Desperately Seeking Caste

ON THE AFTERNOON of July 23, halfway through his speech on the Union Budget in Lok Sabha, Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, touched on a subject that clearly causes him some heart­burn. The middle class that “banged” vessels and switched on mobile torches at the command of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Covid pandemic had been stabbed in the back and front, he said, gesticulating for added emphasis. Dwelling on the Budget’s apparent callousness towards the mid­dle class, the Congress leader’s resentment seeped through. “[The middle class] banged plates, ‘dhada-dhad’, with great gusto (thali bajao, thali bajao),” he said, acting out the action. “We found it odd, but the prime minister ordered the middle class and the middle class complied,” he said. And when Modi asked for mobile phone lights to be turned on, the middle class did so all across India. “And now the Budget has done away with indexation (for property sales) and increased the long-term capital gains tax,” he said, explaining the purported betrayal.

The political criticism of the tax measures is not a surprise, nor is the argument that the middle class was let down. What was re­vealing was the intensity of emotion, the animus over Modi’s “Pied Piper” effect on the middle class which has steadfastly turned its face from Congress since 2014. Rahul’s assertion that this section of voters will now back the Opposition is not so much a reading of the perceived disillusionment as it is an expression of dark satisfac­tion—the middle classes had got what they deserved. The essence of the matter is not about debating whether the tax decisions are a progressive measure that reduces clutter of varying rates for dif­ferent asset classes and improves transparency, as the government has argued, or a move that imposes a greater burden on investors. The imagery of the words and the accompanying body language invoked a sense of vengeance. “It is sad, but there is a hidden benefit for the I.N.D.I.A. alliance; [the] middle class is now leaving you and coming over [to] this side,” he said, the implied suggestion being this would amount to an act of penitence. In 2004, it was the middle class that voted in significant numbers for Congress, leading to the installation of the Manmohan Singh government. Singh’s image as a decent man and decisions like the US-India nuclear deal helped retain this support that powered Congress to a second term in 2009. But by 2014, a series of scams totalling hundreds of crores of rupees and a flailing economy broke the spell and set the stage for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forming the first single-party majority government since the 1984 Lok Sabha election.

An acknowledgement that serious errors in judgement led to Congress debacles in 2014 and 2019 has never been part of the party’s stock-taking. Rahul’s letter stepping down as Congress chief after the 2019 rout mainly blames “institution capture” by BJP-RSS as the reason for defeat and questions the neutrality of the media, judiciary and the Election Commission. Thus ended his brief term as Congress chief that he had assumed in 2017. Since then, the leader has stayed away from the post, preferring loyalists like octogenarian Mallikarjun Kharge who could be trusted to have a steady hand on the rudder. If he had indeed agreed to accept the Congress president’s post, the improved results of the 2024 election would have embellished his standing as an organisation man. It is possible that the Congress brass calculated that success would in any event be attributed to the first family. The risk of an­other washout was not easy to contemplate and could be seen in the tortured discussions before nominations for the Gandhi turfs of Rae Bareli and Amethi were finalised. In the event, Samajwadi Party-Congress got the better of BJP in Uttar Pradesh (UP) but it is clear the electoral battle was a fraught affair and the results were hardly predictable. The Congress leader’s speech in fact accepts that the middle class is supportive of Modi even as he goes on to argue that things have changed since the Budget. Urban support for BJP, despite attrition, is indeed a key reason Congress failed to progress beyond 99 seats and the saffron party won a handy 240 that enabled the formation of Modi 3.0.

If Congress sees an opportunity to bring the middle class back into its fold, Rahul’s insistent advocacy for a caste census is unlikely to help. The leader used his speech on the Budget to iterate that the party is committed to a caste census and will ensure the ap­propriate legislation is passed in Parliament. Shorn of progressive imputations, the pledge comes across as a desire to apportion of national resources on the basis of share in population irrespective of other factors. The Mandalised formulation is put across even more baldly than social justice parties that understand the need to accommodate forwards even within a backward-led political hierarchy. Rahul’s articulation is more likely to remind the mid­dle classes of the contested and segmented politics that prevailed whenever such coalitions have held office. His attempts to hold aloft a picture of the traditional halwa ceremony in the finance ministry as part of the Budget preparations to claim that there were no Dalits or Other Backward Classes (OBCs) among the 20-odd of­ficials was a crude appeal to identity. It was, to begin with, riddled with inaccuracies—the Budget is not prepared by just a handful of officials in North Block. It is the political-economic vision of the government and the result of hundreds of suggestions received from dozens of sectors of the economy and states being parsed into a statement of expenditure outlining the Centre’s priorities. To try and simplify such a complex process by seeking to call out the caste identities of officials beggars belief and raises the question whether social backgrounds will determine the composition of a Budget team under a Congress dispensation.

