https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... e-out-modi
‘Why are you asleep?’ Rahul Gandhi pleads with India’s low castes to vote out Modi
“Why are you all asleep? Don’t you see you’re being fooled? There are hardly any of you in these institutions. You are 73% of the population. What kind of society is this where you don’t make any decisions?”
Gandhi is the fifth generation of the illustrious first family that used to tower over Indian politics but which has lost some of its aura in recent years. As he makes his third attempt to defeat the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, after defeats in 2014 and 2019, he has pitched himself as an unlikely man of the people, calling for a “caste census” that would shine a light on who owns wealth and wields power.
Although Gandhi used to be an indifferent speaker, the long march with its endless rallies has lifted his oratory. His voice carries more conviction. He is more adept at working a crowd. Long dismissed as an irrelevant dilettante by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party of prime Minister Modi and scorned as an entitled dynast, Gandhi has proved on this march – and on his first march last year which took him from south to north – that he can handle the grind of grassroots politics and connect with ordinary Indians.
India, says Gandhi, is in the dark about caste, the rigid Hindu system of social hierarchy. “You’re nowhere,” he tells the crowds. “You have to find out what is your share in the country’s wealth. How much wealth do the 73% castes have in this country? This will reveal everything.”
India’s affirmative action of the past few decades has been based on estimates. The last caste census was in 1931, under British rule. The findings of a census in 2011 were never made public. Late last year, the government of Bihar state, ruled by a local party, became the first to carry out a caste census. It revealed that more than two-thirds of its 130 million people belonged to so-called “backward” or marginalised communities, a much higher figure than most people imagined. Gandhi is demanding a similar census in all of India’s 28 states. He wants more clarity on the respective sizes of each category of caste that has been the basis for affirmative action.