This is a guest post by Mahmood Kooria

We are publishing an English translation of an important interview of the intellectual and academic Kancha Ilaiah, conducted by Mahmood Kooria for the Malayalam weekly Mathrubhumi. While what I see as Professor Ilaiah’s underestimation and perhaps misreading of the historic role of the Communists in Indian politics leaves me severely uncomfortable, especially when he exonerates the right from commensurate charges of elitism, his framing of Hindustva and Modi’s appeal within the great stream of caste in the subcontinent is brilliant and thought-provoking, as always. 

Kooria conducted the interview as well as translated it in to English. His introduction is as follows, “At a time when there was no any such discussion, in 2002 Professor Kancha Ilaiah predicted that Narendra Modi will be the prime-ministerial candidate of Baratiya Janata Party. It has come true and now Modi is in the office. At this point, I talked with him at Moulana Azad Urdu University Hyderabad where he chairs the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy. In the conversation, he talked about the future of Modi government and he predicted that a civil war is going to break out in India if Modi does not cater the needs of backward classes. A Malayalam-version of this interview was published in the Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly (August 24, 2014).”

Mahmood Kooria: Ten years ago you wrote that Modi will be the prime ministerial candidate of BJP. What would be your response as your prediction has come true?

Kancha Ilaiah: Well, at that time I was predicting that based on the Left parties’ indifference to understand the caste question. The caste question is not been seriously taken by the Left parties. And, after Mandal, the BJP and the RSS wings started looking at caste-question seriously because when Babari Masjid was demolished they mobilized a lot of backward classes. Though they oppose Mandal reservation, they wanted the backward classes to be part of the Hindu religion. Around 1994, a non-Brahmin called Rajju Bhaiya became the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS. Then he recruited a large number of backward classes, large number of youth, and he promoted the people like Narendra Modi, Uma Bharati at that time. Earlier, the first backward-class chief minister of Uttar Pradesh was a BJP man: Kalyan Sing. He was the chief minister in 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished.

The Sangh Pariwar was responding to the backward class demands more. But the Left or the Congress was not responding to the OBCs. The Congress was responding to the Dalits and Muslims. There was upper caste all the time on the top. So, when Narendra Modi became the chief minister and this whole atmosphere was created, I was writing a column in The Hindu. I thought that this seems to be cause/course of India, since the Hindu religion is surviving because of the backward classes. It is inevitable for the Hindutva organizations that they will have to project an OBC for the prime-ministership. But there was resistance from within itself. It is not that the Brahmins have given up the principle of varna-dharma. After that article came and of course after my writing Why I am not a Hindu itself, the backward classes even within RSS seemed to use that material for their advantage. The communists did not use or recognize it. The question of labour and caste which I have been consistently raising, which was also part of their theory, they did not care about. So the Communist Party remained tightly under the control of upper castes.

The Congress remained by and large under their control. To some extent there are Dalits and Muslims. It has promoted the Muslims to the positions of president, vice-presidents, ministers and other important portfolios. It also has promoted the Dalits into the positions of president, like K.R. Narayanan who himself was a Congress-man, speaker and home-minister. But they have never given such positions to a large chunk which constitute OBCs. This was used by BJP, though there are a number of people who are opposing this. Modi himself fought through his way to it. The Hindu religious forces know that once backward pull and go away from the Hindu fold, Hinduism will collapse. Right now it is they are who carrying the burden of people. The backward classes constitute the last in four-fold varna-heirarchy. The Rigveda says that they were born from the feet of Brahma. Because of the dual position of backward classes that they are not untouchables, but they are feet-born in Hinduism, the Hindutva-forces are now realizing the importance of number. There is a new educational element that is getting into them, obviously they begin to ask path. So, by 2002 I could realize its consequences when BJP was seriously supporting Narendra Modi as the chief minister of Gujarat. Normally what happens is in BJP, Vishva Hindu Parishad for example, Togadia and all such people are distributing trishuls to use as weapons in communal riots, mostly to the backward classes. They saw them as muscle men for their ultimate goal. BJP, RSS and Sangh Parivar have a large agenda of establishing akhandha bharat and a historical agenda of attacking Pakistan and Bangladesh. Without OBCs, how do they do it?

