Professor Ghanshyam Shah’s latest book, “Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics”, published by Routledge, is penned by one of Gujarat’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.
Shah writes in the preface: “The Congress and BJP are bourgeois parties, adhering to a capitalist economic system for economic growth. Generally, the former is liberal and secular, promoting equal respect for all religions. The latter is a rightist Hindu nationalist, championing the construction of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. It is a cadre-based party. Both the parties differ in their approach to ‘social welfare’, ‘entitlement’, and ‘empowerment’ of the citizens in general and subaltern communities in particular.”
This premise frames the volume’s central inquiry: “How do both parties manoeuvre socio-economic forces and their contradictions to gain state power in a highly socially and economically inegalitarian society without challenging dominant economic classes and the Brahmanic hegemony of hierarchical order? How do their electoral politics sustain and nurture the core values—social hierarchy and economic inequality—of the capitalist and Brahmanic caste systems?”
Shah’s analysis spans from colonial mercantilism to the BJP’s three-decade grip on power, revealing Gujarat not as a “model of development” but as a laboratory for elite consolidation. Historically, he argues, Gujarat’s social fabric has been mercantile-dominated, a legacy of imperial collaboration in which “merchants and mercantile communities closely collaborated with the ruling class.” Post-Independence, this evolved into a mixed economy prioritising capitalist strategies, with governments employing “different rhetoric for public consumption” to mask pro-elite policies.
Drawing on the 1931 caste census, Shah clusters castes into hierarchical orders based on “roti and beti vyavahar”—inter-dining and inter-marrying relationships—echoing sociologist A. M. Shah’s framework. At the apex sit the Savarnas: Brahmans (4 per cent of the population), Rajputs (5 per cent), and Vanias (3 per cent). The latter wield outsized influence despite lacking ritual primacy, hence the “Vania–Brahman order” rather than the reverse. Vanias, as Vaishyas, have thrived in trade, industry, banking, and absentee landownership, an “open status category” absorbing upwardly mobile groups like the Patidars (formerly Kanbis, 12 per cent of the population), who transitioned from Shudra tillers to Savarna claimants through colonial-era commerce and post-1947 land acquisitions.
This economic stratification, Shah notes, fractures castes internally: “Economic stratification has divided all castes beyond the smallest hamlets into the relatively rich, middle and poor categories, with a few exceptions. Their proportions vary. Traditionally, upper castes, generally referred to as Savarna in the classical Hindu Brahmanic system, have a larger proportion of the rich compared to the lower castes in the ladder.”
Yet, Shah believes caste stereotypes endure; wealthy lower-caste individuals “do not enjoy the same elevated status among the upper class in terms of treatment as those from higher castes.” A burgeoning middle class—white-collar professionals in law, medicine, and engineering—emerges across jatis, but upper castes retain advantages: “the poor from the upper castes have better life chances than the poor from the deprived communities.”
Subaltern groups, including Kolis, Baraiyas, and Adivasis, pursued Sanskritisation for mobility. In the 1911 census, brick-making Kolis rebranded themselves as “Dalwadi or Talwari Rajputs,” severing kin ties, while literate Baraiyas launched caste journals to adopt Kshatriya customs. Tribes such as Dhodias and Chaudharis, settling as cultivators under Gaekwad-era education policies, followed similar paths, while Surat’s Vankars (then considered untouchables) claimed “Meyavat Rajput” status through missionary schooling and employment in Bombay.
Reformist impulses, however, often buckled under hegemony, Shah asserts. Early anti-caste voices—the 1840s Paramhans Mandali in Bombay opposing idol worship and discrimination, or Surat’s 1844 Manav Dharm Sabha advocating universal equality—found little traction in Gujarat, which lacked an anti-Brahman movement comparable to Maharashtra’s. Even Narmad, hailed as the “father of modern Gujarat,” shifted from critiquing the Manusmriti to endorsing Varnashrama dharma, deeming inequality hereditary and asserting that “a person born as a Brahman or Bhil cannot have equal status as human beings in the affairs of the world.” The Arya Samaj’s 1875 Vedic revival ignored untouchability, while caste councils stifled radicals, as seen in the backlash against inter-caste dining promoted by the Swa-Sudharak Mandali.
Mahatma Gandhi’s advent transformed Gujarat’s Congress, yet his legacy remains ambivalent, Shah argues. Absorbing “Brahmanic discourse from an Orientalist perspective,” Gandhi initially idealised birth-based Varna as “an ideal social order of division of labour,” rejecting scriptural authority but urging moral reform over structural change. Later realities unsettled him; he endorsed inter-caste dining and marriage to break barriers, though his faith in Varna persisted. His Harijan Sevak Sangh’s satyagraha call against caste Hindus, and advocacy for constitutional Article 17 abolishing untouchability, marked progress, but “despite his efforts, the mindset and behaviour of the majority of Hindus towards untouchables remained unchanged.” His principle of sarva dharma sama bhava clashed with the rise of militant Hinduism.
