New Delhi: The Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government’s move Monday to release caste census data that pegs the population of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) in the state at 63 percent has put the BJP in a quandary, senior party leaders and functionaries told ThePrint.
Often tagged as a “party of upper castes” — which comprise just 15.5 percent of the Bihar electorate, according to the census data — the BJP, in power at the Centre, is already facing demands from the opposition for a national caste census ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
According to party sources, the BJP’s Bihar unit too comprises many upper caste leaders (in comparison to the upper caste population in the state) while it has been trying to build support among the backward castes in the state, which have mostly rallied behind the ruling Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in previous assembly elections, according to Election Commission data.
The question before the BJP now, according to party sources, is whether to stick to its tried-and-tested formula of Hindutva politics, or to face the challenge of caste politics thrown by the opposition.
“The release of caste data will build pressure for a caste census nationally and lead to demands for enhancement of reservation quota which can disrupt the Hindutva politics of the BJP,” a party functionary told ThePrint.
He added: “The BJP tasted success in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections by playing to the public’s aspirations, welfare measures and Hindutva. Now this survey can damage that unification project [to remove caste differences] of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [the ideological fountainhead of the BJP].”
According to the functionary, the BJP has the option to share more power with the EBC, but this may upset the OBC votebank.
While the BJP’s Bihar unit reportedly supported the caste survey in Bihar, the party has ruled out a caste census nationally.
A senior Bihar BJP leader said: “We are against the caste census nationally, and had even rejected OBC quota in the (newly-passed) women’s reservation Bill, since the data can boomerang on us.”
“We are waiting for more data, so we are not jumping to any reaction right now, but it’s sure to benefit the Mandal parties (regional parties comprising OBCs and Bahujan castes) and harm the BJP in narrative,” the leader added.
Bihar BJP president Samrat Choudhary echoed him in saying that the party “is awaiting a full report and will then comment on the issue holistically” and added that “we will wait for (Bihar chief minister) Nitish Kumar’s all-party meeting (scheduled for Tuesday)”.
Speaking to the media after the release of the caste data, Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh had alleged that “Nitish Kumar is trying to create confusion among people. He should instead give a white paper on what he has done for the state’s people in the years that he has been in power.”
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‘A sense of anxiety in state BJP units’
Ahead of the 2024 polls, caste has emerged as one of the primary sites of political contest in various states, including Bihar, which holds 40 Lok Sabha seats. Of these, the BJP-led NDA had won 39 in the last elections in 2019, with 17 being won by the BJP alone.
Over the past decade, the BJP has established its hold over caste-based politics by seeking to assimilate non-dominant OBC castes under the Hindutva umbrella.
In the wake of the Bihar caste census data, it fears that any ensuing struggle for more reservation may upset the upper castes, the BJP’s key votebank.
According to the numbers released by the Bihar government, EBCs account for 36.01 percent of the state’s population, followed by the OBCs at 27.12 percent. Up to 19.7 percent are Dalits or Scheduled Castes and 1.7 percent are Scheduled Tribes.
The BJP is also apprehensive that the survey data may strengthen “Mandal parties” — those which had pushed for the implementation of the suggestions of the Mandal Commission, set up to identify the socially or educationally backward classes and reaped the benefits of it — like the RJD, JD (U) and Lok Janshakti Party in Bihar, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, the Jannayak Janta Party and the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, besides regional parties from Maharashtra and Karnataka.
While Nitish Kumar has employed Mandal politics — which followed the setting up of the Mandal Commission in 1979 and saw a push for the inclusion of those from economically and socially weaker sections in education and jobs — to invade the BJP’s Hindutva politics through release of the caste census data, the strategy is likely to be taken up by other parties as well.
For instance, the Congress has backed demands for a national caste consensus while Odisha CM and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik has already begun a survey to assess the social and educational condition of backward caste communities in his state.
“The Bihar caste census has created a sense of anxiety in party units in other states as well,” the BJP functionary mentioned earlier said.
