Those who calculated that Sahib Singh Verma's removal as Chief Minister of Delhi would cause only a ripple had evidently considered his undistinguished record in office alone. They had reckoned without the caste factor. The Capital may have heaved a sigh of relief at the departure of a chief minister identified with a period of crises, ranging from a serious suburban crime wave and crippling power cuts to the dropsy outbreak and the unprecedented onion price-hike. But, not his special constituency.He and his supporters made it clear that his dethronement would be deemed a wanton affront by the Jat community. And not just in Delhi, as Haryana's till now Centre-friendly Om Prakash Chautala voiced displeasure at what he saw as the victimisation of a kinsman. The announced offer of a Cabinet post to Verma has not ended the controversy, but only exacerbated it.It has been perceived as an offer to his caste, and provoked demands for a similar deal from other caste groups in the Bharatiya Janata Party.Particularly notable has been the claim from the trading community, which the party was once identified with. This group now feels politically threatened after the dropping of Rajendra Gupta from the post-Verma Delhi government. It is an eloquent commentary on the state of affairs that this should be happening inside the BJP, that had been avowedly anti-casteist until recently. The party, in fact, has proudly pointed to a contrast between the Mandir and the Mandal movements in this regard.The BJP alone cannot be blamed for a situation of many years' making. This is, most certainly, not the first time the caste factor is playing a role in Cabinet-making and ministerial expansion. It is, by now, a well-established practice for pundits to analyse the caste composition, among other things, of a council of ministers and assess the prospects of the government's stability and success accordingly. Caste claims and counter-claims have always dictated how many a prime minister or chief minister chose his team.Anaccident of birth has been the main qualification for many an ambitious politician including those who have argued for merit in the Mandal debate. What should, above all, be cause for concern is the fact that the caste factor shows no sign of weakening at all in the foreseeable future. Nor does the dynamics of coalition politics discourage the political use of this divisive feature.Yet it is efforts by political forces, parties and individuals, in enlightened self-interest, if nothing else, to reduce and eliminate the relevance of this factor that can make a real difference. Efforts to which there must be more than mere tokenism. Nomenclatural reforms are indeed not what are needed. Verma, who has inspired the current bout of casteist factionalism in the BJP, it may be recalled, had publicly announced his resolve to drop his caste surname when he was made education minister in Madanlal Khurana's ministry.Bihar Congress leader Jagannath Mishra had dropped his for a while, but without making anydifference to the state's obnoxiously caste-centred politics. Caste surnames have not been used for two generations in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, which is just recovering from the impact of the caste riots in Ramanathapuram.
