In his blog, Return of the Peshwas, Rajesh Ramachandran, Political Editor at The Economic Times, makes an attempt to give a caste spin to the rise of Modi and the RSSs gameplan behind propping up the NaMo wave. He writes: A caste analysis of the government and the party would throw up a curious equation: is this a Brahmin-Vaishya coalition excluding the vast majority of the peasant castes and classes? A democracy, by rule, cannot afford to be run by a minority that keeps the majority away from positions of power. Then, the new Peshwa era of the RSS dreams may prove to be an exception to the old norms of democracy. There is an unprecedented number of Brahmins in the Union government. Three out of four ministers who were sworn in on Sunday were Brahmins. We have a peculiar situation wherein the cone of the Hindu caste pyramid becomes the crown of the government of India. In the name of a Maratha warrior, the Brahmin priests of the west coast had run a medieval Hindu kingdom for long. In modern times, whenever the RSS and its political affiliates come to power at the Centre or the states, there is a distinct attempt at a Peshwa model of governance. That is, while the titular, at times a backward caste ruler (in this case Mr. Modi), remains just a mask or mukhota, the real centre of power shifts to a Brahmin group, elsewhere. Well the Vajpayee government at the Centre and the Fadnavis and Parrikar/Parsekar governments in Maharashtra and Goa are the best-case scenarios where Brahmins get to be the real and titular leaders. But when a Brahmin cannot really lure the masses and scale the Raisina Hill on his own, the second best option is to leave the emblems of power to the representatives of the masses while holding the real reins of power. Apart from the Prime Minister and the home minister, Rajnath Singh, the NDA government is primarily run by Brahmins, an oddity in the times of representational politics. After all, this community is just a miniscule minority in the larger ocean of Hindus. From finance minister Arun Jaitley to Sushma Swaraj, who holds the external affairs portfolio, to defence minister Parrikar to railway minister Prabhu to transport minister Nitin Gadkari to health minister Nadda, the Brahmin community forms the engine of this government. The same caste formula seems to have been applied while forming the PMO. The National Security Advisor, the prime bureaucrat among all the political appointees overseeing external and internal security, is a Brahmin from Uttarakhand and the principal secretary to the PM, Nripendra Mishra, is a Brahmin from Uttar Pradesh. And his deputy too goes by the same surname. It may seem a strange coincidence that the BJP had earlier chosen a Brahmin to the Constitutional position of the Speaker of Lok Sabha. Apart from the brief interlude of Rajendra Singh, the RSS has only had Brahmin chiefs. The overpopulation of Brahmins among the highest echelons of the country’s power structure would only bolster the argument that the RSS primarily represents the Brahmins.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 06:13:58 +0000
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