From ‘fire-brand’ to ‘water-brand’: The caste politics of Uma Bharati.

This paper uses a case study of Uma Bharati, a woman political leader, to argue that despite appropriating multiple-axis thinking to mask casteism inherent in their ideology, Hindutva politics essentially lays bare its brahmanical allegiance and lineage, with its larger agenda to redefine India as a Hindurashtraor nation. Bharati, a 'fierysanyasin’(female ascetic) of Other Backward Classes (OBC) background, had been awarded a portfolio to clean the 'polluted' Ganga river in the Narendra Modi cabinet in 2014. This paper points out the significance of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in granting this responsibility to a 'radical' who had strategically deployed her caste identity to gain power in Hindutva politics. Bharati had gone against the party to demand caste-based quotas in women's reservation in parliament, and succeeded in rupturing the monolithic identity of upper-caste womanhood in the BJP. While this resulted in the patriarchal upper-caste leadership of the party expelling the 'indisciplined' Bharati on more than one occasion, they have not been able to ignore her. Instead they have 'domesticated' the politically ambitious lower-caste Bharati by conferring her with ministerial power, and compelling her to change focus from the controversial issue of caste to that of cleaning the Ganga, which is a symbol of national and Hindu religious interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]