A look at BJP’s Bihar unit further throws light on these apprehensions. Most state BJP leaders challenging the ruling mahagathbandhan alliance in Bihar, a coalition of the JD(U), RJD, Congress and other parties, belong to the upper castes.
The Bihar BJP
The so-called upper castes form the backbone of the BJP in Bihar.
The party’s state unit comprises 38 members, including state chief Choudhary, an OBC chosen to dent Nitish Kumar’s dominance in the community. Of these, 17 are from the upper caste — five Bhumihars, six Brahmins, one Kayastha and five Rajputs.
This is against 21 from other groups — eight EBCs, three SCs, one Yadav, two Kurmis, three Kushwahas and four Vaishyas.
Further, there are five ministers from Bihar in the BJP-led Union Cabinet – three from the upper-castes (Giriraj Singh, Ashwini Choubey andupper castes R.K. Singh), one OBC minister (Nityanand Rai) and one Dalit minister (Pashupati Kumar Paras).
The BJP also has 17 Lok Sabha MPs from Bihar, of which eight are from the upper castes — four Rajputs, two Brahmins, one Bhumihar and one Kayastha.
Nine are from other groups — seven OBCs, one from the Vaishya community and one Dalit.
The party’s four Rajya Sabha MPs include one Bhumihar, one Brahmin, one OBC and one EBC.
Why caste census is bad news for ‘Hindutva politics’
Talking about the BJP’s success in assimilating non-dominant OBC castes into the Hindutva fold, a senior party leader had in August told ThePrint that “we countered the Mandal politics started by V.P. Singh in 1990 through the ‘kamandal politics’ of the rath yatra”.
He had added that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological parent, also “worked tirelessly” for the inclusion of backward castes into the Hindutva identity.
“The caste census will break all efforts made in the last two decades. That is why we are not in favour of breaking the harmonious relations of different castes,” the leader had said
A second senior party leader explained that “through Hindutva politics, the BJP has broken the influence of dominant OBC castes — like Yadavs, Kurmis and Jats — among smaller OBC groups”.
“It was the reason behind the counter-polarisation of smaller OBC groups in favour of the BJP in UP and Bihar. We got success in 2014 and 2019 (Lok Sabha polls) by breaking the monopoly of dominant castes in UP, and cornering the Akhilesh Yadav-Mayawati coalition in 2019, and the Tejashwi Yadav-led coalition in Bihar,” the leader added.
According to the leader, the demands for hike in reservation following publication of caste survey data “can upset upper castes and counter-mobilisation can happen. Our developmental and welfare agenda can be hijacked by these parties. These reservation demands can upset politics before 2024”.
BJP’s challenge at assembly-level
According to a post-2019 survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, the BJP has made huge inroads into the OBC vote in the past decade.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, 22 percent of the OBCs are believed to have voted for the BJP and 42 percent for regional parties. In 2019, this number was 44 percent and 27 percent, respectively, the survey found.
The decline of OBC votes at the Lok Sabha level showed in the seats won by regional parties — which dropped from 69 in 2009 to 34 in 2019.
This shift was attributed by the BJP to its outreach to non-Yadav non-Kurmi OBCs “who were marginalised under Lalu in Bihar, and under Mulayam and Akhilesh in UP”, through various welfare programmes like Mudra and Vishwakarma, which seek to encourage skill development and entrepreneurship.
However, the survey said, these trends don’t seem to reflect at the assembly level — which shows that the parties remain a challenge for the BJP.
During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, 11 percent of OBCs voted for the RJD, but the number went up to 29 percent in the 2020 assembly election.
Speaking to ThePrint Monday, Sanjay Paswan, former Union minister, asserted that the “BJP has been sharing power with the OBCs and EBCs, but the real challenge is for Mandal parties like the RJD, SP and JD(U) which have shared power with only the dominant Yadav and Kurmi castes”.
“The Bihar caste survey data is a challenge for these parties to share more power with the EBC and smaller castes,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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