BHOPAL: While the grand opening of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in the presence of saints from all traditions and leaders of all castes, is less than four months away, a new era of caste politics has just dawned with the Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan government releasing the caste survey report for Bihar. It was technically a survey, not a census, since the Centre alone is legally empowered to do the enumeration.
Released on the politically significant Gandhi Jayanti day, the report made Bihar the first state in the country to share its caste based population data. The survey put the population of the backward castes, including the OBC and the extremely backward castes (EBC) in Bihar at a massive 63.13% of the state's 13.07 crore population.
Of the 63.13% backward castes, the OBCs constitute 27.13% and the EBCs 36%. As expected, the Yadavs (the dominant OBC segment to which RJD patriarch and ex-CM Lalu Prasad belongs) constitute 14.27%, while the Kurmis (current CM Nitish Kumar’s caste) form merely 2.87%. With Muslims constituting 17.70% of the total population, the Muslim-Yadav (MY) equation—the RJD’s prime base—is the most formidable combination in the state.
The Scheduled Castes (SCs) comprise 19.65% and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) 1.68% of the population. The total share of the upper castes in the politically crucial state stands at 15.5%, of which the Bhumihars (Union minister Giriraj Singh’s caste) and Brahmins constitute an identical 3.66%, the Kshatriyas (Rajputs) 3.45% and the Kayasthas 0.6%. Hindus constitute 82% and Christians 0.0576%.
The Bihar legislature had unanimously resolved to conduct a caste survey twice within a year, first in February 2019 and later in February 2020. In August 2021, an all-party delegation, which included the BJP, called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi and requested him to conduct a nationwide caste census. But, the Centre said the request was not in line with the government's existing policy.
Subsequently, the Bihar government issued a notification in June 2022 for conducting a caste survey across the state and allocated Rs 500 crore from its contingency fund for the exercise.
Elsewhere in India
Just a day after the survey data was released, Nitish Kumar announced a 10% quota for people belonging to the economically weaker sections in the state judicial services and state-run law colleges and universities. It was seen in political circles as a calculated attempt to appease the upper castes, who are an integral part of the BJP’s base across the country.
The Mahagathbandhan government strategically held back data on the economic status of various castes compiled in the report. It intends to share it during the winter session of the state legislature.
If Bihar stole the thunder, the BJD-ruled Odisha may not be not far behind. It is expected to announce the findings of its survey on the backward classes—that began in May this year—anytime now. Its report is said to have quantified Odisha's BC population as 46%. Pressure is now mounting on the Congress government in Karnataka, particularly from within the Congress itself, to make the report public of the state’s caste census commissioned by the then Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in 2015. Odisha is the fifth state to complete a survey/ empirical assesement of its OBC population, after Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Haryana.
First census
While the first census in India began in 1872, the first complete decadal census was done in 1881. All the subsequent census exercises included caste data till 1931. Enumerating caste was dropped from the 1941 census reportedly due to administrative and financial issues as England was involved in World War II. In the 1931 headcount, the OBC population nationally was around 52%.
In 2010, the then Congress-led UPA-II conducted a separate socio-economic caste census. While the raw data pertaining to various castes was reportedly handed over to the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, it was never made public by the subsequent BJP government since it claimed it was flawed.
Timing, significance and fallout
Bihar's caste survey report was made public days after most Opposition parties, including the Congress—while debating on the legislation that gives 33% reservation to women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies—had demanded quota for the OBCs, SCs, STs and minority women within it. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a rally in OBC-dominated Shajapur district of Madhya Pradesh, promised a nationwide caste census, if voted to power at the Centre.
Welcoming Bihar’s caste survey report, Rahul pitched for Jitni abadi utna haq (rights proportional to population). It drew a sharp attack from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who asked if welfare benefits to Muslims should be restricted since they constitute just 17.7% of the population. In another analogy, he said the forthcoming delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies would sharply reduce the number of seats for the South, based on proportional representation if the overall strength of the House remains constant. Is the Congress okay with it, he wondered.
Caste census is among the 11 poll guarantees of the grand old party in the poll-bound MP, which as per the May 2022 state backward class report, has 48% OBC population. But well placed sources put the total OBC voters around 52% in the state. Among the other poll-bound states, Rajasthan reportedly has over 50% OBC population.
Rahul’s Jitni abadi utna haq statement resembled the guiding principles of the caste-based parties that emerged out of Lohiaite socialism and Ambedkarite politics after the Mandal Commission report's implementation during V P Singh's watch as PM. The slogan also mirrors BSP founder Kanshi Ram's Jiski jitni sankhya, utni uski hissedari (the greater the community’s numbers, the greater its political representation) slogan.
It’s not just non-NDA parties that are clamouring for a national caste census. Even NDA partners like Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal (S) want it in BJP-ruled UP.
In MP, the Congress’s pitch for caste census and OBC quota within women's reservation is understandable, since the BJP has been the biggest beneficiary of the OBC vote bank there. The BJP's last three CMs were OBC leaders — Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur and Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Besides, one of the CM probables (among the seven fielded by the BJP in the polls now) is Prahlad Singh Patel, a powerful OBC Lodhi caste leader.
Clout of backward politics
In MP, half of whose population comes from the OBC segment, 26% of the legislators (32 BJP and 28 Congress) are backward caste politicians. After a mini-cabinet expansion in August, 13 out of 34 ministers (38%) are OBC leaders. In Bihar, the EBCs have long been cultivated by Nitish Kumar as his prime support base. In local dialect it is hence popular as panch foran (five spices that are crucial for making a tasty curry) without whom no majority government can be formed.
According to former All India secretary of Congress’s student wing National Students Union of India (NSUI) Ratnakar Tripathi, “While Mandal-1 focussed more on caste based reservation in education and jobs, Mandal-2 is more about political influence, particularly of the OBCs and EBCs/MBCs, in the Hindi heartland.”
UP-based senior journalist Ajay Rai put it in perspective. “Forced by the disintegration of the larger Hindu vote due to the Mandal-1, the RSS-BJP intensified the Temple Movement in Ayodhya in the early 1990s. But three decades later and months ahead of the grand Ram Temple opening in Ayodhya, which will certainly be used by the BJP to turbocharge its Hindutva card, the INDIA bloc seems to have smartly come out with a pre-emptive strike through the Bihar caste survey. Subsequent demands for caste census appear to be an astute move to counter the saffron and nationalism agenda with caste based political agenda in the Lok Sabha polls.”
An MP-based senior bureaucrat hailing from Bihar, however, said the post-Bihar caste census developments could even lead to pushing the SC to lift its 50% quota cap, which would do disservice to meritocracy.
