📊 A 360°, Multi-Plane View Of The Bihar Caste Survey

🗳️ Caste Lines and Ballot Boxes

There are a few questions which would have naturally come to your mind when you read or heard about Bihar releasing its caste survey numbers.

Here’s my guess as to what they were.

Or forget it. Here are the questions I had in mind when I saw the news from Bihar:

1. What impact will it have on the nation’s politics?

1. What impact will it have on the nation’s politics?

My boss R Jagannathan gives his answer here, Super-Mandalisation of India: BJP can survive it, but can the economy?. Here is a quote from the piece:

“Democracy’s ability to lead to economic profligacy will ensure two things: one, it will benefit the better off, creating more inequalities between the 'have-enough' and the 'have-less' voter segments, thus adding pressures for more and more quotas and freebies."

2. What impact will it have on the 2024 polls specifically?

Raghav Awasthi takes up that question in this article, Can caste-based reservations deliver victory for Rahul Gandhi in 2024? Here's what history suggests

The gist of Raghav’s argument is that even though Congress has taken up the issue of OBC reservation in a big way, such strategies don't guarantee electoral success. He uses historical precedents to argue his case.

He also cites the complexity of caste dynamics and competition within OBC groups for the failure of such strategies. It’s counterintuitive, I know, but by the time you finish reading the piece, Raghav would have convinced you. 

3. What impact will it have in Bihar?

We listed the down five takeaways of the survey in this piece yesterday. Point 3 deals with how it would impact politics in Bihar. Let me just paste it here in full for your convenience:

"How the survey actually plays out in Bihar may well depend on another survey that is not yet on the cards—one which counts that within the reserved categories, what is the representation of each community. For example, within the OBC category, how many government jobs have been given to Yadavs, Kurmis, Mallahs, Prajapati etc. 

Such a survey may well reveal that a particular community/communities enjoy representation disproportionate to their numbers. 

While this survey is not yet on the cards, it suits the politics of Nitish Kumar and JD(U), and to the extent that it would benefit the non-dominant OBCs, it also suits the BJP.

Can we expect a ‘tactical alliance’ between them to checkmate the RJD?”

4. How will the BJP respond?

PM Modi’s speech on 3 October has made this the most intriguing question and the efficacy of this response is in just how simple it is.

At a rally in Chhattisgarh, Modi raised a simple but pivotal question. If the Congress is going for ‘jitni abaadi, utna haq’ (rights in proportion to a community’s numbers), where does that leave the minorities of India?

He drove in the criticality of the question by rhetorically asking, “Should Hindus come forward and claim all their rights?”. 

Bonus: 

My colleague, Nishtha, took the current caste survey of Bihar and the 2011 census numbers and did some back-of-the-envelope calculations. Turns out that the numbers which the 2023 survey gives for the Scheduled Castes community (SC) are showing an unusual growth.

Growth which cannot normally be called ‘organic’. It’s a short piece, with only basic arithmetic to make its point. Read it here. 

Until next time, 

Arush Tandon

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