JOIN USEWS quota: A new politics of Leader’s patronage, Voter’s loyalty
Last week’s Supreme Court verdict upholding the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, which introduced a 10 per cent reservation in jobs and seats in educational institutions for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) among unreserved categories marks an important moment in India’s democratic trajectory.
In the days that followed the legal, social and institutional ramifications of this foundational shift in India’s reservation policy -- which in essence created an upper caste quota -- have been the subject of debate amongst the commentariat. But in the party-political arena, there is a near-consensus (with the exception of DMK) in favour of the EWS quota. The near-absence of political contestation over upper caste claims to quotas is a political puzzle. Part of the explanation lies, in my view, in caste as the primary arc of political mobilisation being complimented by an emergent model of voter mobilisation that focuses on crafting a direct connection between centralised party leadership and the voter through new forms political branding and reshaping of welfare provisioning. Unpacking this is important to understanding the dynamics of today’s politics and its long-term consequences on democracy.
The interplay between reservation policy and political mobilisation has fundamentally shaped the trajectory of democratic politics in India. Reservations found place in our Constitution primarily as compensatory provisions to redress historical disadvantage. As democracy took root and successfully created space for new representational claims, especially amongst hitherto disadvantaged caste groups, reservation quotas emerged (and remain significant till today) as the tools through which different caste groups could be mobilised to lay claims on state power and resources. Over decades, party competition intensified and with it, demands for reservation acquired their own political logic and expanded, even as political mobilisation around caste was increasingly cast in the language of social justice, group rights and dignity.
Arguably, the salience of reservations as a tool for political mobilisation set limits on the promise of a genuine politics of social justice and rights, especially in North India, by creating a political context in which reservations become the end rather than the means, leading us to the present moment where we now have a quota for everyone! It is worth pointing out that the real travesty in the introduction of EWS quotas is the attempt to rationalise it as necessary to address injustices of economic inequality and poverty. It is absurd to argue that the 10 per cent quota is a way to address deep-seated policy failures to invest in health, education and create quality jobs.
But I digress. The trajectory of caste-based political mobilisation created a dynamic in which the relationship between the individual voter and the political party (including its leadership) was mediated primarily through group-based identification and collective, interest-based claim-making on State resources. In recent years, and especially with the dominance of the BJP, the dynamics of voter mobilisation is undergoing a profound shift. Increasingly, voters are being mobilised through a strategy of establishing a direct connection with the party leadership. The leadership is deified and a combination of tools from technology and modern communication to direct welfare benefits are deployed to establish this connect and build moral legitimacy of the leader as the sole patron and provider, in return for voter loyalty and abject trust. This is what Political Scientist Neelanjan Sircar calls the “politics of vishwas” -- a politics built around the charisma of the leader. Group identity is being carefully relegated to the background and the direct relationship is forging voter mobilisation.
This is not a new phenomenon in Indian politics. Jayalalitha, and Indira Gandhi before her, successfully created these forms of personalised, leadership-driven voter mobilisation. But what distinguishes this moment is the careful nurturing of a new category of citizen – the welfare beneficiary (or labharthi varg in the BJP lexicon) whose identity is shaped by “economic need” and eligibility to access welfare schemes. The labharthi transcends the traditional logic of group-based mobilisation. She is mobilised through appeals for loyalty to the welfare patronage of the party leader. The BJP has perfected this to an art form, but all political parties are experimenting with versions of this kind of political mobilisation. In state after state, you will find that almost every caste “category” of citizen receives welfare benefits in some form, with the party leader positioned as the primary provider of these benefits. In Bengal, for instance, Mamata Banerjee used a combination of personalised, gender-based appeals and welfare delivery to prevent Hindu-Muslim consolidation from becoming a deciding factor in the election.
The power of the labharthi framing lies in its ability to reach voters outside of their group identities and blunt the mobilising edge of interest-group mobilisation. If you need proof, consider the fact that EWS quotas were implemented by the BJP in the run-up to the 2019 elections but never made their way into the electoral rhetoric. You can, in the present moment, implement upper caste quotas and hold on to the Dalit vote!
So, does this mean that the days of reservation politics and caste-based identity-claiming are over? Quite the contrary. We are now in a political arena of intense quota-based competitive political power play amongst all castes. As is evident from the fact that it is the BJP that brought in the 103rd Constitutional Amendment and facilitated the creation of a new category of upper castes as EWS. So, caste still matters for access to State resources. But the democratic promise of a genuine politics of social justice has now given way to an expedient, personalised politics of welfare premised on the deification of the leader and the loyalty of the voter. This is the real challenge that democracy in India confronts today.
(The writer is a think tank head who indulges in wonkery, but is really just intrigued by the everyday life of the Sarkar @AiyarYamini)