At a time when the BJP’s core constituency of the “upper castes” in the Hindi heartland is showing signs of discontent, the party is drawing a degree of comfort from the Congress’s decision to focus its attacks on the Manusmriti and shuddhikaran (purification).The Congress has taken up the issue following the controversy over an alleged purification ritual held at a ground in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani, where its president Mallikarjun Kharge, a Dalit, had addressed a rally. This pitch of the Congress comes at a time when it was grabbing some eyeballs over issues such as paper leaks, the burden of coaching centres, and employment concerns that Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi had been raising at his “Chhatron Ki Goonj” events, issues that had been gaining traction.AdvertisementGandhi attacked the Manusmriti in his address to students in Pune last month and the Congress then began demanding an FIR in the Haldwani case. The party also accused the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana of performing a “purification” ritual after Dalit workers from the party conducted a protest march near BRS leader K Chandrashekhar Rao’s farmhouse in Siddipet district.The Manusmriti pitch is an appeal to Dalits — and sometimes women — but is seen as a tacit attack on the “upper castes”. It evokes what academic circles refer to as “Brahmanical oppression”, which is what the UGC regulations and measures such as the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act seek to counter. The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 are national anti-discrimination rules aimed at stopping discrimination based on religion, race, caste, gender, disability, or place of birth. However, “upper-caste” student groups opposed them, saying the rules could be used to discriminate against them. The rules have been put on hold by the Supreme Court and are currently under government review.“Brahmanwad”, or Brahmanism, in terms of theory refers to a system of hierarchy at birth wherein the “upper castes” are seen as historically privileged, and social justice politics is seen as a counter to it. The question is why, when unease is growing among the “upper castes” — once Congress voters who shifted to the BJP around 1990 — Rahul Gandhi chose to deploy Dalit-Bahujan identity themes rather than just speak a cross-caste language of employment and exam fairness without waiting to see if the BJP was losing the electoral support among the general category.AdvertisementA senior Congress leader said Gandhi was not looking at this issue as an electoral tactic but as a fundamental matter of equality as a value. At a recent CWC meet, after the alleged incident in Haldwani, Kharge said he felt deeply hurt about the incident, and the silence and lack of open support from many party leaders. “What is the point of having a Dalit president if the party does not take a strong stand on the matter?” the senior leader said.He said it was wrong to view this as a matter of “upper castes” versus Dalits. “Rahul ji is doing nothing unprecedented in taking a strong stand for an egalitarian society,” he said, adding that Congress leaders had stood for social reform before and after Independence, and many of them happened to be from the “upper castes”.Another Congress leader said Gandhi’s personality was such that he held some values as non-negotiable. “He wants to be seen as samajik nyay ka yoddha (warrior of social justice). He has been consistent in the last three years that social justice is a path the Congress must tread,” he said.The Congress’s social justice pitch picked up during the campaign for the Karnataka Assembly elections of 2023, when Gandhi demanded at a rally in Kolar on April 16, 2023, that the 50% reservation cap be breached and that the 2011 caste data be released. After this, he began talking about the need for a caste census — an “X-Ray”, as he put it — that was a requirement for social justice. At the 85th plenary session of the Congress in Raipur in February 2023, the Congress had, for the first time, adopted a comprehensive social justice and empowerment resolution.This turn has endured for more than three years now and marks a break with the earlier umbrella party model of the Congress. In its heyday before the Mandal and Mandir turn of north Indian politics around 1990, the Congress’s dominance in north India was based on what academic Paul Brass called the “coalition of extremes”. The Congress won election after election based on support from the “upper castes” — particularly Brahmins — Muslims, and Dalits. It did not cater to the peasant and artisanal castes — later Other Backward Classes (OBCs) — whose politics emerged from the 1960s as part of anti-Congressism.The 2023 turn marks a break with the “old Congress” and has a distinctive stamp of Rahul Gandhi.A Congress leader said that apart from holding on to some values, the break should not be seen as electoral indifference. “The party has been clear for years on end that the upper castes form the core of the BJP’s voters and will not choose it, despite their parents and grandparents having been Congress voters. Dalits, tribals, and Muslims are more open to the Congress under Rahul ji, and we would want to wean away some OBCs from the BJP, building a social coalition of our own,” he said.Another Congress leader said dominant OBC castes such as Yadavs and Jats are naturally against the BJP and the Congress has a chance to tap them at a time when there are indications that regional parties are losing ground.“Rahul ji is upholding the Constitution at a time when the BJP government is undermining it. So, all these statements and moves should be seen as part of upholding the Constitution, be it upholding social, political, economic, and gender justice, or in championing individual liberties,” Congress national secretary Chandan Yadav told The Indian Express.