The Origin and Development of the unique Political Phenomenon named ‘Other Backward Classes’ and its role in reshaping the Post-Independence National Politics in India: a perspective from an Anthropologist

Caste in India has played a detrimental role in deciding the fate of the political and social life of numerous individuals across the socio-political spectrum. After independence a new socio-political horizon based on complex social relations emerged, replacing the notion of rigid stratification through overlapping potentialities and horizontal mobility among the lower stratum of social stratification. This translated into the formation of certain cohesive associations of various social groups, who ushered themselves into the arena of wider political representation and projected their group identities while truncating the notion of purity and pollution. Politicians, in order to attract these associations towards themselves and gain their allegiances, used strategies and coercion perhaps, to consolidate their position inside the domain of electoral and social politics. Seizing this opportunity, those associations and their stakeholders negotiated certain terms and demands of their own with those in the political realm, in return for a certain conditions viz., socio-political mobilization when needed. This article intends to understand the historical and ideological backgrounds and factors involved in the origin and formation of such associations who modulated the overall ideologies of the member groups, while cementing the path for a wider scale of identity politics. The article also envisages the notion that the factors behind certain contemporary political mobilizations on a broader scale can also be traced back to the times of the formation of those cohesive associations of larger social groups.