In Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur on 30 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted his caste identity and alleged that the Congress was targeting him because he belonged to an OBC community. Before that, in June, during an interactive session with BJP workers from across the country live-streamed from Bhopal, Modi had listed out several marginalised caste groups—among the backward and Scheduled Castes —across the country, and had alleged that they had lost out due to the “politics of Muslim appeasement”.
This was the essence of media reportage about PM Modi’s ownership of his OBC background and his love for marginalised communities just before 2 October. Then the Bihar Government released the findings of the state-wide caste survey. Modi immediately shifted gears and started saying that such a caste census would divide Hindu society. The question then is—without knowing the demographics of each caste, how does he remove their backwardness?
Modi’s assertion of his OBC identity, with an implication to the national polity, started in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. His lieutenant Amit Shah was election-in-charge of Uttar Pradesh during that time. The BJP under the guidance of Modi and Amit Shah focussed on the votes of non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits. Samajwadi Party—known as the Yadav-Muslim party— was in power in UP at this time. And Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, which was in power in the previous term, was known mainly as the Jatav party.
Modi repeatedly spoke about his OBC background in election rallies, well into 2019. In some meetings, he even said he belongs to the lower OBC community. This strategy worked. Most non-Yadav and non-Jatav votes shifted to BJP. Was that not the division of Hindu society in order to get votes? When Modi asserted his OBC-ness, did he do it as Hindu or anti-Hindu or Un-Hindu?
Also read: Modi govt’s reluctance for caste census is a political move to hide ground realities
New dimension to caste
Bihar was always a caste electoral laboratory. Nitish and Tejashwi Yadav added a new dimension to it with the caste survey. The survey brings the laboratory’s experiment to a logical end. Now, the Congress Working Committee has approved a resolution to conduct a nationwide caste census and one in every Congress-ruled state if voted to power in 2024. It is a strategy to win over its OBC voter base. The Congress, no doubt, has taken a new direction by accepting the caste survey, after staying away from caste for a long time. The change came because Rahul Gandhi took a position on the caste survey. All the top ideologues of Congress, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, KC Venugopal were against such a stand on the caste census prior to this. In fact, such is the position of all educated upper caste intellectuals—whether they belong to Right-wing, Left-wing or liberals. Only OBC intellectuals and leaders were asking for a caste census in hopes that Modi as an OBC would do something about it. But he remained silent about it for the last ten years.
Rahul Gandhi is Brahmin, however, he is now batting for a caste-wise national count. What made the Congress go to this extreme caste question? In my view, it is Narendra Modi who pushed the Congress to take this stand.
Also read: Bihar caste survey is a ‘with us or without us’ question. Modi, BJP finding…
Anti-OBC decisions
Once Modi announced his candidature and repeatedly spoke about him being the first OBC PM candidate in 2013, regional parties that were formed as representatives of OBCs went into a coma. The OBC masses saw Abki Bar Modi Sarkar as Abki Bar OBC Sarkar. The OBC regional parties did not know what to do. Their political existence was/is deeply related to the OBC ideology and improving their economic and social status.
Modi himself and the BJP projected Modi as a powerful decisive leader against the indecisive Manmohan Singh of the Congress. But after 10 years in power, the OBCs think that he has not done anything special for them. On the contrary, his 10 per cent EWS reservation, and 33 per cent women’s reservation, without resolving the quota within quota issue, were seen as anti-OBC. It didn’t help that the BJP projected these policy decisions as Modi’s decisions. Modi, too, gave the impression, in his speeches both inside Parliament and outside, that he was responsible for these decisions.
The OBCs of the nation expected that an OBC PM would take the lead on the issue of caste census. But now, he is speaking like an upper caste leader and an upper caste (Brahmin) Rahul Gandhi is speaking like an OBC leader. These unexpected positions are certainly worth the time of India’s psychologists.
Also read: BJP bringing legislation opposition can’t afford to stall. Ayodhya, GST, women’s Bill, EWS
Future messiah
Caste is an instrument of manipulation. In recent years, BJP Dalit intellectuals have argued that Valmiki, the author of Ramayana, was a Dalit, and that Vedavyasa, the author of Mahabharata, was also a Dalit. Of course, Srikrishna, the author of Bhagavad Gita was Yadav.
But none of those books assigned equal human status to Dalits or Yadavs. Why? Because claims are one thing and what one actually does for the oppressed masses is another. For votes or communitarian benefits, coopting happens on either side. But what one does for the uplift of the oppressed becomes the measuring tape.
Modi, an OBC, could be a PM face because VP Singh, a Kshatriya, took a strong stand in favour of social justice and OBC reservation. No doubt he lost support from Dwija upper castes of India for this move.
By not taking a stand in favour of caste census and OBC reservation in the legislative bodies, Modi is following the footsteps of the Nehru-Gandhi family—Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi opposed OBC reservation, right from the Kaka Kalelkar Report days to the Mandal Commission days. This historical position was the reason why the OBCs moved away from the Congress. Now they are either with regional parties or with the BJP.
Rahul has taken a difficult step to convince CWC to come around to the OBC question quite decisively. This does not mean that there will be no opponents within the party, but he has proven to the BJP and RSS leaders that he is not a Pappu. Hereafter, the OBCs, who constitute the main force of our agrarian and artisanal production and also constitute the largest chunk of the national voting population, consider Rahul Gandhi as their future messiah. This stand is not just about an election but about the socio-economic transformation of India as a nation.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist, and writer. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)