The Last Institution Standing: Contradictions and the Politics of Domination in an Indian University

Abstract

The society and culture of the Indian state of Maharashtra were dominated for more than a century by Brahman communities, especially Chitpavan Brahmans, which never exceeded 5% of the total population. By the time the state of Maharashtra was established in 1960, Maharashtra's numerically dominant Maratha caste was already subverting Brahman control of the state's institutions. By 1970 Pune University was the last secular institution that remained under Brahman control, and it became an arena of political conflict as other Brahmans and Marathas challenged the decades-long Chitpavan domination of the university's government. This paper explains how contradictions in caste (Brahmans, Marathas) and institution (postgraduate campus, city colleges, rural colleges) evoked a history of conflict that climaxed in the mid-1970s. At that time, two political "teams" engaged in an internecine campaign to determine who would govern the university.