Bharat Rashtra

Actually, the outfit has been here before. While more mainstream organisations like the Congress were reluctant late-comers to the OBC-isation of Indian politics, the VHP was quick to spot an irreversible trend, and join it. Over the last decade and more, there has been a distinct change in the social composition of VHP cadres and leadership, and in its programme. A caste headcount in the organisation will demonstrate how uniquely accommodative it has been to OBC aspirations; it has also tweaked and modified its language of political mobilisation, most notably by lending it an anti-upper caste edge.

In the turbulent 8217;90s, the Mandal and Mandir projects tried to construct a homogeneous national community, one on the basis of caste, the other on the basis of religion. Both projects have now run up against their limits. The agenda of the 8216;Hindu Rashtra8217; must take caste and class on board and in doing so be diluted and transformed by both, whether its protagonists like it or not. Even as relentless and bigoted a practitioner of Hard Hindutva as the VHP has had to bow to this reality. Ambitions of forging an all-India backward versus forward caste cleavage have also been similarly splintered and humbled. As another conceit crumbles in Allahabad, other outfits must know that the choice is clear: be flexible or flexibility will be thrust upon you.