Is a Caste Assertion Ban in UP a Self-Goal for BJP?

Yogi Adityanath’s UP caste ban triggers backlash from BJP allies and opposition, risking political fallout.

Yogi Adityanath has of late been emphasising on Muslims and Yadavs accused in crimes.

(Photo: The Quint)

The Yogi Adityanath government may have scored a self-goal by its sweeping ban across Uttar Pradesh barring any caste reference in police and official records, public posters, and meetings in stringent compliance, with an Allahabad High Court order seeking to stop “glorification of caste in society.”

This unprecedented ban on the ubiquitous identity mark of different layers of the Hindu community can only be explained by Chief Minister Adityanath’s fear that changing caste dynamics in his state could mar the prospects of a third successive term in office in the 2027 assembly elections.

He has already been forewarned by the BJP’s dismal performance in its political bastion during last year’s Lok Sabha polls, mainly because of a clever alliance of backward and lower castes along with Dalits and Muslims by Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav spearheading the opposition INDIA bloc.

BJP’s Paradoxical Turn in Caste Politics

It is quite a paradox that a BJP stalwart has taken such a momentous decision to change the strategy that had reinvented the party in the country’s electorally most crucial state for over more than a decade.

In fact, after the advent of Narendra Modi as the main spearhead of the party before the historic 2014 national elections, the BJP was earlier critical of parties who espoused caste identity politics went out of its way to advertise that their new leader belonged to the backward castes.

Since then, the party, earlier identified with the entrenched upper caste elite who have traditionally publicly denounced caste politics, turned a somersault openly wooing backward and lower castes as well as Dalits with particular success in Uttar Pradesh where it shot up from just 10 parliamentary seats to 71 in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls repeating similar sweeping in the next national election and two successive assembly polls.

Indeed, while political pundits normally ascribe the phenomenal resurrection of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh mostly to Hindutva politics, it is the ruling party’s nuts and bolts tactics of wooing a whole range of backward and lower castes along with various Dalit sub-castes disenchanted with other parties that made the BJP such a formidable electoral machine.

For a party which earlier spurned regional caste parties the BJP went out of its way to form alliances with state parties representing specific castes groupings like Rajbhars, Nishads, Kurmis and Jats besides reaching out to the Dalit leader Mayawati for covert help to defeat the Opposition.

The Jolt of 2024

After a decade of spectacular electoral success of playing this new brand of caste politics in Uttar Pradesh the BJP suddenly got a jolt in the 2024 elections when they found the ploy of playing mentor to those outside the upper caste fold while actually concentrating both political and official power with the latter had backfired.

There was a revolt among backward and lower castes and Dalits against upper caste domination underlined by their preponderance in the election candidate list leading to a sharp drop in number of parliamentary seats barely half the number of seats won by the ruling party in the last national elections.

The biggest shock came in Ayodhya where just after the inauguration of a grand Ram temple on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid site, it was a Dalit candidate from the Samajwadi Party who won.

The murmurings of dissent among the various caste-based parties in the BJP led NDA that were already evident before the UP electoral debacle grew lounder in its aftermath with many of them reportedly supported by the state deputy chief minister Keshav Maurya, a backward caste leader, openly complaining that the Yogi had given upper castes the bulk of senior official posts in the government as well a district party chief.

While in a desperate move to get back his slipping political capital the chief minister did manage to win the party a majority of a subsequent round of assembly by polls in November by fielding mostly backward caste and Dalit candidates, he is aware that the growing disillusionment with his leadership could cost him the next elections or possibly his post in case of a narrow win.

Yogi’s Own Stance on Caste Politics

Sources close to the Yogi say that saffron clad monk had always been against playing the caste card in politics preferring an all- embracing Hindu slogan appealing to all communities. So far, he had been forced to go along with the party high command line to stick to the strategy of directly appealing to the middle and lower echelons of Hindu caste society but now feels that this phase of politics is over.

The chief minister is also under serious pressure from his own Thakur community and the Brahmins that any resurgence of backward and lower caste identity politics is bound to target upper caste entitlement in the police, administration, and key political posts.

Not surprisingly the latest ban on caste reference by the Uttar Pradesh government has not only been opposed by the Opposition but also various caste parties allied with the BJP in the state. For instance, Sanjay Nishad president of BJP ally Nishad Party, urged chief minister Yogi Adityanath to support caste-based mobilisations because they were “necessary to end suppression of the downtrodden.” Nishad who is the Fisheries Minister threatened to go to court against the ban declaring “we have to go on with our caste-based meetings.”

Opposition Mobilises Against the Ban

Objecting to the state government notification, the minister pointed out, “They (upper castes) will continue suppressing them (lower castes) if they (lower castes) are not united. They (lower castes) will be able to oppose all suppressions only if they are united and keep mobilising themselves.”
Similar apprehensions have also seized other BJP allies like the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), which holds Rajbhar caste rallies and the Apna Dal, which organises Kurmi caste meetings virtually every week.

On the other hand, upper caste BJP leaders are openly celebrating the ban and one of them declared to a correspondent “It’s a great decision by Yogiji which will neutralise these backward and lower castes in government and stop them from blackmailing for more important positions.”

For the moment the Opposition in Uttar Pradesh has decided to follow the ban by taking cover of the PDA (Pichde, Dalit, Alpasankhyak) banner representing backwards, Dalits and minorities but oppose the as a move by the Yogi government to impose upper caste supremacy in Uttar Pradesh.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)