The Gujarat encounter, Hindutva and caste
The Gujarat Government’s revelation before the Supreme Court that Kausar Bi was killed shows how far the State has gone as a “Hindutva laboratory”. It also shows how insecure daily existence has become for Muslims in a State where the BJP has firmly entrenched itself. It seems today that a statesman like Vajpayee was, unfortunately, but a mask.
Situating the Hindutva movement
The Hindutva movement did not become powerful just because of the Ram Mandir issue. Its power is directly related to the evolution of the caste dynamics in India. The Congress, at least in North India, functioned as a party of the upper castes – with the exception of some “co-opted” Dalit leaders like Jagjivan Ram -- post-independence. They materially benefited from the power it gave them. And the Gandhian influence made the upper caste Congressmen more universalistic in religious terms. That is why the influence of the RSS remained limited till Rajiv Gandhi’s time. Their material interests made the upper castes stay with the Congress. And the Gandhian influence around it fostered a broad atmosphere of harmony, some riots notwithstanding.The peasant castes had become powerful in the South and West much before the North. So the Congress Brahmins, belonging to a numerically small caste, had to accommodate them. Christophe Jaffrelot has worked out this point in detail. The Congress, thus, still survives in parts of South India (except Tamil Nadu, with its Dravidian legacy) and Maharashtra. In the North, particularly in U.P. and Bihar, situations were different. The upper castes were more numerous in the Hindi-belt and the backward caste rise, with the exception of Jats in the “Jat belt”, took place only in the 1960s and 1970s due to various reasons like incomplete land reforms (the case of U.P.) that left out Dalit agricultural labourers and promoted backward caste peasant-proprietors. These peasant castes remained anti-Congress in U.P. and Bihar. In Rajasthan, the Congress had accommodated the Jats and remains a force in the State to this day.
Mandal I
V.P. Singh as Prime Minister captured the backward caste assertion when he announced that he would implement the Mandal Commission recommendations about 1990. While Narasimha Rao actually implemented the Mandal recommendations after the fall of V.P. Singh’s Government, the BJP came out in favour of the upper castes and merit. Thus, there was a mass exodus of Brahmins, Rajputs and Banias from the Congress in North and Central India. They suddenly turned to the RSS-backed BJP.Now their material interests lay with the BJP, and the Gandhian symbolism of religious universalism was overthrown by RSS’ religious particularism (Hindutva). The RSS’ Brahminical ways – their functions resemble temple gatherings – made this shift very easy. Had it not been for globalisation coming in, the Congress could have turned left after losing its right wing. Savarkar’s Hindutva is a potent tool for a hierarchised Hindu unity and Sanskritisation of lower castes and tribals. Its Brahminical symbolism, however, makes the educated among these groups ambivalent, if not hostile.
The future?
These backward peasant castes (many of whom are classified as Other Backward Classes) hold the key to the direction India will take. The problem with the Congress is that it has no cultural discourse to attract social groups. Its secularism may attract only the religious minorities. It has lost the Gandhian legacy that constructed an inclusivist Hinduism. And it does not hold the promise of Sanskritisation to ritually low but otherwise dominant peasant caste groups. Upwardly mobile groups are particularly vulnerable to grand cultural discourses.
Mandal II
Perhaps this consciousness is what has made the Congress introduce Mandal II to woo the OBCs through secular state intervention. It perhaps fears that any cultural discourse – even if more inclusive than that of the RSS -- would make the religious minorities wary of it. The future political battles of the Congress and BJP will be fought around the OBCs. The BJP had almost captured the North Indian OBCs some years back, but the upper castes inside the party ousted them – like Kalyan Singh, who is now back, and Uma Bharti – for fear of losing their own position. So the upper castes in the BJP are vacillating between reaching out to the OBCs and being wary of their future power.The backward castes are the only ones that can contain the BJP-RSS in future. If the Congress attempt to reach out to them can wean them away from the Sanskritising RSS influence, the Congress will gain in the long run. If not, it will be the BJP’s gain, and a loss for Muslims and Christians. The only other way is the rise of a pan-Indian OBC platform, which is very difficult to imagine because of regionalism and the sons-of-the-soil doctrine that inspires many a peasant caste, whether included in the OBC list or not. If the peasant castes move towards the BJP in the next 20 years, the Gujarat model – where tribals and dominant peasant caste groups have turned towards the BJP – may be replicated elsewhere.
