoral mobilisation, aimed at capturing power. Dalits in India — the marginalised community picked by Ahuja for his research study — have resorted to both, raising several questions for political scientists: what is the relationship between social and electoral mobilisation? Which is better from the perspective of social transformation? Do they aid or undermine each other? Ahuja, a political science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, offers unexpected answers in Mobilising the Marginalised .
Eye on four States
This volume is based on fieldwork, surveys, and interviews conducted in four States: Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and Bihar. Ahuja’s logic for picking these four: not only do they account for a significant chunk (43%) of India’s Dalits, they also contribute 40% of the Indian Parliament. Dalit politics in these States are consequential for national politics. The selection is significant also for another reason: analytically, Tamil Nadu pairs up with Maharashtra, and U.P. with Bihar.
Bihar and U.P. have successful Dalit parties — the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and the the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) respectively. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra don’t, despite substantial Dalit populations. While in Tamil Nadu, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) has failed to capture the Dalit vote, the BSP (unlike in U.P.) has failed similarly in Maharashtra. And yet, it is Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra — not U.P. or Bihar — that have a long history of Dalit social movements.
Ahuja’s counter-intuitive insight is that Dalit social mobilisation undermines Dalit electoral mobilisation. Put crudely, the more empowered Dalits are, the less likely they are to vote their caste — to vote as a bloc. That’s bad news for an ‘ethnic’ Dalit party, such as the BSP, for whom bloc voting is a prerequisite for success.
Two features work against Dalit parties in States such as TN and Maharashtra: thanks to prior social movements, they have more ‘mobilisers’ (community workers) and ‘mobilisation frames’ (symbolic resources). These are hardly visible in states (such as UP and Bihar) where Dalit social mobilisation is low. Come election time, any party, including multiethnic ones, can draw on these mobilisers and mobilisation frames to attract the Dalit voter. In other words, political competition for the Dalit vote is more in states that have witnessed Dalit social mobilisation. Result: Dalits are less likely to vote as a bloc.
Absence of bloc voting
For a marginalised group, therefore, the absence of bloc voting is a sign of greater democratisation. India’s two greatest social schemes — the Mid-Day Meal scheme and the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme — originated in States with the strongest history of Dalit/anti-caste movements: Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra respectively.
Ahuja would argue that this is no coincidence, for these are States where Dalits, who constitute the bulk of the poor, do not vote as a bloc. It was only because they already enjoyed a measure of agency that they were able to successfully demand from the state, and obtain, material goods above the symbolic good of social recognition.
The ‘politics of recognition’ promoted by Dalit/OBC parties in U.P./Bihar are yet to translate into a ‘politics of redistribution’, a must for the marginalised.
Ahuja’s study demonstrates that social mobilisation between elections empowers the marginalised at the time of elections too — not by aiding an ethnic party of the marginalised, but by forcing every major party to accommodate the interests of the marginalised.
This is often the precursor to a long-term transition — from a politics of recognition (U.P./Bihar) to a politics of redistribution (Maharashtra/Tamil Nadu).
Mobilising the Marginalised: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements ; Edited by Amit Ahuja, Oxford University Press, ₹550.
