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THE RISE OF THE OTHER BACKWARD CLASSES (OBCS) iS Certainly One Of the main developments in the Hindi-belt politics over the last ten years. The OBCs are castes in the Indian social system that are situated above the Untouchables but below the forward castes (the "twice born," Brahmins, Kshatriyas [warriors] and Vaishyas [merchants) and the intermediate castes (mostly peasant proprietors and even dominant castes). They form the bulk of the Shudras-the fourth category (varna) of the classical Hindu social arrangement. The OBCs, whose professional activity is often as field-workers or artisans, represent about half of the Indian population, but they have occupied a subaltern position so far. Their rise for the first time seriously questions upper-caste domination of the public sphere.
The over-representation of these elite groups in the political sphere has always been more pronounced in the Hindi-speaking states than anywhere else. In the South, and even in the West, the upper castes lost ground early, largely because they were smaller in number-in Tamil Nadu Brahmins account for only 3 percent of the population whereas they constitute almost 10 percent in Uttar Pradesh (a state where the upper castes altogether represent one-fifth of society). But the upper castes remained politically dominant in the Hindi belt also because of the pattern of land ownership that enabled them, especially the Rajputs, to consolidate their grasp over the countryside as zamindars, jagirdars, or taluqdars under the British and to retain some of their influence in spite of the efforts toward land reform after 1947.
In fact, these notables were the backbone of the Congress Party's network, and for decades the social deficit of democracy in North India resulted from the clientelistic politics of this party. The Congress co-opted vote-bank `owners,' who were often upper-caste landlords, and Untouchable leaders, whose rallying around the ruling party deprived their group of some important spokesmen. There were even fewer lower-caste leaders within the Congress Party, the lower castes being closer to the opposition parties, especially the Socialists, or the "independents" (Brass 1980); they remained marginalized also for this reason. Until the early 1970s, the upper-caste Members of Parliament (MPs) represented more than 50 percent of the North Indian MPs as against less than 5 percent for intermediate castes and, at the...