New Delhi: With the Rohini Commission finally submitting its report on the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota in the country to President Droupadi Murmu, political opponents of the ruling BJP as well as observers have started calculating the impact it could possibly have on the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
However, in the country’s most populous and politically significant state, Uttar Pradesh, a report by a similar commission formed to study the division of the 27% OBC reservation has been lying in cold storage since 2018.
In fact, the report has had no takers, including the Adityanath government, probably because the panel’s recommendations threaten to not only jeopardise the saffron party’s caste calculations and antagonise its OBC allies, but also disturb its idea of political Hindu unity.
With OBC leader Om Prakash Rajbhar – who had been breathing down the BJP government’s neck demanding the implementation of OBC sub-quotas – returning to the NDA recently, the loudest voice in favour of sub-categorisation has gone silent for now.
Justice Raghvendra Kumar. Photo: allahabadhighcourt.in
In May 2018, less than a year before the 2019 general elections, the Adityanath government appointed a four-member social justice committee headed by retired Allahabad high court judge Justice Raghvendra Kumar to examine a division of the OBC quota, just like some other states such as Bihar had done.
A need was felt to examine the possibility of dividing the 27% quota due to the public perception built by the BJP that castes such as Yadavs were cornering a lion’s share of benefits and jobs under the reservation policy – especially due to the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) patronage whenever it came to power – while the rest of the backward castes were left under-represented and deprived.
The Kumar commission submitted its report to the government in October 2018. But despite assurances in the UP assembly that the government was legally examining the report, it was never tabled in the House or implemented.
Changing political equations over the past five years and newer demands by OBC parties have further pushed the subject of sub-categorisation out of political discourse.
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A copy of the report accessed by The Wire shows that it recommends the sub-categorisation of the 27% OBC quota into three divisions.
These would be the pichda varg (backward class), who would get 7%; ati pichda (more backward), who would get 11%; and the atyant pichda (most backward), who would get 9% reservation.
Out of the 79 OBC castes in UP, nine would be categorised as backward class, 37 as more backward and 33 as most backward.
Dominant and politically conscious Hindu groups such as Yadav, Kurmi and Jat are in the first category, along with the Sonar, Koeri, Kalwar and Chaurasia castes.
The report’s sub-categorisation recommendations (in Hindi). Photo: Omar Rashid.
The Kumar Commission found that these castes were politically, socially, economically and culturally “capable” and “strong”, and enjoyed employment in government jobs at all levels (Group A, B, C and D) way above their share in the population. They also enjoyed influential political representation.
Interestingly, the report notes that these castes compare themselves to Brahmins and Kshatriyas and feel a sense of pride in mentioning their castes. Their social relationships and behaviour with the other backward castes mimic that of the upper castes.
The more backward caste category includes the Kushwaha-Maurya-Shakya-Saini and Gaderia-Pal-Baghel groups, and the Gurjar, Prajapati, Kumhar, Lodh Rajput, Teli, Sahu, Vishwakarma and Lohar castes.
The Kumar Commission found these castes to have poor representation politically and economically, and as being less progressive than the backward class category, although they did not face cultural exclusion.
The most backward castes had an employment rate of only 50% in comparison to their population share. Also, only some specific castes in this category were getting all the government jobs, leading to the emergence of a new middle class, the commission said.
Riverine castes such as Mallah, Nishad, Kewat, Kahar, Bind, Dheevar and Kahar are part of the third category, the most backward castes. This group includes the Rajbhar, Bhar, Noniya Chauhan, Ghosi and Arakvanshi castes, and also some Muslim castes such as Qureshi, Gaddi and Mansuri.
These are the most deprived sections, with limited political drawing-power and being culturally, socially and economically backward. They are mostly either employed in lower levels of government services (Group C and D) or have zero representation, the report says.
While the commission’s recommendations provided for the better representation for deprived sections among the OBCs, it turned into a knotty affair for the BJP, as the report not only suggested reduced quotas for dominant castes such as Yadavs, Kurmis and Jats, but it also clubbed them together.
By grouping Kurmis and Jats together with Yadavs, the BJP risked disturbing its anti-Yadav narrative and alienating the other two, whose votes it needs.
