The Politics Of Four New Castes: Poor, Women, Farmers, And Youth

On August 7, 1990, Prime Minister V P Singh, while implementing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission바카라�that included giving 27 per cent reservation to the socially and educationally backward classes바카라�said on the floor of the house: 바카라�It is a momentous decision of social justice바카라�. Evoking the legacy of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who tirelessly fought for social and political reservation for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and the Scheduled Tribes (ST), Singh added: 바카라�The present decisions are along the same lines, and belong to the tradition of this government바카라�s dedication to the cause of SCs, socially and educationally backward classes and other weaker sections.바카라�

Though this declaration did not cause any immediate stir in the North, Singh was aware of the impending tectonic shift in Indian politics. As the Janata Dal바카라�s (JD) two alliance partners바카라�the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left바카라�were not working in a syncretic manner, Singh, analysts say, wanted to strengthen the social alliance of the Ahir-Jat-Gujjar-and-Rajput (AJGAR) category that catapulted him to power in 1989. And the best way to do this was to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations.

In the following years, the social alliance of the OBCs and the Dalits, especially across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, not only changed the fate of politics in India바카라�with the exit of the Congress from both states바카라�it also gave birth to the Kamandal politics that the BJP leveraged to consolidate all the Hindu castes.

After 33 years of the 바카라�momentous decision바카라�, Indian politics is again witnessing a change. While the demands of Opposition parties바카라�now consisting of the Congress that was earlier allegedly responsible for not implementing the recommendations of consecutive backward commissions바카라�for a caste census are garnering strength, the ruling party has come up with the concept of 바카라�new castes바카라�.

During the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra in November 2023, while addressing the beneficiaries of welfare schemes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: 바카라�For me, there are four biggest castes in the country바카라�the poor, the youth, the women and the farmers.바카라� Emphasising his government바카라�s focus on the development of these four castes, he added: 바카라�The upliftment of these four castes will make India developed, and if it happens to these four, it means it will happen to everyone.바카라�

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The evocation of this scheme of caste is new for PM Modi, who has mostly been found asserting his own caste identity. In 2019, responding to the allegation of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati that he is a 바카라�fake OBC바카라�, PM Modi said that he is not only an OBC but also was born into the 바카라�most backward caste바카라�. Earlier, in February, while responding to an allegation against the BJP that it does not have any OBC faces, he said: 바카라�I am surprised that they are unable to see that the senior-most position is occupied by an OBC.바카라� Recently, even Rahul Gandhi questioned Modi바카라�s OBC identity and claimed that the prime minister was born in the Teli caste that was not listed as OBC and was included in the list by the Gujarat government only in 2000.

So, when PM Modi refers to the poor, or for that matter the farmers, as a 바카라�caste바카라�, is he addressing the class-based identities of these groups? The conflation of caste and class in Indian politics has its own history. Some political leaders thought that the assertion of class-based identity might outgrow the needs of caste-specific claims, but in some cases, caste became the determining factor.

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In colonial times, between 1920 and 1940, Chhotu Ram, a Jat leader from Punjab, and Swami Sahahjanand, a Bhumihar leader from Bihar, became significant Kisan Sabha leaders and consolidated the farmers바카라� movement. But this mobilisation was mostly class-based. French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, in one of his articles, notes: 바카라�The proponents of the 바카라�kisan politics바카라� came primarily from the rank of peasant-proprietors who tried to mobilise 바카라�the peasants바카라� 바카라�as if that were a social category without internal differentiation바카라�to promote their own interest and maintain lower castes under their influence. The caste-based approach was rather conceived for defending the latter.바카라�

In the 1960s and 1970s, under the leadership of Chaudhury Charan Singh, several farmers entered the UP and Bihar Legislative Assemblies. Certainly, Singh바카라�s efforts to subsume the caste identity within the broader identity of the farmers stemmed from his own Jat identity바카라�Jats comprised a minuscule 1.2 per cent of the UP population. Critics note that his interests represented mostly those of the Jat landowners.

However, the socialist movement took a caste-based turn in the next few decades (during the 80s and 90s) following Ram Manohar Lohia바카라�s ideology and the 바카라�kisan front broke down along caste lines, the peasant proprietors from the intermediate castes distancing themselves from the OBCs,바카라� notes Jaffrelot. This led to the formation of the Mandal Commission and the consecutive implementation of the report.

