The BJP is making a show of empowering the Sudra/OBC forces within...
But how will the Sangh Parivar resolve the caste contradictions
within Hindu religion?

WITH THE appointment of M. Venkaiah Naidu as party president, Vinay
Katiyar as president of the Uttar Pradesh unit and Uma Bharti being
asked to take over as chief of the Madhya Pradesh unit, an opinion
has been created that there is a shift in the social position of the
Bharatiya Janata Party. There have been indications, over a period of
time, that the Sudra/OBC forces in the party have begun fighting for
their share. In Gujarat, the Patels and OBCs under the leadership of
Narendra Modi, himself an OBC, used their muscle power in the recent
riots and gained an upper hand against the "dwija" forces that were
controlling the organisational network in that State.

At the time of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Sangh Parivar
mobilised youth from among the Sudra/OBCs and the Dalits for muscle
power. During this period, L. K. Advani was projected as the
organisational inspiration. Most of those who participated in the
demolition came from a non-Brahminical background as they were, and
still are, seen as being most useful for physical energy-related
activities.

When the BJP came to power at the Centre, the Brahminical forces got
more power. Since then, the Sudra/OBC forces on the one hand and the
Dalits on the other, within the organisation, have been getting
bitter: they played a key role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid
but had no major share in the power structure. This posed a challenge
to Mr. Advani's authority as those who provided the muscle power had
to be rewarded.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was the brainchild of Savarkar and
Golwalkar, two Maharashtrian Brahmin ideologues. When it began to
aspire for political power it was headed by Deen Dayal Upadhyay, a
Bengali Brahmin. Now, several branches of the RSS such as the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have come up. The parent
organisation and its branches were quite consciously controlled by
Brahmin leaders/intellectuals. When the RSS began working out
militant strategies, initially Brahmin youth were mobilised.

When the ideological congruence between the Hindu Mahasabha and the
RSS began to take place in the face of the contentious Partition
question, the RSS began to transform itself into a mass militant
organisation. To take up rioting campaigns and to defend its cadre
from Muslim attacks it needed a large number of strong youth. At that
stage it had to go beyond the "dwija" social base and recruit
Sudra/OBCs and Dalit youth. Given the nature of the Baniyas, they
could hardly be recruited into the RSS' militant wings. There are
very few Kshatriyas in the Parivar outfits.

After the Jan Sangh was started, a section of Baniyas moved away from
the Congress and the Jan Sangh began to emerge as a Brahmin-Baniya
party in terms of spiritual ideology. Its social base was basically
urban, supported as it was by these two castes which had urbanised
themselves in the post-Independence period. The party mobilised
enough money from the economy of temples and from the Baniya market
and worked as a pressure group for traditional Brahmins and Baniyas.
During that period the Congress expanded its social base into
agrarian Sudra social forces and for a long time it came to be
identified as a "kulak" party. The Jan Sangh never had such a social
base.

There is a close nexus between the emergence of Sudra landlordism and
the kulak class in rural India. As the Nehruvian state provided
large-scale employment opportunities for feudal Brahmins they sold
off their properties and moved into the urban economy. Most of the
urban Brahmins were with the Congress as it provided them state
patronage and urban luxury. At the same time, they were with the
Sangh Parivar spiritually and ideologically. Many were not
comfortable with Nehruvian secularism.

The Emergency gave a new life to the Jan Sangh. The RSS changed the
party's name and tried to expand its social base in the larger towns,
mobilising some service castes around it. Its strategy was two-fold:
to mobilise the Sudra castes without invoking the caste discourse and
to handle the Dalit question quite carefully because a lot of people
within its fold still believed in untouchability and casteism. After
the BJP was established, its resolve to overthrow the Congress and
enter the power structure became stronger. In order to do so it had
only one way before it - it had to mobilise the Sudra social forces
that had acquired a considerable amount of landed property, and
thereby control over labour castes and control over local and
regional political power.

Unlike the Gandhian Congress, the BJP did not have any language of
social reform because it went against the historical interests of the
Brahminical forces that started the Hindutva movement. When a
political party without a social reform agenda wants to come to power
in a casteised country such as India, Kautilyanism is the only course
available. In the context of Mandal social reform, the BJP worked out
the Mandir agenda for which it needed a lot of muscle power. This was
required for two purposes: to mobilise Sudra/OBC social forces as
vote mobilisers and to intensify the rioting campaigns against the
Muslims. A lot of Sudra/OBC elements involved in rioting activity get
entangled in legal litigations; and after they are discharged in the
cases, show their "gratitude" by remaining with the Hindutva
organisations. All organisations that believe in rioting as a vote
and money-mobilisation activity expand their cadre base like this.

The Sangh Parivar had to handle the peculiar problem of using the
Sudra/OBC and Dalit forces for communal activities without allowing
them to aspire for spiritual power in the Hindu temple system and
also in the "real power" of the Parivar organisations. In an
unreformed Hindu social structure even a man such as Mr. Advani, a
non-Brahmin, will not easily be allowed to become the Prime Minister.
Perhaps to overcome this problem, efforts are now on to link Mr.
Advani's heritage with that of Lord Rama.

As part of the process of its so-called social engineering, the BJP
tried to establish credibility among the Dalits by making Bangaru
Laxman party president. That experiment failed for internal and
external reasons. Now, it is making a show of empowering the
Sudra/OBC forces within. That is, perhaps, the reason why a Kamma
kulak, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu, is its president. If Mr. Advani becomes
the Prime Minister the share of Sudra/OBCs in the Government might
also increase. But how will the Sangh Parivar resolve the caste
contradiction within Hindu religion? The priestly class in Hinduism
does not want any reform.

After the massive deployment of muscle power in Gujarat, the
Sudra/OBC forces seem to have gained the upper hand. If the Ram
temple is built with more deployment of muscle power the Sudra/OBCs
may ask for a bigger place in Hinduism. But the priestly class will
not allow it.

Organised religions survived and expanded only by establishing
spiritual democracy within themselves. There are no indications that
Hinduism will allow spiritual democracy within its structure. The
Hindutva forces may pretend that the agenda is being Sudraised but
Hinduism shall remain Brahminical. This is where Hinduism as a
religion, because of the religious civil war conditions the Hindutva
forces are creating, may meet its Waterloo.