The Politics Of Reservation

Caste Quotas Have Become The Most Fractious And Polarising Issue In Election 2024, With The Potential To Influence The Final Outcome

- SUNIL MENON

RAHUL GANDHI TOTES A SLIM LITTLE RED BOOK ON STAGE THESE DAYS. It's the Constitution of India-the coat pocket edition of Eastern Book Company familiar to young lawyers. Holding it up, the Congress leader, who turns 54 exactly 15 days after the Lok Sabha results come out on June 4, vows to protect it. His language is an ingenious mix of the late Kanshi Ram and the Occupy movement-two sources that seem unlikely only at first glance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, blending gravity of tone with animated emphasis like only he can, mouths his own refrain these days. "I'll protect the Constitution with my life," as he said in his INDIA TODAY interview on May 17. Why are the two opposite sides, locked in mortal combat in a hotly contested election, promising the same thing? It's to do with something contained in that book, and what its author, B.R. Ambedkar, did through his life of ideas: a new politicisation of caste through affirmative action, or reservations.