While talking about the socialist illusion of class as a determining factor in Indian politics, Lohia said: 바카라�Many socialists honestly, but wrongly, think that it is sufficient to strive for economic equality and caste inequality will vanish consequently. They fail to comprehend economic inequality and caste inequality as twin demons; both must be killed.바카라�

Notably, the socialist parties had been asking for a 60 per cent reservation for all backward castes since Independence. The first draft of the conference of the Samuyukta Socialist Party noted in 1966: 바카라�In a society characterised by a hierarchical structure based on birth, the principle of equal opportunity cannot produce an equal society. The established, conventional notions about merit and ability must result in the denial of opportunities in actual practice for backward castes, harijans (Scheduled Castes), Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes).바카라�

So, on the one hand, there was a political segment that wanted to unitedly represent the farmers바카라�mostly the landowners바카라�without addressing the caste cleavages; on the other, there were leaders like Lohia who favoured affirmative actions based on caste. These two streams of political consciousness, nevertheless, got merged in the JP movement.

Madhu Limaye, who later became the deputy PM in the Morarji Desai government, while drafting a document for the movement in 1975, wrote: 바카라�Caste hierarchy based on birth is the biggest obstacle in the path of achieving social equality. In an unequal society, the doctrine of judicial equality and equal opportunity cannot by itself remove caste disabilities. The doctrine of preferential opportunity, therefore, had to be invoked in order to enable the backward sections to come up to the level of the upper castes.바카라�

The document also added, 바카라�Reservation in the services that we have today had not enabled us to overcome the disabilities from which our suppressed communities suffer [. . . I This must change, and these people and other backward classes should be enabled to secure, through preferential opportunities and reservation, the substance of power.바카라�

This promise was perhaps a prelude to Desai바카라�s deployment of the Backward Classes Commission under B P Mandal on December 20, 1978. Though the Commission submitted its report in 1980, the following Congress governments did not take any initiative to implement it; it was V P Singh who made it a reality. The emergence of political parties in the North, like the Samajwadi Party, the BSP, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular)바카라�to name a few바카라�depicts the new political trajectory that decimated the decade-long domination of the Congress.

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However, after three decades, it is the Opposition led by the Congress that is demanding a caste census to understand the socio-economic condition of the OBCs. Parties like the RJD, and the SP바카라�that once were mostly responsible for the elimination of the Grand Old Party from the north Indian states바카라�have come together to claim 바카라�jitni abadi utna haq바카라�.

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As the BJP continues to evoke the poor, farmers, youth and women as new castes, the Congress leadership calls it a 바카라�gimmick바카라�. Abbas Hafeez Khan, a senior Congress leader and the spokesperson of the party in Madhya Pradesh, says: 바카라�If they are not concerned about the caste equation, why did they choose Mohan Yadav as the CM of Madhya Pradesh? Why did they remove a Khattar and place an OBC leader in Haryana?바카라�

The latest instance of Haryana바카라�where the BJP, following its ally Dushyant Chautala바카라�s (JJP) departure from the NDA, deployed Nayab Singh Saini, an OBC leader as the CM바카라� further emphasises their focus on castes, says a Congress leader. 바카라�If the BJP considers women as a caste, why didn바카라�t they actually make a woman CM?바카라� asks Khan.

The government바카라�s decision to give the Bharat Ratna to Jat leader Chaudhary Charan Singh and social justice leader Karpoori Thakur represents the social engineering politics of the BJP. 바카라�You can see that after Thakur바카라�s Bharat Ratna, Nitish Kumar went back to the NDA fold and after Charan Singh, it was the RLD바카라�s turn,바카라� says a senior journalist. On the one hand, they addressed the Jat and farmers through Charan Singh, on the other they signalled the EBCs through Thakur, he adds.

Debunking the BJP바카라�s claims of addressing the concerns of backward castes, Ghanshyam Tiwari, the National Spokesperson of the SP, says: 바카라�This is merely a packaging. The BJP바카라�s major support base is the upper caste people. If you still look at the outcomes of different competitive exams, you can get a sense of how the power is getting consolidated in the hands of a few upper caste people who don바카라�t believe in social justice.바카라� He adds that the BJP has always used symbolism to hide their policies against the poor, Dalits, women, and OBCs.

