The quota within quota: Has the process of class supplanting caste begun?

Political parties and jaatis are re-evaluating caste politics in the wake of a generational shift in leadership

Former Madhya Pradesh (MP) chief minister Uma Bharti is from the Lodhi (or Lodha, Lodh) caste, an Other Backward Class (OBC) community that provides significant support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh and MP. 

Earlier this month, she wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging that 50 per cent of the seats in the 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and state Assemblies be set aside for women from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and OBC. 

Among all the parties in the Lok Sabha, the BJP has the largest contingent of OBC Members of Parliament (MPs), and its vote share within the community has experienced an impressive rise. However, no MP or party representative flagged this issue, except Bharti.

Traditional proponents of the ‘quota within a quota’, such as the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and the Janata Dal (United), abbreviated as JD(U), responded mildly to the deficiency, ultimately voting for the Bill in its current form. 

“We have never been against women’s reservation. Our objection was to the present form of the Bill. We have always held the view that there should be reservations for OBC women according to their population. Our party will support the Bill, but we will strive to secure reservations for OBC women in the future. I am sure that one day the number of those who believe that OBC women should have reservation will constitute a majority in this House, and we will achieve it,” remarked Ramgopal Yadav, Rajya Sabha (RS) MP from SP.

During the debate to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill, RJD MP Manoj Jha deflected the entire issue of OBC reservation to an attack on Thakurs (which elicited strong protests from Kshatriya MPs, leading many to suspect that this was done with an eye on politics in Bihar rather than affirmative action for OBC women), eventually also supporting the Bill in its current form.

This stands in stark contrast to the 1990s and later. 

When law minister Munisamy Thambidurai rose to introduce the Women’s Reservation Bill on July 13, 1998, RJD MP Surendra Prasad Yadav raced to the well of the House, snatched the document from the table of Speaker Ganti Mohana Chandra Balayogi, and tore it up, flinging the pieces in the air. 

A decade later, Union law minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj had to be ‘guarded’ by a solid phalanx of women MPs, including Renuka Chowdhury and Jayanthi Natarajan, to enable him to lay the Bill on the table of the House. 

Opposition was so ferocious that in 2010, nine Opposition members attempted to physically attack RS Chairman Mohammad Hamid Ansari on the floor of the House as he was allowing the Bill to be tabled.

Comparatively, the subdued reaction of MPs from the OBC community this time around raises questions about what has changed.

“Everything,” says Surinder Singh Jodhka, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a world-renowned expert for his work on OBC and Scheduled Caste politics in India. He suggests that political parties and jaatis are re-evaluating caste politics following a generational shift in leadership.

“Fewer OBC children are dropping out of the educational system. Farm sizes are shrinking, resulting in less to go around. Most fathers have no option but to take pride in their daughters, as they contribute to family incomes by working. Consequently, traditional notions of patriarchy in rural India are undergoing change.”

He also notes a new political assertiveness among OBC women who are not hesitant to vote differently from other family members (evidence suggests that in 2019, OBC women turned away from traditional social justice parties like SP and RJD in favour of the BJP). Furthermore, research indicates more intergenerational upward mobility among OBCs than any other caste group. 

Jodhka emphasises that identity politics alone can be limiting. “Class formation in caste politics is also a factor we now have to consider,” he adds.

SP leader Ghanshyam Tiwari, an upper-caste member of a party formed on the slogan of social justice, candidly acknowledges that the BJP took the country by surprise, and his party is still refining its plans to advocate for reservations for OBC women. 

However, he emphasises that the most powerful impact of Opposition consensus around social justice issues is that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi publicly admitted it was a mistake to have omitted OBC reservation in earlier versions of the Bill. Tiwari explains that just because the SP did not disrupt Parliament on this issue doesn’t mean it has compromised.

“SP believes in conversational politics in Parliament. Unlike the Trinamool Congress and others, we have not tried to disrupt Parliament when we disagree with the government. We followed this principle in this instance as well.” He adds that the pursuit of social justice will remain a core value for the SP.

Yet, the response of OBCs to the law on women’s reservation suggests shifting priorities within the social justice movement. Could the process of class supplanting caste have begun?

Commentators hesitate to make such a claim. 

Still, Jodhka points out that a sociological trend known as ‘opportunity hoarding’ is evident: the more privileged upper segment of the caste hierarchy seeks to retain control over identity politics and affirmative action. However, for those at the lower end of the caste hierarchy — those who migrate for work on construction sites, for instance — ideas of kinship and identity weaken as they move further from the village and the family. This is the demographic — or catchment area — that the BJP appears to be targeting.

The future of women’s reservation politics is difficult to predict. However, as Jodhka suggests, “the old form of caste-cluster politics is no longer effective”.