The BJP’s most loyal ally in UP since 2014, the Apna Dal (Soneylal) led by Anupriya Patel, is based on Kurmi support. It is a traditionally farming caste.
The Jats are a landed, agrarian community in western UP, whose votes the BJP has banked on ever since the Muzaffarnagar communal riots of 2013.
And the Yadavs, a traditional herding caste, are the core support base of the SP. The BJP’s politics in the state in recent years has relied on polarising the non-Yadav backward castes against the Yadavs.
Implementing the social justice report in its current form would blunt the BJP’s narrative that only the Yadavs enjoyed the cream of reservations.
In the build-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, before the Balakot airstrike changed equations, the Apna Dal leader Patel had accused the Adityanath government of trying to divide OBCs and creating rifts between them if it planned to implement the sub-categorisation without a caste census.
“You cannot snatch one one’s share and give it to another,” Patel, a minister in the Modi government, said in January 2019.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, the BJP’s chief opponent and an OBC himself, had then accused the BJP of divide and rule and of misleading the OBCs.
Not interested in a division of the OBC quota, Yadav, since losing power, changed tack to aggressively demanding a caste census to count the number of OBCs in the state.
The BJP’s other OBC ally, the NISHAD Party has also not shown any interest in the sub-categorisation of quotas. Its leader Sanjay Nishad has for long demanded that riverine OBC castes including his be included in the Scheduled Castes (SC) category. He argues that Nishad and allied castes were sub-castes of the Majhwar and Turaaiha castes, which are in the state’s SC list.
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To draw attention of the Union government – which has the power to add castes to the SC list – and mobilise its own voters on the issue, Nishad in June launched an ‘Arakshan Mahasampark Abhiyan’ [Hindi for ‘Campaign for Great Outreach on Reservation’] from eight districts in UP’s Purvanchal region.
At a December 2021 rally in Lucknow hosted by Nishad, Union home minister Amit Shah promised that if the BJP returned to power in UP in 2022, it would “fulfil all agendas” of the Nishad community.
While the inclusion of the Nishads in the SC category is still awaited, Nishad did fulfill his personal ambition and got himself inducted as a cabinet minister in the Adityanath government.
Interestingly, in recent months and especially after returning to the NDA, even Om Prakash Rajbhar has started to raise a similar demand that the Rajbhars be included in the SC category.
Meanwhile, there is a parallel movement led by an outfit called Jago Rajbhar Jago Samiti (JRJS) to get Rajbhars and Bhars included in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list.
In July, hearing a contempt petition by JRJS, the Allahabad high court directed the Adityanath government to respond within two months to a letter issued by the Centre in October 2021 to the state seeking its proposal for the inclusion of Rajbhars and Bhars in the ST list.
The government informed the high court that it had completed its survey in 72 out of 75 districts in the state and needed more time.
The high court had in March 2022 directed the state to respond to the Centre’s letter, but the government did not comply with the order. The JRJS then filed a contempt petition. “Arakshan nahi, toh vote nahi,” goes the JRJS’ slogan [Hindi for ‘no vote if no reservation’], which has got louder after the BJP lost the recent assembly by-poll in Ghosi, a seat with a substantial number of Rajbhar voters.
The Samajwadi Party won the Ghosi bypoll. Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is pictured here at a rally in Ghosi. Photo: X/@yadavakhilesh.
The Allahabad high court has on three occasions previously stayed attempts by the state government to issue SC certificates to some OBC castes, saying that only the Union government had such powers.
The Mulayam Singh Yadav government had in 2005 amended the UP Public Services Act, 1994 to make way for the inclusion of 17 most backward castes into the SC list. His son Akhilesh Yadav tried a similar manoeuvre when he was in power by passing a proposal for the inclusion of these 17 castes into the SC list through a cabinet decision. In 2019, Adityanath too directed all districts to issue SC certificates to these OBC castes.
These 17 castes, if the OBC sub-categorisation becomes a reality, would fall under the more backward and most backward category, but predominantly under the latter.
A majority of these 17 castes are riverine communities such as Mallah, Kashyap, Nishad and Kewat. The Rajbhar-Bhar communities and Prajapati-Kumhar communities, which have been traditionally engaged in pottery, make up the rest.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has been a vocal critic of the possibility of the inclusion of these OBCs into the SC list and maintained that such a move should only take place after increasing the SC quota limit.