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Modi바카라�s evocation of his own OBC identity to the deployment of Yadavs and other OBC leaders as the CMs of different states speak volumes about the party바카라�s social engineering politics. But why was it necessary to invoke a new caste scheme? Yatindra Singh Sisodia, a political scientist and director of the Madhya Pradesh Institute of Social Science Research, says: 바카라�Caste is a huge reality of Indian society and, therefore, it is a very smart move to use the metaphor of caste as poor, youth, women and farmers. It appears that more than 90 per cent of the population falls under this block, and the focus of the government바카라�s policies and programmes has also been around these four categories; a special concentration on women and the poor is loudly discernible.바카라�

Interestingly, Jawhar Sircar, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP, thinks that these new caste categories are the 바카라�BJP바카라�s four areas of complete defeat바카라�. 바카라�If you see the women legislature percentage of the BJP, it is just tokenism. Compare it with the TMC and you can find. As far as the youths are concerned, the unemployment rate of the young people belonging to the age group 20-25 years is 45 per cent. In the case of farmers and poor, we don바카라�t need to even emphasise. Everyone knows it,바카라� says Sircar. He also adds that the BJP always tried to divide the marginalised castes through weighing on the non-dominant castes. 바카라�They focused on the non-Jatav Dalits and the non-Yadav OBCs to divide these communities,바카라� says the MP.

However, political scientist and author Aditya Nigam notes that there are two major factors that one must consider to understand Modi바카라�s new caste scheme. Firstly, it is an effort to deflect the demands of the Dalit Bahujan castes바카라�especially the demands for a caste census. 바카라�And secondly, it is linked to a longstanding position of the RSS that believes its project of Hindu Unity can only be achieved by deflecting the question of caste oppression,바카라� says Nigam.

He also refers to the parliamentary debate that followed the tabling of the Indian Social Disparities Abolition Bill of 1977 by MP Roop Narayan Yadav. 바카라�If you go through that debate 47 years ago, you can see that the RSS-linked member of the Janata Party (former Jan Sangh, the BJP did not exist then) making this argument repeatedly. They, of course, argued that it would negatively affect 바카라�national integration바카라� (a euphemism for Hindu unity). Instead, they suggested reversing the discrimination or reservations on economic grounds,바카라� he adds.

Political scientist Satish K Jha agrees with Nigam: 바카라�The Hindutva ideologues since Savarkar have been trying to forge larger unity of Hindu society and have always found caste-based party politics as the biggest hindrance in this mission and the Mandal moment was the high point of it,바카라� he says.

While analysts think that the ruling party is trying to dodge the caste-census claims of the Opposition through the evocation of these new castes, till now, the BJP is the only party that has categorically emphasised the percentage of OBC candidates in its first list. Vinod Tawde, the general secretary of the BJP, during the announcement of the 195 candidates, noted that 57 (29 per cent) belong to the OBC community. Currently, the party has 85 OBC MPs among 303 in Parliament.

So, on the one hand, there is a push from the BJP to promote new caste identities through welfare schemes, and on the other, they are not even ceding the space of OBC votes to the Opposition. 바카라�The BJP, through its politics, solidified religious consolidation and provided adequate space to the OBC leadership within the party organisation and the government, along with the focus of policy and programmes majorly addressing the concerns of the caste/class combination,바카라� says Sisodia.

Though the Congress has been trying to socially mobilise the OBCs, their latest focus of the campaign is the poor, the youth, women and farmers바카라�Modi바카라�s four castes. During his Bharat Nyay Yatra, Gandhi several times invoked the issues of unemployment of youth and declared Nyay for women바카라� with a promise of Rs 1 lakh per annum to eligible women per annum. Following the recent farmers바카라� protests, the party also announced that it would bring an act to fix the Minimum Support Price (MSP). But what would be the caste scheme that would impact these elections? Perhaps, the answer lies beyond the politics of Mandal-Kamandal.

(This appeared in the print as 'The Politics Of New Castes')