Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

For the first time in Indian electoral history the OBC question and the protection of the Constitution played an important role in changing the RSS/BJP’s dictatorial direction in India.

As an OBC PM, Modi lost his party’s majority mainly because he failed the OBCs during his regime. The Shudra/OBC

masses did not benefit and they retaliated by changing the course of this election

The 2024 election results are out.

The radical manifesto of the Congress party that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin had described as the ‘hero’ of the election played a crucial role in stopping the Narendra Modi-led BJP at 240 seats.

In these elections, the Congress made Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservations and protection of the Constitution the main campaign issues. The BJP had no way but to respond to it quite desperately.

However, the Congress and its allies (INDIA alliance) pushed the BJP down below the 272 mark in the election. For the first time in Indian electoral history, the OBC question

and the protection of the Constitution played an important role in changing the RSS/BJP’s dictatorial direction in India.

Shudra OBCs

When I say ‘OBC’ it mainly concerns the Shudra OBCs, not the Dwija OBCs like the Baniyas of northern and western India.

Not many know that in North India, Baniyas also took the OBC certificates and got into the reservation category. However, they never were supporters of the movement for reservation since the 1990. They only used it to their advantage as another avenue for better life.

I focus on Shudra OBCs quite consciously because since the OBC category is constitutionally constructed, it does not have a sociological binding that the OBC reservation should be given to only people belonging to the fourth varna – shudra – who were denied the right to education by the other three varnas (Brahmin, Kshatriyas, Vaisya) ever since the Rigveda was written.

Denied education

Only during British rule did the Shudras get the right to go to properly established schools.

From ancient to post-Independence times, the Shudras were the food producers, tilling the land, advancing the cattle economy and artisanal technology. They were the

developers of entire agrarian technology and methods of production all through Indian history.

But the ancient Sanskrit books never recorded that agrarian production knowledge. In fact, Shudra labour does not exist in the Sanskrit books. Yet, they are shown as the mirrors of Indian civilization.

The Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas kept themselves out of labour and production activity.

In the post-Independence period, the need for looking at the status of all Shudras has become very critical because they are the backbone of the nation.

In many parts of India, they were forced to be educationally backward because of their enslaved history. They were out of Sanskrit, Persian and now English language education, though some castes had landed property and regional language education.

Mandal Commission and Shudras

The Mandal Commission was mainly concerned about the historical Shudras.

During the Janata regime, BP Mandal was mandated to prepare a report and grant reservations to the historical Shudras.

The Commission report quotes the Mahabharata, in which the status of the Shudra was nothing but that of a slave. It says, “.

…The Shudra can have no absolute property, because his wealth can be

appropriated by his master”. Who was this master? The Mandal Commission report gave an indication that the ultimate master was the Brahmin.

The modern Shudra’s new status should take the society towards equality.

This is possible only when the Shudra agrarian civilisation gets respectable status in the spiritual system. Brahminism negated that status to agriculture. The Mandal movement was basically meant to take society towards that goal.

Transitional category

The OBC category was only a transitional one, the base identity of all agrarian masses of India is Shudra.

When the Mandal Commission was constituted by the Morarji Desai government there was a vague category called BC

(Backward Class) in some states and some kind of state-level reservation was also in existence.

By the 93rd amendment, two new clauses under Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution enabled reservation for Shudras with new clauses 15(4) and 16(4) by empowering the state to make special provisions for any

‘socially and educationally backward class of citizens’.

Non-Shudra castes

Since the word class was used in the Constitution it was presumed that any other castes with economic backwardness could be brought into this category.

Also Read – Why Modi failed to sell his ‘panacea for every ill’ narrative in West Bengal

Using this definition of the Constitution several non-Shudra castes like historical

Vaisyas and also others managed the OBC certificates in north India from within Hindu religion. Since the four-fold varna or caste system later defined as part of Hindu Religious Social Order several arguments cropped up. Should non-Hindus like Muslims and Christians if they manage caste and economic backward certificate should get reservation in educational institutions and employment?

With a parallel definition to Hindu caste order, Shudra and Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam were also added in the OBC reservation category.

In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh those Shudras and Dalits who got converted to Christianity and Islam are also given a small percentage of reservation. For example, in

these states converted Christians would get 1 per cent reservation and Muslims 4 per cent reservation. But Brahmin or Vaisyas who convert to Christianity do not get this reservation.

BJP’s attack on Muslim-based reservation

The BJP attacked this caste, religion and economic backwardness leverage, given to Muslims as religion based reservation and accused the Congress as anti-OBC. During the election campaign, Modi promised the Hindu OBCs that the Muslim reservation will be cancelled once the BJP comes to power for a third term.

In certain media circles using the historical category ‘Shudra’ to refer to all those

agrarian artisanal communities, which are outside the frame of Dalit/Adivasis on the one hand, and Dwijas, on the other, is being negated.

There is a view that it is a derogatory category hence certain castes like Nairs in Kerala are against including them in that category. They have to define themselves where they would be historically. Are they part of Kerala Brahmins? Were they not agrarian food producers historically?

