New Delhi:

The Bihar government on Monday released data from a controversial caste-based survey that said nearly 63.1 per cent of the state’s 13.1 crore population belong to backward classes and nearly 85 per cent belong to either a backward or extremely backward class, or a Scheduled Caste / Tribe.

Specifically, 36 per cent of the state is from an extremely backward class, 27.1 per cent is from a backward class, 19.7 per cent is from a Scheduled Caste and 1.7 per cent is from a Scheduled Tribe. The general category, including so-called upper castes, account for 15.5 per cent.

The report also underlines the minority status of those who identify as Muslims in Bihar; they constitute less than 18 per cent of the population while those who identify as Hindus account for 82 per cent. In the 2011 Census these numbers were 16.9 per cent and 82.7 per cent, respectively.

A deep-dive shows the Yadav community – the group to which Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs – is the largest sub-group, accounting for 14.27 per cent of all OBC categories.

A further deep-dive shows that Kushwahas and Kurmis form 4.27 and 2.87 per cent of the population.

Brahmins constitute just 3.66 per cent of Bihar’s people.

READ | Bihar Caste Survey: 27% Backward Classes, 36% Extremely Backward Classes

The data – coming months before next year’s Lok Sabha poll – underlines the electoral importance of OBCs and marginalised communities – both for the BJP, which has opposed calls for a national caste census, and the opposition, which has been increasingly more and more vocal on the subject.

Over the past five Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has won over OBC votes at the expense of the Congress.

In the 1999 national election the OBC vote division was even – 23 to 24 per cent. This jumped to 34 per cent to 15 per cent in 2014 and then a massive 44 per cent for the BJP five years later.

READ | Bihar Caste Survey Results Out, Nitish Kumar Shares The Plan Ahead

In Bihar, that 63 per cent OBC+ EBC is a headline number for the BJP. In 2019 the BJP-led NDA won 39 of the state’s 40 seats; the BJP won 17, JDU (then its ally) 16 and the Lok Janshakti Party got six.

The BJP and its allies, then, benefitted from OBC votes, as they did in the 2020 Bihar election, when 81 per cent of Kurmis, 51 per cent of Koeris, and 58 per cent of other OBCs/EBCs voted for them.

Representation, though, hasn’t always been equal to population – a point Congress MP Rahul Gandhi made when he said only three of 90 Secretaries to the Indian government were from OBCs.

READ |“Important To Know Caste Statistics Of India”: Rahul Gandhi On Census

In fact, comparing the 2015 Bihar Assembly to the 2020 one shows a drop in MLAs from OBC and EBC communities from 48.6 per cent to 40.7. MLAs from the so-called upper castes increased from 23.9 per cent to 29.2 per cent, while those from the Muslim community fell from 9.9 to 7.8 per cent.

The party-wise division of these numbers identifies the BJP as having only 27 MLAs from OBC communities (compared to 34 from so-called upper castes). For the JDU this split was 22-10.

The RJD skew was even bigger in terms of OBC representation – 39-13.

Meanwhile, what the Bihar caste survey report also does is spotlight the significance of OBC + EBC communities for the BJP, the Congress and all political parties across the country, with particular focus on states voting this year – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Telangana.

In Telangana OBCs (as a percentage of households in rural areas) account for over 57 per cent. In Chhattisgarh that number is 51.4 per cent. This is 46.8 in Rajasthan and 42.4 in Madhya Pradesh.

The Bihar caste survey has been a polarising topic among India’s political parties, with battle lines drawn between (primarily) the ruling BJP on one side and a number of opposition parties on the other.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at an election event in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior today, hit out at those “trying to divide the country in the name of caste” – seen as a sharp response to Bihar’s caste survey.

READ |“Trying To Divide Country…”: PM After Bihar Releases Caste Survey Report

The INDIA bloc, which is pushing for a national caste census to ensure better targeting of development initiatives, has been boosted by the Bihar report. Rahul Gandhi – whose Congress is part of INDIA – said his party will order a similar exercise if it wins the Madhya Pradesh election due this year.

New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused the opposition of “trying to divide the country in the name of caste”, in a sharp comment that came hours after the Bihar government released details of its controversial state-wide caste-based survey. The Prime Minister did not refer to the survey or any specific party but, in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, he lashed out at the opposition for having failed to secure development while in power and attacked them for “playing with the feelings of the poor”.

“They played with emotions of the poor back then… and even today they are playing the same game. Earlier they divided the country in the name of caste… and today they are committing the same sin. Earlier they were guilty of corruption… and today they are even more corrupt,” he said in Gwalior.

The Prime Minister also called any attempt at “division on caste lines” a “sin”.

The PM’s comments were seen by many as a two-for-one swipe at the Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal (United), an ex-BJP ally, and the Congress, its primary opposition in Madhya Pradesh, and which has vowed to conduct a similar caste-based survey if it returns to power after elections later this year.

On Saturday Mr Gandhi – who has been vocal about the need for a caste census – said, “After coming to power, first thing we will do is to go for caste-based census to know exact number of OBCs…”

Responding to the Bihar government report today, Rahul Gandhi said on X, “… the Congress reiterates its demand that the union government conduct a national caste census at the earliest.”