Are you saying that beyond all these communal agendas Modi and Co. systematically execute, his caste was the main catalyst in his victory?

Yes, it is very important. See, much before he won the last Assembly elections, there were serious attempts by Modi himself and a group of people who were working with him to win the Gujarat election and then go to prime minister position. They were using the caste-card very strongly telling the people that if you don’t allow a person like Modi, nobody will be able to come here, and then why should the backward classes support you. They were internally putting this argument, you can understand that. When Modi’s proposal came, many Brahmins within the RSS were opposing him. But the backwards along with the sensible people like Arun Jaitley realized that Modi is an OBC and without him nobody will bring them into power. Then Jaitley and some others in RSS all were planning to push him into this. At the same time, Modi was advancing step by step.

Then he started talking about chaiwala (tea-vendor). He said, I am a chaiwala, I come from a poor family and my mother was a dish-washer. Why he was doing this? He was telling indirectly his caste-background. Who will sell tea in Indian streets? Mostly backward classes and Muslims. If Dalits sell tea nobody will drink. Even now, that is the situation in villages. Brahmins or Baniyas are not selling tea. So, who is this chaiwala? The chaiwala is a backward caste-man. He was putting across that.

Do you see this phenomenon as a materialization of ‘Dalit democracy’, the theory put forward by Dr. Ambedkar or is it sabotaging its possibilities?

No, I read this phenomenon in two ways: first, this is a Mandalization process of the Hindutva forces. They oppose Mandalization through reservations. But they have realized that there is no survival without backwards. Now they have begun to Mandalize themselves. Now will they go from Mandalization to Dalitization? I doubt. Dalitization is a deeper de-casteization process. As I said in Why I am not a Hindu, Dalitazation has to be linked up to labour, production, dignity of labour and so many other things. They will have to respect shoes and leather, and they will have to deconstruct their gods, religion and so on. I am not sure that they will go to that extent. But they have come to the extent of Mandalization. Now will they give up their priestly positions in temples? I don’t think so.

As I wrote elsewhere, Indian Constitution gives the right to become the prime minister to all. But Vedas do not give the right to become priests to anybody except Brahmins. This is the dilemma now Hinduism is facing. But if it wants to be a majoritarian religion, naturally it has to completely take the OBCs into its fold. But how does it overcome the varna-dharma at the higher level in the ritual books like Rigveda. What does it do with idol-worship? There is a very serious link between idol-worship and caste. Each caste has its own idol. That problem is there. And there is a serious link between caste system and marriage and also food culture. Will they overcome that? Let us say, Narendra Modi himself, would he like to convert all backward classes who are now meat-eaters, fish-eaters, beef-eaters and with many multiple food culture, into vegetarian? There is an attempt…they want to convert beef-eaters into vegetarians. But over a period of time, after our beef-festival and other things, they are saying that this food culture is a big problem. They might be liberal in agreeing that whatever people eat or drink, you have to allow. What is true to Gujarat upper caste cannot be true to the rest of the country. With all this, the Brahmins are very uncomfortable with Narendra Modi becoming prime minister. Brahmins within BJP, RSS, and Congress – all of them are uncomfortable.

BJP was silent about reservations in its manifesto and it always has been against reservations. How it would affect the societal responses of the backward castes and classes?

Yes, you are right; BJP is as a party is anti-reservationist. It has shown its colours on the issue during the Mandal movement and so on. Gradually, this might change. If you don’t give the backwards any economic benefits or educational backups, the scene would not be the same as always.

Do you think BJP is going to take away reservations?

They will move on in that line. They will weaken reservations. They will campaign that the economic standards of people is what matters. The social status within Hinduism they would try and would give some space to BCs. But once they begin to tinker with the reservation, they will have a problem. Backward classes, like Dalits, are now very desirous of reservation.

