Populism and Caste in Contemporary India: Sociopolitical Pragmatisms of Caste Associations

This essay assesses the core principles of populism in order to understand the trajectory of populist discourses in India. In doing so, the role of caste and its associational structures as a socio-cultural and political category finds significant attention. The essay argues that, in contemporary India, the core value of populism, aimed at addressing the “will of the people” or popular demand of the majority, has found itself stifled in the clutches of “will of the few” who not only reproduce the sociocultural hegemony but have also been able to postulate and dominate epistemic positions. However, this argument is not devoid of the foundation that India indeed witnessed phases of constructive populist discourses, which in present times seem to be enmeshed within the metanarratives of a caste society.