06-07-2007, 06:07 AM
Two years to Kalyug
The big trend for 2009 is not the so-called end of Mandalism, it is the irrelevance of the national parties. The Congress could lose ground and the BJP head for a two-figure tally in the next general election
With a speed that is astonishing, breathtaking and downright exasperating, Delhi's permanent political pundits jump from one facile conclusion to another, proffer one explanation after another to explain this week's occurrence and the previous week's error of judgement.
After Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the new catchphrase doing the rounds is "post-Mandalism". Mandal is history, we are told, Mandalisation has reached its logical absurdity with intra-OBC squabbles and serious conflict within the "quota classes" - Meenas and Gujjars for instance; or Yadavs and MBCs for that matter - the whole notion of caste politics is being presented as obsolete.
The problem with these theories is they are way too pat, only waiting to have holes punched into them by the following week or the following election. Nowhere in the world is an election won without putting together coalitions of voters. Identity groups, communities, industrial workers, farmers, middle class liberals, middle class conservatives, Polish-origin Americans in Chicago, Greek-origin Australians in Melbourne - without stitching together various categories of voters, you cannot earn a mandate.
In India, the principal - but not only - unit of electoral mobilisation has been caste. What we call the Mandalisation process - fathered, actually, by Charan Singh in the 1960s and predating the implementation of the Mandal Commission's report 30 years later - involved the putting together of a coalition of OBCs.
In Uttar Pradesh it has been trumped by another coalition, one of Brahmins, Dalits, moderate Muslims and the urban middle class, which has purposefully excluded the dominant OBCs. The vanguard of Mandalism may have been defeated but the idea of creating new and dynamic caste-based coalitions that are politically effective remains strong as ever.
Similarly, in Rajasthan, Meenas and Gujjars are unlikely to vote in conjunction in the 2008 Assembly election but Jats, who corner the bulk of OBC reservation in the State, and Meenas, who corner the bulk of Scheduled Tribe reservation, could, in an attempt to squeeze out the Gujjars. How this would represent the end of caste and identity politics is something for news channel pundits to work out.
One reason why political analysts are so obsessed with the symptom - two backward castes fighting here, an OBC Chief Minister being overthrown there - is that they are too lazy, or perhaps simply too fearful, to confront the disease. The bigger problem lies in the strategic paralysis of the national parties.
The BJP and the Congress were almost equally worried during the Gujjar agitation. If it went out of hand and spread across north India with different disaffected "backward caste" groups going on a rampage for different versions of perceived injustice, the biggest losers would be the BJP and the Congress. They would be sucked into a game neither had the political wherewithal for.
The process of OBC empowerment - Mandalisation, if you prefer - began in roughly 1990, with Yadav-led Governments being formed in Lucknow and Patna. The BJP sought to incorporate the energies of Mandal into its larger platform, wooing groups like the Lodhs (Mr Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh, Ms Uma Bharati in Madhya Pradesh), building alliances with the Kurmis (Mr Nitish Kumar in Bihar) and not forgetting to point out that even some of its Hindutva stars (Mr Narendra Modi in Gujarat) had an OBC moniker.
The Congress's attempt to woo OBCs came much too late and was much too crude and clumsy, defined by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh forcing an over-the-top reservation agenda upon an unwilling political class, not to speak of civil society.
Today, with the 'OBC revolution' having evolved beyond its aggressive, macho and symbolism-packed first stage, there are no takers for the BJP's me-too Mandalism and the Congress's me-three Mandalism. Having jumped on to the OBC bandwagon over the past decade, the two big parties now suddenly find themselves directionless.
The old formula is not working, and they have no new formula to borrow, let alone create. Neither the Congress nor the BJP is quite certain about which constituency, or constituencies, it is courting. As fresh socio-political churning takes place, nobody can predict where and how it will end. One thing is certain though: The national parties are not attempting to tailor the agenda. They give the impression of being innocent bystanders.
If that is the larger sociological conundrum, there is a more immediate political implication as well. As things stand, both the BJP and the Congress are headed for reverses in the 2009 general election. This will be in keeping with a historical trend but the coming election could also see the national parties slipping below critical mass.
Consider recent statistics. In the past four Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and the Congress have won roughly 300 seats between them - 1996: BJP 161, Congress 140; 1998: BJP 182, Congress 141; 1999: BJP 182, Congress 114; 2004: BJP 138; Congress 145.
In 2009, the numbers are set to fall. The Congress faces conventional anti-incumbency as any ruling party does. Further, it is likely to lose ground in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi (which it swept in 2004), probably Gujarat (where it won 12 of 28 seats) and Maharashtra. Even so, it should gain in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.
If one uses the 1999 number - 114, the Congress's worst Lok Sabha tally - as a floor, the party is headed for somewhere between that mark and its current tally of 145.
The BJP is looking at a much bigger drubbing, an almost Uttar Pradesh-style shock. It could well end up with its worst performance in two decades, since it won 86 seats in 1989. That was a party on the upswing. The current BJP is a party in decline, refusing to recognise popular disquiet against its Governments in Karnataka and Rajasthan and maybe Madhya Pradesh, too, led by an insecure man too busy fighting phantom threats, a living embodiment of the Peter Principle. For the first time since the 1990s, the BJP has lost the urban middle classes and is not talking their language.
What happens if the BJP and the Congress together control no more than 200-220 seats? Neither will be in a position to lead or even control an NDA/UPA type alliance. Both will have to compete to back a coalition. Every regional satrap will put in his bid for Race Course Road, and to each one of them CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat will hand over a draft note on foreign policy and economic reforms.
