Court orders, Oppn challenge and BJP’s quota dilemma

Having burnt their fingers twice over quota row—during 2015 Bihar assembly and 2018 polls in three Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh – the BJP and the Narendra Modi government were quick to get into damage control mode. They fielded their top brass to underline how the government is “dedicated and committed” to the quota cause after the Supreme Court on Thursday (June 18) observed that reservation is not a fundamental right.

“The BJP and the government under Modi, are committed to reservation. Our commitment to social justice is unbreakable. We stand committed to reservation. PM Modi has repeated it again and again. Our endeavour has always been towards maintaining social harmony and providing equal opportunity to all,” said BJP national president J P Nadda in a video statement.

Union Minister and leader of NDA ally Lok Jan Shakti Party Ram Vilas Paswan, who has been fielded by Modi government many times in the past to counter the Opposition’s quota politics, said reservation may not be a fundamental right but is “very much a constitutional right”.

Voicing anguish over frequent rows on the quota issue, Paswan also appealed to all political parties to come together to bring quota laws in the Constitution’s Ninth Schedule and make it a permanent feature to avoid needless controversy from time to time.

This throws the ball in the court of Parliament represented by all parties and is a guard against any Opposition campaign on the issue.

This is fifth time in the last six years that the government had to rush in to assure Dalits that it is committed to protect reservation. This after at least two times following RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks calling for a review of the quota kicked up a political row, and twice after the Supreme Court’s order and observation. These threw the saffron party’s social engineering into a tailspin.

This time, the quota issue stared the government in its face after the Supreme Court on June 11 refused to entertain pleas of various political parties which had challenged the Centre’s decision not to grant 50% reservation to OBCs.

In an earlier instance, the Opposition parties had found fault with the Modi government for not getting into action mode and approach the Supreme Court on the issue. In March 2018, the apex court had diluted the stringent provisions of SC/ST Act and allowed anticipatory bail to people booked for atrocities against SCs and STs, which the 1989 Act did not allow.

Soon after, protests by Dalit organisations, some backed by political parties, broke out and turned violent at many places leading to several deaths. This forced the Modi government in the last year of its first term to file a review petition in the Supreme Court against the order. Subsequently, it got a bill passed in Parliament to nullify the impact of the SC order and restore the original provisions of the 1989 Act.

However, this antagonised BJP’s traditional voters-the upper castes- who joined ranks with OBCs in some regions before the state elections of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2018-end.

As the BJP lost all the three states, upper-caste anger against it was attributed as one of the reasons. This was particularly so in Madhya Pradesh where BJP faced protests from upper caste groups like Karni Sena, Parshuram Sena and SAPAKS, which was formed with sections of upper castes and OBCs coming together in areas of their influence to defeat the BJP candidates.

The BJP, months before the 2019 Lok Sabha, did a balancing act by passing a bill to provide 10% quota to people of economically weaker sections from the general category. The gamble paid off.

Even in 2015, ahead of the Bihar assembly polls, the comments of Mohan Bhagwat about the need for a “review” of reservation had cost the BJP dearly - it lost the elections after veterans of OBC politics - Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar (then in the Opposition) - managed to paint the BJP anti-reservation. This even as BJP’s face of election campaign Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself from an extremely backward class (EBC) community and who had gone to the extent of saying that as long as he is alive, nobody can touch the reservations.

Counter campaign

Even in August 2019, months before the assembly elections for MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Opposition created a big controversy over Bhagwat’s remarks that there should be a conversation in a harmonious atmosphere between those in favour of reservation and those against it.

The Opposition latched on to it attacking BJP-RSS for its alleged “anti-Dalit, anti-OBC talk.” Soon, the RSS issued a statement explaining the context in which Bhagwat made the remarks and the entire government machinery swung into action to counter the campaign.

Clearly, the saffron party is in no mood to let Opposition to yet again latch on to the issue of quota after the Supreme Court observation last week.

The dilemma of quota politics is such that the BJP, which has with great effort managed to shed its tag of ‘Brahmin-Baniya party’ after sustained efforts to reach out to SC/ST/OBCs in Modi’s tenure, has in the past suffered the double whammy impact of the row—first, the anger of Dalits and then that of the upper castes.

Minister Paswan had in the past conceded that BJP-RSS combination has a perception problem on the quota issue. It has faced bigger backlash from the community even over certain actions from bodies other than the government besides casual remarks by people having no direct role in governance.

That should be even more worrisome for the BJP, which has in the last few years taken many efforts to draft the OBCs and Dalits into its scheme of things.