ABSTRACT

Kanshi Ram's plunge into electoral politics unduly surprised many of his comrades. Whatever little is written on Kanshi Ram is heavily affected by the dazzling electoral successes of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). While historically Jatav/Chamar has been a conjoint caste group, the dominant idiom of caste in BSP's politics created a cleavage in it. The FPTP type of election necessitated competitive manipulation of castes and communities and corresponding investments in short term. It necessarily led parties to build their money muscle in order to increase their staying power in electoral politics. Identity politics reached its pinnacle at the hands of Kanshi Ram, who professed to strengthen caste identity of the lower castes to combat the high-caste oppression. Some scholars identified some industries with certain castes and attributed their success to social capital, a concept that has been launched and widely celebrated by the governing institutions of neoliberal capitalism.