Protests Over UGC Equity Rules Mark a New Turn in Hindutva's Victimhood Politics

New Delhi: The recent protests over newly framed equity rules by the University Grants Commission (UGC) mark a new – yet inevitable – turn in the Hindutva politics of victimhood. For 11 years, the Sangh parivar has amplified the notion that the Hindus, the majority community constituting nearly 80% of the country’s population, has been shortchanged in independent India. It has repeatedly portrayed the Hindus as vulnerable despite evidence to the contrary.

From fears of being outnumbered in an unspecified future to concerns about losing economic and cultural resources to Muslim communities, the Hindutva campaign has peddled widespread alarm among Hindus. The Sangh, aided by the ascendant Narendra Modi, has woven an extensive narrative of Hindu victimhood, blaming opposition parties that, according to them, historically engaged in minority appeasement.

Political parties founded on principles of caste-based equality, practicing Mandal or Dravidian social justice politics, were labelled as casteist. Terms such as “vote bank politics” and “tushtikaran” (appeasement) were regularly used pejoratively, even as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) normalised the use of Hindu religious identity as a tool for political consolidation and projected 'Hindu unity' as a legitimate cause.

Also read: The Two Faces of Hindutva’s Dalit Agenda

The Sangh successfully flipped the narrative of who is privileged and who is disadvantaged to advance its goal of building a Hindu majoritarian state. Measures taken by previous governments towards affirmative action for vulnerable groups such as the Dalits, Muslims and Adivasis were spun as “vote bank” politics and portrayed as detrimental to national progress. Welfarist policies that created avenues of upward mobility for minorities and other marginalised communities were derided incessantly.

What is understood globally as affirmative action was recast as appeasement in Modi-led India. The media and PR machinery employed by the BJP have become active enablers of a campaign largely disconnected from the poor human development indices affecting Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis. Instead, the narrative of Hindu victimhood and the calls for assertion have been a successful electoral strategy for the BJP.

However, this victimhood complex among Hindus who do wield social, political and economic power has now grown beyond the party’s control, as the protests by so-called upper-caste groups over the equity rules indicate.

In fact, nothing in this narrative of Hindu victimhood is grounded in reality. Hindus control the majority of India’s national resources and wield significant social, economic and political power. Across socio-economic indices, Hindus – particularly members of elite castes and intermediate communities – are better positioned than minorities. By contrast, Dalits and Adivasis lag far behind in social and economic representation and access to resources.

A two-year study jointly conducted by Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, published in 2019, revealed stark disparities. Upper-caste groups, comprising only 22.3% of Hindus, own 41% of the country’s wealth, making them the richest group. Other Backward Classes (OBCs), over 50% of the Hindu population, control just 30.7% of assets.

Dalits, nearly 17% of India’s population, own only 7.6% of assets, while Adivasis, almost 9% of the population, control just 3.7%. Muslims, 14.2% of the population, hold only 8% of assets.

The majoritarian narrative has largely been driven by elite-caste supporters of the Sangh parivar. It is these upper and dominant-intermediate caste groups that see in the ruling regime an opportunity to secure a greater share of resources for themselves. And these demands have intensified due to prevailing economic uncertainties and social anxieties.

The 'othering' of Muslims is nearly complete under Modi. BJP-ruled states have little to no Muslim representation in state assemblies, and even in opposition-ruled states, Muslim representation has sharply declined due to the dominant religious polarisation at play.

With Muslims already marginalised, Hindutva foot soldiers – led primarily by upper-caste groups – are now targeting the constitutional rights of Dalits and Adivasis, whom they view as the next vulnerable group to target.

A large part of the BJP’s Hindu consolidation strategy relied on shedding its “upper-caste” image, the tag of being a “Brahmin-Bania” association that it carried for years. Since Modi became prime minister, he has played up his OBC identity, while also expanding representation within the BJP and in constitutional positions to include OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis. For immediate electoral gains, the BJP has pitted vulnerable communities against each other, in trying to enhance its own numerical strength. However, the electoral focus on OBCs and Dalits has left its loyal upper-caste supporters feeling sidelined and out of the spotlight.

From time to time, the prime minister has had to placate the resultant anxieties among upper-caste groups loyal to his party since inception.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliate organisations, historically opposed to reservations for Dalits and Adivasis, have in recent decades shifted their stance to advocate quotas based on economic criteria rather than caste. Accordingly, one of his government’s most significant steps was implementing the 10% reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), effectively introducing quotas for lower-income upper-caste Hindu families in jobs and educational institutions. This policy excluded Dalits, Adivasis and other vulnerable groups (who were covered under existing quotas).

Also read: Optics, Not Welfare: The Politics of Appeasement Behind the 10% Reservation

Within RSS circles, the EWS reservation was quietly celebrated as a long-pending fulfillment of upper-caste demands – a point emphasised by Bihar BJP president Sanjay Saraogi amid the protests against the UGC rules. Saraogi asserted that the Modi government would protect Savarna (upper-caste) interests, citing the EWS quota as evidence.

The victimhood politics cultivated by the Modi-led BJP is now turning inwards. Upper-caste groups, having witnessed the successful marginalisation of Muslims, are now voicing grievances over a system they promoted to advance their own interests.

These protesters are not challenging the BJP government's against BJP-ruled government inability to fill government vacancies, conduct fair tests for recruitments or prevent paper-leaks, or rein in examination mafia that has spread across India. Instead, they are protesting against UGC’s equity rules – which have now taken the form of opposition to caste-based reservation in education and employment. This is evident in the statements the demonstrators have made.

These protests may signal the beginning of a prolonged expression of cynical upper-caste resentment. For instance, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a leader from the backward classes, has become a convenient target of elite identitarian frustration. The prime minister may decide to intervene to placate the protesters with political concessions, but that would not alter the deeply entrenched belief that underpins the BJP’s politics: the belief that one group’s success can only come at the expense of another’s failure.

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