Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is trying to create unmaad or frenzy in society, poll strategist Prashant Kishor said in reference to the caste survey in the state that started Saturday. Kishor, once a Kumar confidant, has fallen out with him, but you can trust him to read the CM’s mind and politics.
One may be tempted to look at Nitish Kumar’s move as a diversionary tactic, given how he is under siege with both his adversary, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and ally, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), wanting to see his back. With his current political and social base slipping away, he may not mind a frenzy as PK suspects. One doesn’t know how Nitish Kumar’s gambit will play out. In 2013, then-Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah commissioned a socio-educational and economic survey (caste census). He found himself in knots when the report came two years later. As per the ‘leaked’ report, the population of Lingayats and Vokkaligas was much lower than the estimates that give them heft in Karnataka politics. The Dalits happened to be the largest group, followed by the Muslims. If accepted and put in the public domain, the report would upset both Vokkaligas and Lingayats.
There were also issues about how the ‘SC (Scheduled Caste) Left’ would have used it to assert itself vis-à-vis ‘SC Right’. In a nutshell, making the report public would have opened Pandora’s box and the Congress couldn’t have risked it ahead of elections.
One doesn’t know what the Bihar caste census — or ‘surveys’ since state governments can’t conduct a census, which comes under the Union List — will produce. The results could upset everyone’s calculations, but Nitish Kumar, given his precarious political position, can afford to risk it. Or maybe he has some idea. One can’t venture a guess.
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Opposition’s caste gambit
It’s not just Nitish Kumar who is trying out Mandal II to take on the BJP’s Kamandal politics. There seems to be a concerted attempt by opposition parties to corner the BJP by accentuating caste fault lines. Call it their optimism based on pre-2014 Mandal vs Kamandal battles. Or blame it on their lack of imagination in dealing with the Modi phenomenon in Indian politics. Opposition parties seem to be pinning their hopes on the caste fault lines to foil Hindutva consolidation.
In Chhattisgarh, after a survey of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel got two Bills passed by the state assembly in December 2022, hiking reservation to different categories proportionate to their population: 32 per cent to Scheduled Tribes, 27 per cent to OBCs (up from existing 14 per cent), 13 per cent to SCs (up by 1 percentage point) and 4 per cent to EWS. This followed the release of the Quantifiable Data Commission report that pegged the OBC population in the state at 42.42 per cent and EWS at 3.48 per cent.
The increase in reservation for different categories takes the overall quota to 76 per cent — well over the Supreme Court ceiling of 50 per cent. But who cares? Political messaging is done. Baghel knows he has long political and legal battles to fight. To start with, governor Anusuiya Uikey is not giving assent to the Bills. Her Jharkhand counterpart, Ramesh Bais, is not giving assent to similar Bills passed by the state assembly, which can increase quota in different categories to a total of 77 per cent: 27 per cent for OBCs from the existing 14 per cent, 28 per cent for STs (up by 2 percentage points), 12 per cent for SCs, and 10 per cent for EWS.
Referring to the Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand governors’ reluctance to sign the Bills, Baghel sought to draw a contrast, mentioning how the governor of BJP-ruled Karnataka cleared an ordinance that took the overall quota from 50 to 56 per cent. “One country, one Constitution, then why this discrimination between the people of state?” he said in a tweet Saturday. Baghel is absolutely right. But he is unlikely to get an answer from the Centre.
It’s not just the Congress and its allies that are resorting to tried-and-tested caste-centric politics to corner the BJP. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, not known to play caste politics, has started experimenting with it as the BJP turns on the heat. After demanding a caste-based survey, the Biju Janata Dal declared that 27 per cent of the tickets in 2022 panchayat polls would be given to the OBCs. In the run-up to the Padampur Assembly bypoll last month, Patnaik sanctioned land plots and Rs 3 crore each for the construction of guest houses for Kultas the agriculturist community and Mehers who are weavers, The Hindu reported.
Incidentally, Naveen Patnaik’s father, Biju Babu, had opposed the Mandal Commission recommendation in 1990.
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Way out for BJP?
Opposition parties have been rooting for a caste census — from the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, RJD in Bihar, Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana. The BJP has skirted it, mainly because the issue hasn’t evoked much public reaction so far. But state governments conducting caste surveys or census poses another problem.
For instance, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh governments’ diatribe against governors for not giving assent to Bills increasing quota, especially for the OBCs, looks like another routine tussle with Raj Bhavans. But it could be only a matter of time before this issue starts gaining traction. Say, if the Bihar caste survey triggers what PK sees as Nitish Kumar’s attempt to create unmaad, UP won’t remain untouched, and neither would other states. That will reignite the demand for caste census at the national level.
A timely census could have preempted it. Now that the Centre has postponed it further to 2024, it has given time to opposition parties to recreate Mandal II.
The BJP has been fine-balancing between its dominant Hindutva narrative and subtle social engineering. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has always seen caste divisions as a big stumbling block to its Hindu rashtra objective. The BJP’s ideological fountainhead has been working discreetly and assiduously at the grassroots. In his 2021 book Republic of Hindutva, author Badri Narayan gives a brilliant insight into the RSS’ operations on the ground. The Sangh has been working among the most marginalised communities such as Sahariya, Kabutara, Nat, Sapera. “The deities of these small marginalised communities are not deities like Ram, Shiva and Hanuman who are in the larger Hindu pantheon, but local deities like Agaramata and Tonki Devi. These deities are not only their gods but also the identity markers of their community…a temple is not merely a sacred space; it also expresses their desire to acquire a social space that provides them a sense of acceptance and for gaining respect and dignity,” writes Badri Narayan.
And that’s where the RSS has been helping them. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personality cult might transcend castes and communities, the foundation for this is laid by the RSS. But the Sangh knows how deep-rooted the caste consciousness is. Ahead of the Bihar assembly election, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for a ‘social review’ of the reservation policy became a big election issue. Try asking this question to Bhagwat today. You will get a genial smile only.
Going forward, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, announcing the date for the inauguration of the Ayodhya Ram temple, 1 January 2024. The BJP obviously doesn’t see any scope for Mandal resurrection when Hindutva, or rather Moditva, is at its peak. But tinkering with the quotas in Karnataka, giving the 13th extension to Rohini Commission on sub-categorisation of OBCs, and dilly-dallying over income criterion for the OBC creamy layer betray unease and ambiguity, if not nervousness, in the ruling camp. Modi hai toh mumkin hai must be at the core of the belief in Kamandal subsuming Mandal. They were vindicated in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Mandal II protagonists like Nitish Kumar and Baghel are re-drawing battlelines for 2024. This is going to be one last Mandal vs Kamandal battle. The winner will define Indian politics for a long time to come.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)