The paradox of a de-Mandalised North and Mandalised South

Indian Express

27-05-2025

Also written by Chinmay Bendre and Atharva Vyavahare
The central government's decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming Census has triggered diverse reactions across India. These reactions need to be understood in the context of emerging differences between the northern and southern states. While the former seem to be proceeding towards de-Mandalisation, the latter continue consolidating identity politics to achieve socio-economic advancement.
Politics of northern states: BJP's push from Mandal to Hindutva consolidation
The implementation of the Mandal Commission's recommendations reshaped northern politics significantly. It elevated the OBC leadership and caste-centric parties, fostered greater OBC participation across education, employment, and politics, and led to the decline of the Congress Party, facilitating new caste alliances. However, since 2014, this trajectory has dramatically altered. The political ascent of Hindutva, alongside the weakening of caste-based subaltern parties, marked the onset of de-Mandalisation.
Mandalisation refers to the politics of opportunity, empowerment, and social justice aimed at marginalised castes. De-Mandalisation signifies a shift away from caste-based affirmative action and substantive empowerment towards welfare measures that don't follow rights-based statutory frameworks. Thus, it neglects deeper structural reforms and perpetuates existing hierarchies.
Electoral outcomes validate this transition. Results of the Lok Sabha elections indicate a consistent rise in the BJP's vote share in Hindi-speaking states. In 2019, the BJP secured over 50 per cent votes in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh, highlighting the significance of welfare schemes.
Subaltern caste-based regional parties have simultaneously weakened. RJD's vote share in Bihar has fluctuated between 15.68 per cent and 22.62 per cent, between the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2020 assembly elections, while JD(U) gathered 22.26 per cent vote share in 2019. In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party's vote share declined from 22.35 per cent in 2014 to 18.11 per cent in 2019, rebounding somewhat in 2024 with 33.84 per cent and 37 seats. While perceived as a revival of the Yadav-Muslim coalition, this resurgence seemed to have been significantly driven by broader social coalitions and concerns about constitutional rights for marginalised groups. Dalit parties experienced similar contractions, with BSP's share falling dramatically across several northern states. The BJP strategically combined Hindutva, welfare policies, and the co-option of non-dominant OBCs and marginalised Dalits like Pasis, Dhobis, and Khatiks, solidifying its dominance in the region.
Southern states: Similar tactics, chequered outcomes
In contrast to the shifting dynamics in the north, southern states continue to deepen their commitment to caste-based empowerment, drawing on a long legacy of social reform. Anchored in movements like the Dravidian self-respect movement led by Periyar in Tamil Nadu, the South's approach to identity politics remains rooted in historical struggles for dignity, representation and social justice. This enduring ideological foundation has shaped a distinct and assertive regional stance on caste enumeration and reservation policies.
Tamil Nadu's unanimous assembly resolution in June 2024, urging the Union Government to conduct a caste census, explicitly invoked the principles of equal rights and equitable access to education, employment, and economic opportunity. Alongside, the state continues to grapple with calls to reinstate the 10.5 per cent Vanniyar quota within the Most Backward Caste category — struck down by the courts — underscoring the layered and ongoing negotiations around identity-based entitlements.
In Karnataka, the long-delayed release of findings from the Socio-Economic and Educational Survey (SEES) in early 2024 reignited caste-based contestations. The report proposed increasing OBC reservations from 32 per cent to 51 per cent, reclassifying Kurubas as 'most backward', and extending the creamy layer criterion across Category I castes. The data prompted swift backlash from dominant caste groups like the Vokkaligas and Veerashaiva-Lingayats, who alleged underrepresentation, highlighting the complex terrain of caste enumeration, political accommodation, and social perception.
Further, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh witnessed judicial intervention reshaping Dalit politics. In August 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes, acknowledging that the Madigas have historically faced greater disadvantages than Malas. While legally validating differentiated access to reservation, the verdict has reopened debates around intra-Dalit equity and risks fracturing existing solidarities. Meanwhile, the Telangana Assembly passed a bill raising OBC reservations to 42 per cent, citing recent caste survey data that estimated OBCs constitute 56.36 per cent of the state's population.
Taken together, these developments reflect the South's continued structural engagement with caste, not merely as electoral arithmetic, but as a tool for reimagining equitable access and political representation. This stands in sharp contrast to the increasingly symbolic and depoliticised caste engagements that dominate the contemporary political landscape of the northern states.
Can progressive subaltern parties in both the North and South effectively mobilise and articulate a discourse centred on genuine empowerment, rights, and agency, irrespective of the BJP's ascendancy and varying positions on the caste census? Achieving this would require subaltern parties to construct broader, inclusive social coalitions while clearly communicating a narrative of empowerment rooted in structural reform. The success of such mobilisation hinges on their ability to convincingly present democratic alternatives to welfare schemes that, while expansive, are often detached from a rights-based framework and shaped more by political expediency than structural justice.
Karthik K R is a postdoctoral research fellow of Indian and Indonesian politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, Bendre is a Senior Research Associate at the MIT School of Government, Pune, and Vyavahare is in Leadership and Government at the MIT School of Government, Pune