The three forces that define today’s India were unleashed in the 12 months between August 1990 and August 1991. Thirty-three years later, it is these forces that are finally being rewarded with India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
The first force, Mandal, was unleashed in August 1990, when the V.P. Singh-led government announced ‘backward caste’ quotas in central government jobs. While reservations for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes had been recognised in the Constitution itself, quotas for middle castes began in the southern States from the 1950s. Their adoption in the northern States was symbolised in the 1970s by Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur. And, in 1990, they became central government policy through the implementation of the Mandal Commission report.
The second force that defines today’s India is the building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. The movement began in the early 1980s and was adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a political issue only later. As I argue in my book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi, L.K. Advani’s rath yatra on a converted Toyota, from Somnath to Ayodhya, that began in September 1990, was a signal to the movement faithful that the party was finally with them.
