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The Congress party has decided to reserve half of its working committee seats for youth, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, women and other disadvantaged sections. If the party indeed succeeds in doing so, it would be a clear and wise admission of the fact that as long as its net is wide, the party will continue to decline.
as I explained in a separate pieceThe Nehruvian political system failed to accommodate many communities within its ambit.
We are not discussing Dalits and Adivasis here as there is 15% and 7.5% reservation for them in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies respectively which is constitutionally guaranteed. Political parties are required to field SC/ST candidates on the seats reserved for them. Other Backward Classes (OBCs) do not have reservations in parliament and legislatures, and are constantly negotiating with parties and positions for political representation. The weakening of OBC parties, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, respectively, has opened the field for competition for their votes. OBC population is above 50% in most places. If the Congress becomes active with the OBC agenda, it will catch up with the BJP under Narendra Modi, which has managed to mobilize most of the communities behind it.
Rahul Gandhi’s spirited campaign in UP for the 2012 assembly elections opened his eyes to the basic fact that the Congress was a party of upper caste leaders, with no followers in any community. He made extra efforts to ensure that the list of candidates for Congress was more representative than ever. But the Congress party shies away from trying to woo the OBCs. During the UPA-I regime, Congress veteran Arjun Singh supported OBC reservation in education as a minister, but the party and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saw it as his personal ambitions. Party or PM never adopted Arjun Singh’s OBC policy.
In the form of Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress has now got its first Dalit president. Sitaram Kesari and K. The party has had two presidents from OBC communities in the past as Kamaraj.
Identity politics has emotional and material components. The Union Budget recently focused on welfare schemes that targeted subaltern communities. Mr. Modi plays the emotional and physical angles very well, and his speeches always have a forceful tone. A common pattern is to associate a Dalit or Bahujan icon with a familiar Hindu myth, often very specific to the locality from which it speaks. He used to mix it with the welfare schemes run by the government, that too without any patronage. The collective vision of the Congress party is economic determinism – welfare schemes are what the poor want. It also believes that physical factors will automatically change the electoral behavior of the people. It is not understood why the same people who walked thousands of kms during the pandemic will still vote for BJP in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar elections. When Congress leaders speak to voters on welfare schemes, the patronizing tone is unmistakable.
The upper caste community will largely stay with the BJP and the Muslims will largely oppose the BJP. OBC, Dalit and tribal communities will be swing voters in the coming elections. The Congress party’s ability to counter the BJP will largely depend on its ability to influence the subaltern vote. That’s the big picture.
federalism path
Many worlds of one IIT
Students of various organizations protest against the death of IIT student Darshan Solanki outside IIT Bombay, Powai. , Photo Credit: Emmanuel Yogini
India’s social contract with the oppressed sections of the country provides them with caste-based quotas in education, jobs and political offices. A Dalit overcoming all his limitations to enter a premier educational institution should ideally be considered a success story for the individual and the society. But that is not the case at all, as Abhinay Laxman found out and told us through this reportage. The cutthroat world of IITs throws up new barriers for the most disadvantaged of our society, driving many of them to mental breakdowns and even suicide. Meanwhile, his upper caste fellow students believe that he is the one who faces discrimination – why should someone of lesser ‘merit’ share his space? You can read it here: Quota-quota hierarchy in IITs,
Opposition to imposition of Hindi
According to superstar Kamal Haasan, the Tamil language and culture is under threat from the efforts of the central government to impose a monoculture. In this article, he recounts the significant rebellion in the 1960s against the Centre’s efforts to make Hindi the sole official language of the Union. In Tamil Nadu, DMK founder CN Annadurai proposed a two-language system, allowing the use of Tamil and English while banning Hindi. Anti-Hindi protests in India have a long and turbulent history. According to the 2011 Language Census, Tamil Nadu had the lowest proportion of general Hindi speakers. In the past, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Odisha have also spoken out for separate linguistic identities, though none have protested with the same fervor as Tamil Nadu.
gujarati in gujarat schools
The Gujarat government announced this week that it would introduce a bill in the upcoming assembly session that would make teaching of Gujarati compulsory in all state-run schools. With this change, these schools will have to teach Gujarati language to the students of classes 1 to 8.
The state government took its decision in response to comments made by the Gujarat High Court on how it intended to preserve Gujarati as the state’s mother tongue until it was taught in schools. Interestingly, Gujarat is also promoting English-medium education – as the state’s growing middle class demands it.
Rise of separatists in Punjab
The separatists are furious in Punjab. Several supporters of Amritpal Singh, a self-styled Sikh preacher and advocate of Khalistan (a sovereign state for Sikhs), on Thursday assaulted Punjab Police officials at Ajnala in Amritsar, forcing the police to release their colleague, who was arrested on various charges. arrested in the cases. charge.
Mr. Amritpal has consistently advocated the independence of Punjab and the establishment of Khalistan on various forums. He does this by speaking in terms of isolationism and separatism. The 29-year-old man takes “inspiration” from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and dresses like him. Sporadic incidents in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, as well as activities by pro-Khalistan elements, including Mr. Amritpal, have raised concerns among many who are familiar with the period of violent extremist movement in Punjab during the 1980s and 1990s. Khalistan operatives are active among the community in UK, Canada, Australia and USA. The AAP government in Punjab is finding it difficult to manage the law and order situation in the state.