What makes some communities and castes vote for Congress Party and other Identity politics Parties in India?

In the recent polls in UP, minority communities and weaker sections did strategic voting by opting for the SP and BSP respectively....it seems the same minority community did not vote for SP in Uttarakhand but switched to the Congress as the latter was perceived to be the stronger party there.


The basic question remains...why do minorities and weaker sections feel so vulnerable in India that they seek solace in backing parties that play identity politics.


To analyze this complex issue it is worthwhile looking at some history...


The minority community were the rulers of much of the Subcontinent for over 800 years...but their rule was more of coalition management than an absolute rule by force. This effectively meant that at the local level most of India was operationally ruled by existing political structures which had evolved over the past 2000 years before muslim arrival.


After the British left, all that the minority community had to show for 800 years of rule was Pakistan and that too split after a few decades. During the partition of India, most of the vocal upper classes with means migrated to Pakistan, leaving behind those who had little option but to continue wherever they were...


It is therefore no surprise that minorities in India feel vulnerable in a sea of majority community. The Congress Party expertly plays to this sentiment and stays in power largely because of the support of the minority community....but that does not mean that the sentiment was created by the Congress Party...the sentiment exists because of the trauma of partition where all the cream and competitive talent of the minority community migrated and the vast disadvantaged masses were left with no one to speak up for them....they therefore retreated into their cocoons and have not been catching up ever since...


To make matters worse, many of the muslims may have been converts from the lower sections of the caste ridden Hindu strata and this adds to their problems of acceptability and social mobility...


Indian sub continent was populated over the ages through a combination of indigenous growth as well as foreign migrations...it was a land of tribal hunters, gatherers and fishermen for scores of milleniums before the arrival of the agriculturist Dravidians from the middle east....the Dravidian civilization colonized  river valleys like the Indus and Saraswati for a few thousand years in relative peace...they built modern towns and cities like Mohenjodaro, Harrappa and Lothal, and kept trade with their ancestral lands in Iran and Iraq alive....this continued till the mass migration of the so called Aryan nomads from central Asia...these nomads quickly learnt agriculture from the Dravidians and built several prosperous kingdoms in the Indo-Gangetic basin....


After the Aryans took control of India, there were no more mass migrations of populations, but there were constant military invasions which were mainly armed bands of males arriving from Aryan lands and settling down in India with Indian wives and Harems...these invasions served to keep India's gene pools refreshed in a way...


The Aryans invented the caste system to organize work in society and also to practice racial discrimination...higher castes presumably having more affinity to central asians and lower castes closer to Dravidians and indigenous stock...


However every successive incursion by central Asians was probably instigated by resident Aryans to settle scores with rivals on the one hand and then the invading armies would get assimilated into the mass of humanity in India with their inviters becoming their closest associates and relatives through marriage...the invaders being of central Asian stock would be happily conferred higher caste status and then wait for their turn to invite more people from central Asia to add to the population...


In a way successive batches of intruders turned residents into India became Trojan Horses for future invaders and that is what has created a maze of castes and sub-castes in India...within the overall framework of the vedic religion now called Hinduism...amazingly, lowers castes also got integrated albeit reluctantly into this religious framework for reasons of livelihood and some of them reconciled to their bad fate by even accepting to live as untouchables...


The Dalits or lower castes were a racial grouping to start with...this got intertwined with the occupational matrix by restricting unfashionable jobs to lower castes...the village economy was woven around the caste composition of the population and their hereditary occupations and ensured imposition of total lack of social mobility for the lower castes.


The congress party sought to break this stranglehold of hereditary occupational caste system by creating job reservations in government sector and then proceeded to expand the government sector to occupy much of the national economy...suddenly the Dalits found themselves breaking social barriers which had been in place for thousands of years...


But the memories of history remain...there is always the threat of reversal with the economy opening up and the government sector shrinking in size....at least the Dalit intellectuals are wary of this possibility and hence try to nip in the bud any attempt to reduce the importance of government....so apprehensive are they of the possibility of a relapse to historical injustices of the caste system that they see the anti-corruption movement as an attack on the government system and oppose it tooth and nail....


What the Dalit intellectuals overlook is that the caste system survived in an agricultural economic backdrop...it would have rapidly withered away in the industrial cities and market driven competitive ambiance of creative destruction and survival of the fittest...the interlude of government reserved jobs to grant social mobility may have actually retarded urbanization based on market economics and the resultant melting of social silos...


But historical memories are cruel and Dalits take no chances....the congress party expertly exploits this psychological schism in Indian society and retains power 65 years after independence from the much despised British...


This constant overlay of caste mosaics got permanently interrupted with the arrival of Islam...the new batches of invaders refused to get assimilated into the caste Hindu framework as their religion forbade discrimination based on race...they also took local women as wives and concubines but made them convert to Islam first...


This refusal to get assimilated into Indian society which all the previous invaders like Rajputs, Gurjars, Huns, Scythians, Greeks, Agnivanshi, Chandravanshi, Suryavenshi and many other Aryan waves had happily accepted, created a sense of alienation and distrust in the Hindu consciousness...the Hindu mind just could not apprehend why someone would not accept getting anointed to higher caste status just because of some religious beliefs...


The Hindu society having been constructed out of layers of invading bands of males over thousands of years was naturally very flexible in its religious belief systems...dogmas were invented and discarded with bewildering frequency...the Hindu mind could not understand the need to rigidly follow a set of religious rules and laws especially those coded in written text as in the case of Islam...Hindu rules of social behavior were oral and suitably modified to fit the acceptability thresh hold of the next batch of invading bands...


To make matters worse, the Muslim invaders invited lower castes of Hindu society to convert to Islam...this must have been sacriledge to the caste Hindu mind....here was a successful invader refusing to get anointed as a member of the upper caste for reasons best known to him but also mingling with the untouchables in the Hindu society....the Hindu must have got paranoid with this behavior of the Muslim...the Muslim was the new ruler and wanted to maintain his distinct identity from the larger higher caste population....but the Muslim was also threatening to unravel the assiduously built caste structure of the Hindu society by encouraging the untouchable to mingle with the most powerful strata of society...the newly arrived Muslim...


If Aurangzeb and other zealous Muslim rulers before and after him had not pushed Hindus to the wall, it is quite possible the the Hindu society would have reformed and converted to Islam...gradually at first and then whole heartedly... that natural course of history seen in Europe with regard to conversion to Christianity did not happen in Hindu India...instead the Hindus got entrenched and bided their time till the British delivered them from what they saw as alien Muslim rule...


Independence from British rule saw India split into two...the vast majority of higher class Muslims migrated to Pakistan and most of the Muslims left in India were those who had converted from lower castes of Hindu social hierarchy...but the distrust of the Muslims is deeply etched into the psyche of the caste Hindu and that is what nourishes the social distance between the two communities to this day...


The Muslim largely hailing from weaker sections of society feels more vulnerable as he senses the distrust of the caste Hindu and therefore looks for a savior and mentor....this is the feeling which is expertly exploited by the congress party and this is what has enable that party to remain in power for much of the 65 years post independence...