ABSTRACT
The ideology of the UPA has figured prominently in analyses of its policies and explanations of its electoral successes. This chapter examines the UPA’s ideology on affirmative action, chiefly quotas or reservations, focusing on political rhetoric. I show that UPA rhetoric on reservations differed substantially from earlier Congress positions, both in the late 1940s, as well as in 1990. The UPA did not mark the return of the old Congress but, rather, the emergence of a new one that was much more favourable to the expansion of identity-based quotas than its predecessor. This reflected, however, a polity-wide shift that can be traced at the national level to the Janata Dal coalition in the 1990 Mandal debate. All governments that came thereafter – NDA as well as UPA – have extended identity-based reservations and/or favoured their expansion to new beneficiaries. Ideological differences have meant, however, that the Janata Dal, NDA and UPA coalitions differ in terms of the groups favoured as beneficiaries, as well as the mode of extension of reservations. Under the UPA, affirmative action for religious minorities has seen the greatest expansion, a process that has thus far occurred largely through executive action rather than legislation and remains overlooked by scholars.
