Introduction
Election result of the 18th Lok Sabha is out. RSS-BJP’s dream of above 400 is decimated. RSS-BJP did not spare caste and religion for their political gains, like all other elections. BJP was in the forefront but it was not alone in using caste and religion for political gains. These two identities, particularly caste as a peculiar character of Indian society have always been part and parcel of the electoral autocracy of the country. The 18th Lok Sabha hold a special place not because for the fascist party was aiming for third term. The intensification of the use of caste and religion by the political parties, especially by the Brahmanical Hindutva BJP makes this election unique from all earlier elections. Rise of fascism is not the strength but the weakness of the capitalist-imperialist system. Fascism always employs the means to divert the masses from the burgeoning economic and social crisis. In India, caste and religion are two weapons to divide and rule over the masses.
Caste and Indian Election
Caste is not only a matter of mundane life experience of every Indian. It is the very base of Indian society. It has fostered in the construction of immoral and oppressive power structure, which has only little transformed with the passage of time. This apart, caste has always been a powerful political mobilization agent for social polarization. India’s history, right from Charvakas to present time, illustrates this fact. After the transfer of power, the Indian ruling classes and its rotten Parliamentary democracy, have used caste as an ideological consensus for maintaining its oppressive power structure over the society.
Much before Mandal commission came to fore in the Indian political arena that changed the orientation of caste politics, various commissions, starting with the first backward classes commission in 1953 under the chairmanship of Kaka Kalekar were appointed for devising measures in support of the backward castes. But none of them saw the light of the day. The ruling classes felt the needs of those Commissions, as non-imminent in nature. Ruling classes in order to benefit from the fragmentary nature of Indian society, have always played the politics of reservations. In 1970s, Devraj Urs had effectively used the caste social engineering method “by wooing certain subcastes of Lingayats into a political alliance with vokkaligas”. To break the dominance of Congress in Tamil Nadu, the Dravidan movement forged a new alliance of emerging elite castes of the Vellalas, Chettiars, Naidus and Mudaliars. In Uttar Pradesh, similar strategy was applied by the Samajwadi Party during the leadership of Mulayam Singh that brought together the new landowning castes like Yadavs, Tyagis and to some extent the Gujjars. The rise of BJP to political power is largely linked to the assimilation of oppressed castes into its main Brahman-Baniya fold. From late 90s, one can see paradigm shift in the leadership of BJP from the upper castes to subaltern castes. This reached its zenith in 2014 election.
The background of 2024 election was laid in the framework of reservation policies and caste census beside other prominent issues. In order to appease the voters from the oppressed castes, BJP adopted several tricks. One of them was to give Bharat Ratna to late Karpuri Thakur, the former chief minister of Bihar, who belonged to Economic Backward Classes (EBC), the Nai (barber caste). Through these appeasement tactics, it wanted to make the demand for caste census obscure. RSS-BJP anathema to caste based census lies in its Brahmanic Hindutva ideology.
Modi in all his election rallies blamed the opposition parties of being casteist and an alliance that wants to divide the country. Contrary to RSS-BJP claim, caste census is all about stating the socio-economic conditions of the people. It is not a hairsplitting question that caste system itself creates “graded inequality” society.
The opposition parties, sensed and adopted the demand for caste census, emerging from various oppressed castes and their organizations in their manifesto. They utilised the anger of the oppressed castes against the RSS-BJP and its pro-corporate policies, to form a broad alliance. This anger favoured the opposition parties to win large number of seats in several constituencies.
Reservation was another factor that mobilized the oppressed castes against the RSS-BJP. Due to pro-imperialist policies of the ruling classes, the conditions of the oppressed castes have further deteriorated. In such extreme situation, political parties from right to left have missed not a single opportunity to show their adherence to reservation policy. But it is a harsh truth that reservation policy has never been applied in its true spirit and always been viewed as a tool for vote bank. The opposition parties screaming that BJP will remove reservation policy if it gets 400 seats, brought together the oppressed castes in one camp that favoured the opposition parties a lot. But in essence it was the Brahmanic Hindutva policies and imperialist programs of BJP, which was started in a high-pitch manner with LPG policies in 90s under the congress led coalition government that brought the oppressed castes to stand against RSS-BJP.
