The ebc resolution of the Congress party, passed yesterday in its first cwc meeting in Bihar is a historical moment for the grand old party. The party started as a forum for landlords, then graduated to the educated middle classes.
Gandhiji took it to the streets and made it a mass movement. Politically it united the entire country around the anti colonial struggle, but its social interventions rarely went beyond anti untouchability movements.
This resulted in an erosion of its support among the backward classes soon after Nehru. The consolidation of the OBCs dislodged it from power eventually.
Though it had formed the first backward classes commission under Kaka Kalelkar, way back in 1953 itself, its recommendations were never implemented. The first serious attempt to woo the OBC was made in 2006 by Arjun Singh, when he extended the OBC reservation to central institutions.
This was after the party had lost its base amongst the Dalits and Muslims. The existential crisis faced after 2014 drubbing forced the party to rethink its social agenda.
While the party had moved left economically, it was not sure about its social articulation. The party took a leap of faith during its Raipur session, when it declared caste census and implemented it in Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Telangana and Karnataka. But this was a bit too little, too late.
Yesterday’s resolution is a historic departure, and the party has finally articulated its social and political vision. After Mandal parties organized the land owning backward castes, the landless and primarily artisan castes were organized by the RSS, which it called ‘social engineering ‘.
It is this group that along with the upper castes made the invincible modi juggernaut. But it was primarily a negative consolidation against the landowning castes.
For the first time Congress, under Rahul Gandhi has come up with a positive proposal for the EBCs. With Tejashwi Yadav beside him, he was not appealing against the Yadavs, but trying to reforge the OBC grid.
By promising an atrocity law similar to that for the Dalits, he is reassuring them from a backlash, both the Yadavs and the upper castes whom they would break their alliance with.
With proportional reservations, the Congress is trying to rewrite the social contract of the country. The deal clincher though is the promise of residential land in both rural and urban areas.
For the landless caste, land is the symbol of his deprivation and inferiority. By promising land ownership rights, the party has promised to lift their social position overnight. It’s emotional and spiritual deliverance.
It’s also sound economics. The great Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has shown that land rights are the most effective way to fight poverty. It helps overcome the capital barrier, especially amongst communities with entrenched poverty.
It also unlocks the capital value of land and powers investment and financial inclusion. Lastly it completes the loop of rights based policies, after right to information, food, education, work and health.
Right to land and housing is the most essential part of right to dignity. The party needs to stick to its resolution irrespective of the outcome in the coming elections.
