BJP, Hindutva, Caste Reservations, Gujarat: A discussion with Christophe Jaffrelot

(Indian Express
April 22, 2007)

THE IDEA EXCHANGE
Christophe Jaffrelot at the EXPRESS

‘All panels have said caste is relevant to identify backwardness. If it has changed, let’s have survey’

Christophe Jaffrelot is well-known in Indian academic circles for his seminal work on the Hindu nationalist movement, and belongs to long line of Western scholars who have engaged themselves with India and Indian politics. Among the works on India that he has edited are Revisiting Nationalism: Theories & Processes and The Sangh Parivar. He’s also the author of India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India. A director at Centre d’Etudes de Recherches Internationales (CERI) and a research director for Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), both in Paris, he’s also known for his work on Pakistan. Jaffrelot was in Delhi recently and spent some time with Express staffers.


MANINI CHATTERJEE: In the Uttar Pradesh elections, issues of caste and Hindutva are again coming to the fore. The BJP, after three years of confusion, is trying to revive itself. And there is a debate in the BJP about going back to Hindutva. In Dalit politics, the BSP is now trying to get the support of the Brahmins. An outsider often has a clearer perspective than political journalists on the beat. The debate on reservation has also come up. How do you view that?

This reservation business, I find it very interesting that in a way we are back to the 1960s, when the Supreme Court was objecting to the Backward Commission reports coming from the states. If you remember the famous Karnataka vs Balaji case of 1963, when any caste-based reservation was not made possible by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court changed its mind in the 1990s and the 1992 case was the most interesting one, when the court said sometimes caste can be a class and it cleared the way for everything and we could have caste-based reservations. And it seems this kind of progressive approach to the issue is not the position of the present Supreme Court. So we are back to a struggle of the judiciary and legislative wings of power. Let’s see whether the judiciary prevails, but if it does, then it means that the whole range of policies based on reservation will be slowed down and frankly speaking I think it’s one of the few corrections to what liberalisation is doing to societies these days.

VARGHESE K GEORGE: You are suggesting that for liberalisation to be stable, quotas and reservations are necessary?

One of the things necessary is the redistribution to correct the widening of gaps between the upper classes and the lower classes. Because the grand theory that in India it will percolate and everybody will benefit from it is not happening. Maybe in the long run, but in the long run we will all be dead.

RAVISH TIWARI: You very clearly used the term redistribution between the upper classes and backward classes, you did not say caste, you said that in the 1960s the Supreme Court did not accept caste as class but in 1992 it said that caste at times can be taken as a class. What is your position and what is your objection to the current order passed by the Supreme Court, which says that there should be a solid foundation of how you classify the classes or the caste for the purpose of reservation?

Well, so far, all backward classes commissions that have gone to the field have concluded that the most relevant variable to identify social and educational backwardness was caste. If things have changed, let’s have a survey and let’s check if caste is not relevant any more for identifying the lowest plebeians. But you can’t dismiss any policy on the grounds that there is no data because if there is no data you have to rebuild the data and not remain status quoists. And I am afraid caste is one of the major variables still.

RAVISH TIWARI: Shouldn’t we wait for some time to come out with solid empirical data before we really formulate a policy? Because once you formulate a policy, then vested interests come in, then it becomes difficult to restructure a policy. So would you mind holding it for some time, till we come with substantial data?

Alternatively, you can say we begin with this, but it is open to review after, say, five years, by when we will have a complete survey. Well, the census is not far away and the next census might be the right occasion for having a complete survey and then it will be reviewed. These policies have to be reviewed. So it’s good to say it’s open to review.

SEEMA CHISHTI: With regard to caste assertion that you wrote about in The Silent Revolution, how have the Hindutva forces dealt with this and how clever have they been in co-opting this into their larger strategy?

Well, to begin with you have, of course, the post-Mandal situation, the response at that time was the Rath Yatra. The Yatra was a deliberate response to this caste-based politics and it was to reunify their constituency by promoting the Hindu Rashtra kind of ideology. The second response was indeed cooption. When you look at the list of candidates to whom the BJP gave tickets in the late nineties, you are struck by the rise of OBCs. But if you look at the composition of the state executives, national executives, government then you are struck by something different. The Bania- Brahmin party that it used to be is still there.

