The game of gotra

It is a truth universally acknowledged that caste continues to play a big role in Indian elections. Turn on any television news channel this election season and you’ll find poll pundits pointing to graphs and trying to figure out how different caste groups might vote in the five state elections and how that could make all the difference to the results on December 11.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. More than seven decades after Independence, caste ought to have become a relic — unimportant, seldom remembered, something like your grandfather’s long-dead pocket watch that’s stowed away in the attic and never taken out. The writers of our Constitution, the great B R Ambedkar included, had put in institutional frameworks that should have ended the dominance of caste in Indian society. Equal opportunities, though they still have some way to go, ought to have thrown caste-based divisions and allegiances out the window.

So why didn’t it happen? Part of the reason for that was on display this week when a furious debate erupted over Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s gotra — the mythical clan to which a Hindu supposedly traces his or her lineage. Priests at the Pushkar temple, which Rahul visited while he was campaigning in Rajasthan, let it be known that the Gandhi scion belonged to the “Dattatreya” gotra of Kashmiri Kaul Brahmins, the same as his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru. At once the BJP howled “gotcha!”, and went all out to rubbish the claim. Among others, science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan (who should have been batting for science instead of trying to rationalise arcane concepts) took to Twitter to explain how gotra works and why Rahul, whose grandfather Feroze Gandhi was a Parsi, could not possibly have a gotra.

The BJP sees red whenever Rahul Gandhi visits a temple

Meanwhile, spokies from both parties brawled on national television — not over critical election issues such as jobs, development or rural distress, but over Rahul’s gotra or the lack thereof 

The BJP does, of course, see red whenever Rahul visits a temple. That’s because the spectacle is at odds with its narrative that the son of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi cannot be an authentic Hindu. For example, when he prayed at a temple in Ujjain last October, party leader Sambit Patra demanded to know what his gotra was. In the world according to Patra, one’s Hindu-ness depends on such things as caste and sub-caste. 

Ridiculous? Certainly. A despicable attempt to make an election issue out of a rival politician’s religion? Of course. However, it is not just the BJP that is playing this unholy game. The Congress is playing it too. Rahul has taken to visiting temples whenever he hits the campaign trail. Last year, a Congress spokesperson declared that Rahul wore a janeyu — the sacred thread worn by Brahmins. And now we’ve been told that like all “good” Hindus, he boasts of a gotra. In other words, while the BJP is desperate to paint him as a fake Hindu, Rahul is assiduously projecting himself as a devout, upper caste member of the majority community to shore up the votes from that constituency.

The hysterical circus over Rahul’s gotra shows how India’s political parties keep the religion/caste pot simmering. Let’s look at the method in this madness. It’s tough to get people on your side if you’ve achieved little by way of development or can offer little by way of a coherent vision for the future. But appeal to tribal loyalties and ancient prejudices or incite primordial hatreds, and you may score an electoral hit. Baniya, Brahmin, OBC, SC, ST, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi — why try to remove the differences? Why not play them up? Why not deepen the divisions, exacerbate the social fault lines? For that way lies easy political pickings. It’s a diabolical calculus and our political parties have got it all worked out.

Rahul Gandhi could have risen above this. He could have said, “It’s  the 21st century — people want jobs and a better life, they don’t care about my gotra.” He could have said he was an Indian and that was his only identity. But he didn’t. 

There will come a time, though, when Indians will refuse to be swayed by religion and caste, mandir and masjid, gotra and gaumutra. Our politicians need to start thinking about that.

Shuma Raha is a journalist and author based in Delhi

@ShumaRaha