Opinion Citizens of tomorrow

In traditional India,the caste system was a social institution that provided a hierarchical ordering of castes in a geographic area. Upper castes had maximum privileges,and as one moved down the hierarchy,the bundle of rights became lighter. At the lowest level,the Dalits had virtually no rights,only obligations. Despite the inequities,most people ideologically internalised the system,as has historically been the case in all hierarchical societies. Of course,outright coercion also buttressed the system,especially if those lower down violated hierarchical norms.

Given the historically rooted denial of rights to lower orders,caste politics in democratic India has thus far primarily taken the form of sammaan ki rajniti (politics of dignity). All lower caste parties of India,initially in the south,later in the north,have had this as a master narrative of their politics,though there were others issues as well. Such politics has also taken retributive forms,as lower castes,using their numbers,have hit back after coming to power.

Will this mode of politics survive as India becomes increasingly urban? In 1951,only five Indian cities had a population greater than 1 million each. By 2011,three cities — Mumbai,Delhi,Kolkata — had more than 10 million people each,and 53 cities had populations of more than one million each. By 2031,six cities are projected to cross the population threshold of 10 million. Depending on what measures are used and how rapid urbanisation is,India’s population,32 per cent urban in 2011,could well be substantially over 40 per cent urban in 2031.

The face of party politics in urban India already looks different from that of rural India. In 2009,the two main national parties — the BJP and Congress — did better in urban areas than in rural ones. Of the 94 seats to the Lok Sabha in urban areas,the BJP and the Congress won about two-thirds of the seats and,in semi-urban areas,the two national parties won just over 70 per cent of the seats. In rural areas,however,the BJP and Congress did considerably less well. Regional parties did better.

Further support for the urban-rural voting dichotomy comes from the 2009 National Election Studies. Those respondents who lived in cities were less likely to vote for regional parties than rural respondents. The BJP and Congress received a majority of the vote in cities with a population greater than 1,00,000 and in metropolitan areas. If the pattern in 2009 is any indication,increasing urbanisation will lead to regional parties becoming less politically relevant in the coming two decades,though this may not be uniform across the nation. We should underline that this is not a prediction for the 2014 elections,but one for the longer run.

Caste should become less salient in electoral politics for some other reasons as well. In most urban constituencies,the effective number of parties that compete is lower than in rural areas. On average,a third party gets a large share of the vote in rural constituencies. In urban India,only two parties are competitive in most constituencies. Further,multiple castes live in proximity to each other in urban areas. From these two facts it follows that no party can win an election using simply caste appeal in urban areas. Parties will need to build cross-caste alliances.

It is not simply urbanisation that is introducing changes in the functioning of the caste system. Democratic politics,as M.N. Srinivas pointed out long ago,began to alter the nature of caste domination. Domination in democratic India is ensured more through numbers and wealth or land ownership,less through ritual hierarchy and notions of pollution and purity.

A national survey carried out in 2002 asked respondents to identify the dominant jati (caste) in their areas and then asked why that jati dominated their area. This question was repeated in the 2013 tracker poll of CSDS and the findings are broadly similar. Respondents who lived in urban areas were far less likely to be able to identify a dominant caste. City dwellers cannot identify the dominant caste in their area because it is simply more difficult to determine the numerical breakdown of caste in a large metropolitan area,when compared to a rural setting. Tellingly,the respondents,who did identify which castes were dominant,listed two major attributes of a dominant caste — population size and wealth. Ritual hierarchy was not evident in their mode of reasoning.

In short,in urban areas,fewer parties compete in a constituency,individuals cannot identify a dominant caste and when they do,they point to numbers and wealth,not to ritual standing and pollution and purity. It is thus reasonable to hypothesise that as India urbanises,the influence of caste in electoral politics will be ever more limited.

This does not in any way imply that a discourse centred on the term “caste” will disappear from the political agenda. It will not. But caste will increasingly act like an interest group,whose distinguishing characteristic is neither endogamy nor ritual hierarchy,but a politically constructed category — a cluster of various jatis — seeking to influence government policy. SP will not be able to rely entirely on Yadav votes,nor can the BSP mobilise only Dalit votes. This has,of course,already happened. As India urbanises further,politics will increasingly become caste-plus,if not post-caste. Traditional notions of caste will progressively erode in intensity. Urbanisation,especially if it is accompanied by marketisation,may also influence caste relations in villages as a greater number of villages will become part of an urban hinterland.

Does this mean cities will become sites of equality and liberation? Ambedkar did believe this was likely to happen. He called villages a cesspool,advocating Dalit migration to cities.

It may be worth putting our analysis,and Ambedkar’s,in a comparative perspective. The sharp contrast between cities,where equal citizens live,and villages,where unequal subjects do,may well be true in the very long run. But we also know that some intermediate forms,quite durable,have often also accompanied the rise of cities. The late 19th century US not only witnessed a rapid emergence of cities,but also “machine politics”. New migrants often got linked to politicians in a transactional patron-client relationship: in exchange for votes,migrants got access to services. City politics in the late 19th and early 20th century US,as a result,became corrupt. Moreover,racial violence accompanied the migration of African Americans into northern cities and the American South saw the rise of highly racist politics and laws. Similarly,the European urban narrative is not simply one of equal citizenship. During the 20th century,Europe not only witnessed a rising consciousness about rights,but it was also a site of vicious forms of racial and ethnic discrimination and violence.

An urbanised India may not exactly re-live the Western experience,but it will share some of these properties. Democratic battles for equal citizenship rights will have to be fought in urban India as well.

Chhibber is at the Travers Department of Political Science,University of California,Berkeley. Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University,where he also directs the India Initiative at the Watson Institute. He is a contributing editor for ‘The Indian Express’