Why the Mandal catalyst did not figure
It is bewildering that the name of VP Singh did not tug at the memory of as erudite an analyst as Guha or the CNN-IBN team for the long-list of a 100 greats after Gandhi.
AJAZ ASHRAF wonders if the upper caste domination of the media accounts for the omission
Lists of the greatest, the best and the most powerful are reminiscent of juvenile enthusiasm most people outgrow on passing high school. Yet such endeavours often reveal the political prejudices of those who diligently construct the pecking order of superlative luminaries. Take the search the CNN IBN-History TV 18-Outlook undertook over nearly two months to identify the “Greatest Indian after Gandhi”, which culminated in Dr BR Ambedkar catapulting to the top of the list of 100 personalities.
You’d be justified in hailing the popular endorsement of Ambedkar as an eloquent testimony to India not viewing personalities through the prism of caste. But such a conclusion would appear hollow if you were told that the CNN IBN’s list of 100 did not include the name of former prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh. You don’t have to be politically savvy to tell whether Singh had a greater impact on India or personalities such as AB Vajpayee, Narendra Modi, AZ Phizo or even Charu Mazumdar, who figure in the long-list.
But first, the methodology adopted for the search. It was the CNN IBN editorial team that compiled the list of 100, which a jury of 28 eminent personalities whittled down to 50. Through online voting and opinion surveys, the list of 50 was then pared down to 10 for the last lap of the search. But the list of 100 shown to the jury wasn’t entirely the CNN IBN team’s. In an article on the search, historian and jury member Ramachandra Guha wrote that he suggested new names to remove urban and regional biases and balance the greater recall value contemporary personalities possess. Presumably, because of Guha’s suggestions, the names of Periyar EV Ramaswamy Naicker and Jaipal Singh were added to the category of political leaders and that of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay to those representing the fine arts.
It is bewildering that the name of VP Singh did not tug at the memory of as erudite an analyst as Guha or the CNN-IBN team, whose members never tire of explaining to TV audiences the subtle nuances of the rise of small parties and regionalization of national politics. It consequently seems astonishing that they should have forgotten the man who was responsible for crafting the birth of ‘little Indias’ and ‘little leaders’ through his decision to implement the Mandal Commission’s recommendation to grant reservation to Other Backward Castes(OBC) in government jobs.
Reservation not only rendered the civil service heterogeneous, it also became the lightning rod for the consolidation of the OBCs, which had gathered substantial economic clout because of the gains reaped from the Green Revolution. Singh’s decision fanned the smouldering aspiration of the OBCs for political power. Their numerical strength was augmented because of the alienation of Muslims from the Congress, and even sections of Dalits who were alarmed at the depth of upper caste resentment against reservation. The replication of the OBC-Muslim alliance at the grassroots ensured North India was not to erupt into communal conflagration following the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Much of this OBC consolidation was to ultimately splinter. Yet the emerging OBC leaders resorted to new electoral permutations and a brand of development rhetoric to create majorities in their respective states, in the process becoming the ‘little leaders’ who nevertheless wielded tremendous clout at the Centre. From Nitish Kumar to Lalu Prasad Yadav to Mulayam Singh Yadav, they are all the children of Mandal who broke the electoral stranglehold of the Congress and prevented the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from substituting it.
The fracturing of the electorate in the Hindi heartland brought to the fore a clutch of leaders whose rise to power had been predicated on regional pride, popular anger against neglect by the Centre, and caste identities. True, some of these leaders attained prominence before the advent of VP Singh, yet they acquired a more enduring role in governing India. It was he who inaugurated the era of coalition politics at the Centre, forming the National Front in 1989 and becoming a catalyst in 1996 for the emergence of the United Front. Though national parties now lead coalition governments at the Centre, yet the presence of ‘little leaders’ in governance has, willy-nilly, imparted great salience to the regional in national politics. The coalition experiment subsequently convinced the people about its viability, evinced not only in the fractured mandate of more than 15 years, but in the continuous spawning of ‘little leaders’ such as Naveen Patnaik and Mamata Banerjee.
Singh finessed his idea of social justice even better in his later years. Few are aware of his contribution in the enactment of Right to Information Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. In a poignant obituary of Singh, RTI’s principal architects, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, wrote, “When the history of these two legislations are more comprehensively written, there will be many architects and strategists who will finally get the credit they never sought…V.P. Singh was one of them. He will always be cited for implementing the Mandal Commission report… It will be a grave injustice to him and posterity however, if his role as a statesman politician in establishing the rights of the poor is not acknowledged.” He also campaigned against the appropriation of land by the state for industrialists and builders. It speaks for our biases that we should have forgotten Singh’s support to those opposing the appropriation of their land.
There is indeed a telling irony in Ambedkar emerging as the “greatest Indian”, but the CNN IBN list of 100 not including the man who contributed, in whatever measure, to embedding the Dalit icon in the contemporary national consciousness. It was the VP Singh government which posthumously bestowed the Bharat Ratna on Ambedkar. Again, it was Singh who initiated the campaign to nominate KR Narayanan as Vice-President and then President, and then, through Mandal, created the social-political milieu that hastened the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party.
It is inconceivable VP Singh could have been voted the greatest Indian even if he had been there in the list of 100. Detested by upper caste/middle class (which ought to have loved him for his probity in office) for implementing Mandal, he was never accepted by the OBCs as their own, as are Kanshi Ram and Mayawati by Dalits. Considering the upper caste domination of the media, the absence of VP Singh from the CNN IBN’s long-list of 100 shouldn’t surprise.
No doubt, Ambedkar’s contribution to the writing of the Indian Constitution, his erudite interrogation of the cultural and political hegemony of upper castes, ultimately leading to his rejection of Hinduism, and his attempts to rally the Dalits are exemplary and inspiring. Yet the absence of VP Singh from the list of 100 should warn the Dalits that caste prejudices in the media have deeper roots than what Ambedkar being voted as the “greatest Indian” suggests. You even wonder whether he has been reduced to a marketing icon a la Che Guevara, whose images are embossed on a range of merchandise to boost sales. Or is it that it is politically convenient to embrace Ambedkar than Singh, whose politics directly, and quite suddenly, undermined the hegemony of entrenched groups, the memory of which is too recent for them to credit the man who fashioned the India as we know it today?
The author is a Delhi-based journalist and can be reached at ashrafajaz3@gmail.com