Unassuming, Shinoda took me to the institute canteen for tea, and told me of his latest area of interest – social mobility and occupational diversification of different castes over several decades. What he told me was indeed of great interest to me – that Gujarat’s “enterprising” Patels, who I thought till then were mainly a farming community, had still not overtaken the Banias in business. However, he underlined, “The way things are happening, they will soon overtake Banias.”
Shinoda gave me the text of the draft report, which he had prepared in English for those “interested” in the subject. “I find that the lowest level of occupational diversification is that of the scheduled castes (SCs), particularly the Valmikis. In fact, they have virtually seen no social mobility”, he said, pointing towards how occupational diversification is “a little higher” among the other backward class (OBC) communities, and was “still highest among the Shahs and other Bania surnames.”
Those days, though a “Shah”, I had still not become fully caste conscious. The family to which I belong, broadly Gandhian in belief, had rarely talked about our caste or sub-caste. What struck me when I shifted to Ahmedabad from Delhi in 1993, however, was, every time I met a Gujarati brethren whom I didn’t know, I was asked a specific question: “Shah etle keva?” or what type of Shah I was. Initially I didn’t understand the question, hence I would smile to get away from an answer.
As time passed, I came to know what I should be telling those who ask this question – that I wasn’t a Jain Shah but a Hindu Shah. Later I found that people were interested in a further classification – what type of Hindu Bania (Vania in Gujarati) I was, whether I was a Machkania Vania, a a community to which, I came to know much later, my mother belonged, or a Khadayta Vania, about which my father used to talk somewhat during his later days of his life. There are perhaps other classifications, too, but I have still not been able to understand the nuances.
Yet, I learned from some of my “caste men” that Vanias – whatever their surname – still ruled the roost in Gujarat’s business. After all, enterprise is in their blood. They were (and are) Gujarat’s textile barons. They have diversified to different parts of the world – Mumbai, Kolkata, US, UK, everywhere. Now I do know: If Ambani is a Hindu Vania, Adani is a Jain Vania.
At that time, I had never heard, at least from those who were remotely associated with my family, that Patels were slowly proving to be equally enterprising, if not more. All that I knew about Patels was Chimanbhai Patel, who, mobilizing Patel farmers, occupied the gaddi in Gandhinagar in early 1990s, first with the help of another Patel, BJP’s Keshubhai Patel, before coming back to the Congress fold.
Yet, the fact is, in 1993-94, there wasn’t much talk about how Patels were diversifying into trade and business in a big way, as Shinoda had tried to prove in his draft. “I will finalize the report and send it to you”, he told me just before I left for Gandhiagar in 1997, where I was to live for the next 14 years. As he had promised, Shinoda sent me across a hard copy of the translated version of his research work, which was originally in Japanese. Much later, he emailed to me a shorter version of his research, published in “Economic and Political Weekly” (August 26-September 2, 2000), which I have preserved on my computer.
Recently, during the Patel upheaval, I decided to read through his paper again. Titled “Institutional Change and Entrepreneurial Development: SSI Sector”, the sub-heading of the paper is interesting: “The small scale sector in Gujarat has formed a fairly steady base of industrial activity. Yet there have been few attempts to study the caste and social background of small entrepreneurs.” I believe, the situation hasn’t changed a bit. It adds, “This paper using state compiled data sets analyses entrepreneurial development among different social groups in the state and derives interesting results.”
As Shinoda had told me, what he had done was to take data of the names of owners of functioning manufacturing units from whichever “authentic” sources he could, such as the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Gujarat government industries department’s propaganda wing, the Industrial Extension Bureau. The data that he collected isn’t just of the small scale units, but also of medium and large-scale industries, and consists of enterprise name, name of the entrepreneur, type of industry, and address. He fed all of it in the computer, and with the help of software, separated well-known surnames of different castes, identifying the industrial units these surnames owned.
While there could be some error in correlating surnames with castes – Patels could also be Dalits, for instance – he possibly presumed that the error would be negligible, arguably because there were (and are) very few Dalits with Patel surname, and even among them the chance of their becoming businessmen was (and is) negligible.