The Congress though electorally lost, has put a major challenge before BJP. If all its pro-people programmes are not kept intact, there will be a rebellion. That is the reason why Modi will have a problem if he goes against the entire welfare system and goes only with the people who gave him money for campaign (monopoly capital), then the system from below will revolt. It will revolt against Hinduism also. They will get shocked just as the Congress-people got shocked this time. We have not given power to Modi to increase the wealth of the multi-national companies. We need a change. If he doesn’t deliver it…for example, at the time of Abraham Lincoln, there was this Black Revolt. The Whites and Blacks began to fight, leading to a civil war. If Modi stands by the Brahmins of India, there will be a civil war. The civil war will be sparked in some form or the other. Attacks will start all over the country against the upper castes. Modi’s own teams will do that. Because they have already built muscle power that threatened Advani, Sushma Swaraj and others.

Are you saying that there will be a civil war within BJP or India?

Yes, within BJP itself which would spread across. After all, to have a transformation the internal struggle is very important. Even if Modi does not want to do that, people would go for it. In the United States the civil war started roughly around hundredth year of its independence. So, I have a feeling, here also around seventieth year after the independence, there will be a civil war. Because, they could oppress the backwards and others when they did not have education at all, there was no organic intellectual, nobody to speak, no TV, no phone, nothing. They were in the forests and villages, they did not know what the state was, who was in power. Now the situation has changed. So Modi is in either sense a buffer between the civil war situation and Hindu stability.

Then how do you see the next five years of Modi as a backward-class man being the prime minister? Would it affect/influence the social development of backward castes and classes?

Well, the next fivers year is very crucial. He said: I am a backward class man, I am a lower caste man, I am neech jati ka, and that is why Priyanka Gandhi is trying to insult me. Now once a prime minister owned his caste background – never has it happened in India – and he owned the backward class poorest background, if he does not deliver to the backward classes, they will revolt. If they don’t revolt, then they will lose history forever…which would mean that slavery runs very deep in the social system. (But) I have a feeling that they will revolt. Modi himself was grabbing power through various mechanisms…he was not promoted by everybody just like that. He was pushing himself. If that fails, he will also organise in his own way.

Now there is a larger space available, the intellectual space. What I am trying to write is being published. The media could not avoid us. Before I wrote Why I am not a Hindu we could not have talked all this. So, there is a new discourse in the intellectual field, in the political field, at a larger level the struggles started. The backward classes are a historical force. That is what the 2002 article says.

What would be the dangers Modi-government might offer? What would be the advantageous moves from its side?

If they go towards backward class and SC-ST, welfare, development and education, they can avoid the backlash from Muslims and Christians. If they do not do that, if only they develop monopoly capital, then their forces will attack Muslims and Christians. Then, Modi will enter into a communal riot indeed. That is what Brahmins can easily spark. Those enemies of Modi within BJP can also start sporadic riots. They can also initiate a war with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Modi then will end up. You know, that is the reason why he has a scope to play the role of Abraham Lincoln or he also has a scope to play the role of George W. Bush. He can go after Muslims. He can say that I will export Indian democracy to Pakistan, Bangladesh, like Bush was saying that I will export American democracy to Iraq. But Bush lost the battle. Bush could not even become a historical figure, whereas Abraham Lincoln became a great icon. Today, no president is respectable as Abraham Lincoln is. Because, he worked towards liberation. Therefore, if Modi starts the liberation of backward classes, castes and tribes, he can become a cult-figure for backwards. He himself is a backward, but Abraham Lincoln was a white-man who has become a cult-figure for blacks as he worked for them. In sum, Modi has two ways before him: the Lincoln way and the Bush way. If he goes the Bush way, he will destroy himself and the country too. The Muslim and Christian population, the surrounded Muslim world cannot and will not allow India to oppress its community again. Last ten years’ Congress-rule was the most peaceful ten years in Indian history. Earlier in every ten years period there was a major internal or external disturbance: the 1962-war, the 1965-war, the 1971-war, the Sri Lankan war, then internal Babri Masjid destruction, Gujarat riots, Bombay riots, so on and so forth. For the last ten years, these things were not there: no war with outsiders and no major communal riots within. Muzaffarnagar is a small thing in comparison. So Sonia Gandhi did not provoke others, and did not get provoked by others. She had a programme of delivering to the poorest of them for their welfare with the right to education, right to information, right to anti-corruption, etc.

