Who is afraid of Narendra Modi's caste? Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's protests show why this remains an important issue for Opposition

The Gandhi scions specialise in pop culture politics. The recipe is easy. Take a dollop of socialism, doles and entitlements, add a bit of ‘woke’ dialogue, run to temples on even days and practice “secularism” on odd, play truant with facts and indulge in a whole lot of virtue-signalling. The senior, Congress president Rahul Gandhi who is apparently a janeu-certified Hindu, tells anyone willing to listen that “ religion, caste and beliefs matter little to him”. That is very comforting to hear. He runs around the country and even beyond its shores and claims that Congress believes in “new politics” and in “spreading love and brotherhood”, “country belongs to everyone, every caste and every person”. At the plenary session last year, he said only Congress “can heal the divisions of the nation.” And then his sister, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, tells reporters that she doesn’t know Narendra Modi’s caste. “Even today, I do not know his (PM Modi’s) caste. The Opposition and the Congress leaders are only raising issues related to development. They have never raised the issue of this caste. We have never made any personal remarks against him,” Priyanka was quoted as saying in Amethi. Priyanka’s remarks are interesting. [caption id=“attachment_6543751” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] It is in BJP’s interest to crack the caste equation and appeal to the bottom half of the electorate and it stands at a disadvantage if the caste barriers remain solidified. AFP[/caption] She is either misinformed or willfully distorting facts. The Opposition has raised the issue of Modi’s caste in a big way. The issue of caste remains the great signifier in Indian politics, more so in Uttar Pradesh where two caste-based, arch-rival parties have come together to thwart the BJP. The Congress has found no place in the alliance, but that’s only because the SP and the BSP feel that Congress would be better utilized as a ‘vote-cutter’ against BJP and benefit the Opposition. It is in BJP’s interest to crack the caste equation and appeal to the bottom half of the electorate and it stands at a disadvantage if the caste barriers remain solidified. It isn’ particularly difficult to understand that Mayawati or Akhilesh Yadav’s entire ball game is to reinforce the caste divisions and see to it that their respective core voters stay true to the bases. For the SP-BSP gathbandhan, everything from the selection of candidates to campaign rhetoric, is based on this equation. We, therefore, see that Modi’s caste has become a big electoral issue. This is so for two reasons. One, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are essentially a mandate on Modi. Two, the first condition being met, Modi’s caste is important in the lexicon of politics at least in Hindi heartland. If the prime minister belongs to the ‘backward caste’ category, then it becomes difficult for the Opposition to reinforce the lower caste-upper caste narrative because Modi then becomes a mascot of the subaltern. It is precisely why BSP supremo Mayawati has been at pains to claim of late that Modi is a ‘fake OBC’. “There is no doubt that he (Mulayam) has joined people from all groups of the society under the SP banner. He does not come from a fake backward community like PM Modi, he is real OBC leader,” Mayawati said at a rally in Mainpuri, the bastion of Samajwadi Party, recently. At a press conference in Lucknow, Mayawati claimed that “in order to derive political profits during elections, he (Modi) got his upper caste included in the list of backward castes. Like (SP patriarch) Mulayam Singh Yadav and (SP chief) Akhilesh Yadav, Modi was not born in a backward caste…. Today, at Kannauj, he had (Modi) said Behenji and Akhilesh think of him as a lowly (neech) person as he hails from a backward caste. Their (BJP’s) Dalit-backward card is not working anymore,” added the BSP leader. Mayawati was referring to a speech made by Modi where the prime minister had slammed the SP and BSP for referring to his caste and claimed in Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj that the Opposition is raising the issue of his caste because they are left with no real issues and that he belongs not just to the backward, but “extremely backward community”. “I have never spoken about my caste, but ‘mahamilawati’ people are forcing me to speak about it. I am not backward but was born in extreme backwardness. Don’t drag me into this caste politics,” Modi said while addressing the rally. “I hail from an extremely backward caste, my caste is so small that there are only two-three houses of my caste in my village,” he claimed. Mayawati’s claim, that Modi included his caste among the OBC roster while serving as the Gujarat chief minister, is wrong. Bihar’s deputy chief minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi has pointed out that the prime minister belongs to “Modh Ghanchi caste which was included in OBC category when Shaktisingh Gohil was a minister in the cabinet of Chabildas Mehta Cong CM on July 25, 1994.” The roster of socially and educationally backward caste communities as declared by the state of Gujarat is available here. But the larger point is that a focus on caste politics is the necessity of the Opposition, unlike the BJP, which is seeming to fight the election on planks of nationalism, national security and development. The BJP’s campaign motif is ‘phir ekbaar Modi sarkar’ (Modi government once more). The party is trying to slice through the caste base and consolidate its position by reinforcing the class base where it has worked to improve the lives of poor by giving them gas connections, electricity, housing, toilets and bank accounts. On the other hand, Opposition’s game is to maintain the status quo on caste divisions and ensure that BJP’s consolidation is thwarted on caste and community lines. Easy to understand why Mayawati, Akhilesh, Priyanka or RJD leader Tejashvi Yadav are eager to focus on Modi’s caste. In this context, Priyanka’s repartee to reporters that she doesn’t know what Modi’s caste is, gains added significance. It tells us that Congress and the Opposition are still playing politics of the past. This election, among many other things, will also show whether politics in India has moved on or remained stuck in the century that we have left behind.