No doubt they are better educated than other Shudra upper communities in the country.

The OBCs of Kerala like Ezawas were arguing that they should not clubbed in the historical fourth Varana, Shudra. They are Avarnas. But the Avarna and Savarna categories do not make any sense. Avarna and Savarna concepts do not deal with labour and production issues.

Political compulsions Shudra is a labour related concept.

Historically, the Shudras were forced to do agrarian labour without any rights. But the labour itself is neither indignified nor unholy.

In any given society labour should be more respected than pooja. Without doing pooja, societies can survive but without labour societies cannot survive.

The Shudra/OBC castes are huge in number.

They constitute roughly about 52 per cent of the population of India. The Congress lost the ability to win the election on its own after

the 1990 Mandal movement because it was seen as anti-OBC. Nehru’s opposition to Kakakalelkar report, Indira Gandhi’s opposition to Mandal report and Rajiv Gandhi’s opposition to implementation of Mandal report by the VP Singh government made the Shudra/OBCs think that the Congress would not support their education and employment causes.

Though in 2006 it implemented the Mandal 27 reservation in the central universities and institutes, it bent to the Dwija pressures to add 27 per cent seats by taking the admissions to 127 per cent.

The RSS/BJP remained silent about such pro-Dwija adjustment of reservations then.

However, it realised that the only way to come to power in 2014 was to bring Modi, whose caste was included in the central

OBC list, as Prime Minister. They know that Modi was trained in Sanatana Dharma ideology, who would not own up the Shudra heritage. Anyone who accepts Sanatana Dharma would not like to de-castise the society, as the core structure of Sanatana Dharma is caste system.

In this election, the BJP lost the mandate and Modi should have resigned on moral grounds. As OBC Prime Minister he lost his party’s majority mainly because he failed the OBCs during the last ten years. During his regime the monopoly houses, where there is no single OBC, benefited but not the Shudra/OBC masses.

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The

information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not reflect the views of The Federal.)

About the Author

Kancha llaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book is The Clash of Cultures – Hindutva – Mullah Conflicting Ethics.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 

Whatever could be the results of the election, Rahul Gandhi must pursue the socio-political reform standing by particularly SC/ST/OBCs. He has driven his reluctant party towards understanding the caste question. 

Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Bengal’s Birbhum. Photo: By arrangement.

Rahul Gandhi, while speaking at the Panchkula conclave on Samvidhan Samman Sammelan  (Conference in Honour of the Constitution) on May 22, made an unusually bold statement about the Indian political system being aligned against the lower castes.

He gave a call to change that situation through systemic reform. He also promised the nation that the Congress party would work for that systemic reform hereafter.

He said, “Ninety per cent of the population representing Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs and minorities are unrepresented across different fields and there are two different sets of rules although the constitution is a document of equality.” The Congress leader said that the “system is aligned against lower castes”. Mentioning former Congress prime ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, he said he “understands the system from inside” as he’s been “sitting inside the system since birth”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked this statement saying that Rahul accepted that his own governments were aligned against the SC/ST/OBCs, and not the BJP government.

Later on, the pro-BJP media went after Rahul Gandhi pointing out how can he now support the SC/ST/OBCs when his own party during his father and grandmother’s time was against the OBCs.

A political leader who changes his opinions and sees the shortcomings of the socio-political system intending to reform it from within is a progressive leader. That is how democracy as a system keeps moving closer to the exploited and oppressed masses. Even if Rahul Gandhi himself had been the prime minister but at some stage realised that the system was aligned against the poor and the exploited and then initiated a new policy framework for changing the system such a realisation must be welcomed.

Look at Rahul’s life in the system. When Indira Gandhi was the prime minister Rahul was a small kid. When Rajiv Gandhi was ruling, he was studying in school. When P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were prime ministers, he was abroad, studying in university. He entered public life only in 2004. As a young man, he has seen through the Congress system till 2014 from the inside.

During the 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, he did not take up any ministerial position. In fact, he could have become the prime minister in 2009 if only he wanted to be in power at any cost. He did not do that. During that period, he worked as an opponent of traditional methods of administration. His tearing down of an ordinance at a press conference brought out by the Manmohan Singh government was an example of his unconventional mode of response to public morality and administration. We know that the ordinance that he tore off and got cancelled by the Manmohan Singh government was supposed to become law. If it were to become a law, he himself would have been saved from being disqualified from parliament after the two-year sentence by a court in Gujarat in 2023.

After the BJP formed the government in 2014, Rahul never compromised on the people’s issues. Both in parliament and outside, he fought sitting side by side with the victims of the Modi government. He did not go by the general practice of an opposition leader that he would criticise the government in parliament and rest of the time do normal politics with party meetings and organisational work. He was part of several youth struggles.

Take for example the student struggle of Pune film institute in 2015 against the appointment of an inexperienced director to that institute. The students were on strike for the removal of that unsuitable director. Rahul went to Pune and stood by them. The student leader at that time Payal Kapadia brought laurels to India by winning a Cannes film festival award. Take another example of Rohit Vemula’s systemic murder at Hyderabad University. The students’ struggles at that time shook the entire university campus system of India. Rahul went to Hyderabad and sat on a hunger strike for a day.

