RSS’ caste conundrum: Amid fresh row, Sangh says it backs caste census but harmony must

“RSS has been continuously working with the goal of creating a Hindu society free of any discrimination, and based on harmony and social justice. It is true that because of historical reasons several sections of the society got left behind economically, socially and educationally. Several governments have made provisions for their progress and empowerment from time to time. The RSS completely supports them,” Ambekar added.

RSS Sahasanghchalak for the Vidarbha region, Shridhar Gadge, said Tuesday that a caste-based census would prove to be a “futile exercise” and serve only some individuals. “There should be no caste-based census. In any case, what will it achieve?” Gadge told reporters in Nagpur. “A caste census will quantify caste-wise populations. But it is not going to be in the interest of society or the nation.”

Gadge’s remarks triggered a controversy which was reminiscent of a similar episode in 2015 when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement on reservation put the BJP on the back foot just ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls.

In an interview to the RSS-linked magazine The Organiser, Bhagwat had then suggested a review of reservation saying, “…Form a committee of people genuinely concerned about the interest of the whole nation and committed to social equality… they should decide which categories require reservation, and for how long. Like autonomous commissions, this non-political committee should be the implementation authority; political authorities should supervise them for honesty and integrity.”

The RSS later clarified that Bhagwat said this in the context of the need for ensuring that reservation benefits reached every deprived section of the society. However, the statement was picked up by RJD supremo Lalu Yadav, who accused the RSS and the BJP of allegedly plotting to scrap reservation. Subsequently, the BJP suffered a severe drubbing in the polls against the RJD-JD(U) combine.

Since then the RSS has been at pains to assert repeatedly that it is not against quota. In September this year, addressing a gathering in Nagpur, Bhagwat said that as long as caste discrimination exists, reservation will stay and people must be prepared to suffer for 200 years for the benefit of those who have suffered for 2000 years. Bhagwat also suggested that the RSS workers had no qualms eating even cow meat if that ensured assimilation of the deprived classes into the larger Hindu fold.

The RSS has had difficulty negotiating this tricky subject since a large number of its upper caste supporters are against reservation.

A similar assertion by Bhagwat in February this year had caused another controversy. Talking about Sant Ravidas at an event in Mumbai, Bhagwat had said that the great saint had found that truth alone is God. “I (God) am in all beings. Whatever be the name or colour, all have the same ability, same respect. All are my own. No one is superior or inferior. Based on scriptures, what the Pandits say is a lie. By getting entangled in this imagination of superior and inferior castes, we have lost our way. This delusion has to be done away with.”

The statement was quickly seized on by the Opposition to charge that this was an admission by the RSS of Brahmins having perpetrated caste atrocities on the society for centuries.

The RSS was then again forced to come out with a clarification, saying that by “Pandit” Bhagwat meant intellectuals and not Brahmins.

While the RSS has always agitated against caste discrimination and worked on the ground to eradicate the practice of untouchability, its stand on the issue of reservation has not had the same consistency.

In 1981, after the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said in light of the anti-reservation movement in Gujarat that merit should not be ignored while ensuring justice for deprived sections, the RSS passed a resolution at its Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS), calling for “the constitution of a committee of non-partisan social thinkers, which will study in depth all the problems arising out of reservations and suggest positive steps for the uplift of Harijans and Tribals…”

The resolution also wanted the committee of thinkers to “recommend necessary concessions to the other economically backward sections with a view to ensuring their speedy development”, and “agree(d) with the Prime Minister’s viewpoint that reservation cannot be a permanent arrangement, that these crutches will have to be done away with as soon as possible…”

At the BJP National Council meeting held in Cochin during April 25-27, 1981, party stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee said: “Merely saying that while Dalits must get justice, merit must not be ignored, will not work… This national issue must be sorted out with a long-term vision.”

In 1985, the RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (ABKM) “reiterate(d) its earlier demand that the central government should, without further delay, come forward to constitute a representative committee of eminent and impartial persons to examine and evaluate in all its aspects and formulate a national consensus on the reservation policy…”

The same year, the ABKM “alerted” the government and the people against the “…exploitation of poverty and illiteracy of the backward classes and setting them up against the rest of society with the help of foreign funds… (as) a weapon of vote politics.”