With 55 out of the 243 Assembly seats in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a coalition partner in the presentstate government, commands decisive influence. The BJP shares its traditional support base among the upper caste landlords with that of the Ranvir Sena.
With the ascent of elements drawn from this traditional elite in the new government, analysts like Shaibal Gupta of the Bihar-based Asian Development Research Institute, fear that "the Ranvir Sena would now be encouraged to re-mobilise and operate in a more overt manner." A national news television channel pointed out, in a report on December 11, 2005, that, at a recent public meeting at Kurtha in Arwal District, Ranvir Sena men were spotted sharing a dais with an upper casteminister in the state government. A vernacular daily reported on November 22 that, during a raid within Patna’s Beur prison, a mobile phone was recovered from the custody of imprisoned Sena chief, Brahmeshwar Singh Mukhiya, raising concerns that he was directing the Sena’s activities from the prison premises.
Founded in September 1994 in the Belaur Village of the Udwantnagar Block in Bhojpur District, the Ranvir Sena came into existence primarily to counter the influence of various Naxalite groups in central Bihar. From Bhojpur, over a period of time, the Ranvir Sena spread to Jehanabad, Patna, Rohtas, Aurangabad, Gaya, Arwal and Buxar Districts. It mobilised the landed gentry, especially from the Bhumihar caste in the Hindu caste hierarchy, against the erstwhile Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), the Communist Party of India – Marxist Leninist (Party Unity) [or CPI-ML (Party Unity)] and the CPI-ML (Liberation). The Sena’s ‘protection’ became necessary for upper caste landlords when the CPI-ML (Liberation), Party Unity and the MCC, began taking up class and caste issues, challenging the landlords and reclaiming their surplus land to redistribute it among the landless scheduled castes and backward castes.
Unlike the other ‘private armies’ or ‘senas’, such as the Brahmarshi Sena, Kuer Sena, Kisan Morcha and Ganga Sena, the Ranvir Sena was militarily far better organised and its cadres much better paid. Official sources indicated that, in year 2000, each member of the Sena was paid between Rupees 1,100 and Rupees 1,200 per month, as landowners financed the Sena through generous subscriptions. Further, the life of each cadre was insured for INR 100,000. The outfit, however, met with a setback when its chief, Brahmeshwar Singh Mukhiya, was arrested in Patna on August 29, 2002, and another of its senior leaders, Bhuar Thakur, was arrested on December 24, 2002.
Prior to 2002, the Sena had, according to data available, committed eight massacres, where the victims numbered more than 10, and another 19, where the fatalities numbered less than 10 in each case. The most prominent of these were the Bathanitola massacre in Bhojpur District on July 11, 1996, which left 22 Scheduled Caste agricultural labourers dead; the Lakshmanpur-Bathe massacre in Jehanabad District on December 1, 1997, in which 58 scheduled castes were killed; and the Mianpur massacre in Aurangabad District on June 16, 2000, which accounted for 35 victims. Since the arrest of its head in August 2002, the Ranvir Sena has not executed any massacres, and appeared to have been considerably weakened. But the persistence of the dynamics that prompted its formation, and the continuing ground realities that accentuate caste conflict, undermine the possibilities of peace in the State.
While, the reportage on the Ranvir Sena-Maoist conflict is extensive, the activities of the Sena at the district and local level have largely gone unreported. Though the levels of Ranvir Sena violence have been whittled down, the organisation remains active. Some incidents in the post-2002period demonstrate the Sena’s continued penchant for violence: