Winners and losers in times of political churn
The Congress, despite the loss of Dalit votes, remained the first choice of Brahmins until Muslims left the party after the shilanyas (foundation laying) of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in 1989. Rajiv Gandhi and Narayan Dutt Tiwari were then the prime minister (PM) and Uttar Pradesh CM, respectively. Subsequently, the Brahmins moved to the BJP. Soon, the grand old party lost power in UP and Tiwari turned out to be the last Congress as well as Brahmin CM of UP.
Though Brahmins formed barely 5% of the country's population, the Congress had rewarded them with posts and positions in lieu of their support. Several states in northern India had Brahmin CMs. The loss of office in the southern states in the 1960s did not hurt the community so much, until they started to lose influence in the Hindi heartland after Mandal politics took centre-stage. Their frustration over their marginalisation in the country's politics increased further after the demise of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a Brahmin. Now, when the leadership of most parties is with the OBC and Dalits, the opinion makers of yesteryears find themselves on the political margins.
Against this backdrop, some Brahmin BJP leaders and professionals met in New Delhi on July 21 and decided to establish a World Brahmin Welfare Board. The meeting was presided over by former governor of Rajasthan and BJP's Brahmin leader from UP, Kalraj Mishra. BJP's Rajya Sabha member Dinesh Sharma had posted pictures of the meeting on Facebook.
Brahmins recognise that their political rehabilitation will have to wait since OBCs and Dalits form 85% of the population. In any democracy, numbers matter the most. The caste census may further erode their position. 'We are now just a mohra (pawn) to be used and dumped,' a disillusioned Brahmin leader of Madhya Pradesh said. Adding to their consternation is the Congress-led Opposition's promise of population-based quotas.
As of now, there are four Brahmin CMs — three belonging to the BJP (in Maharashtra, Assam and Rajasthan), and the fourth in West Bengal — across India. Rajasthan has a Brahmin CM after 33 years, while the last Brahmin CM in Madhya Pradesh, Shyama Charan Shukla, was in office back in 1989, for 86 days. However, the bureaucracy continues to have a sizeable Brahmin presence. Interestingly, a Brahmin, Prashant Kishor, is testing the waters in the backward caste-dominated Bihar, which had its last Brahmin CM, Jagannath Mishra, in 1989.
Brahmins are discussing options before them as the BJP is feeling the heat of assertive backward politics. The growth of the BJP, founded in 1980, coincided with the rise of Mandal politics. The party struggled to blunt the mobilisation of the backward castes by giving representation to diverse groups. Its experiment of appointing JP Nadda, a Brahmin from Himachal Pradesh as national president, did not appeal much to the Brahmins. When the BSP won office in 2007 with Brahmin support, reconstructing the old Congress vote bank of Dalits, Brahmins, and Muslims, they were hopeful of regaining some heft.
With the BJP also chasing OBC and Dalit votes, the Brahmins feel they are left with two options. One is to unite and demand a share in office. In Rajasthan, they organised a Brahmin mahapanchayat ahead of the selection of the CM. This is somewhat on the lines of the Rajputs, who are better united in demanding their share in power and in getting their caste candidates elected.
Their second option is returning to the Congress, which has started showing signs of recovery. But the Opposition INDIA bloc appears like a ragtag political arrangement with no common minimum programme or agreement over leadership. Ironically, Brahmins who have supported the BJP after they deserted the Congress, are now talking about the need for a stable Opposition for a healthy democracy. Some of them even lament that the Congress lost a big opportunity by not projecting the party's national president Mallikarjun Kharge as the prime ministerial candidate for the INDIA bloc before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. Their surmise is that Dalits, who harbour the dream of having a Dalit PM, would have returned to the party, simultaneously attracting Brahmins and Muslims.
A senior Brahmin leader from Varanasi, the centre of Brahmin politics in the North, recited a couplet of Urdu shayar (poet) Rahat Indori to explain the plight of Brahmins in the country: 'Mere hujare mein nahin, aur kahin par rakh do, asman laaye ho le aao, zameen par rakh do, ab kahan dhoondne jaoge, hamare katil, aap to katl ka ilzam hamin par rakh do' (Do not keep in my room, keep it somewhere else, if you have brought the sky, bring it, keep it on the ground! Now, where will you go to find my murderer, you will put the blame of my murder on me).
The views expressed are personal.
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