Kurtz Pune University

The Last Institution Standing: Contradictions and the Politics of Domination in an
Indian University
Author(s): Donald V. Kurtz
Source: Journal of Anthropological Research , Winter, 2009, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Winter,
2009), pp. 611-640
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25608264
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THE LAST INSTITUTION STANDING
Contradictions and the Politics of
Domination in an Indian University
Donald V. Kurtz
101 Via de Noria, Wimberley, TX 78676, USA. Email: d.v.k@anvilcom.com
key words : Anti-Brahman movements, Brahmans, Contradictions, Leadership, Maharashtra,

Marathas, Political teams/rules, Politics, Pune University (India)
The society and culture ofthe Indian state ofMaharashtra were dominatedfor more
than a century by Brahman communities, especially Chitpavan Brahmans, which
never exceeded 5% of the total population. By the time the state of Maharashtra
was established in 1960, Maharashtra's numerically dominant Maratha caste
was already subverting Brahman control of the state's institutions. By 1970
Pune University was the last secular institution that remained under Brahman
control, and it became an arena of political conflict as other Brahmans and
Marathas challenged the decades-long Chitpavan domination of the university's
government. This paper explains how contradictions in caste (Brahmans,
Marathas) and institution (postgraduate campus, city colleges, rural colleges)
evoked a history of conflict that climaxed in the mid-1970s. At that time, two
political "teams " engaged in an internecine campaign to determine who would
govern the university.
Pune University is located in the city of Pune on the Deccan Plateau in the
state of Maharashtra in west-central India (Figure l).1 The university, consisting
of a newly founded postgraduate campus and preexisting city and rural colleges,
opened officially in 1949. The postgraduate campus offered what in the United
States would be considered graduate-level instruction and degrees (master's
and doctorate). The city and rural colleges offered graduate-level instruction
(considered undergraduate in the United States) and awarded bachelor's
degrees primarily. In 1978-1979 a political contest was joined by two political
"teams"?the Gang and the Clique, as they were identified locally?composed
of university teachers and staff. The contest involved elections to determine who
in the university's government would develop policies to manage departments
and programs that in 1978 were staffed and attended by 300 teachers and 3,500
students on the university's postgraduate campus in Pune and 4,500 faculty and
120,000 students in the university's city (Pune) and rural (Maharashtra) colleges.
Each of these institutions had a particular caste composition from which the
leaders of the Gang and Clique recruited their supporters.
Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 65, 2009

Copyright ? by The University of New Mexico
611

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612 JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Figure 1. Map of India showing locations mentioned in the text.
CASTE, LOCATION, AND HIGHER EDUCATION
Rural Colleges and Marathas

Marathas represent the largest caste in Maharashtra (45%) and traditionally
were rural peasants. Most continue to farm today. But after World War II Marathas
began to specialize economically and expand the production and processing of
sugar in Maharashtra (Attwood 1992; Baviskar 1980). By 1978, sweetened with

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CONTRADICTIONS AND POLITICS IN AN INDIAN UNIVERSITY 613
sugar rupees, they had become a force in Maharashtra's political economy and
higher education.
Historically, Brahmans, mostly rural, accounted for about half of the rural
college management, administration, and teaching staffs. The remaining staff
represented a variety of middle caste communities?Marathas, Lingayats,
Sonars, and the like?and religions?Christians, Muslims, Jains?many of whom
worked as part-time teachers (Bhoite 1987). During the 1970s, colleges owned
and managed by Maratha sugar cooperatives (and affiliated state politicians) grew
rapidly in numbers and size. By 1978, Maratha-managed colleges and their staff,
increasingly Maratha and professionalized, were set to become players in the
university's politics.
City Colleges and Brahmans

Brahmans in Maharashtra are represented primarily by the Chitpavan,
Deshasta, Saraswat, and Karhada jatis.2 Currently and historically they represent
about 4.5% of Maharashtra's population. Historically, Chitpavan Brahmans
have been largely urban and are synonymous with "Poona Brahmans" in the
local vernacular because they are largely resident in the city of Pune. The three
latter Brahman jatis historically were largely rural and are commonly identified
as "Maharashtra Brahmans." Today all the Brahman jatis in Maharashtra are
primarily urban (Sirsikar 1995).
Chitpavan Brahmans have been resident in Pune for more than 200 years;
they have a small presence in rural Maharashtra. Wherever they are found in
Maharashtra, the Chitpavan community has exerted influence disproportionate
to its numbers. Beginning in the early nineteenth century (in 1821, when Deccan
College, the city's first college, opened) and extending to the ethnographic
present of this paper (1970s), they dominated the management, administration,
and teaching staff of the city colleges and, from those positions, they dominated
the university's government from its inception.
The Postgraduate Campus

Compared with the university's city and rural colleges and their prevalence
of Poona and Maharashtra Brahmans, the teaching staff on the postgraduate
campus became quite cosmopolitan. Poona and Maharashtra Brahmans were
well represented on the postgraduate campus, and they were dedicated to the idea
of the campus, not the city colleges. By 1970, however, most of the Brahman
postgraduate teaching staff were recruited from elsewhere in India. They are
referred to as "outsider Brahmans" and hold a status on the campus that is
socially and politically subordinate to that of Poona and Maharashtra Brahmans.
For example, their outsider status excluded them from holding high office in the
university's government, and they also had to pass a test demonstrating minimal
proficiency in Marathi (the state language) to be considered for promotion above
the position of lecturer. Other teachers on the campus were represented by middle
caste individuals, a few Marathas, even fewer dalits (a recent and politically
motivated synonym for untouchables) and other backward castes, and members of
other communities, such as Jews, Christians, Muslims, and an occasional atheist.

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Regardless of their origin or caste affiliation, in the 1970s Brahmans as a

social category constituted about 80% of the university's teachers (Bhoite 1987),
of which, as noted, Chitpavan Brahmans from the city colleges were the most
influential in university affairs. Along with Marathas in the rural colleges,
Brahmans on the postgraduate campus, regardless of jati or place of origin,
were ready in 1978 to challenge the domination of the university by city college
Brahmans.
Those who occupied the offices of university government in 1978, the Gang,
controlled the development of the university. For the previous 30 years faculty
on the postgraduate campus had to rely on city college Brahmans for program
development, new departments, staffing, promotions, facilities, and funds,
and these came slowly and often only after protracted fights with city college
agents.3 The leaders of the teams that engaged in the elections in 1978-1979 were
competing for access to the university government offices through which they
could exercise control over the university.
The elections of 1978-1979 were exceptionally volatile and contentious, and
the strategies used by the candidates demonstrated a political acumen that one
normally would attribute to professional politicians, not "scholarly gentlemen,"
an identity attached derisively to the teams' leaders, who more commonly were
referred to simply as the university's "politicians." The intensity of the contest
was due to a long-festering resentment by agents on the postgraduate campus
regarding how the campus had been subordinated to the interest of the city
colleges. Conversely, agents in the city colleges?read Chitpavan Brahmans?
were fully aware that owing to historical and political vicissitudes which began in
the mid nineteenth century they were losing their dominant status in the culture
and political economy of Maharashtra. By 1978 Pune University was the last
major institution in Maharashtra that remained under their control. And they were
loath to surrender it.
CONTRADICTIONS AND CONFLICT: PRAXIS
To explain Pune University's history of conflict I will rely largely on propositions

extrapolated from Giddens's (1979) idea of structuration and Bailey's (1969,
2001) idea of political teams. The idea of structuration was Giddens's response to
the lack of a theory of action and human agency in the social sciences. Structuration
asserts that social structures (here, Pune University) are both the medium for
and the outcome of the practices of agents involved in conflicts that are induced
by contradictions intrinsic to those structures (here, the university's castes and
institutions). A contradiction, the idea of which provides the fulcrum for Giddens's
structural conflicts, exists when a social structure (the university) contains two or
more entities (institutions, castes) that are mutually interdependent and integral
parts of the structure (Pune University) and, by virtue of their relationship, have
the potential for conflict when they evoke agents (Gang, Clique) that try to resolve
the contradiction through their practices (Callinicos 1988; Giddens 1979). Pune
University's contradiction of institution and caste emerged when the idea of
establishing the university was broached in 1924.