SEEMA CHISHTI: Do you see contradictions or a fundamental difference between caste politics and Hindu ideology or have they co-opted themselves enough to change?

Well, a tactical move can have an effect and that was a tactical move, but in the end, the dilution of the Hindutva plank can be the end of the road. And, in a way, all these OBCs have diluted the Hindutva plank . . .Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh in the nineties . . . they have changed the whole profile . . . Katiyar, who is a Kurmi. . . these people have all changed the party’s way of behaving. The BJP is not the party it used to be in the seventies and eighties.

MANINI CHATTERJEE: The three leaders you mentioned, Uma Bharti, Katiyar and Kalyan Singh, are also the faces of aggressive Hindutva. Do you think the OBCs who are coming into the BJP are actually more aggressive then the old Bania-Brahmin aristocracy that led it?

Well yes, this plebian group has a very different ethos and even if Kalyan Singh is very Sanskritised and he made a point to be Sanskritised, his ethos is different. But this is one of the reasons that they have been picked up. But they also had some affect on the profile of the party at large. It was not a one-way traffic.

SAUBHIK CHAKRABARTI: Our paper has taken the position that yes, we are for some form of affirmative action, but we have always argued that the entire debate is misdirected. What you are trying to do, for example, is distributing five seats among lets say 50,000 people. There are very few high-quality institutions. Now, what I find surprising is that even you did not address that issue and you are saying we must redistribute. But the question is, redistribute what? I mean we had another Idea Exchange with another guest who remarked that there are 20-odd seats in India for a particular branch of medical specialisation. So how do you distribute 20 seats through government quotas? To question that is not to be elitist.

I agree Mandal was not an employment scheme, it was minimal. It was like 200,000 seats had to be filled in a year. So 27 per cent of this was minimal. But first of all, the symbolic impact of this in terms of empowerment was very important. And secondly, it’s a kind of redistribution anyway, because if these people have someone of their kind in the corridors of power, we know what it means in India.

SAUBHIK CHAKRABARTI: Maybe I didn’t frame my question as I wanted to. What I am saying is that, in higher education, it is hugely competitive. Now, when you have so few quality seats in so few quality institutions to begin with, the question which people who are not casteist or elitist raise is that we must increase the total supply of seats. I find even very smart people like you don’t address the supply-side issue. Because, to say it has a symbolic power is, I think, a little idealistic. If you know what kind of crisis India’s higher education faces, symbolism doesn’t have much place in it for policy.

Of course, but reservation is not the reason or excuse for not investing in education or developing mass education. But it would mean that the state would have to invest so much money that the state would have to raise taxes much more then one per cent, as it did recently.

SAUBHIK CHAKRABARTI: Now, I would say that is a very French solution. The state doesn’t have to invest money, just allow the private sector to invest.

But what I mean is that just because you have reservations does not mean you don’t have to invest in mass education. But if you do not invest in mass education and if you can give this avenue for upward social mobility, well this is at least something that is more than symbolic, more than nominal and in a way it is logical.

COOMI KAPOOR: The BSP is a product of caste politics. It was at one time exclusively directed at Dalits and today it is trying to include upper-caste elements as well. Do you see this as the future of caste politics in India?

Well, at least in that part of India yes, I think these parties which have built votebanks, votebanks which will remain with them even if they aggregate and try to reach out to others. And the BSP is a very good example of that because the Jatavs, the SCs at large, are really behind them and if they add some upper caste people they would not leave the party. So yes, it’s a logical accomplishment which dilutes in a way caste-based politics for the better because these groups will be less aggressive.

VARGHESE K GEORGE: You spoke about how Hindutva got diluted by adopting some of these backward leaders. Do you also see a pattern in the backward or lower caste movement, their trying to adopt Hindutva in some fashion. For instance, not only has Mayawati got Brahmin leaders but she also made a statement against Islamic terrorism. Mulayam Singh Yadav went to the Kumbh Mela and made a spectacle of his bathing there. So did Lalu Yadav. So all these backward leaders who spoke very vehemently against Hindutva, even against Hinduism, now want to be seen at Hindu leaders at some level.