Rahul Gandhi did not choose a method of getting political power in the dynastic mode. For the last 10 years, he has been fighting for people’s rights and evolving. This is what the first generation great leaders B.R Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhai Patel did during the freedom struggle. While fighting for people’s rights, they organised the Congress and other political forums by gaining experience and knowledge over a period of time. They did not remain stagnant. They changed their views and methods as they gained new experience in people’s struggles.

Certainly, there is a fundamental difference in Rahul Gandhi’s understanding of the Indian socio-political system before his two yatras in 2023-24. He has a habit of listening to others’ opinions and experiences and changing his own opinions. One of the major changes in him after these two yatras was understanding the role of the caste system in India as of now and tracing its roots backwards.

This is where he seems to have realised his great grandfather perhaps was not right in rejecting Kaka Kalelkar’s report about the Shudra/OBC status in India. Indira Gandhi’s assessment of the Mandal Commission Report and his father Rajiv Gandhi’s opposition to the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report in 1990 were not based on the proper understanding of the caste system in India.

At the end of March 2013, when I met him for the first time in Delhi, the election campaign had already started. Rahul was the main campaigner of the Congress, and Narendra Modi the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP started his campaign. By then the RSS/BJP started campaigning across the country that their PM candidate was an OBC. The OBCs started looking up to Modi in many parts of India, particularly in North India. Rahul was a bit confused about this caste identity campaign by the RSS/BJP combine. The Congress by then was not willing to go to the election by raising OBC questions. Historically, the Congress was seen as an anti-OBC ruling party.

In this situation the Congress did not know how to handle the OBC question by then. Most leaders in his own party were not willing to study the new phase of the OBC question seriously, which was likely to play some role in tilting the OBC vote base to the BJP.

I found in Rahul a young man with a deep desire to learn. He was sure that Congress was losing in that election but willing to work to learn and reform his own party and take reformative steps necessary for the nation. But that task, given the collapsing situation of Congress apparatus was daunting.

The new avatar of RSS/BJP political forces by presenting Modi as an OBC made the system more aligned to a handful of Dwija monopolists in the last ten years. In the last ten years, Modi has destroyed the future of OBC/SC/STs by handing over the whole economy of the nation through a huge privatisation process of most government industrial and infrastructural assets. Gautam Adani’s wealth has grown at the cost of the future of OBC/SC/STs. The alienation of OBCs was more rapid under the OBC PM than under other PMs. But in North India, the OBCs hardly realised the future of their unemployed youth. This is when the Congress brought a path-breaking manifesto with a serious push by Rahul Gandhi in the 2024 election that gave new hope for OBC/SC/STs. Rahul could achieve such a path-breaking democratic manifesto, though there was opposition in his own party from traditional Dwija leaders by constantly learning and adapting to new ideas.

Mallikarjun Kharge, as a powerful Dalit president, and Rahul and Priyanka doing a co-ordinated campaign in this election brought new hope for the OBC/SC/STs and women.

Whatever could be the results of the election, Rahul must pursue the socio-political reform standing by the poor, particularly SC/ST/OBCs

https://thewire.in/politics/the-congress-must-continue-to-push-social-reform-agenda

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 

The BJP has panicked after the Congress’s assurance of a caste census and an increase in caste reservation. 

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

The 2024 Congress election manifesto has forced the Bhartiya Janata Party leaders, mainly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to start a defensive campaign on the entire reservation system.

The Congress manifesto has guaranteed a Samajik Nyay (social justice) pillar by saying that if it comes to power a caste census will be conducted nationwide and the 50% reservation cap imposed by the Supreme Court on caste-based reservation regime will be removed. This is causing jitters in the BJP camp.

The main force that demanded a caste census across the country is the historically oppressed majority, Shudras. This category, later, was made the Other Backward Classes (OBC) for implementation of reservations. Since the 1990 Mandal movement days, the Dwija castes were against granting reservations to the Shudras as they would have changed the Dwija hegemony in the education and employment sectors. The two national parties, the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, were also opposed to OBC reservation in 1990. By then they had somewhat reconciled with reservation for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes reservation, though it was hardly getting implemented. But the idea of Shudra or OBCs getting reservation was a fearsome issue for them.  

But later, after the V.P. Singh government implemented 27% reservations for the OBCs, the Congress and BJP slowly reconciled themselves to the concept. The Shudras/OBCs constituted the largest vote share in the country. Some Shudra/OBC regional parties also emerged. This gradual change weakened the Congress. However, in the process the BJP picked up this segment, using the Hindutva and anti-Muslim card. The Shudra/OBCs became its anti-Muslim muscle power.

In 2014, the BJP tactfully promoted Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. He was from a listed OBC caste. For the last 10 years this OBC background of Modi’s has helped BJP remain in power with a comfortable majority. However, during these last 10 years, the BJP government headed by an OBC PM has done nothing for the OBC masses. The OBC masses are the main agrarian producers. In the education and employment sectors, OBC presence has weakened because of massive privatisation of both these sectors.