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The university's institutional contradiction consisted initially of the
postgraduate campus and city colleges. The postgraduate campus is the seat of
university government. In 1978 there were 23 city colleges. The university's rural
colleges became meaningful players in its politics in the early 1970s. By 1978,
92 rural colleges were spread over an area that extends about 200 km north of
Pune to the borders of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The complementary caste
contradiction reflected the interests of the university's institutions, which, as
discussed above, broke down as follows: postgraduate campus, a cosmopolitan
mix of castes; city colleges, Poona Brahmans; rural colleges, Marathas.
Proposition: Social structures change as a result of the competitive practices

of agents that attempt to resolve the contradictions intrinsic to the structure
(Giddens 1979).
Despite the central role of the agent in contradiction resolution, Giddens's

identification of the agent remains ambiguous. Bailey's (1969) notion of moral
and transactional teams materializes the agents in the university that responded
recursively to its embedded contradictions.4 Moral teams are transcendent and
provide leadership for a political community or structure, such as that represented
by the university. Transactional teams lurk in the wings, waiting to show that
they can govern better. In 1978 the Gang represented a "moral team"; the Clique
represented the "transactional team."
Moral teams consist of a leadership structure and a core of ideationally
committed supporters. Moral teams are unspecialized, being dedicated to many
goals as a result of their transcendence and leadership responsibilities in the
affairs of a political community or institution (such as the Gang represented in the
university in 1978). Because of the commitments of the team to its leadership's
policies and the consequent interconnectedness of members of the team and their
specific governmental functions, moral teams tend to be rigid and approximate
bureaucracies.
Transactional teams consist of a leadership structure and a loose aggregate
of followers, sometimes hirelings, who join the team for what they can get.
Transactional teams are highly specialized in pursuit of a specific goal (such as
the Clique's intention to wrest control of the university's government from the
Gang). Their membership is flexible and fluid; supporters come and go as their
expectations are fulfilled or they become disillusioned and wander off.
Moral and transactional teams are related to each other recursively. Neither is
fixed in time or place; they can and do reproduce themselves; and in a competition
a transactional team may replace a moral team and relegate it either to the status of a
transactional team or, more likely, to the trash bin of failed political organizations.
The recursive nature of this process suggests that another transactional team will
emerge from the wings to challenge its existence.
In the university the Gang and the Clique developed in response to the
university's caste and institutional contradictions, and 1978 was a watershed year
in determining which would govern the university. Both teams began to organize
in the 1960s in anticipation of changes in the university's government that each

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knew would be critical in the university's future reproduction. The Gang was heir
to a tradition of Brahman domination in the university that began in 1949. It wanted
to retain its hold on the offices of university government. The Clique intended to
challenge that domination and hoped to gain access to the offices of university
government from which it had been excluded historically. Whoever controlled
these offices controlled the resources that provided the power to reproduce the
university to their liking. Control of these resources was, in a nutshell, what the
politics of Pune University in 1978-1979 was all about.
Proposition: The politics and consequential conflict evoked by contradictions are

not unstructured; they are synchronized by identifiable leaders (otherwise politics
would engage mobs) and regulated by normative, strategic, and pragmatic rules
(Bailey 1969, 2001).
Normative rules represent the public face of leaders' practices and politics;
political communities know and largely approve of these rules. Ideally they
direct the politics of moral teams. Pragmatic rules represent the sleazier side of
politics. Leaders (even those of moral teams) develop them behind the scenes,
and they may involve dirty tricks of which the public might not approve. Most
commonly, but not exclusively, pragmatic rules direct the politics of transactional
teams. Strategic rules are a subset of moral and pragmatic rules. Regardless of the
team's moral or transactional structure, strategic rules inform leaders how, in the
quotidian reality of a political contest, to win. From the vantage point provided
by Giddens's (1979) structuration, winning means only that the resolution of one
contradiction results in a vacuum that will soon be occupied by a new contradiction
that evokes agents to respond to it.
The idea of politics that I find useful refers to how agents acquire and deploy
resources of power (material, such as money and people, and ideational, such as
ideas and symbols) in competition with other agents to attain public and private goals
(Kurtz 2001). The production and reproduction of the structure and organization of
Pune University and its government has been, for nearly 60 years, the result of the
conflicts induced by the politics of agents evoked by contradictions intrinsic to the
university. In 1978 the Gang dominated the university's government and intended
to retain control of the university. The singular goal of the Clique was to unseat the
Gang and occupy the offices that would enable them to govern the university and
access its resources. Above all, each team sought to destroy the other.
Interpretive Caveat
Some agents, mainly Brahmans, disagree with the emphasis I place on
caste as an underlying cause of the university's conflict. In 1994-1995 I asked
29 informants for their opinions on the cause(s) of the conflict.5 Two distinct
explanations were distilled from their responses: caste and "interests," as well as
combinations thereof (Table 1).
The caste explanation was based on the historical antagonism between
Brahmans and Marathas that can be traced at least to the early seventeenth century
(O'Hanlon 1985). Interests as an explanation referred to onerous contemporary

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TABLE 1
Causes of conflict based on interviews with 29 individuals
Causes of Conflict
Interviewee Categories Caste Interests Caste vs. Interests Interests vs. Caste Equal
Brahmans 3 4 6 2 0
non-Brahmans* 12 3 11
Marathas 3 11 0 1
Total (N= 29) 7 7 10 3 2
Leaders and aides 0 3 2 1 1
* Non-Brahmans include members of other, usually mid
practices directed by ulterior ambitions. Gang

opponents were corrupt and immoral beyon
the leaders of each opposing team, were alleg
for various university services, such as food
denial of admission to the university or int
be full; appointments to administrative or ot
handsome reimbursements from university f
meetings, participating in overseas programs
ways. The Gang accused the Clique of bein
for diminishing the quality of higher educa
Gang of inhibiting the growth and quality of
favored the city colleges. These allegations,
significant space in the local news media. De
that were leveled most commonly against m
proven in a court of law.
Table 1 is open to a variety of interpretat
the role of "interests" as a motivating fac
nearly as significant as that which emphasiz
significance of caste, as I do, point to the an
Brahmans and Marathas. They assert that
in the caste relations of the university. Tho
primary cause have a contemporary view of
is to demonstrate the pervasiveness of the ca
history of conflict. But this does not mean th
Pune University was commensurate with th
"politics of higher education" that was a top
from the 1960s to the 1980s and with wh
familiar.
CASTE AND THE POLITICS OF INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION
Caste values are injected into Indian politics at the local (Gould 1990), state
(Sirsikar 1995), and national (Kothari 1970) levels and in a variety of contexts
where these levels overlap, such as caste politics in villages influencing policies in

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a state's legislature (Beteille 1992).The politics of caste tend to follow a pattern, as

agents with specific agendas and goals mobilize the members of a caste, politicize
their intentions, and inject the values of that caste and its agents into various
institutional contexts, such as a village council, a state or national legislature, an
alternative religion such as Buddhism, or a university, to gain some end.
Politicization is a central element in the politics of Indian higher education.
Rudolph and Rudolph define politicization as "the appropriation of educational
structures and resources and the displacement of educational goals by organized
political and community (caste, religion) interests" (1972:8). The caste
contradiction in Pune University assured that caste would play a role in its politics.
But Pune University suffered neither the dislocations in pedagogical and research
goals that caste politics and politicization evoked in other Indian universities nor
the traumas of the politics of higher education that universities were experiencing
around this time in India and elsewhere.
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s the rubric "the politics of higher
education" cast a wide hermeneutic net. Universities in the United States, France,
Germany, Japan, and elsewhere were disrupted by myriad contradictions and
issues. Student and faculty strikes, demonstrations, agitations, and violence
erupted over the meaning and values of higher education in the modern (and post
modernizing) world and the felt and perceived failures of universities to respond
to problems invigorated by the Viet Nam war, social and economic inequality, the
threat of nuclear annihilation, civil rights, and a host of other social, political, and
economic issues.
India was no exception to this dislocation of the nation's higher education
enterprises, and student and teacher agitations were most common in northern
India, the country's most heavily populated and, in many ways, underdeveloped
region. These agitations and disruptions were evoked by contradictions in the
meanings and significance of education, as was common elsewhere in the world.
But student and faculty unrest in Indian universities was not usually directed at
global social and political problems.6 In India the contradictions were related to the
wrenching awareness that Indian universities were not advancing the development
and modernization of India. Indian universities exploded over how to fix a plethora
of indigenous problems that were major forces in the "politicization" of Indian
higher education: too many students, too few job opportunities, discontent over
quotas for students from scheduled castes and tribes, lack of qualified teachers,
inadequate libraries and laboratories?facilities in general?dismal physical
plants, and, most problematic, too few resources to rectify these ills (Altbach
1968; Beteille 19801; Shils 1969; Trivedi 1970, among others).
The shortfall in resource investment in Indian universities exacerbated the
other problems and was a major source of discontent. At the height of that era,
when the politics of higher education was a worldwide issue, there was concern
in India that not enough was being done to fix its problems. Singh and Altbach,
for example, lamented that "Few well-trained social scientists have undertaken
research on the university and other aspects of Indian society related to higher
education" (1974:xii). Whether this research would have made a difference
is arguable. But it is not arguable that anthropologists at this time, with rare

