Jana Sena Party chief and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan seems to be facing an identity crisis, which is perhaps why he invariably raises the caste bogey in his speeches.
Whenever he addresses his party workers, Pawan repeatedly refers to his caste identity, stating that attempts have consistently been made to restrict him to the Kapu community despite his broader political vision.
Addressing Jana Sena Party activists during an interaction programme on Friday, Pawan said that from the beginning of his political journey, several groups had tried to portray him only as a representative of a particular caste and region.
“I was born into one caste, but I did not enter public life to work only for that caste. I came to serve the nation,” he remarked.
The Jana Sena chief’s comments come amid continuing criticism from YSR Congress Party leaders, who have repeatedly questioned what he has specifically done for the Kapu community.
Responding to such criticism, Pawan asserted that his ideology was centred on the welfare of all sections of society and not on caste-based politics.
Analysts say Pawan’s frequent rhetoric on caste identity reflects a sense of insecurity and a kind of identity crisis.
In fact, leaders such as Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and YSR Congress Party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy represent politically powerful communities like Kammas and Reddys, but they rarely refer to their castes in public speeches, though caste calculations remain part of their political strategies.
Similarly, other southern leaders like Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Chandrasekhar Rao, who hail from the Reddy and Velama communities respectively, do not frequently speak about caste in their speeches.
Even newly-elected Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay avoids explicitly invoking caste identities in his public speeches, though caste equations remain politically influential in Tamil Nadu.
Pawan, however, has consistently argued that he is repeatedly forced to respond to caste-based branding imposed by his opponents.
Analysts say this has created a political contradiction, where he rejects caste politics on one hand but continues to speak about caste identity as part of his defence against political attacks.
During the interaction, Pawan also referred to the repeated mention of slain Kapu leader Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga in political debates.
Questioning the credibility of those invoking Ranga’s name now, he asked where such leaders were when the late leader had allegedly expressed concerns over threats to his life.
He maintained that society could not progress if people continued to remain divided along caste lines and said genuine social development was possible only through unity among all communities.
According to him, this principle remains the ideological foundation of the Jana Sena Party.
