Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 74

Indian Politics & Policy
Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) in Bihar and
the Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP ruled
in their respective states for years.
Of late, these parties, often referred
to as social justice parties, appear
to have lost their hold on one of their
core constituencies of support, that is,
the OBCs. As a result, the parties have
suffered so much so in successive elections
in recent years that they appear to
be facing a deep existential crisis. The
decline of social justice parties such
as RJD and the SP coincided with the
phenomenal rise of the BJP. Given the
relative size of OBCs in the Hindi belt,
much of the BJP’s recent outstanding
electoral performance is attributed, and
rightly so, to huge support coming from
OBCs. But given the BJP’s primary base
of support (the forward castes) and its
ideological unease with caste-based affirmative
action, its ability to cut into a
huge chunk of OBC votes raises many
important questions. Did OBCs ever
constitute a politically cohesive group,
at least in the Hindi belt, if not nationally?
If they did, even to some extent,
why could they not hold together?
Conversely, how has the BJP been able
to garner so much support from the
OBCs? What does the shift in political
preference of OBCs imply for so-called
social justice parties?
This paper aims to address these
questions. To this end, India’s Hindi belt
is chosen as the site of the study. For
a nuanced understanding, the focus is
further narrowed down to two states—
Bihar and UP—mainly for five reasons.
First and foremost, the relative share of
OBCs in the overall population of the
two states is far greater than the national
average. According to latest estimates,
OBCs account for about 62.6 percent
and 54.5 percent of the total population
of Bihar and UP, respectively, in comparison
to 44 percent in the country as
a whole (NSSO 2011–2012). Second,
the two states were the epicenter of intense
political mobilization of OBCs in
the late 1980s and early 1990s under the
banner of social justice. Third, the two
states also saw the rise of parties whose
political agenda, policies, and programs
gave clear preference to the promotion
and protection of this group’s interests,
which consists of a broad range
of castes. Fourth, in spite of the deeply
entrenched politics of social justice
in the two states, the BJP has, in recent
years, made both wide and deep cuts
into OBC votes. Fifth, about a quarter
of parliamentary constituencies are located
here. Given this, the party that
performs well in these two states also
controls power at the Centre. Put another
way, the outcomes of parliamentary
elections in these two states tend
to play an important role in shaping the
national political discourse and exert
substantial influence on party politics
at the national level.
The rest of the paper is structured
as follows. The following section
takes a quick look at how the notion of
OBCs has been shaped historically. It is
followed by a discussion on the political
mobilization of OBCs in the Hindi belt.
The paper then proceeds to analyze
changing political preferences among
OBCs and the underlying factors and
political meanings. The final section
concludes the discussion.
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