Balbir Punj By

Swami Vivekananda is stated to have described Kerala as a madhouse of caste. That description could as well encompass the whole country. The only available caste census — as far back as 1931 — listed 65,000 castes. And after 68 years of independence and a Constitution that assures equality before law for every citizen as a fundamental and inalienable right, we should expect political leaders to downplay the caste tag and highlight the Bharatiya identity and focus on development issues. That expectation is now a utopia with secularists of various hues competing with each other in dividing the Hindu society on caste lines for electoral gains. Look at RJD leader and former chief minister of Bihar Lalu Prasad Yadav. In official dealings he incises his caste appellation but leaves no one in doubt that he is championing the cause of Yadavs as a caste. He is among those who are clamouring for release of the most recent caste census.

The others are no less basking in the caste sunshine. Neither Nitish Kumar, current Bihar chief minister, is using his caste name but that he is a Kurmi is his passport to the strange type of socialist equality these Lohiaites are preaching from political and social platforms.

Uttar Pradesh is no different. Samajwadi Party socialists are brushing up their well-advertised Yadav-Muslim ties with several members of one single family in positions of power at various levels. Of course we cannot blame Biharis or Uttar Pradesh socialists alone. In Andhra, there are Reddys and Kammas with Kapus throwing in their weight with the winning caste leadership. In Tamil Nadu, the entire political power of the Dravidian parties is based on OBCs versus others. The founder of the movement, atheist and anti-Brahmin leader E V R Naicker denounced and abused the Brahmins as a whole and shoe-beat the images of Hindu Gods. And he is the cornerstone on which the paradigm of secular politics rests in Tamil Nadu.

Naicker was a product of a movement that took the name of South Indian Liberal Federation or Justice Party. The ‘Self-Respect Movement’, as it was called, was inaugurated by Naicker in 1925. No wonder it had active support of the church in its tirade against Hindu icons and Brahmins and it sought the retention of British rule in India to ensure social justice.

However, one should not confuse caste system with untouchability, which is a curse and a stigma on the Indian society. Independent of the scourge of untouchibility, caste at a social level provides identity to various social groups. The caste divisions have been sharpened by secular political parties to create vote-banks and divide the Hindu society.

Is it not ironical that those very politicians use secularism to unite Muslims against their political rivals (read the BJP and the RSS) by terming them communal? So, secularism is used to split the Hindus and unite the Muslims.

It would be a rich source of insight into Indian social structure dynamics for a social scientist to explore: Why is caste so sticking to your skin, more so, to the socialist, Lohiaite variety of it? That too 65 years after a liberal Constitution claims to empower everyone without distinction? Or vote-bank politics? Some insight you get when Lalu Prasad Yadav alleges that he is being victimised due to his people’s caste playing a big factor among his co-defendants. If a clinical social analysis is made, it could be evident that caste is the umbilical factor keeping some of these ‘secular’ leaders alive and kicking. The national parties that have a countrywide appeal and cadre among all groups too cannot afford to ignore the caste factor in local constituencies. In fact, for a major part of the last six decades, electoral appeal and caste appeal overlapped. The only exceptions were in 1977 when the major issue was to end the Emergency and punish the perpetrators of that oppression.

Another notable exception was in 2014. If you compare the composition of the electoral victories of 1998 and 1999 with the current one, you see that the regional-cum-caste factor had its play earlier and it was far less now. The NDA government from 1998 onwards till 2004 had 23 political parties in it of different DNAs. That reflected the ground-level loyalties then. It was only in 2014 there were winds of change — an entirely new paradigm of political dialogue with the BJP asking for a majority by itself and an agenda fully in terms of the Constitutional plums and mantra of development. Somewhat reminiscent of the 1977 electoral victory, the election result was a tectonic change, exceeding even the most favourable BJP estimate.

Here was proof that this so diverse an electorate in caste, religion, region, terms able to overcome these divisive factors and think in terms of aspirations and economic advantages. Narendra Modi personified this powerful response to an aspiring electorate that he himself discovered and he projected himself and his party in those terms.

The result was a strong government. India’s ratings went up globally and outsiders could trust the country as the one you could do business with, ignoring the band of carping critics.

When Lalu Prasad and others are demanding that the caste census be revealed, are they expecting that once again India should be seen in terms of caste and the power cake should be cut and distributed in terms of caste?

The demand for data on caste composition is not an academic interest wanting to know the facts, but part of a sinister plan to deny the country moving into a peaceful, competitive agenda. The old British formula to rule India — divide and rule — seems to come back.

The BJP’s choice in these circumstances can only be to push its tested agenda of a national-level growth versus the caste-based leaders of Bihar trying to play victim politics. They want the caste data to demand more sops and link jobs and benefits in proportion to the caste composition. Over the last 65 years, the constitutional hope of a short-term reservation in a larger framework of merit and equality of opportunity, not of caste-based division, has already been subverted through the politics of victim pretence. How adversely this retrograde thinking has negatively affected the country is written all over the socio-economic data that was released recently. A renewed Mandalisation of politics might serve the interests of some so-called secular politicians. But it is bound to push the country back after the recent nationalist mindset that gave a stable government and a rational economic programme over the last one year and more.

The writer is a senior journalist. He is a vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Email: punjbalbir@gmail.com