Redressal or reconciliation? - Situating caste politics amidst the ongoing farmer agitation

The history of local alliances forged between caste groups and the state is interrogated, through the colonial period leading to current day west Uttar Pradesh. The recent farm acts threaten to supplant such alliances, with the state aligning with the interests of big capital. It has necessitated the Jat khaps in west UP to offer resistance by adopting a language of communitarian solidarity that can be traced to the 1980s. However, the shadow of the riots of 2013 has meant that talk of solidarity has veered towards “reconciliation” and “redressal” towards the minorities. As a result, the agitation has revealed new political possibilities while exposing earlier fissures within west UP’s political economy.