(a) What is identity politics ? Discuss the main trends in Dalit movements in India. (20 marks) (b) Is Indian society moving…

(a) Identity politics and the main trends in Dalit movements

Identity politics is political mobilisation around shared markers such as caste, religion, language or gender, to claim recognition, dignity and a share of power. Charles Taylor's "politics of recognition" and Nancy Fraser's argument on status parity and redistribution frame it.

Main trends in Dalit movements:

• Anti-caste and civil-rights phase (Ambedkar): the Mahad Satyagraha (1927) for public water, the Kalaram temple entry (1930), political representation, and mass conversion to Buddhism (1956).
• Electoral assertion: from the 1980s, Kanshi Ram and the Bahujan Samaj Party (1984) moved the agenda from social reform to capturing state power through a broad "Bahujan" identity.
• Welfare and recognition focus: after reservation expanded and Mandal, claims turned to quotas, state patronage and symbolic recognition (statues, memorials), with critics noting a shift from annihilating caste to bargaining within it.
• Cultural and digital assertion: Dalit literature, music, and youth groups such as the Bhim Army (2015) use social media and rights language.
• Internal differentiation: sub-caste cleavages (Mala and Madiga in Andhra and Telangana, Jatav and non-Jatav groups in Uttar Pradesh) led to demands for sub-classification within the SC quota; the Supreme Court in 2024 allowed States to sub-classify Scheduled Castes.

(b) Is Indian society moving from hierarchy to differentiation?

Louis Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus held that the opposition of purity and pollution ranks groups in a single encompassing hierarchy. "Differentiation" means that spheres such as economy, polity and law become distinct from ritual rank, a view in line with Béteille's finding that caste, class and power no longer coincide as they once did.

Evidence for differentiation:

• Markets, cities, education and private employment allow occupational mobility detached from birth.
• Caste associations and parties act as horizontal interest groups competing for power, so caste works as a political, not only ritual, category.
• Land reform, the Constitution's equality norms and reservation weaken the link between caste rank and economic and political power.

Evidence of persistent hierarchy:

• Endogamy remains strong; matrimonial advertisements still sort by caste.
• Residential segregation, untouchability practices and atrocities against Dalits persist.
• Social capital and elite positions remain concentrated in upper castes.

Hierarchy is thus not replaced but coexists with differentiation: public, market and political spheres differentiate faster than kinship, marriage and everyday social relations.

(c) Salient features of the 'new middle class' in India

• Origin: it grew after the 1991 liberalisation, rooted in private corporate, IT and service jobs, unlike the older middle class of public-sector and civil-service employment.
• Consumption and aspiration: identity is expressed through consumption, malls, gated housing and private education and healthcare.
• Caste profile: drawn disproportionately from upper and dominant castes, yet it speaks the language of merit and often opposes reservation.
• Politics and public space: Leela Fernandes describes a "politics of forgetting" that sidelines the urban poor in public space; Arvind Rajagopal speaks of a "split public" between English-language elite media and vernacular mass politics.
• Social and global ties: it is globally connected through migration, remittances and diaspora networks.