There are 131 reserved seats in Lok Sabha, 84 seats for the dalits and 47 seats for the tribal people. In 2019 general election, BJP was able to capture 77 reserved seats through its divisive and communal politics. But people can be diverted one time, not all the times. In 2024 Lok Sabha election, it was able to win only 55 reserved seats, not even half of it. There was lot of fanfare created by the opposition parties regarding its demand for proportional representation, while demanding for caste-based census. But in this election, like all the earlier elections, the dominance of ‘upper’ castes was written on the wall. Right from the 1931 caste census to present, the ‘upper’ caste landlords have continued to dominate the political sphere of the society, along with their dominance over the socio-economic realm. This states that those who has the economic power with ‘upper’ caste tag also carry the political power. Those who control land within the “dominant caste” strata in a semi-feudal country like India also control the politics. In Bihar, the state which has conducted caste census in 2023, out of 40 seats, 12 ‘upper’ castes candidates were elected. Similar picture is visible in other states of India. The government inof India is never of the majority but is always constituted from the minority ‘upper’ castes, landlords and CBB.
Coming under criticism from the oppressed castes regarding its antagonistic stand on reservation, the RSS-BJP’s leadership came out in a damage control mode. RSS was forced to say from its own mouth that it is never against the reservation policy. BJP on the other hand was busy propagating that it is the Congress party that is against the principle of social justice. The BJP went a step further in its fear-mongering mood, when Modi declared in a rally that if Congress party comes to power then it will snatch reservations from the Hindu Dalits and OBCs and hand it over to Muslims. It is worth noting that non of the opposition parties came out openly to condemn such hate speeches by Modi. The reason was obvious, none of them wanted to be perceived as a pro-Muslim Party. The tactics was clear, it was explicitly designed to break the unity between the oppressed castes and religious minorities.
In Bengal where the corporate media was predicting landslide victory for the BJP, it was trounced in the state. BJP left no stone unturned to communalize the politics in Bengal. It was pinning its hopes in the state on CAA and NRC, which has sizeable section of Maatua and Namsudra castes.
The internal contradictions in the BJP’s house, especially in Uttar Pradesh waswere due to its cross-caste approach. The Rajputs were displeased with the poor representation given to them by the BJP. This played a crucial role in the defeat of BJP in Kausambhi, Pratapgarh, Jaunpur and Machhli Sahar. Unemployment, exams’ paper leak privatization, agricultural crisis and divisive politics of RSS-BJP were the areas on which the people of Uttar Pradesh kept their focus.
Conclusion
The emancipation and empowerment of the oppressed castes is not possible within the political structure of semi-feudal and semi-colonial system. The caste oppression is reproduced by the Indian state and its apparatus. During the time of elections, the ruling classes utilize the backward conditions of the oppressed castes for their own political power. The present Indian so called democracy where the rule of law runs parallel to the rule of many, has emasculated the oppressed castes politically and has created a section from the oppressed castes as a part of the ruling class politics. They have co-opted in the larger family of the ruling classes and performed the role of foot soldiers for them. With the economic crisis gripping the Indian society, there is a mammoth social crisis persisting in the country. The oppressed castes are being crushed from these two burdens. With the Modi’s third term in power, these crises are going to heighten. Revolutionary forces must unite the oppressed castes for anti-caste struggles, which is anti-feudal and in the era of imperialism, anti-Imperialist. The people from the oppressed castes must be mobilised for the advancement and success of New Democratic Revolution. They must be united with the revolutionary movement in order to smash the old rotten Indian state that subjugates the oppressed castes. Without building new democratic state, the liberation of the oppressed castes and the emancipation from the caste remains out of question. The class that plays a formidable role in the social production establishes control over the production system. Oppressed castes in India are the producing classes. To gain control over the production system is to gain political power through armed revolution.