“The (Congress-led) UPA government had, in fact, completed this census but its results were not published by the Modi government. Such a census is essential for providing a firmer foundation for social empowerment programmes and for deepening social justice,” Mr Gandhi’s party said today.

Pressure on the BJP to conduct a national caste census will increase after today, following the Bihar government report that said around 63 per cent of the state’s population hail from backward classes, and over 20 per cent are from Scheduled Castes or Tribes. The ‘general population’ – which includes so-called upper classes that dominated Bihar politics till the Mandal report – is about 15.5 per cent.

The report – released months before a general election in a state that has 40 parliamentary seats, 39 of which were won by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the 2019 election – will ramp up tension as states push for similar exercises and the opposition demands the centre hold a nation-wide count.

READ |Bihar Caste Survey: 27% Backward Classes, 36% Extremely Backward Classes

It also suggests the opposition is likely to make this a poll issue before the 2024 election, something underlined at the INDIA opposition bloc meeting in Mumbai early last month, although the weight of that demand was affected by Bengal’s ruling Trinamool refusing to support the call.

READ | Opposition Bloc INDIA Pushes For Caste Census In First Tactical Meeting

However, state and national BJP leaders haven’t always been on the same page on this topic, with the former unable, or unwilling, to fully support or resist the move, unlike the latter. On this occasion too, the party’s state unit boss Samrat Choudhary, telling NDTV the party will first “study methodology”.

Ex-Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, once Nitish Kumar’s right-hand man, said it was the BJP-JDU Bihar government – before Nitish Kumar quit the alliance – that resolved to hold a caste survey.

#WATCH | On the caste-based survey, BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi says, “When BJP was a part of the Bihar government, that government only took the decision to do a caste-based survey in Bihar. Today the Bihar government has made the data public. BJP is analysing the data. We will… pic.twitter.com/PVSLnLrPb6

— ANI (@ANI) October 2, 2023

Nitish Kumar, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav and RJD boss Lalu Prasad Yadav hailed the release of the caste-based survey report as a “watershed” moment. The Chief Minister also said he will call a meeting of all parties in the Assembly – including the Prime Minister’s BJP – to discuss the next step.

READ | Bihar Caste Survey Results Out, Nitish Kumar Shares The Plan Ahead

The last time a caste-based headcount was conducted was in 1931.

In 2011 the Congress-led UPA central government conducted a socio-economic caste census and, five years later, that data was published. However, data relating to castes was not, and has not since.

Bihar is the first state to have completed and published the results of such an exercise.

Karnataka conducted a caste-based survey in 2014 but did not make data public. Telangana announced one for 2021 but it was never carried out. Odisha, this year, said it too would hold a caste-based survey.

Patna:

The publication of Bihar’s caste survey data this afternoon sparked sharp exchanges between the ruling coalition of Janata Dal United and Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Opposition BJP. While JDU leader and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his ally and RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav termed the publication of the report “historic”, leaders of the BJP called it an “eyewash”.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the publication of the report has coincided with Gandhi Jayanti and congratulated the survey team for its work. On what comes next, he said a meeting of the nine political parties in Bihar Assembly, who had unanimously voted in support of the survey, will be called soon, and they will be informed about the findings of the survey. “The caste survey has also provided information about the economic condition of various castes. Steps will be taken for the development of all communities on the basis of this data,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The BJP was among the nine parties that had backed the caste survey exercise.

RJD founder and former Chief Minister Lalu Yadav, too, welcomed the publication of the survey report and said the exercise was completed despite “BJP’s conspiracies and legal hurdles”.

“These figures will set a benchmark for the country in giving representation to deprived and oppressed sections and the poor as per their population and to make policies for their development,” he posted on X.

The central government, Mr Yadav said, should ensure that sections of the society get a share in development as per their numbers. “We will get a caste Census done when we form the government in 2024,” said the RJD leader, who is among the prominent faces in the Opposition’s INDIA bloc that plans to take on the BJP in the general election next year.

Mr Yadav’s son and Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav said the publication of the report is a milestone in a decades-long struggle. “This survey has not just provided caste-based numbers, but also given a context about their socio-economic condition. Now the government will ensure all-round development on the basis of this data,” he said.

Targeting the BJP, the Deputy Chief Minister added, “History is witness to how the BJP leadership tried to create hurdles. Bihar has set an example. Bihar has shown the way.”

Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Giriraj Singh termed the survey report an “eyewash”. “This survey is just going to spread doubts among the people,” Mr Singh said.

State BJP chief Samrat Choudhary said the party will study the report in detail and then share its opinion. He stressed that the BJP had firmly supported the survey. “The BJP had given its full support to this survey. We started the work when we were part of the government in Bihar,” he said.

On the findings of the survey, he said the numbers are in line with what they had expected. “But we will give an official response only after studying the methodology and mechanism followed in the survey,” Mr Choudhary said.

The findings of the caste-based survey are likely to trigger demands to increase reservation of OBCs, now capped at 27 per cent. According to the survey results, backward classes account of about two-thirds of Bihar’s population. The findings, which come months ahead of the general election, will also emerge as a key talking point in the run-up to the polls.

On whether he thinks quotas need to be increased in line with the survey findings, the state BJP chief said, “Babasaheb Ambedkar had introduced this provision for backward classes, then the Mandal Commission came, then Rohini Commission. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently ensured that the various findings are studied. The government will ensure whatever action is required,” he said.