Has BJP really been cornered by Bihar caste survey?

Several other states are expected to follow Bihar’s lead in conducting their own caste surveys in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. The challenge thrown by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will surely sharpen the contradiction for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) between creating a homogenous Hindu identity and accepting the politics of social justice based on caste. But it is too early to conclude that it will decisively impair its electoral chances.

Sure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements calling out Rahul Gandhi’s slogan of ‘Jitni abadi, utna haq’ (rights proportional to population share) indicates that he has been more than a little destabilised by the Bihar caste survey and the Congress’ demand for a national caste census. Lashing out at the principle of numbers to allocate access to political power and state largesse, Modi has made some specious arguments. Among them was his statement in Nizamabad that, “Congress is cheating the southern states as it does not want more (Parliament) seats to be given to them after the delimitation of parliamentary seats.” The caste survey results were never to apply to the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies.

He also exulted that the Opposition’s proposal would make mincemeat of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertion that minorities have the first right over the nation’s resources. Did the ‘jitni abadi’ slogan mean that the Congress now wants to “reduce the rights of the minorities” he asked, and therefore, “Should Hindus, who have the largest population, come forward and take all their rights?” Such distorted logic and rhetorical exaggeration suggest that Modi was caught unawares.

However, the government might yet roll up its sleeves and tweak its agenda for the 2024 polls to cope with the result of this caste survey and others that may follow.

In Bihar, the BJP may be able to do little. The Bihar survey shows that the population of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) is 63 per cent (with 27.1 per cent OBCs and 36 per cent Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs)); the upper castes (including upper caste Muslims) 15.5 per cent, the Scheduled Castes 19.6 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes 1.7 per cent. The OBCs are already well represented in the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the EBCs are the vote base of Kumar’s Janata Dal (United).

The caste survey is likely to strengthen the position of the RJD-JD(U) alliance in the 2024 polls. A day after the survey was published, the Kumar government further announced a 10 per cent quota for the Economically Weaker Sections (annual income less than Rs 8 lakh) in judicial services and state-run law colleges and universities extending reservation to those who do not get any as of now. All in all, it seems to be advantage Opposition in Bihar.

However, the Mandal plank may not be as advantageous to the Opposition in other North Indian states. Electoral compulsions have already pushed the BJP to promote backward caste leadership wherever necessary over time, especially in Uttar Pradesh and in Madhya Pradesh.

In an early overture to OBC politics, the BJP had made Kalyan Singh, a Lodh Rajput and OBC, Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh. Later it took on board Kurmi leaders like Vinay Katiyar (founder of Bajrang Dal and now a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh) and Omprakash Singh, currently Irrigation Minister in Uttar Pradesh.

Now nearly two-fifths of the ministers in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet are OBCs, and include prominent faces such as Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya (Kushwaha), Swatantra Dev Singh and Rakesh Sachan (both Kurmis), Anil Rajbhar (Rajbhar), Sanjay Nishad and Narendra Kashyap (both Nishads), Dharampal Singh and Sandip Singh (both Lodhs), Girish Chandra Yadav (Yadav), Sanjay Gangwar (Kurmi), Dharambir Prajapati (Prajapati), and Ravindra Jaiswal (Kalwar). The are more OBC ministers from allied parties like the Apana Dal and the Nishad Party.

In Madhya Pradesh too, for nearly two decades, the BJP has nurtured prominent OBC leaders — Uma Bharti (Lodh), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Kirar), and Babulal Gaur (Yadav) as chief ministers. Modi himself wears his OBC origins on his sleeve during elections claiming to belong to the Ghanchi caste, known widely as Teli.

The BJP, moreover, has a major weapon in its armoury which could flatten Opposition initiatives to consolidate the OBCs and the EBCs. That weapon is the report of the Justice G Rohini Commission on sub-categories within the OBCs. The Justice Rohini Commission’s primary task was the same — to evolve criteria for the fair distribution of benefits among the OBCs. The report was submitted to the government on July 31, and despite speculation, the Modi government did not announce implementation of its recommendations in the recently held special session of Parliament.

The premise that the benefits are not distributed fairly is based on the grounds that the reservation quota of 27 per cent is far less than the proportion of the OBCs in the total population — about 41 per cent according to the National Sample Survey, 52 per cent according to the Mandal Commission, and in Bihar 63 per cent according to the latest caste survey. Further, there is widespread belief that of the more than 2,600 sub-castes in the Central List of the OBCs, just a handful of dominant OBCs have cornered the reservation benefits.

The national-level implementation of the Rohini Commission’s recommendations by the Centre could take the wind out of the sails of the Mandal parties putting together state-level caste coalitions. Delivering on reservations for the EBCs may become an electoral necessity for the BJP even if this means moving away from the consolidation of Hindus across caste lines. The Opposition’s caste reservation plank is only a promise so far.

This does not mean the BJP will give up on Hindu consolidation. It has other arrows in its quiver such as the grand inauguration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya in January 2024 and the likely introduction of the Uniform Civil Code in the Winter Session of Parliament. The caste survey in Bihar may not yet be the game-changer the Opposition hopes it will be.

(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.