When it comes to delivering a political riposte, no one does it better than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He artfully blunted Congress’ attack on him for being in cahoots with a few rich businessmen by saying even Mahatma Gandhi shared a relationship with the Birlas, and he has nothing to hide. But the Modi government needed something more to prove that it was not ignoring the marginalised. As elections near, and the pressure from certain communities mounting across the country, the government brought in two legislations which would impact 70 per cent of the country’s population (OBCs and the dalits put together).
The parliament passed The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, 2018, and The Constitution (123rd Amendment) Bill, 2017, which gives constitutional status to the OBC commission. The national backward commission would get empowered to include different castes as backward category thus passing them the benefit of reservation, apart from addressing the complaints of the atrocities against them.
These two bills come with immediate political ramifications. Whatever, maybe the reasons, it would certainly give the saffron party bragging rights in the elections. All the opposition parties supported both the bills.
The politics of mandal and kamandal—combining social justice with Hindutva—which delivered handsome gains to the BJP in 2014 is back with these two bills.
Many feel that if the BJP had its way, it may not have opposed the Supreme Court order on the SC/ST Act which redefined the penal provisions to prevent its misuse. The core constituents of the party, the upper castes, were the ones who felt that the Act was draconian in nature. That was until on April 2, when dalits erupted in protests across the country. Violence claimed over a dozen lives. The dalit MPs within the BJP expressed their apprehensions over the judgment, while allies like Ramvilas Paswan and Ramadas Athawale went public with their demands.
The final trigger came when NDA government appointed Justice A.K. Goyal, who had delivered the judgment, as chairperson of the National Green Tribunal on his superannuation from the SC. The dalits saw this as a provocative step and NDA allies, Paswan and Athawale, whose politics is based on the dalits, were left with no choice. A new date of nationwide agitation on August 9 would have consolidated the opposition against the government.
“We are happy. It's a historic moment. Modi government has brought the bill. A perception was being created that he was not in favour of dalits. We also come from the same community. It is an answer to those people. I had said earlier also it took less than a year to change (former PM) V.P. Singh's image from being a raja to a faqir (as he brought Mandal commission). He (Modi) is born as one (faqir). He will not have trouble clearing this air (of him being pro-rich),” Paswan who was the key minister to raise voice for the bill told THE WEEK.
“Now, the Dalit anger is gone. We are getting the feedback. I would now travel across the country to tell the people and the dalits what this government has given them by overturning the Supreme Court order,” he said.
Minister of social justice, Thawarchand Gehlot, admitted that the accused could have got away after the exemptions given by the Supreme Court in the penal provisions. The government brought in a new section in the bill which said no preliminary enquiry shall be required for registration of an FIR; or approval needed by the investigating officer for the arrest of the accused. This effectively overturns the apex court order. Gehlot said even if there were allegations of people hoisting fake cases, that percentage was merely around 10-12, and at least 88 per cent of the people were getting justice.
But the opposition is not ready to buy government's arguments, even though they supported the bill in both the houses of the Parliament.
“This was not part of their conviction. Neither Babasaheb Ambedkar nor social justice and communal harmony was part of their agenda. Only RSS ideology matters to them. Gandhi does not matter to them. They are the kamandal, only we are the mandal. They do only votebank politics,” Jaiprakash Narayan Yadav, RJD MP, told THE WEEK. The anger of dalits is still there. They know that it was the BJP government which used police against them.
His Lok Sabha colleague from the NCP, Tariq Anwar, concurs, “The bill was brought under compulsion. This was brought after April 2 agitation. It was only when government felt it can no longer push away the issue that it brought it in with an eye on elections.”
CPI Rajya Sabha MP D. Raja told THE WEEK that the government should have put the bill under the ninth schedule so that no one could temper with again. It is too little and too late. Already many people are still facing cases and arrest after the April 2 protests, he added.
A large section of dalits had voted for the BJP during the 2014 elections. But they appeared to return to their traditional camps in the BSP and other parties as BJP latched on to aggressive Hindu nationalism. BJP hoped that after this bill is passed, the dalits votes would not impact them so much in upcoming polls in Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which saw the maximum protests in April.
The significant initiative in extending the reservation to different communities through the national commission for backward castes fits into the caste politics played across the country. It was only after the BJP tried to sew a rainbow coalition involving parties representing different castes that it could do so well in the Hindi heartland especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Politically, this commission could hit at the very politics of some parties like the RJD and the SP which have Yadavs as the dominated group. As more communities will be brought under the umbrella of the reservation, they will feel empowered too, and thus assert their individuality. The government has already set up a panel for sub-categorisation of the OBCs.
“There was a demand from the OBC community. And even the standing committee of the parliament had recommended the Bill. The 27 per cent reservation of OBC will address inclusion and empowerment. We wanted to bring this bill much earlier, two years ago, but Congress played the minority vote bank politics and tried to derail it as they had the majority in Rajya Sabha.
We believe over 10,000 communities in the country will be benefitted by this commission,” BJP MP Bhupendra Yadav told THE WEEK. Yadav also headed the select committee of the upper house which studied the bill.
Congress MP and Punjab state party president, Sunil Jakhar, told THE WEEK, “It is the compulsion of the 2019 elections. It is not part of their ideology. Their aim is to steer the debate away from issues of demonetisation, implementation of GST. Did Modi speak on issue like Muzafarpur shelter rape case?”