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exceptions (Belshaw 1974; Beteille 1981, 1992), were conspicuous by their
absence from dealing with these issues in India and elsewhere.7 Anthropologists
ceded that research domain to other social scientists,8 and with rare exceptions
(Lukose 2005; Rogers 2008) the other scholars continue to dominate it (Altbach
1993, 2000; Beteille 1992; Kapur and Mehta 2004; Kothari 1970; Rudolph and
Rudolph 1972; Shils 1969; Zelliot 1982, among others).
Politicization was widespread in Indian universities and allowed diverse non
educational interests, particularly castes and political parties and associations, to
insert their values into higher education and capitalize on situations to the benefit
of their constituents and the exclusion of others (Altbach 1968; Rosenthal 1974,
1977; Rudolph and Rudolph 1972). Any intention of improving universities per se
was subverted to the immediate interests of political forces outside the university
that perceived colleges in particular as little more than recruiting grounds for
political cadres, and this remains so today in some areas (Lukose 2005). Inadequate
responses to these problems severely disrupted Indian universities, especially,
as noted, in northern India. Perhaps the most egregious examples of this failure
were the agitations that closed the University of Allahabad and Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU) in New Delhi for months on end from the 1960s to the early
1980s and seriously disrupted colleges and universities in Gujerat and Bihar
(Altbach 1968, 1972; DiBona 1969; Andersen and Damle 1987).
Perhaps the most pervasive problem related to the politicization of
institutions of higher education in India is the problem of reservations?
quotas?mandated by the central and state governments to provide students and
prospective teachers from the scheduled and backward castes access to higher
education (Chauhan, Narayana, and Singh 1975; Jha 1973; Lai andNahar 1978;
Madan and Halbar 1972). Pune University had the potential for serious caste
conflict, and Pune's educational community was aware of the turmoil that
plagued other universities in India and elsewhere. But when these problems
entered local discourse, the university's faculty and staffs asserted, almost as
a mantra, "Pune University works!" They were proud of the fact that during
this tumultuous period the postgraduate campus experienced only a one-day
demonstration, the city colleges a few more, and those that occurred in the rural
colleges were short-lived and insignificant.
Several factors mitigated the university's potential for unrest. For one,
Pune is a very desirable place to live. It has a pleasant climate, is not terribly
costly (that has changed recently), and possesses a rich cultural environment
that provides an abundance of diversions. The Pune community was friendly to
institutions of higher education?city colleges in particular. Teachers' salaries
were not especially high, but the working environment in Pune colleges and
the postgraduate campus was largely good. Teaching staff did not suffer as
much the tyranny of department heads that was so common in northern India
and often made working conditions unbearable. The policies of the Brahman
educational community in Pune and the traditions and ideology of educational
excellence they expounded provide sufficient resources to maintain better
than-average conditions relative to those in other Indian universities. Although
teachers on the postgraduate campus were dissatisfied with the government

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of the university and their relationship to the city colleges, they also shared
the pedagogical commitment and pride in the region's educational traditions.
University administrators were sensitive to emerging problems and confronted
them before they became unmanageable. Perhaps the best testimony to Pune's
respect for higher education and lack of caste politics as usual was the behavior
throughout this period of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The RSS is, arguably, India's most conservative and aggressive Hindu
fundamentalist association and adheres to a radical right-wing political agenda. It
was founded in 1925, largely by Chitpavan Brahmans, and retains its headquarters
in Pune and has strong connections to Pune's Chitpavan community. The RSS has
a reputation for right-wing agitation and violence; Gandhi was assassinated in
1948 by a Chitpavan Brahman associated with the RSS, and the ensuing violent
reaction against the Chitpavan community in Pune remains indelibly etched in
memory (Andersen and Damle 1987).
The RSS is a national umbrella organization for a large number of affiliates that
are engaged in political, social, economic, educational, and other activities aimed
at a Hindu revival in India. Today many of these revivalist values are expressed
by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which stands in opposition to the Congress
Party (Hansen and Jaffrelot 1995). One of the major goals proclaimed by the
RSS leadership is to exert influence over the nation's educational institutions and
insert its Hindu agenda into India's secular universities. Its major student wing,
the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), was active in the politicization
of India's universities in the 1970s when it fomented violent demonstrations in
colleges and universities in Bihar, Gujerat, and elsewhere in pursuit of its ideology
(Andersen and Damle 1987; Sirsikar 1995).
The AB VP and its Pune affiliate, Patit Pawan, were active in Pune during the
1970s and 1980s, but their tactics were relatively benign. Their actions were limited
to heckling and badgering secular city college faculty with whom they disagreed;
they largely ignored the postgraduate campus. In part this was due to the desire of
Pune's Brahman community to suppress agitations in its own colleges, and this
extended gratuitously to the postgraduate campus. But the postgraduate campus
also was sheltered in other ways from agitations. Its teachers and administrators
were committed to a conflict-free education. And its postgraduate student clientele
was more mature and represented by a nationally and increasingly internationally
diverse student body that made it a less fertile ground for the RSS ideology to take
root. Perhaps most important in the university's efforts to avoid disruption during
this period was the promulgation of a new university act.
Most Indian universities are chartered by an act that is written and passed by
a state legislature. Pune University was first chartered by the "Poona University
Act, 1948." This act was replaced in 1974. The 1974 act was designed to
"democratize" the election of incumbents to the university's governing boards
and the appointment of the vice chancellor and, in part, to forestall politicization
of the university. It may have helped to allay politicization. But, as we shall see,
it had powerful consequences for the confrontation between the Gang and the
Clique in 1978 and 1979, and it is best discussed in that context.

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BACKGROUND TO A HISTORY OF CONFLICT
Two factors converged to establish the contradictions that provoked conflict in

the university. One, caste, as noted, can be traced to the seventeenth century.
The other emerged in 1924 when negotiations began to establish a university in
Maharashtra (Table 2). This inaugurated the institutional side of the contradiction
into which its caste counterpart was absorbed. These contradictory elements, the
castes and their locations in the university's institutions, came together in the
1970s in a showdown over who would govern Pune University.
TABLE 2
Historical Event Timeline
Date Event
1670s Shivaji defeats Mughals, founds the Maratha Empire,
is proclaimed kyshatria
1713 First Chitpavan appointed peshwa of the empire;
peshwa domination begins
1818 British defeat the peshwa's army, assume control of the region,
abolish the office of peshwa; decline of Chitpavan influence
1821 Deccan College founded
1830s Chitpavan influence reascendant
1870s Anti-Brahman movement in Maharashtra
1884-1885 Deccan Educational Society and Fergusson College founded
1924 Discussions open regarding establishment of Pune University
1948-1949 Pune University Act (1948) promulgated;
first students accepted on the postgraduate campus
1948-1956 Dr. M. R. Jayakar (CKP) first vice chancellor
1957-1972 Seven Brahman vice chancellors succeed Jayakar
1960s-1970s Growth of rural colleges and discontent on the postgraduate campus;
emergence of the Gang and its domination of university government
1970-1972 University government suspended; Clique organizes
1972-1974 Interim university government appointed by chancellor (state governor)
1974 Pune University Act (1974) promulgated
1978-1979 Contest: Selection of vice chancellor, elections to university boards
The Caste Contradiction

Brahman and Maratha caste antagonism in that portion of the old Bombay
Presidency which became the state of Maharashtra in 1960 is ancient and unique,
heir to the historical reality that nowhere else in India did such a small community
of Brahmans, consistently only about 4.5% of the population, dominate so
thoroughly for so long the culture and political economy of an Indian region and
state. Of that population, the Chitpavan Brahmans are the least numerous but the
most influential caste (Carter 1974; Gore 1989; O'Hanlon 1985; Omvedt 1976;
Sirsikar 1995). This peculiar and ancient demography aggravated the politics that
beset Pune University in the several years that preceded the university elections

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in 1978-1979. Its historical trajectory is as follows:

