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The very nature of caste politics inherently means that there are no boundaries between "civil society" and "political society", as demonstrated by the proliferation caste mafia. The mafia dons became mayors, ministers, and even members of Parliament. Therefore, there was no alternative to fight against these mafia figures and political brokers.
The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system. The caste system as it exists today is thought to be the result of developments during the collapse of the Mughal era and the rise of the British colonial government in India.
The effect of the caste politics is debatable and could not be expected to end in near future. [18] In 2001, the sitting DMK government came up with a huge alliance with caste parties and was defeated in 2001 assembly election. Still caste based political parties are part of both the ruling and opposition alliances in all the successive elections.
Ambedkar views that definitions of castes given by Émile Senart [5] John Nesfield, H. H. Risley and Dr Ketkar as incomplete or incorrect by itself and all have missed the central point in the mechanism of the caste system. Senart's "idea of pollution" is a characteristic of caste in so far as caste has a religious flavour.
But the movement for change is not a struggle to end caste; it is to use caste as an instrument for social change. Caste is not disappearing, nor is "casteism" - the political use of caste — for what is emerging in India is a social and political system which institutionalizes and transforms but does not abolish caste. [46]
During the late 1970s, increasing numbers of women—namely Jewish women, women of color, and lesbians—criticized the assumption of a common "woman's experience" irrespective of unique differences in race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and culture. [15] The term identity politics was (re-)coined by the Combahee River Collective in 1977. [16]
The racial understanding of caste has largely been debated by scholars, with some like Dr. B. R. Ambedkar arguing that caste differences between higher caste Aryans and lower cast native-Indians being more due to religious factors. While the term remains contended, it is widely understood that this racial assessment is based on the way lower ...
[27] He also saw a linkage between the nasal index and the definition of a community as either a tribe or a Hindu caste [25] and believed that the caste system had its basis in race rather than in occupation, saying "community of race, and not, as has frequently been argued, community of function, is the real determining principle, the true ...