Should Narendra Modi actually be crowned Prime Minister in May, the post Mandal social justice political platform will finally have prevailed at the centre too. Egalitarianism will have trumped the caste/class stranglehold on Delhi Durbar. The “chaiwala” jibe will reverberate with great irony, but only if Modi has the numbers to obstruct the concert of regional leaders.
A gradual erosion of the caste or feudal hierarchies has been taking place since independence in South, West and Eastern India. After Narayan Dutt Tewari and Jagannath Mishra surrendered their Chief Ministerial bungalows in Lucknow and Patna respectively in 1989, these stations too are firmly with backward caste and dalit leaders.
The Gaddi at Delhi has so far been insulated from the winds of change. Of the 66 years since Independence, Delhi has been ruled by Brahmin Prime Ministers for 51 years, including spells of six years by BJP’s Atal Behari Vajpayee and two and half year of Janta Party’s Morarji Desai.
Manmohan Singh’s ten years must be considered unique because it is unlikely that there will be a Congress President as powerful as Sonia Gandhi was in 2004 when she nominated him Prime Minister. Sonia did have a nebulous, Brahmin afflation but Manmohan Singh was totally outside the caste framework.
[quote]It has not been possible to forge a durable consensus on a caste other than the Brahmin[/quote]
Lal Bahadur Shastri, Charan Singh, V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar, Deve Gowda and Inder Gujaral together account for about four years.
The evidence so far shows that it has not been possible to forge a durable consensus on a caste other than the Brahmin for the job of Prime Minister of India. A Kayastha, two Rajputs, a Jat, a Vokaligga and a Khatri became Prime Ministers but did not last beyond a year or two. Every Brahmin Prime Minister completed his term.
The question of a non Brahmin alternative at the centre never arose for the 38 or so years that the Nehru-Gandhi family lasted at the helm. Dynasty ensured continuity.
P.V. Narasimha Rao was the first Congress Prime Minister who faced, with great anxiety, the prospect of Brahmins losing political power. He himself came on top under unusual circumstances.
Had Rajiv Gandhi not been assassinated half way through the 1991 General elections, he would probably have had to sit in the opposition. A wave of sympathy after Rajiv’s death gave Narasimha Rao just the number of seats from the South to be able to hold onto power with his cunning and craft. He never allowed a rival power centre in the Hindi belt to emerge. Arjun Singh was assiduously kept out. This made room for the BJP to grow.
The 1991 verdict taught the Congress a lesson: the electorate was discarding Brahmin candidates. Satish Sharma, Sheila Kaul, Mani Shankar Aiyer and Vidya Charan Shukla were the only winners.
This trend was not confined to the Congress. If stalwarts like Vasant Sathe and V.N. Gadgil lost in Maharashtra, so did the opposition’s Madhu Dandwate and Rama Krishna Hegde lose, the latter from Karnataka.
Narasimha Rao was quite transparent with his preferences. Three of the four Brahmins who won elections were slotted in the cabinet. Others like Pranab Mukherjee, Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi, V.N. Gadgil, Nawal Kishore Sharma and Jitendra Prasad were accommodated variously, in the planning commission, Rajya Sabha and as Party General Secretaries and spokesmen of the party.
Traditionally, the Vice President became Chairman of the Indian Council of Cultural Relation. Narasimha Rao bypassed K.R. Narayanan and handed the job to Vasant Sathe who had lost from Maharashtra. For similar consideration, Gen V.K. Krishna Rao was retained as governor of Jammu and Kashmir for an exceptionally long tenure despite the controversies attending him.
I am citing these details not as proof of the Brahmin’s assertiveness but as evidence of his tenuous hold on political power and general nervousness that even this was receding from him.
Narasimha Rao would have been quite content when Atal Behari Vajpayee ascended the Prime Ministership in May 1996 but this government lasted just 16 days. After a turbulent two years of Deve Gowda and Inder Gujaral, Vajpayee came back as leader of the National Democratic Alliance for full six years, an extra year on account of the circumstances in 1998-1999.
The 2004 election results were a shock, in different ways, for Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi. The act of renouncing power raised Sonia Gandhi’s stature sky high even though, it must be added in parenthesis, she did not have much of an option. If she had listened to the wailing, weeping party loyalists and yielded to the temptations of Prime Ministership, the issue of her “foreign origin” would have plagued her.
Much the most capable Congress leader available to her for the top was Pranab Mukherjee. But he would have had considerable political potential beyond her control. Manmohan Singh was a tried economist, well in tune with the “sole” superpower, and would not be a political threat just in case Rahul Gandhi readied himself for battle.
