Caste equations: Reaping dividends through division

While polarisation along caste lines has been most evident in Bihar and UP, the reality elsewhere is not very different

'Rome Pope Ka, Madhepura Gope Ka' (Rome belongs to the Pope and Madhepura to Yadavs), so goes the saying in Bihar, a cradle of caste politics in India. Known as the 'Vatican of Yadavs', Madhepura has elected a Yadav MP for 14 consecutive polls. There are several such parliamentary seats across the country, where deep-rooted caste divisions still play a decisive role in electoral politics.

Caste is key in the five states going to polls in less than a month — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand. Yet, getting the math right is no easy task even for seasoned experts.

A web of sub-castes, each competing against the other for the limited political space that is already dominated by the privileged in the hierarchy, makes the situation more complex.

For instance, the Other Backward Classes (OBC) have now branched into Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) or Most Backward Classes (MBC). A section of Dalits identify themselves as Mahadalits in UP and Bihar.

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Decentralisation of political power has also meant that there are multiple claimants for the same community space after the fall of pan-state leaders.

"Sub-castes provide more potent leadership of smaller groups and bargaining power. Helping in the evolution of chhuthbhaiya netas (small-time leaders) capable of providing 500 to 5,000 votes, which is crucial. These leaders switch sides every five years or so. The outcome of the Uttar Pradesh polls, particularly in eastern UP, may be a result of a political group that is able to win over or retain sub-caste support," says Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst.

While the Congress experimented with Charanjit Singh Channi, the first Dalit Chief Minister of Punjab — a state with 31.9% of Dalit votes, the Samajwadi Party in UP saw a number of backward class leaders from the BJP joining the party, particularly those belonging to the politically ambitious Kushwaha community.

This chain reaction ensured that 44 seats went to the OBCs in the BJP's first list of candidates, a trend that continued in later lists as well.

“Cast your vote or vote for your caste? In the uncertain world of politics in Uttar Pradesh, caste provides a comfort zone for an electorate that is tired of experimenting or looking for elusive ‘vikas’. When ideological lines are blurred, caste acts as a catalyst,” Kidwai argues.

If Bihar and UP have made the maximum headlines for the inseparable concoction of caste and politics, the reality elsewhere in the country is not different, though the scale of the dominance of caste may differ.

Identity politics surrounding caste loyalties in Vokkaligas and Lingayats has remained an integral part of Karnataka while the Maratha quota has kept the political cauldron boiling in Maharashtra.

In Andhra Pradesh, the previous TDP administration headed by Chandrababu Naidu was more often referred to as the ‘Kamma government’ while the present regime is known as the ‘Reddy rule’. These two forward caste communities have been wielding power in the state for years and most CMs belong to these castes.

The slogans of 90s

Polarisation on caste lines was perhaps most evident in Bihar in the 1990s — the most controversial slogan being ‘Bhura baal saaf karo’ (wipe out Bhumihars, Rajputs, Brahmins). It was attributed to and denied repeatedly by Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. Even Muslim politics in the state saw division along the lines of Ashraf and Pasmanda castes. In the end, JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar walked away with a chunk of the latter’s votes.

In the adjoining state of Uttar Pradesh, a laboratory of Mandal politics (reservation for OBCs) and Kamandal politics (the Ram Mandir campaign by the BJP which also managed to woo a number of backward classes into the Hindutva fold) was brewing.

Eventually, what socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia predicted in his book Wheel of History’ came true in both UP and Bihar. Lohia predicted that power would shift from the privileged castes to the OBCs, but if the dominant among the OBCs behave in the same manner with the deprived communities, the suppressed would ally with the privileged castes again.

In UP, Dalits and privileged castes joined hands with Jatavs under Mayawati against Mulayam Singh Yadav’s SP. It saw further changes with a number of EBCs and non-Jatav Dalits breaking away from both SP and BSP and powering the BJP, which was earlier called a Brahmin-Baniya party.

Karnataka’s caste calculus

Caste has remained an integral part of Karnataka politics from the early 19th century due to the impact of Leslie Miller report — which ensured representation for non-Brahmins in the government — and census reports till 1931 that listed populations along caste lines, says political analyst Muzaffar Assadi.

Post-Independence, Lingayats and Vokkaligas controlled power. The hegemony ended in the 1970s after former CM Devaraj Urs came with an ‘Ahinda’ prototype involving Muslims, OBCs and Dalits (MOD), Assadi says.

Congress leader Siddaramaiah later perfected the Ahinda politics to keep the party in power while the Lingayats’ near-final shift to the BJP saw the first saffron party government in the state in 2008.

Further down in Kerala, the Congress is not alien to divisions along the lines of faith. Caste factors have played a prominent role in candidate selection and policymaking, with Hindu-Nair, Hindu-Ezhava, Christian and Muslim communities being wooed by parties.

In Maharashtra, caste politics matters in issues like reservation for the politically-strong Maratha community, the change in quota category for the Dhangar community and the restoration of OBC reservation in local bodies. With the creation of a special category through the Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018, the government breached the Supreme Court cap of 50%, which was later struck down.

In Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK-BJP coalition in the 2021 Assembly polls tried to combine half a dozen SC sub-castes into one group and divide the MBC quota into sub-quotas. It is because of the Vellalar Gounders that J Jayalalithaa retained power in 2016. The DMK could not counter her in the western region, where the community stood like a rock behind Jaya, political analyst Raveenthran Duraisamy says.

DMK leader M Karunanidhi hailed from the Isai Vellalar community while Jayalalithaa was a Brahmin — both numerically not very prominent. The two leaders factored in caste equations while handing out poll tickets.

Caste bonds are, of course, hard to break. “Ye Jaati hai jo Jaati Nahin (It is this caste which does not go away),” says socialist Sharad Yadav after a 50-year political career.

(With inputs from Akram Mohammed, E T B Sivapriyan, Prasad Nichenametla, Mrityunjay Bose and Arjun Raghunath)

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