s the plight and precarity

s the plight and precarity of

migrant workers take  centrestage, a pertinent question is about its political bearings.

The fact that an overwhelming majority of those precariat are subalterns or DalitBahujans, who, since

2014, shifted to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva in a

big way, merits the question

whether they would rethink their

saffron link and return to the fold

of nonBJP parties. Understanding

this puzzle requires a brief engagement with the structure of subalterneity and its dynamic interplay

with the Hindutva and Muslim

question in India.

Contrasting claims

There are two contrasting claims

of subalterneity — one oppositional to Hindutva and the other conciliatory towards it. There is a deep

fraternity towards Muslims in the

oppositional view as they are believed to be low caste Hindus who

converted to Islam to escape from

Brahmanical Hinduism. Pasmanda politics of the Muslim community is a reciprocal response to this

claim of oppositional subalterneity. 

On the other hand, the conciliatory subalterneity which is friendly to Hindutva, heralds  a phenomenon which I term as subaltern

Hindutva, which at present is the

dominant political discourse in

the western, central and northern

States of India, and of late has

made a remarkable entry in the

east, particularly in Bengal by winning over a majority of Dalits and

tribes. It takes a constructivist approach of myth building and argues that Muslim rule and a secular discourse of minority

appeasement is responsible for

their precariat position. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghendorsed three volume book by BJP

Dalit leader Bizay Sonkar Shastri

claiming Dalits to be upper castes

before the advent of Islam in India

is a case in point.

Back to 2014 

To decipher the expected political

behaviour of the subalterns in the

wake of the current crisis engulfing reverse migrationbound workers, one needs to go back to 2014

to deconstruct the phenomenon

of the mainstreaming of subaltern

Hindutva which overwhelmed the

democratic discourse of India except in the southern and  northeastern States. It led to most nondominant Other Backward Classes

(OBC) and Dalits abandoning  social justicecentric parties and rallying behind the BJP. Three factors

explain this shifting alliance of the

subalterns in 2014. 

One, with the deepening identitarian turn in the democratic discourse since the mid1980s, thenumerically weaker subaltern

castes, particularly in the western,

central and Hindi heartland

States, were aspiring to carve  a

niche for themselves within the

discourse of subalterneity. Since,

the oppositional subalterneity was

vanguarded by dominant OBC and

Dalit caste leaders, the weaker

subaltern caste members felt relatively deprived. 

Two, the BJP witnessed an electoral decline at the national level

in the 2000s until 2014. However,

in its six year stint during National

Democratic AllianceI, the partyhad effectively quelled its image as

being antiMandal and antireservation. 

Three, by late 2013, when the

Modi phenomenon appeared  on

the political horizon with a package of subalterneity, Hindutva and

development, the target was twofold: the secular and the oppositional subalterneity. Since both

had an indispensable Muslim constituency, they became clubbed as

one, their ideological incommensurability notwithstanding. The

majority of nondominant OBCsand Dalits nurturing a sense of relative deprivation eagerly embraced both the BJP and Hindutva.

It was an active political choice by

majority of the subalterns against

the secular. It is in this context that

since 2014 we have witnessed the

emergence of a new dialectic — of

‘the secular vs the subaltern’.

A discourse of solidarity

What is at stake for the BJP and

Hindutva in the wake of the ongoing migrant crisis? In other words,

if subalterns came to the fold of

the BJP by willing to bypass secular

parties for order, certainty and opportunity packaged as Hindutva’s

model of social justice, would the

turmoil in the wake of the novel

coronavirus pandemic change it? 

The answer lies in the discourse

of solidarity that lies behind the

spectacular success story of Hindutva’s subaltern outreach. Subaltern Hindutva is premised on the

claims of cultural and political solidarity among Hindus across the

spectrum. Thus, it is the perpetual

need and demonstration of solidarity across the Hindu spectrum

that is indispensable for the hegemony of subaltern Hindutva.

It must be remembered that unlike Savarkarite Hindutva which

signified ideological dogmatism of

upper caste Hindus, subaltern

Hindutva weighs more on the instrumental side. The latter is an

outcome of an active political bargain between the subalterns and

traditional proponents of Hindutva. Subalterns carry a thick deal of

political legitimacy and hence

they are needed. Hindutva has the

accommodating space which subalterns need to satiate their democratic desire for political representation. The leadership profile of

the BJP as a party from the top to

the rank and file, has an impressive presence of the subalterns.

Other parties have had to give a

substantial share of these spaces

to Muslims; in the BJP’s case, it

shares them with subalterns and

other caste Hindus, thereby placing the party in an advantageous

position to offer the best deal.

Hitherto, the Prime Minister’s personal charisma, his claim to conciliatory subalterneity and the corresponding trust factor have

created a sense of solidarity between him and the majority of subalterns. Therefore, much of the

political attack on him became a

collective attack on the subalterns.

Criticism of his government and its

policies from the vantage point of

secularism versus  communalism

metamorphoses into one of secularism versus subalterneity. 

Impact on States, Opposition

This throws a semantic challenge

for the nonBJP parties endeavouring to employ the language of political economy to privilege material politics over the cultural one.

In the past, the cultural solidarity

of subalterns with Hindutva, particularly in the Hindi heartland,

the prime suppliers of interStatemigrant workers depending upon

cash and labour intensive informal

sector, sustained the shock therapy of demonetisation.

However, equations seem to be

changing now. Media reports and

feedback from the ground in Uttar

Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and

West Bengal, where migrant workers have returned show that the

political mood is layered. Unambiguously, they are not happy with

the Prime Minister and the way in

which they were treated. Hence,

there is a clear sign of a waning of

the sense of solidarity which they

had for him in the past. There is a

feeling of being abandoned by the

state. Nevertheless, there is an interesting twist here. While they

are not happy with the Prime Minister, they are more angry with

the State governments and their

leaders. Hence, in Bihar it is Nitish

Kumar and in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. A section of subaltern

section in Bengal apparently believes that Ms. Banerjee on a few

occasions relaxed lockdown

norms for the benefit of the Muslim community. 

This means, the waning of subaltern solidarity to Hindutva and

the Prime Minister does not translate into a significant change of

political action as there are no alternative solidarities. In fact, given

that there is a greater degree of anger against the regional parties in

the western and northern States

along with West Bengal, it is plausible that the BJP may not suffer

much therein. Economic precarity

and material politics do  not succeed in the absence of a powerful

anchor. In the past, the Opposition

was able to defeat the cultural politics of the BJP on a material plank

in States such as Delhi, Jharkhand,

Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and

Chhattisgarh as it had Statelevelanchors who acted as a bridge between material crisis and its electoral translation. However, the same

may not be true about the national

scenario as the Prime Minister

combines both, persuasion and

policy. It is persuasion that holds

the ground perpetually leaving

policy weaknesses on the high

road to nowhere. On the other

hand, the prime Opposition party,

the Congress, seems to be a party

lacking both an effective anchor

and programmatic action.  True,

the ongoing crisis is fertile ground

for political change, but the will to

execute it is missing. The crisis

and political action do not seem to

interact. They exist in parallel.