Dalit Revolution? New Politicians in Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

This paper uses recent field research to challenge the widely held view that a ''Dalit revolution is occurring in North India. Drawing two years' ethno graphic research in a village in western Uttar Pradesh, the authors uncover the growing importance of a generation of local political activists among Dalits (former untouchables) while also showing that these young men have not been able to effect a broad structural transformation at the local level. The authors use this case to identify a need for further research South Asian poli tical change that links party political transformation to questions of local level social practice and subaltern consciousness. There is a widespread consensus among political scientists that a revo lution is taking place in North India. Building an analysis of party politics and electoral transformation, scholars have written of a substantial change in the relationship between caste and power since the early 1990s (e.g., Jaffrelot 2003; Kohli 2001). This paper brings evidence to bear this argument by focus ing Dalit politics at the local level, with particular reference to a gener ation of low-caste political activists in Uttar Pradesh (UP). In the villages and small towns of UP, educated Dalit young men have come to challenge the power of dominant sections of society, raising political awareness among margin alized populations and communicating political and cultural ideas to their communities. As might be expected, analysis of these self-styled new politicians provides some support for the notion of a Dalit revolution. But there is as yet little evidence that Dalit political activists have effected a substantial change in the distribution of economic, social, and political opportunities in rural UP. Con trary to the idea that close analysis of local dynamics will uncover instances of unexpected agency, we use ethnographic fieldwork in a single village to empha size the limited and contradictory achievements of Dalit political change on the ground. Our UP case study questions not only the progressive teleology of