Rohini Commission report on OBC subcategorisation stirs fresh interest in run-up to 2024 Lok Sabha polls

The Justice Rohini Commission, constituted in 2017 by the Narendra Modi government to suggest sub-categorisation of OBCs, submitted its report to President Droupadi Murmu amid the buzz that the commission’s recommendations could be helpful in negating the impact of the caste census underway in Bihar from where the Nitish Kumar government has been pushing for opposition unity against the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“Bihar’s caste census move could open a pandora’s box,” said Pankaj Kumar, a research scholar at JNU.

He has been frequenting Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to study the caste dynamics and caste interplay in the two states with a dominant OBC population. The two states, with Yadavs as the leading OBC caste, account for 120 Lok Sabha seats among them.

That both the BJP and the opposition alliance battled contradictions was evident as unlike the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), an OBC group comprising Rajbhars in east UP, which was prompt in welcoming the Rohini Commission’s recommendations, the BJP’s other prominent ally Apna Dal (Sonelal), said it will wait for the content of the report, before making its views public. The support base of the Apna Dal (S) comprises Kurmis, a dominant OBC subcaste after Yadavs.

Despite having mixed views on Rohini Commission, all three BJP allies in UP – Apna Dal (S), SBSP and Nishad party, an OBC group comprising members of riverine communities, are unanimous on caste census, a demand that BJP doesn’t appear too comfortable with as of now.

“Bihar’s caste census move has its own importance. That’s because the opposition alliance, too, including Congress, agrees with the demand of caste census and this argument also would counter attempts by the BJP to think of dividing the reservation pool among OBCs. Because for any such division, the priority is a caste census to determine the numerical standing of each caste group,” said social scientist and Samajwadi Party leader professor Sudhir Panwar.

“We support the caste census demand,” said U.P’s technical education minister and Apna Dal (S) leader Ashish Patel.

“We have always stood for caste census,” said SBSP chief OP Rajbhar. U.P. minister Sanjay Nishad, the head of Nishad party, spoke similarly even as BJP leaders shied from making a comment.

“I think the concept of caste census goes against the BJP-RSS’s larger plan of Hindu consolidation and that is why the BJP could be attempting to test sub categorisation of OBC castes instead,” said Pankaj Kumar though he was unsure if the BJP would implement the recommendations of Rohini Commission either. “U.P. could be the biggest hurdle if BJP plans to implement Rohini Commission recommendations as the most populous state throws up a complex interplay of various castes,” he added.

SBSP leader Arun Rajbhar, however, felt that sub categorisation of OBCs was needed to ensure justice to all OBC castes.

“There have been castes that have long enjoyed all the fruits while lesser privileged backward castes remained neglected. The Rohini Commission recommendations would correct the historical wrong,” he said, clearly referring to the clout of castes like Yadavs, largely considered to be supporters of the Samajwadi Party in U.P.

Panwar also drew attention to how the report of the social justice committee, which was set up by the BJP government in U.P, gathered dust. That report recommended classification of various OBC and Dalit subcastes into three broad categories and provide quota within quota to them.

The social justice committee had recommended dividing OBCs into pichda, ati pichda aur sarvadhik pichda (backward, very backward and most backward). It put 12 OBC sub- castes in the backward category, 59 in very backward and 79 in the most backward category. A similar recommendation was made for Dalits by putting four sub-castes under Dalit, 31 under Ati-Dalit and 46 in the Maha Dalit category. The BJP allies in U.P. were divided on its implementation.

Since 2002, when the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Rajnath Singh sought to identify ‘ati-pichda, ati dalits (most backwards, most dalits)’, the issue of sub-categorisation of other backward classes (OBCs) based on their numerical strength within the larger caste grouping has kept cropping up nearer to the elections, only to fizzle out post polls.

This time however, the Rohini Commission recommendations have stirred fresh interest as political parties await the BJP’s move.