This is bandied about by the commentariat to make those belonging to subaltern groups feel guilty about rooting for their own leaders in the electoral fray
(Clockwise from top left) Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi, Tejashwi Yadav, Mayawati, and Akhilesh Yadav. PICS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Every election in Bihar has the commentariat bemoaning the grip caste has over the state. This time, though, their bemoaning is mingled with the hope that the performance of former political consultant Prashant Kishor’s party, Jan Suraaj, in the impending Bihar Assembly elections could provide a measure of the state’s preparedness, and willingness, to become a post-caste society. All this talk must be dismissed, brusquely, as arrant nonsense.
Let alone Bihar, even India seems many decades away from becoming a post-caste country. Nobody has yet defined the term ‘post-caste’, but, in electoral terms, it would mean the Indian citizenry, constituting at least the majority, voting for candidates not because they belong to their own caste, but because they have been rationally assessed for contributing to the greater good. Bihar has lagged behind other states, the commentariat anguishes incessantly, because its people still vote on caste lines, electing leaders incapable of efficient governance.
The practice of factoring caste into electoral calculations isn’t unique to Bihar. Whether it’s Maharashtra or Karnataka or Uttar Pradesh or even Kerala, the commentariat seldom fails to analyse before every election which caste or categories of castes — the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, the Other Backward Castes, the general category —secured how many tickets from which party. The same exercise is undertaken after the election results, for determining the caste balance in legislatures.
Even Kishor, the new symbol of post-caste possibilities, has been distributing party tickets among castes and communities in proportion to their share in Bihar’s population. Yet, ironically, he’s also applauded for appealing to voters on economic issues, not on caste pride and vulnerabilities. Kishor, in fact, has no choice regarding his strategy: coming from an upper caste, he can invoke caste only at his own peril, for the general category constitutes just 15 per cent of the state’s population. Courting them would alienate all others.
The irony that Kishor embodies suggests Bihar can be considered to have become a post-caste society only when it votes a leader belonging to the upper castes or a party representing their interests to power. This hasn’t happened in Bihar for 35 years, with Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi, and Nitish Kumar, all OBC leaders, cornering for themselves the post of chief minister, which the upper castes had mostly monopolised until 1990.
It’s simplistic to believe their tenures merely strengthened caste identities. Post-caste features are, in fact, discernible in Yadav’s policy of granting menstrual leave to women in 1991 — a first in India — and in his decision to make it compulsory for students to clear the English paper for securing the matriculate certificate. This decision, aimed at increasing job opportunities for Biharis, was retracted under the Opposition’s pressure. His instilling the idea of dignity in the lower castes was lost in the din over allegations that he presided over ‘jungle raj’. Kumar has empowered women as few in India have. Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu’s successor, has been harping on creating jobs and growing its economy, but it’s Kishor who’s hailed for bringing the intimations of a post-caste society.
Likewise, Akhilesh Yadav spotlighted, during the 2017 Assembly elections, the development work that he had carried out under his chief ministership in Uttar Pradesh, forsaking the temptation to explicitly mobilise OBCs for his victory. Yet he was voted out, goading him into harnessing the politics of identity for expanding his base. Mayawati is grudgingly credited for her significant contributions to develop NOIDA, Delhi’s spiffy satellite city.
These examples underscore the poverty, and prejudices, of imagining a post-caste society. Viewed historically, for decades, both the lower castes and the upper castes voted for the Congress, catapulting it into power in successive elections. These two categories have enabled the Bharatiya Janata Party to become extraordinarily dominant in our time. Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea of development and Indira Gandhi’s garibi hatao campaign gave their party a cross-caste appeal. By contrast, the BJP’s Hindutva ideology seeks to unite Hindus across castes by brutishly othering Muslims. Isn’t this tantamount to camouflaging caste politics with Hindutva and hate?
Nevertheless, the BJP’s most steadfast supporters are the upper castes, which were granted 10 per cent reservation under the euphemistic tag of the Economically Weaker Sections for their loyalty. Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s OBC identity is undoubtedly a factor that powers the BJP, he didn’t concede to the demand for carving out caste quotas in the reservation for women, nor fulfilled his promise of subcategorising the OBCs. When the interests of the upper castes are promoted and those of the other caste categories ignored, the commentariat conveniently forgets the dream of building a post-caste India.
The desire for a post-caste society erupts only in those states where subaltern groups root for their own leaders and parties fighting for their cause. Until they are voted in substantial numbers by the upper castes, possible only after they overcome their prejudices about the subaltern, the clamour for a post-caste society should be treated as a load of nonsense designed to make the “wretched of the earth” feel guilty regarding their political choices. A classic example of gaslighting, indeed.
The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste
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