The politics of OBC: Battle for the backwards

On August 23, Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (united) leader Nitish Kumar formed an now doubtlessly not alliance along with his political rival, the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav, who also happens to be the leader of the opposition in the insist assembly. The 2 of them, along with the leaders of 10 other parties from Bihar, met High Minister Narendra Modi in Fresh Delhi and demanded a caste-essentially essentially based mostly census, even supposing the Union govt had in July acknowledged in Parliament that an enumeration of castes might possibly maybe well not be section of the 2021 census “as a matter of policy”.

At the core of this rising clamour for a caste census is the must pinpoint the strength of the OBCs (Other Backward Classes), who enjoy of leisurely emerged as the most influential voting neighborhood in electoral politics. With no off­icial depend, there might possibly be a perception that the OBCs record for more than 52 per cent of the inhabitants (the Mandal Rate estimate from four decades previously, which took as its substandard the 1931 caste census, the closing time it was accomplished), and, due to this fact, deserve more than 27 per cent reservation. If a caste census substantiates this thought, this can moreover simply pause up in a noteworthy stronger demand for a rejig of the present reservation construction. (Timeline: Genesis of the caste census)

At stake shall be more than 9 million govt jobs—each and every on the Centre and in the states—across India, and admissions in academic institutes, including 2.3 million engineering seats and more than 80,000 clinical seats. Fearing a backlash from other caste teams, particularly the upper castes, the BJP-led Union govt is unwilling to disturb the living quo. This is terribly in dispute Uttar Pradesh goes to assembly election in lower than six months, and the place the BJP is having a observe for a 2d term.

This is explanation why High Minister Narendra Modi, an OBC himself, has taken a U-flip from what his cupboard colleague Rajnath Singh had promised in 2018—that knowledge on the OBCs shall be unexcited in the 2021 census. Within the meantime, the opposite political parties are seeking to make consume of this demand to not easiest woo the OBCs nonetheless also elevate the BJP of a few of the most vital weaponry in its electoral arsenal.

A 2019 put up-ballotwatch by the Delhi-essentially essentially based mostly Centre for the Gawk of Establishing Societies (CSDS) stumbled on that the proportion of OBCs voting for the BJP doubled from 22 per cent in 2009 to 44 per cent in 2019. Within the 2017 UP assembly election, when the BJP gained 312 seats in the 403-member condominium, its OBC vote allotment was 47 per cent. Currently, 32 per cent of its legislators in the insist are OBCs, up from 20 per cent 10 years previously.

On the opposite hand, the opposite parties are alive to to topic the BJP in vying for the OBC vote. The demand for a caste census has attain not only correct from Bihar’s leaders, nonetheless from almost about all non-BJP political parties, including the Congress, NCP (Nationalist Congress Occasion), BJD (Biju Janata Dal), DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), SP (Samajwadi Occasion) and BSP (Bahujan Samaj Occasion). The saffron celebration’s refusal has given Opposition parties recent ammunition to map the Modi govt, and particularly the Yogi Adityanath govt in UP. The Samajwadis and the Congress enjoy started organising OBC sammelans, whereas the BSP is also constructing a din. “We have always acknowledged that the OBCs must derive their due, and for that to happen, they must know their allotment in the inhabitants. The BJP doesn’t enjoy the welfare of the OBCs at coronary heart,” says BSP MP Ram Shiromani Verma, a member of the parliamentary joint committee on the welfare of Other Backward Classes.

An additional reason slack embarrassment for the NDA govern­ment is that allies corresponding to JD(U) and Apna Dal enjoy joined the chorus too. Even the Nationwide Rate for Backward Classes (NCBC) has quick the root. “The price’s observe is that there must be an OBC census. It’s for the gov­er­nment to behave now,” says its chairman Dr Bhagwan Lal Sahni. Then, there are the intra-celebration contradictions. Within the Lok Sabha, celebration MP Sanghmitra Maurya has raised the demand, whereas Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, an OBC leader himself, termed the caste-essentially essentially based mostly census “a revolutionary course of”.

With its aid to the wall, the BJP now says the celebration is not very antagonistic to the root “in precept” nonetheless needs “broader consensus” on the problem. “PM Modi has been brooding about the matter severely,” says BJP MP Rajesh Verma, chairman of the OBC parliamentary joint committee. “We have not rejected the root, nonetheless there has to be an quick debate on the matter in Parliament first.”

