Markets and caste - 2

he universal franchise was also mooted at that time. These two things were in direct contrast to thousands of years of tradition and culture of Hindu society. The third such thing was the free distribution of land to Shudra tillers due to land reforms. These three reforms can be said to be three great achievements of India after independence. However the landless Shudras were left out of this process. These three reforms encroached upon the traditional rights and privileges of upper castes Hindus. There must have been some reasons for being so generous, which runs mighty contrary to their history of not sharing even the village water well! One of the reasons was that the threat of untouchables leaving the Hindu society was looming large, which could have affected the larger interests of Hindus. The perspective of 20 percent of Hindus joining either Islam or Christianity was not very enticing. A straight forward reduction of 20 percent Hindus might have affected their political representation and hence the chances of power. They were not willing give up the power they got after nearly 800 years courtesy British. This might have also paved the way to third partition. In this regard it may also be seen that the untouchable converts to other religions stood to forfeit their right to reservation. Thus this might also be seen as a plug to stop the outward flow of Hindus. This prevented the conversion. However the actual threat did not materialize. The reason for the land reforms which distributed land to tillers for free, might be that those people who stood to lose their land (after due compensation) had actually sided with the British thus losing the sympathy of freedom fighters. Again it was a safety valve to give vent to aspirations of tillers whose dissatisfaction with the rulers might have created a lot of problems. Why these safety valves were necessary? For this we have to see the world after French revolution, Russian revolution and Chinese revolution where the elites were wiped out. The ferocity and terror engulfing these events terrorized the would be rulers of India. This pushed up the possible cost of survival for the elites, which forced them to cede some place to lower strata. They could maximize their superiority only at a certain and proven cost. These people being in minority had got modern education and had a very high level of intelligence. They remembered the modern history and knew the rule that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. It was a real politic. However some people consider it as a matter of charity and compassion of unknown proportions towards the very weak. But their history until now shows that they never possessed all these attributes. They needed to find some ways to pacify the radicals and would be radicals in lower two permanently exploited strata forming the majority. They needed to find a way to contain the sleeping anger of sleeping majority. This they did.