The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) established the Samajik Samrasta Manch (social harmony forum) in 1983 in an open effort to reach out to the subaltern caste groups. The Sangh reportedly considered the word samata (equality) in place of samrasta (harmony) before finalising the name. For the past 40 years, caste politics in the northern plains has grappled with this contest between the ideals of harmony and equality and between hierarchy and justice.
Harmony does not necessarily mean justice; in fact, pursuit of justice can get contentious, and can even cause violence. Harmony does not necessarily mean the end of hierarchy or inequality.
The RSS and the BJP, which set out to build Hindu unity, had to deal with this challenge.
Social justice parties that mobilised subaltern social groups grew stronger around the same time the RSS started this effort. Depending on the context, leadership and time, justice and harmony alternated as the priority of the subaltern masses in the past four decades.
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Whenever the slogan of Hindu unity got the upper hand, the BJP won; whenever the justice question came on top, it faced setbacks.
In 2015, for instance, the BJP faced defeat in Bihar after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for a debate on caste reservation.
The BJP’s totalising ambitions appeared successful with the 2014 victory but the 2015 setback indicated the fragility of it.
The Sangh Parivar has evolved with regard to the caste question. “We kept our own fellow human beings behind in the social system. We did not care for them, and it continued for 2,000 years...Until we provide them equality, some special remedies have to be there, and reservations is one of them. Hence, reservations have to continue till there is such discrimination. We, at the RSS, give all support to the reservations provided in the Constitution,” Mr. Bhagwat said last month.
Losing grip
On the one hand, the RSS and the BJP were responding to subaltern ambitions, and on the other, the social justice parties were struggling to live up to their promise. Reduced to single-caste, single-family parties, most of them, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, lost grip over the wide coalition of intermediary castes they had started with. Numerous new parties emerged, scattering the social justice spectrum. Several of them joined hands with the BJP.
While claiming itself as the best party for the OBCs, the BJP was, however, clearly mindful of its core upper caste voters. This commitment led it to the 10% quota for the Economically Weaker Sections, which in effect is one for the upper castes.
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi has taken the Congress into the battle for caste justice that it has shied away from all these years. The caste survey conducted by the Nitish Kumar-Tejashwi Yadav government of Bihar is a blunt attack on the delicate, hierarchical harmony at the core of BJP politics, by restoring the question of justice at the centre of caste relations. That sounds the bugle for 2024. The BJP had anticipated this and will have tricks up its sleeve.
