Rahul Gandhi Sheds Caste Inhibitions Of Mandal Era

Having fallen between the two stools of Mandal and ‘kamandal’ in the nineties, the Congress party has now decided to shed its inhibition about caste, and advocate openly proportional and equitable distribution of fruits of development based on caste. “Jitni abaadi, utna haq, (rights in proportion to population)” was a battle cry which Rahul Gandhi coined during the Karnataka assembly election.

And now enthused by the outcome, the party has embarked on a full throated advocacy of nationwide caste census, and increasing the 50 percent upper limit for reservation, if it comes to power.

What Rahul Gandhi talked about in rallies and public meetings, the top decision making body of the party, the Congress Working Committee, formally put its stamp of approval in a meeting on October 9, 2023. Since then the party has gone on to announce caste census in the four poll bound states (Chhattisgarh has already done it in 2022) and also decided to put pressure on the Modi government for a nationwide caste census.

Talking about the issue in his election meetings, Rahul Gandhi described caste census as an X-ray which is required before any treatment begins to know the extent and severity of the illness. “For us caste census is not a political decision, but a decision of justice and participation. It is a decision that gives power to the poor,” he said at the press conference after the CWC meeting.

He further elaborated that for the Congress party this was a decision so that it could ensure “ justice “ for the poor by “ giving them their due share.” He took the Modi government to task saying the prime minister was incapable of taking this decision, “ but we will force him to do this,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi was referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s opposition to any caste census, even in Bihar though the state BJP, which was in alliance with Nitish Kumar at that time, was a party to this decision. The state BJP leaders had also accompanied the chief minister then when a delegation had come calling on the prime minister.

Interestingly, now partner in arms, Tejaswi Yadav, the then opposition leader, was also a prominent member of the team to have met the Prime Minister.

The BJP, for obvious reasons, has been taken completely unawares on this issue. There is a complete lack of coherence in their statements. All they are doing now is reminding Rahul Gandhi of the stand taken by his great grandfather Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, grandmother Indira Gandhi or father Rajiv Gandhi, all of whom had opposed caste based reservation at various times during their tenure.

Indira Gandhi had famously coined the slogan, “jaat par na paat par, mohar lagegi hath par.” Rajiv Gandhi, in his now much quoted speech in Lok Sabha on Mandal Commission recommendation, on September 6, 1990, had opposed the government move (then headed by V. P. Singh) to implement Mandal recommendations on the piecemeal manner in which it was announced in “haste,” to counter the gathering Ram Mandir movement threat.

The country had witnessed widespread violence and arson at that time and some misguided youth had also immolated themselves. Rajiv Gandhi, attacking “Raja Sahib” , had criticised V. P. Singh for ignoring the comprehensive action plan which was recommended in the Mandal report and hastily announcing only the politically motivated part.

“This government is creating a vested interest in casteism and the country is going to pay a very heavy price for that,” Rajiv Gandhi had said. He further exhorted the Lok Sabha “let us not have one man’s obstinacy holding India hostage… let that man’s obstinacy not lead to caste wars,’ he had implored.

Rajiv Gandhi had warned V. P. Singh, who interrupted him to put a time limit to his speech, “No, I will not. The manner in which you have implemented the Mandal commission, to me, is breaking up my country,” he had hit back.

He had made it amply clear that he was not opposing caste reservation per se, but was advocating identifying the truly backward, socially, educationally and economically, before putting reservation into place. “ We need a complete picture of what the government wants to do,” Rajiv Gandhi had said.

Maybe taking a cue from where his father had left, Rahul Gandhi, has now, in all seriousness, decided to take the idea to its logical culmination. “When scheduled castes are counted, scheduled tribes are counted, Muslims, Christians are counted, then what is the problem if all other castes are counted.

“After all, all decisions these days are taken on the basis of caste only. This is the time for targeted development, so we need to know the numbers of those who are less educated, economically backward, and deprived so that benefits of development could be taken to them… it is only a matter of giving the poor their due share,” P. L. Punia, senior Congress leader, and Rajya Sabha member, said.

On Increasing the upper limit of 50 percent for reservation, Punia says when the 10 percent reservation of economically backward was announced in Lok Sabha, all parties had supported it then, even the Supreme Court had approved it then. “So why the fuss now?”, Punia asked.

Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, senior Congress leader and former union minister of state for home, is also of the opinion that the idea is welcome because it will truly revitalise the party. “ It is definitely a welcome decision because it will help us give justice to the truly deserving people who have been left behind in the race of development,” Ahmad said.

Senior leaders, who refused to be named, said the idea should fetch rich political dividends for the party because backwards at the pan India level would get attracted towards the Congress party. Maybe not in Bihar, or Uttar Pradesh, where Laloo Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav are the undisputed leaders of Yadavs, but elsewhere, the party would gain. Even in Bihar and UP the non-Yadav backwards would surely look at the Congress once again and we will benefit politically.

But since there are voices of dissent within Congress itself, with leaders like Manish Tiwari opposing the idea, is the optimism wrongly placed? Senior Congress leaders said the opposition could be for personal reasons, but the fact remains that it was too optimistic to believe that upper caste voters who were thinking of supporting the Congress would once again dump it in favour of BJP.

“We have no upper caste voters of any significance now. So that danger is not there. But if backwards and Muslims join hands, we have a winning formula,” a senior leader said.

Cynics also claim that keeping the Congress party’s track record in mind, backward voters would never trust the party, no matter what it does. But it is also a fact that the Congress party, of late, has been making sincere moves to woo the backward voters.

In Chhattisgarh, for example, which has 43.5 percent Other Backward Class (OBC) voters, the party has already got a caste census done. It has suggested increasing the reservation for OBCs from the present 14 percent to 27 percent.

It has also suggested increasing Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation from 12 to 13 percent. The Schedule Tribes (STs), who are 34 percent of the population, have 32 percent reservation, which remains unchanged. The Chhattisgarh government has also proposed four percent reservation for Economically Weaker Classes. This Bill is pending with the governor for approval.

Rajasthan, which has announced caste census, already has reservation upto 64 percent: SCs have 16 percent reservation, STs 12 percent, OBCs 21 percent, Most Backward Castes five percent and Economically Weaker section have 10 percent reservation. The government had given five percent reservation to Gujjars in 2019.

In Madhya Pradesh too, where the Congress has announced caste census, it intends to revisit the OBC reservation, in proportion to their population. Senior Congress leaders point out that in 1982, then Chief Minister Arjun Singh, had set up the Ramjilal Mahajan Commission to count the backward castes, which had thrown up the figure of 52 percent OBC population there.

Now with the Congress reviving the caste debate, and the BJP overtly sidelining its OBC chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the Congress has got a handle to beat the BJP with. In fact, Rahul Gandhi, in his press conference after the CWC meeting had taken a swipe at the BJP saying out of four Congress chief ministers, three are OBCs while of 10 BJP chief ministers, only one is backward.

Naysayers, however, point to the massive OBC support base of the BJP, which according to CSDS increased from 22 percent in 2009 to 44 percent in 2019, while the OBC vote for Congress declined from 24 percent in 2009 to 15 percent in 2019. The CSDS has calculated that in 2023, the BJP’s OBC vote share is 45 percent while that of Congress is only 27 percent.

No wonder, it is a huge gap and the Congress, though it may not admit that this is a political decision, has actually made a big political move by raising this issue. Remains to be seen how this will unfold.