Lucknow: When Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya said last month that certain verses referencing ‘shudras’ in the Ramcharitmanas should be removed, BJP leaders lambasted him for “insulting” the Hindu text, and his own party hurriedly distanced itself from his remarks too.
That stance now seems to be shifting, with the SP seeing the controversy as an opportunity to consolidate lower caste votes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, political analysts say. The BJP, meanwhile, continues to use Hindutva has a tool for consolidation.
Amid clamour from the BJP and other Hindutva outfits for action against Maurya, the SP initially took the official line that the former BJP leader’s views were entirely his own and party chief Akhilesh Yadav maintained a studied silence.
But something has changed. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav spoke out in support of Maurya this week and accused the BJP of caste discrimination. Further, Maurya, who jumped to the SP from the BJP just last year, was elevated to the party’s national executive rather than being ‘punished’ in any way.
What this signals is that a controversy that centred on religion has shifted to caste.
The root of this is in how Maurya defined the term ‘shudra’, which in ancient texts refers to the ‘lowest’ of the four varnas or castes. Historically, Dalits have sometimes been classified as being outside this fourfold division or belonging to a fifth (‘panchama’) varna. Maurya, however, has used a more expansive definition, with the ‘shudra’ identity encompassing all the ‘lower’ castes, from the Dalits to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and even the Scheduled Tribes (STs).
In an interview to ThePrint, too, Maurya, an OBC leader, had said that some of the verses in Tulidas’s 16th-century epic poem Ramcharitmanas were “anti-backward caste” and that his sentiments echoed those of “97 per cent of the population, including the Dalits, adivasis, backward castes and women”.
Maurya has made similar comments in the past, but political observers and even some Samajwadi Party leaders told ThePrint that the current moment is an opportunity to woo the Dalits and the OBCs, especially the non-Yadavs and the Most Backward Castes (MBCs).
According to estimates by political analyst Vignesh Karthik KR and journalist Ajaz Ashraf, the MBCs constitute 21.30 per cent of UP’s population and include 70 castes.
Speaking to ThePrint, Shashikant Pandey, the political science head of department at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, said that a narrative is being set ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“The Jatavs (the dominant Dalit sub-caste in UP) have hitherto been seen to be Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) voters while the Yadavs and Muslims have settled for the SP. The BJP has created a grip on the votes from upper castes, the non-Jatav Dalits, and OBCs including the Kurmis, Koeris, Nishads, Mallahs, etc. However, ahead of 2024, the SP sees an opportunity to reach out to the Dalits and the MBCs, which is why the narrative around the term ‘shudra’ seems to be deliberately created,” he said.
Also read: Maurya hits out at ‘contractors of religion’ & ‘community that thinks abuse is its right’
What was the turning point for SP?
On 22 January, Maurya sparked a controversy when he spoke out against “insulting comments” about certain castes in the Ramcharitmanas, an epic poem based on the Ramayana.
According to him, the line “dhol, gavaar, shudra, pashu, naari, sakal tadhna ke adhikari” means that “dhol (drums), gavaar (illiterates), shudra (backward castes), pashu (animals), and nari (women) are all worthy of a beating.
The government should take note and remove such verses from the book, he had told a news channel.
Maurya’s comments attracted immediate backlash from the BJP, which is in power in the state, with state party chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary calling Maurya “insane” and attacking him for hurting the sentiments of crores of Hindus.
BJP’s affiliates like the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha also protested against Maurya in Lucknow and demanded his arrest. On 24 January, an FIR was lodged in Lucknow against Maurya for outraging religious feelings and promoting enmity between groups, among other things.
At first, the SP ducked for cover, with party leader Shivpal Yadav telling mediapersons last Tuesday that the party comprised people who “follow the principles of Lord Rama and Krishna” and Akhilesh staying mum on the issue.
But just a few days later, the SP took a sharp U-turn.
According to party leaders, the turning point was when members of Hindutva groups waved black flags at Akhilesh during his visit to Lucknow’s Pitambara Devi Temple on 28 January.
Thereafter, Akhilesh alleged that the BJP had sent “hooligans” to prevent his entry to the temple. “I am going to ask Chief Minister Yogi, am I a shudra or not? Did RSS- BJP people not commit hooliganism when I was going to the temple? You send Samajwadi workers to jail when they show a black flag,” he reportedly said.
In yet another dramatic development Monday, the police booked several members of an OBC group, later arresting five, for burning photocopied pages of “objectionable” content from the Ramcharitmanas. The protesters expressed solidarity with Maurya, who was also booked though he wasn’t present when the incident took place.
Meanwhile, the SP released the names of members of its national executive committee Sunday, which included Swami Prasad Maurya who was elevated as party general secretary.
In UP capital Lucknow, posters of shudra pride— “garv se kaho hum shudra hain” — have been put up outside the SP office by an outfit called Akhil Bharatiya Kurmi Kshatriya Mahasabha.
“There were two lines of opinion. One wanted that action be taken against Maurya, while another wanted that the party should spell out its stand clearly on the issue,” said an SP leader on condition of anonymity. “When black flags were shown and the BJP resorted to polarising politics, the battle lines were drawn.”
This leader said that the Samajwadi Party was doubling down on its social justice politics and would raise the pitch on its demand for a caste census in UP— a long-standing demand of the party.
The elevation of Maurya as the national general secretary even as he continues to attack the BJP and “contractors of religion is a clear message that the party has taken a stand, he said.
‘OBCs are Hindus’
With the Samajwadi party trying to assimilate numerous ‘lower caste’ groups into its narrative, the BJP is continuing to define religion as a uniting factor.
In an interview Thursday, CM Adityanath was questioned about OBC politics and SP’s attempts to bring the community into its fold.
To this, Adityanath said: “OBCs were Hindus before and continue to be Hindus now. There is no doubt about it.”
He also said that that the SP was raking up “useless issues” in an interview with Times of India Wednesday. When asked about the “real meaning” of the contentious verses, he said it would be a “waste of time” for those “who have no understanding of a dialect and its nuances”.
Chance opportunity to new strategy
The storm around Maurya’s comment, say political experts, has opened a space for the Samajwadi Party to widen its support base.
Being a party that moves on principles of social justice, the SP thinks it can reach the Dalit and MBC votebank which is not the traditional votebank of the BJP, said Shashikant Dubey.
Mirza Asmer Beg, professor of political science at Aligarh Muslim University, told ThePrint that the controversy around Ramcharitmanas and now the term shudra, is continuation of the emotive politics being played out in India for electoral dividends.
“Unfortunately, in our country, elections are now fought with emotive politics rather than real issues like inflation, unemployment, and electricity. Caste is a reality in Hinduism and the upper caste is known to have traditionally enjoyed the lion’s share of the benefits,” he said.
“The SP now sees an opportunity in this controversy to incite the sentiments of the Dalits and the OBCs especially the non-Yadav OBCs. Akhilesh senses that it can be a counter to the majoritarian politics of the BJP, which plays the Hindutva card,” he added.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Also read: 3 reasons why Hinduism is purging itself of texts promoting casteism—and why I welcome it