Untouchable politics during the era of Congress dominance

Earlier we suggested that the attachment of Untouchables to Congress during the 1930S and 40S was far less than is sometimes assumed. In the years after Independence Untouchable support for Congress clearly strengthened. From 1952 until 1989, with the exception of the post-Emergency election of 1977, Untouchables tended to function in both national and State elections as a ‘vote bank’ for Congress. Their vote for Congress was a vote for the party of government, a party that had committed itself to a program of action on Untouchability and poverty. In rational terms and here their situation was similar to that of the Muslims there was little electoral choice open to Untouchables in most parts of the country. If the Left had developed more strength outside what became its strongholds in West Bengal and Kerala, the Untouchable attachment to Congress might have been less. Thus in the very first post-Independence election of 1952 the Socialists won a good part of the Scheduled Caste vote. But this was the high point of their electoral experience in that State. It is only in the nineties that the logic of class (albeit often dressed in the garb of caste) is again being asserted across large parts of India, particularly the north.

While the Untouchables were a crucial Congress vote bank in India as a whole and in a majority of individual States, even before the recent flux they did not cling to Congress in regions where another party or move-ment rose to dominance. The major examples of long-term non-Congress dominance are West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Untouchables in the former two States have for a number of years had a strong identification with the Communist Party in its several divisions – in recent years predominantly with the dominant Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)). A number of Ezhavas associated themselves with the fledgling Communist Party from the early 1940S, but with increasing prosperity the caste vote has been split along class lines between the Communists and Congress (Jeffrey 1974 59). As to the other and poorer Untouchable castes of Kerala, these have been far less influen-tial in the councils of the Communist movement. But in conformity with the class divisions of Kerala politics, the Scheduled Castes have tended to gravitate towards the parties of the Left. In West Bengal, the Communist movement was slower to gain control of the State: the first United Front Government came to power in 1967, a decade after the first such govern-ment in Kerala. Support for the CPI(M) in West Bengal has been broadly based and not confined to particular castes, but again the party has done particularly well among poorer voters and therefore among the Scheduled Castes. In short, the Untouchables of Kerala and West Bengal have behaved according to the logic of their class position within a polit-ical culture more directed to considerations of class than anywhere else in India. But from another perspective the Untouchables of these two States have been doing little different from their counterparts elsewhere in India. They have simply aligned themselves with the majority party – it is doubtful that most of these Untouchables have been affected with any special passion for Marxism.