Is it all caste and class, as we have always believed? Do vote banks exist? YOGENDRA YADAV explodes some myths surrounding the social basis of voting behaviour in India, and analyses where parties draw their support from.

A sense of scandal surrounds any discussion on the social basis of voting in India. A mix of embarrassment and guilt creates a breeding ground for the myths which dominate political analysis. A sample: castes serve as vote banks for political parties; elections are all about caste/community equations; neither issues nor ideologies matter to the common people who simply go by what their caste and community leaders tell them.

Square this with the findings of the ICSSR-India Today-CSDS survey of the Indian electorate, the largest and most authentic of its kind undertaken after the 1996 elections. When asked about the person they had consulted before voting, less than 3 per cent mentioned caste/community leaders. To a different question, "Do you think it is important to vote the way your caste/community does?" a majority replied in the negative. This is a striking reversal of the answer to the same question in 1971. Similarly, the proportion of voters who believe that their caste/community votes for different parties rather than only one party has more than doubled in the past 25 years. Only one-sixth of them think that there is any political party that looks specially after the interests of their caste/community.

Are they lying? Or trying to sound politically correct, like their leaders? Or is the modern Indian nation finally beginning to get rid of the ghost of caste? Will citizens vote on the basis of the merits of the candidates and the policies of the parties rather than caste?

Neither of these appears to be the case. The fact of the matter is that there is no democracy in the world where circumstances of one's birth do not influence the voting decision. Caste itself is a shorthand for all sorts of 'secular' social indicators like social status, educational level, or occupation. These factors are bound to influence the political judgement of any voter. In India, as elsewhere, the voters' perception of issues and ideologies is itself heavily conditioned by their location in society. The notion of democracy would mean one thing to the bhadralok in Calcutta, and quite another to an Adivasi in Midnapore.

It is not simply that caste influences politics. In India the role played by politics in determining the shape and boundaries of caste is no less significant. Caste groupings are invented for the purpose of manufacturing electoral majorities. As Professor Rajni Kothari pointed out two decades ago, more than casteism in politics we have politicisation of caste.

Caste polarisation is never so total, exclusive and frozen as it is made out to be. Class interests and personal opinion routinely lead large numbers to vote against the party whose vote bank they are believed to be. People may actually go out and vote against the candidate of their caste, and instead choose a candidate belonging to a party seen to be closer to their caste. There is a lot more to "caste voting" than meets the eye.

CONGRESS is no longer a rainbow

Conventional wisdom views Congress as a rainbow coalition of communities. All colours and shades represented more or less evenly, covering the whole spectrum of Indian society. Even after the decline in the 1996 election, the Congress voters are spread evenly across the social divides. The party has also retained its class profile; it remains more popular among the poor, without losing its support in the rest of the population.

But this all-India picture hides a more complex pattern, with Congress drawing on the support of different caste groups in different areas of the country. An analysis by Professor Anthony Heath of Oxford University has highlighted the lack of a solid support base for Congress throughout Indian society. The shape of the Congress support in different regions is largely determined by the nature of the regional competition it faces. If we go region-wise, the Congress resembles a cushion which takes the shape of the person who last sat on it. The lack of any real backbone of support leaves it open to attack from all sides.

When challenged by the BJP in the north and the west, it is robbed of the upper caste, and some of the landed peasant castes, and appears a party of the underprivileged. When the main competition comes from the Left Front (LF) the Congress loses out on the poor and the Dalits, and becomes a party of the privileged. Faced by regional parties drawing on support from OBCs, the Congress is left thin in the middle. When challenged from all three sides, the case in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it looses the support of every social group; all the stuffing is knocked out of the cushion. Congress is no one's party, struggling for survival. In a majority of states, it is no longer the rainbow it used to be.

BJP still has a narrow social base

For long derided as the Brahmin-Bania party of the urban areas, the BJP has come a long way in expanding its social base. Be it the Jats of Western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Sikhs in Delhi, or the Patidars in Gujarat, the BJP's influence goes beyond the top three varnas. Yet it still carries a lot of its old features: virtually no Muslim vote, very strong among the upper castes and weak among the Dalits. It has some appeal among the Adivasis, but only in a few pockets. It may have won more seats than the Congress, but in terms of the social base it is a much narrower party.

The narrow caste base is reinforced by an even narrower class base. There is a straight correlation: the poorer you are, the less likely you are to vote for the BJP. Urbanity, ritual hierarchy, education, respectable occupations and wealth are all associated with a greater propensity to vote for the BJP. Class and caste reinforce each other: if you are well off and educated you are more likely to vote BJP, but if you are from an upper caste group as well, the chances are even higher. The BJP's social base reflects all the signs of a party of the privileged. This makes the Indian upper class one of the safest vote banks of all.

