Rahul Gandhi Can't Be Both 'Pappu' & 'Ravan': Why Caste Census Made BJP Rethink

On 5 October, BJP put out a post on X comparing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with 'Ravan'.

(BJP put out an image comparing Rahul Gandhi with Ravan)

(Namita Chauhan/The Quint)

The BJP on 5 October put up a post on X (formerly Twitter) calling Congress leader Rahul Gandhi a 'new age Ravan'.

Though Rahul Gandhi has been one of BJP's pet targets, this post is significant as it opens a new dimension in their attacks.

Why is This Different?

Till now, the primary tactic of the BJP ecosystem against Rahul Gandhi has been ridicule. Nothing exemplified this more than the pejorative label 'Pappu' that they used for him.

Through a targeted campaign that began somewhere around 2013, Rahul Gandhi was projected as foolish, inarticulate and entitled. To their credit, this campaign was successful and it seriously hampered Gandhi's growth as a possible Prime Ministerial candidate.

The 'Ravan' tag is the complete opposite. It shows Gandhi, not as someone to be mocked, but to be feared. Someone who, as the BJP's post says, is 'an enemy of Bharat', an 'enemy of Dharma' and an 'enemy of Ram'.

In short, he is being presented as an enemy of Hindus.

From Rahul Gandhi's perspective, this is a positive development. A politician can be successful even while being hated or feared, because both indicate power even if in a negative way. PM Narendra Modi and former PM Indira Gandhi are both cases in point.

However, it is very difficult for a leader to overcome ridicule.

Rahul Gandhi can either be Ravan, or he can be Pappu. He can't be both.

The Ravan cartoon marks the end of the 'Pappu' tag, that had been on the wane any way after the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Why the Change from 'Pappu' to Ravan?

This is to do with the nature of political competition between BJP and Rahul Gandhi. So far, the bases of the BJP and Rahul Gandhi are as mutually exclusive as possible in a competition between two mainstream political actors.

This is in sharp contrast to say an Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar or even Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot, who do have some overlapping base with the BJP - basically voters who choose them at the state level and Modi at the national level.

The same doesn't hold true for Rahul Gandhi.

One usually doesn't find voters who choose BJP at the state level but support Rahul Gandhi nationally. The reverse is often true - voters supporting Congress at the state level but Modi nationally.

So what is the 'Rahul base'?

Especially after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress seem to have succeeded to an extent in consolidating voters who are ideologically opposed to the BJP - this includes a sizable chunk of religious minorities and many voters who support regional parties at the state level.

Gandhi's political approach has been crucial in giving Congress an ideological coherence and preventing the complete fall of the party's base, despite being out of power since 2014. However, this approach hasn't been a very serious threat to the BJP nationally as the ideological polarisation between the two sides has hindered the Congress from winning over BJP voters nationally.

This was evident in the election results from the areas in Karnataka that fell on the Bharat Jodo Yatra route. While the Yatra may have given the Congress a major boost, it didn't harm the BJP. It is the JD-S that bore the brunt.

This could change now.

Change in the Rules of Engagement

Now the Congress is actively trying to eat into the BJP's base at the national level through the caste census, which Rahul Gandhi is advocating aggressively.

For instance, in his latest press conference, Rahul Gandhi surprised journalists by asking how many of them are Dalits, Adivasis or OBCs.

This was a sharp attack and brought out the Savarna control over the media.

The Congress' aim through this is to increase its base among OBCs and to an extent Dalits and Adivasis as well.

Survey data suggests that in 2019, BJP's dominance among OBCs is comparable to its control over the Upper Caste vote, with the exception of communities like the Yadavs of UP and Bihar.

If the Opposition gains among this section through its caste census pitch, it would be largely at the NDA's expense.

But it's not just about elections. It's a bigger battle. Let's take a brief flashback here.

When erstwhile Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh announced his decision to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations, he became a major hate figure for the Hindutva ecosystem.

Right wing intellectual and journalist Cho Ramaswamy called VP Singh "a most dangerous man" who "irreparably divided Hindu society for his own chair". This became the dominant line of criticism against Singh.

This is likely to be the main narrative against Rahul Gandhi as well as he pushes for the caste census more and more.

But why pick on only Rahul Gandhi and not other INDIA bloc leaders? This is an important aspect.

Attacking a Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ashok Gehlot or MK Stalin over the caste census could backfire as it can be construed as an attack on OBC or Dalit leaders demanding their rightful share as per their share in the population.

Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, will be attacked under the same narrative as VP Singh - he'll be projected as an "unprincipled leader who divided Hindus and India for his own political ambitions".

A new battle of narratives between BJP and Rahul Gandhi has begun.

Postscript: The graphic used by the BJP made many draw comparisons with a much older cartoon. It is from a 1945 Marathi publication, in which the Congress is shown as the ten-headed Ravan with leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Maulana Azad, C Rajagopalchari and others as the ten heads. On the other hand, Hindutva ideologues VD Savarkar and SP Mookerjee are shown fighting this 'Ravan' like Ram and Lakshman.