Assuming that Rahul has his eyes set on a vague future beyond 2014, the only certainty in the coming elections is that the BJP will be the largest single party.
Unlike the Congress, the BJP has shown greater foresight in opening the option of a Social Justice route to power. Kalyan Singh, Bangaru Laxman, Uma Bharti are some examples. There clearly are in the Sangh Parivar lobbies for and against this trend. Hence the periodical waxing and waning of these stars. But nothing succeeds like success and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chauhan is an example of the Parivar’s endorsement of the trend.
Prime Ministership is a different level of play. Should the party win an adequate number of Lok Sabha seats, the RSS-BJP leadership’s commitment to Social Justice will also be seriously on test.
Looks like this author and the caste polictcians are about the only people still obsessed by caste in India. In the case of the politicians, it is expected that they need to divide the people for vote bank politics.
The author’s drivel on the other hand is just a lot of wasted ink.
I agree entirely. All that Mr Naqvi is capable of doing is wasting ink! Here in India he is read only by Muslims of his persuasions, if at all. He gives an importance to caste that simply does not exist anymore. Modi’s so-called low caste is a complete non-issue. And to think Narsimha Rao bypassed Vice President K R Narayanan, a Dalit, for the post of chairman of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in favour of a Brahmin is a typical example of Mr Naqvi’s capacity for political analysis. Does this Council matter at all except to the old foggies looking for a free house and car in Delhi?
”The act of renouncing power raised Sonia Gandhi’s stature sky high even though, it must be added in parenthesis, she did not have much of an option. If she had listened to the wailing, weeping party loyalists and yielded to the temptations of Prime Ministership, the issue of her “foreign origin” would have plagued her. ” The spoiler was no other than Dr.Subramaniam Swamy who openly calls Rahul as Buddhu, and he did even last week, and nobody protested against. Rahul’s origin will also be under scrutiny if, he ever becomes PM, and if Dr.Swamy is around then.
All the Indian Naqvis are praying hard, Jawed Naqvi, and Seema Naqvi, and there are few others I forgot, will be playing Holi if Modi misses the bus. But that will bring more misery to Muslims. Appeasement for Muslims did not work in the last sixty odd years and it never will.1
I think it is unfair to cast aspersions on Mr. Naqvi. And a shame and presumptuous that he is seen as a Muslim. I doubt that he wrote from a Muslim perspective. EVen if he did, remember that this is his opinion piece and if people disagree with him, their arguments should be respectfully laid out rather than attacking a writer personally. That said, how do you know he is a Muslim? Just by his name? [My name is Ram. I’m not a Hindu. Although I grew up as one, I’m an atheist and have no confusion].
Now, getting back to Mr. Naqvi’s analysis: It is an interesting line of argument and there is a lot of information surely and some truth in it. However, I doubt that the Nehru-Gandhi family sees itself as Brahmin. I suspect Nehru the Fabian socialist would much rather be seen as a liberal, worldly, person rather than be pigeon-holed into something as limiting as a caste. {I suspect Jinnah was similar in that context, although he was neither socialist nor Fabian]. You could hardly call Indira a Brahmin. He caste was called “tough cookie” or, as used positively in the modern corporate context, a “unprintable female version of the dog”. Rajiv Gandhi’s was a Parsi. Rahul’s mother is Catholic Italian. So, what percentage of the scion of that family is Brahmin exactly. That said, I’ll agree with the author if he says that although they do not consider themselves Brahmin, the politicians and influences around them do and hence it must be factored for. Fair. But to a majority of voting Indians, that does not matter at all. How is some poor bloke in rural Odisha with a debt on his head and mouths to feed weigh in on a vote for Brahmin, non-Brahmin, Muslim or Sikh, etc.? If one were to follow the author’s argument and logic, I’d say that there are several other considerations that can potentially weigh on voters: of region (south/north/Gujarat/Bengal/etc., language, religion, sub-caste, and class. In fact, I’m willing to bet that a majority of educated Indians are so enamoured of the Gujarat development story that they are more inclined towards a Gujarati politician (however repulsive his history) than one from their own region! That is not all: how about previous performance, potential, credibility, experience, oratorial skills, empathy/connectedness, and many other psychographics…? I would say that the Indian electorate has matured and caste is less of a factor although I would not yet say it is totally out. In short, the Brahmin factor is not relevant.
How paradoxical while cast based Hindus are loosing it rapidly , cast free Muslims are acquiring the taste it How unfortunate