This is also not the first time the BJP has tried to divide the OBC quota. The Rajnath Singh government had in 2001 constituted a social justice committee headed by parliamentary affairs minister Hukum Singh to examine the distribution of quotas for both OBCs and SCs, as the party was trying to loosen the hold of the SP and BSP on these communities.
The Hukum Singh Committee report recommended division of the OBC quota into three categories, isolating the Yadavs to a mere 5% reservation. It raised the OBC quota from 27% to 28%, taking a percentage from the share of the tribals, whose population had reduced in the state after the formation of Uttarakhand in 2000.
It calculated the population of OBCs in UP to be 54.05% (79 castes), a huge jump from the 41.13% in 1991, when the number of castes designated as OBCs were just 55, wrote political analyst A.K. Verma in an article published in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2001.
Its report isolated the Yadav community as the only backward caste. Eight castes, which would get nine percent reservation, were put in the more backward category. These castes included the Jats, Kurmis, Gurjars, Lodhs and Sonars.
The third category, most backward, was the largest as it included 70 castes, which made up a massive 61.69% of the OBC population. These communities would get 14% reservation. The Most Backward category included Kumhar, Koeri, Pal, Gaderia, Lohar, Nishad, Teli, Rajbhar, Shakya, Kushwaha, Noniya Chauhan, Maurya and others.
According to the report, Yadavs, who constituted 19.40% of the OBC population, were occupying a disproportionate share in government services with 33% of the jobs. Kurmis and Jats too were reaping the benefits of reservation beyond their numbers. Kurmis (7.46% of OBCs) had 12.49% share in jobs, while Jats (3.61%) had 6.85% presence in services.
A.K. Verma writes that the UP cabinet had accepted the report in September 2001 and the state Assembly even approved an ordinance amending existing reservation rules. However, the BJP government could not implement the report as it soon lost power in UP. Besides, the court too had put a stay on it.
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With the Rohini Commission report now in the government’s domain, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief spokesperson Arun Rajbhar says the party, which held the backward classes welfare ministry under Yogi 1.0, is hopeful that the Modi government would divide the OBC quota at the national level and include the recommendations of the Raghavendra Kumar commission in its formula.
Asked by The Wire on why the party had gone silent on sub-categorisation at the state level, Arun Rajbhar said the SBSP would include a demand for its implementation in its 2024 Lok Sabha election manifesto.
The sub-categorisation of OBCs into three large blocs may also potentially disrupt the BJP’s till-now successful narrative of isolating Jatavs, Yadavs and Muslims, who together make up 40% of the state population, while using Hindutva and realpolitik to wean away sections of the first two.
UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has best described it thus: “Sau mein saat hamara, chalis mein bhi batwara hai. Aur batware mein bhi hamara hain.” Loosely translate it reads, “We have 60% of the votes. The remaining 40% are divided, but even in that, we have a share.”
The last time the BJP government was openly confronted by the SBSP on the issue of sub-categorisation was in August 2021. Anil Rajbhar, then backward classes welfare minister, had said the government was examining the report to ensure that it did not have any legal loopholes.
Interestingly, the Kumar Commission report had also classified OBC castes into three groups on just the political representation they had got under the previous two governments headed by Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati respectively. Castes like the Yadavs, Kurmis, Lodhs, Moraos, Jats, Telis and Gurjars got the most political representation. Behind them were Binds, Malis, Kumhars, Bhars, Mallahs, Noniya Chauhans and others.
Castes such as the Sonars, Lohars, Arakhvanshis, Giris and Baris got zero political representation.
As the 2024 Lok Sabha election draws near, one wonders if the BJP, which is being challenged by the PDA (pichda, Dalit, alpsankhyak) narrative of Akhilesh Yadav in UP, would take the risk of dividing the OBC quota while opposing a caste census.
Last heard, the BJP plans to hold an ‘OBC Mahakumbh’ of leaders of the backward castes in November in Prayagraj to reach out to the crucial voting bloc.
How the BJP deals with the complicated and inter-linked questions of sub-categorisation, caste census and inclusion of certain OBC castes in the SC and ST lists, only time will tell.