Goodbye Mandal??

On January 1, 1979 the Morarji Desai government chose Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal, a former Chief Minister of Bihar, to head the Second Backward Class Commission. Exactly two years later, on December 31, 1980, Mandal submitted his report to the centre. By then, Indira Gandhi was back in power and the report lay in deep freeze for a whole decade. On August 7, 1990 Prime Minister VP Singh announced that his govt had accepted the Mandal Commission report recommending 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) offsetting one of the most turbulent times in Indian politics post independence.

On March 11, 2017 the voters of Uttar Pradesh chose a BJP govt inflicting a body blow to the Samajwadi Party by giving them their lowest tally in decades.

On July 27, 2017 Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the sixth time with the support of BJP after snapping ties with Lalu Prasad-led RJD with whom he had formed govt just 20 months earlier.

A lot of newsprint was devoted to the humiliating defeat of the Samajwadi Party in UP. A lot is now being written on the dramatic developments in Patna. But if there is one common thread between the watershed UP elections earlier this year and Nitish Kumar's return to the NDA fold it is the sidelining of Mandal in the two states where it set the direction of politics for a very long time. In UP, the picture is rather clear. The voters rejected the Samajwadi Party govt summarily and went for the more confident BJP. The SP scored 47 seats, its lowest tally since the party was born in 1992. Its vote share also dropped to an all time low of 21.8 percent.

However, it's not so straight in Bihar. With Nitish, Lalu and the Congress coming together to form the Mahagatbandhan in 2015, the RJD bagged the highest number of seats (80) with the JDU at second position (71). But today the RJD is fuming as Nitish Kumar has gone back to the 'communal' BJP claiming he was feeling suffocated in the Mahagatbandhan. The return of Nitish, himself a product of Mandal, in just 20 months poses the most serious questions for the Mandal brand of politics in the heartland. Is the social justice slogan enough in itself in the current social and political scenario?

Dominated by mafias, and Baahubalis as they are, can the votaries of social justice catch the imagination of the present aspirational generation of young men and women for whom social empowerment may not be an end in itself? Can corruption, high handedness and mis-governance be brushed under the carpet in the name of social justice? Will RJD retain its first position if elections are held today now that the face of Sushasan Babu Nitish Kumar no longer leads the alliance?

Perhaps, Akhilesh Yadav may have felt the pressure towards the end of his tenure and that is why his election campaign focused a lot on the good works of the SP govt.

However, the people had seen enough on the ground by then to fall for the heavy budget campaigning. In Bihar, Nitish Kumar chose to side with 'probity' and 'accountability' even as there is a concerted effort from the RJD to project Tejashwi Yadav as the youth icon of the struggling state.

Observers believe that besides the massive level of corruption which beset the loudest votaries of social justice, it is also the dominance of one backward caste (such as Yadav rule) above others which weakened the foundations. Perhaps, Nitish Kumar's gambit of empowering Most Backward Castes and giving them a share of the pie saved him here.

Coupled with that was his alertness to keep his Samajwadi kurta clean at all costs.
With the BJP under the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo adopting a smartly crafted political strategy of social and economic empowerment of backwards through self employment, corruption free governance, direct delivery of benefits and fundamental economic reforms, it is not difficult to predict that the coming days may pose serious challenges to Lalu, Mulayam, their sons and daughters.

Today Narendra Modi is the most successful OBC face of the country for a young man or woman from that segment of the society. Coupled with that is the vocal nationalistic fervour growing in our youth. The half baked opposition to nationalism has only made parties like the SP, RJD more suspicious in the eyes of the youth. The 'Secular' card too has run its course.

The dream of social justice for all is yet to be realized. Mandal as a political slogan is now past its sell-by date. The Mandal parties may still survive with some re-invention.

(Smita Mishra, Advisor, Prasar Bharati)