Mandal In The Jungle

Is the UP state government’s decision to classify OBCs in three subcategories based on relative backwardness, for the purposes of reservation, long-overdue justice for overlooked groups? Or is it an unnuanced move that will only ignite social division?

- Pragya Singh

IN a bygone era, members of the Kahar social group were ordained to carry their supposed betters around in palanquins—a vocation prescribed and sanctified by the caste system. The Kahars of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and elsewhere, for generations bore the burden of bridal parties and hearses alike. They also fetched water for wedding feasts and heaved onto their shoulders supplies that oiled the wheels of trade.

Their caste-based occupation, relegated to the sidelines by modern transportation, consigned Kahars to the margins of society. Today, their traditional calling, romantically depicted in film, music and literature, is an outmoded quirk. For, Kahars have cast off their ritualistic burdens and taken to agriculture, labour and modest service or commercial work. They now seek an economic and political salience that a numerically small, disadvantaged caste (around three per cent in UP) finds hard to come by.

Hence, in recent years, Kahars have tried to forge strategic affiliations based on social or occupational links with dozens of other castes. “Most backward groups, including Kahars, tend to remain socially distant from even other OBC castes who more or less share the same socio-economic status. As a result, even if we struggle as one to secure our rights, only a select few end up enjoying those rights,” says Prakash Kahar, a Supreme Court advocate who leads one of many efforts to unite Kahars with members of other caste groupings such as Manjhi, Mallah, Nonia, Bind and Ravani. Altogether, Kahar argues, a united front of several dozen communities would create a pressure group of up to 20 per cent of the population. This would give their platform, the Kahar Mahasangh, clout enough to bargain with any government for jobs, civic amenities and educational services.