Situating the Hindutva movement
The Hindutva movement did not become powerful just because of the Ram Mandir issue. Its power is directly related to the evolution of the caste dynamics in India. The Congress, at least in North India, functioned as a party of the upper castes – with the exception of some “co-opted” Dalit leaders like Jagjivan Ram -- post-independence. They materially benefited from the power it gave them. And the Gandhian influence made the upper caste Congressmen more universalistic in religious terms. That is why the influence of the RSS remained limited till Rajiv Gandhi’s time. Their material interests made the upper castes stay with the Congress. And the Gandhian influence around it fostered a broad atmosphere of harmony, some riots notwithstanding.The peasant castes had become powerful in the South and West much before the North. So the Congress Brahmins, belonging to a numerically small caste, had to accommodate them. Christophe Jaffrelot has worked out this point in detail. The Congress, thus, still survives in parts of South India (except Tamil Nadu, with its Dravidian legacy) and Maharashtra. In the North, particularly in U.P. and Bihar, situations were different. The upper castes were more numerous in the Hindi-belt and the backward caste rise, with the exception of Jats in the “Jat belt”, took place only in the 1960s and 1970s due to various reasons like incomplete land reforms (the case of U.P.) that left out Dalit agricultural labourers and promoted backward caste peasant-proprietors. These peasant castes remained anti-Congress in U.P. and Bihar. In Rajasthan, the Congress had accommodated the Jats and remains a force in the State to this day.
Mandal I
V.P. Singh as Prime Minister captured the backward caste assertion when he announced that he would implement the Mandal Commission recommendations about 1990. While Narasimha Rao actually implemented the Mandal recommendations after the fall of V.P. Singh’s Government, the BJP came out in favour of the upper castes and merit. Thus, there was a mass exodus of Brahmins, Rajputs and Banias from the Congress in North and Central India. They suddenly turned to the RSS-backed BJP.Now their material interests lay with the BJP, and the Gandhian symbolism of religious universalism was overthrown by RSS’ religious particularism (Hindutva). The RSS’ Brahminical ways – their functions resemble temple gatherings – made this shift very easy. Had it not been for globalisation coming in, the Congress could have turned left after losing its right wing. Savarkar’s Hindutva is a potent tool for a hierarchised Hindu unity and Sanskritisation of lower castes and tribals. Its Brahminical symbolism, however, makes the educated among these groups ambivalent, if not hostile.
The future?
These backward peasant castes (many of whom are classified as Other Backward Classes) hold the key to the direction India will take. The problem with the Congress is that it has no cultural discourse to attract social groups. Its secularism may attract only the religious minorities. It has lost the Gandhian legacy that constructed an inclusivist Hinduism. And it does not hold the promise of Sanskritisation to ritually low but otherwise dominant peasant caste groups. Upwardly mobile groups are particularly vulnerable to grand cultural discourses.
Mandal II
Perhaps this consciousness is what has made the Congress introduce Mandal II to woo the OBCs through secular state intervention. It perhaps fears that any cultural discourse – even if more inclusive than that of the RSS -- would make the religious minorities wary of it. The future political battles of the Congress and BJP will be fought around the OBCs. The BJP had almost captured the North Indian OBCs some years back, but the upper castes inside the party ousted them – like Kalyan Singh, who is now back, and Uma Bharti – for fear of losing their own position. So the upper castes in the BJP are vacillating between reaching out to the OBCs and being wary of their future power.The backward castes are the only ones that can contain the BJP-RSS in future. If the Congress attempt to reach out to them can wean them away from the Sanskritising RSS influence, the Congress will gain in the long run. If not, it will be the BJP’s gain, and a loss for Muslims and Christians. The only other way is the rise of a pan-Indian OBC platform, which is very difficult to imagine because of regionalism and the sons-of-the-soil doctrine that inspires many a peasant caste, whether included in the OBC list or not. If the peasant castes move towards the BJP in the next 20 years, the Gujarat model – where tribals and dominant peasant caste groups have turned towards the BJP – may be replicated elsewhere.
posted by vikaspathak at 2:07 PM
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