The obsession these days of the INDI Alliance to look at everything from the caste identity prism is the result of the success it has had in UP with the SP-Congress tie-up. The rise in the numbers of votes polled surprised even the leaders of the two parties. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is particularly enthused and has made the caste-census and subsequent increase in reservations his single point programme. Everything is being judged from the casteist agenda, the latest being the continuation of lateral entry into senior level government posts from the private sector. It matters little that their own Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia were beneficiaries of this scheme.
This strategy is, of course, an appropriation of the earlier wave of ‘backward’ identity politics ranging back to Scheduled Caste mobilisation inspired by Dr BR Ambedkar and continued by Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, as also the invented race based ‘Dravidian’ movement in Tamil Nadu. Then came Ram Manohar Lohia as a messiah of the ‘Backward Castes’, although under the socialist banner, followed by the Mandal agitation that brought to the fore the Samajwadi Party, with Mulayam Singh Yadav ultimately taking over. Rahul Gandhi and his mentors are hoping to replicate a similar wave of sentiment at the national level in the hope of gaining power at the Centre. They forget that it is only with the support of regional parties that they can shape this movement. It is a moot point whether it is the Congress that is using parties like the SP, or vice-versa.
It may also be noted that the recent SC suggestion on quotas within quotas has met with strong opposition from the dominant Backward and even Scheduled Castes. This is because it would challenge their hold over the SC and OBC political platform. It would take the focus away from the actual sentiment that powers their agenda – resentment against the ‘Upper Castes’, rather than actual empowerment of the backward. It is the former that worked in the recent elections and is being pursued energetically by Rahul Gandhi in quite Nazi fashion.
It is also a fact, however, that significant numbers of these ‘backward’ sections have moved into middle-class category and desire the ‘anonymity’ and inclusion it provides them. The last thing they want in their lives is to be singled out by the caste-census approach of the Congress. They also realise the limitations of the almost total dependence on reservations for a better life, as it benefits only a very small minority of their communities, which are mostly hogged by the better-off among them. Once this realisation spreads, the Congress strategy will have no legs to stand on.
