The Non-Brahmin Movement

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Gail Omvdt(1976)(87) argues that the non-Brahmin movement in Maharshtra is found in both elite-based conservative trend and also in more genuine mass-based radicalism. It has not attained radical goals though it has attained conservative goals.. ‘The Maharshtrain Brahmin intelligentsia, though still dominant in educational and cultural institutions, has been swept from political power by rich peasant non –Brahmin elite, with strong roots in the villages and with an institutional basis in rural co-operatives and educational societies’. He observes that Phule’s theory of exploitation was focused on cultural and ethnic factor rather than on economic or political ones. According to Phule’s ides, education and organization were the means …show more content…

They collectively refused to perform for landlords and also opposed taxes imposed by the landlords. The Ahirs refused to sell cow-dung cakes, curds and milk to landowning upper case at concessional rates. This refusal to follow customary laws resulted in clashes between the upper and the backward castes. The upper backward or non-Brahmin casted of south India, particularly the Vellalas, the Reddis, the kammas, the lingayats, the Vokkaligas, the Marathas, resented the dominance of the Brahmins. They raised the issue of exploitation and oppression, bothe economic and cultural, by the Brahmins. The non-Brahmins of Tamilanadu demanded a separate state for the Dravidians. They opposed, nationalist movement dominated by the Brahmins in the 1920s and declared their allegiance to the British …show more content…

Rao (1979)(92) devides non-upper castes/classes into three categories. The uppermost category of the backward castes consists mostly of landowners. There are several such castes in different parts of the country, such as the Jats, the Ahirs, the Gujjars in Punjab, the Marathas in Maharashtra, the Vokkaligas and the, Bants in Karnataka. Ranking below them are tenant cultivators, artisans and other service castes. They include the Ahirs and the Kahars in Bihar, the kolis in Gujarat and the Vaddars in South India. They are considered caste-Hindus, above the pollution line. They have not enjoyed political power in the recent past. Most of them are small or marginal farmers, tenants, or agricultural laborers. ‘They were under the economic and political control of the landowning castes. The latter often extorted forced labor from the former as domestic servants and palanquin-bearers, and expected several customary payments. At the bottom are the untouchable castes who are designated Scheduled Castes under the Constitutional of India. The social-economic conditions of most of the Scheduled Castes and other backward castes are qualitatively different, though some of the non-upper caste movements, known as anti-Brahmin movements, included untouchables. Most of the studies on the untouchables’ movements do not include the movements of the other backward castes.

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