In the early seventeenth century (for this history see Duff 1990; Gokhale
1988; Gore 1989; O'Hanlon 1985; Sirsikar 1995) a legendary and cultural
icon of the Marathas, Shivaji, an unlettered and successful peasant warrior (a
lowly sudra in the Hindu varna structure),9 defeated the Mughals, founded the
Maratha empire,10 and had himself proclaimed a kyshatria ("king" in the Hindu
varna structure) by a Brahman priest. Shivaji's investiture as a kyshatria upset
the Brahman community, but they did not make an issue of it and Shivaji's heirs
continued to rule the empire as kyshatria. Shivaji's grandson and second heir to
his throne appointed the first peshwa, or prime minster, of the empire. He was a
member of the Chitpavan Brahman jati, which at that time was migrating into the
Deccan from the Konkan region south of contemporary Mumbai.11 The peshwas
established themselves in Pune and, as Shivaji's heirs gradually lost power to
them, ruled the Maratha empire from Pune.
The peshwas and their bureaucracies dominated Pune's and the Deccan's
politics and culture for more than a century. In 1818 the British defeated the
peshwa's army and assumed control of the region that became the Bombay
Presidency.12 Initially the British tried to govern without the Chitpavans; they
neither liked nor trusted them. (They didn't care much for the Marathas either.)
But increasingly they turned to them for help because of their administrative skills
and abilities. Soon the remarkably resilient Chitpavans were again transcendent in
the region's politics and economy.
Because of the influence exerted by the Chitpavan jati in Pune since the early
eighteenth century, Pune became known as a "Brahman City" (Gokhale 1988),
and Chitpavan Brahmans are still known locally as "Poona Brahmans." Chitpavan
peshwas not only ruled the empire from Pune, Chitpavans also dominated Pune's
economy and professions. They owned, managed, and controlled the city's
bookshops, grocery stores, restaurants, printing presses, newspapers, journalism,
arts, government, and educational institutions (Gohkale 1988; Patterson 1988).
As noted above, they are identified especially with Pune's colleges, most of which
they sponsored and managed, and for which they provided the majority of the
teaching and administrative staff. The reputation of the pedagogical excellence
of Pune's colleges established the city's fame nationally and internationally as a
center of higher education and augmented the Chitpavan Brahmans' prestige.
In the middle of the nineteenth century Maratha leaders reacted to their years
of subordination to Brahman?not exclusively Chitpavan?political domination,
excessive fees for religious services, and usurious rates for lending money. They
fomented an anti-Brahman movement, and because Shivaji and his heirs?
Marathas?ruled the empire in name if not always in practice, they proclaimed
themselves to be kyshatria and openly challenged Brahman hegemony of the
region (Gokhale 1988; Gore 1989; O'Hanlon 1985; Omvedt 1976). At this time,
the Chitpavan Brahman community reacted strongly to what they considered to
be outrageous usurpation of an elevated varna status by ignorant peasants; violent
protests fomented by each side were not uncommon. The Brahman-Maratha
schism has never healed, and through mutually negative ideologies and symbols
it continues to impact Brahman-Maratha relations adversely.

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Brahmans' and Marathas' images of each other are deeply embedded
in Maharashtra's culture and history. To Marathas (and other jatis, even non
Chitpavan Brahmans), Chitpavan Brahmans are symbolized by their relatively
distinctive phenotype?tall, fair complexion, blue eyes, light hair?and their
reputation for slyness and niggardly rudeness. Marathas and British alike
distrusted them. Local non-Brahmans said, "If you walked across Pune when it
was 45 (C, about 100T F) outside to deliver a message to a Chitpavan Brahman,
he would not even offer you a glass of water."13 Still, no one denies their talents
for management and administration, although some Maharashtra Brahmans in the
Gang argued that the image was highly inflated and unreliable.
On the other hand, Poona Brahmans in general were not shy about denigrating
the symbol of Shivaji (whose picture hung in the main office and some classrooms
of rural Maratha colleges and was conspicuously absent in city colleges)14 and the
Marathas' "uppity" claims to their inherited varna status as kyshatria. Brahmans
often contemptuously referred to Marathas as sudras or peasants, especially when
they compared the paucity of the Marathas' contribution to the struggles for
nationhood with those of famous Poona Brahmans, such as B. G. Tilak and G. K.
Ghokale, local icons of that anticolonial struggle. On the other hand, Marathas refer
to Brahmans with a variety of unflattering epithets. These stereotypes, common
and emblematic as they were, did not resonate sufficiently in the university's
politics to give either team much advantage until the mid 1970s, when Marathas
became more involved in the university's affairs.
The Institutional Contradiction

The institutional contradiction that came to characterize the university
originated in 1924 and reflected the caste contradiction discussed above (see
Golay 1974 for this history). At that time a deputation representing regional
educational interests approached the government of the Bombay Presidency
with the idea of establishing a university in Maharashtra to relieve pressures on
Bombay University.15 This deputation was led by Dr. M. R. Jayakar, an eminent
lawyer and able politician.
Jayakar was born into a scholarly and literary caste, the Chandraseniya
Kayastha Prabhu (CKP). The CKP jati is resident largely in Maharashtra, holds the
varna rank of kyshatria, which commonly, except by some Brahmans, is accorded
a caste status equal to that of Chitpavan Brahmans (Beteille 1992). Still, the CKPs
have an ancient reputation for antipathy to Brahmans; Shivaji himself recognized
the CKPs as close allies, and they often have been at odds with the Chitpavan
jati. Jayakar had a vision of a university that would be equal to any in Britain, the
"Oxford of the East" as he conceived it. He served two terms, 1948-1956, as the
university's first vice chancellor, the university's highest executive office.
The idea of another university in Maharashtra was not an important issue
in 1924.There was some agreement that the region needed another university,
but Jayakar's vision was strongly opposed by the Deccan Educational Society in
Pune,16 which established and managed most of the city colleges. The dozen or so
colleges that comprised the core group of elite and venerable Pune colleges were
established between 1821 and 1930; the most prestigious are Deccan College

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(1821), Fergusson College (1885), and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and
Economics (1930). The Deccan Society remains a distinguished and influential
organization, dedicated to the educational excellence of the city colleges and the
interests of the local Chitpavan Brahman community.
Dr. R. P. Paranjpye, a Chitpavan Brahman, led the Deccan Society's
opposition to the postgraduate campus. He was a renowned political activist in
India's freedom struggle, a distinguished educator, and one-time principal of
Fergusson College, arguably the city's most prestigious. The Deccan Society
feared, rightfully so, that Jayakar's vision of the university would detract from
the status and influence of the city colleges. Paranjpye served as the university's
second vice chancellor (1956-1960).
Jayakar's and the Deccan Society's visions of the university were diametrically
opposed. Jayakar envisioned a university developed around a residential and
intellectually vigorous postgraduate campus with strong departments that would
award postgraduate degrees (master's and doctorate). The university's jurisdiction
would incorporate the widely dispersed rural colleges which, with the city
colleges, would be "affiliated institutions" of the university and would primarily
award bachelor's degrees.
The Deccan Society's vision of the university did not include a postgraduate
campus. Instead, they preferred a simple, degree-granting institution without its
own campus that would incorporate only the city colleges and others within a two
mile radius of Pune. These colleges would award both graduate and postgraduate
degrees.
Jayakar got his way on many of the issues. The university did develop around a
residential postgraduate campus on 400 acres on the edge of the city and gradually
began to establish departments offering postgraduate degrees.17 Its jurisdiction
incorporated both the city and rural colleges. However, the city colleges became
"constituent institutions" of the university. The "constituent" status of the city
colleges gave them a symbolic equality with the postgraduate campus and
considerable autonomy in managing their pedagogical and administrative affairs.
Rural colleges became "affiliated institutions." This established their second-class
status in the university; "affiliation" subjected them to approval by the Brahman
controlled administration on the postgraduate campus and restricted them for the
most part to providing graduate education and degrees only. As the constituent
status of the city colleges suggests, Jayakar was unable to establish the hegemony
of the postgraduate campus.
The founding of the university was delayed because of the protracted debates
over these issues and other considerations: World War II, the construction of the
university's postgraduate campus?roads, buildings, facilities?and, arguably
most important, the composition of the university act, a legal charter that authorizes
the university to operate. It determines the organization of its governing bodies,
the statutes under which those bodies conduct university business, the social
categories (internal and external to the university) whose members are eligible
to occupy university offices, and the procedures by which individuals become
officeholders. The Poona University Act (1948) enabled the university to open,
and the first students were accepted in February 1949.

