CASTE DRIVES A HARD BARGAIN WITH HINDUTVA

The saffron 'big tent' is intact, but caste blocs are uniting to demand their pound of flesh in Yogiland

- Avaneesh Mishra

IN UTTAR PRADESH, 2014 HAD COME AS AN INFLECTION point for its post-Mandal political grammar. The BJP built a sweeping coalition by reframing identity in more omnibus religious terms, with Hindutva seeming to slather an adhesive all over the plurality of caste. For a decade, that strategy worked. It yielded two famous wins for the Yogi Adityanath electoral phenomenon. But today, with a cabinet reshuffle due and the assembly election less than two years away, the old caste equations are reasserting themselves in new ways, and the BJP finds itself negotiating pressures it had once claimed to transcend.

The signals are coming not from the Opposition but from within. Over the past month, Thakur, Kurmi and Lodh leaders have staged a series of community gatherings—framed as cultural or social events, but unmistakably political in tone. Each carried the same message: that these communities are crucial to the BJP's hold on UP, and they expect that importance to be reflected in government and party positions.