Machibet BetEbc: Why caste census has become BJP's biggest 2024 challenge

The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar on October 2 released findings of its much-awaited caste survey – a development that can potentially take centre stage in the INDIA vs National Democratic Alliance (NDA) narrative ahead of the 2024 parliamentary election.The Bihar survey has already led to calls for a nationwide caste survey.The Congress has called upon the Centre to immediately conduct a similar exercise at the national level to ensure social justice and provide a firm foundation for social empowerment programmes.Several other parties including the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, Uddhav Thackeray’s faction of the Shiv Sena and MK Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have expressed support for the Bihar survey.All these parties, along with the Congress, Bihar’s ruling party Janata Dal (United) and its ally Rashtriya Janata Dal are members of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) that was formed in July to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.When the demand for a nationwide caste survey, in line with the Bihar exercise, intensifies beyond a point, it is likely to pave the way for challenging the 50% cap on overall reservations, say political observers.What the survey saysThe Bihar survey has revealed that Backward Classes – including Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) – constitute a whopping 63% of the state's total population of 13 crore. The EBCs are the largest social segment at 36%, followed by the OBCs at 27.13%.Yadavs, the OBC group to which Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav belongs, are the largest in terms of the population, accounting for 14.27% of the total. The Kurmi caste, to which Nitish belongs, constitutes 2.87%.Dalits, also known as the Scheduled Castes (SC), accounted for 19.65% of the total population in Bihar, which is also home to nearly 22 lakh (1.68%) people belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (ST).The “unreserved” category, which denotes the so-called “upper castes”, comprise 15.52% of the total population. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r boxcontentAmong OBCs, Yadavs account for nearly 14.4% of the population; Kushwaha 4.3% and Kurmi 2.9%In general category, Brahmins make up 3.6%, Rajputs 3.4%Survey also showed that Hindus make up close to 82% of the population, followed by Muslims at 17.7%While Nitish Kumar called it a “historic” move and Lalu Prasad Yadav said that a nationwide caste census would be conducted across the country once the INDIA formed government at the Centre in 2024, PM Narendra Modi branded the survey findings as part of the Opposition’s “divisive politics” in the name of caste.From Mandal years to Modi yearsA good starting point for this story can be August 1990 when then-Prime Minister VP Singh declared his intent to implement the Mandal Commission report, which called for affirmative action to be expanded beyond the SCs and STs and ultimately paved the way for 27% reservation for OBCs.Around the same time, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, decided to shift its focus to the Ramjanmabhoomi movement.Both were political strategies. If VP Singh aimed at disintegration of the Hindu vote base, the BJP aimed to thrive by unifying the Hindu vote base. Caste was the common denominator.In 1992, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court, hearing the Indra Sawhney v Union of India case, while deciding on reservations for OBCs, accepted a 50% cap on total quota, even as it added that the limit could be breached in “extraordinary situations”. It virtually meant that total reservations for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes could not cross the 50% threshold.Fast forward to 2014, which marks the beginning of what is popularly referred to as the “Modi years”. With Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister, the RSS’ old wish to unify the Hindu vote started fructifying at a much larger scale compared to the previous NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, say political observers.Modi himself belongs to a backward class. Also, he could do what Vajpayee to a large extent could not. He could wash the feet of a person belonging to Valmiki caste and share stage with Kurmis, Nishads, Rajbhars and leaders belonging to many other communities, without risking to upset the party’s traditional Brahmin-Baniya vote base.Mandal 2.0When BJP got a bigger mandate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in many ways it burst the bubble formed by a strong belief that the saffron party could be defeated by alliances formed through simple arithmetic. It was time people understood that chemistry mattered.In 2019, the BJP alone won 303 seats, which was 21 seats more than 2014. Its vote share rose to 37.4% – an increase of 6.4 percentage points compared to 2014. Also, the party won as many as 200 seats by securing more than 50% votes.According to surveys of the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), 34% OBCs voted for the BJP and 43% for regional parties in 2014, and around 15% votes for