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Ideally a state's legislature writes the university act. In 1948 the Maharashtra
legislature was dominated by Brahmans from the Congress Party with whom Poona
Brahmans from the Deccan Society and city colleges had close relationships. As
a result the 1948 act was drafted with considerable input from Poona Brahmans
and reflected the interests of the city colleges, favored their agenda, and thwarted
the interests of Jayakar and those dedicated to the rapid development of the
postgraduate campus.
The 1948 act ensured that the university was controlled by city college
agents and that seven Poona Brahmans would be appointed as the university's
vice chancellors in an unbroken line of succession from 1956 to 1970 (some
did not finish their four-year terms). In 1970 amendments to the act altered the
selection process for the vice chancellor's office, although the vice chancellor
was still a Chitpavan Brahman. During the tenure of the seven vice chancellors
the university's government frequently transferred resources, programs, and
departments to the city colleges that were originally designated for the postgraduate
campus; a few of the elite city colleges acquired postgraduate programs in this
way. These transfers were accomplished because the 1948 act prohibited teaching
staff on the postgraduate campus from serving on the university's Executive
Council, its most important policy-making body, and limited their service in
other critical governing bodies. This ensured the subordination of the interests
of the postgraduate campus to those of the city colleges and the slow growth
and development of the postgraduate campus. When Jayakar's tenure as vice
chancellor ended he left the university frustrated and embittered and returned only
once, in 1958, when a new library was dedicated to him.
The 13 existing rural colleges voiced few complaints about their exclusion
from university affairs. Their student bodies and teaching staffs were dominated
by rural Brahmans who had little interest in the educational needs of the rural
Maratha population, and truth be told, the Marathas themselves, largely
agricultural peasants, had little interest in higher education. That began to change
in the 1960s.
Even before 1960, when Maharashtra became a state, Marathas were
replacing Brahmans in the state's Congress Party and developing rural sugar
cooperatives.18 These events were not unconnected. The sugar coops created a
rural nouveau riche class that used its wealth and economic power to support
Maratha politicians. The politicians began to see the value of the colleges as
recruiting grounds for cadres and followers to further develop their political and
economic hegemony in Maharashtra (Attwood 1992; Baviskar 1980; Sirsikar
1995). By 1980 Maratha power and prestige had grown and was enhanced by
their control of the sugar factories, boards of rural and urban cooperatives,
commercial banks, land development banks, agricultural credit cooperatives, and
educational societies sponsoring and managing high schools and colleges (Kamat
1980). Slowly at first, but increasingly in the 1970s and beyond, sugar coops
and Maratha politicians sponsored the expansion of rural colleges. This growth
coincided with the first opportunity that agents on the postgraduate campus had
to alter their relationship with the city colleges, subsequent to the revised Poona
University Act (1974).

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Anticipations of Conflict
By 1957, even before statehood, the social and political environments of
Maharashtra had changed considerably. Maratha Congress Party men had replaced
Brahman Congress Party men in the state's legislature, and Marathas began to
assume control over most other sources of political, economic, and social power
and influence in Maharashtra. Maratha sugar coops dominated the state's economy
(Baviskar 1980; Attwood 1992), and by the late 1960s, rural colleges established
by Maratha politicians were growing rapidly. The relationship between the rural
colleges and the university began to change.
By the late 1960s it was clear that the administrative procedures under the 1948
act were not responsive to the growth and development needs of the university,
and its amendments eventually rendered it obsolete. A 1968 amendment stipulated
two changes. First, the vice chancellor would henceforth be elected by the Senate,
the largest and most diverse university board. Until 1968 each vice chancellor had
served without remuneration, and under a "gentleman's agreement," agents in the
city colleges had ensured that two of three candidates would decline the office
and another eminent Poona Brahman would be appointed. Second, because the
job was now more demanding, the vice chancellor would receive considerable
perquisites: a salary, a house on campus, servants, and a car and driver. This
amendment had the unfortunate effect of attracting individuals who were not
qualified for the office.
In 1970 an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, a well-fixed Poona Brahman,
was elected vice chancellor. He was backed by the powerful Deshasta Brahman
on the Executive Council who was beginning to put together a coalition of
Brahman friends in the state legislature and city and rural colleges that became
known as the "Gang." I call him the City College Leader. He told me that after
the installation of the vice chancellor, "I was drunk with Power; I felt like a
king-maker."
The surgeon's tenure as vice chancellor was a disaster. Over the next two years
the university's government deteriorated, wracked by scandal, incompetence, and
volatile confrontations between members of the Executive Council who had been
unsuccessful candidates for the vice chancellorship. The conduct of university
business ground to a halt. In 1972 the chancellor, who was also the state governor,19
terminated the university's government and appointed an interim vice chancellor
and Executive Council, mostly Poona Brahmans, to serve until the elections that
would occur under the aegis of the new Poona University Act of 1974.
In accord with the 1974 act, the Poona Brahman whom the governor had
appointed interim vice chancellor was appointed formally to the office. In the
subsequent elections (which always follow the appointment of the vice chancellor),
teachers from the postgraduate campus were, for the first time, elected to the
Executive Council and other boards from which they had previously been excluded.
They did not have a working majority; city college agents still dominated. But the
newly elected Executive Council included leaders of the Clique.
Neither the Gang nor the Clique included a large number of close, morally
committed supporters and benefactors. Taken as a whole, the university's
"politicians" accounted for about thirty individuals, less than one half of one

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percent of the university's 5,350 teachers.20 The real power of the leaders of each
team came from followers who would elect their candidates to university boards.
Leaders of each team began to build support for the installation in 1978 of a new
vice chancellor and shortly thereafter, in 1979, the election of candidates to the
university's governing boards.
The Gang, the moral team in this instance, was led by the Deshasta Brahman,
the City College Leader who supported the vice chancellor in the elections
of 1970. He had a small cadre of perhaps ten truly dedicated supporters and
benefactors. But he had a large number of followers in the city colleges and those
few rural colleges that were dominated by rural Brahmans. He had been a city
college teacher and was the first individual to campaign for election. He built
his power base among city college teachers and the Brahman administrations
of rural colleges. He promised teachers that he would work for their interests,
such as improving their pay; the Deccan Society was notorious for its Chitpavan
thriftiness. He also built support by dispensing resources he was able to access as
a member of the Executive Council. This largesse went to his closest supporters in
the form of unchallenged reimbursements for travel on university business, such
as visiting the postgraduate campus to attend meetings and read examinations.21
As a Deshasta Brahman he was sensitive to Poona Brahman slights and caste
arrogance. "Chitpavan Brahmans," he told me, "think of us Deshastas as fish
eating Brahmans and don't think that we can be as shrewd as they are." Still, he
was fiercely committed to the city colleges (he eventually established his own,
very successful college) and disdainful of the postgraduate campus. "The best
thing that could happen to that campus," he told me, "would be for it to disappear."
It was common knowledge that he wanted to be vice chancellor.
Despite the domination by city college agents, staff on the postgraduate campus
did manage over the years to obtain new departments, programs, and faculty,
albeit slowly. Still, the postgraduate faculty was unhappy with their subordinate
status, the slow pace of growth, and poor working conditions; promotions were
difficult to acquire and departments difficult to establish. When it was obvious
that the 1948 act was going to be replaced, teachers on the postgraduate campus
began to organize the team that became the Clique and plot to usurp the authority
of the city colleges. The Clique was led by a troika, each member of which had
a few close supporters and benefactors. As a transactional team, most of their
supporters expected rewards for their support if and when the Clique took control
of the university's government.22 Like the City College Leader, each of these
leaders was elected to the Executive Council in 1974, and they began to lay plans
for the fights they knew would develop in 1978 and 1979.
The Clique's support base was diverse and disparate, but each leader also
had a protege or two and they tended to support each other and work to hold the
Clique together. Some were unlikely compatriots, such as a young Maratha who
was dedicated to the Campus Leader, the self-proclaimed leader of the Clique?a
status with which not everyone on the postgraduate campus concurred.
The Campus Leader was a Chitpavan Brahman from northern Maharashtra
who was dedicated to the postgraduate campus. He worked diligently and
often successfully to create programs and departments on the campus. He was

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ambitious, aggressive, bombastic, arrogant, and created enemies easily. The