Why the surprising demand for a caste depend

The surge in demand for a caste census was brought about by a March 4 Supreme Court verdict which quashed the 27 per cent OBC quota in native bodies in Maharashtra for want of empirical knowledge on the backwardness of the communities. The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments equipped for reservations for backward class and women in panchayat raj institutions. The Supreme Court verdict scrapping OBC reservation is appropriate to your total states. “The states need a caste census because 900,000 OBC representatives might possibly maybe moreover lose their posts in the country, including 56,000 in Maharashtra by myself,” says creator and OBC activist Professor Hari Narke, head of the Mahatma Phule Chair on the College of Pune.

In India, whereas the census contains the numbers of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, ‘classic’—essentially the upper—castes, and OBCs are not enumerated. The SCs/ STs enjoy been given reservation in govt jobs and academic institutes proportionate to their allotment in the inhabitants—15 per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively.

On the opposite hand, the governmentcan not arbitrarily make bigger the allotment of OBC reservation due to a upright roadblock. In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that caste-essentially essentially based mostly reservation in jobs can not exceed 50 per cent. Since SCs/ STs nook 23 per cent, there might possibly be shrimp scope for any hike in the OBC allotment. As a caste census can provide empirical knowledge, the demand for it gained a recent currency; the electoral intent was a bonus. “The massive majority of the political spectrum, including BJP MPs and allies of the celebration, enjoy supported, and demanded, a caste census. The sooner a total narrate is accomplished, the higher,” says Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Rajya Sabha MP, Congress.

The surprising desperation to raise up the OBC motive is thanks to their electoral significance. Within the past three decades, the neighborhood—or its parts—enjoy been the backbone of caste-essentially essentially based mostly parties corresponding to the SP, RJD and JD(U), and likewise the most necessary differentiator in the swinging electoral fortunes of the two national parties—the BJP and Congress. Nowhere was this more evident than in the colossal narrate of solidarity in Parliament. Within the apt-concluded monsoon session, the opposition did not participate in any debate against the alleged Pegasus snooping case interesting the govt. But when the 127th amendment to the Constitution Act—reinstating the vitality of the states to screech any caste neighborhood as OBC—came up, your total parties not easiest took section in the debate nonetheless also voted unanimously in the bill’s favour.

The BJP’s reluctance to attain an OBC census

Just a few political analysts imprint that a caste census poses a major predicament for the BJP and its mature caste calculus. While Dattatreya Hosabale, classic secretary of the BJP’s alma mater RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), reiterated in August that the Sangh strongly helps reservation, the organisation has shunned asserting one thing else about the caste census. In 2011, Hosabale’s predecessor Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi had equipped an insight into the RSS’s thoughts on the topic when he acknowledged that a caste-essentially essentially based mostly census was against the root of the casteless society envisaged by leaders corresponding to Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Take into accout that, there’s more to it. The BJP emerged first as a celebration of the Brahmins and Baniyas, two upper caste teams. On the opposite hand, the upper caste vote by myself was inadequate to preserve its electoral ascent, particularly after the OBCs acquired a distinct political identification following V.P. Singh’s implementation of the Mandal Rate record. To counter the ‘Mandal politics’, the celebration broadened its political substandard by focusing on a ‘Hindutva’ identification—an amalgamation of all Hindu identities, regardless of caste. This was explanation why the BJP—which had passed a resolution in its Bhopal national executive in 1985 worrying the implementation of the Mandal Rate record nonetheless later changed tack and withdrew toughen to the V.P. Singh govt over the Mandal bid—stepped up the Ayodhya Ram temple agitation, for it helped bring the OBCs and Dalits beneath an umbrella Hindu identification.

Political observers mediate that the BJP fears a caste census will ruin up the Hindu vote. The transfer might possibly maybe moreover simply aid consolidate its toughen substandard amongst the OBCs, nonetheless it indubitably might possibly maybe moreover moreover invite a backlash from the upper castes. “If we now enjoy proper knowledge, the regional caste-essentially essentially based mostly parties might possibly maybe moreover simply elevate the demand to gain the 27 per cent cap on OBC reservation,” says Sanjay Kumar, director, CSDS.

