Bihar caste survey: Opposition sees scope for new narrative, poll dividends

When Bihar’s Nitish Kumar (of the Janata Dal, United) demanded a caste survey as early as 2021 -- a few months after the Bharatiya Janata Party, then an ally, outperformed his party in the state elections -- other parties in the state (including the BJP) supported him, but it was yet to become the national imperative opposition parties would now like to see it as.

It wasn’t as if the others had not sensed the opportunity.

One of the three original beneficiaries of the social justice movement of the 1990s, the Samajwadi Party (the JDU and its new-old partner the Rashtriya Janata Dal are the others) demanded a caste survey in early 2022 after it lost another state election to the BJP. And the Congress itself mentioned the issue in its Udaipur declaration of May 2022. “The Indian National Congress resolves to begin a decisive struggle for the demand to make the caste census data public and get the backward classes their rights,” part of that resolution said.

It was only after Kumar, who switched partners, launched the exercise in early 2023 that the then loose grouping of parties beginning to coalesce around an anti-BJP agenda saw it as one. The Congress mentioned it again in its Raipur resolution in February. “The BJP has consistently refused to conduct the caste census which would be crucial to revising the benchmark for socio-economic and educational backwardness. Indian National Congress commits to conduct a Socio-Economic Caste Census along with the decennial census.”

Leaders from parties that are part of INDIA say that many of them realised the potential political pay-offs in the run-up to the Karnataka election. To be sure, the Congress, fought and won the election on an anti-corruption and welfare platform. On April 3, Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin organised a meeting of opposition parties in Chennai and pushed for “social justice”. And on April 17, the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi coined the phrase ‘Jitni Aabadi, Utna Haq’ (rights proportionate to population numbers).

With Bihar releasing headline numbers of the caste survey on Monday, the movement appears to have acquired more momentum. On Monday, the Congress said the arithmetic says it all.

“The caste census of Bihar has revealed that OBC + SC + ST are 84% there,’’ said Gandhi. Reiterating his point about upper castes ruling the bureaucracy despite being in the minority, he said, repeating a comment he made during the special session of Parliament: “Out of 90 secretaries of the Central Government, only three are OBCs (from the other backward classes), who handle only 5% of India’s budget! Therefore, it is important to know the caste statistics of India. The greater the population, the greater the rights – this is our pledge. “

Leaders of the INDIA alliance point to the two advantages of pushing for a nationwide caste census -- one, it gives the opposition grouping a new narrative; two, it is a possible way to split the OBC vote, much of which had consolidated behind the Bharatiya Janata Party in recent elections.

“I think everyone in INDIA alliance is on board with our demand,’’ said INDIA’s coordination committee member and senior Janata Dal United(JDU) national president Lallan Singh. “Rahul Gandhi has been raising it since Karnataka election. Whenever we raised it and took it to the central government, they have opposed it. It’s obvious why they are doing so-- it’s because if this happens nationally, their communal agenda will fail.’’

The BJP’s counter, analysts say, could well be the report of the Rohini commission, set up to examine the sub-categorisation of OBCs, through the filter of reservation and benefits.

As HT reported in September, the Justice Rohini Commission has recommended that “the purpose of sub-categorisation is not to establish a new hierarchy among OBCs, but to provide a level playing field for all”. The data found that a quarter of the share of benefits went to just 10 OBC castes, another quarter to 38 castes, a third quarter to 102 castes and under a fourth (22.3%) to 506 castes . However, a staggering 983 castes got no benefits while 994 jousted for 2.68% of the benefits. While the number of sub-categories isn’t confirmed, it is likely to be three or four where the castes with similar access to benefits compete with each other. It could be three bands — those that have got no benefits could get 10%, those with some benefits 10%, and those with maximum benefits 7% -- or there could also be four bands, said a person aware of details on condition of anonymity

The big question is whether, three decades after Mandal (the Mandal Commision’s report on OBC reservation was adopted in 1990), a new Mandal movement can change politics in this country again, much like it did in the decade of the 1990s.

The Congress’ election strategists say that it can. They add that when the Congress received overwhelmingly positive feedback when it tested whether caste quotas could be an issue, decided to go big on an issue.

That was apparent during the passage of the women reservation law last month in Parliament. While supporting the law, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi pivoted to include the demand for a separate quota for OBC women. Speaking in parliament, she seemed to echo the demands of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) when she said: “A caste census must also be conducted and a provision must be made for reservation for women from the SC, ST and OBC communities. The government should take all the steps needed for this. Delaying this would be doing gross injustice to women.”

Other parties, too, have embraced the idea. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Stalin held an “India for democracy’’ conclave in the capital in August which highlighted the issue and Stalin has revived his demand for a removal of the 50% cap on reservation.

The Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh said that the Bihar model should be adopted in other states. “Caste census should be done across the country. If you (Centre) want to do justice with backward classes and minorities in the country, you must have caste census,” said Singh.

Former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav denied that this would lead to social unrest. ``The caste census will not open a new path of 85-15 conflict but of cooperation and those who are not domineering but are supporters of everyone’s rights, they support and welcome it. Those who really want to get the rights, they get the caste census done. . The BJP government should leave politics and conduct a nationwide caste census,’’ he tweeted.

Bihar’s deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav was clear about the national fallout of the Bihar census. “History is witness to how the BJP leadership tried to hinder this through various means. Bihar has set an example for the country and has drawn a long line towards the goals of social and economic justice. Today what has happened in Bihar will be raised in the entire country tomorrow and that tomorrow is not far away. Bihar has again shown direction to the country and will continue to show it in future also,’’ he said.