Across the country, OBCs began to realise this new method of marginalisation through the means of privatisation. 

The Hindutva economists – all most all of them come from Dwija backgrounds – have been advocating for the ‘de-statisation’ of all sectors of economy including industrial, business, health, education and also cultural. The massively increasing wealth of monopoly houses, and the ‘upper’-caste, upper-middle classes has created a huge gap between the OBC/Dalit/Adivasis and Dwija ‘upper’ castes, particularly those who live with the RSS-BJP political ideology. 

The OBC PM systematically implemented an anti-OBC privatisation agenda because that was his core ideology.  

Rahul Gandhi   

Rahul Gandhi, presumably in the course of his Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, realised that the OBC demand for caste census was justified. Once the OBC population data comes out, the Supreme Court cap of 50% reservation will have to be reviewed. 

His party succeeded in framing a manifesto that promised the same. The manifesto also promised to protect the state institutions from privatisation and job creation in the public sector economy. 

Did Modi, who is once again being projected as the strongest leader of the RSS-BJP combine, convince his party’s Dwija leadership to come up with a pro-poor or transformative manifesto in every election? Elections for him are little more than rhetorical speeches. The Dwija intellectuals knew that he would ultimately play their game and not that of the Shudra/OBCs. Their “Modi kiguarantee” manifesto has nothing to offer to the poor or to the nation. Hence they do not even refer to their own manifesto in the campaign but constantly attack the Congress manifesto.   

Crisis in the BJP vote bank

The Congress manifesto has created a crisis in the BJP’s OBC vote bank. Added to this, the Congress manifesto also talked about expanding the welfare regime for all the poor, which obviously consists of SCs, STs and OBCs. This will also impact the massively built-up contract economy and crony industrialism with a specific Hindutva spiritual ideology. 

The organisational wealth of RSS-BJP structures has increased several-fold, thanks to these crony capitalists and private monopolies, which were planning to take over the agrarian sector. The goal is to weaken the Shudra agrarian forces so that the classical varna dharma or caste order is brought back. Since the Congress had no clear stand on the OBC question for a long time, they did not know how to face the OBC vote bank that the BJP had newly acquired. They did know how to fight the pro-OBC image of the BJP after the 2014 elections. The OBCs also got communalised, in the process, and developed a constructed consciousness of the alleged danger that the Muslims posed. This time, the pro-OBC manifesto of the Congress addresses this context.

Since the BJP has nothing to offer the OBCs since the Congress manifesto came out, it is trying to retain its OBC base by dangling the ‘danger’ of Muslim reservation and repeating the same again and again. But the OBCs, SCs and STs know that the real danger to reservations is not from Muslims, but the Hindutva privatisation agenda. Realising this is possible only by de-statising all industries, businesses, educational institutions and cultural institutions. They want to push the Shudra/OBCs completely into the agrarian labour market and hand over the entire economy to Gujarati-Mumbai Hindutva capitalists.

The BJP on the other hand brought out its so-called manifesto and called it ‘Modi ki guarantee’, leaving out the party identity and making the election ‘Modi versus Congress’. There is no welfare or developmental direction in the Modi manifesto.

In this situation, the Congress manifesto began to attract poor village and urban voters, more particularly OBC, SC and ST voters. Modi and his team resorted to talking about how the Congress was bent on removing all the reservations of OBCs, SCs and STs and giving to Muslims. Is it Muslim capital exploiting the OBCs, SCs and STs or is it the Gujarati-Mumbai capitalists?

Changing the constitution

Of course, the Congress campaign has also focused on the idea of changing the constitution if the RSS/BJP get 400 seats. This is a more dangerous idea that the RSS/BJP ideologues have been carefully putting across the country by allowing select Dwija leaders to talk about it. This idea has its roots in RSS’s ideological formulations.

Rahul Gandhi started talking about protecting the constitution by holding a copy of the constitution in every public meeting across the country. For the first time in the history of Congress, a top leader of the party began to foreground his arguments with reference to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, saying that the constitution he wrote along with Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel is in danger.

The OBCs, SCs and STs have much bigger stakes in the constitution. In their history of thousands of years of existence they never knew anything about equality till this constitution was adopted in 1950. A deep fear began to shake them regarding their children’s future when they heard about the BJP’s plans to change the constitution. To overcome this problem, the BJP leaders, more particularly Modi, now repeatedly talk about Muslims, “people with more children”, and Pakistan’s alleged intervention in the electoral process.

But OBCs, SCs, and STs should know that the Muslim reservation percentage is small and that it is also based on their caste identity. For example, in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, it is just 4%. In no other state does it go beyond 3-4%. The question of caste census has nothing to do with the question of reservation for Muslims. 

The OBCs of India are surprised to learn from an OBC PM that he is against a caste census. Instead of addressing the question in its essence, why is he diverting the issue to Muslim reservation as if the OBCs have demanded its removal for Muslims? The issue is that the OBC PM and his government are killing the reservation system through privatisation.