Any demand to rejig the reservation construction might possibly maybe moreover simply result in a repeat of the social unrest and upper caste dissension that accompanied the implementation of the Mandal reservation machine. And the BJP can unwell afford to offend its core upper caste voter substandard. “The BJP does not enjoy the cushion of min­ority votes,” says a BJP leader in Patna. “We might possibly maybe moreover simply invent some bro­wnie parts with the OBCs, nonetheless the regional parties might possibly maybe be the right gainers. The menace-reward ratio is skewed against us.”

In actual fact, at the same time because it has wooed the OBCs, the BJP has been cautious not to anguish the pursuits of the upper castes. In 2019, the Modi govt presented 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) of socially evolved teams, or the upper castes. “Any govt might possibly maybe be disquieted about upsetting the upper castes. Though it claims to champion the reason slack OBCs, the BJP in the extinguish is a celebration of the upper castes. So, the apprehension is more,” says social scientist Sudha Pai.

Other consultants disagree with the prognosis that the BJP fears an upper caste backlash. “There is a spread of battle and violence spherical faith, nonetheless faith is counted. Counting doesn’t result in battle. Struggle is engineered by teams with a polarising agenda,” says Professor Ashwini Deshpande, Director, Centre for Economic Records and Diagnosis, Ashoka College in Haryana. Prashant K. Trivedi, an affiliate professor on the Giri Institute of Development Compare in Lucknow, sees an limitless switch in the socioeconomic scenario of the country previously three decades with the outlet up of lucrative company jobs “severely altering the earlier living of govt jobs as a attain or die bid”.

On the opposite hand, the reluctance to habits a caste depend has to attain with other fears to boot. Just a few dominant caste teams, corresponding to the Patidars in Gujarat, the Marathas in Maharashtra and the Jats in Haryana enjoy been agitating, continuously violently, worrying OBC living. Any depend without resolving these contentious calls for might possibly maybe moreover simply fabricate an even bigger mess for the Centre. There might possibly be also no clarity on the official classification of some caste teams. For event, the Jats revel in OBC living in Rajasthan nonetheless not in Haryana or in the central list. In loads of states, including Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, even Brahmins enjoy stumbled on a spot of living in OBC lists. “There are logistical points which might possibly maybe moreover simply unexcited be resolved first. Oth­er­fascinating, it will pause up being a wrong narrate like the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC),” says K. Laxman, national president of the BJP’s OBC fling.

J.K. Bajaj, director of the Centre for Coverage Compare in Chennai and member of the Justice Rohini Rate on the sub-categorisation of OBCs, agrees that the SECC had anomalies nonetheless attributes it to the enumerators not having a list of castes. “Karnataka, recently, utilized a insist-degree caste census in accordance with a total list of all castes earlier than the correct enumeration,” says Bajaj. He cautions that this would be a time-appealing narrate and might possibly maybe well simply unexcited not be that you just might possibly maybe imagine in the recent census which has already been delayed thanks to the Covid pandemic.

The BJP leaders are now cleverly seeking to save the ball in the insist governments’ court. Ganesh Singh, a BJP MP and faded chairman of the parliamentary committee on welfare of Other Backward Classes, says that whether the Centre counts the OBCs or not, “the states must starting up the narrate on their enjoy”. The BJP anticipates that no insist will elevate the bait as the result might possibly maybe moreover simply severely disturb the political and social equilibrium. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress govt in Karnataka had conducted a ‘Socio-Economic and Education Watch’ in 2015 in which caste was also demarcated nonetheless successive Congress and BJP governments enjoy not published its outcomes. Leaked findings estimated that the inhabitants of the Lingayats, one in every of the most dominant caste teams in the insist, was beneath 10 per cent (contrary to claims of them being 18 per cent). Advisor bodies of the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, the two dominant caste teams, had even threatened protests if the findings had been made public. The BJP expects that states will chorus from such an narrate for apprehension of being pressured to recalibrate the reservation pie. For event, Karnataka gives 32 per cent reservation to the OBCs. The 2015 caste depend reportedly stumbled on that SCs acc­ounted for 24 per cent of the inhabitants, making them the single biggest neighborhood. This might possibly maybe moreover simply make them demand more than the 15 per cent quota of reservation to make it proportionate to their allotment of the total inhabitants. With STs cornering 3 per cent of the pie, the insist govt can not make bigger SC reservation without violating the 50 per cent cap.