Tracing the ascent of the Hindu right, Shah notes mid-nineteenth-century revivalism—from Bhikshu Akhandanand’s Sastu Sahitya (1908), promoting epics without adversaries, to Arya Samaj’s Shuddhi reconversions. By the 1920s, the RSS and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Hindutva fused caste as an “innate part of nationality.” The Hindu Mahasabha contested the 1937 elections, while the RSS built cultural cadres, fuelling riots between 1923 and 1941 amid economic rivalries. Congress leader Vallabhbhai Patel ambiguously tolerated pro–Hindu Mahasabha elements and K.M. Munshi’s Somnath temple reconstruction, attended by Gujarat leaders despite civil society criticism.
Post-1947 land reforms exposed the resilience of hegemony. In Saurashtra, abolition of feudal tenures benefited Patidar tillers, but mainland Gujarat shielded absentee landlords—mostly Brahmins, Patidars, Parsis, and Muslims—from land ceiling laws, leaving subaltern tenants vulnerable. The state “disciplined the labour of subaltern communities to work for the landed class,” enabling Kanbi land grabs in Adivasi mewasi villages. Community development programmes of the 1950s swelled “bullock capitalists,” with irrigation, credit, and markets amplifying Patidar social capital.
The Congress decline in 1960s stemmed from internal rifts and Other Backward Classes assertions following 1962 panchayat decentralisation. Yet rival factions converged on capitalist trajectories, producing “striking growth in the industrial economy by 1970.” The 1974 Navnirman agitation—sparked by hostel fee hikes in Morbi and at Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Engineering College in Ahmedabad—escalated into statewide unrest under the Navnirman Yuvak Samiti. Lacking ideology beyond youthful anger, its leadership—largely Brahman–Vania, many among them from ABVP—ignored class divides. Workers clashed with students enforcing shop closures, while landless labourers viewed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as pro-poor. Upper-caste dominance framed speeches invoking “traditional values,” even as radicals spotlighted inequality.
The Emergency (1975–77) deepened divisions. Pro-poor Congressman Jhinaibhai Darji criticised Sarvodaya moralism, calling it “a cruel joke to talk about democracy and be in the company of those who have exploited people for centuries.” After the Emergency, Madhavsinh Solanki’s 1980 KHAM coalition—Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, and Muslim—antagonised Savarnas, fuelling the 1981 anti-reservation riots. Violence peaked in Jetalpur, where Patidars burned a Dalit asserting land rights under land distribution laws. Dalit Panthers protested, while Congress dismissed the incident as routine; Darji intervened to aid victims.
The BJP navigated this terrain through Samrasta, a Brahmanic assimilation strategy co-opting subalterns without dismantling hierarchy. RSS affiliates such as Bharat Sevashram Sangh and Hindu Milan Mandir, active since the 1940s, recast folk legends to praise lower castes as “hardworking” and “able to bear suffering.” New sects—led by figures like Pandurang Shastri Athavale, Swami Sachchidanand, and Morari Bapu—preached dignity without abolishing caste, often blaming Muslim rule for Hindu decline. The BJP formed Dalit and Adivasi cells, absorbing Congress defectors. Solanki’s Kshatriya supporters issued violent threats, prompting Savarna resignations from Congress.
Since 1990, Shah argues, “Vikas and Hindutva” fused. The BJP’s Ayodhya Yatra coincided with Narmada protests, yet both major parties supported large dams, with Congress offering tepid Project Affected Persons rehabilitation. The 2002 violence scarred Gujarat. Industrialist Rahul Bajaj publicly rebuked Chief Minister Narendra Modi at the Confederation of Indian Industry meeting on February 6, 2003, calling 2002 a “lost year” and citing investor insecurity. Modi’s sharp retort drew backlash, leading the Resurgent Group of Gujarat to threaten a boycott of the Confederation of Indian Industry, which later issued an apologetic letter. The Vibrant Gujarat summits from 2003 onward burnished Modi’s image; India Today named him the top Chief Minister in 2004.
Modi’s Samaras villages diluted panchayat contests in the name of harmony, echoing earlier Congress schemes. He valorised Dalits through legends such as Batrish Lakshano’s sacrifice, framing manual scavenging as a “spiritual experience” for the Valmiki caste. The RSS’s Brahmanic agenda advanced through anti-slaughterhouse campaigns invoking Gandhi’s vegetarianism and through institutions like the Shabari temple in the Dangs, integrating Adivasis into Hindutva.
Yet cracks emerged, Shah notes, with the 2015 Patidar Aakrosh Andolan demanding reservations amid agrarian distress, and the 2016 Una flogging protests led by Dalits. Patidar per capita income rose sharply between 2005 and 2012, but Other Backward Classes recorded even faster growth, fuelling status anxiety. Youth unemployment and limited industrial absorption spurred mobilisation by Hardik Patel.
The state responded with the Gujarat Unreserved Educational and Economic Development Corporation package and the 10 per cent Economically Weaker Sections quota, drawing Patidar leaders back. Patidar organisations expanded hostels, scholarships, and business networking, while Dalit struggles—historically localised—scaled up against violence, exposing “contradictions between neo-liberal economic growth and the Samrasta Hindutva project.”
Shah’s empirical rigour—through census analysis, ethnographies of agitation, and policy scrutiny—demonstrates how state partisanship and Savarna-leaning civil society reinforce inequality. Gujarat’s “sick” Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises rose sharply in the mid-2010s, even as growth hoardings bearing Modi’s image proliferated. This, Shah suggests, mirrors India’s democratic paradox: electoral churn without social equity.
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