Reservation, per se, cannot be given based on class or religion. During the Congress and other regimes, some lower caste people  converted to Islam and took caste certificates so they could be allowed to get a small percentage of reservation. What the BJP leadership is presenting is the claim that all Muslims – like all Dalits or all tribals or all Other Backward Classes – are getting reservations. This is wrong.  

But the 10% Economically Weaker Section reservation that the Modi government brought was purely class-based. In fact, all SCs, STs, and OBCs opposed this reservation as it was meant for ‘upper’ castes who already have huge social capital as their heritage. The campaign of Modi – that if Congress comes to power they will take away the properties of the poor Hindus, including the mangalsutra of women – is a dangerous and destructive one. 

Even the industrialists, the rich and the middle classes that support the BJP should oppose such propaganda about a democratic party because democracy needs multiple parties.

Modi also dubbed the Congress manifesto as an Urban Naxal manifesto. If a PM who ruled the nation for 10 years speaks this kind of language about the national opposition party, democracy gets into deeper trouble.

The fact is that the Dwija left-liberals also did not own the Congress manifesto, as perhaps, they think that on OBC question the Congress took a stand that they did not expect or did not want. All of them go with SC/ST reservation on grounds of so-called empathy but they have been very uncomfortable with OBC reservation. A time has come the Shudra/OBCs must be treated as the backbone of wealth and they must get their share in every asset of the nation.  

The 2024 elections thus are a turning point for those who are fighting for weakening the caste system. 

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book is The Clash of Cultures (Productive Masses Vs Hindutva-Mullah Conflicting Ethics).

https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/obc-reservation-narendra-modi-muslim-congress

For the first time Nyay Patra, the Congress manifesto, has made social justice a serious election issue by promising nationwide caste census and removal of 50 per cent Supreme Court cap on reservations.

Rahul Gandhi (centre) and other Congress leaders with the party manifesto

Written by: Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Edited by: Binu Karunakaran

29 Apr 2024

Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have released their 2024 Lok Sabha election manifestos. For the first time, their approach to welfarism and democracy is expressed clearly. The Congress manifesto ‘Nyay Patra’ has two-fold welfare agendas: class and caste. In terms of standing by the poor (class), it promised the transfer of Rs 1 lakh per year to the account of a woman in a family that lives below the poverty line. All eligible unemployed youth will get Rs 1 lakh per year as assistance with an apprentice placement in public and private sector companies.

For the first time, it made social justice a serious election issue by promising nationwide caste census and removal of 50 per cent Supreme Court cap on reservations. This will change the present mode of budget money expenditure. The BJP, on the other hand, retained the old policy of handing over huge contracts to monopoly capitalists, who transferred huge amounts of money to the party through electoral bonds for getting big projects. The Prime Minister, who belongs to the Other Backward Castes (OBC) community, has no single programme for them in the manifesto. But he included in it Modi’s guarantees, Uniform Civil Code, the Citizenship Amendment Act, and so on.

The new direction of the Congress

The 2024 Congress manifesto has the potential to change the course of the Indian political system and de-communalise capital by expanding the scope of welfare democracy. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)/BJP and the pro-Hindutva capital are anti-welfare democracy. Though the economists and educationalists of Hindutva ideology pretend to follow the American private economy model, they are not even ready to provide equality in school education in the country. Some monopoly companies are running completely English medium schools with a Western syllabus. The RSS/BJP nationalism is fine with this level of privatisation. They gloss over the fact that the American school education is completely in the government sector. But the Baniya-Brahmin monopoly houses run their own private schools. Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai is a good example. Many such private schools are coming up now.

Gujarati-Mumbai capital and Congress

The Indian capital in Baniya-Brahmin monopoly houses of Western India grew into its present form during the UPA regime under the leadership of Manmohan Singh. But at the same time, the Gujarati-Mumbai based monopoly houses such as Ambani, Adani, Vedanta, and so on began to slowly move into the Hindutva fold, particularly after the 2002 communal carnage in Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Modi. They found a strong Hindutva leader in him and they themselves projected him for Prime Ministership. Finally they saw to it that the RSS accepted his candidature and now he controls the party and RSS structures with full support of the Gujarat-Mumbai capital. The communalised capital not only discarded the Congress but turned against it.

However, for Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasi forces, this communalised capital control of the nation poses a threat. It wants a massive privatisation of all industrial units and also the educational institutions. The Baniya-Brahmin monopoly capital expands itself into global markets by creating a totally English-educated Dwija population. The children of monopoly capitalists study in private schools in India and Western universities and aim to be global entrepreneurs. Already big monopoly companies like the Ambanis and the Adanis have become huge globally investing companies. They have never shown any concern for the farmers and agrarian poor by sharing their profits with some kind of philanthropic aid. Since the Dwija castes are against reservation, they want to support the communalised politics, through the structures of RSS/BJP and de-secularised markets and capital. In the process, the entire political system becomes anti-poor.

