A secular idea that promises social justice

It’s quite clear that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and his allies in the I.N.D.I.A. bloc have finally found that ‘One Big Idea’: Caste Census — that could well counter and, eventually, defeat the ‘politics of Hindutva’.

One must credit Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for not only conducting the caste census but also releasing the report on October 2, which the Congress government in Karnataka has not yet done. It’s one of the epic ironies of our times that Kumar is now an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that’s firmly opposed to the caste census. The question as to why the BJP is afraid of a caste census goes to the root of the party’s ideology, its notion of majoritarianism, and the weaponising of Hindutva politics.

In the last 50 years, political parties have regularly mobilised their vote banks by offering or promising a list of goods and services that were considered welfare measures; be it free rations, unemployment subsidies to graduates, a fixed income for the women in every household, or even free bus ride within the state for women as was done by the Congress party in Karnataka. This is very different from the BJP’s methods of consolidating its vote bank.

Here we must make a distinction between L K Advani’s style of consolidation of the vote bank in response to the post-Mandal fragmentation of Hindu society and Narendra Modi’s strategy for Hindu consolidation, after the 2002 Gujarat riots in response to the Godhra incident of burning a coach full of Hindu ‘Karsevaks’. Without doubt, the vigilante forces of the Sangh parivar, the Bajrang Dal, and the VHP, are the necessary foot soldiers for both.

Both styles have disrupted the societal harmony and political consensus upon which ‘the Idea of India, that is Bharat’ was built in our vision document, the Constitution. Both believed in violence: Advani was confined to attacking the Muslim monuments that ‘hurt the Hindu pride’ though his rath yatra and events that followed left 2,000 people dead, mostly Muslims. Modi as Gujarat chief minister emerged as the ‘Hindu Hridhay Samrat’ firstly for ‘teaching a lesson’ to the Muslims, and secondly for developing the state as an investment hub and a dream destination for the rich corporates, both national and international. The fact that Gujarat stood low in the Human Development Indices was of little concern to the chief minister. This was the politics of Hindutva, in practice, in the early part of this century.

However, when Modi came to power at the Centre in 2014, he refused to foreground religion and Hindutva, but projected a developmental agenda as his main plank under the all-pervasive slogan ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. It soon became clear that about 200 million citizens were to be excluded from this Saath and Vikas. Hindutva politics was the underlying and unstated project, but neither the Sangh parivar nor the BJP knew how to implement it as a bunch of policies.

Let us look at the policies guided by the Hindutva project. The Citizenship Amendment Act, combined with a devious National Register of Citizens, which was subsequently given up. Then came the revocation of Article 370, bifurcation of J&K state, and removal of Article 35A from the Constitution. Then the ‘Love Jihad Act’ and the ‘Anti-conversion Acts’ in various BJP-ruled states. Have all these policies built-up a Hindu vote-bank? Yes, and no. The popular vote for Modi remains a steady 37-38% in the last three elections.

But who are these Hindus? Hindu majoritarianism has become a cover for the upper-castes — the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas (the three Savarnas) to re-assert their age-old hegemony over the Shudras and Ati-shudras. This consolidation was seen in the voting trend in the elections of 2024 as revealed by the CSDS-Lokniti survey.

The ideology of Hindutva not only ignored and hid the caste divisions of ‘graded inequality’ but also gave a false sense of homogeneity to the Hindu community which was the hegemony of the ‘Savarna’ castes. Further, it created a militant group of Hindus to attack the common enemy, the Muslims, and legitimised their violence. The success of the Hindutva project depends upon two factors — a common enemy, and ‘fear’ of the enemy.

Today, when Rahul Gandhi says daro mat (fear not), he is trying to vanquish that very fear that has been orchestrated to scare the Hindus — that ‘the Other’ will kidnap your daughters, marry them, and convert their religion, or that he will have four wives and produce a dozen children, and reduce the Hindus to a minority in their homeland, or snatch your mangalsutra or your buffalo, and so on. This narrative failed to win votes for the BJP this time.

One reason for the BJP’s dismal performance in this election was that the Hindutva project had run out of steam in the face of dire poverty, unemployment, and high inflation. The second reason was that the Opposition’s campaign that the BJP would change the Constitution and put an end to the reservations for the SCs, STs and the OBCs. Whether this intent was true or not, it fitted-in with the ideology of Hindutva that wished to ‘teach a lesson’ to the minorities and the lower castes.

Modi failed to note that in Indian politics, caste demands and reservations have always remained the ‘terra firma’ upon which the contestations for power take place. No emotive bogeys nor fears of ‘the Other’ can replace that for long.

On the other hand, ‘Jitni Abãdi, Utna Haq’, however impossible to implement, is a powerful slogan, and for its fulfilment, a caste census needs to be conducted. This census, a project of nebulous and of unpredictable complexities and consequences, will now become the weapon of the progenies of ‘Abhimanyu to break the Chakrayuha of Hindutva’.

This will be the next Big Idea after the Mandal Commission of our political discourse. One good thing is that it is a secular idea with the promise of social justice and empowerment, without hatred. Certainly, it deserves two cheers.

(The writer is a former Cabinet Secretariat official)