While in 1994, Shinoda had told me that Patels were about to overtake Banias, the paper he published in EPW in 2000 declared that they had in fact already overtaken Banias. Pointing out that the title Patel “has become widely accepted among the populous and powerful Patidars since the 1930s”, he said, the surname denoted “a village head, a governmental functionary before independence… irrespective of his religion or caste”.
Things had changed. The rural Patel was no more just rural. Giving a complicated analysis, which is what all good scholars would do, at one point Shinoda explains, “Examining the distribution of major surnames in the list, the name Patel occupies the top position in all industries, except hosiery and garments. The dominance of Patel is overwhelming. Shah follows Patel, occupying either second or third place in most of the industries.” Then follows Panchal, an OBC caste, which is “not only very frequent” but ranks second to Patels in metal and machinery-related industries. As for Brahmin or Kshatriyas, he says, one does not find any industries with a high concentration of their surnames.
The scholar elaborates, the name Patel accounts for 22.3 per cent of all manufactured products in the sample. Its share is particularly high in food products (53.6 per cent), wood products (45.4 per cent), and non-metallic mineral products (34.1 per cent). To quote him, “These same agrobased and rural-based industries have played a very important role in the entrepreneurial development of the Patidars. Wood products and non-metallic mineral products are closely linked to the construction industry, which the Patidars have dominated in recent years.”
As is visibly clear to any keen observer, the pattern has continued. Patels have further diversified over the last one-and-a-half decades into other areas. They currently own India’s biggest diamond polishing units in Surat and Amreli, for instance, and they “import” polishing workers from different parts of Gujarat, mainly Amreli in Saurashtra. Many of them are sons of Patel farmers.
Forming one of the most formidable NRI communities in the US, Patels gained a lot in 1990s after the Gujarat government, under a Patel chief minister, Keshubhai Patel, abolished the law which barred farmers to buy agricultural land beyond eight km limit. This has apparently helped many Patels to turn to real estate in a big way. Patel NRIs and their relatives took advantage of this, and have bought huge pieces of land across, a former senior official, a Brahmin, told me bitterly once.
The Patels’ concentration is not just high in industry; it is also pretty high in the government. While there is no authentic figure, at least two senior Gujarat government officials – one of them is a Patel – have told me that Patels form between 18 and 22 per cent of all government officials, though admitting that the concentration is “not so high in the police.” Patels are said to be forming 12 per cent of Gujarat population.
According to these officials, in the police Patels would be “less than eight per cent” – and as one goes down the ladder, it would be even less, “about five per cent”, to quote one of the most knowledgeable journalists. The officials agreed, the lower police order is filled with OBCs, such as Thakores, who formed the foot soldiers during the pre-Independence era, and Bharwads, the cow breeding community, apart from the “warrior class”, the Rajputs.
“This”, added the top Gujarat-based journalist, “explains the reason why one can possibly call the recent unprecedented police attack on Patels after the rally in Ahmedabad on August 25 a sort of caste revenge. Of the nine Patels who died during the agitation which turned violent on August 26, police hit four on the head.” After all, Patels want a slot in the OBC quota of 27 per cent, or alternatively no quota at all – which would be simply unacceptable for the numerically strong Thakores, Kolis, Bharwards and other OBCs, who form about 42 per cent of Gujarat population.
Given this framework, why are Patels agitating, and whether they will face more retaliation, particularly from OBCs, is something that needs expert explanation. While there are conspiracy theories taking rounds – some say RSS began it all, pointing out to how Patel agitation flared up after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat reportedly met Surat’s Patel diamond barons – this doesn’t seem to explain things.
More than five lakh Patels gathered in Ahmedabad to demand reservation, which cannot happen because of a conspiracy. Is Gujarat economy, especially the small the medium sectors which are heavily dependent on Patels, in crisis? Did the Patels fail to get the share which they had expected from Narendra Modi’s biennial Vibrant Gujarat world business meets? Is there a higher degree if underemployment among the educated youths, a large section of which forms Patels? Do Patels feel that their erstwhile supreme leader, Keshubhai Patel, currently in the US, was slighted by an OBC Modi, as is the visible perception? Though Gujarat has a Patel chief minister – Anandiben Patel – she isn’t considered a Patel leader, like Keshubhai Patel was. In fact, one well-known Modi biographer informally called her a “dummy chief minister”!
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This blog was first published in The Times of India
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