Caste Movements and Roots of ‘Alternative Socialism’ in Colonial India

The 1930s saw the organised beginnings of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP; 1934-1947), a group within the Indian National Congress that sought to push the latter towards a socialist and anti-imperialist orientation. The CSP is considered an important landmark and forerunner in the history of Indian socialism or samajvad with its focus on socialisation of industries, land reforms and redistribution, and cooperative-based production. In addition to this, the Indian socialist or samajvadi tradition also has as one of its hallmarks its emphasis on caste-based oppression and its raising of caste-based social justice issues – a focus which became more prominent from the late 1950s onwards. However, the samajvadi focus on caste in independent India finds its precursors in associations and movements of various “lower” caste groups and peasants in colonial India, which according to the anti-caste scholar Gail Omvedt contributed to a tradition of “alternative socialism”. In my doctoral work, I argue that such movements created the push from below that reoriented the politics of Indian socialists in independent India and endowed it with an anti-caste character. In this talk, which takes up excerpts from my ongoing research, I discuss the highly textured politics of such caste-based movements in colonial north India. This reveals both a crucial link in the chain of the evolving socialist thinking concerning caste/class identities as well as some long-term trends that continue to inform the space of anti-caste politics.