V. P. Singh: Kshatriya Turned Social Justice Agent

On June 25, a celebration meeting of V. P. Singh’s 92 birth anniversary meeting has been planned by several pro-social justice organisations at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This will be the first of such celebrations on V. P. Singh who is almost a forgotten Mandal Messiah.

It is expected that several political leaders, activists, writers will participate to recall Singh’s work for social justice. Born and brought up in a Ksatriya (also spelled Kshatriya) Raja family from Uttar Pradesh, his role in the post-Independence Indian history as a Prime Minister has to be re-assessed.

India has had several other Prime Ministers up to Narendra Modi, who has claimed to be an OBC. We should also see V. P. Singh’s role as PM, in contrast with the Ksatriya rulers like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who also hail from that community of feudal ruling background of the same state as V. P. Singh.

As a person who fought for justifying the implementation of reservation, and who witnessed Singh’s fight for defending the implementation of Mandal Commission Report recommending 27 percent reservation in national jobs for the OBCs, I would like to ask: if Modi were to be the PM at that time would he have implemented and defended it the way V. P. Singh did?

Would Deve Gowda, a Shudra beneficiary of reservation, who became PM have done that? Nobody would have taken the ideological and moral position that V. P. Singh took. Singh was even prepared to be even killed for the sake of Social Justice, like Abraham Lincoln did for the sake of Black Rights.

While Abraham Lincoln sacrificed his life in America V. P. Singh sacrificed his position and image among anti-Mandal ruling forces. It led to his Government being pulled down by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Congress was Singh’s arch enemy at that time, and was willing to finish him by all means. Immediately after Singh was thrown out by the BJP, the Congress brought in another Ksatriya Chandra Shekhar from UP, as PM.

He pretended to be a socialist all his life but remained a strong anti-social justice element. In 1991 another cunning Brahmin P.V .Narsimha Rao became the PM and nobody would have expected him to implement the Mandal Commission Report, if V.P.Singh were not to take that risk from that position.

It is true that many other political forces of that time demanded implementation of the Mandal Commission Report. However, if V.P Singh had not chosen to do that, no silent revolution would have taken place in Indian history.

Because the Shudra OBCs of that time were completely incapable of handling the ideological and philosophical question of social justice. Though there were some politicians from North India who demanded and worked for the Report’s implementation, there were no intellectual forces from the Shudra/OBCs to defend it in the hostile power structures and in the media.

Arun Shourie kind of anti-social justice forces in the media , when all papers, electronic media (including Doordarshan) was against the Report’s implementation, and the OBC leaders would have buckled down easily.

They had driven Dwija youth to self-immolate, abuse and attack the pro-Mandal forces. The Communist Dwijas were against the Mandal Commission Report’s implementation.

Very few pro-Mandal writers, such as Gail Omvedt and I, had to struggle for a space to publish even a small article in English in support of V. P. Singh’s implementation. Only journals like ‘Economic and Political Weekly’ gave marginal space.

There was no social media at that time. We were helpless and could do little except cry in isolation. The only strength was V. P. Singh’s undaunted defence of the Mandal Commission Report’s implementation from every public space possible, including in his bold August 15 speech from the Red Fort.

Singh’s resignation letter and address to the nation before he resigned put all other Prime Ministers who came before, and after him, under the dark clouds of shame and guilt. If PM Modi, as a self-proclaimed OBC who got many votes because of that, reads Singh’s philosophical defence discourses on social justice his head would hang in shame.

Modi never takes Singh’s name as an exceptional PM of India who implemented the Mandal Commission Report with courage and conviction. Modi never issues a statement on Singh’s birthday.

V.P. Singh’s short stint in the PM office reminds us of the saying that, “it is not how long you rule that is important for the people, but how you rule when you are in power”.

Nehru’s 17-year rule, Indira Gandhi’s 14-year rule and Modi’s 10-year rule fades away when compared to V. P. Singh’s less than one year rule. Singh changed the country’s 5000 years of history within that short span of less than a year.

I do not know how much space is allotted to V. P. Singh in the newly built Prime Minister Library and Society at what was once named Teen Murti House. But he deserves as much space as all other PMs including Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi get.

Hence, it is important that when the present and past ruling parties want him to be forgotten the people must remember V. P. Singh, and celebrates his birthday as Social Justice Day. Tamil Nadu is planning to install V. P. Singh’s statue and such efforts must be made in every state.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author of many books, the latest being From Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual: My Memoirs. Views expressed are the writer’s own. Views expressed are the writer’s own.