The poor masses of India mainly constitute the SC/ST/OBC masses. When we say anti-poor, we essentially mean anti-SC/ST and OBCs. They also dictate ideological agendas to the RSS/BJP by controlling the narrative of nationalism. Though the Congress also depended on Western capital for a long time, it never allowed its ideology to be controlled by the capital. Since the Congress worked with a secular ideological agenda, it did not allow communal influence into the governance through capitalists who believed in Hindu communalism. It also did not allow the monopoly houses to dictate policy directions in the governance. But the RSS/BJP completely surrendered to them because their own communal thinking and some of the capitalists who finance their agendas have many things in common. Both the RSS/BJP and communal capitalists have no concern for the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasis.

The 2024 manifesto of the Congress tries to change the course by including an ideology of deeper welfarism. Caste census, Rs 1 lakh for every poor woman, and Rs 1 lakh as unemployment aid for poor youth are part of the manifesto. But the party is facing an internal Dwija revolt. Anand Sharma, a senior Congress leader and Brahmin, opposed the caste census by writing a letter to the president of the party, Mallikarjun Kharge. If he were an OBC or Dalit or Adivasi, he would not have written such a letter. He has shown his anti-OBC stance openly. However, Rahul Gandhi is not deterred like Indira Gandhi in 1971. When she proposed Garibi Hatao, bank nationalisation, and abolition of privy purses, all senior upper caste leaders opposed her.

Caste and Congress         

For the first time, the Congress addresses the entire caste issue from a national perspective in the manifesto. When it is addressing the question of caste census, it is addressing the question of pushing the society towards castelessness in the long run. The classical Indian slave system turned into a caste conscious assertive system with the British collecting caste census till 1931. But the most gigantic task ahead of the Congress is the communalised capital that now stands against the party. It supplies massive amounts of money to RSS/BJP forces. The communal capital that became a huge monopoly capital now wants to weaken the agrarian kulaks (wealthy peasants) and take over the agrarian markets. The three farm laws that were made by the RSS/BJP government were part of that combined thinking of RSS/BJP and monopoly capital. The educational capabilities of the rural masses are kept low because of unfurnished schools with a regional language teaching.

The productive masses in different states will be forced to remain in regional languages even in the future if the RSS/BJP are in power in Delhi. The RSS allows this public private education to reinforce the varna dharma order so that no competition comes from the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasi forces to the Dwijas. They want to control the three pillars of power—political power, temple power, and the power of capital. The Gujarat-Mumbai capital knows that Narendra Modi will play their game while claiming to be an OBC. This situation has created a deeper crisis for the Congress.

Anti-Muslim agenda of Gujarati capital

The anti-Muslim ideology of the Gujarati capital goes back to Gandhi-Jinnah conflict days. After all, both the leaders came from families of the upwardly mobile business Baniya community. The religious conversions of Western Indian Dwijas into Islam created a communally charged intellectual environment in the civil society also during the freedom struggle itself. The Muslim League headed by Jinnah (whose family converted from Baniya background) and Allama Iqbal (whose family converted from Hindu Brahmin background) and forces like Tilak, Savarkar (who happen to be Brahmins themselves) and others who later formed the Hindu Mahasabha. Injecting religious ideology into nationalism and freedom struggle has led to division of the nation. Now RSS/BJP and communal capitalist forces are creating a new in the country. The Shudra/OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis are concerned about the future of their children.

Mahatma Gandhi had his own share of spiritualising politics and capital. He mobilised the Birla Goenka families into Hindu conservatism and also into the Congress fold. The Birla family built several temples and he himself used them for political prayers. Now Ambani and Adani capital is fully with RSS/BJP and Modi.

Though the pro-Gandhi Nehru capital sustained the Congress with ups and downs till 2014, since then a part of the Indian capital became totally communal and moved away from the party. Rahul Gandhi had to work out alternate strategies to check this mighty communal capital and RSS/BJP combination. It was in this situation that he undertook the Bharat Jodo Yatra with the slogan ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukaan’ in a communal (‘Nafrat Ke Bazaar’) market and the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra which promised to x-ray the nation for inequality and distribute the resources based on data from caste census. Rahul is challenging both the communal ideology of the RSS/BJP and the communal capitalists.

The 2024 election manifesto shows us the way.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist, and author. His latest book is The Clash of Cultures—Productive Masses Vs Hindutva-Mullah Conflicting Ethics.

https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/opinion-why-the-congress-manifesto-has-rattled-corporate-monopolies-rss-and-bjp

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 

Congress leader Anand Sharma’s recent letter to Mallikarjun Kharge opposing a caste census shows that upper caste leaders from all parties still do not subscribe to ideas of social justice and do not want to share political power with marginalised castes. 

Rahul Gandhi. Photo: Twitter/@INCIndia

Anand Sharma is a senior Congress leader. He has written a letter to Mallikarjun Kharge, the first ever visible Dalit Congress president of the party after Damodaram Sanjeevaiah in the 1960s, opposing the promise of a caste census in the Congress manifesto for the 2024 general election. The letter’s principal ideological demand is that the party should continue its earlier stand of opposing identity politics.

In his letter, released to the media on March 21, Sharma wrote, “The Congress has never engaged in or endorsed identity politics, and a departure from this historic position on this critical and sensitive subject is a matter of concern.” He added, “It (the caste census) disrespects the legacy of former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.”