Even then the Congress, and the Left, lost with a failure they never have seen in the past!

That happens. The Congress has given the best positions to minorities, Muslims and Dalits. So the reaction is bound to be there. Where did the reaction come from? The backward classes. The Congress became the enemy of backward classes. If they are disappointed, they can rebel against everybody. Last ten years’ period was peaceful – good – but the backward classes did not get any recognition in the Congress. It was Sikhs, Christians, Dalits, and Muslims who got reasonable recognition. Hence, BCs became very angry. That is the reason why Narendra Modi came out with the BC plan. He naturally succeeded. This is bound to happen.

After the victory of Modi, many people have an apprehension about their future in India.

No, no! The backward classes are in massive spirit. There are very few backward classes who are in the communist parties or Congress. They have a pro-Hindu inclination, though I said I am not a Hindu. BCs are not Hindus. But these people are part of four-fold varnas. They think that our man has become prime minister, right?

I will be more specific then, among the Muslims and Dalits there is a fear about how Modi would treat them.

Muslims have fears. Christians, lower caste, particularly Dalits and tribes have fears. But Congress Brahmins have no fears. They think that they can be accommodated along with BJP. There are a lot of people who are soft-Hindutva people in Congress. They are not displaced by the Congress party and it did not bring OBCs into its fold. In OBCs also there were, say for example, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharat Yadav, Nitish Kumar, I myself, who are against BJP. We did not follow the BJP-line. In politics, they did not follow. In intellectual line, I didn’t follow.

Those who have fear right now tend to alienate themselves from the governmental formulas.

No, no! They will come to the forefront. The Muslims are most organized. If they face BJP, they will face it. They can. But the Sangh Parivar will use the backward class youth who do not have modern education against Muslims. Modi will be that symbol. The rioting, they can restart. That will put India and Modi on the Bush-path.

Do you think the minorities should participate in the new governmental system more creatively instead of criticizing it?

What they should in my view is that the Muslims should ask for their share through reservation in everything. Their democratic agitations have to increase. They are not democratically agitating. They must not shy away from the religious propaganda. After all, God is not national and Quran is not national. It is universal. Muslims are against the idolatry. So it is their right to campaign. So also is Christians. Within the system, let them demand. All over the world, when right-wing people are in power, Islam and Christianity has expanded in the world. In the face of resistance only you will expand. I would say that their evangelical work should continue. They should not compromise on that. That is what the Muslim Blacks have done during the Abraham Lincoln period and later also. They did not compromise with their religion.

The Hinduism will have to reform itself. May be they will ask the backward-class persons to become priest of Tirupati temple. Modi could become a prime minister, but he cannot become a priest in any Hindu temple. Only Brahmans can become it. The Hindus will have to adopt massive reforms. Then the Indian society will become more and more democratic. There will be clashes. I am not saying that there will not be clashes.

So, the riot-politics will continue?

Yeah! And I think the secularism debate and communalism debate has been less. The Left will disappear from India. They should disappear, actually. In the name of secularism, some Brahmins and upper castes are in the communist parties. What is the use of them? They don’t change. In fact, in my view, all the Left parties should completely vanish. So that the casteism in the name of communism cannot survive. At least in the BJP-Brahmanism you have a fight: Modi came in, there is a lot of OBCs, Sushil Kumar Modi will talk, and so many others will talk. But within the Left parties there is no debate on caste. They do not give up their position. Therefore, in my view, the Left should completely be demolished. The secularism is non-sense. I don’t believe in that.

But why don’t you look into the Communist Party in Kerala which has good representations from all walks of the society and always resisted any communalist agendas?

But whom did it strengthen, the backward classes or Dalits? No! Again the Brahmins, Syrian upper caste and Muslim feudals. What is the use of that transformation?

I would say only because of the strong presence of the Left, the BJP did not get a space yet in Kerala, and we should remember that it is the only state in India without a seat for BJP.

