Sumeet Mhaskar, a labour sociologist and professor at OP Jindal Global University, has been analysing non-Brahmin and OBC politics over the last century and how these communities respond to the question of Hindutva and their economic hardship.

In this episode of What’s Your Ism, host Sudipto Mondal and professor Mhaskar discuss the premise of Maharashtra’s Maratha reservation agitation and the sentiments driving other non-Brahmin communities to launch similar struggles.

As one of the few academics in India to study the economic factors behind the unrest within the socially dominant Shudra communities, Mhaskar applies the Ambedkarite lens to his economic and class analysis. Ambedkarism, he contends, is “misunderstood” to be primarily concerned with caste when it is also focused on class.

Watch.