Aspirant, another leader of the Clique, said that "He acted more like an American
professor than an Indian." He desperately wanted, as none of the other leaders of
the Clique did, to be vice chancellor. He organized teachers on the postgraduate
campus by promising them a share of the spoils if the Clique won. Very few of his
colleagues genuinely liked him, and he did not develop his lines of support well.
But most of the concerned players in this drama recognized his potential as leader
in a fight with the Gang.
The second leader, the "Professor," was a Karhada Brahman also from
northern Maharashtra. He was first elected to the Senate from the association of
"registered past-graduates" (alumni)23 in the 1960s and thereafter held university
office except for a hiatus in 1972-1974. He was committed more to the interests of
the rural colleges?he had one of his own?than to the postgraduate campus. But
he knew that his influence with the rural colleges depended on holding office, for
it was in that context that he could make changes favorable to the rural colleges.
In anticipation of the 1974 act, he began to develop a support base among teachers
in the rural Maratha colleges. He promised to improve their working conditions if
and when the Clique took over, and the rural teachers trusted and respected him.
He had far less support on the postgraduate campus; he often was disdainful of
its educational goals. "They don't teach anything that's useful to the development
of India," he told me. He believed that rural colleges provided a technical and
practical education that was more responsive to the needs of a developing
country. He convinced a large number of Maratha teachers in the rural colleges
to support the Clique by promising them largesse he would distribute once in
power, a stronger voice in the university's government, and better facilities, such
as buildings and laboratories.
The third leader of the Clique's troika was the Aspirant. Like Jayakar, he was
a CKP. He was a strategist and tactician who worked largely behind the scenes
to promote the goals of the Clique. He was favored by the outsider Brahmans
on the campus. He had a reputation for "fixing things" for them when they
confronted prejudice by local Brahmans, such as attaining promotions, and they
provided a solid base of admirers and support. He also expended considerable
energy tempering the aggressiveness of the Campus Leader, and he had issues
with the Professor and his attitude toward the campus. He was, in effect, a
leavening influence among the Clique's potentially contentious cohorts and a
fixer of problems. He was smooth, self-effacing, and known for his loyalty to his
supporters, many of whom also expected rewards if the Clique won. He claimed
that he never wanted to be vice chancellor. Many people felt that he protested so
strongly to disguise ulterior ambitions.
The Poona University Act of 1974

In 1974 the 1948 act was replaced. Recall that the 1948 act was largely a
product of state legislators connected to the city colleges. The 1974 act was largely
a product of Marathas from the rural colleges and allies from the postgraduate
campus who had a working relationship with the Marathas that now dominated
the state legislature. Brahmans in Maharashtra were not pleased with this turn of

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events. But the university's teachers and administrators?and the leaders of the
Gang and Clique?applauded the 1974 act. It was designed to reflect the salient
values of the world's largest democracy, the democratization of the university's
government. The Clique was especially pleased with the act.
The 1974 act was a fulcrum for change. It included an array of new stipulations
regarding elections, voting, the size of university governing boards, funding,
distributions of resources, and the like. It reorganized the university's governing
boards and authorities. For the first time staff from the postgraduate campus
were allowed to compete for seats on the Executive Council and have a voice
in selecting the vice chancellor. Positions on the university's governing boards
would be determined by elections but the voting mechanisms were complicated,
often opaque, and open to interpretation.
The vice chancellor continued to be appointed by the chancellor (state
governor), but now from a slate of three names submitted to him by a three
person nominating committee. The committee was composed of two university
officeholders and a governor's appointee. Eligibility for other offices in the
university's government was restricted to members of associations and categories
that were recognized by and registered with the university.
Teachers, department heads, and college principals were eligible to vote and
hold office because of their status in the university. Non-university associations that
were registered with the university expanded the pool of potential officeholders. In
addition to alumni, who were recognized in the 1948 act, the registered categories
included business, local political, union, social welfare, and other associations and
organizations within the university's jurisdiction. With rare exceptions, members
of these associations could elect only individuals from the association to which
they belonged: "from among themselves," in the wording of the 1974 act. This
principle, in addition to ex officio appointments by the chancellor, vice chancellor,
and Maharashtra State Department of Education, tempered tendencies to politicize
the university by giving various constituencies a voice in its government.
As noted above, the voting procedures were intricate. For example, elections
to the various boards took place in phases, and individuals elected to one board
might compete for and win access to another, higher board later without having
to surrender his or her place on the board to which they had previously been
elected. As a result, at the height of his power the leader of the Gang held strategic
positions on three different boards, including the Executive Council.
The key to this electoral process, the Boards of Studies (Figure 2), consisted
of individuals from the various disciplines and departments, such as anthropology,
ayurvedic medicine, biology, mathematics, physics, Sanskrit, and the like. At the
time of the 1979 elections there were 52 Boards of Studies. University personnel
who sought higher office began by being elected to a Board of Studies from which,
over phases of additional voting, they might move to higher offices, including the
Executive Council. This strategy was used especially by the leaders of the Gang
and Clique. The 1974 act, although dedicated to democratic principles, in practice
limited the playing field by allowing a few to hold office on many boards, and
to ensure that when they resigned their position on one board it would open up a
slot for their supporters. Placing one's team members into these offices was the

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primary means of controlling the university policies and administration. Leaders

of the Gang and Clique sought loopholes by which they might gain support and
defeat the other.
The leadership of the Clique studied the act and its provisions until they
could recite it by memory. "If (the Act) doesn't say that we can't do something,"
the Professor opined, "that means we can do it!" The City College Leader and
his immediate cohort studied it less; he was comfortable with the structure of
relations by which he had established control over the university's governing
boards. All told, there was no reason to think that the Gang would lose control
of the university's government. The Clique knew this, and their leaders were not
optimistic about overthrowing such an entrenched authority. Both sides geared up
for the subsequent two-stage fight.
Occupying the vice chancellor's office was the first goal, and that would be
decided in 1978. The City College Leader and the Campus Leader, who despised
Executive Council
Senate
Academic Council
Faculties
Board of Studies
Post
Non College
University
Graduate College
University Department
Personnel Heads Teachers Department Principals
Heads
Figure 2. Recruitment and voting pathways

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each other, were planning to campaign for the office. The next goal would be to win
the elections to the university's boards that would follow the appointment of the
vice chancellor and be concluded in 1979. The entire process took several months.
1978-1979: ELECTIONS AND FALLOUT
1978, The Vice Chancellor

Everyone in the university knew that the City College Leader and Campus
Leader were competing for the vice chancellor's office, and the strategies to win,
dirty tricks included, began early. It was certain that the Campus Leader's name
was going to be on the slate of three names submitted to the Chancellor. But the
City College Leader did not allow his name to be included; he was confident the
first list would be rejected. He knew (and the Campus Leader found out only later)
that an Executive Councilor had managed to have his brother's name put on the
slate (it was rumored that this was done at the behest of the City College Leader, a
strategic move that he did not deny). This obvious nepotism was against the written
rules and would cause the Chancellor to reject the slate. When the Campus Leader
realized what was happening, he tried to have his name removed from the slate.
The City College Leader blocked that by a strategic parliamentary procedure. He
then filed with the police 28 charges of corruption against the Campus Leader,
leaked the story to the local newspaper, and wrote a newspaper article that he sent
to his friends in the state legislature which questioned the morality and integrity of
the Campus Leader. The Chancellor rejected the slate and called for another that
excluded the Campus Leader. At this point the City College Leader made certain
that his name was added to the new slate.
The Campus Leader was distraught. He was too old to compete again for the
vice chancellor's office in four years. And it appeared that the Clique's efforts
to gain the office had been foiled by the City College Leader, who also prepared
complaints against the Professor and Aspirant that he threatened to make public if
they were nominated. In a move of desperation the leaders of the Clique added to
the slate the name of the young Maratha protege of the Campus Leader mentioned
previously, who was now a member of the Executive Council. The Clique's leaders
contacted their friends in state government and wrote articles in local newspapers
to press their case. They had little hope that this strategy would enable them to
win. Then, outside events intervened.
In 1977 Mrs. Gandhi, the prime minister of India, and her Congress Party were
swept out of office and replaced by the Janata Party. In Maharashtra, while the
second slate of names for the vice chancellor was pending, the governor appointed
by the Congress Party was replaced with a Janata-appointed Maratha governor who
was friends with the father-in-law of the young Maratha whose name was on the
slate. The governor appointed the first Maratha vice chancellor of Pune University.
This was the beginning of the Poona Brahmans' lament that "The Marathas are
taking over the university," and the emergence of a shadowy and fluid contingent
of Poona Brahmans that became known as the "Brahman lobby." The City College
Leader remained on the Executive Council, but he was crestfallen. It especially
galled him that a "nobody" (as he put it) had been selected vice chancellor: "Every

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time I had to address him as 'Sir,' the word stuck in my throat."