Comparing the caste composition of the BJP vote in the traditional old areas of the Jana Sangh and those states in which the BJP has become a force in the past decade shows that in the new areas of conquest it has less of an upper caste bias. Compulsions of building social alliances have forced it to bring other castes and communities into its fold. Take Gujarat, where the need to bring in OBCs has given it a broader support base on which to build. In the rest of the country, particularly the south, the BJP is struggling to develop a clear profile. Can the BJP take advantage of its infancy in these areas and develop into a true mass party? Or will it be unable to break free of the weight of its own history?

UF combines different social profiles

Like the Congress, the national picture of the United Front (minus the LF) support is a very artificial indicator of its social base. It includes different parties with different social profiles.There are two main patterns in the data from the 1996 election. In states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Assam they garner support from a broad swathe of society. In these states the UF partners campaign on a mainly regional programme which cuts across caste-community lines.

In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the UF is identified not with a regional but a social justice plank. Here the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Janata Dal (JD) votes contain a very strong support from the OBCs and Muslims. The appeal may not be only to caste, but it has a strong caste resonance. A discordant note is struck in Orissa, where the votes for Biju Patnaik's anti-Mandal JD largely came from the upper caste.

Yet these different streams can continue to coexist, for the regionalisation of Indian politics allows them to campaign on their own agendas in their own areas, whilst broad cooperation has few costs and can be mutually very rewarding.

LF is competing along class lines

The ideology of a party is often a poor guide to its social base. But in the case of the Left Front (LF) there is some correspondence between its theory of class mobilisation and its support structure. In terms of caste, the LF votes are spread over all the caste groupings and communities, including the upper castes. They get a surprisingly high level of support from the SCS and fairly high from the Muslims. But that is largely because the states where LF has its base have a higher proportion of Dalit and Muslim population.

A look at the class base shows a clear and consistent pattern. An overwhelming majority of its support comes from the poor and the very poor. Communism does not seem to be an urban middle class phenomenon in India.

In Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal, the LF has managed to keep the political agenda focussed on issues that play along class lines, and the voters have responded. Outside its strongholds the class-based approach has failed to attract votes for the LF. With strongly localised support and appeal across the castes the LF resembles the regional parties of the UF in terms of social base. Another awkward piece in the UF jigsaw.

BSP gets all its support from the weakest

Kanshi Ram had made it clear his party had no room for the upper caste; expectedly, the BSP is solidly founded on Dalit support. This leaves it a small party, but one with a distinct and stable social profile; opposite that of the BJP.

The BSP has had some success in Uttar Pradesh in broadening its social support to the lower OBCs and the Muslims. This development was crucial to its ideology of a 'bahujan' mobilisation, since the category was always meant to include non-Dalits. Outside Uttar Pradesh, the BSP has made little headway in gaining the confidence of any other section. It remains to be seen if it can retain the Muslim votes it secured in 1996 after entering into the infamous alliance with the BJP.

The BSP faces the dilemma of widening the support base with the consequent diluting of its identity as the party of a particular social group, or remaining a small but socially coherent party wielding influence only as long as it is in a pivotal position.

The real challenge for the party is to develop a 'bahujan' unity central to its ideology. The fate of its attempts to build a Dalit-Adivasi alliance in Madhya Pradesh will test it again this time.

CLASS factor reinforces CASTE

The influence of economic groups is less visible than the social categories of caste and community. Yet the research on Indian elections shows that now the voter has a clear class profile. Whether the voter is rich or poor is about as important in his voting decision as is his caste or community.

These are not two separate effects. The class factor goes with the caste. Those who belong to 'lower' castes also tend to be poor, and the upper caste Hindus tend to be better off. What's more, the class profile of major parties is such that both the effects tend to operate in the same direction and reinforce each other.

Congress gets more support from the poor than the rich, but the difference is not very stark. The slope for the UF is sharper. Its vote share among the very poor is nearly twice that of its support among the rich. The LF depends mainly on the poor and the very poor for its votes. The BSP depends exclusively on these sections.

The picture is neatly reversed in the case of the BJP. Its class profile looks like an inverted pyramid. Its vote share among the economically most privileged is more than double as compared to those below the poverty line. Clearly, the BJP combines economic and social privileges.

Yogendra yadav, fellow of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), was assisted in this article by Alistair McMillan and CSDS data unit. All the data is from the ICSSR-CSDS-INDIA TODAY survey after the 1996 elections. Total sample: 9,614.

INDIA VOTES

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