Former Prime Minister V P Singh Who Mandalised Politics, Has Become Relevant Again

Finally, somebody has politically owned him—Vishwanath Pratap Singh, the 7th Prime Minister of India. Though he changed the course of Indian politics, and unleashed forces leading irreversibly to the rise and rise of OBCs, a process that is likely to influence the 2024 elections, the Mandal messiah, as “VP” was popularly called, has been amongst the most forgotten of all PMs—till now.

Earlier this week, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said evocatively, “We all belonged to V P Singh’s family, a pan-India social justice family”, while calling for “proportionate” reservation in the country. He was speaking at the unveiling of V P Singh’s statue in Chennai, at the well known Presidency College, in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party President. The late PM’s family members were also present on the occasion.

V P Singh’s politics spawned the rise of an OBC leadership in the country—Mulayam Singh Yadav and son Akhilesh, Lalu Prasad, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, among others—with many of them ruling their respective states for more than quarter of a century. It also saw the emergence of Narendra Modi, an OBC leader, as PM in 2014.

However, none of them has openly acknowledge V P Singh’s role in the way that Stalin has now done. Akhilesh’s presence at the Chennai event has a special significance. His father Mulayam’s differences with V P Singh were legion. Had they held together, the trajectory of north Indian politics might have been different after 1990.

Referring to his decision to implement the Mandal report and give 27% in government jobs to OBCs, which opened Pandora’s box and led to a chain of immolations by upper caste youths, V P Singh had once quipped ruefully, “Goal kardiya, par taang toot gayi” (I scored a goal, but broken my own leg”.

Ask younger people, particularly in rural areas about prime ministers whose names they had heard. They mention Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi. Few had heard of Narasimha Rao. None had heard of Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandra Sekhar, H D Deve Gowda or I K Gujral. All had heard of Atal Behari Vajpayee as well as Manmohan Singh, who is too recent as PM to forget, and Narendra Modi, who dominates the scene today as the incumbent Prime Minister.

What was, however, surprising was that while all had also heard of the diminutive Lal Bahadur Shastri (who coined Jai Jawan, Jai kisan slogan) and for fighting and winning a war with Pakistan. But few heard of V P Singh who Mandalised Indian politics.

At one such gathering in a rural area of Aurangabad district in Maharashtra, where no one had heard of V P Singh, many among them were young OBC men. A couple of them were even beneficiaries of the policy of reservations initiated by the late PM!

Revered by some and reviled by others for bringing a genie out of bottle which could never be put back, the reason no political entity has owned V P Singh as their icon not only because he was an upper caste (Rajput). It is also a harsh fact that a leader’s persona is often built up and carefully crafted by others. How much they are remembered depends on the extent to which their party or family has cultified them. (Cultification can also lend an element of charisma to a leader).

Today, the wheel has come full circle. The opposition under 28-party INDIA is all set to play the Mandal-2 card, by demanding that a caste census be held in the country. They suspect, and Bihar has shown this via a caste survey, that such an exercise is likely to reveal, a large number of OBCs in the country – more than the 52% disclosed by the 1931 census.

This might lead the OBCs to demand a greater share in jobs, educational institutions and possibility even in Parliament and state legislature—and help the Opposition parties mobilize political support.

By endorsing the demand for a caste census, the Congress, which has over the years lost support of OBCs in north India, has jumped on the bandwagon. (IPA Service)