The Modi government’s decision to go in for caste enumeration in the next population census is not entirely unexpected. Although it marks a major ideological shift away from the Hindutva vision of crafting a united Hindu family undivided by caste, there were enough indications that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was preparing to bite the bullet in the aftermath of its below par performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Not only did an important National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally – Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party – speak out in favour of a caste headcount soon after the Modi government 3.0 assumed office, but the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also put its stamp of approval on the proposal as far back as last September at the end of a three-day conclave in Kerala’s Palakkad.
Overturning the Sangh’s historic resistance to a caste headcount, a spokesperson said the organisation had no objection provided the results are used for the welfare of society, not as a political tool.
It was left to the Modi government to make a formal announcement at a time of its choosing.
It’s All About The OBC Vote
On the face of it, the immediate impetus for the decision seems to be the upcoming assembly polls in Bihar’s caste-driven electoral landscape. However, a closer analysis reveals concerns beyond Bihar.
Poll losses in 2024 have spurred deep fears within the BJP about possible attrition in the party’s OBC (Other Backward Classes) vote. This base forms the bedrock of the BJP’s rise to power and its unshakeable grip over the election system. The outcome showed some erosion across northern and western India. But it was the collapse in Uttar Pradesh that shook them. In this most critical of all BJP strongholds, the party’s seat tally plunged to 31 last year from a high of 62 in 2019, with the entire benefit going to two INDIA bloc partners, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress.
The extent of worry about shifting OBC loyalties can be gauged from the fact that the government chose to play the caste census gambit amid heightened tensions with Pakistan, which have been preoccupying the entire security establishment since the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam.
Two Big Worries For BJP
Two factors seem to have prompted the government to take time out for domestic politics even as it holds meeting after meeting to calibrate a fitting response to the provocation in Pahalgam. One is an internal assessment that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his INDIA bloc partners are gaining traction on the ground with their sometimes shrill but consistent demand for a caste census.
The BJP hopes to beat the Congress and the INDIA bloc at their own game and blunt their campaign by seizing the idea of caste enumeration and owning it. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav unwittingly let the cat out of the bag with a sharp attack on the Congress while announcing the decision. He devoted most of his briefing to blasting the party for opposing a caste census through its long years in government. Of course, he side-stepped his own party’s history of resistance to the idea and the fact that just before the 2024 parliamentary polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had opposed it too.
Can A Census Heal Ruptures?
However, the biggest worry seems to be the continuing feud in Uttar Pradesh between the state’s upper caste Rajput chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, and the BJP’s OBC MLAs. The latter have been taking pot shots at the former ever since the Lok Sabha results were announced. Strong backing from the RSS steadied Yogi’s rocking boat, but tensions have not subsided. As recently as late March this year, the BJP’s MLA from Loni, Nand Kishore Gurjar, publicly slammed the Yogi government and lashed out at his handpicked chief secretary, Manoj Kumar Singh.
Gurjar is just one in a line of OBC MLAs who have been at loggerheads with Yogi, as have the BJP’s allies who head OBC parties, such as Anupriya Patel of the Kurmi party Apna Dal and Sanjay Nishad of the Nishad Party. Although Patel is a union minister in the Modi government and Nishad is a cabinet minister in Uttar Pradesh, both have crossed swords with Yogi from time to time.
Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh are more than a year away, in early 2017. But the BJP hopes that the announcement of a caste-based census will heal ruptures and woo back OBC voters who may be drifting away.
Pulling A VP Singh
Caste is a slippery slope, as any student of current Indian politics would know. The late Prime Minister, VP Singh, gambled with the implementation of the Mandal report, which gave the OBCs 26% reservation in government jobs and schools. It was a cynical political move, prompted by the resignation of his Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal and the fear of the fall of his minority government. Singh calculated that Mandal would win him the support of 85% of voters comprising OBCs, Dalits and Muslims.
Singh was swept out of power but earned himself a place in history as the man who changed the political landscape of North India. The beneficiaries of his Mandal bombshell were the inheritors of the Socialist legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia and Karpoori Thakur, who fought long and hard for a more inclusive social order incorporating OBC groups.
The BJP’s announcement of a caste headcount along with the national census is also driven by politics. The irony is that the BJP had fought Mandal with kamandal, or Hindutva, and prevailed. But today, it seems to have decided to put Hindutva on the back burner for the moment and borrow a leaf from VP Singh’s playbook.
It’s a risky gamble. Time will tell whether the BJP is able to navigate Mandal 3.0 while retaining its Hindutva base.
(The author is a senior Delhi-based journalist)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
