Can Mandal 2.0 effectively counter personalised Welfarism?

Gov-Shastra

In February 2022, as Uttar Pradesh was preparing to go to the polls, I made my way to rural parts of eastern UP with colleagues who study elections, to get a first-hand account of what was on voters’ minds. We spent some time talking with women voters. Many expressed a clear preference for the BJP and, in particular, the Prime Minister, whilst listing several benefits (both received and promised) – ration, gas (even as they pointed to empty cylinders), a promise of Rs 1,000 linked to an ‘e-shram card’.

But it wasn’t just about the benefits. It was about the personal, emotive connect being forged. This was best captured in the words of a young housewife in Mohanlalganj village, who had switched from the BSP to BJP. She said, “Unka photo har jageh dikhta hai” (we see his – Modi’s -- photo everywhere). A reminder that the scheme and the leader are intertwined. No one else was mentioned – not the MLA, not the Panchayat and, mostly significantly, not the local political fixer or intermediary, an old-time permanent fixture in grassroots welfare politics.

This form of welfare politics, crafted to perfection by the BJP, has many new friends. Across political parties, welfare politics today is about establishing a direct, emotive connect between leader and voter. This is the new arc of voter mobilisation, with women as the primary “beneficiary” category.

I have written about this new welfare politics on several occasions. But in the aftermath of the flood of commentary unleashed after the release of the first round of caste survey data by the Bihar government earlier this month, I’ve been tempted to revisit these arguments. The Bihar survey results, combined with the vocal demand by several political parties, most notably the Congress, for a nation-wide caste census, has led to a widespread consensus that we are entering a new era of caste politics – a Mandal 2.0. This, it is being ambitiously suggested, can offer the political counterpoint to the BJP’s Kamandal politics.

I would argue for a more cautious interpretation. A look at the electoral strategies for the upcoming Assembly elections suggests that Mandal 2.0 is jostling for space with this new personalised welfare politics. Election advertisements dominating the newspapers these days are filled with achievements and promises, appealing to largely caste-neutral (at least in presentation) categories of “beneficiaries” -- women primarily (the Rajasthan CM has a pink background to all the advertisements) but also farmers, school and college students, unemployed youth. Most of what is being advertised is in the mould of cash subsidies aimed to appeal to these new beneficiaries. At play are a careful repertoire of strategies positioning caste-identity based voter mobilisation alongside a new caste-neutral beneficiary mobilisation.

While this may well be a sensible election strategy, on careful interrogation, this new welfare politics actually sets limits on the effectiveness of a Mandal 2.0 electoral consolidation. At the national level, add the ugly spectre of majoritarianism, and it is unclear if Mandal 2.0 can emerge the winner.

Let me explain, by taking you back to the women voters I began this column with. The fundamental difference between Mandal 1.0 and the present moment is the shift in the delivery architecture of the Indian State. The adoption of technology has facilitated the extensive use of direct benefit transfers. Politicians have adapted to this with gusto because it enables the direct emotive connect that the women in UP so effectively demonstrated. But in doing so, it has effectively changed electoral behaviour.

Drawing on their observations of multiple electoral cycles in the last decade, including the recent UP election, my colleague Neelanjan Sircar and his co-authors have argued, this new welfare has removed the role of intermediaries, who in the politics of yore were the gatekeepers to public goods. These intermediaries -- through access to MLAs, bureaucrats, panchayat leaders -- shaped the relationship between poor, marginalised groups and the State. Having your own caste group represented changed the ability to access public goods. There is rigorous empirical work to suggest that the presence of marginalised caste groups in the local state (politicians and bureaucrats), enabled by Mandal 1.0, improved welfare access. These distributional gains were at the heart of the politics of dignity that marked Mandal 1.0, thus creating an internal logic for caste-based electoral consolidation

This, as Sircar et al argue, has changed. With the local state no longer the gateway to public goods, in the era of personalised welfare it is the beneficiary who is mobilised. Freed of the local intermediary, the beneficiary appears comfortable voting for the party leader rather than a representative of her own caste. The fact that the BJP was able to implement upper caste quotas (10% EWS reservation) and still hold on to the Dalit vote in 2019 is an example of this. Arguably, this takes the edge off the possible structural change that can be achieved through breaching quota limits and expanding the reservation pie, which is all that Mandal 2.0 has to offer, for the moment, at least. Can Mandal 2.0 neutralise this new form of electoral mobilisation? The jury is out.

None of this is to suggest that the demand for caste census is misplaced. Indeed caste is a social reality and we must confront it with data. In a mature polity, this would help nuance policy and shape a genuine politics of redistribution and welfare. But there is little in the present moment that suggests a transformative vision. Beyond jostling for quotas, the political, redistributive imagination offered is limited to personalised welfare schemes. We are a long way away from a genuine politics of equal participation and redistribution of power and resources. In the interim, Mandal 2.0 will have to compete with personalised welfarism. And the voter will choose within these limited offerings.