Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 84

Indian Politics & Policy
other politically active and experienced
members of the extended family. As a
matter of fact, family feud over leadership
transition came out in the open as
news headlines. Yet at another level, it
created leadership crisis as politically
novice second-generation leadership
(the dynasts) miserably failed to fill the
void caused by the departure of party
patriarchs and politically experienced
members of the extended family from
organizational control. All this created
disenchantment and divisions even in
the primary base of support, that is, fellow
caste men and women. As a result, a
section of fellow caste men and women
also began to drift away.
Table 3: Declining Vote Share of RJD and
the SP among Yadavs
LS Elections RJD SP
1996 81 53
1999 76 82
2004 68 72
2009 65 73
2014 64 53
2019 61 60
Notes:
All figures are in percent (rounded) and weighted
by actual vote share of the respective parties.
* RJD’s figures, including allies, are for Bihar
only. The 1996 figure refers to JD, as RJD came
into existence in 1998.
** SP’s figures, including allies, are for UP only.
Source: NES, respective years
The analysis of evidence thus
suggests that the drift of OBCs away
from social justice parties has been
incremental rather than accidental in
nature. It has come off bit-by-bit and
layer-by-layer, rather than entire bloc
drifting together.
The second set of internal factors
relate to the dynamics of the social
justice movement. After the goal of
reservation was attained, the backward
castes-led parties failed to reinvent or
broaden the agenda of social justice—
the idea of reservation in the private
sector for instance. They were rather
increasingly being seen as aligning with
the capitalist class—the industrialists
and big businesses. 34 In brief, once the
long and hard struggle for reservation
came to fruition and the forward castes
reconciled with this, the glue of reservation
disappeared. 35 Put another way,
many backward castes/classes would
not now feel the necessity of voting for
a particular party.
There was yet another reason
why the social justice movement and its
product—the quota in public employment—would
not work as durable glue
to hold the group together. It is well
known that by design, group-based reservation
does not benefit all members
or constituents of the beneficiary group
equally. It is to largely benefit those relatively
resourceful and educationally
advanced within the beneficiary group.
Hence, as the policy of reservation was
implemented, its benefits reached different
caste groups (within the OBCs)
differentially, due to vast differences in
their educational attainment and resource
base. The rhetoric of reservation
would, therefore, no longer appeal to
those left out in the cold.
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