Caste survey

BIHAR’S caste survey, whose findings were released by the Nitish Kumar government on Gandhi Jayanti, has triggered demands by Opposition parties for conducting similar surveys in other states. According to the data for Bihar, the Extremely Backward Classes (36 per cent) are the largest social segment in the state, followed by the Other Backward Classes (27.13 per cent). Together accounting for almost two-thirds of the state’s population, EBCs and OBCs are huge vote banks that can decisively impact electoral outcomes.

With Nitish coming up with a potentially make-or-break gambit in the run-up to the 2024 General Election, Opposition bloc INDIA is expected to go all out to play the caste card, banking on identity politics to take on the BJP’s ideological politics. The stage is set for a rerun of Mandal vs Kamandal. Even as the Supreme Court will hear on October 6 pleas challenging the Patna High Court’s order giving the go-ahead to a caste survey in Bihar, the findings are causing political reverberations across the country. The Congress, which had set the ball rolling last month by raising the pitch for an OBC sub-quota in the women’s reservation Bill, has stated that the country needs a caste-based census to give people their due rights as per their population. In a sharp response, PM Modi has asserted that poor people have the first right over the country’s resources as they have the biggest abadi (population).

A clamour has already begun for the revision of quotas for different castes in proportion to their respective population. There is no denying that reservation makes socio-economic sense and serves the cause of social justice only if its benefits percolate down to the most disadvantaged groups rather than remaining confined to the creamy layer. Nitish and those who will follow in his footsteps might be hoist by their own petard if they let political considerations trump equitable public welfare.

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#Bihar #Nitish Kumar