A day after BJP’s record win in Haryana last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi targeted the Congress at the foundation ceremony for several development projects in poll-bound Maharashtra, accusing it of trying to divide Hindus along castes, thus setting the pitch for campaign for the state’s election. Attacking the grand old party for seeking to divide Hindu society for its partisan ends. Modi said the Congress wanted to keep Hindu society simmering by any means to make political gains out of it, but does not discuss caste within the Muslim community. He also said that the Congress wanted to keep the Muslims under fear.
“Congress’s formula is simple: keep Muslims under fear, turn them into a vote bank and stoke divisions in Hindu society to benefit electorally,” he said, adding further that the Congress always fights elections purely based on “communalism, casteism and dividing Hindu society”. Referring to the BJP’s emphatic victory in Haryana, made possible by strong support from OBCs, farmers and Dalits as well as Congress’s blunders, Modi said falsehoods spread by the Congress have been exposed. Terming Congress an “irresponsible party”, he lambasted its “hate politics”, saying the party’s political playbook is built on divisiveness and it is on the verge of becoming a “factory of hate”.
On the face of it, Modi’s diatribe against the Congress can be seen as political rhetoric aimed at discrediting the Congress in the eyes of the electorate ahead of the crucial assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand next month. Since the Congress is BJP’s principal pan-India opponent, it is not surprising that in the prime minister’s political playbook, the Congress is always his obvious target. Social stratification is an inescapable reality of Indian society, which plays a crucial role in setting election narratives. Caste and religion play a big role in vote bank politics and almost all political parties are guilty of exploiting them to their advantage. The question is whether the Congress is really a hate factory which fights elections purely based on communalism and casteism. And what about the BJP?
Let us revisit the BJP’s 2024 Lok Sabha poll campaign. The prime minister began his party’s campaign on development and ‘Make India Great Again’ pitch. But after lower turnout in the first phase of voting, Modi shifted his campaign focus from development to calling the Congress as the villain out to loot the majority community, particularly the OBCs, Dalits and tribals, to appease its vote bank (Muslims). The shift in Modi’s campaign showcasing grand dreams of a Viksit Bharat to generating fear of “women’s mangalsutra would be stolen by the Congress hand” betrayed the prime minister’s fear of his party not making it to the majority mark. This was not surprising, given that hate politics and polarising Hindu voters has been an old Hindutva trick that the BJP has deployed time and again for decades.
When the prime indulges in incendiary rhetoric about a minority community and accuses the Congress of conspiring with the Muslim community to rob the Hindus of their wealth and entitlements and hand them over to Muslims, the prime minister hardly has any moral ground to accuse the Congress of hate politics and fighting elections based on communalism. Congress’s campaign in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll focused on issues of corruption, farmers, inflation, youth unemployment, stagnant incomes, rising inequality and social justice. The stark contrast in BJP’s communal pitch and the Congress-led Opposition’s focus on real issues concerning voters was obvious to even a fifth-grader.
The BJP’s rise to power from 1980 to leading a coalition government in late 1990s and finally to full majority in parliament in 2014 was based on divisive agenda. The Ayodhya Ram temple issue was a cornerstone of its politics since the late 1980s and the abrogation of Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code have been its other poll planks for decades. In 2024 general election, polarising narrative worked well for the Hindutva party than its over-hyped promise of development and India’s march towards the third largest economy. Since 2014, the saffron party has systematically targeted the minorities – whether it is food, clothes, prayers, population, reservation, history, education, geopolitics, places of worship, slogans, or voting. You name it, the BJP has communalised it in myriad ways.
Mobilising Hindu voters against the Congress by manufacturing insecurity among them and projecting the grand old party as anti-Hindu has been the BJP’s hobbyhorse in both Central and state elections. There was no facet of public or private life that the BJP did not communalise to win the 2024 general election under its Hindutva umbrella. But its major reverses came from the backward castes and Dalits in Uttar Pradesh who feared end to reservation if the saffron party won a two-thirds majority. So, who is fuelling discord in India’s electoral politics? This brings us to Modi’s second charge against the Congress of stoking divisions in Hindu society to benefit electorally. Let us not forget that for at least half a century, caste has been an explicit factor in Indian politics.
Be it the backward castes (OBCs) or Dalits, they have all stepped up their claims to power since the 1960s. The Muslim community has been completely left out of the electoral power game. In the 1990s, the Mandal movement paved the way for the birth of many caste-based parties in the Hindi heartland states. This has affected Congress considerably, while the BJP has been the beneficiary of the Mandir movement. The rise of Modi in 2014 gave an impression that caste has been overshadowed by Hindu nationalism. However, under the covers, caste continues to play a salient role in voting, though Hindutva brought together various castes in an election coalition. Elections are won and lost based on caste, candidates are selected on caste basis, and chief ministers are chosen and changed with caste factors in mind.
The Haryana election, an obvious disappointment for the Congress, was won by the BJP despite clear anti-incumbency and unpopularity of the BJP-led government, because of a coalition of small castes that resented the dominance of the Jats, the land-owing caste which enjoys a high social status in the state’s rural society. The BJP has been caught on the wrong foot with the politics of social justice; it fears the Congress’s great emphasis on caste to push social justice will dismantle its Hindutva umbrella. This explains its wariness of caste-based mobilisation outside its Hindutva caste calculus. But caste is here to stay and the future battle will be between the politics of BJP’s Hindutva caste coalition and the Opposition’s social justice.
The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule
