Why the BJP has become cautious on matters of caste

Between 2018 and May 2023, the Narendra Modi government inducted 63 specialists as mid-level bureaucrats through lateral entry, bypassing the established recruitment system where a designated number of posts are reserved for members of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. This sparked some resentment among the Dalit and Adivasi middle classes but the Bharatiya Janata Party ignored it.

This month, however, after the Opposition and the BJP’s own allies in the National Democratic Alliance criticised its decision to issue an advertisement seeking to recruit 45 bureaucrats through lateral entry, the government lost no time withdrawing it

On Tuesday, Jitendra Singh, the minister handling the portfolio of personnel, asked the Union Public Service Commission to retract the notice. He told the recruitment body that the absence of reservations in lateral entry appointments must be “reviewed and reformed”.

What prompted the change in the government’s position?

Political observers say this is directly connected to the outcome of the 2024 Lok Sabha election where the BJP lost ground in seats reserved for both Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Campaign speeches by BJP leaders asking voters to give the Hindtuva party a large majority in Parliament so that it could amend the Constitution had sparked fears among Dalits and Adivasis that the party intended to dismantle the quotas for them in educational institutions and government jobs.

“Forty-five vacancies [through lateral entry] is a very small number, but it has a symbolic value and the BJP would not want to be seen as undermining reservations,” political scientist Gilles Verniers told Scroll.

BJP pivots to ‘social justice’

The advertisement announcing 10 positions of joint secretaries and 35 deputy secretaries was issued on August 17.

Within hours, the Opposition alleged it was a conspiracy by the government to undermine reservations for disadvantaged groups in public sector jobs. Three allies of the government – Janata Dal (United), Lok Janshakti Party and Hindustani Awam Morcha – also opposed the move. The BJP does not have a majority in Parliament, so the support of its allies is crucial.

Initially, the government defended the lateral entry positions. On August 19, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that these were “temporary recruitments” and would not impact the reservation system in regular openings.

But just a day later, his colleague in the Union Cabinet, Personnel Minister Jitendra Singh told the Union Public Service Commission that the advertisement needed to be withdrawn “in pursuit of social justice and empowerment”.

Vaishnaw, too, spoke in a different voice. On Tuesday, he claimed that the withdrawal reflected the Modi government’s commitment to the “Babasaheb’s Constitution”. BR Ambedkar, who chaired the committee that drafted the Indian Constitution, was a Dalit.

This is the second time in a fortnight that the government has invoked “social justice” and the legacy of Ambedkar. On August 9, after the Union Cabinet turned down a suggestion from the Supreme Court to exclude more affluent members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes communities from the benefits of reservation under the “creamy layer” principle, Vaishnaw had said that the government was “committed to the Constitutional provisions given by Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar”.

The BJP’s pivot to social justice is not without good reason.

During the Lok Sabha election, the BJP had found itself on the defensive after the Opposition capitalised on the speeches of its leaders asking for the Constitution to be changed. The Opposition made the Constitution a rallying point in their campaign against the BJP. The ruling party tried to counter the narrative by pitting Muslims against the disadvantaged castes. But this evidently did not work.

‘Compromising is a compulsion’

Political observers told Scroll that the matter of lateral entry to the civil services is a good example of how the pulls and pressures for the BJP have changed after the Lok Sabha elections when it comes to matters related to caste and reservation.

The policy for civil services recruitment from outside the usual bureaucratic setup was announced by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in 2018. Between then and May 2023, four rounds of lateral entry recruitments were conducted.

The Lok Janshakti Party was part of the ruling alliance throughout this period, and the Janata Dal (United) and the Hindustani Awam Morcha for the majority of the duration. None of these parties raised objections to the policy then. Neither did the BJP itself talk about towing the “social justice and empowerment” line.

However, this time, Lok Janshakti Party’s Chirag Paswan made sure to publicly demand the withdrawal of lateral-entry positions. After the withdrawal was announced, he claimed his share of credit, saying that he had been in touch with the prime minister on the matter.

Harish Wankhede, assistant professor at the Centre for Political Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that the BJP falling short of a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha has enthused parties like the Lok Janshakti Party and Janata Dal (United) to assert the interests of the social groups they represent.

“The Lok Janshakti Party has won five seats due to its voter base among the Dalits, so even for its own survival it needs to put pressure on the government on matters,” he said. “The BJP needs the support of these parties so compromising is a compulsion for it.”

Political scientist Verniers said it was not only pressure from the allies that had forced the Modi government to rethink its stance. “For states like Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP does not have any major allies, it needs to recalibrate for its own good,” he said.

Wankhede agreed with this view. “If you look at the [Lok Sabha election] results in states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, the Dalits and OBCs [Other Backward Classes] did not see BJP as their first choice and many of them have moved towards the Congress and its allies,” he said. “The BJP has now realised that if this trend continues it could face even bigger losses in state elections.”

The limits of welfare

One of the key ingredients of the BJP’s success since 2014 – especially in the Hindi belt – was its success in stitching together a social coalition of non-Yadav backward caste communities and non-Jatav Dalits by giving them more representation. In Uttar Pradesh, this coalition overwhelmed the Samajwadi Party’s support among Yadavs and that of the Bahujan Samaj Party among Jatavs.

Along with this, the Modi government at the Centre introduced a slew of cash transfer schemes for rural families that gave rise to what political observers called the “labharthi factor” – it was assumed that beneficiaries of such schemes had emerged as a separate voter bloc transcending their social identities.

The 2024 Lok Sabha verdict, however, has led to a reassessment of the idea that welfare can trump caste inequity.

Ajay Gudavarthy, a professor of political science, said that in the Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition parties were successful in cornering the BJP by consistently attacking its leaders for their comments about changing the Constitution. The Samajwadi Party also effected deft social engineering in its ticket distribution by ensuring greater representation for Dalits and non-Yadav backward classes, he said.

In its internal assessment, the BJP itself identified an erosion in Dalit and OBC votes over matters of reservation and the Constitution as a reason for its poor performance in Uttar Pradesh. But only anxieties about the BJP undermining reservations could not have reduced the party’s tally in the Lok Sabha from 62 seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2019 to 33 in 2024, Gudavarthy said. Also in play were factors such as unemployment and economic distress that blunted the “labharthi factor”, he said.

“Modi’s brand of welfarism is aspirational in which he asks people to be atmanirbhar [self-reliant], and become job givers instead of job seekers, but ground realities do not match this rhetoric,” said Gudavarthy. “The BJP has lost the momentum generated by aspiration and once that happens there is bound to be backlash over more permanent factors like social backwardness.”

Verniers also agreed that the 2024 elections showed that social welfare schemes cannot be milked indefinitely to compensate for the lack of job creation and unequal wealth distribution.

“The Opposition has taken the opportunity to link joblessness and economic distress to issues like reservation to mobilise people against the government,” Verniers said. “This is a challenge that the BJP has not had to face earlier.”