The ‘85 versus 15’ Slogan — Does Counting Heads Fill Empty Stomachs?

On the electoral stages of Indian politics, one slogan has echoed the loudest over the past three decades—“The greater the numbers, the greater the share!” And erected parallel to this was the polarisation of ‘85 versus 15’.

Viewed on the surface, this slogan appears immensely appealing, democratic, and equitable. The straightforward meaning of democracy is rule by the majority. If 85 per cent of the country’s population comprises Dalits, Backward Classes, Adivasis, and minorities, then they must indeed have an 85 per cent right over the nation’s resources, the corridors of power, and jobs.

Yet in politics, behind the slogans chanted at the highest pitch often lies the greatest deception.

Have we ever paused for a moment and asked: over the past three decades, with the backing of this slogan, several parties swept into power with full majorities, numerous Chief Ministers and Union Ministers were installed, and budgets running into thousands of crores were passed—yet why does the weakest, landless, illiterate, wage-earning person within that 85 per cent still stand today exactly where he stood fifty years ago?

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The Slogan’s Inherent Deception: The Invisible Divide Within the 85%

In his book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak’ (From Headcount to Power), author N. Singh deconstructs this slogan layer by layer, explaining that the ‘85 per cent’ is by no means an organised, homogeneous, or uniform society. It is a complex web of hundreds of castes and sub-castes, plagued by staggering internal inequality and exploitation:

1. Monopoly of Dominant Backward Castes: When power is attained in the name of the 85%, the cream of power and lucrative government contracts end up concentrated in the hands of just one or two numerically strong and economically prosperous castes within that group. The Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and the most marginalised Dalits are, even today, merely used to carry flags and shout slogans of adulation.
2. The Contradiction of Counting Heads versus Filling Stomachs: Counting caste heads in Parliament or the Legislative Assembly does not bake bread on a poor person’s hearth. If there is no doctor in the government hospital, if the roof of the primary school is leaking, and if the youth cannot find employment—then whatever the caste of the leader seated in power, the victim is always the poor man of that very 85%!
3. Hiding One’s Failures by Demonising the ‘15 Per Cent’: When leaders fail to establish schools, canals, roads, and industries in their constituencies, they immediately begin to portray the ‘15 per cent’ (the so-called upper castes) as villains to cover up their failures, so that the public forgets its basic problems and continues to burn in the fires of hatred.

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Numerical Strength versus Merit and Institutional Decay

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The Bitter Truth from the Book: N. Singh’s Scathing Critique

Author N. Singh writes in the chapter ‘Numbers and Power’ of his book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak’:

“The slogan of ‘85 versus 15’ has become less a clarion call for justice and more the arithmetic of bargaining for power. When numbers become the sole yardstick of merit, rights, and justice, then talent, hard work, and character all commit suicide together. Instead of showing the exploited the path to genuine liberation, this slogan has merely locked them away in the secure vaults of vote-banks. Leaders educate their children abroad, amass untold wealth, and, handing the poor man’s son a placard of ‘85 versus 15’, leave him on the streets to face the lathis [batons].”
— N. Singh (Ginti Se Satta Tak, pages 48–49)

The author further questions:

“If the welfare of society were possible through numerical strength alone, then why are lakhs of labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh—which were ruled for decades by governments practising the politics of the 85%—still forced to toil under humiliating conditions in the factories of Gujarat, Punjab, and Maharashtra today? The leaders attained power, but the sting of migration was borne by the poor son of that very 85%!”
— (Ginti Se Satta Tak, page 52)

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How to Achieve Genuine Representation? Four Concrete Points

1. Identifying the ‘Last Person’ Within the 85%: Sub-categorisation of reservations and welfare schemes must be compulsorily implemented so that benefits reach those extremely backward castes who have received no opportunities to this day.
2. Real Ownership Over the Means of Production: Instead of fighting merely over the 2–3 per cent of posts in government jobs, youth must be empowered in agriculture, small-scale industries, manufacturing, and modern technical skills so that they become job creators rather than job seekers.
3. An End to the Politics of Hatred: No society can remain peaceful and prosperous by declaring 15 per cent of any community as a permanent enemy. A nation is built on mutual respect and cooperation, not on a mentality of perpetual civil war.
4. Democratisation of Quality Education: When a poor village child also receives an education in coding, science, and English comparable to that of elite children in Delhi or Mumbai, he will need no one’s mercy or slogan; he will conquer the entire world through his own prowess.

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A Question Worth Contemplating (The Message of the Book)

Do we want a democracy where our existence is reduced to a mere number, or a nation where every citizen—whichever percentage they may belong to—can live with equal dignity and opportunity?

To understand this ruthless arithmetic of Indian politics beyond the web of illusions woven by slogans, this chapter from N. Singh’s book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak: Bharat Ka Ankaha Yuddh’ (From Headcount to Power: India’s Untold War) will thoroughly shake your political understanding.