ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the general trends of the process of vernacularisation of Indian democracy. It argues that in North India, low-caste politics did not spring out of the blue in the 1990s, but rather is linked to long-term processes of vernacularisation which have affected the working of the Indian party system. The chapter focuses in particular on the relation between caste and politics by looking at the weakening of the legitimacy of caste hierarchy, changes in the local patterns of authority and patronage and the formation of ethnic-like castes. It describes the general trends of these transformations in the state of Uttar Pradesh, and it introduces the political stage in which by the 1990s the Yadavs had gained political power and become leaders of the ‘backward castes’. The Samajwadi Party was formed in 1992 out of a series of defections from the Janata Dal.