Sharma’s opinion on a caste census is not his alone: it is shared by Dwija (Brahmin, Baniya, Kayastha, Khatri and Ksatriya) leaders and intellectuals in all parties. They are all against any measure – either legal or enumerative – which weakens the control of Dwijas on the political, social and spiritual systems of India.

It is well known that even the Bharatiya Janata Party strongly opposes a caste census and the removal of the 50% reservation cap – something that has to be scrapped if proportional representation is given to various castes in the state structure. But they prefer not to come out openly like Anand Sharma.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra Must Talk About Social Justice But Also Spiritual Justice for Shudras, Dalits

For Dwijas, the position of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi remains the reference point on all questions of caste identity politics, particularly reservations and the sharing of power. Anand Sharma and leaders like him think that Rahul Gandhi – who comes from that very family – is departing from his ancestral position and promoting identity politics. At the same time, they depend on him to get the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasi votes needed to bring the party back to power.

The RSS/BJP consciously Narendra promoted Modi, who came from a listed OBC caste. It is well known that Modi’s electoral success is based on his personal OBC identity politics and his efforts to mobilise most backward classes (MBCs) in states like Uttar Pradesh. How does Anand Sharma want Rahul Gandhi to defeat the BJP’s caste identity politics while sticking to the position taken by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi?

Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Photos: Indira Gandhi (Wikimedia Commons/GODL License) and Rajiv Gandhi (Indian National Congress website).

Anand Sharma and his ilk want Rahul Gandhi to continue the pre-Mandal era politics, which will totally destroy the Congress. Leaders like Sharma are blind to the fact that the BJP and Modi have brought caste and religious identities in their full form into electoral politics.

If Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were alive now, they would have neither been prime ministers nor would they have been fighters like Rahul Gandhi. They would have been where Anand Sharma is today, on the margins. Rahul, on the other hand, is adapting to the given situation, which is why his two yatras – the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Nyay Yatra – have had an impact.

On the question of religious identity which Anand Sharma raised, the Congress has seen the Muslim minority identity as a necessary element of politics. Indeed, the RSS-BJP has always labeled the politics of the Gandhi-Nehru family as ‘pro-Muslim’. The Sangh has traditionally accused the Congress of what it calls ‘appeasement’ but the BJP under Modi has now successfully used this charge to mobilise OBCs across the country as well.

What the Congress’s Dwija leaders who oppose Rahul Gandhi’s carefully crafted social justice agenda do not understand is that he is re-shaping the Congress in the context of post-Mandal developments and in the given context of the RSS/BJP’s ideological position on caste.

Caste identity, particularly, the OBC identity has become a force after the Mandal movement and V.P Singh’s regime implemented the Mandal Commission report (even if it was just one recommendation).

Since the Congress under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi opposed the Mandal report implementation, the Shudras/OBCs started distancing themselves from the party. A large number of Shudras/OBCs believe that the Congress is a Dwija-Muslim party. They believe that is the identity of the party. That identity needs to change for the Congress to win national elections in which the Shudra/OBC vote matters the most.

Anand Sharma is wrong in saying that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi did not accept identity politics. Nor is Anand Sharma free from identity politics. He believes that Sharmas have the right to define what is identity and what is not. His last name is a name that advertises his Brahmin identity. That identity brought him top political positions via nominations to the Rajya asabha even if he never won an actual election. He does not want to accept the Shudra/OBC identity because that will take away a portion of power from the Dwija forces. They think that the Shudras/OBCs should vote for them without asking for a share in power.

The Indira -Rajiv’s anti-OBC reservation policy led to the rise of the RSS/BJP in the country. That also led to the formation of many Shudra/OBC regional parties which weakened the Congress. They always recognised the Muslim minority identity in their politics but never accepted caste identities.

Anand Sharma’s notion of inclusive politics means the hegemony of Dwijas by encashing the votes of the Shudras/OBCs/SCs and STs. Of course, Muslims have been voting for the Congress and elite Muslims were given a (small) share of power. Now, the RSS/BJP combine – conscious of caste divisions among Muslims – is reaching out to the non-elite Pasmandas.

Sharma seems to live in the pre-Mandal era. In the past, the the Shudras/Dalits/Adiavsis voted for the Congress without getting a due share of power. That does not work now. The situation has changed. The OBCs understand what is Anand Sharma’s ideological aim in creating a crisis in the Congress just before the national election where the caste census is going to be an issue for vote mobilisation. He wants to weaken the Congress further.

The Congress must stand by Rahul Gandhi’s battle for social justice, as he made it clear in his two marathon yatras. While ending the Nyay Yatra on March 16 at Chaitya Bhoomi of Ambedkar in Mumbai, Rahul read out the preamble of the constitution, which focuses on the idea of justice (social justice is part of it), even as hundreds of people participated. I too was part of that pledge.

