Congress divides castes for electoral gains
By Amulya Ganguli
The UP elections have brought to the fore some of the worst aspects of the Indian social and political scene. As a state of the Hindi heartland, which is also known derisively as a part of the “cow belt” because of its backwardness, it is not surprising that the concept of caste is so predominant in UP, as it is in Bihar.
Although caste, with its rigid categorization of hereditary occupations and emphasis on ritual purity and untouchability, is anathema to the intelligentsia, its deep roots in the social structure have made it a convenient instrument in the hands of cynical politicians to woo voters. They have never hesitated, therefore, to use its inherent divisiveness to mobilize specific groups for themselves and against their opponents.
But, it is a game which they have been playing for so long that the tactics of herding the various groups into the targeted, for-and-against segments have reached a dead end because the castes have become irrevocably identified with certain parties. For instance, the majority of the Dalits are known to be supporters of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the majority of the Yadavs are with the Samajwadi Party, the majority of the upper castes are for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and so on.
It is this belief of virtually fixed vote banks which has made a party like the Congress, which has always claimed to speak for “all” Indians, drop its earlier aversion for sectarianism in order to further sub-divide the castes in order to set up its own vote banks. Hence, its latest focus on ati-Dalits and the ati-OBCs (Other Backward Castes), where the prefix, ati, stands for extreme. A new term, Most Backward Castes (MBC), has come into vogue, therefore, marking out castes like the Lohars, Nishads, Nais, Kumhars, etc from their OBC brethren comprising largely of the more socially and politically influential Yadavs.
Carrying on with this divisive tactic, Law Minister Salman Khurshid has called for splintering the OBCs through a “sub-categorization” of the entire group for a “more equitable distribution of the benefits of reservation”. No one can say for certain to what extent this bisecting and trisecting of the Dalits and OBCs will help the Grand Old Party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who always saw India as a unified whole. But, what its unabashed recourse to sectarianism portends is a dismal future for the country where casteism will become even more deeply entrenched than at present instead of withering away, as it was envisaged at the time of independence.
The emphasis on caste has become all the greater because the years of the Hindu rate of growth after 1947 stifled employment opportunities. Unfortunately, the higher rate since 1991, which has been dubbed as the “Sikh rate” by Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar in Manmohan Singh’s honour, hasn’t been inclusive enough to substantially increase the chances of getting jobs. It is the idea of earmarking employment quotas for the different castes, which is behind the boosting of the caste factor.
But, the Congress is not satisfied only with luring the MBCs from the Samajwadi Party and the ati-Dalits such as the Passis, Koris, Doms, etc from the BSP, which has the support mainly of the Jatavs or Chamars. It has also targeted the Muslims by promising a 4.5 per cent quota for those belonging to the backward castes among them within the overall 27 per quota for OBCs.
To circumvent the constitutional bar on quotas on the basis of religion, the Congress has mentioned backward castes among the Muslims although Islam’s egalitarianism does not allow castes, the reason why many from the lower castes became Muslims. However, it is undeniable that the stigma of caste persisted despite their conversion.
What is evident from these manoeuvres is that the high importance of the UP elections has forced all the parties to try all the tricks in the book for the sake of votes. If the Congress is wooing the lower castes with Jawaharlal Nehru’s great grandson stressing Sam Pitroda’s OBC origin instead of his technological achievements, the BSP has been courting the Manuvadi upper castes to claim that it stands for the welfare of all – sarvajan hitay. Similarly, the Samajwadi Party has given up its earlier allergy for computers and English and is now promising laptops for students.
Interestingly, while the BSP’s and the Samajwadi Party’s initiatives can be deemed positive, the same cannot be said of the Congress’s overtures to the ati-Dalits, ati-OBCs and Muslims. In fact, the pandering to the Muslims with the promise to raise the proposed 4.5 per cent quota (which was predictably shot down by the Election Commission) to nine per cent later has been linked to the success of the fundamentalists in stopping Salman Rushdie from visiting India and from Taslima Nasreen from releasing her book in Kolkata auditorium. Along with casteism, the compulsions of the UP elections seem to have given a boost to bigotry as well. (IPA)