use of the genuine grievances of non-Brahmins to divide and rule India. This was true with Brahmanetara Parishat, and Justice Party of Ambedkar and Periyar higher castes also were controlling the factors of production and thus the middle and lower castes were dependent on them for livelihood. Liberalism and humanism which influenced and accompanied the socio-religious reform movements of the nineteenth century had affected the society and stirred it. The symptoms of their awakening were already visible in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
The Namasudra movement in the Bengal and eastern India, the Adidharma movement in North Western India, the Satyashodhak movement in Western India and the Dravidian movements in South India had emerged and raised their voice by the turn of the century. They were all led by non Brahmin leaders who questioned the supremacy of the Brahmins and other ‘superior’ castes. It first manifested itself, through Jyoti Rao Phule’s book of titled Gulamgiri . His organization, Satyashodak Samaj, underscored the necessity to relieve the lower castes from the tyranny of Brahminism and the exploitative scriptures.
The colonial administrators and the educational institutions that were established indirectly facilitated their origin. Added to the growing influence of Brahmin – upper caste men in the colonial times in whatever opportunity was open to natives, the colonial government published census reports once a decade. These reports classified castes on the basis of ‘social precedence as recognized by native public opinion’. The censuses were a source of conflict between castes.
There were claims and counterclaims as the leaders of caste organizations fought for pre-eminence and many started new caste associations. These attempts were further helped by the emerging political scenario. Leading members of castes realized that it was important to mobilise their castes in struggles for social recognition. More than the recognition, many of them, as years passed by, started providing for education of Jyotiba Phule Advent of Gandhi and Mass Mobilisation such as meetings, boycott of foreign cloth and schools, picketing of toddy shops, petitions and demonstrations, a