Question

Explain how caste affects politics and politics affect caste.

Answer 1

Caste in Indian society refers to a social group where membership is decided by birth.Members of such local group are endogamous, i.e. they tend to enter into marital relationships among themselves. They often have related political preferences, similar to the racial preferences for the Democratic and Republican parties in the USA.

For political/government purposes, the castes[3] are broadly divided into[4][5]

Forward Castes (about 15% of population)
Other Backward Classes (OBC) (about 41% of population)
Scheduled Castes (about 20% of population)
Scheduled Tribes (about 9% of population)
The Indian Muslims (13.4%), and Christians (2.3%) often function as castes since they too marry among themselves.

Politics influence the caste system when it uses vote bank politics.Some politicians have a strategy of alluring the section of the society that has marginalised and underdeveloped by using caste based divisive wedges in the society.They either seek the vote from the section of caste they belong to or announce the forms of reservations or privileges for the section of caste they seek the vote from.

Answer 2

Influence of caste on politics :

(i) While choosing candidates for election, political  parties consider the caste composition of the  voters to win support.

(ii) When the government is formed, political parties  takecare that representative from different castes  find place in the government.

(iii) Political parties make appeal to the caste  sentiments to win votes.

(iv) Some political parties are known to favour some  particular caste.

(v) Universal adult franchise and the principle  of one-person one-vote have compelled the  political leaders to bring caste sentiments into  politics to muster support.