Rahul Gandhi may believe or has been made to believe that by latching onto caste tokenism he would break BJP’s Hindu consolidation. Although it's not rocket science for anybody not to understand that all this clamour is simply a desperate attempt to garner votes after numerous failed adventures, and not genuine attempts at tackling the root cause of discrimination. Rahul has been scraping past the wounds of deep-rooted divisions, having the potential to create havoc nationwide. This could be a dangerous act because even after his plan fails at the General Elections, I don’t see Rahul Gandhi letting go of this issue and he might continue to try rallying support behind his definitive narrow idea of social justice, possibly with much more aggression, potentially unleashing disastrous consequences and wiping out decades of efforts towards social harmony. [Views are personal]
Kaun Jaat Ho? — What Caste Are You?
April 09, 2024
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Surrounded by a throng of hundreds, you are reporting a politician's public address. Trying to ask a question, you catch his attention, but instead of answering he demands your name. You reluctantly comply, but it isn't enough; another question follows swiftly, "Aapke maalik ka kya naam hai? Kya naam hai? (What is your owner’s name? What's the name?)" Before you respond, his voice turns louder and more aggressive, "Naam bataao! Naam bataao! (Tell me the name! Tell me the name!)" The crowd, incited by his words, begins to grow restless, heckling you. "Wo OBC hai? Nahin! Wo Dalit hai? Nahin! Wo Aadivaasi hai? Nahin! Arabpati hai wo! (Is he OBC? No! Is he Dalit? No! Is he Tribal? No! He's a Billionaire!)" Each assertion only fuels the crowd's escalating hostility towards you.
You don't even need to imagine this scenario as this happened in reality on 20 February 2024 during Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra where he appeared to be intimidating an India News journalist, Shiv Prasad Yadav, with Rahul's supporters heckling him. Maybe this is what he meant by “Nyay”.
And if you look at this Nyay Yatra or even his speeches since last year, he is consistent with this caste emphasis. In April 2023, Rahul coined the slogan “Jitni aabaadi, utna haq”, a rehash of Late BSP founder Kanshi Ram’s “Jiski jitni sankhyaa bhaari, uski utni hissedaari”. Since then his campaign has focused on the caste issue and has grown aggressive with each passing day. In his run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Shehzada of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty seems to believe that he has figured out the key— playing the caste card to drum up support and eventually translate that into votes.
Questions still arise— Would this experiment even marginally help the opposition to gain their lost ground? And where would this caste politics take the country?
The caste system wasn't always the same as we know it today. The term ‘caste’ has no appropriate equivalent in any of our native languages and has emerged from the Spanish and Portuguese ‘casta’, meaning breed or lineage, historically used in a racial connotation. When the colonialists arrived in Asia and the Americas they began classifying people by descent. They made incorrect assumptions that our social stratification was motivated by the desire for racial purity, as was the case in their societies, and that castes were uniquely Hindu. In reality, there were many more nuances in our societal structure, and castes existed and still exist even among Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists and Muslims.
Pre-colonial Hindu society operated on a complex social structure based on Varna, Jati and Kul. Varna (class) classified the society into Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. They were further subclassified into various Jatis based on occupation, kinship or regional identity. Kul referred to clans or descents. And this system wasn't even rigid, social mobility was possible.
Oversimplifications, incorrect assumptions and forced correlation with their own societal divisions led the colonialists to mix all of these into one— caste. It was during the British Raj that this structure was institutionalised. And it is this colonial khichdi that we today live as the caste system.
In today's modern times, does the caste system still hold any relevance? Well, if you are confined to your metropolitan concrete, your answer might be a no. But the world doesn't revolve around the city centres only, so unfortunately the answer is a yes. Caste does matter, not as strongly as it earlier used to, but it still does. It might not be that visible in the cities (although it does persist underneath) but if you check out the towns and villages, where most of our population still lives, caste still holds enough relevance. Many efforts have been made for caste associations to fade away, or at least look midget before the larger religious or regional identities. However, despite these efforts various political initiatives have time and again tried to turn this caste divide into a political opportunity. And that's what Rahul Gandhi too is doing nowadays.
Rahul Gandhi repeatedly calls out Narendra Modi and his BJP for their divisive politics. He in fact started his Bharat Jodo Yatra with the ulterior motive to unite the country allegedly divided by Modi and BJP. He even gave the tagline— “Nafrat ke baazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan khol rahaa hoon (I'm opening a shop of love in the market of hatred)”. But when he centres his entire campaign around a divisive issue like caste, is he actually opening a “Mohabbat ki Dukaan” or setting up a new “Nafrat ka Baazaar”?
When this purported Messiah of the Congress Party gives unfortunate slogans like “Jitni aabaadi, utna haq (As much population, that much right)” his language aligns with what he opposes, i.e., majoritarian politics. On the one side, he seems to oppose BJP's emphasis on Hindu superiority in a Hindu-majority country, and on the other side, he does the exact same thing in the name of caste. Rahul might claim that his object is social justice but in reality, his actions and demands are solidifying the existing discriminations and even broadening the gap between them rather than eliminating them. Silent efforts at tackling the problem, no matter how small, are much better than drum-beating about the problem and then saying we'll think about the solutions later.
