Battle ahead: Hindutva vs Mandal 2.0

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin during the first national conference of the All India Federation For Social Justice, on April 1. Pic/PTI

The immunity the Adanis ostensibly enjoy can be a vigorous election campaign point but not an ideological alternative to Hindutva. This is why it is important to underline the importance of the All India Federation for Social Justice, which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin founded on April 3 in Chennai. With a clutch of Opposition parties, including the Congress, participating in the Chennai meet, the Federation sought to coalesce them around the ideology of social justice, strengthen federalism and secularism, and culturally interrogate Brahminical Hinduism's tendency to preserve the hierarchical social order.

The Federation's social justice agenda was articulated through its demand for a nationwide caste census, with Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha even coining a slogan - "No Census if no caste census." This demand is closely linked to the Supreme Court shockingly upholding as constitutionally valid Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2019 decision to provide a 10 per cent quota for the Economically Weaker Section after removing the cap of 50 per cent on reservation imposed via several court orders.

The 2006 S R Sinho Committee estimated India's EWS population, after excluding the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, to be just five per cent. Thus, five per cent of the population has been granted 10 per cent reservation, in contrast to OBCs, estimated by the Mandal Commission to be 52 per cent, getting only 27 per cent. Modi's EWS decision also upturned the principle of granting reservation on the social and educational backwardness than on the economic criterion.

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A caste census will likely show OBCs to be in excess of 27 per cent of the population, if not 52 per cent, and inevitably lead to the demand to provide them reservation in proportion to their population, as is the case with SCs and STs. The BJP's stonewalling of a caste-based census fosters suspicion that Hindutva bats for the upper castes.

This charge is borne out by statistics. Out of 4,365 appointments made in the Indian Administrative, Indian Police and Indian Forest Services between 2018 and 2022, SCs, STs and OBCs accounted for 27.37 per cent, with STs having an abysmal share of just 3.8 per cent. Over 11,000 students from OBCs, SCs and STs dropped out of 45 Central Universities, including IIMs and IITs, between 2018 and 2023. Instead of boosting the intake from these three categories, the EWS quota would protect the upper castes' share in elite services and institutions for years to come.

Stalin, in Chennai, suggested that the Opposition should make the younger generation aware of Jyotirao Phule, Periyar and B R Ambedkar, who were advocates of social justice and interrogated Brahminical Hinduism. This cultural challenge has already been mounted in Bihar, where Education Minister Chandrashekhar faulted Ramcharitmanas for demeaning lower castes.

Not only did Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav subtly support him, Jagadanand Singh, the party president, criticised the Ram Temple for being "built on the land of hatred." Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav cocked a snook at those who criticised Swami Prasad Maurya for critiquing Ramcharitmanas through the lens of caste, by making him the party's national general secretary.

The challenge to Brahminical Hinduism follows Brahmin luminaries flaunting the community's superiority or toeing the Bharatiya Janata Party's line. Madras High Court judge G R Swaminathan recently said the Indian Constitution will cease to exist in case the country's "demographic profile" gets altered from what it was in 1950. This endorses the BJP's tactic of stoking fears of Muslims demographically overwhelming Hindus. Swaminathan lauded only Brahmin scholars and Brahminical texts for their contribution to the Tamil language, to the shock of other social groups.

In 2019, Justice V Chitambaresh, of the Kerala High Court, said all good qualities - clean habits, lofty thinking, sterling character, vegetarianism, passion for Carnatic music - "rolled into one is a Brahmin." In the same year, Speaker Om Birla said Brahmins' high position is because of their sacrifice and dedication, adding, "This is the reason that Brahmin society has always been in the role of a torchbearer."

The Andhra Pradesh government's Veda Vyasa Scheme for Vedic Education is confined to Brahmins.

Visit brahminparishad.telangana.gov.in to read this description of Brahmins: "BRAHMIN stands for Broad and Brilliant in Thinking, Righteous and Religious in Livelihood, Adroit and Adventurous in Personality, Honesty and Humanity in Quality, Modesty and Morality in Character, Innovation and Industry in Performance and Nobility and Novelty in Approach."

OBC politics has always stood for federalism. Largely comprising regional players, the Federation automatically becomes a bulwark against excessive centralisation, as is happening under Modi. With its interrogation of Brahminical Hindutva, the Federation subliminally challenges Hindutva's strategy of othering Muslims to paper over the caste contradiction. Not surprisingly, Stalin debunked the Karnataka government's decision to take out Muslims from the reservation pool.

Quick to sniff challenges, Modi, on the BJP's foundation day, said, "Many parties, in the name of social justice, have just played with the country." He knows Hindutva vs Mandal 2.0 could work against him despite him being an OBC himself, although, as sociologist Satish Deshpande once said, "The starting point for Modi was his acceptance by the upper castes." They, in turn, have benefitted from Modi. It is this equation the Federation's demand for caste census seeks to demonstrate.

The writer is a senior journalist.
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