Perils of becoming a casteless democracy
While so much is being made of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charismatic foray into national politics and the downfall, even decimation, of the Congress party, there is hardly any talk of the almost complete disappearance of the formation, hitherto with a formidable presence, which may be referred to as Mandal Political forces (henceforth, MPF). The formation, which kept caste at the centre of political debate, seems to have just vanished. Not just there is no Mayawati, both literally and figuratively, even the caste experts have been made redundant in contemporary public debates in popular media. Has caste become irrelevant or less potent a force in today’s politics? Has Indian democracy moved beyond caste?
The MPF originally emerged out of the JP Movement as a potent response to Indira Gandhi’s autocratic politics and declaration of Emergency in the '70s. JP’s total revolution ushered in a new political force in the form of backward class and Dalit assertion in politics. A new bunch of leaders from these castes such as Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh, Kanshi Ram, Mayawati and many others took the centre-stage and became the "movers and shakers" of Indian politics. In states like Bihar and UP, these leaders dominated not just because they realised the meaning and value of numerical strength as political capital, but also as they championed the cause of social justice. Post Mandal agitation there was further consolidation of the new formation.
The formation, however, progressively lost its sheen and credibility, thanks largely to brazen display of self-serving leadership with megalomaniac streak of personal aggrandizement, rampant corruption and accommodation of unlawful and criminal elements.
Nitish Kumar could perhaps be an exception here on some counts. Broadly speaking, the emancipatory appeal of social justice and social transformation based on equality and true representation of people on the fringe, not just got severely compromised but in fact almost forgotten. Soon a politics which was promising to be national started descending in to regional. None, not even those political pundits who claimed to have mastered the caste politics of the Hindi heartland, had ever imagined a Parliament without Mayawati, and that too without a single seat before the election.
The argument that religious polarisation subsumed caste identities is true but too simplistic. It represents an incomplete diagnosis as it does not point responsibility of those who betrayed the politics of social justice. One of the most profound failings, besides many others, of the old guard of MPF has been its inability to create and nurture a new line of young leadership drawn from its rank and file. Most of them could not see beyond themselves or their own blood ties resulting in to replication of what they promised to have stood against, namely the dynastic and autocratic politics.
The world in the meantime changed. A new generation of young citizens with Wi-Fi aspiration emerged for whom poverty meant a caste neutral malady, mobility meant having a mobile and empowerment meant going to McDonalds. It is indeed true that the idioms of political engagement and mass mobilisation of the past have become obsolete and politics is more of management than arts. And therein lies the challenge, of spawning a new brand of politics.
It is one thing to see caste dying naturally under modern, progressive influences and structural changes and it is completely different to see it being put under erasure as a political strategy. The latter does not change anything about the materiality of caste existence in Indian society. What we are witnessing is the sidelining of the caste-centric politics to privilege a more fashionable buzz word called "developmental politics". The truth is India’s development discourse is intimately intertwined to caste politics. If development has to be inclusive, then caste simply cannot be ignored as the compulsory methodological tool for mapping India’s rabid unequal socio-economic configuration.
Of late there have been renewed efforts to get the old guards of MPF come together. It was interesting to see Deve Gowda, Sharad Yadav, Lalu and Mulayam Yadav, Nitish Kumar and others sharing stage in a rare show of camaraderie recently. Sadly it looked like a "managed" and opportunistic assemblage of grumpy looking septuagenarians and a conference of fatigued and demoralised warlords from various caste factions.
If the MPF has to regenerate then it will have to induct fresh blood, of ideas and people, into its system, foreground the equalising principles of social justice for a casteless society and to shun the politics of self preservation. And for that to happen, the politics around caste has to be non casteist.
The inclusive politics demands a sense of universal common good sans politics of parochialism. It has to be an art form and not just management and technology. Lastly, we may side step caste in our democratic politics but can never simply ignore it. Like it or not, inequality in India has caste imprint. To dream of a casteless democracy and society, we will have to renew our pledge to the republic and be ready for a longer journey.