Business Standard / New Delhi May 22, 2009, 00:53 IST
Dipankar Gupta (‘Have the elections dealt a blow to caste politics?’, May 19) has identified India’s malaise correctly — voters don’t always vote on the basis of caste, but politicians continue to think along those lines. Gupta has pointed out instances of how voters have not voted on the basis of caste and how no single caste is large enough to determine the results of an election — of course, every vote counts and it is always possible Yadavs will vote only for Yadavs in an election, but the candidate also has to woo other castes as well. Even these castes, Gupta points out, switch allegiance if the candidate doesn’t deliver.
The old days of voters being happy enough to be able to just register an FIR in the police station are long gone — voters now want roads and jobs. Despite this if, as Ashish Nandy points out, each political party has detailed caste-calculations for each constituency. India’s voters are moving to the 21st century, its politicians continue to be stuck in the last one.
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