Thought Garage

Chiranjeevi brought in a new keyword to political fore, ‘Samajika Vargam’ (Social Group) to exploit Caste based politics in Andhra Pradesh, India in the name of social justice. (Read more why this Social justice is really shameless Caste exploitation ) The keyword caught on most political parties and media alike.  Now, they no more feel ashamed or embarrassed to exploit ‘Caste’ for votes. They call it ‘Social Justice’. Now even advertisers caught on to the keyword and of course Caste is a very important matter for most when it comes to marriage, throughout India. See the ad by Telugu Matrimony, a micro site of BharatMatrimony.com that is exploiting the latest buzz in the market. Using the kewword, Samajika Vargam, social group, aka Caste. Well, that is the essence of Marketing, use the buzz to promote. Isn’t it?

When Chiranjeevi, the leader of 6 month old Praja Rajyam party started with hopes on unconditional support from his Caste group, Kapus, and started openly addressing caste based groups during campaigns, I feared that ‘Caste’ will become a much bigger issue than it already is in this 2009 elections. And unfortunately, I was right. Caste based polarization has reached the peak in this elections already. And Praja Rajyam gave a new name to this ‘Caste’ based grouping and exploitation; It calls the concept, Samajica Nyayam, or Social justice. Now every party started talking about social justice. In essence, Caste will be called Social Group or Samajika Vargam. And parties are attempting to allocate seats based on % of people belonging to a specific caste. So in effect, they are envisioning the demographics of population based on Caste will be the demographics of the Assembly too. In essence, primary qualification to contest in elections through any of these political parties is YOUR ...