The feared Maratha domination of the university did not materialize. A
single Maratha, even in the office of vice chancellor, was hardly a usurpation
of Brahman authority. But over the next eight years the vice chancellor colluded
with?or at least was directed by?the troika leadership of the Clique to interpret
the stipulations of the 1974 act strategically?and pragmatically?to their
advantage. Increasing numbers of Marathas?as well as supporters from the
postgraduate campus?were appointed, elected, or otherwise "co-opted" to serve
in the university's administration and on its governing boards.
1979 Elections (andBeyond)

In the 1979 elections the Clique made considerable gains in the university's
governing boards, but not enough to displace the Gang and govern without
challenge. Most significantly, the Aspirant and Professor won seats on the
Executive Council, as did the City College Leader. The Campus Leader had made
too many enemies. His bid for a seat on the Executive Council was thwarted.
He would never hold office again in the university, although he remained an
influential and, smarting from his loss, a very vindictive member of the Clique.
The university's government now consisted of two "moral teams" whose
behaviors often were anything but moral. Over the next few years the Clique
used its knowledge of the 1974 act and questionable tactics?strategic acts
underpinning both normative and pragmatic rules?to solidify its control of the
university's government. It managed to pack various boards with its supporters,
sometimes by intimidation which forced existing members to resign. By the next
elections they also took advantage of their knowledge of the 1974 act to load the
Boards of Studies with Maratha supporters from the rural colleges.
In the next election cycle the City College Leader tried again to become vice
chancellor or at least to hold his position on the university's governing boards. He
and his followers were defeated utterly. "We simply did not study and learn the
act as well as the Clique," the City College Leader told me. "They profited and we
lost." The Maratha vice chancellor was reappointed?the first time since Jayakar
a vice chancellor had succeeded himself?and the Gang was routed from the
university's government. The City College Leader retired to manage his college
and imagine what might have been.
Up to and beyond the elections in 1984 the Clique became notorious and
feared. The thirst for revenge for the previous decades of subordination to the
city colleges motivated the Clique's leadership to act like thugs.24 They murdered
no one, but they governed by intimidation, threat, and practices unbecoming
gentlemen, scholarly or otherwise. They destroyed the careers of some of their
opponents on the postgraduate campus?in particular, those who did not support
the Campus Leader in his bid for the Executive Council. Any threat, real or
perceived, from city college staff was quickly and often ruthlessly dispatched.
One prominent city college principal lamented the state of the university's
government in a newspaper article by asserting angrily that "There is no VC (vice
chancellor), there is no EC (Executive Council); there is only NC" (the initials of
the Professor's first and middle names).

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The cadres the Professor had developed among rural teachers resulted in
Maratha control of 48 of the 52 Boards of Studies. This voting bloc insured the
Clique's control of university government and the Professor's preeminence. At
the height of his power he sat on the Executive Council, held a seat in the Senate,
and was Dean of the Sciences, the university's most powerful and prestigious
deanship. His wife became Dean of the Humanities, even though she was not
a faculty member (!). Recall the Professor's interpretation of the 1974 act at its
inception: "If (the act) doesn't say that we can't do it, that means we can." This
interpretation made all things possible.
Gradually the Aspirant became the most prominent leader of the Clique,
largely because among the Clique's troika he carried the least baggage that could
come back to haunt him. He was known to be ruthlessly unforgiving to those
who opposed him and the Clique. But he also managed to retain a loyal following
on the postgraduate campus and, more than the other leaders of the Clique, he
managed to deflect the constant accusation by the "Brahman Lobby" that he and
the Clique were hopelessly corrupt.
The Aspirant became vice chancellor in 1988 and held the office for two
terms, until 1996. His staff had more Marathas serving in administrative capacities
than any previous administration. Throughout that tenure the Brahman Lobby was
constantly looking for a way to rescue the university from this Maratha usurpation.
The Lobby had the potential to become the transactional team during the Clique's
era of government, but the Clique managed by intimidation and various strategies
to keep members of the Lobby out of the university's government, and it never
was able to develop the leadership necessary to mount the challenge.
Gradually the Aspirant mellowed. "We did terrible things when we gained
power," he told me. "And I regret them now. But we would not have succeeded
if we had we acted differently. The Gang was to strong." By the end of his term
as vice chancellor, the Clique as described here had dissolved and new agents
were grappling with new problems related to the impact of globalization and the
increasing privatization of Indian higher education as state and central government
funding decreased precipitously.
The Aspirant acknowledged the new challenges the university faced in his
final address before leaving office. He also referred with pride to the route the
university had traveled to attain its status as a celebrated center of Indian higher
education. At previous such events the Gang and its predecessors always extolled
the contributions of the Brahman vice chancellors who, for almost twenty years,
served the university. In his final address the Aspirant acknowledged the role
of only one vice chancellor in the long journey the university had traveled: Dr.
Jayakar, a CKP, as he himself was.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The idea of establishing Pune University was first discussed officially in

1924. The university, consisting of a newly founded postgraduate campus and
established city and rural colleges, opened officially in 1949. By that time each
of the university's three institutions was identified with specific castes and

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their interests: an increasingly cosmopolitan mix of castes on the postgraduate

campus and a predominance of Chitpavan Brahmans and Marathas in the city
and rural colleges, respectively. Until the 1970s, Brahmans from the city colleges
dominated the university's government and denied the postgraduate campus the
potential for growth. By 1978 agents on the postgraduate campus and in the rural
colleges were exasperated with city college domination and ready to challenge
it. Simply relating what happened over these years as these fights developed
and culminated is a pretty good story. But relating why and how what happened
requires a nomothetic methodology using Giddens's (1979) idea of structuration
and Bailey's (1969) idea of political teams.
Structuration was Giddens's response to what he perceived to be a lack of a
theory of action in the social sciences. Structuration asserts that social structures
are both the medium for and the outcome of the practices of agents evoked by
contradictions intrinsic to the social structure in question. Pune University is
characterized by historical contradictions in institutions and castes, and the Gang
and Clique, identified here as Bailey's moral and transactional teams, respectively,
are the antagonistic agents whose conflict would resolve the contradiction by one
of the teams prevailing. The events that led to the resolution were the selection of
a vice chancellor in 1978 and the elections of the university's governing boards
in 1979. These events would determine who would govern the university and
control its future.
Curiously, as the conflict between the Gang and the Clique played out, the
resolution to the contradiction had little to do with the practices and strategies the
agents brought to the climactic events. Instead, events and agents remote from
and only tangentially involved in the university's conflicts decided the issues.
An anthropologist with views antithetical to nomothetic thinking might argue
that this demonstrates the fallacy of theory in the social sciences because an
unforeseen event that could have been scripted by a second-rate novelist prevailed,
demonstrating that a good story will trump theory anytime. I disagree, of course.
Structuration has provided a framework to explain Pune University's history of
conflict as no other humanistic or nomothetic procedure with which I am familiar
could have done.
Locating Pune University in the worldwide context of the politics of higher
education that prevailed in the 1960s-1980s provided another dimension to its
history of conflict. Many Indian universities were caught up in the turmoil of those
years. Many also were subjected to the politicizing force of caste. As one segment
of the contradictions in Pune University, caste did play a role in its politics. But
caste as a motivation for the conflict in Pune University took a unique and, in
some ways, controversial turn.
The politics of caste that led to the politicization of Indian universities was
never an issue in Pune University. But my argument that caste prevailed over
interest as a major cause of Pune University's history of conflict was questioned
by the leaders and others involved in the university's politics. Those who held to
the idea that caste was a major causal factor tended to see the university's conflicts
through a historical lens that took into account the problematic history of caste
relations between Brahmans and Marathas in Maharashtra. Those who denied

