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How Findings of the Bihar Caste Census Push the BJP into a Corner

Abhik Deb

On Monday, Bihar released the findings of its caste census. Given the last countrywide census that officially collected caste data was nearly a century back in 1931, this was a historic exercise. In 2011, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre had conducted a socio-economic and caste census. However, the data from that exercise was never released citing errors in enumeration.

The caste survey, which started in January, even had to overcome legal hurdles before its constitutional validity was upheld by the Patna High Court in August. Now that the focus has shifted to the data from the census, the exercise is expected to have major implications for India’s politics.

For starters, the headline number that Other Backward Classes account for 63% of Bihar’s population bolsters the demand for removing the cap on 50% reservation in government jobs and colleges. The number will also provide fuel to the demand of Opposition parties for conducting a countrywide caste census.

What does the census data say?

Of the state’s population of 13.07 crore, Backward Classes account for 27.1% and 36% belong to the Extremely Backward Classes, or EBCs – a category unique to Bihar (and inherited by Jharkhand after the state’s partition). During socialist leader Karpoori Thakur’s regime in the 1970s, Bihar had classified EBCs as a sub-category among the Other Backward Classes. More than 100 castes and sub-castes fall under this category.

The caste census results released on Monday further showed that the upper castes constitute around 15.5% of Bihar’s population, the Scheduled Castes accounts for 19.6%, while the Scheduled Tribes account for nearly 1.7%.

The ruling coalition in Bihar has reasons to be happy with the findings. The EBC category constitutes the core support base of the JD(U), while Yadavs, who at 14% account for the largest single caste grouping in the state, are a solid vote bank of the RJD.

How the caste census puts the BJP in a spot

The caste census lends credibility to the long-standing contention that the quota for Other Backward Classes is not proportionate to their population.

“It is high time that the limit [on reservation] of 50% be raised,” Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had said before the census was conducted. “The cap is depriving OBCs and EBCs of opportunities in proportion to their population.”

(Extract. Courtesy: Scroll.in.)

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Bihar Caste Survey: Why the BJP Is Jittery and INDIA Bloc Upbeat

Nalin Verma

With the release of the Bihar caste survey, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not only unnerved but also appears confused about how to respond to the issue. There has been a complete divergence between the stance taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet colleagues as well as senior leaders of his party.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described the survey report as “paap (sin) to divide the Hindu society” and accused Congress of “taking away the minorities’ rights”, the Bihar chief minister called an all-party meeting on Tuesday to follow up on the survey report.

“As of now, the government has published the statistics of 215 castes in the state. It will table the statistics of the comprehensive economic survey report in the state Legislature after one and half months,” Nitish said in a meeting with the representatives of nine parties from Bihar, including the BJP.

“He (Nitish) might drop another bombshell with the economic survey report. Who knows… he might break the cap of 50% quota in the jobs and raise the same for the backward classes and the extremely backward classes in Bihar beyond the existing 27%,” said a senior BJP leader who is unhappy with the prime minister reacting to the survey in an “unwise” manner.

Apna Dal leader Anupirya Patel, who is a minister in the Modi government, has also extended her support to the idea of conducting a caste census nationwide. Her statement came at around the same time when Modi questioned the Congress’s demand for a nationwide census at a public meeting in Jagdalpur in poll-bound Chhattisgarh.

Sushil Kumar Modi, the BJP’s senior leader in Bihar who is said to have a better understanding of the caste politics in the state, has tried to take credit for the caste survey. He said it was the BJP which had conceived the idea when it was in power in the state along with Nitish Kumar. Meanwhile, another BJP leader from the state and Union minister Giriraj Singh rubbished the report as “eyewash”.

Coherent INDIA

While the prime minister, his ministers, and party colleagues sang different tunes, leaders of the INDIA bloc foregrounded the formula that a share in governance should be proportionate to the size of a community’s population.

Rahul Gandhi, soon after the publication of the report, tweeted that Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes constituted 84% of the population. “Only three out of 90 secretaries in the government of India belong to the OBCs who control barely 5% of the budget. Jitni aabadi utna haq – ye hamara pran hai (rights according to the size of the population – it is our resolve)”.

The Congress leader’s statement is perfectly in sync with that of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav’s comment. He said, “Jitni hissedari utni bhagidari (participation in accordance with the population).” Even Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav supported the report released by the Bihar government and made a pitch for a similar exercise nationwide.

According to the survey report, OBCs and extremely backward castes (EBCs) constitute 63% of Bihar’s population. SCs account for 19.65%. The population of upper castes (general category) is 15.52%, which also includes about 5% upper caste Muslims. Muslims altogether account for 17.70% of the state’s population.

It is the numerical dominance of OBCs in the Hindi heartland that has given regional parties – RJD and Janata Dal (United) in Bihar; and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh – confidence. On the other hand, it has unnerved the BJP, given the thin population of the Hindu upper castes and the business communities – its primary support base.

(Extract. Courtesy: The Wire.)

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In another analysis done by The Wire Staff published in The Wire, it gives “Nine Reasons Why Numbers Revealed by Bihar Caste Census Could Shake Up National Politics” (extract):

1. Historically, whether Gandhi in Champaran, Jaiprakash Narayan in Sitab Diara or Lalu Prasad in Phulwaria, Bihar has been seen to lead from the front when it comes to crafting a political opposition with national consequences. The Bihar government’s steady plod pushing through a caste census, at a time when the Modi government is unable to even hold the routine decadal census, let alone a caste census, sends out a clear political signal that it can be done at an all-India level. Odisha and Jharkhand’s socio-economic caste ‘surveys’ are ongoing. BJP will be harder pressed to explain why it cannot be done nationally.