Anand Sharma was never seen either in the first Bharat Jodo Yatra or in the second Nyaya Yatra. Now his cat is out of the bag.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest books are The Clash of Cultures—Productive Masses Vs Hindutva Mullah Conflicting Ethics and The Shudra—Vision For a New Path.

https://thewire.in/politics/why-congress-must-not-go-back-on-rahul-gandhis-promise-of-caste-census-social-justice

In India the BJP took the right decision to retire its leaders when they reach 75. But the Congress and other regional parties never bothered about age.

A collage of Donald Trump Narendra Modi and Joe Biden 

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

13 Mar 2024

America is the oldest constitutional democracy in the world. It is witnessing a dearth of political talent among young people of that country since the 2020 elections. In that election the two oldest men Joe Biden and Donald Trump fought the election almost in an unethical atmosphere. Again the same men are going to fight the 2024 election, in a more vicious atmosphere. 

Biden is 81 and Trump is 77. Both of them forget many things in public and their mental faculties have been questioned. Biden tumbles on the stage and falls down, yet does not want to leave the presidency. Trump is facing many cases, including one that involves rape of a woman and he is convicted too. He does not want to leave the presidency. What is more surprising is that both parties chose these old men with doubtful health and notorious character (in case of Trump) in their primaries making their next fight inevitable.

The United States seems to have run out of young creative and competitive people in the political realm.

Young created its constitution    

It was brought into the realm of a first written constitution by young people, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Three of them were young freedom fighters against British colonialism and served as its founding presidents. Washington became the president at the age of 57. Jefferson became president at the age of 58.  John Adams became president at the age of 62.

The founding presidents established the philosophical, ideological, constitutional and the moral basis of that nation. That was in the eighteenth century.

After these three greatest presidents, again three young Americans, Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy and Barack Obama emerged on that very land. They also became presidents at a young age and left an indelible mark on the global democratic systems and human history. Lincoln became president at the age of 56, Kennedy became president at the age of 46 and Obama the first black American became president at the age of 47.    

Now that talent is not forthcoming from among the young American men.  What is the situation among American women? The first woman who became the Vice-President is an Indian American at the age 55. The first woman who reached the stage of presidential nominee from proper American women is Hillary Clinton at the age of 69. No young American woman of the age group of the first founder three presidents or later greatest three presidents could emerge as a ruler of the country. The first woman who competed till the last day of primaries from among Republicans is again an India American Nikki Haley 52. No proper American Republican woman of younger age could come to reach Nikki Haley’s political competition level till date.  

Women leaders in the world

What does that suggest about women’s liberation movements in America? It was known globally as a country of feminist activists and theoreticians from the 1960s onwards. It is a country of the most educated working women. Yet no young or old woman could come to reach the White House.

Third world countries have produced quite talented young women leaders who lead their countries. Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the first woman PM of a nation in the world at the age of 44. Indira Gandhi became the PM of India at the age of 49. Benazir Bhutto became the first women Muslim PM in the world at the age 35 in Pakistan.  

Even Great Britain in recent years seems to have lost its ability to produce young dynamic political leaders from its original native stock. A young Indian origin Rishi Sunak became its PM at 42.

Why are young leaders not emerging? 

This raises the question: what is happening in America, in particular? Why is it that the country with such a vibrant education system is not in a position to produce young talented political leaders like what it did earlier? Maybe because American universities do not train young men and women in university level elections to become future politicians. Their campuses, though became a model for good standards in education, there is no college and university students unions election system. Such a system would have put students to compete and train themselves at university level in practical political life. De-politicization of campuses was introduced by America itself. Now it is spreading around the world.

The best example for a woman leader emerging from campus student union elections and becoming a good leader in her country is Benazir Bhutto. She contested Oxford University Student’s debating society in 1977 and became its president. That experience seems to have taught her about the leadership role back in her country.

What about India?

In India too old people becoming Prime Minister is allowed. Morarji Desai became PM at the age of 81. PV Narsimha Rao became PM at the age of 70. Manmohan Singh was made PM at the age of 70, Atal Bihari Vajpayee became PM at the age of 75 in 1999.

Power is a poison. People do not want to leave once it is in their hands. If there is a scope to capture it even while one is incapable of handling it with dying human energies they capture it. once  in it they do not want to leave it.

Gerontocracy     

A theoretical concept for such old people not leaving power is ‘Gerontocracy’. In simple terms it is known as the rule of old where new ideas and creativity died down. Such old people ruling any country would engender a host of power managers from behind either from one’s family or from relatives or friends.

Nikki Haley demanded a mental ability test for all those who run for high offices after 75. She is absolutely right.  

In India the Bharatiya Janata Party took the right decision to retire its leaders when they reach 75. But the Congress and other regional parties never bothered about age.  However the question is: will Modi retire when he reaches 75?

He and his party made it clear that he will be the next PM with 370 seats on their own and 400 seats for the NDA alliance. Modi becomes 75 in his mid-third term, if he becomes PM after the election. The BJP and RSS  seemed to have reached a stage, what will happen to their power after Modi?  Hence depend on him as long as he delivers. But how long? Even beyond 75 at the cost of principle.

https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/gerontocracy-in-leadership-from-india-to-us-old-men-arent-leaving-us-any-wiser