Has Mandir edged out Mandal agenda?
Implementation of OBC quotas in 1990 created Mandal politics that faces its biggest crisis with the rise of Hindutva
nNEW DELHI: On August 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed bhoomi pujan — a customary laying of the first brick — for the Ram temple at Ayodhya. This marks the culmination of a 135-year-long dispute, whose outcome was crucially shaped by the demolition of the Babri mosque on 6 December 1992.
Today, August 7, marks 30 years of the implementation of the BP Mandal Commission’s recommendations by the VP Singh-led National Front government. The decision gave 27% reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) in government jobs. This was extended to educational institutions under the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2006.
Both kamandal (an oblong water pot used by sadhus), a term often used to describe the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Hindutva politics, exemplified by the demand for the temple, or mandir, and Mandal politics had to eventually seek judicial sanction for their goals, but political agitation played a crucial role in fulfilment of their demands. To be sure, the larger political motivation for both Mandal and mandir went beyond the immediate cause being championed. It was to capture political power. The protagonists of Mandal wanted to unite the socially backward against upper castes. This necessarily involved causing fissures in the Hindu vote. The BJP, in keeping with its ideological worldview of Hindu nationalism, has always wanted to consolidate the majority Hindu vote.
Given India’s social arithmetic, successfully achieving either of these consolidations is a sure shot way to political power. According to the 2011 census, Hindus have a share of 79.8% in India’s population. The 2015-16 National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) shows that among these 45.7% belong to the Other Backward Classes (OBC), 22.2% to Scheduled Castes (SC) and 9.6% to Scheduled Tribes (ST).
This is exactly why the conflict between Mandal and mandir has been the central fault line in
Indian politics for a large part of the last three decades. The BJP, which enjoyed high levels of support among the upper caste voters even earlier, could not achieve its current political dominance until it was able to make a dent in the votes of Hindu OBCS and SCS. Interestingly, many experts believe that VP Singh’s decision on Mandal was partly motivated by a desire to stop the ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which scripted a turnaround between 1984 and 1989 largely on the basis of its demand for a Ram temple. (See Chart 1)
How did the BJP gain support among the votaries of Mandal? Mandal worked by creating fissures in a monolithic Hindu vote bank. The BJP has undermined Mandal by creating further fissures in this vote bank. One place where this strategy has been the most successful is Uttar Pradesh. A look at sub-caste wise vote shares for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the National Election Study conducted by the Centre for Studies of Developing Societies, Lokniti makes this clear. The only sub-castes where the grand alliance of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had an edge vis-a-vis the BJP were Yadavs and Jatavs. These two sub-castes are the primary support base of the SP and the BSP, but put together they only have around 20% share in the state’s population. The BJP had a huge advantage among all other Hindus, including OBCS and SCS. The alliance of the SP and BSP was described as a grand coalition of Mandal. In the end, it was just a coalition of two subcastes and Muslims. (See Chart 2)
What explains this shift in favour of the BJP? Growing traction for the BJP’S overall politics and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity has definitely played a role. These generic factors have been complemented by a careful strategy.
The BJP has been crafting a social justice agenda of its own to counter the narrative of forces which championed Mandal in the 1990s. This has been achieved by portraying dominant OBC, and even Dalit sub-castes, as the usurpers of the distributive gains of Mandal, both in the realm of jobs as well as political representation. This is something that appeals to those who, the BJP claims have been left behind.
The biggest policy move in this direction has been the formation of the Commission to Examine Sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes for OBCS. This commission, HT reported on 31 December, 2019, might recommend breaking the existing 27% OBC reservations into three bands — with 10% each going to those that have got no benefits so far or only some benefits, and another 7% to those who have thus far received most benefits.
This move, if and when implemented, will create a huge rupture in OBC unity and consolidate the beneficiaries – there are 2633 OBC sub-castes in India – in favour of the BJP. The policy clearly has political undertones, but intra-caste inequality is an objective reality in India. While there is no systemic data at the national level, there exists region-specific research to show this. For example, a 2018 World Bank research paper, which is based on a field survey of 9,000 poor households in Bihar shows that intra-caste divisions can play a bigger role in creation of inequality than inter-caste factors.yadavs, an OBC sub-caste and core supporters of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the main Mandal based formation in Bihar, reported a higher average land ownership than not just other OBCS and SCS but also some upper castes. The image of a dominant OBC isn’t entirely fiction.
To be sure, not all of the BJP’S political success in usurping the erstwhile supporters of Mandal can be attributed to an exercise in social reengineering aimed at breaking OBC-SC unity while placating upper castes. The 10% reservations for economically weaker sections among those who were not entitled to reservations earlier is a move in the latter direction.
In contrast to the usual rhetoric branding the BJP has proupper caste, the party has taken the side of the unprivileged on some key issues. The Modi government’s decisions to nullify two Supreme Court orders on dilution of provisions of Preven
CHART
BJP support among
CHART
1 BJP’S support among OBCS & SCS has jumped since 2014
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
100
80
60
40
20
0
1996
tion of Atrocities against SCS/STS Act and implementation of reservations in higher education teaching jobs at the level of institutions rather than departments (which would have led to reduction in number of reserved positions) are examples of this. Such decisions helped BJP pre-empt political damage from the forces of Mandal even at the risk of alienating upper caste interests.
A reorientation of welfare policies has also played a role. A recently published paper by Yamini Aiyar and Neelanjan Sircar argues that the centralised and technology driven distribution of targeted welfare benefits, most of which go to SCS, STS and OBCS, has allowed the BJP to establish a direct connect with voters, while bypassing state governments and therefore regional parties. Given the fact that most state governments face greater fiscal constraints, this has created an additional problem for regional parties (most Mandal formations are regional), in countering the BJP’S efforts to consolidate their vote bank.
With its subaltern social base being fragmented on the question of reservations and state governments’ ability to give an economic boost to the social justice project coming under squeeze, Mandal politics is facing the biggest challenge it has ever faced in its struggle against mandir politics. Conscious efforts to create a subaltern Hindutva narrative and promote local heroes, as was seen in Modi’s reference to Maharaja Suheldev – a lower caste king who fought against a nephew of Mahmud of Ghazni – during his speech at Ayodhya on 5 August, only increase Mandal’s political challenge by creating tensions between Muslims and the Hindu OBCS and SCS. Mandal’s initial success in countering the BJP was based on an electoral unity between Muslims, OBCS and SCS.
Does this mean that the kamandal has triumphed over Mandal for good? Politics, especially in India, is always in a state of churn, and it is hazardous to make predictions. Fresh contradictions could undermine the BJP’S support among subalterns. In an article published in The Indian Express, Christophe Jaffrelot and Kalaiyarasan A argued that the Narendra Modi government has been taking decisions which are leading to a reduction in number of reserved jobs and a cut in funds earmarked for Dalits.
Will the BJP be able to manage these contradictions? Or will it suffer a blowback for failing to fulfil the promises to those it claims have been betrayed by Mandal politics? Whatever the answer it is clear that 30 years after Mandal, Indian politics is entering a new phase.