Calling the bluff of caste empowerment

UP government's directive on Sunday banning caste-based rallies, signages and FIRs where caste isn't subject of a complaint is step one in taking politics 'kicking and screaming beyond caste'. Contrary to its detractors, the order isn't denial of caste as a social construct. Rather, it seeks to limit its use as a blunt political instrument. 2025 India needs a politics that privileges interests and concerns that unite people over those that divide.

Far from realising B R Ambedkar's vision of 'annihilation of caste', caste has been embedded in politics in the name of social representation and empowerment. Mandalisation in the 90s - empowerment of OBCs - spawned numerous caste-based parties. Caste, sub-castes and sub-sub-castes became the organising principle for securing political space and power reaching theological proportions. Apart from giving rise to a new set of elites, it also further ghettoised politics. The latest ban will push more parties to appeal beyond 'tribal' loyalties, as was once the case with Congress, and later with BJP to a lesser extent. Opposition parties have charged the ruling BJP of imposing the ban to form a 'Hindu conglomeration'. That may well be the case. After all, BSP's demise came about with dalits moving en bloc to BJP. That hardly besmirches the effort to move politics beyond caste groupings.

Caste and religion are realities. But ensuring they do not become overriding determinants of modern democracies requires creating spaces that transcend these manufactured ties. The ban must be seen in this context, and can lay the groundwork for a politics of inclusive progress. All parties should take to it, and engage beyond earmarked fences. Like in business, in politics too, scaling up can have surprising RoIs.