India’s story is often told as a saga of religious and caste conflicts: Hindu versus Muslim, upper caste versus lower caste. These divisions dominate political debates, ignite riots, and shape national identity. Yet, peel back the layers, and a different picture emerges. At their core, these communal tensions are class struggles—pitting landless workers against wealthy landowners. From the Faraizi Movement in the 19th century to the Kashmiri Muslim unrest in recent decades, modern Indian history reveals that what we call identity conflicts are often battles over economic power, masked by the rhetoric of faith or tradition.
Land: The Root of Power and Conflict
In India, land has always been the ultimate currency. Under British colonialism, the zamindari system entrenched a small elite—often upper-caste Hindus or privileged Muslims—as landlords, while millions of peasants, regardless of religion or caste, were reduced to tenants or laborers. Independence in 1947 promised change, but land reforms faltered, leaving the divide intact. Today, a tiny fraction of the population—frequently from dominant castes or communities—controls most arable land, while the landless, often Dalits, OBCs, or marginalized Muslims, scrape by as wage workers. This economic chasm fuels communal friction, with religion and caste serving as convenient scapegoats.
The Faraizi Movement: Peasants vs. Landlords
Consider the Faraizi Movement in 19th-century Bengal (now Bangladesh and parts of West Bengal). Led by Haji Shariatullah and later his son Dudu Miyan, this Muslim reformist movement is often framed as a religious uprising against Hindu landlords and British rule. But its roots were economic. The Faraizis mobilized landless Muslim peasants and small farmers against oppressive zamindars—many of whom were Hindu but some Muslim—whose exorbitant rents and taxes left tenants destitute. The movement’s call for social equality and refusal to pay illegal levies wasn’t just about faith; it was a revolt against a landowning class exploiting the rural poor. Communal tensions flared, but the real divide was between the haves and have-nots.
Kerala’s Namboodiri Brahmins: Caste as Class
Fast forward to 20th-century Kerala, where the Namboodiri Brahmins offer another lens. As the state’s traditional upper caste, Namboodiris monopolized land ownership, controlling vast estates worked by lower-caste tenants like the Ezhavas and Pulayas. Their caste privilege—tied to rituals and social exclusion—was inseparable from their economic dominance. By the 1920s and ’30s, lower-caste reform movements, often led by figures like Sree Narayana Guru, challenged this hierarchy. These struggles were framed as caste conflicts, but they were equally about land and labor. The landless demanded rights to property and fair wages, clashing with Namboodiri landlords who clung to both caste status and economic power. Kerala’s eventual land reforms in the 1950s and ’60s—redistributing land to tenants—weakened this nexus, proving that resolving class disparities could ease communal divides.
Kashmiri Muslims: Land and Rebellion
In Kashmir, the Hindu-Muslim divide is a global headline, but class underpins the story. Under the Dogra monarchy (1846–1947), Hindu Rajputs ruled as a landowning elite, while the majority Muslim population—mostly peasants—worked their fields under crushing taxes and forced labor (begar). The 1931 uprising, often cited as a communal clash sparked by a desecrated mosque, was as much a peasant revolt against feudal landlords. Post-independence, Sheikh Abdullah’s land reforms in the 1950s abolished large estates without compensation, transferring land to Muslim tillers—a move hailed by the poor but resented by the old elite, some of whom framed it as a Muslim power grab. Even today, unrest in Kashmir reflects economic grievances: landless youth, unemployed or underpaid, fuel militancy, while wealthier classes—across religions—benefit from stability. The communal lens obscures this class fault line.
The Mandal Moment: Caste Meets Class
The 1990s Mandal Commission protests—pitting upper castes against OBCs over job and education quotas—seem like a caste war. But look closer. Upper castes, historically landowning and educated, feared losing their economic edge to OBCs, many of whom were landless or small farmers seeking upward mobility. In states like Bihar, where upper-caste landlords long dominated rural power, OBC assertions (backed by leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav) threatened not just social prestige but control over resources. Riots and rallies erupted, but the subtext was clear: the landless were challenging the landed, and caste was the battleground.
Why Communalism Persists
If class is the root, why does communalism dominate? The answer lies in manipulation. Elites—colonial rulers, post-independence politicians, even local landlords—have long weaponized identity to divide the poor. A landless Hindu laborer and a landless Muslim tenant share the same struggles—low wages, debt, hunger—but a rumor about a temple or cow can turn them into enemies. The 2002 Gujarat riots, branded as Hindu-Muslim violence, saw poor Muslims and Hindus die in droves, while property-owning elites largely escaped unscathed. Division protects the powerful; solidarity threatens them.
A Way Forward
To break this cycle, India must confront its class divide. Land reform—modeled on Kerala’s success—could redistribute wealth and weaken the landlord grip. Education, jobs, and credit for the landless would erode economic dependence, reducing the fuel for communal fires. But policy needs a new narrative: one that unites workers across caste and creed against entrenched privilege. Recent farmers’ protests, bridging Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim growers against corporate overreach, hint at this potential.
The Real Fight
India’s communal clashes—Hindu-Muslim, upper caste-lower caste—are visceral and complex. But they’re symptoms of a deeper war: the landless versus the landowners, the powerless versus the privileged. From the Faraizi peasants to Kashmiri rebels, from Namboodiri estates to Mandal streets, history shows the pattern. Reframing these conflicts as class struggles won’t erase their pain, but it might point to a solution—one where justice, not division, defines the future.
