Omar Rashid
Brahman rift in UP under the Yogi Adityanath government and how it will could lead to shifting of Brahmin loyalties away from BJP! Some opposition leaders are projecting that under the BJP government, Brahmins have been targetted and murdered since 2017, the latest being the six killings in Vikas Dubey case.
Brahmins are ideologically/socially the motherboard of the BJP. Under the present government, their clout is at its supreme, and like in all governments they occupy disproportionate power positions and ministerial berths. They are only 9% of the population (1931 records, so assuming it will be much less today) yet have a disproportionate say in power, bureaucracy, media, judiciary and influence-making. But it does not have the same bearing when it comes to votes, where numbers matter. OBC and Dalit castes make up for 60-65% of the total vote in UP, and Muslims another 19.5%. Yet there is an obsession about the Brahmin vote. The real fulcrum of the BJP’s victories in UP is provided by the OBC communities and a section of the Dalits. A large section of UCs have always considered the BJP its parent party especially since 1992.
Of the reasons why Opposition parties in UP have not been able to check the BJP’s growth and then its strangehold is their disproportionate obsession with appeasing Brahmins, rather than building outreach and leadership among the numerically dominant and politically fluid OBC communities, who are not under the spell of any single leader–except maybe Modi since 2014. Yet there is a lot of room left to play, given that the founding patrons of the SP and BSP both established their influence among large sections of these communities. Most of the MBC leadership in UP, many of whom shifted to BJP, are chelas of Kanshiram.
Same applies for non-Jatav Dalits, like Kori, Dhobi, Dhanuk, Valmiki, etc. Opposition parties don’t even field their candidates thinking it futile as they are assumed to be tilted towards BJP. That is a defeatist mentality. Except for the Congress, which can minimally boost up its profile by raising voice for Brahmins–Jitin Prasada is doing that right now–the other parties stand to lose if they fall in this trap again. It is easier for the BJP to win over Brahmins (in the worst case scenario) before 2022 than it is for the Opposition parties to make dents in OBC and Dalit votebanks, without which it will be difficult for them to bring down the BJP from 49-50% vote share.
And to add, most of the people shot dead in “encounters” or been persecuted by the current regime are Muslims, Yadavs and other OBC communities.
