The women’s reservation Bill has become the biggest talking point in today’s politics. It is still to become a law, but people are asking if it will work as a masterstroke for Modi in the 2024 Parliamentary elections. Will it get him more women's votes to win a third term? It is also being debated as to how much the demand for OBC quota within quota will damage the BJP. Will it slice away the OBC votes which the BJP has managed to garner since the 2014 general elections? Will it, along with the caste census, become a trump card for the I.N.D.I.A alliance? Will it also help the Congress gain a new social base to increase its vote share to attain ascendence in national politics?
Reservation, since the Poona pact in 1932 between Mahatma Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar, when they agreed to give reservation to Dalits instead of a separate electorate, has been a contentious issue. A large section of Hindus has never accepted reservation. They have been advocating that reservation will damage the system in the long run as merit is being ignored. But the bigger concern was the caste hierarchy which creates haves and have-nots, and reservation was seen as a challenge to the hegemony of the upper caste. Giving reservation to SC/STs meant sharing power with those who have been excluded from the power structure for centuries. Then, in a society which is defined by inbuilt inequality, it was an attempt to break social barriers and treat as equals those who have civilisationally been treated as less than human. But once the Constitution was unanimously approved by the Constituent Assembly, the upper caste had no option but to accept the verdict of the Constitution but in their heart they never reconciled with the new reality. Oppression against lower castes is a reflection of that reality.
It was no coincidence that when V P Singh decided to implement the Mandal commission recommendation to give 27% reservation to OBCs in government jobs and education, in 1990, it was violently opposed. Self-immolation by young students then was indicative of resentment of the upper caste.
But by then the democratic consciousness among those who were subjugated for centuries and the realisation had come about that in democracy the cumulative numbers decide the nature of the power structure; and since OBC commanded almost 50% of the electorate then, they should have a major share in the power balance. After the Mandal commission, politics in north India changed dramatically. The Congress, which could not decide to support the Mandal commission, became irrelevant in numerically powerful states like UP and Bihar, and this ultimately led to their fall from their hegemonic position. It was due to the Mandal commission that the Congress could never attain a majority mark in the Lok Sabha since 1984. The caste leaders and caste-based political parties emerged as principal players in UP and Bihar, the two most backward states in the country.
In between, the BJP aggressively pursued Hindutva, carved a niche for itself and once the Anna Hazare movement against corruption tarnished the Manmohan Singh government’s image, Congress numbers plummeted to an all-time low and it faced an existential crisis. Now the same Congress, which did not implement the Mandal commission for ten years, is at the forefront in demanding a caste census and OBC reservation within the women's quota. This makes the politics more intriguing and could prove to be the game-changer in the coming elections as well as in future.
The BJP which under the Modi regime has consciously tried to reach out to OBC leaders and voters, and have succeeded upto certain extent, did not agree to include the OBC quota within quota. Despite its OBC outreach, the BJP is an upper-caste party. According to a CSDS survey, in UP more than 80% upper-caste voters — Brahmin, Chhatriya and Vaishya — vote for the BJP. This was the same upper caste which used to vote for the Congress in the past. The same upper caste has shifted its allegiance to the BJP with the rise of the party. The BJP has always been ambivalent about reservation. Within their ideological understanding, reservation and caste politics will fracture their larger goal of Hindu unity to counter Muslims and Christians. It is due to the compulsions of Indian politics in which caste plays a dominant role, especially in north India, that the BJP is forced to support reservation.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had famously demanded a review of the reservation policy in 2015 during the Bihar Assembly elections. Now he has changed his tune and says that the RSS supports reservation. It is more of posturing than a commitment. To agree for OBC reservation within women’s reservation is fraught with dangers for the BJP. This can annoy their upper-caste social base which now supports the BJP overwhelmingly. The BJP, closer to the five Assembly elections followed by general elections in 2024, can’t take this risk. But this is a double-edged sword. The way the I.N.D.I.A alliance has raised the pitch for the OBC quota and demanded a caste census, this might alienate OBC votes which had gravitated upto a certain extent towards the BJP in the recent past. This possibility can’t be ruled out in UP and Bihar where parties with strong OBC affiliation play a crucial role. The Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav in UP, the JD(U) of Nitish Kumar and the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav can make the BJP very vulnerable. And if OBC voters feel betrayed by the Modi government on this issue then the BJP will definitely find it difficult to reach majority numbers in 2024. In my opinion the Modi government has taken a calculated risk by not including the OBC quota within women’s reservation.
I am not of the opinion that women en masse will vote for Modi and the BJP due to the Bill. There is no denying the fact that Modi has cultivated women as voters since his Gujarat days. Along with Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, Modi as a leader is the preferred choice for women. But it is not so substantial that it can win a third term for Modi. We have to understand that caste is deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of our society. Caste is an identity marker. The woman, in the Indian condition, is not a separate social category. She is also governed by her caste consciousness. It also has to be understood that mainly in rural India, women’s voting choice is mostly defined by males in the family and due to traditional upbringing, it is very difficult for them to defy or differ with them in their voting preferences.
For the Congress, this is a search for a new social base. The party has been trying to lure OBCs and Dalits into their fold, and now has three OBC chief ministers out of its four chief ministers. A Dalit is now the party president. In Punjab when they decided to remove Captain Amrinder Singh, it appointed Charan Singh Channi, a Dalit, as the chief minister. Bhupesh Baghel, Ashok Gehlot and Siddaramaiah are strong leaders in their states. Rahul Gandhi during the Karnataka Assembly election campaign very strongly supported the caste census. During the debate in Parliament, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi both underlined the need for caste census and OBC reservation with the quota. The Congress is also supported by a majority of the parties in the I.N.D.I.A alliance. There is every possibility that the I.N.D.I.A alliance is cleverly building a narrative for Mandal 2.0 politics as a counter to BJP’s Hindutva. Whether it will succeed in this election, has to be seen. But one thing is definite that the struggle for power in 2024 is not going to be easy for Modi, and he has to burn the midnight oil to win a third term as the women's reservation Bill will be of little consequence.
The writer is Editor, SatyaHindi.com, and author of Hindu Rashtra. He tweets at @ashutosh83B