The response to the repeated and strident invocation of caste was not long in coming. Speaking just ahead of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s reply to the debate on the Bud­get the very next day, former Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Anurag Thakur had a few points to make. He approached his punchline with a deceptive attack on Rahul’s reference to the “chakravyuh (trap)” that forms a famous story from the Mahabharata. As he mocked the leader’s understanding of the epic, Thakur turned to Congress’ OBC advocacy, attacking it as misleading and untruthful, and then, even as the Opposition benches remained distracted, went for the jugular: “Honourable Chairperson, someone whose caste is not known is talking of a [caste] census?” The remark got Congress and other I.N.D.I.A. alliance MPs on their feet, demanding an apology. BJP leader Jagdambika Pal who, in the chair, used all his experience to ensure the House was not disrupted, immediately allowed Rahul to re­spond and he said he had been insulted. The two sides traded barbs, with a voice from the treasury benches asking whether the leader needed reminding of whom he had insulted during his speech. Pal used the opportunities he gave Rahul to speak to persuade Congress MPs to return to their seats. “If your leader is speaking, can you remain in the well?” he asked. Rahul countered Thakur, saying, “You can insult me, but remember that we will ensure the caste census is passed in this House.”

The direct jab at Rahul Gandhi’s caste is indeed unprecedented in parliamentary proceedings. It demonstrates just how no-holds-barred the political battle between Congress and BJP is but it had been anticipated. In re­cent months, the Congress leader has taken to asking caste identities of various persons, including the media. During his Bharat Jodo Yatra in February, Rahul had asked a journal­ist his name and that of the owner of the TV channel. Earlier, in October 2023, he had responded to questions at a press confer­ence on the demand for a caste census by asking OBCs and Dalits among assembled reporters to raise hands. BJP leaders said that since the leader of the Opposition was keen on asking and revealing caste identities, he should do the same too. Interestingly, prior to his taking up the “Jitni abadi, utna haq (Rights in proportion to population) slogan, he was not averse to his Brahmin heritage. At a party review after SP won the 2012 As­sembly polls and Congress’ bid to woo Dalits and OBCs failed, the discussion centred on the party’s inability to acquire a ‘base’ vote and the alienation of upper castes. Rahul is understood to have responded, remark­ing that he is Brahmin and Congress’ gen­eral secretary, indicating that forwards had a reason to feel an affinity towards the party. The OBC mantra in its current form is a bid to undo a powerful social coalition that has backed Modi since 2014 and which includes a sizeable section of back­wards in the Hindi heartland. The effort to popularise the idea that BJP’s power structure will inherently deny OBCs, Dalits and tribals their due has met with limited success as the Centre’s web of welfare schemes, powered by the Aadhaar sys­tem’s ability to identify beneficiaries accurately, has made inroads into castes and social segments where BJP had lagged in the past.

Speaking during the motion of thanks on the president’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament about a month ago, Rahul Gandhi’s remark in Lok Sabha that those who call them­selves Hindus talk of violence and hatred, saw Modi intervene and say that tarring the entire Hindu society as violent was a serious matter. Rahul said BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) do not constitute Hindu society, and Congress leaders and some media commentators stressed the reference to be the context of BJP, even though it is unclear whether the qualification makes the observations more acceptable. On Monday, July 29, Rahul brought the subject up again, saying, “You call yourself Hindu, you do not understand Hindu religion.” The discomfort of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, sitting just a seat away, was discernible. Though social justice or Mandal parties are anti-Hindutva, they do not dis­count the power of Hindu mobilisation, all the more since 2014. They are aware that the delicate balance between the backward- Muslim alliance, aided in the 2024 polls by Dalit support in UP, and BJP’s Hindutva-plus-development vote bank can swing the other way again. They do not wish to scratch the faultline. It was notice­able the SP leader did not seem particularly worked up when Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ remarked that becoming leader of the Opposition is not necessarily accom­panied by wisdom, gesticulating a mild reprimand with a smile.

Congress’ attack on big industry continues with Rahul Gandhi singling out two top groups despite states where the party is in office—or has been—having had no hesitation in seeking their business. BJP has criticised this as an anti-entrepreneur mindset, and speaking at an industry event a day after parliamentary pro­ceedings, Modi iterated his invitation to Indian industry to take the lead, saying wealth creators are a primary driving force in India’s growth story. He added that he did not hesitate in saying as much from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Energised by its better-than-expected performance in the Lok Sabha election, Congress sees an aggressive role for itself in confronting the Modi government. In doing so, it has sharpened its previous strategy of opposing BJP on virtually all its policies and accusing it of divisive, hate politics. In the process, Congress has moved farther from the centre itself, increasingly defining itself as a party of segmented interests. A par­tial revival of caste and regional calculations has buoyed its hopes, but that comes at the cost of endorsing caste and class conflict and a celebration of negativism.

Anurag Thakurcaste politicsDimple YadavIndian politicsLok SabhaOppositionRahul Gandhi