Will PM Modi come clean on his OBC status?

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy said in a meeting on February 14 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not from a backward class (BC) by birth but a “legally converted BC”. He challenged Modi to conduct a caste census in 2025 if he has any sense of commitment.

Modi is not a Shudra OBC, Revanth said, but after he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he saw to it that his caste, Modh Ghanchi, was added to the OBC list.

According to the Telangana CM, that is also a conversion. He emphasised that he was carefully wording his statement that Modi is “a converted OBC”.

Owning Shudra heritage

Reddy is a Shudra. Though the Reddys of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh happen to choose to be out of OBC reservation, he has been claiming his Shudra background quite consciously.

When he was an MP before he became the chief minister, in a debate with Union Finance Minister Niramala Sitaraman, who sarcastically insulted him with a jibe that his understanding of Hindi was bad, Reddy quipped, “I am a Shudra and historically denied of good language skills”.

His ownership of Shudra heritage and his community’s sufferings at the hands of Dwijas drew the attention of the media. Now, this statement by Reddy on the PM’s caste conversion became an issue of national importance as he is himself a chief minister.

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Reddy’s caste is equivalent to that of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat. The Patels in Gujarat also chose to be outside the OBC list in the 1990 Mandal reservation list. However, for the past few years, they have been demanding the inclusion of their caste in the OBC list. The BJP government refused to include them in the OBC list, though Modi’s caste itself entered the list much later.

Hits the nail on the head

The BP Mandal report included all Shudras, who historically were outside the frame of Dwija (Brahmin, Ksatriya and Vaishya) communities, as OBCs. Historically, all Shudras were agrarian producers.

Though Vaishyas were said to be agriculturists in Vedic times and Shudras were designated as slaves who were meant to serve the Dwijas, of which Vaishyas were a part, the Reddys were never part of the Dwijas. They were part of the Shudras and even now their occupation is agriculture.

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Of all the Reddy chief ministers who ruled the Telugu states from Neelam Sanjiva Reddy onward, none except Revanth Reddy has publicly stated that he is a Shudra. For quite a long time the upper agrarian communities like Reddys, Velamas, Nairs, Patels and Marathas were trying to claim the Kshatriya status.

But such status in ritual terms was never granted to them by the Hindu Sanatana Dharma heads, who happen to be Brahmins.

Revanth Reddy hit the nail on the head of the RSS anti-conversion ideology by characterising the Vaishya kind of Modi’s caste getting into the OBC list during the BJP regime in Gujarat. Modi never made it clear that his family was historically Shudra or a part of the Vaishya caste group.

It is therefore a major issue how non-Shudras are being allowed to get into the OBC list through different conversion modes.

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RSS and conversion

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been consistently opposing religious conversions from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity. But it has been deliberately converting non-Shudra castes into the OBC category by taking shelter under the “Socially and Educationally Backward Class” language used in the Constitution to weaken the existing Shudra OBCs, who had no right to education in Sanskrit and Persian languages in history.

The Muslim rulers also did not allow the Shudras to learn Persian language based on Brahmin priestly recommendation to all Muslim rulers including the Mughals. They told the Muslim rulers that according to Hindu tradition, the Shudras should not be allowed to read and write in India.

The Muslim rulers went by that advice till the British came and opened up school education for Shudras, in a proper school system.

Harmful conversion

The definition “Socially Educationally Backward” (SEB) was used in the Constitution with a historical sense that only the Shudras who were not allowed to enter into Gurukul or school education could be treated as SEBs.

But in North India, several Bania communities that live with different gotra or sub-caste names were encouraged by the RSS quite deliberately to convert to the OBC category. This conversion is very harmful for the real artisans and tillers of lands for millennia.

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In All India services, the Shudra OBCs certainly cannot compete with Bania OBCs. For example, Dilip Mandal, a Bania OBC, acquired a top journalist status and repeatedly presented himself as OBC, without ever revealing that he came from a Bania background. Only recently his caste background was revealed.

Now he has shifted to the RSS-BJP camp and became a media adviser in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This is a very strategic move of the Hindutva networks.

Reddy’s RSS roots

Revanth Reddy knows about the RSS strategies as he was part of that organisational network when he was a student leader. He knows how the RSS used the caste structure to its advantage.

It does not want castes to be abolished but at the same it should not be seen as pro-OBC and Dalit by using different methods of co-options. It wants to appear pro-OBC to maintain the Hindu structures where the Dwijas are in the hegemonic place.

In the recent past, particularly after Udhayanidhi Stalin’s critique of Sanatana Dharma, the Sangh Parivar started a major campaign that Sanatana Dharma is the soul of Hinduism. If that is so, the Shudras/Dalits and Adivasis can never become equals to Dwijas, as Sanatana Dharma does not allow such equality.

Modi himself has been defending Sanatana Dharma as if he is organically a part of it. But no Shudra or Dalit can defend Sanatana Dharma even though he/she is part of the BJP. Modi’s spiritual inclinations also show that he has been deeply influenced by Dwija childhood training.

Revanth Reddy’s statement that the PM is a converted OBC from upper caste acquires credibility in this background. Modi himself should tell the nation whether he is a Shudra OBC or not.

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the article are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)