Nightmares don't get darker.
The big trend for 2009 is not the so-called end of Mandalism, it is the irrelevance of the national parties. The Congress could lose ground and the BJP head for a two-figure tally in the next general election
With a speed that is astonishing, breathtaking and downright exasperating, Delhi's permanent political pundits jump from one facile conclusion to another, proffer one explanation after another to explain this week's occurrence and the previous week's error of judgement.
After Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the new catchphrase doing the rounds is "post-Mandalism". Mandal is history, we are told, Mandalisation has reached its logical absurdity with intra-OBC squabbles and serious conflict within the "quota classes" - Meenas and Gujjars for instance; or Yadavs and MBCs for that matter - the whole notion of caste politics is being presented as obsolete.
The problem with these theories is they are way too pat, only waiting to have holes punched into them by the following week or the following election. Nowhere in the world is an election won without putting together coalitions of voters. Identity groups, communities, industrial workers, farmers, middle class liberals, middle class conservatives, Polish-origin Americans in Chicago, Greek-origin Australians in Melbourne - without stitching together various categories of voters, you cannot earn a mandate.
In India, the principal - but not only - unit of electoral mobilisation has been caste. What we call the Mandalisation process - fathered, actually, by Charan Singh in the 1960s and predating the implementation of the Mandal Commission's report 30 years later - involved the putting together of a coalition of OBCs.
In Uttar Pradesh it has been trumped by another coalition, one of Brahmins, Dalits, moderate Muslims and the urban middle class, which has purposefully excluded the dominant OBCs. The vanguard of Mandalism may have been defeated but the idea of creating new and dynamic caste-based coalitions that are politically effective remains strong as ever.
Similarly, in Rajasthan, Meenas and Gujjars are unlikely to vote in conjunction in the 2008 Assembly election but Jats, who corner the bulk of OBC reservation in the State, and Meenas, who corner the bulk of Scheduled Tribe reservation, could, in an attempt to squeeze out the Gujjars. How this would represent the end of caste and identity politics is something for news channel pundits to work out.
One reason why political analysts are so obsessed with the symptom - two backward castes fighting here, an OBC Chief Minister being overthrown there - is that they are too lazy, or perhaps simply too fearful, to confront the disease. The bigger problem lies in the strategic paralysis of the national parties.
The BJP and the Congress were almost equally worried during the Gujjar agitation. If it went out of hand and spread across north India with different disaffected "backward caste" groups going on a rampage for different versions of perceived injustice, the biggest losers would be the BJP and the Congress. They would be sucked into a game neither had the political wherewithal for.
The process of OBC empowerment - Mandalisation, if you prefer - began in roughly 1990, with Yadav-led Governments being formed in Lucknow and Patna. The BJP sought to incorporate the energies of Mandal into its larger platform, wooing groups like the Lodhs (Mr Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh, Ms Uma Bharati in Madhya Pradesh), building alliances with the Kurmis (Mr Nitish Kumar in Bihar) and not forgetting to point out that even some of its Hindutva stars (Mr Narendra Modi in Gujarat) had an OBC moniker.
The Congress's attempt to woo OBCs came much too late and was much too crude and clumsy, defined by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh forcing an over-the-top reservation agenda upon an unwilling political class, not to speak of civil society.
Today, with the 'OBC revolution' having evolved beyond its aggressive, macho and symbolism-packed first stage, there are no takers for the BJP's me-too Mandalism and the Congress's me-three Mandalism. Having jumped on to the OBC bandwagon over the past decade, the two big parties now suddenly find themselves directionless.
The old formula is not working, and they have no new formula to borrow, let alone create. Neither the Congress nor the BJP is quite certain about which constituency, or constituencies, it is courting. As fresh socio-political churning takes place, nobody can predict where and how it will end. One thing is certain though: The national parties are not attempting to tailor the agenda. They give the impression of being innocent bystanders.
If that is the larger sociological conundrum, there is a more immediate political implication as well. As things stand, both the BJP and the Congress are headed for reverses in the 2009 general election. This will be in keeping with a historical trend but the coming election could also see the national parties slipping below critical mass.
Consider recent statistics. In the past four Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and the Congress have won roughly 300 seats between them - 1996: BJP 161, Congress 140; 1998: BJP 182, Congress 141; 1999: BJP 182, Congress 114; 2004: BJP 138; Congress 145.
In 2009, the numbers are set to fall. The Congress faces conventional anti-incumbency as any ruling party does. Further, it is likely to lose ground in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi (which it swept in 2004), probably Gujarat (where it won 12 of 28 seats) and Maharashtra. Even so, it should gain in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.
If one uses the 1999 number - 114, the Congress's worst Lok Sabha tally - as a floor, the party is headed for somewhere between that mark and its current tally of 145.
The BJP is looking at a much bigger drubbing, an almost Uttar Pradesh-style shock. It could well end up with its worst performance in two decades, since it won 86 seats in 1989. That was a party on the upswing. The current BJP is a party in decline, refusing to recognise popular disquiet against its Governments in Karnataka and Rajasthan and maybe Madhya Pradesh, too, led by an insecure man too busy fighting phantom threats, a living embodiment of the Peter Principle. For the first time since the 1990s, the BJP has lost the urban middle classes and is not talking their language.
What happens if the BJP and the Congress together control no more than 200-220 seats? Neither will be in a position to lead or even control an NDA/UPA type alliance. Both will have to compete to back a coalition. Every regional satrap will put in his bid for Race Course Road, and to each one of them CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat will hand over a draft note on foreign policy and economic reforms.
Nightmares don't get darker.