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Caste Politics In India
In India, a caste is a (usually endogamous) social group where membership is decided by birth. Castes often have related political preferences. Broadly, Indian castes are divided into the Forward Castes, Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes, though Indian Christians and Indian Muslims can also function as castes. India's caste system has been influential. One's caste can control access to political power, land, and police or judicial assistance. Castes also tend to influence local politics by being local to certain areas. Political parties in everywhere tend to represent the interests of specific castes. Women in politics tend to be from upper castes. In the era of British India, the British institutionalised caste into India's governmental institutions. However, by the 1990s, there was a social movement to empower the lower castes. Caste and political power The removal of the boundaries between "civil society" and "political society" meant that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vote Bank
Votebank (also spelled vote-bank or vote bank), in the political discourse of India, is a term referring to a loyal bloc of voters from a single community, who consistently back a certain candidate or political formation in democratic elections. Such behavior is often the result of an expectation of benefits, whether real or imagined, from the political formations, often at the cost of other communities. Votebank politics is the practice of creating and maintaining votebanks through divisive policies. As it encourages voting on the basis of self-interest of certain groups, often against their better judgement, it is considered harmful to the principles of representative democracy. Here, community may be of a caste, religion, language, or subnation. Etymology The term was first used by noted Indian sociologist, M. N. Srinivas in his 1955 paper entitled ''The Social System of a Mysore Village''. He used it in the context of political influence exerted by a patron over a client. La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jats
The Jat people ((), ()) are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory, northeastern Rajputana, and the western Gangetic Plain in the 17th and 18th centuries. Quote: "Hiuen Tsang gave the following account of a numerous pastoral-nomadic population in seventh-century Sin-ti (Sind): 'By the side of the river.. f Sind along the flat marshy lowlands for some thousand li, there are several hundreds of thousands very great manyfamilies ..hichgive themselves exclusively to tending cattle and from this derive their livelihood. They have no masters, and whether men or women, have neither rich nor poor.' While they were left unnamed by the Chinese pilgrim, these same people of lower Sind were called Jats' or 'Jats of the wastes' by the Arab geographers. The Jats, as 'dromedary men.' we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nationalist Congress Party
The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party in other states. Party formation and performance The NCP was formed on 10 June 1999, by Sharad Pawar, P. A. Sangma, and Tariq Anwar after they were expelled from the Indian National Congress on 20 May 1999, for disputing the right of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi to lead the party. When the NCP formed, the Indian Congress (Socialist) – Sarat Chandra Sinha party merged into the new party. Despite the NCP being founded on opposition to the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, the party joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to form the government of Maharashtra in October 1999. In 2004, the party joined the UPA to form the national government led by Manmohan Singh. The NCP's leader, Sharad Pawar served as the Minister of Agriculture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kayasth
Kayastha (also referred to as Kayasth) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus of Maharashtra, the Bengali Kayasthas of Bengal and Karanas of Odisha. All of them were traditionally considered "writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers. The earliest known reference to the term ''Kayastha'' dates back to the Kushan Empire, when it evolved into a common name for a writer or scribe. In the Sanskrit literature and inscriptions, it was used to denote the holders of a particular category of offices in the government service. In this context, the term possibly derived from ('principal, capital, treasury') and - ('to stay') and perhaps originally stood for an officer of the royal treasury, or revenue department. Over the cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rajput
Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities. Over time, the Rajputs emerged as a social class comprising people from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the membership of this class became largely hereditary, although new claims to Rajput status continued to be made in the later centuries. Several Rajput-ruled kingdoms played a significant role in many regions of central and northern India from seventh century onwards. The Rajput population and the former Rajput stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahmin
Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru or acharya). The other three varnas are the Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. The traditional occupation of Brahmins is that of priesthood at the Hindu temples or at socio-religious ceremonies, and rite of passage rituals such as solemnising a wedding with hymns and prayers.James Lochtefeld (2002), Brahmin, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A–M, Rosen Publishing, , page 125 Traditionally, the Brahmins are accorded the highest ritual status of the four social classes. Their livelihood is prescribed to be one of strict austerity and voluntary poverty ("A Brahmin should acquire what just suffices for the time, what he earns he should spend all that the same day"). In practice, Indian texts suggest that some Brahmins historicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
States And Union Territories Of India
India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-independence The Indian subcontinent has been ruled by many different ethnic groups throughout its history, each instituting their own policies of administrative division in the region. The British Raj mostly retained the administrative structure of the preceding Mughal Empire. India was divided into provinces (also called Presidencies), directly governed by the British, and princely states, which were nominally controlled by a local prince or raja loyal to the British Empire, which held ''de facto'' sovereignty ( suzerainty) over the princely states. 1947–1950 Between 1947 and 1950 the territories of the princely states were politically integrated into the Indian union. Most were merged into existing provinces; others were organised into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kunbi
Kunbi (alternatively Kanbi , Kurmi ) is a generic term applied to caste system, castes of traditional farmers in Western India. These include the Dhonoje, Ghatole, Hindre, Jadav, Jhare, Khaire, Lewa (Leva Patil), Lonare and Tirole communities of Vidarbha. The communities are largely found in the state of Maharashtra but also exist in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Goa. Kunbis are included among the Other Backward Classes (OBC) in Maharashtra. Most of the Mavalas serving in the armies of the Maratha Empire under Shivaji came from this community. The Scindia, Shinde, Nagpur kingdom, Bhosale, Dewas State, Pawar and Gaekwad dynasties of the Maratha Empire are originally of Kunbi origin. In the fourteenth century and later, several Kunbis who had taken up employment as military men in the armies of various rulers underwent a process of Sanskritisation and began to identify themselves as Marathas. The boundary between the Marathas and the Kunbi became o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maratha
The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a Marathi-speaking state of India in 1960, as part of a nationwide linguistic reorganization of the Indian states. The term "Maratha" is generally used by historians to refer to all Marathi-speaking peoples, irrespective of their caste; however, now it may refer to a Maharashtrian caste known as the Maratha. The Marathi community came into political prominence in the 17th century, when the Maratha Empire was established under Chhatrapati Shivaji; the Marathas are credited to a large extent for ending Mughal rule over India. History Ancient to medieval period During the ancient period, around 230 BC, Maharashtra came under the rule of the Satavahana dynasty, which ruled the region for 400 years.India Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shiva Ayyadurai
V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai (born Vellayappa Ayyadurai Shiva, December 2, 1963) is an Indian-American engineer, politician, entrepreneur, and anti-vaccine activist. He has become known for promoting conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and unfounded medical claims. Ayyadurai holds four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including a Ph.D. in biological engineering, and is a Fulbright grant recipient. In a 2011 article published by ''Time'', Ayyadurai claimed to have invented email, as a teenager; in August 1982, he registered the copyright on an email application he had written. Historians strongly dispute this account because email was already in use in the early 1970s. Ayyadurai sued Gawker Media and Techdirt for defamation for disputing his account of inventing email; both lawsuits were settled out of court. Ayyadurai and Techdirt agreed to Techdirt's articles remaining online with a link to Ayyadurai's rebuttal on his own website. Ayyadurai also attracted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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