To my mind, this is more tactical than anything else.

AMITABH SINHA: Would you describe the rise of Dalit politics and caste politics as an inevitable correction in the Indian political system that was just waiting to happen?

I don’t know if there is anything inevitable but it is certainly a key reflection that caste is the building block of society. Behind classes there are castes and Ambedkar said that the caste system is not only a division of labour but a division of labourers and it was very, very perceptive. Many people tried to avoid this reality. So I think that in that sense it might be inevitable because it was certainly the most important social unit of society and in the end it plays a role. And education helped the Dalits to articulate this discourse.

MANINI CHATTERJEE: Coming back to your main area of work on the Hindu nationalist movement, where do you see the BJP going? You know, it is said that to get from zero to hundred, the BJP needs Hindutva but to get from 100 to 272 seats - that is, to come to power — they need to dilute Hindutva because they need allies to form a government. How can they resolve this contradiction?

This tension is always there and you have the RSS pracharaks coming to the party and retaining their hardcore ideology and then there are all those who have tried to win elections making allies, making coalitions. So there is this tension and in a way this tension has stabilised.

MANINI CHATTERJEE: But do you think there is a fundamental rethink on their ideological positions?

No, if you look at the core ideology and the periphery, the core has not changed.

MANINI CHATTERJEE: But if the BJP were to win a majority on its own, do you think the core ideology will come to the fore again?

Well, look at what is going on in Gujarat, where the party is in a majority. It has no problem in treating some citizens as a non-entity. Gujarat is a very interesting example of how Muslims are treated as second class citizens without voting cards, without electricity, without water in the relief camps. The state is not even seeing them as refugees, it’s sending back money the Centre gave for relief work. It is unprecedented and I am amazed that it is going on without more protests.

SEEMA CHISHTI: You discussed economic liberalisation and how it changed the BJP, but at the same time the Rath Yatra was going on and Mandal was going on, there was also economic liberalisation. How does the Hindu right work with this liberalisation model?

Well, to my mind there are affinities between the elitist Brahmin oriented ethos which is the ethos of Hindutva and the middle class meritocratic ethos which is not so generous with the lower castes and lower classes. There are affinities between these two mindsets.

UNNI RAJEN SHANKER: I want to ask about Gujarat again, it has a long history of communal strife. Now finally it has violently erupted and ask any ordinary Hindu fundamentalist and he will say the “Muslims have been taught a lesson.” Now, how do you see the Hindutva movement after such a violent eruption, after it has convincingly “taught them a lesson.” Where does the movement go from there? Does it go up or does it come down?

Well it goes up, because if you see election results and you will see by the end of the year. How can you get someone like Modi five years as Chief Minister and again as a candidate? You know in many countries this kind of thing ends with a Commission for Justice and Reconciliation. But reconciliation is not on the agenda at all and officials have not used this word because (they think) there is no need to reconcile.

RAJ KAMAL JHA: Was Modi able to do what he did (to Muslims) because their numbers in the state are very low? Could the BJP or can the BJP do something like that in UP?

Maybe not, but the figures are not so low and nine per cent is not absolutely minimal. You have many states in India with less then nine per cent of Muslims - Madhya Pradesh, five per cent; Rajashtan, not more. So, if we go by this reasoning, then it may happen in many other places and this is frightening. Muslims may have realised that they need to be numerous or they need to regroup. And this is what is happening -- ghettoisation. If you go to the relief colonies, you see that many of them are also the places from where you can recruit people for one of the things that is happening every six months in this country.

RAJ KAMAL JHA: Do you think September 11 played any role in the BJP’s Hindutva discourse or does it play a role?

Well, I think it played a role in the rapprochement with Israel and the US, which is part of the whole picture. It is very interesting to realise that the kind of alliance that you see between the US and India is now based on the fact that Islam is the common enemy now. It has reassured them in their own orientation and it gave them more means from abroad certainly.