I would like to take the count on caste-line and religion lines. Is there a Dalit Christian who can become chief minister there? Or an OBC, has he become? That is all Syrian Christians, Namboodiris, Nairs, Menons, and all. Wherever they are there are varnas. BJP is expanding or not expanding is not important. How the society is reforming itself—that is what my concern is. The only positive thing of Kerala is people can eat beef, pork or fish anywhere. Otherwise, the Communists have not shown a reformative ideology. Regionally, V.S. Achuthanandan’s kind of Communism is a different question. Not Prakash Karat’s. Karat is a conservative upper caste communist. If they are secular, why don’t they make some Muslim the secretary of the party or put him in its main leadership? Not a single Muslim or a Christian. Only the upper caste, Hindus that too. Upper castes are in essence Hindus, even if they say I am not a Hindu. That language is bullshit. You don’t have to make someone from outside the secretary only because he is Muslim, but it has to be also because he is in the party. If there are no apt Muslims in your party, what that party is? The Muslims are joining BJP today. Why they are not joining the communist party anymore? That means you don’t give them a space. Dalits are not joining the communist parties. Even if they join they will have to carry only bags. Therefore, the communists cannot tell me that they are secular unless they make a Muslim, a Dalit or backward class-man the national general secretary. There is no secularism, it is a bogus theory. So if this is like this, all communist parties should dismantle themselves. People should not be there in their parties, especially the working people.

Do you think the rebel voices of intellectuals who stand against the extreme right wing would be silenced systematically? What is the future of the intellectuals in the coming years?

We will face threats and attacks, quite possible. To get out of this dilemma, the only way is a unity of SC-ST-BC-minorities which would bring a new discourse that backward classes can challenge the Hinduism and takes it place. Today Dalit intellectuals are not criticizing RSS, BJP and so on. Dalit intellectuals are promoting Ambedkarism, Dalitism and Buddhism. Therefore, the Hindutva forces are saying Buddhism is not our enemy. But if they support Islam and Christianity, there is a problem. I support the Islamic and Christian expansion, and Buddhist expansion too—as spiritual democracies. I will have problems, no doubt. All my writings categorically target Hinduism, Brahmanism, its gods, culture and books. No Dalit scholar is writing what I am writing. In future, BJP will accommodate BCs as the fourth layer of their party and their mass. They also will accommodate Buddhists, Dalit scholars as long as they are not fighting Hinduism. Their main enemies will be Muslims and Christians. The people like me who are supporting the right to religion would be silenced. There is this risk factor when you are fighting an historical evil, and that increases when OBCs are in power.

Last time we also saw, BJP trying to rewrite the history of India. Do you think such incidents will happen more vehemently this time?

They will try. Their target last time was the Left intellectuals. So it was a fight between the right Brahmanic forces and the left Brahmanic forces. Even the left Brahmanic forces did not write the history of Dalits, tribes and backwards. They were only talking about secularism, nationalism, this and that. Most of them are educated abroad; so-called anti-colonialism living in colonialist countries. Now, if BJP brings back Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University) kind of people, again the same thing will happen: Amartya Sen verses Jagadish Bhagwati kind of combats. See, Dalits, backwards, Muslims and Christians will have to work on different platforms. Spread English education into masses. Our aim is not to go to Oxford, Cambridge, or Harvard. In a way Narendra Modi’s emergence from grassroots is good. He didn’t come from Oxford, Cambridge or such elite foreign institutes. His slogan is also interesting, I like that: ‘Hard work, not Harvard’. Hard work in the field, till the land—a motto that appeals to the masses. We have to make it really a national thing. These foreign-educated intellectuals in the name of secularism preserve Brahmanism in the institutions. There is nothing that BJP can spoil them beyond a point. Instead of Left Brahmins, they will bring Right Brahmins. I am not worried about that. In any case, backward classes, Muslims and Dalits are not much there. So, it is difficult to bring them there also, unless there is a huge social mass English-educated group. The English-educated intellectuals among OBCs are far less than the English-educated Muslims. The Muslims have very sophisticated intellectuals, so do Christians. They can run any institution today in English. But, backward classes cannot, including Narendra Modi. He does not know English.