2. The Hindu ‘majority’ argument takes a beating as this quantifies a sense of the real majority that exists. Sanatan Dharma is being pitched as a key weapon to attack the Opposition after Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Udhayanidhi’s comments on it. Modi himself has led the attack. But this will be busted by the data. To the extent that Sanatan Dharma is seen to be about maintaining caste hierarchies eternally (Sanatan). OBC + SC + ST = 84% of the population, said the Opposition as it did the math may force the BJP to rethink that route. A keen awareness of the massive caste divide fostered by caste numbers, as opposed to a Hindu-Muslim one, which the BJP would like to impose as the only one, spells trouble for the BJP.

3. The Modi government went ahead in 2019 with the controversial 10% Economically Weaker Section reservations. The judiciary helped and waived off the 50% ceiling for it. With the so-called ‘General’ (saamanya, read ‘upper castes’) category now getting revealed to be a mere 15.52%, and if extrapolated all-India, it is a tough call to defend why OBCs should be content with a relatively low percentage of the pie, so disproportionate to their share in population while the ‘General’ get to have their cake? Essentially, who will defend, 10% for 15.2%, but only 27% for 63.13% of the population, which is what 36.01% (Extreme Backward Castes) + 27.12% (OBCs) adds up to.

4. In the past decade, the support for the BJP among OBCs has seen a sharp rise. To hold onto that is key to any hopes it may have of coming back to power in May 2024. Already nervous about the Opposition pivoting to turning into a wide network of OBCs, that too ‘non-dominant’ OBCs as chief ministers and in the state leadership (Siddaramaiah, M.K. Stalin, Pinarayi Vijayan, Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot, to name just the chief ministers), and with numbers now revealing the disparity between who has real power and who does not, keeping the 44% of the OBCs who voted for the BJP in 2019 onside could prove to be a challenge.

Last week, Rajasthan chief minister, Ashok Gehlot in very striking remarks put his caste identity as a ‘non-dominant’ OBC in Rajasthan out upfront as he called for a “mali or gardener model of good governance,” where all kinds of flowers and flora flourish. Rahul Gandhi has re-emphasised, that of the 90 secretaries to the government of India, only three are OBCs. Being the sole OBC party, which the BJP has been keen to project itself becomes hard to prove once data on disparity is out.

5. The BJP has always called for ‘samrasta’ or harmonious stability and not ‘samajik nyay’ or social justice, with its pitch to OBCs and Dalits being one of accommodation, but within the Hindutva framework. Such a stark contrast between numbers and where they stand in their share in power challenges ‘accommodation’. A call for justice becomes hard to bottle up.

6. The BJP had led from the front this year, calling for nixing reservation for Muslims, trying to whip up communal divides by making it ‘Muslim versus all else’, and arguing till as far as the Supreme Court to justify why reservation for Muslim backwards needed to be nixed. The Supreme Court Bench asked tough questions which led the former Basavaraj Bommai government in Karnataka to freeze its policy.

In Telangana, on April 24, home minister Amit Shah openly pitched for scrapping any quota for Muslim backwards calling it “unconstitutional”. But with cold numbers emerging on where the divides and disparities are, it would be tough to argue that Muslims are creaming off benefits meant for others. The BJP cannot be faulted for not trying. BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal is quoted by BBC Hindi as saying that the “rightful due of Backwards has been cut into by Lalu and Nitish including Kulhadiya and Shershahbadi, upper caste Muslims amongst Backwards”. But Jaiswal hastened to add that it was the BJP’s finance minister in the state who allocated Rs 500 crore for the caste census in the state.

7. The BJP had been hurt badly in 2015 by Rashtriya Syawamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat expressing his feelings about reservation in an interview to Organiser and Panchjanya. This time, he has gone out of his way to say that the RSS is okay with caste reservations for as long as is necessary. But the fact remains that caste sits very uneasily in the Sangh’s scheme of things. The divisions pointing to inequity and rank discrimination are not merely one of many faultlines in India but an essential feature of social and political life in the sub-continent. A caste census with numbers of socio-economic status makes the numbers hard to ignore, wish away or divert from.

8. Memories of the Mandal Commission in the 1990s (which recommended 27% reservation for OBCs in employment) and how it put the kamandal (call for Hindufication) on the back foot, forcing the BJP to rework its strategy spring to mind. There are two reports now under review by the BJP, the Rohini Commission looking at the central OBC list which has submitted its report and UP’s committee, a four-member social justice committee headed by retired Allahabad high court judge Justice Raghvendra Kumar to examine a division of the OBC quota appointed by chief minister Adityanath in May 2018 waiting to be adopted or acted upon. Both called for ‘sub-categorisation’ amongst OBCs.

The BJP’s ideological predecessor, the Jana Sangh, vociferously opposed ‘sub-categorisation’ when Karpoori Thakur in Bihar, E.M.S. Namboodripad in Kerala, Karnataka’s Devraj Urs and others went ahead and introduced it. It is prevalent in 11 states at present. The BJP, as a smart tactic, may have wanted to consider this in 2017-18, to take down the ‘dominant’ OBC castes. But now, with the political scenario changing dramatically after its re-election in 2019, and of the BJP’s total votes, 48.9% coming from across almost all OBCs, including so-called ‘dominant castes’, would it risk rocking its boat by ‘sub-categorisation’?

9. The BJP’s strategy, and a successful one so far, has been to divide OBCs as a category. It woos numerically smaller OBCs, but separately, to prevent a sense of a consolidated OBC group or Backward-Forward divide emerging. When such a divide emerged in 2015 in Bihar’s Assembly Election when Lalu and Nitish first came together, it led to the BJP shrinking to merely 53 seats in the Bihar Assembly and down to party number 3.

The emergence of numbers after a census is a significant move and will cause a disruption. It is worth watching out for it to unfold, going into 2024.

(Courtesy: The Wire.)