Caste in politics: candidates, vote banks and the limits of caste

Detail

1. Casteism: what it means

• Casteism is the belief that caste is the only basis of social community.
• It says people of one caste form a natural community with the same interests.

• It says other castes do not share those interests.

• It works like communalism. Communalism treats religion as the only basis of community. Casteism does the same with caste.

• Why casteism is wrong: experience does not support it.
• Caste is one part of a person's identity. It is not the only part, and often not the most important one.
• A person is also a worker or farmer, rich or poor, a man or a woman, a party supporter and a citizen. Each of these also shapes how they vote.

2. Caste in politics: NCERT's three forms

• Ticket and cabinet arithmetic:
• When parties choose candidates, they look at the caste mix of the voters in the constituency.

• When a government is formed, parties try to give each important caste a place among the ministers.

• Appeal to caste feeling:

• Parties and candidates appeal to caste sentiment to win support.

• Some parties are seen as speaking for particular castes.

• Universal franchise as a mobiliser:

• Universal adult franchise (every adult citizen can vote) and one-person-one-vote forced leaders to go out and gather support from every group.
• This gave a new political awareness to castes once treated as low and kept out of power.
• So caste in politics did more than divide. It also helped groups that had been left out to enter politics.

3. Key concepts

• Vote bank: a group that votes mostly for one party or leader. M.N. Srinivas coined the term in 1955, in his study of a Mysore village.

• It means a large share of a group's votes. It does not mean all of them.

• "Modernity of tradition": Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph (1967) used this phrase for caste associations.

• These are old caste groups that turned into modern pressure groups. They hold meetings, make demands and bargain with parties.

• Their point: an old institution (caste) can carry democratic politics forward. It does not only hold it back.

• Caste-in-politics vs politics-in-caste:

• Caste shapes politics, through tickets and appeals.
• Politics also changes caste. Castes join into bigger coalitions, groups that were left out make claims, and caste identity becomes a political identity.

4. The legal bar: RPA, 1951, s.123(3)

• Corrupt practice (an illegal act in an election that can cancel the winner's election) under Section 123(3), Representation of the People Act, 1951, covers these cases:
• An appeal by a candidate, their agent, or anyone acting with the candidate's consent…
• …to vote or not vote for any person on the ground of his religion, race, caste, community or language…

• …or the use of religious symbols or national symbols (the national flag, the national emblem) to help a candidate win or to hurt a rival. [2][3]

• 1961 amendment: Parliament deleted the word "systematic" before "appeal". After this, even a single caste appeal counts. Before 1961, only a systematic appeal did. [3]

• Why the rule exists: s.123(2), (3) and (3-A) aim to keep out of elections appeals to divisive factors that stir irrational passions against the Constitution's basic values. [3]
• Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017): a Constitution Bench (a bench of five or more judges that decides major questions of law) gave its judgment on 2 January 2017. [4]
• Question: does "his" in s.123(3) mean only the candidate's caste or religion, or the voter's too?
• Majority: "his" covers the candidate, the agent and the voter/elector. So an appeal to voters' caste or religion is also a corrupt practice. [4]

• Minority: "his" means only the religion or caste of the candidate or a rival candidate. [4]

• Who acts on it: a winner found guilty of a corrupt practice can lose the seat through an election petition in the High Court. The Model Code of Conduct (the ECI's rules of behaviour for parties and candidates during elections) also bars caste and communal appeals. (Details in the electoral-reforms note.)

5. Limits of caste: NCERT's four points

#	Point	What it shows
1	No Lok Sabha constituency has a clear majority of one caste	A candidate has to win votes from several castes and communities
2	No party gets all the votes of a caste	A "vote bank" means a large share, not the whole caste
3	Many candidates may share a caste, while many voters have no candidate of their own caste	In both cases, voters still have to choose on other grounds
4	Ruling parties and sitting MPs/MLAs often lose	If caste fixed votes for good, governments would never fall

• Other factors that shape votes:
• Party attachment: loyalty to a party often matters more than caste.
• Class and gender inside a caste: the rich and poor of one caste, and its men and women, often vote differently.

• Performance and leadership: what voters think of the government's work and how popular the leaders are often decides the result.