I am not really worried about higher education. I am worried about the school education. If the English educational expansion takes place then, if not now, in the next twenty or twenty-five years, the new educated people would decide who should be there. I will work towards that more. English education, spiritual democracy, reforms in all religions, anti-idol worship, Dalitization, Mandalization of politics. So, let us see what happens. If there are problems, we will have to face it.

The voices of the Dalit-backward-minority intellectuals are getting marginalized more and more these days. The once-Left-sympathizing newspapers like The Hindu are not publishing your articles, and at the same time it gives spaces for hard-core or soft-right wing intellectuals. Is that a conscious effort from their side to silence such voices?

That’s true! The Hindu has stopped my column and I have not been asked again. When N. Ram became the editor, he stopped my column. He stopped publishing the works of all those who support such issues, like me, Gail Omvedt, even Gopal Guru. So, they were promoting the so-called secular Brahmins. Now they will try to balance, within the Brahmanism. But if I get a space there, I will write there. I am not hoping much from The Hindu and Times of India. What we can do? The Muslim intellectuals, the Christians, the Dalits, and the emerging OBC intellectuals in English should write. The regional languages are not very useful. You have to put things across the nation, the world outside. We should open up our own channels of communication. In that Modi is a very good example. He has used his own channels, internet, and social media. Why not we do that? The campaigns for English education, SC-ST-OBC-minority unity, reservation, anti-Brahmanism, anti-Hindutva, all we can do it likewise. The mainstream media will have some impact, but it cannot control everything. All the Congress men are upper caste, foreign-educated, but they could not use the media as Narendra Modi did. It is not just the money alone, but the techniques, tactics and methods. My appeal to the English-speaking foreign-educated Muslim, Dalit and Christian intellectuals is you look towards the backward classes around you and create a mass of English-speaking backward-class intellectuals. There are Dalits and Muslims now, who are in IAS, IPS and in the universities. But there are no backward class intellectuals. If you keep the backward classes in muscle-power zone alone, that muscle power force will be used by Sangh Parivar against these people. So they will have to educate us. My appeal is to educate our people in English medium, and take our views seriously, don’t go by communist propaganda. The communists have never respected the backward classes, they have not respected Dalits also, Ambedkar or Mahatma Phule. They have never respected my writings. Did you see any communist spending time on, or circulating my writings and reading my books?

Karat admitted that the Communist Party failed in addressing the caste-question though.

That is all typical Brahmanic admission. We don’t need that. My point is that the communist party should be completely dismantled. There is no other way. They are basically upper caste Brahmanic networks. They mobilize money; build properties, offices and institutions of their own. Communist parties have offices in every state in their private properties. Congress party does not have an office in Delhi on its own, but the Communists have properties, which are headed by the upper castes. They are like prissier properties, minority properties. I am now going to take up a massive campaign: don’t join the communist parties, instead align with Muslims, Christians, Dalits and build a network. Even if you are with Narendra Modi, be with him, but with your own agenda.

If you call for the dismantling of the communist party like this, how do you do with this whole communalism-question that the Left parties have been combatting?

No, it did not help us for the last hundred years almost. Indian Communist Party started in 1925. It did not help the backward classes or their education. It did not promote our intellectuals. It promoted only upper castes. Our understanding of Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc. is different. The Indian communist parties are absolutely upper-caste Brahmanic networks, why we should support them? I don’t understand. I am telling all my friends: ‘Get out of the communist parties, you join Congress, you join any other party even for sometime, you are a backward class, join BJP, then combine what they do.’ Can you see one single communist party leader saying that I come from backward class in public, like Narendra Modi? They don’t say that. Anyway, this is my appeal to Muslim intellectuals who have a lot of people educated around Jamia Millia, around Aligarh Muslim University, even abroad, Christians who have their own colleges, Dalits who are now getting into English medium education, bureaucracy, but there are hardly any backward classes. I am a loner from backward class, so will you leave me alone, or you work with me, you help me out, join hands with me. I don’t bother whether I die or not. My books are there for public. I have done this much of writing. I will do it further. There is a more lot to do. But if nobody helps, my hand will be tied even as an intellectual.

Mahmood Kooria is a doctoral candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History, the Netherlands and an editorial board member of Café Dissensus.