Many people outside Bihar are not familiar with names like Bind, Dhanuk, Kahar, Kumhar, Badhai, Chaeen, Bhuniyan, Dom, Pasi––the list crosses 100 mark. These are the names of some Extremely Backward Castes and Maha Dalits of Bihar which, among other things, ensured the unprecedented victory of Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United)-BJP combine in Bihar. Even in Bihar a large number of people are still groping to know the factor, which led to this phenomenal victory of the NDA. Some are attributing it to development, some to good governance and better law and order situation, but very few to the social engineering crafted by Nitish Kumar, who himself is an engineer. In north Indian politics we normally hear the Upper Caste names like Brahmins, Bhumihars, Rajputs and Kayasthas. In west UP, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan we have Jats and Tyagis too. In Backward Castes category we normally hear about Koeris, Kurmis, Yadavs and Banias of different variety. Among Schedule Castes the name of Ravidas (Chamars) and Dussadhs (Paswans) often come on the lips. The truth is that the list is too long. There are about 200 Other Backward Castes and 22 Scheduled Castes in Bihar. But so far the political empowerment of the downtrodden section of the society is concerned it was confined to four or five in Backward Castes (BCs) and two in the Schedule Caste category. In a bid to improve the lot of more deprived section among BCs the then Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, in 1978 implemented the Mungeri Lal Commission, which was appointed in 1971 and submitted its report in 1975. The Commission divided the BCs into two categories so far job in the state government is concerned. The first category is as usual called the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and the second one the Extreme or Most Backward Castes (EBCs or MBCs). Karpoori, himself came from Nai (Barber), an Extremely Backward Caste of Samastipur district of north Bihar. While SCs and STs had 14 and 10 per cent reservation in the state government the quota for the OBCs was fixed at eight percent and EBC 12 per cent, three per cent for the women and another three per cent for the economically backward. After carving out of Jharkhand from Bihar, the above quota was amended as the state has now just one per cent tribal population. The ST quota was reduced to one per cent the SC quota was now fixed at 15 per cent, OBCs quota 13 per cent and EBCs 18 per cent and three per cent for backward caste women. According to a rough estimate about half of Bihar’s population falls under the BCs category. And half of this BCs fall in the category of EBCs, Thus their population in the state is something around 27-28 per cent. But the problem with them is that they are divided into about 100 castes and most of them are very small. They are mostly professional castes and known by their professions. The earlier empowerment of backward castes in north India was confined to the improvement in the lot of the OBCs such as Koeris, Kurmis, Yadavs and Banias, who were numerically, socially and even educationally more advanced than the EBCs. Therefore, in the post-Mandal years the former managed to dominate the state politics. Lalu Yadav, during his initial years as the chief minister, gave tickets to many EBCs in the elections. But so far empowerment is concerned they were still far behind. However, when Nitish Kumar came to power on the same day, November 24, 2005 the first thing he did was to politically empower this about 27 per cent population. Here it needs to be recalled that there are BCs among Muslims also, both in OBCs and EBCs categories. In 2006 the Nitish government announced 20 per cent reservation for the EBCs in the rural and urban local bodies. Besides, he increased the quota of women from existing 33 per cent to 50 per cent. Sixteen per cent was already reserved for Dalits since the 72nd and 73rd Constitutional Amendment. Thus 86 per cent of seats in panchayat and urban local bodies got reserved (50 per cent women, 20 per cent EBCs and 16 per SC, STs). This empowerment of the EBCs changed the equation at the grassroots level, especially in the rural areas, where Yadavs, Koeris and Kurmis––along with some Upper Castes––used to dominate the scene. Most of the mukhiyas (village heads) come from them. The new move changed the ground reality. With development funds directly going to panchayats the empowered mukhiyas from the EBCs section were largely thankful to Nitish. Besides, Nitish took another important step. To neutralize the stranglehold of Paswans and even Ravidas (Chamars) he set up a Maha Dalit Commission to give more benefit to Dalits among Dalits. There are 22 Dalit sub-castes in Bihar. But the condition of rest of them was much more deplorable. However, later Nitish succumbed to pressure and included Ravidas too in the Maha Dalit list leaving just Paswans outside. Minus Paswans the Schedule Castes form about 12 per cent of the population. Thus 27 per cent EBCs and 12 per cent Maha Dalits teamed up to neutralize Lalu Yadav’s combination of Muslims, Yadavs, Paswans and Rajputs. In fact the Rajputs did not vote for him as much as was expected. Thus he was defeated by his old friend-turn-rival Nitish Kumar in his own game of caste engineering.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:34:33 +0000
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