Caste Is King
By Poonam I Kaushish
Caste is king! Not who, but what you are. Its manifestations are complex — sometimes visceral, at other times insidious giving further impetus, widening caste divide and devouring the country. Who cares?
From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Maharashtra to Manipur caste explosions and exploitations rule the roost. The tragic circumstances surrounding the suicide of senior Haryana IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar 52, last week underscore caste discrimination continue to permeate the highest echelons of Indian officialdom. In an 8-page tell-all he blamed his seniors including DGP Haryana and SP Rohtak of “blatant caste discrimination, public humiliation and atrocities.” Exposing, the difficult but necessary conversation around caste discrimination in Babudom.
Alas, despite Kumar’s damning note, political pressure and public anger the case is taking the usual route involving Dalit victims: FIR initially didn’t name the 8 accused or invoke stringent sections of the SC& St (Prevention of Atrocities) Act which were added only after his family protested. Till date his last rites have been withheld over autopsy for nailing the blame.
But this is not an isolated case. Daily newspapers and social media splash stories of gore: lynching of a Dalit in Rae Bareli UP, assault on an elderly Dalit woman in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, rape of Dalit women in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, Dalit man burnt in Tamil Nadu, murderous attack on a tribal MP in West Bengal, brutal murder of a tribal girl in Karnataka, culminating in a shoe hurled at Chief Justice of India Gavai in Supreme Court, an inevitable consequence of deepening social poison and continual political attempts to keep the caste pot simmering.
In fact, disdain for “untouchables” inherited over generations, coupled with entrenched misogyny in a patriarchal society and social justification flowing from patriarchy make upper castes extremely intolerant to lower castes trying to rectify their mis-fortune by birth.
Shockingly, 76 years after caste untouchability was abolished, India has failed to democratize the powers and privileges associated with ‘upper’ caste identity with the socially marginalized community remaining distanced from the corridors of power and merely surviving as passive recipients of State’s welfare policies.
Over 27% people say they continue to practise it in some form in their homes. A startling finding of a survey done by the National Council of Applied Economic Research and the University of Maryland sometime back. Those who admit to practising untouchability belong to virtually every religious and caste group Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims.
More. Untouchability is the most widespread among Brahmins (52%), followed by 35% Jains, 33% OBCs, 24% forward castes, 15% SC and 22% ST. Worse, as National Crime Records Bureau data shows crimes against Dalits and marginalised have increased by 46% and Adivasis 91% between 2013-23, whereby politics of intimidation and suppression threatens the foundation of India’s democracy. Sic.
Politically, speaking, caste is a major socio-political fault line which will influence alignments politically and socially at workplaces and voter choices and form the core of affirmative action by the State. Both BJP and Congress recognize they have to address caste as a political category, not through patronage.
Already, BJP is worried about the running feud between UP’s upper caste Rajput Chief Minister Yogi with OBC MLAs alongside OBC allies Apna Dal and Nishad Parties. Wherein, caste has become the most luscious mistress to be measured through the prism of power glass politics. With Parties defining it according to their own warped and selfish needs. Not just that. With everyone propounding their own recipes of caste harmony, the nation is getting sucked into vortex of centrifugal bickering
Fueled by Mandalistation, politics, is now polarised on caste basis with elections being fought on caste considerations. Voters are regressively but decisively voting along caste lines. After all, why should Brahmins and Thakurs, only 15% of vote-bank, rule the roost? Plainly, political consciousness terminates at the caste level today.
Take Bihar. Caste remains the fundamental grammar of politics as a mobilization tool polarised on caste basis with elections being fought on caste considerations. Voters are regressively but decisively voting along caste lines. Over the past 30 years the State’s hierarchical society has been transformed by struggles over social justice, symbolic empowerment and a round of welfare redistribution.
Alongside social coalitions driving politics have also shifted whereby every Party wants to know the caste composition of a voter, constituency before selecting a candidate. Succinctly, its’ the State catching up with the lived socio-economic and political reality as it shapes hierarchy and discrimination, culture and belonging.
BJP which battled caste surveys that militated against its concept of Hindu unity has today embraced it marking a momentous ideological shift post. Today, it has invested heavily in non-dominant OBC’s and Dalits extending tickets, recognition and messaging. These communities once mobilized by symbolic gestures now demand material outcomes: jobs, land, housing etc testing a neta’s mettle.
Besides, it is worried about possible OBC attrition in Bihar and is balancing ticket distribution on caste basis vis-à-vis constituency and voter base. Primarily, as it vexed about its possible fallout in Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala 2026, the Saffron Sangh now seeks a broader social coalition that can translate into pan-India support. With Kamandal (Hindutva) as a steady ideological base, BJP is now experimenting with MandaI 2.0 aimed at socially inclusive vote consolidation.
In fact, a BJP insider avers the Party has repeatedly recalibrated its social engineering to suit evolving political realities and forms Modi’s rise in 2014 when it shed its ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ image through welfare schemes like Ujjwala Awas Yojana to appeal to poorer sections across castes.
In INDIA bloc’s thinking when caste becomes central to livelihood issues which are centred on identification and reservation, they reckon it will have greater electoral pull than religion. RJD rooted in the Yadav wave face similar pressure from its base as does Nitish’s JD(U) Paswan’s LJP and other Parties.
Sadly to gain vote-banks none have paid heed to the Frankenstein they have unleashed. Failing to realize politicisation of caste is a double-edged sword. Caste needs politics as much as politics need caste. When caste groupings make politics their sphere of activities they get a chance to assert their identity and strive for power and position.
True, none can fault granting equal opportunities to all. But whether this would translate into equal outcome is debatable. Questionably, will not caste further fractionalize national politics?
Clearly, in the Kafkaesque world where caste identity is sticky baggage, difficult to dislodge in social settings and where caste vs caste fight and decide one’s fate, no Party wants to jeopordise its caste vote-banks. Wherein, the fight for getting the upper hand and votes has been reduced to politics of optics and perception, underscoring present reality and exposes the socio-political undercurrents at play.
Undeniably, caste is a slippery slope as Janata Dal’s VP Singh of Mandal 1.0 learnt the hard way. There are many challenges ahead. If India has to move forward the caste Frankenstein must be stopped if society is to be reconstructed on basis of equality. This is no time for mindless populism of social group politics as it will only further divide people on caste lines and increase the chasm between haves and have-nots. Time will tell how the gambit of caste plays out. If Bharat has to reach its pinnacle of success it cannot revel in petty politricks. — INFA