Does India need a caste census?

Most consultants agree that there might possibly be not one of these thing as a damage in endeavor a caste census since caste identities are a fact of India’s sociopolitical existence. “When a class known as OBC has been created constitutionally, why might possibly maybe moreover simply unexcited there be a debate on the demand of counting this neighborhood?” asks Professor Narender Kumar of the Centre for Political Compare on the Jawaharlal Nehru College in Delhi.

The BJP’s rivals argue that a caste depend can aid the governmentframe higher policies and welfare progra­mmes for these teams. “The caste census is not very only correct about discovering the quantum of backward castes,” says Manoj K. Jha, an RJD Rajya Sabha MP and professor on the Delhi College of Social Work. “It’s about holding up a mediate to the living of a well-organized section of parents on the socioeconomic ladder. For policymaking and social equilibrium in a welfare insist like India, a census is necessary.” A high JD(U) leader says the celebration believes a caste census can aid the insist name these sections in the OBC unexcited exterior the social welfare radar.

In step with knowledge published in Parliament, spherical 21 per cent of the team in the central ministries and public sector enterprises is from amongst the OBCs (27 per cent is earmarked for them). While the OBCs record for 45 per cent of the students in major education, their allotment drops to 37 per cent in bigger education. The BJP’s Laxman argues that quite than a headcount, states might possibly maybe moreover simply unexcited be pushed into effectively imposing reservation. Of the 15,000 notified OBC communities, 9,500-irregular don’t even derive its advantages. Narke says the governmentneeds to consume more on the socioeconomic uplift of OBCs, for which their enumeration is a must. “In this year’s budget, the Centre allocated just correct Rs 18 per OBC person to your total monetary year,” he claims. Ganesh Singh accepts that lack of know-how has hindered a centered scheme on OBC formative years. “That’s why I urged a separate fund for the OBCs,” he claims.

How the BJP is negotiating the maze

While the Centre has ducked a response, the BJP has alre­ady launched an offensive against the opposition parties. Following the March 4 apex court verdict, the saffron celebration launched a statewide agitation against the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA (Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi) govt in Maharashtra, alleging that it had didn’t present protection to reservation for OBCs in native bodies. It also announced that if reservation was not restored, it will field easiest OBC candidates for the upcoming native body election. The Thackeray govt responded by seeking the 2011 SECC knowledge on OBCs from the Modi govt so that it might possibly possibly maybe moreover post connected to empirical proof in court. Ironically, the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP-Shiv Sena govt had also made a identical attract the Centre, easiest to be rebuffed.

Aside from the counter-strike, the BJP is also centered on getting the optics just correct. The allotment of OBC members in Modi’s council of ministers has jumped from 13 in Might presumably 2019 to 27 now. Guaranteeing that voters elevate into consideration this, it even organised an event in Delhi to felicitate the 27 ministers. After the 127th Constitution Amendment Act was passed, the BJP announced plans to aid 70 ‘Modi samarthan sammelans’ across the country to showcase, amongst other issues, the Centre’s actions to empower the OBCs.

In July, the Centre announced 27 per cent reservation for OBC students in clinical and dental classes beneath the all-India quota. The profits restrict for the creamy layer amongst the OBCs has also been raised, from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh (which might possibly maybe moreover gallop as a lot as even Rs 16 lakh, as quick by the NCBC). The NCBC itself got constitutional living beneath the Modi regime. Concurrently, the BJP continues to work to dismantle the monopoly of caste-essentially essentially based mostly parties over OBC votes. The celebration has mobilised toughen amongst the margina­lised OBCs in heaps of states by floating a story that regional parties aid easiest the dominant OBC castes, who nook your total advantages. “The dominant OBC castes in each and every insist are inclined to toughen a explicit celebration, corresponding to the Yadavs favouring the RJD in Bihar and SP in Uttar Pradesh, Lingayats backing the JD(S) in Karnataka and Kurmis voting for the JD(U) in Bihar. While these parties are centered on their core toughen caste, the BJP has intelligently sought to mobilise the opposite OBC castes which did not derive commensurate reservation advantages,” says Prof. Kumar of CSDS. The BJP campaign against the Yadavs worked in UP as the celebration cornered the biggest prick of the non-Yadav OBC votes in the previous two Lok Sabha elections and the 2017 assembly election. The BJP’s alliance with non-Yadav OBC parties corresponding to the Kurmi-dominated Apna Dal, the Rajbhar-dominated SBSP and the Nishad Occasion has also worked.

