On October 2, the federal government of the jap Indian state of Bihar launched the report of a survey on the state’s inhabitants by caste – a conventional hierarchical division in Hindu society. The state is dominated by a coalition of events which are a part of the just lately fashioned opposition INDIA bloc.

Hours later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out on the opposition events for dividing the nation alongside the traces of caste.

“They divided the country in the name of caste in the past and are committing the same sin today,” he said whereas addressing a rally within the poll-bound state of Madhya Pradesh.

Bihar’s caste survey has triggered calls from a number of political events for comparable surveys in different states, even a nationwide survey. Such surveys might present a lift to caste-based politics within the nation.

This has India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fearful. The forces of caste and Hindu nationalism have repeatedly collided for nearly a century. Now, they might not solely dampen the BJP social gathering’s possibilities within the state meeting elections scheduled in November but additionally adversely affect its prospects in parliamentary elections which are scheduled to be held in April-May 2024.

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The Congress-ruled northwestern state of Rajasthan, which matches to the meeting polls on November 23, has already issued a notification initiating a caste-based socio-economic survey. In BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, the Congress is trying to nook the BJP on this demand within the November election.

The caste survey in Bihar revealed that Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) and Backward Classes (BC) comprise 36 % and 26 % of the inhabitants, respectively. Together they’re known as the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and account for 62 %, whereas the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and normal class (or ahead castes) make up 19.7 %, 1.7 %, and 15.5 % of Bihar’s 137 million folks, respectively.

India supplies for the reservation of seats for marginalized castes. 22.5 % of seats in training, jobs, and legislatures are reserved for SCs and STs. While 27 % of seats in central authorities jobs and training are reserved for the OBC class, they don’t have any reservation in political illustration.

The lack of information on the dimensions of the OBC inhabitants has been a serious political situation for many years. Yet, successive central governments have prevented counting them by means of any decadal census, though SCs and STs are individually enumerated.

Different governments on the heart have cited completely different arguments – from lack of parity in OBC lists of various states and the middle to the latest argument that it “will adversely affect the integrity of Census exercise.”

However, based on psephologist and political activist Yogendra Yadav, no authorities needed to rely the OBC as a result of they didn’t need to encounter “inconvenient truths.” Counting OBCs would reveal “the social, educational, and economic privileges of the upper-caste Hindus,” who comprise lower than a fifth of India’s inhabitants however “occupy broadly 80 percent of all positions of power and privilege,” Yadav wrote in 2021.

The Congress, however, has been intensifying its push for a caste census for fairly a couple of months now and pressed for it even through the debates on the Women’s Reservation Bill – in each Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha – in September.

Bihar’s caste survey revealing 62 % OBC inhabitants has given the demand a brand new impetus and strengthened the demand for growing the OBC reservation quota in jobs and training and introducing OBC reservation in political illustration.

“Jitni Abadi, Utna Haq (rights proportional to population share),” Congress parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi said quickly after the Bihar survey report was launched. Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal echoed Gandhi.

In Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, which accounts for 13.5 % of parliamentary seats, all main opposition events, together with the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, and even the BJP’s ally Apna Dal, have indicated they will use this demand to construct voter consolidation.

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This has evoked concern within the BJP for a number of causes.

The social gathering, and its ideological dad or mum, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are ideologically against caste politics. They vehemently defend the Vedic texts and social system that has come underneath extreme criticism from caste-based politicians and events.

Besides, the BJP-RSS ecosystem is dominated by Brahmins, the priestly caste on the high of the Hindu social hierarchy, whereas caste-based politics have continuously taken anti-Brahmin or anti-upper caste types. It is usually folks belonging to the higher castes who would undergo if OBCs reach assembly their calls for.

The BJP and the RSS additionally consider that caste politics disallows them from uniting Hindus on non secular traces. It divides their Hindu assist base.

Ahead of the 2015 Bihar state election, RSS helmsman Mohan Bhagwat known as for a evaluation of the caste-based reservation system in India. His remark was blamed for the BJP’s subsequent poor present within the election. He reiterated this view in 2019, quickly after Modi returned to energy for a second time period.

The Modi authorities has been opposing the demand of counting OBCs since 2020 – from turning down proposals from the Maharashtra state assembly and the National Commission for Backward Classes to submitting affidavits within the Supreme Court.

The authorities has prevented releasing the caste knowledge from the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census. It told Parliament final 12 months that it had no plan of releasing the information. It additionally tried to cease Bihar from releasing its survey report however the Supreme Court didn’t restrain Bihar.

This is regardless of Modi’s penchant for exhibiting his personal OBC background. In reality, simply two days earlier than Bihar launched the survey report, Modi, whereas addressing an election rally in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, alleged that the Congress retains insulting him to truly insult the OBCs.

With elections nearing and the opposition pushing for a nationwide caste census and OBC reservation in politics, the BJP and the RSS look like adjusting their technique accordingly. In a serious reversal of his earlier stand on caste-based reservation, Bhagwat mentioned in September that this coverage ought to proceed so long as there may be discrimination in society. However, he was silent on OBC reservation.

In recent years, the BJP has managed to get the assist of a lot of OBCs. It is apprehensive that with the opposition taking on the OBC trigger, it might lose out.

To nullify the opposition marketing campaign, Modi introduced the “PM Vishwakarma” scheme in August with a monetary outlay of round $1,562 million for artisans and craftsmen, who primarily belong to the OBC class.

The query is whether or not such schemes will probably be sufficient to counter the opposition’s demand for OBC reservations. Or, wouldn’t it immediate the BJP to boost the pitch of its Hindu nationalist appeals?

In 1990, a month after the Union authorities introduced 27 % reservation for OBCs in central authorities jobs, the BJP’s then President Lal Krishna Advani launched into a nationwide rally to mobilize assist for the demolition of the sixteenth century Babri mosque and (re)development of a Ram Temple on the identical web site in Ayodhya. The intention was to unite Hindus throughout caste divisions.

Now, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who rose from caste-based politics within the Nineteen Nineties, has opened a Pandora’s field just some months earlier than Modi is predicted to inaugurate the newly constructed Ram Temple.

It stays to be seen how the Hindu nationalists use Lord Ram to counter the opposition’s caste politics.