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caste a major causal role or relegated it to a secondary role perceived the conflict
to be rooted in contemporary events which they attributed to the corruption of the
teams, especially the Clique.
Self-interest certainly played a role in the conflict. But caste as a subtext, a
narrative that emerged too frequently and persistently in the discourse of those
involved?and even ordinary teachers who were not involved?was hard to
ignore. But it was denied all too easily by many who were deeply invested in
that discourse. This was especially true of the Chitpavan Brahmans, perhaps
because they were displeased with the way the implication of caste reflected
on them and their role in the region's history of caste relations. Marathas were
defamed as unpatriotic peasants by Chitpavan Brahmans who, in turn, were
accused by Marathas of self-serving iniquities. Sometimes the innuendo was
eruptive: "Marathas are taking over the university," or "You can never trust
those Poona Brahmans." But given the tenor of the time, had it not been for the
efforts of agents in the university to quell disruptions, the caste relationships in
the university might have been more explosive.
Maharashtra was not the only area in India to experience an anti-Brahman
movement (Beteille 1992). But, as noted and as is worthy of iteration, nowhere
else in India did such a small percentage of Brahmans dominate so thoroughly
for so long the culture and society of an Indian region. To me, an outsider, the
innuendo and narrative of caste came through loud and clear as a force behind
the actions of leaders and their teams in their protracted disputes over how and
by whom the university should be managed. Those on hand and deeply invested
in the conflict, especially Chitpavan Brahmans, didn't want to hear this narrative.
But the fact, well-known and acknowledged on the scene, that the university
was the last redoubt for Brahman influence in Maharashtra trumped, I think, the
idea that it was the interests of the leaders that provided the major impetus for
the conflict. Those interests were, simply, too deeply invested in an antagonist
rhetoric grounded in caste to attribute the university's history of conflict primarily
to selfish interests. One perspicacious politico, a Brahman protege of the Aspirant,
summed up the issue as follows: "How can we admit to caste as an issue in the
university's politics when we work in those institutions that were established to
do away with caste? Of course it's there. We just can't acknowledge it."
Others disagreed. And throughout my research this causal dichotomy
remained controversial. I tried to see it otherwise; caste is an easy explanation for
any problem in India, and often it is not justified. Here I think it was. The subtext
and narrative of caste, the pervasive subtle reference to Maharashtra's caste
history, the disparity in recognition of each other's symbols, make the rejection of
a caste causality suspect.
NOTES
The research upon which this paper is based was funded by grants from the Indian
University Grants Commission (1983), a Fulbright Fellowship (1985-1986), and the
UWM Foundation (1989, 1994, 2000). It was written under my current positions as
Professor Emeritus, Anthropology, Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Research Professor,

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Anthropology, Texas-San Antonio. My thanks to Jim McDonald and Jerry Hanson, who
read and commented on drafts of the paper, and to JAR's anonymous reviewers and editor,
whose detailed suggestions made it significantly better. Thanks also to Jean Mitchell for
her attentive proofreading of the paper, to Renae Burt for the expert graphics, and special
thanks to June-el Piper for her perceptive editorial recommendations.
1. In 1994 state legislators changed the anglicized name of the city and university,
"Poona," to Pune. Most of the research upon which this paper is based took place when the
university and city were called Poona. Out of respect for the formal name change I refer
throughout this paper to the city and university as Pune.
2. Jati(s) refers to the locally identifiable castes within a region. A jati is usually
ranked, endogamous, and sometimes occupationally specific. Sometimes the word is used
as a synonym for caste.
3. One fight over the establishment of a department of archaeology and the appointment
of its head, which began in 1973, wasn't fully resolved until the 1990s.
4. Bailey introduced the idea of "teams" in part because he perceived politics as a
game and in part as an alternative to the idea of "factions." The concept of factions was
introduced into political anthropology in the 1960s (Nicholas 1965, 1966; Swartz, Turner,
and Tuden 1966) with considerable hoopla as the key to understanding local politics. By the
early 1970s its explanatory value had fizzled out and it had become of little consequence
in political anthropology analyses (Bujra 1973).
5. The 29 informants included the university's politicians?the leaders of the Gang and
Clique?and others who were involved in various ways with, or intimately knowledgeable
about, the university's politics.
6. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi was an exception. Students and
teachers who demonstrated at JNU had a strong leftist bias. It was closed for long periods
of time in the 1970s and 1980s.
7. Anthropologists interested in issues related to education were attracted to the
"Culture of Schools" project initiated by Spindler (1963), which focused primarily on
elementary and high school education and enculturation (also see Henry 1963; Leacock
1969). Some of these studies addressed the inequalities and prejudices that were prevalent
in the education of minority children in the United States (Rosenfeld 1971; Ward 1971;
Wolcott 1967). These were reminiscent of concerns in India with the inferior education
of underprivileged and backward caste Indian students (Lai and Nahar 1978; Madan and
Halbar 1972; Shah and Patel 1977).
A few anthropologists have been attracted recently to issues related to higher
education. Their work has been either not especially political in nature (Rogers 2008) or
tangential to the issues discussed in this paper (Lukose 2005; Jeffrey 2008). For example,
Jeffrey (2008) analyzes how young men from middle castes in northern India use networks
established as university students to improve their post-educational class status.
8. In 1967, Dr. Bela Maday, the NSF representative who visited universities to inform
students of the disposition of their doctoral dissertation research proposals, informed me
that my proposal to study the relationship between education and political legitimacy
in Spain was rejected because it was "too sociological"! He suggested a Culture and
Personality study of childhood socialization instead.
9. Varna refers to the structure of the original four classes established by ancient
vedic (Hindu) scripture. Each class designates a social status and function, identified from
highest to lowest as Brahman (priest), Kyshatria (king, noble), Vaisiya (business person),
and Sudra (peasant). India's caste system developed from the Varna structure.
10. At its height in the eighteenth century, the empire covered about one third of the
central and northern Indian subcontinent.

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11. Chitpavan Brahmans are also sometimes referred to as Konkanastha Brahmans.
12. See Kaplan (1995) for an interesting analysis of the relationship between the
peshwas, Marathas, and the policies of "Commissioner" Mountstuart Elphinstone after the
British established colonial rule in 1818.
13.1 know many Chitpavan Brahmans who in no way conform to this stereotype. On
the other hand, I had a few encounters that did seem to comply with it.
14. Sometime after 2000, after this research project ended, the university administration
erected a life-size and iconographic statue of Shivaji, raised sword in hand on a rearing
charger, at the main entrance to the postgraduate campus.
15. The Bombay Presidency incorporated much of what today includes the states
of Gujarat, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. The legislature at that time was considering
establishing universities in each of these states.
16. The university's colleges are owned and managed by a trust, organization,
cooperative, or community (Christian, caste); this is common practice in India. The Deccan
Educational Society manages most of the city colleges and is a venerable organization
whose origin can be traced to the late nineteenth century.
17. The government in Bombay donated the Government House and Estate, which
the university occupies. This estate was used by the British as the seat of government in
the summers to escape the heat and monsoons of Bombay. The Government Building,
an architecturally unique and stately edifice, was used as the administrative center of the
university until 1989, when the administration moved to a purpose-built administrative
building.
18. In 1951 there were only four sugar cooperatives in India. By 1978, 56 sugar
cooperatives were operating in Maharashtra and 14 were in various stages of construction
(Baviskar 1980).
19. The state's governor, an appointee of the central government in Delhi, is also
chancellor of the university. He may act as a mediator or arbitrator of university disputes
and intercede in certain situations, as he did in 1972. But his major task subsequent to the
1974 act was to appoint the vice chancellor from a list of three names submitted to him by
a nominations committee.
20. This equation supports the aphorism that universally the engagement of only a
very few agents is required to make a difference in the social and political affairs of a
community.
21. At that time most examinations in the university were read by teachers other
than those who provided the course instruction. Readers were paid for each exam, plus
expenses.
22. The postgraduate campus provided limited housing to teaching and non-teaching
staff at a concession rate. This was a very desirable perk because affordable housing in
Pune became increasingly limited.
23. Some individuals are elected to university offices from constituencies (such as
past graduates) that are recognized by the university act.
24. Pun intended; thugs historically were professional assassins who had been active
in northern India.
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The Last Institution Standing: Contradictions and the Politics of Domination in an

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25608264

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key words : Anti-Brahman movements, Brahmans, Contradictions, Leadership, Maharashtra,

Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 65, 2009

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Figure 1. Map of India showing locations mentioned in the text.

CASTE, LOCATION, AND HIGHER EDUCATION

Rural Colleges and Marathas

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City Colleges and Brahmans

The Postgraduate Campus

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Regardless of their origin or caste affiliation, in the 1970s Brahmans as a

CONTRADICTIONS AND CONFLICT: PRAXIS

To explain Pune University's history of conflict I will rely largely on propositions

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Proposition: Social structures change as a result of the competitive practices

Despite the central role of the agent in contradiction resolution, Giddens's

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Proposition: The politics and consequential conflict evoked by contradictions are

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practices directed by ulterior ambitions. Gang

CASTE AND THE POLITICS OF INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

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a state's legislature (Beteille 1992).The politics of caste tend to follow a pattern, as

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Two factors converged to establish the contradictions that provoked conflict in

The Caste Contradiction

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in 1978-1979. Its historical trajectory is as follows:

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The Institutional Contradiction

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ambitious, aggressive, bombastic, arrogant, and created enemies easily. The

The Poona University Act of 1974

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primary means of controlling the university policies and administration. Leaders

Figure 2. Recruitment and voting pathways

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1978-1979: ELECTIONS AND FALLOUT

1978, The Vice Chancellor

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time I had to address him as 'Sir,' the word stuck in my throat."

1979 Elections (andBeyond)

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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The idea of establishing Pune University was first discussed officially in

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their interests: an increasingly cosmopolitan mix of castes on the postgraduate

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