It may pay electoral dividends. But caste, not economic status, has yet again been considered
The Narendra Modi dispensation has decided to raise the income ceiling for the creamy layer among the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and to sub-categorise the segment. The twin decisions indicate the Government and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) focus on the OBCs — the largest grouping in the country whose latest count continues to be kept under the wraps by successive ruling regimes despite an exhaustive socio-economic caste census. The creamy layer move stands to benefit a larger number of OBCs and more importantly, the financially better-offs. In doing so, the Government has chosen to ignore the popular public opinion about making economic status, and not caste, the basis for reservations. The Government seems to have done a balancing act. The decision regarding creamy layer is apparently to negate any discord among the dominant and socially and financially sound castes within the OBCs that its bid to create a quota within quota could generate. And the sub-categorisation move is to endear itself to the non-dominant groups among the category. Officially, the sub-categorisation is to ensure equitable distribution of the reservation benefits among the different castes within the OBCs. Extremely backward class, more backward class and backward class could be the new quotas as recommended by the National Commission for Backward Classes.
But then, the move is also in line with the BJP’s expansionist plans. For long known to be a party of upper castes, the BJP has worked hard to make a significant dent in the powerful caste-based vote-banks of its rivals to create a new voter base for itself. Its stupendous performance in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the 2014 lok Sabha elections is attributed to its success in gaining the confidence of the non-dominant OBCs like the non-Yadavs in the two States even while denting the formidable Yadav vote-bank of the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal. In the BJP’s renewed scheme of things, the Scheduled Castes play an important role, something that has rattled the likes of Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawati, whose political existence itself is at stake now. The Central list of OBCs is not sub-categorised. Bihar is one of the 11 States to have done it. One of the many reasons for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s continuance in power has been his extremely backward class, besides the mahadalit outreach, which the BJP now seems intent at implementing at the national level as it eyes the Assembly polls in 10 States in the next two years before the 2019 general election.