Caste and the Decline of Political Homogeneity

The relationship between the traditional social organization of India, based on the principle of hierarchy, and the newly introduced democratic institutions and procedures, based on the principle of equality, has been a subject of diverse interpretations. The more significant of these interpretations are that the social organization has subsumed the new political system, and that the various units of social organization, namely, castes, have developed voluntary bodies or caste associations of their own in order to enter into an operative relationship with the new political system. The latter interpretation also implies that the democratic political socialization in India has been taking place by means of the caste associations. This study takes a hard look at such interpretations and points out that the internal cohesion of the social organization materially alters when it moves away from its primary social concerns—ritual, pollution, and endogamy—to nontraditional concerns. This change is reflected in the fact that highly fragmented decision-making processes of castes in nontraditional matters often lead to their substantial vote against candidates of their own castes. Such political differentiation within castes has occurred before the advent of certain caste associations, and in some cases despite them. These and other assertions are substantiated through data collected in a rural and an urban community where fieldwork designed to understand their political dynamics extended over a number of years.