New Delhi: The rapidity with which the BJP’s Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis apologised for the lathi charge in order to quell the Jalna Maratha agitation and then promised to recognise Nizam-era Kunbi documentation for Maratha reservations, combined with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat suddenly saying the RSS supports reservations “as provided in the constitution”, reveal the anxiety about caste consciousness upending the BJP applecart.In 2015, before the Bihar elections which the Mahagathbandhan won handsomely, Bhagwat had said the opposite, calling for a “social review” of the reservation policy in an interview to mouthpieces Organiser and Panchjanya.So, what’s up?There are 4.27 points on why caste and social justice are the big challenges haunting the BJP in the run-up to the 2024 elections.Having registered a decent OBC vote share that has risen sharply from 2009, the party remains in a quandary on how to reconcile Mandal with the primary kamandal agenda.In its original worldview, caste is to be pushed under the carpet with ‘integral humanism’ and other shibboleths providing reasons for ‘social stability’, keeping all castes in place. Notions of ‘duty’ (or ‘kartavya’) being above rights, as outlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, make the BJP’s position on caste abundantly clear.New realitiesAs the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies reported from its post-poll surveys, the BJP’s vote share among OBCs rose sharply from less than one-fourth (22%) in the 2009 general election to over one-third (34%) in 2014. In 2019, it shot to an even higher figure of 44%.So how does the BJP now handle expectations generated within its OBC voter-base while still being the Hindutva party? Some recent developments have increased its headaches.Justice Gorla Rohini, namesake of the Rohini Commission. Photo: Telangana High Court.1. Set up in 2017 with a single judge to look at how dominant OBCs may be cornering quotas for the whole group, the Rohini Commission was asked to consider ‘sub-categories’ in the 27% national list of OBCs. After it sought and was granted 16 extensions, its report has finally made it to the government.The Hindustan Times on Saturday (September 2) reported citing sources that the sub-categorisation “is likely to be three or four where the castes with similar access to benefits compete with each other.”“It could be three bands – those that have got no benefits could get 10%, those with some benefits 10%, and those with maximum benefits 7% – or there could also be four bands,” it said.But the Modi government is silent on it. Nothing is public. The dilemma is that slicing the OBC quota would alienate dominant castes which are now with the BJP, or whom the BJP is now anxious to appropriate. It would in effect open a Pandora’s box, which may upset the BJP’s applecart of appeasing all OBC segments without any real action on social justice.Already, a former chairperson of the National Commission for Backward Classes has expressed his views, saying any suggestion of a slicing or data would be meaningless without a caste census.2. The caste census demands getting louder and normalised across opposition political parties have further compounded the BJP’s problems.The Congress blew the conch in Rahul Gandhi’s Kolar rally on April 17, before the polls for the Karnataka assembly, where he said, “Jitni aabadi, utna haq” [Hindi for ‘more the population, more the rights’]. Reports saw it as Rahul firming up the caste line and linking it to income disparity, making a call for social justice integral to his politics.The Modi government’s anxiety to not be seen holding back the caste census in Bihar (where the state BJP has been going along with the RJD-JD(U) position on it) caused it to quickly withdraw its original affidavit on the question in the Supreme Court.What changed was the removal of a certain paragraph which had ‘inadvertently crept in’ and said, “No other body under the Constitution or otherwise is entitled to conduct the exercise of either census or any action akin to census.”Bihar has completed the survey, and a similar drive is ongoing in Odisha.Also Read: Need of the Hour: A Selfie Called Caste Census – India Must Confront its Truth3. The offensive on the sanatan dharma issue by the BJP is being watched carefully. This came as a response to comments made by DMK minister and son of Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin, Udhayanidhi Stalin.To be pitched as standing for ‘sanatan dharma’ can push the BJP back into a corner as being an upper caste party – as it was known as earlier – taking away clever grafts in the past thirty years. ‘Sanatan dharma’ and calls of an eternal, orthodox faith have been seen by scholars as directly ranged against the politics of social justice.There are reports that the PM has asked ministers to base their responses to it “on facts, not rhetoric”. “Do not go into history”, India Today reports the PM as telling ministers, as the history on this is complicated and has the BJP on the backfoot.The BJP in Tamil Nadu is muted and its ally, the AIADMK, has said it is “above caste and religion”, saying instead that this is a popularity gimmick by Udhayanidhi.Overt defence of ‘sanatan dharma’ can make unhappy large sections of the Lingayat community, who are the bulwark of its support in neighbouring Karnataka and have been pressing to be recognised as separate, outside the Hindu fold itself.How much to raise this to rally support in the cow-belt for the forthcoming assembly polls and how to mute this in the rest of the country is a tough one.Gujarat’s Botad, which witnessed an angry stand-off between sanatanis and followers of Swaminarayan leading to a criminal case, three arrests and 11 angry resolutions, also drove home the presence of divisions in the PM’s home state (which is also the oldest state to be described as a ‘Hindutva laboratory’).In the name of sanatan dharma, Harshad Gadhvi attacked controversial murals in a Swaminarayan temple in Gujarat. Photo: Screenshot from X (Twitter)/@DeshGujarat.4. The BJP’s drive, related to its micro-strategy, of wanting to win over numerically-smaller communities and generate support by ‘honouring’ icons from the past with specific caste associations is leading to more trouble for and anger towards it.The case of Mihir Bhoj in Haryana’s Kaithal has dragged it to court, with Gurjars and Rajputs both angry. The Haryana government on August 4 agreed before the Punjab and Haryana high court to constitute a committee of representatives from the two communities and historians “to find an amicable solution”.4.27 In UP – the state the BJP relies on the most for getting a set amount of seats as no NDA government has ever been possible without sweeping the state – a social justice committee headed by retired Allahabad high court judge Raghvendra Kumar had in October 2018 submitted a report to the Adityanath government recommending a split in the 27% OBC quota into three categories.They would be the pichda varg (backward class), who get 7%; the ati pichda (more backward), who get 11%; and the atyant pichda (most backward), who get 9%.The Samajwadi Party, with its PDA combine, makes it clear that underlining the varnish of saffron, the BJP would be hurt with any talk of individual caste groups – not only on a larger point of Hindutva, but in electoral terms too.Earlier, not being hopeful of dominant caste votes, it had banked on non-dominant OBCs and announced the committee. Now, after the death of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the broad consolidation of Jat votes under the Hindutva umbrella, the BJP is tethered by its recommendations.The politics of Hindutva speaks of “accommodation” and “space” for non-Forwards, but the framework remains distinctly one of adjustment, not social justice.Being the political hegemon now and distributing positions (but not power) may run its course if calls for social justice, as raised by INDIA nationally or even the Samajwadi Party’s PDA (Pichda, Dalit and Alpasankhyak – Hindi for ‘Backwards, Dalits and Minorities’) can complicate the political mood and create aspirations that the BJP would find hard to bottle up.
