‘What has Modi done to promote social justice?’

Caste politics has been heightened this poll season with the BJP showcasing its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s backward caste credentials, presumably to secure OBC support in the Hindi heartland. Janata Dal (United) President Sharad Yadav has intervened with a question about Modi’s credentials not just in terms of his OBC identity but the politics he practices. In an interview to Poornima Joshi , Yadav asserted that Modi’s politics is antipathic to the idea and struggle for social justice. Excerpts from the interview:

Modi claims Priyanka Gandhi has denigrated him as a lower caste person and the Congress has responded by saying he is misguiding people about his caste credentials. What do you make of this discourse?

Priyanka Gandhi does not understand the nuances of the Hindi language because they are part of the anglicised elite who rule this country. She could have said giri hui, patit rajniti (debased politics) but she used the term neech (low level) which Modi has cleverly twisted. Basically, everything is being blown out of proportion by the media that cannot see politics beyond Rahul, Priyanka and Modi. And let me tell you something that our long-term MLA from Gujarat, Chotubhai Basawa tells us — that Modi is not an OBC. According to Basawa, he is a Vaishnab Vanik. (Yadav dialled Basawa in Gujarat, who declared that Modi belongs to the “Bania-type” caste).

That is what the Congress is claiming as well. But don’t you think the BJP, Modi in particular, has managed to market his caste credentials for electoral gains…

You see, this is why I say the media has an elitist approach. Please get over your obsession with the BJP and the Congress. I challenge him (Modi) to cite one word that he has ever uttered to promote social justice and equality in society. Let any of these two parties cite one sentence in their manifestoes that furthers the cause of social justice.

What is the meaning of Modi trumpeting caste credentials without a single political endeavour he can show towards annihilation of the discrimination based on caste? What he is doing is empty electoral rhetoric. You may not understand it but people of our country do. Neither Modi nor the ideology that he represents can ever claim to represent the oppressed, backward sections of our society.

It is we, the legatees of Basavanna, Jyotiba Phule, Kabir, Mahatma Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan and Karpoori Thakur, who can justifiably represent the vast masses of people belonging to oppressed castes.

But a large number of the same people you claim to represent seem to be drifting towards the BJP in this election. On hindsight, do you think Nitish Kumar was wrong in breaking the alliance because of Modi?

Just because someone occupies a position, it does not automatically mean all decisions in the party are taken by him. Breaking our alliance with the BJP was a collective decision of the party and we are all responsible. No one has done the kind of work in Bihar in the last 68 years as Nitish Kumar. He has brought the State back on the path of an inclusive growth pattern.

What you are saying is that breaking the alliance may not be electorally profitable for us. First of all, we don’t know that, do we?

Secondly, should we stop doing what is right just because we do not benefit from it? Were the revolutionaries of 1857 wrong in waging their struggle? They did not succeed. But so what? We did what was right.

And another thing, you people in the media are fanning the second wave of Hindutva which only the politics of Mandal can fight.

You mean caste politics is the only effective counter to communal politics?

That’s right. This garbage dump called caste is the only resistance to the success of the Hindutva experiment.

When there is no one entity called ‘Hindu’, how can Hindutva succeed? We are a society divided by the caste system.

We have, or rather you have, oppressed the large mass of people on the basis of caste. How can communal politics succeed?

The BJP is only expanding because the progressive forces, under the umbrella of the Janata Dal, have got scattered. All the different units of the Janata Dal are being run by different families.

The Kamandal is perceived to be getting the upper hand because Mandalites are not united.

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