They may have slowed down, and they don’t cause as much friction as they used to in the politically unsteady ‘90s, but the wheels of Mandal haven’t stopped turning. Not in Nitish Kumar’s Bihar, where according to the prevailing political shorthand, the subject has turned from ‘caste’ to ‘development’. Not even among the Dalits, widely acknowledged to be the most uniformly deprived section of society.

In Bihar, the month of August will see the government step up implementation of a 21-point programme for a newly-minted group of sub-castes, the ‘Mahadalits’, the most marginalised among Dalits. The government’s ‘Mahadalit agenda’ became the subject of political controversy most recently because of the street agitation worked up by Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Paswan, who gets a significant section of the state’s fragmented Dalit vote and whose party performed poorly in the recent Lok Sabha polls, alleges that the Nitish government’s decision to carve out the new category is driven by votebank politics and will ‘divide’ the Dalits.

Does state imprimatur on the ‘Mahadalit’ category reflect the urgency to ensure that development schemes reach the most marginalised of the marginalised? Or is it part of Nitish Kumar’s perceived attempt to firm up a support base by mobilising lower sections of social groups in the state?

Ever since his victory in the 2005 Assembly polls, the Bihar Chief Minister has made concerted efforts to address the Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) among Other Backward Castes (OBCs), backward or ‘pasmanda’ Muslims among Muslims, and women. Could the wooing of Mahadalits among Dalits be part of a pattern?

... contd.