The first lesson in politics is not to be deceived by the appearance. It has been 27 years since political parties used the OBC quota as a tool to trick the public. The government last week went a step further and paved the way for quota within the quota in OBC categories. There have been murmurs within the intelligentsia that reservation, which has gone into the very blood and bones of Indian politics, should be clinically removed. This literally means abolition of caste politics—the marrow of hundreds of political parties in the country. But a single statement against reservation is potent enough to destroy the political fortunes. And the BJP had learnt it hard way in the last Bihar polls.
RSS, the BJP’s parent organisation, wanted to uproot reservation. To do that, they needed something surgical, and Sangh leaders’ statement was the first move. But that was pulled down by the Modi government that became afraid of closing down divisions and sub-divisions and bring a organic unity in society. So quota within the quota is a compromise.
The very basis of OBC reservation was blackmail by politicians, who needed a fertile ground to harvest electoral dividends. A survey by the National Sample Survey Organisation put the OBC population in the country at around 41 per cent, which is a huge vote bank for political parties of all shades. In Indian democracy, we always find beautiful schemes to hide the ugly realities of development, or let’s say under-development. In the last 27 years of reservation, society has undergone a sea change, and there is no need to go on propagating the quota policy and creating the same kind of consciousness for the new generation.
In November 1986, the demand for implementation of OBC reservation had amplified.
D P Yadav and a few other MPs had told then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that the government was indifferent to problems of backward classes and they were feeling disenchanted with the Congress. Gandhi had sent Wajahat Habibullah, then Joint Secretary in the PMO, to understand the dynamics of the OBC quota. Yadav and a team of MPs told Habibullah that reservation for OBC may cause resistance and even violence, but this must be faced if the Congress’s hold on the Indo-Gangetic belt is to be retained. This was nothing but a clear threat.
Habibullah had told Rajiv the views of MPs that if the Congress fails to implement the Mandal Commission report, it would seriously affect the party’s prospects apart from posing a major threat to national integrity. Rajiv did not yield. This was despite the fact that he was reminded by Congress MP R R Bhagat in September 1986 that Rajiv’s father Firoze Gandhi narrowly escaped defeat in Raebareli because his opponent was a young Delhi graduate from a barber community, who was encouraged to contest by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia. Bhagat’s argument was that while lots of attention was being given to the minorities and Scheduled Castes, the OBCs remained neglected and the situation was not in the larger long-term interest of the party.
“In a democratic set-up where people ultimately call the tune in the elections, the great Congress party can also suffer if it ignores and alienates 50 per cent of the electorates,” Bhagat had told Rajiv. But his successor V P Singh did in 1990, and it stung him. Modi’s traction among the people is mainly for the reason that he is willing to take risks and isn’t afraid of surgical strikes against political chaos. And it is the PM’s duty to inform his people that they cannot solve a problem that is going to be faced by a majority of the population in future by more quotas. With absolute power, the PM has been given an opportunity to change the fabric of society. The real democracy is not about reservation. In fact, reservation is monarchic.