Critics mediate that the Modi govt might possibly maybe moreover simply now utilise the Rohini Rate record to consolidate its substandard amongst non-dominant OBC castes. Constituted in 2017, the four-member price headed by retired Delhi Excessive Court chief justice G. Rohini has examined how the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs is being implemented. In step with sources, the commi­ssion stumbled on that of the shut to 6,000 castes and communities amongst the OBCs, a mere 40 had seized 50 per cent of the quota for admission in central academic institutions and recruitment to civil companies and products. Lovely 10 castes enjoy monopolised a quarter of the 27 per cent OBC quota. Nearly 20 per cent of OBC communities enjoy not got quota earnings from 2014 to 2018. The committee is more likely to counsel splitting the two,633 OBC sub-castes in the central OBC list into four teams for equitable distribution of the reservation pie.

Specialists enjoy been sceptical about this narrate, particularly in the absence of a caste depend. “The government-appointed price talks about sub-categorisation, nonetheless how will we know there might possibly be equitable distribution except we now enjoy knowledge by jati?” asks Prof. Deshpande. But, the subcategorisation of OBC castes is not very a recent thought. Already 11 states—West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Bihar, J&K, Haryana and Puducherry—enjoy it. The sub-categorisation of Dalits, identifying a set of missed Dalit castes as Mahadalits, has paid rich dividends to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar previously. To repeat such an experiment, Adityanath appointed a social justice committee in Might presumably 2018 to rationalise the OBC reservation construction in UP. His govt is yet to place into effect the advice of the committee—splitting the OBC bloc into three sections—backward class, more backward and most backward class—nonetheless the dilly-dallying, coupled with the refusal to habits a caste census, has cost the BJP some allies, namely the SBSP and the Maurya neighborhood-dominated Mahan Dal, who are now cosying as a lot as the SP.

What’s the skill out?

While the BJP must mercurial earn a recent formula to crack the political puzzle spherical OBCs, most social scientists agree that the right answer to the problem lies in a dispassionate overview of the reservation policy. “Reservation is not very a magic wand that can do away with caste inequality. Many more policies might possibly maybe moreover simply unexcited be save in place of living to cease caste equality. Reservation is easiest a tiny section of the final policy mix,” says Prof. Deshpande of Ashoka College. Trivedi of the Giri Institute of Development Compare prescribes thorough land reforms as a major measure for the backward classes. “The rescuing of the agriculture financial system from the ensuing disaster might possibly maybe be a major step,” he says.

Others demand a overview of the Mandal Rate’s standards for identifying backward classes. Sociologists corresponding to Dipankar Gupta enjoy argued that the Mandal Rate’s “wrong” machine of weightage allowed loads of not splendid communities a spot of living in the OBC class. Social scientists Satish Deshpande and Yogendra Yadav enjoy urged that not only correct caste nonetheless loads of alternative indicators, corresponding to neighborhood, gender, family background (managerial, knowledgeable, clerical, non-profits tax-paying) and form of education (govt or inner most, English or vernacular medium) might possibly maybe moreover simply unexcited also be thought about.

The opposite mammoth topic is the absence of a timeline for reservations. The Constitution had proposed that the SC/ ST reservation policy be pleasant for a decade and therefore be reviewed in phrases of the growth made. But quite than an extension in accordance with an in-depth overview, it has been renewed each and every decade as a matter clearly since it is a long way a political scorching potato. Aside from fixing a firm timeline for reservations, many consultants argue that other indicators, including profits, quite than castes, must be made the criteria to resolve reservations for the underprivileged. “A caste census will make no sense if the depend doesn’t attain execrable-tabulation in phrases of profits, education degree and land ownership amongst OBCs,” says social scientist Sudha Pai. Will the governmentbite the bullet?

– with Amitabh Srivastava and Anilesh S. Mahajan