• Survey evidence: the Lokniti-CSDS National Election Studies show that people who receive welfare benefits often vote on that basis. They also show that support from several castes has come together behind one party in recent Lok Sabha elections. (verify)

• Bottom line (NCERT): caste matters in elections, but elections are not only about caste. Caste is an important factor. It does not decide the result.

6. Reserved constituencies and the Poona Pact

• Reserved constituencies: seats where only SC or ST candidates can contest. All voters of the constituency vote.
• Result: a candidate has to appeal across castes to win. This weakens narrow caste mobilisation.

• Legal basis: Article 330 (Lok Sabha) and Article 332 (state assemblies). Article 334 sets a time limit on this reservation. The 104th Amendment (2019) extended it to 2030.

• Origin: the Poona Pact (1932)

• Communal Award (August 1932): British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald gave the "Depressed Classes" separate electorates (only Depressed Class voters would elect their representatives). [5]
• Gandhi, then in prison, began a fast unto death. He feared the Award would cut the Depressed Classes off from Hindu society. [5]
• Ambedkar had supported separate electorates. He accepted a compromise to save Gandhi's life. [5]
• Terms: joint electorates with reserved seats. 148 seats were reserved, 78 more than the Award offered. The Pact also called for no discrimination in public services and set aside a share of education grants. [5]
• Later view: Ambedkar remained unhappy with the Pact. He called the pressure on him "blackmail", because he saw separate electorates as key to real representation. [5]
• (How reserved seats are set and rotated is covered in the elections-electoral-system note.)

7. Caste enumeration: Census 2027

• Decision: the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decided on 30 April 2025 to include caste enumeration in Census 2027. [6]
• What is new: it is the first caste enumeration for all individuals since Independence. Earlier censuses after 1947 counted only SCs and STs. [6]
• Legal step: the government notified its intent to hold the census under Section 3, Census Act, 1948, on 16 June 2025. [6]
• Phases: 1. Houselisting and Housing Census: April–September 2026. 2. Population Enumeration: February 2027. Caste will be counted in this phase. The reference date (the moment the count refers to) is 00:00 hours, 1 March 2027. [6]

• For Ladakh, snow-bound areas of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, enumeration is set for September 2026. [6]

• Political meaning: caste data will feed debates on sub-categorising reservations and on whether caste-based targeting brings caste back into politics.

Prelims Hooks

• "Vote bank" was coined by M.N. Srinivas (1955), not Rajni Kothari or Ambedkar.
• "Modernity of tradition" (1967), on caste associations, is by Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph.
• RPA 1951, s.123(3): an appeal on grounds of religion, race, caste, community or language is a corrupt practice. 1961: the word "systematic" was deleted. [2][3]
• Abhiram Singh (2017): "his" in s.123(3) includes the voter's religion or caste (majority view). [4]
• Poona Pact (1932): joint electorates + reserved seats. 148 seats were reserved, against 71 under the Communal Award. [5]
• SC/ST seat reservation: Art. 330 (Lok Sabha), Art. 332 (state assemblies), Art. 334 (time limit; 104th Amendment extended it to 2030).
• Census 2027: first full caste enumeration since Independence. Reference date 1 March 2027. Notified under s.3 Census Act, 1948. [6]
• Trap: "Every Lok Sabha constituency has a majority caste" is false (NCERT).
• Trap: in reserved constituencies, only SC/ST candidates contest, but all voters vote. It is not a separate electorate.

Mains Points

• Caste as a mobiliser vs a divider: universal franchise turned caste into a way for once-excluded groups to gain voice and power ("modernity of tradition"). The cost is identity-based vote-bank politics that can push governance and performance aside.
• Limits of caste-only explanations: no caste has a majority in any constituency, sitting MPs lose often, and class and gender split castes. Party, performance and welfare delivery decide many results. (Lokniti-CSDS evidence, verify)
• Legal control is limited: s.123(3) and the Abhiram Singh (2017) reading ban caste appeals. But enforcement is slow (election petitions take years), and implicit caste signals through ticket choice are not covered. Reform ideas include time-bound disposal of election petitions and stronger ECI powers under the Model Code of Conduct.
• Caste census 2027: it will give data for fair targeting of benefits and for sub-categorising reservations. The risk is that it hardens caste identities and fuels competition for reservation shares, so how the data is used is key.