Congress.But in 2019, 44% voted for BJP and 27% for regional parties. The OBC vote base of the Congress did not witness much change, according to CSDS survey findings.The period post-2014 is also often referred to as the time of ‘Mandal 2.0’ in Indian politics, broadly for two reasons. First, BJP’s success in unifying non-dominant OBC groups across the Hindi heartland. Second, intensifying demands from several other groups such as Jats in Haryana, Patidars of Gujarat and Marathas of Maharashtra seeking a share of the OBC pie in affirmative policies. These were also the years that witnessed revival of the clarion call: “Jiski jitni hissedari, uski utni bhagidari” – essentially demanding representation of caste groups in proportion with their share in population. Lately, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi can often be heard chanting a variation of this slogan ("Jitni abaadi, utna haq") in his speeches. medium104132265In India, according to the 2011 Census, SCs are 16.6% of the population while STs make up 8.6%.According to the Mandal Commission report, which was submitted to the President of India on December 31, 1980, OBCs amount to 52% of India’s population. The findings were based on the 1931 Census – the last time caste data was released in India.The 50% cap on reservations is contested by both traditional OBCs and wealthy agrarian castes facing shrinking agricultural incomes.But, in 2021, while striking down reservation for Marathas, the Supreme court refused to revisit the 1992 Indra Sawhney judgment, saying: "To change the 50% limit is to have a society which is not founded on equality but based on caste rule".In its hearings, the top court also cited lack of data, essentially dismissing the 1931 Census figures as a reasonable base for deciding reservations now.That’s why the Bihar caste survey provides an opportunity to clear the way for fresh data for this purpose. An opportunity that could translate into electoral dividends. It’s too big for any opposition to miss.The ultimate aim, as political observers say, is another attempt at disintegrating the Hindu vote base, assuming that Muslims anyway would be voting against the BJP. It’s also a tricky subject because outright rejection of it by the BJP would potentially paint it as anti-OBC, which the saffron party would not want.INDIA vs NDAA caste survey, often called a “caste census”, has been one of the top agendas of the INDIA opposition bloc even before it formally got a name and started its monthly meetings. Many political observers also say that in the caste narrative, the united opposition sees its only chance to beat the BJP in 2024. medium104132140But there are bigger questions here: Will it put the BJP in a fix? Will the BJP bite the bullet?It is unlikely to be an easy task to take on the BJP on this subject. An exchange during the special session of the Parliament last month can be taken as a case study to examine the matter.When Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha accused the BJP government of overlooking the legitimate claims of OBCs, Union home minister Amit Shah hit back, asserting how much the politics of Mandal 2.0 had fused into BJP’s system. Shah further highlighted that 29% of BJP's lawmakers are from the OBC category, the Union government has 29 OBC ministers, the BJP’s OBC legislators number 365 out of 1,358 across states, and 40% of the party’s MLCs were from backward classes.“The BJP’s seems to be strong on the OBC calculation front and it has a good amount of representatives at different levels belonging to backward classes,” says Praveen Rai, a senior political analyst with CSDS.“But the Opposition is surely going to take up this issue and attack the BJP. The real test of the narrative generated by the caste survey will be the assembly polls in three Hindi heartland states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) later this year. Their outcome would shed more light into whether the caste survey can translate into a narrative in national politics ahead of 2024 general elections,” Rai adds.Chandrachur Singh, professor of political science at Hindu College, University of Delhi, says: “Caste-based mobilisations have clearly been an obvious and dominant strategy in India’s electoral politics and 2024 will be no exception.“PM Modi’s larger than life image, meticulously planked on the ideas of Hindutva, nationalism, developmentalism and corruption-free governance, will be the mainstay of BJP's campaign. It is also evident that attempts will be made by the BJP to draw the OBCs and the other socio-economically and politically vulnerable sections towards itself citing its welfare schemes. It is in this context that the opposition will try to prick a hole in this narrative by putting forth the numbers and data detailing the vulnerabilities and, by that way, driving home the point about the left behinds amongst the OBCs,” says Singh.He adds, “This might then be their (Opposition’s) plan to counter BJP’s consolidation of OBCs as a mega group under PM Modi’s leadership. While the caste census in Bihar may have been carried to identify and empower vulnerable groups, in reality it seems to be a political move aimed at electoral gains.”