BJP’s Uttar Pradesh mantra

The BJP’s massive win in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 came as a surprise to many, especially as it came close on the heels of demonetisation, which had a disastrous impact on India’s economy. If that was a surprise, 2019 was bewildering. Analysts and commentators had predicted that the coming together of the two big caste-parties — SP and BSP — would act as a ‘big tent’ for OBC and Dalit caste groups. Add to that the state’s sizeable Muslim population, and you have an unbeatable combo. This proved to be an entirely incorrect assessment. The BJP expanded its vote-base and retained almost all seats it had won five years earlier.

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While the poor have been hit by the government’s economic policies, even before Covid made things worse, the bottom 30% have got a subsistence lifeline.

In hindsight, if only we analysts had listened to what scholars and academics have been telling us for decades, we could have predicted this outcome. They have told us, repeatedly, that our common-sense idea of caste is inaccurate, and OBCs and Dalits are not single homogenous blocks. Our understanding of the varna system, makes us imagine caste as a concrete building, where Dalits live in the basement, the OBCs on the lower floors and the savarna upper castes on the top floors, with Brahmins in the penthouse. Anthropologists have shown, through detailed ethnography, that this picture does not correspond to how caste functions on the ground.

In reality, village communities can often be dominated by castes that appear to be lower on the varna scale. These are castes that occupy key economic positions in the life of the village and derive power from such fundamental economic roles. Moreover, the ‘dominant’ castes in such situations have their own origin myths and purity-pollution rituals, which are different from the mainstream view of varna hierarchy.

In fact, several historians have argued that varna, as we know it today, is a modern institution that was produced by the colonial state. British Raj tried to ‘enumerate’ India’s people, establish a universal legal system and also deal with the region’s heterogeneity in a systematic manner. It is here that the ‘knowledge’ castes — especially Brahmins and Kayasthas — managed to shape how the colonial state would approach its subjects. This is what made varna a universally accepted ‘truth’, which was either to be upheld as the Indian way of life, or uprooted because it stood against the very grain of democracy.

It should surprise no one that the earliest organised caste associations emerged more or less at the same time that the Raj was trying to count and classify its subjects, the Census of India being its greatest taxonomical project. Dominant castes, with broad kinship ties and similar economic roles, formed clusters to petition the state for concessions. Some of them —Kayasthas, Rajputs, Jats — asked for the state to officially accord them higher status in the varna hierarchy and open job opportunities for them. Reservations of various kinds already emerged before Independence, and their nationwide formalisation in Independent India was a hard-fought concession that dominant ‘lower’ castes had won from the ruling elite.

Reservations for SCs and STs, and later for OBCs, not only created a list of ‘depressed’ castes and also produced the idea that they somehow had common cause. To a certain extent, it is the policies of affirmative action of the post-Independence welfare state, which did create a common ground between various heterogeneous caste groups. Much of it had to do with jobs and education and access to the state’s machinery. Those who managed to get a foothold in the state’s institutions, organised further to put more pressure on the state. The BSP, for instance, emerged out a section of the BAMCEF, an organisation of educated Dalit government and non-government employees.

The political success of the BSP and other caste-based parties such as the SP and RJD gave hope to OBC and Dalit groups across the spectrum. However, these parties ended up being dominated by single caste groups. This became especially clear to the non-dominant OBC and Dalit castes when these parties came to power and placed people from backward sections in positions of authority. The fruits of power went only to the dominant castes amongst them.

This is where the BJP has made the most significant inroads. The Modi government’s schemes often target the poorest of the poor. On the face of it, it is efficient use of the fisc to ensure subsidies do not leak to the undeserving. Its net effect, however, is to automatically reach the non-dominant OBCs and Dalits. This distinction has already entered our political lexicon as MBC (Most Backward Castes) and Maha-Dalits. By giving various kinds of subsidies – free ration, free gas connections, financial aid for housing, etc – Modinomics has quietly built a vote-bank amongst those who have no voice in public discourse.

While the poor and the lower middle class have been badly affected by the Modi government’s economic policies, even before Covid made things worse, the bottom 30%, who make up the poorest of the poor, have got a subsistence lifeline which did not exist earlier. This has made them see the BJP as a saviour and helped them make common cause with the dominant upper-caste elite within the party. It is a new political-economic alliance that has helped the BJP win UP.

The dominance of single castes in the BSP and SP has also weakened the anti-upper caste rhetoric of Dalit and backward caste politics. If dominant castes are to get all the power, then there is no reason for other lower castes to unite with them, politically, culturally or ideologically. Instead, they are reviving their own community heroes, traditions and festivals. Along with that, there is a trend towards ‘Sanskritisation’ amongst these MBC and Maha-Dalit caste groups, where they are accepting upper caste iconography to create a wider community. This is the economic basis of the spread of political Hindutva amongst the poorest of the poor in the Hindi heartland. The question is whether the Modi and Yogi governments have managed to sustain it through Covid.