The Congress Party’s manifesto— the Nyay Patra, puts ‘Caste Census’ as its first priority, an issue being propagated by Rahul Gandhi and many in the opposition since last year. Now I'm not saying that the Caste Census is a bad idea. It's a necessity so that government schemes targeted towards uplifting the oppressed castes can be efficiently implemented. When most of our welfare schemes target specific marginalised groups, it becomes essential to have detailed socio-economic data for better policy-making and implementation. Until and unless you know how many are the beneficiaries of your welfare policies, how would you expect such policies to be implemented effectively? Like religion, economic status and other parameters are recorded in the census, caste can also be an addition to them and the Congress’ UPA government did record caste data in the 2011 census but they themselves never made that public. Anyways in this country, we live in a void of statistics where the government never has any data and whatever is there gets leaked.
Rahul Gandhi and the people around him are vowing to conduct a Caste Census if voted to power but they need to check the history of the Congress Party on this issue. Nehru was against the caste census, Indira ignored reports on this issue, and when VP Singh implemented OBC reservation Rajiv called it an attempt to divide the country. It is rarely to be seen that on a national level, the party has overtly played the caste card, on the local level its politicians still used to do their thing. But you get the thing, right? Congress is not BSP, JDU, RJD, etc. Their core game has never been caste centric so this is a big shift. That's why Rahul is not getting the kind of support he would expect on this issue from his own party karyakartas because they see a huge contrast between Indira Gandhi’s “Naa jaat par naa paat par, mohar lagegi haath par (Neither caste, nor creed, the hand [symbol] shall bear the stamp indeed)”, and Rahul Gandhi's “Jitni aabaadi, utna haq (As much population, that much right)”.
Addressing a public rally in Jharkhand on 5 February 2024, Rahul Gandhi also made a declaration which also reflected in his party’s manifesto that if voted to power, they would pass a constitutional amendment to “throw away the 50% cap on reservations, ensure Dalits, tribals, OBCs get their rights”. Interestingly, if you see all those politicians and their political parties who have propagated the issue of caste-based discrimination have always stopped at reservations. Mayawati, Mulayam, Lalu, Nitish and many more can be counted to be the big faces of caste-based politics. But you would not find any of them talking about or charting out a plan on what to do after giving reservations. Are reservations the end solution?
Reservations are a necessary evil for bringing more marginalised community people to the mainstream and increasing their participation in fields of education and employment. And caste-based reservations along with income-based reservations are needed for uplifting the downtrodden from all backgrounds and for changing societal perceptions towards them. But would reservations only solve this problem? Obviously no. Mere reservation of seats in government jobs and educational institutions would not help, efforts have to be made to generate jobs beyond government posts and to provide quality education too. Simply lowering the minimum qualifications to join government jobs and educational institutions is not enough, they also have to be made capable enough to compete with the general category candidates. Only making money transfers would not be sufficient, they have to be made to stand on their own feet. Reservations are just the starting line for affirmative action, not the end.
Rahul’s promise of doing away with the 50% cap on reservations is reflective of his “Jitni aabaadi, utna haq” slogan. This promise reflects a fundamental misunderstanding or disregard for the delicate balance that the Supreme Court tried to strike between affirmative action and merit-based selection. The 50% cap was imposed to ensure that reservations for marginalized communities do not come at an excessive compromise to the overall quality and competence of those inducted into various positions. When the reserved seats are capped at 50%, the other half filled purely on merit helps to compensate for the compromises made in the name of affirmative action. However, if this limit is done away with, it raises serious concerns about the ability of the resulting batch to provide the same level of performance expected from their respective roles. In addition to that, such a move could instil resentment among those relying on merit-based selection processes, potentially fueling tensions and eroding the importance of merit.
Rahul Gandhi might have thought to revive his failed political career by reigniting the Mandal vs Kamandal narrative prevalent in the 90s. But why does this issue hardly seem to have any takers? Caste is still a big social issue, discrimination is still a reality, then why not?
There are a number of reasons at play here. Firstly, people have come out of the 90s era with much more exposure to the world and have gotten issues much bigger than caste, especially for the youth. Secondly, there has been a consistent messaging problem. Other than primarily Rahul Gandhi you would not see any other significant popular face of the party raising the issue with such effort. And whatever half-baked efforts are being made at the top level are not being propagated by the karyakartas of the party due to disconnect and lack of consensus. Thirdly, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress have miserably failed to chart their plan as to what they would do after the caste census. It in itself cannot be the conclusion. They have not made considerable efforts to make the issue relatable to the public. They have failed to draw connections to issues like unemployment and education, thus making the issue ignorable for the public.
Ultimately, in the upcoming days of the elections, 'caste' would be a buzzword from the opposition's side but is unlikely to make any positive impact on the opposition's vote bank. But this adventure with caste politics could turn out to be a very risky gambit.
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