Bihar Votes On Caste, Not Change: Dalits Still Left Out Of Power

The more things change in Bihar, the more they remain the same. Not because people are averse to change, but their level of acquiescence to the so-called ‘system’ is such that they accept, at the end of the day, the status-quo as something which has been ordained to them. This could be seen in the formation and the affectivity of the caste-based associations and groups. The power-relations, embedded in the caste-ties, controls impulses, emotions and motivations so firmly that any socio-cultural transformation is met either with oppression or political violence. The caste wars in Bihar are replete with the stories of tyranny and hope.

Bihar is, to put it succinctly, a history of a ‘surrealistic tale of violence’, a politics of ‘an inversion of insurgent citizenship’, a sociology of the ‘construction of docile bodies through hegemony’ and an economics of ‘a behavioural irrationalism in the dismal rules of the game’. The stakes of State-power, caste and class essentially try to sustain, what Jeffrey Witsoe once remarked about Bihar, a ‘feudal democracy’. Typically, Bihar is a case of ‘class-in-caste’ politics, wherein the political foundation is caste which carries the burden of its own class.

Dalit Politics in Bihar

To understand the layers of Dalit politics in Bihar, it is important to understand the order of the things that caste reflects, both in its normative and processual dimensions. While observers, mainly from outside Bihar, equate Bihar and caste as a ‘mirror-image’, the popular imagination in Bihar about caste is that it is embedded in all the facets of human life, so much so that caste-identity becomes the foundational identity shaping most of the cultural, social, economic and political life. The caste-system, based on the ‘ideology of the ritual of purity’, contains and continues, not only the ‘primordial norms’ of hierarchies and the ruptures in public life, but also plays out in the complex system of economic, social and political domination.

As per the Bihar Caste Survey (2022-23), the Dalits, officially designated as Scheduled Caste (SC), are at the bottom of the three hierarchical layers of Hindus—upper (forward) caste, backward caste, and Dalits—and constitute 19.5 per cent of Bihar’s population (25.69 million). Dominant among them are Paswans (5.31 per cent), Ravidas (5.25 per cent) and Mushars (3.1 per cent). Given the size of the population, Dalits have been a decisive force in State assembly elections since independence, but their marginality, precarity and exclusions in between the elections have pushed them to resist, sometimes as peasant revolts and sometimes as Naxal movements, particularly in the wake of unmediated political power struggles. In a primarily agrarian class structure (80 per cent rural), Bihar presents a strong connect between caste and highly unequal landholding pattern, with no Dalit holding land in ten acres as compared to a whopping 77.4 per cent of upper castes holding land ten acres and above, and 44 per cent of Dalits being landless whereas only 2.9 per cent of upper castes are landless. This in itself explains Bihar’s ‘class-in-caste’ character, and much of the electoral politics veers around this disposition.

Dalits in Bihar, as landless peasants and also as sharecroppers (bataidars) and agricultural labourers, suffer the worst excesses of class and caste injustices. We see the proliferation of caste associations and, in order to secure their social and political life, they resist the social power of upper-caste landlords and rich peasants. At the root of Dalits’ political assertions, therefore, have always been the ‘strained agrarian relations’ between the upper-caste landlords and the lower-caste tenants. They look forward to political parties which can help resolve the core questions of ‘land reforms’ and aspire to participate in the democratic processes, particularly in local and State governance.

The Struggle for Political Power

At the time of independence, Bihar’s politics was dominated, near monopolised rather, by the Congress and the upper castes, but supported by Dalits, among others. The factional politics within the Congress (1947-67) was essentially imbued with upper-caste feuds to grab political power. For instance, a faction led by S.K. Sinha (Bhumihar) was in conflict with the other faction led by A.N. Sinha (Rajput) with Kayastha leaders aligning with the Rajputs. Dalits rallied behind the Congress for the simple reason that they believed that the rights and reservations as enshrined in the Constitution were gifts from the Congress.

Congress dominance waned and waxed during 1967-77, and Bihar experienced the instability crisis, mainly due to defections and counter-defections. However, this period saw the newfound negotiating powers of the upper backward castes in getting a ‘larger share of ministerial posts’. Karpoori Thakur, an icon of a backward caste leader, became deputy chief minister (1967), heralding the rise of backward castes in Bihar politics. The J.P. Movement (early 1970s), which included almost all hues—liberals, Gandhians, Socialists, Sarvodayatis, Hindu nationalists, some radical humanists—basically to counter Indira Gandhi’s growing centralisation and mis-governance, conspicuously missed out Dalits, Muslims and poor peasants, to take into its fold. Despite this exclusion, Thakur became the chief minister (1977) and once again trumpeted the alternative to the Congress and the resurgence of backward caste politics.

It was the 1990 assembly elections that marked the paradigmatic shift in political power towards four major castes—Yadavs, Kurmis, Koiris and Banias. Lalu Prasad Yadav reinvented a new Bihar by giving a voice and prestige to the oppressed masses. Lalu’s politics—vernacular, popular and non-Brahminical—had an astute mix of the lower castes with the Muslims as its social base.

Ram Vilas Paswan, a formidable Dalit leader, formed the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in 2000, which he claimed would be working for ‘social justice’, and would not be dictated by any religion, caste, creed or trade. The party emerged to counter Lalu’s rule and committed itself to ‘secular values’, ‘social harmony’, ‘national development’, ‘socialist nation’, ‘national integrity’, and ‘participation of downtrodden in the nation building’. Dalits have remained, despite being a sizeable chunk of the population, largely unaffected by the hurly burly strife of forward-backward caste politics. Dalit conditions, despite the presence of towering leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan, are laced with economic deprivations and social inequalities and their political influence is fragmented by sub-caste divisions. The Chamars, the Paswans and the Mushars form the base of Dalit identity, but politically they get played out by the competing leaderships. A small section within them, mainly the upwardly mobile noveau riche, tends to align with the power elite of the ruling regime.

In the ensuing assembly elections (2025), the Dalit votes remain a contested site. The Lok Janshakti Party (RV), led by Chirag Paswan (Ram Vilas Paswan’s son), is upbeat about contesting 29 seats as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and claims to meet the expectations of a Dalit political legacy. With six per cent vote share and 100 per cent strike rate in the 2024 general elections, LJP (RV) is hoping to move beyond its Paswan-Dalit base, and expecting to be the kingmaker in the government formation. In terms of caste arithmetic, the INDIA bloc is seen as consolidating the Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) along with its own traditional caste compositions, the JD (U) being in disarray, and other smaller typically caste-based parties focusing on their own castes, leaves little room for Chirag Paswan to move beyond its Dalit-Paswan constituency. It is also difficult for him to mobilise Dalits by raising their ‘Dalit-collective-consciousness’, while simultaneously being part of the NDA.

Dalits remain internally fragmented, partly due to their ideological disorientation and partly due to their deference to the ruling power elites of upper castes. Also, they are still trapped in the ‘precarity and exclusions’, as far as education, employment, health and social equality indicators reveal. The real question in such a scenario is that which party can go beyond the rhetoric of social justice. Which brings up another important question: can Chirag Paswan’s party reconcile saffronisation with social justice?

(Views expressed are personal)

Tanvir Aeijaz teaches Politics and Public Policy at University of Delhi and is Hon. Vice-Chairman at the Centre for Multilevel Federalism (CMF), New Delhi.

This story appeared as Bihar is not for Beginners in Outlook’s November 11 issue, titled "Caste is the Biggest Political Party in Bihar," which explores how caste plays multiple interconnected roles in seat-sharing and coalition-building in the land of the setting sun.