Will nod to caste census usher in Mandal 2.0? Deciphering the BJP play

A calm political environment, more or less, gives the government the chance to calibrate its response more carefully, allowing for adequate planning. The PM has given “operational freedom” to the chiefs of the armed forces to decide the modalities, timing, and targets of the Indian response. That can only happen when the political decision, whatever that may be, has been taken.

The BJP brass has played the caste card at this juncture when it has to deal with a complex post-Pahalgam situation. Complicating the decision-making are not just global factors but also an incensed public opinion at home. Pahalgam is different from previous terror attacks, not only because innocent tourists were killed but also because they were gunned down after ascertaining their religion, a move calculated to provoke communal discord across India.

The BJP was initially hesitant about a caste census, given the differences within the party and the larger RSS family. Some worried about the social divide it could create. The RSS’s core ideology has been to unite Hindus, while caste has been the Opposition’s weapon to counter the BJP and the Sangh’s Hindutva agenda. But given the “Mandal-isation” of the BJP in the last decade — the party has made a nimble transition from a Bania-Brahmin outfit to one that has the loyalty of sections of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Dalits, tribals — there were those who were uncomfortable about opposing a caste census.

While theoretically a caste census is supposed to ensure the enumeration of castes and sub-castes, and their socio-economic conditions, as they exist today, it has become synonymous with OBC interests. Their numbers are expected to go up, as was seen in the 2023 Bihar caste survey. And once that becomes clear, they are bound to demand a larger share of the economic and political pie and for their quota to be increased in government jobs and educational institutions. There could also be a renewed push for reservation in the private sector.

Though the Congress is taking the credit for having flagged the idea, it has not so far displayed the bandwidth to take electoral advantage in the last two years since Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi spoke of it. The OBCs in the north have not been the Congress’s vote bank. The BJP, in comparison, boasts of having given the country an OBC PM in Modi. That, contrary to religious tradition, he consecrated the Ayodhya Ram temple in January 2024 was also not lost on the OBCs.

Likely objectives

The decision to have a caste census appears to be calculated to boost the BJP’s prospects in the year-end Bihar elections. The party, along with its partner Janata Dal (United), is once again looking at consolidating the support of a large number of non-Yadav OBCs, Extremely Backward Classes, Mahadalits, and Pasmanda Muslims, while retaining the backing of the upper castes.

The BJP may have also calculated that a caste census may help it better navigate the delimitation exercise due after the impending census. That is another time bomb ticking away that could deepen the North-South faultlines. There is a resistance growing to delimitation down South, where the states feel they may be left shortchanged because they have done better on health, education, and population control.

The BJP government may be better placed to counter this if the caste census throws up a larger number of communities that continue to be backward in the South. What’s more, a BJP continuing on the Mandal path shares similarities with the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu that owe their existence to last century’s movement for justice for the non-Brahmins.

Then there is the matter of the 50% quota cap laid down by the Supreme Court. With several states having breached that cap, it remains to be seen how the BJP meets the challenge. The Congress, which has asked to do away with the cap and has called for ”jiski jitni sankhya bhari, uski utni hissedari (proportionate reservation everywhere)”, can be expected to constantly up the ante.

The problem may not come from the caste enumeration. There is now near political unanimity on it, and this shows the ground-level push being felt by every party. Ideally, the purpose of the exercise is to enable governments to target their programmes better to pull up communities still denied their due. The challenge will come from competitive politics, which is expected to compound the situation.

It is easy to mount a tiger but difficult to dismount it. When V P Singh, as PM, implemented the Mandal Commission’s report in 1990 to give 27% reservation to the OBCs in government jobs, by default or design, he tapped into the aspirational revolution that was taking place amongst the OBCs. However, it received massive pushback, especially from the youth, and ended up bringing down his government as the BJP, under pressure from the upper castes, withdrew its support.

Later, VP said that while he had anticipated opposition, he had not expected such fierce protests by the youth. But he could not have turned the clock back, even if he had wanted to, for it would have brought out the OBCs on the streets in a counter-offensive.

Since then, the BJP has ended its hesitation and ambivalence on the caste question and put its seal on what has the makings of Mandal 2.0. It is early days yet to predict how things will pan out, for caste and religion are issues that affect people at a visceral level. Mandal changed India irreversibly, with this next phase expected to take the “OBC-isation” of Indian politics to the next level.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)