KHAM (

hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

: खाम) stands for

Koli Koli may refer to: Places * Koli, Finland, a hill in Finland * Koli National Park, a national park in Finland * Koli, Iran (disambiguation), several places in Iran * Koli Airfield, a former airfield in the South Pacific Other uses * Koli peopl ...

Kshatriya Kshatriya ( hi, क्षत्रिय) (from Sanskrit ''kṣatra'', "rule, authority") is one of the four varna (social orders) of Hindu society, associated with warrior aristocracy. The Sanskrit term ''kṣatriyaḥ'' is used in the con ...

Harijan Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

Adivasi The Adivasi refers to inhabitants of Indian subcontinent, generally tribal people. The term is a Sanskrit word coined in the 1930s by political activists to give the tribal people an indigenous identity by claiming an indigenous origin. The term ...

and

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. Here Kshatriya is taken to include the Kolis. In the KHAM combine, Kolis were the largest caste represented at different levels of politics, and

Madhavsinh Solanki Madhav Singh Solanki (30 July 1927 – 9 January 2021) was a leader of Indian National Congress party who served as External Affairs minister of India. He served also as the Chief Minister of Gujarat three times. He was known for KHAM theory b ...

increased the reservation quota for

Other Backward Class The Other Backward Class is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are educationally or socially backward. It is one of several official classifications of the population of India, along with General castes, S ...

es in Gujarat. The theory was propounded by Madhavsinh Solanki in 1980s in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

to create

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. ...

for

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

and prepared by Jhinabhai Darji. Using the formula, Congress was able to capture 149 seats in the 182-member Assembly. However the formula alienated

Patel The Patel is an Indian surname or title, predominantly found in the state of Gujarat representing the community of land-owning farmers and later (with the British East India Company) businessmen, agriculturalists and merchants. Traditionally th ...

s permanently from Congress. during the Kham alliance, castes such as Bania,

Patidar Patidar (Gujarati language, Gujarati: ) is an Indian landlord and agrarian Caste system in India, caste found mostly in Gujarat but also in at least 22 other states of India. The community comprises at multiple subcastes, most prominently the L ...

and

Brahmins 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 o ...

lost their importance in the state, so they propounded the Anti reservation agitation in 1981 and 1985 in Gujarat to get rid of the power of OBC castes.

Bharatsinh Solanki Bharatsinh Madhavsinh Solanki, born on 26 November 1953 in a Koli family of Gujarat, is an Indian politician and former president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee. He was Minister of State for Union Minister of State for Drinking Water an ...

, state Congress president and the son of Madhavsinh Solanki, attempted to revise his father's formula by coming up with KHAMP (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim, and Patel) in 2017. While Congress was able to increase its seat count by 16, it ultimately failed to receive majority. The Congress was able to get

Hardik Patel Hardik Patel (born 20 July 1993) is an Indian politician and social activist. He rose to prominence in July 2015, where he led the Patidar reservation agitation that sought Other Backward Class (OBC) status for the Patidar caste. He joined the ...

, the leader of the

Patidar reservation agitation Starting in July 2015, the people of India's Patidar community, seeking Other Backward Class (OBC) status, held public demonstrations across the Indian state of Gujarat. The largest demonstration was held in Ahmedabad on 25 August 2015, and was ...

to campaign for it. An article by Deepal Trivedi in 2019 suggests the combination OPT (OBC, Patidar, Tribals) is the new winning combination in Gujarat. It suggests these numbers for the major caste groups in Gujarat: OBC 43%, Patidar 12.6%, Tribals 15%, Muslims 10%, Scheduled castes 8%. The forward castes are Rajputs 6%, Brahmins 2%, Bania 2%, Jain 1%. OBC (Other backward class) refer to a group of castes, as determined by the state government for affirmative action.

Also see

* List of Koli people *

List of Koli states and clans The Koli is an Indian caste found in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir states in India. Koli is an agriculturist caste of Gujarat but in coastal areas they a ...

* Caste politics * Kokam theory

References

Politics of Gujarat Identity politics in India {{poli-stub