Sumeet Samos
In the early 1990s, at the peak of Ram Janma Bhoomi movement and decline of Congress in various states, a new brand of politics from among the Backward Classes and Dalits took the centre stage which we interchangeably refer to as Mandal or social justice politics. This brand was not a homogenous group of ideologues and leaders; there were various differences among its stakeholders. These differences were reflected not just in terms of the base community of the political parties but also in the coalitions and political philosophy they propounded. BSP attempted a broad coalition among different caste groups from the OBCs and SCs in the name of Bahujan politics while RJD and SP came to be associated with the MY (Muslim-Yadav) formula; some of the leaders from the social justice spectrum later came to be associated with single caste parties such as Ram Vilas Paswan, Sone Lal Patel, Om Prakash Rajbhar and Sanjay Nishad. Eventually, the accusations of catering to a single caste came to be levelled even against BSP, SP and RJD. There are various trajectories which led to these developments over time; important among them are internal power conflicts among leaders, numerical influence of certain castes and social engineering by BJP.
However, there were two things common to this spectrum of politics; their vision to dislodge upper caste Hindus from power centres and take up space which was denied to them for decades, and the Mandal commission agitation for lower castes to get reservation in public sector jobs. Subsequently, discussions on caste acquired prominence in public discourse in two polar opposites; Dalit and OBC politics were criminalized by the upper caste intelligentsia as casteist, divisive and parochial and at the same time, upper caste led parties such as Congress and BJP had to negotiate and reach out to castes among Dalits and OBCs prior to elections. Unfortunately, the negotiating power of representation which had come out of the Dalit and OBC wave of politics in the early 1990s, has come to be their cause of concerns exploited by BJP and Congress alike. Leaders of certain castes or clusters of castes when they don’t get their place in the bigger Dalit-Bahujan parties are minutes away from joining BJP and the big Dalit-Bahujan parties try to somehow stitch certain castes together to reach the required numbers. BSP had been placing its hope on Brahmins while RJD had been blamed of trying to appease the Bhumihars. JD(U) managed to work with Pasmanda Muslim leaders and bring together certain extremely backward castes for some time but BJP has been denting it gradually. Their recent attempt at reaching out to Pasmanda Muslims is another cause of worry for the social justice politics. Although certain Pasmanda intellectuals and leaders such as Ali Anwar and Khalid Anis Ansari have questioned the intention of BJP’s outreach by citing the increasing violence and negligence against lower caste Muslim communities, representations for few leaders and conventions by BJP can bring surprises one never predicts.
The recent Supreme judgement on EWS is one of the first steps to dilute and undo the years of Dalit-Bahujan discourse which centered around historical exclusions and socio-educational backwardness based on caste. Poverty is made out to be a secular term to include the upper castes in reservation and satisfy their collective consciousness while discourse on caste is undermined and erased to formally deny the Dalit-Bahujans reservations in the nearby future. This is quite clear in the statements given by Justice Pardiwala and Bela Trivedi who were part of the five member bench which gave the verdict on EWS. Pardiwala in the judgement argued, “The new concept of economic criteria introduced by the impugned amendment for affirmative action may go a long way in eradicating caste based reservation. It may be perceived as a first step in the process of doing away with caste based reservation.” Bela Trivedi wrongfully attributed a time span for reservation to the framers of constitution and argued that there should be a time limit for reservations; which is to say removing caste based reservations for Dalit-Bahujans within a certain stipulated time in the coming years.
Amidst such travesty of social justice and the immediate threat of eliminating the bare minimum provision of affirmative action, big Dalit-Bahujan parties such as SP, BSP and JD(U) have actively supported EWS Bill in parliament. DMK has opposed the verdict and has stated that it is going to file a review petition while RJD, JD(U) believe this judgement can remove the cap of 50% and increase OBC reservation percentage. The latter have also pressed for conducting a caste census in the country which does not seem to be taken well by BJP.
Representation in electoral configuration and reservations in jobs and education; these two demands have defined social justice politics over the last three decades but today the upper caste led parties and judiciary have diluted its potential by tokenism, reverse social engineering and have initiated a process to end reservation in the near future. It is important to ask what next for social justice politics; how are they going to redeem the true essence of representing the demands of Dalit-Bahujans beyond advancements of few castes and fight for reservations which they are finding it difficult to face at this juncture. This also begs reflections from Dalit-Bahujan intelligentsia, artists, activists, writers, journalists to think of ways to bring concrete basic demands concerning Dait-Bahujan masses in the public discourse and not be trapped in the singular debate of reservation as defendants and accused, which the upper caste society expects.
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Sumeet Samos, from Odisha, has recently completed MSc in Modern South Asian Studies at Oxford.
