RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat used a three-day RSS conclave in New Delhi, which ended on Wednesday, September 19, to stress an inclusive approach and to distance the organisation from caste politics. He said the RSS did not believe in caste discrimination and claimed that a count of inter-caste marriages in India would show most involved RSS workers.

What Bhagwat said

On the second day, Bhagwat set aside the BJP’s “Congress-mukt” slogan, saying the RSS wanted an India that includes everyone rather than one that excludes anyone. On the third day he criticised campaigning built on references to cremation grounds, graveyards and “saffron terror”. At various points he both praised and differed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make the case for inclusive politics.

He also moved away from his 2015 remark calling for a review of the reservation policy. He suggested that bearing a burden for a century or more to correct a social ill that lasted a thousand years was not a high price, and said reservation itself was not the problem but the politics around it. This echoed statements by Modi that the BJP does not want to end reservation in jobs and education.

Shah’s class pitch

A few days earlier, BJP president Amit Shah had told party workers to prepare for 2019 by targeting aspirational voters and beneficiaries of government schemes such as the Ujjwala LPG scheme, and to leave caste arithmetic in each constituency to the opposition. Shah said 2019 would be a battle of class, not caste, for the BJP, citing the Gujarat election, where, he said, aspirational voters mattered even though some caste leaders lined up against the party.

Background

Caste-based agitations have been the biggest challenge for the Modi government over the past three years, and it has been fighting a perception that it is anti-Dalit. Bhagwat’s 2015 reservation remark, made before the Bihar election, was later blamed for the BJP’s defeat there, when Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and Lalu Prasad’s RJD joined hands with the Congress. In 2014 the BJP had allied in many states with groups rooted in key castes, which helped it win a majority.

What happened next

The BJP won 303 of 543 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and Narendra Modi began a second term on 30 May 2019.

See also: Bharatiya Janata Party and political leaders.

Originally published on 21 September 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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