Bihar Polls: Reading Mahagathbandhan Manifesto Through a Phule-Ambedkarite Lens
MGB's manifesto claims to pose a philosophically and ideologically adversarial position to the BJP in Bihar polls.
advertisement
The Assembly Elections manifesto of a political party serves a dual purpose: it reflects its ideological principles and simultaneously outlines the functional agendas the party is promising to fulfil upon being elected. This nature of electoral manifestos has been exemplified by the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) national manifestos since the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, particularly in their evolving commitment to construct the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Through its Ram Mandir agenda and other promises, the BJP manifestos, in essence, have myriad ways promoted a brand of Hindu nationalism that criminalised cultures and nationalisms of heterogeneous Bahujan groups including Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Class (OBC) community and religious minorities, thus using the manifesto as a means to politicise the Hindutva ideology.
This significant position of the electoral manifesto in shaping political discourse prompts a review of some of the promises extended by the manifesto of the Mahagathbandhan (MGB), the Grand Alliance of Opposition parties including Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Rahul Gandhi's Congress, trying to wrest power in Bihar.
Named 'Bihar ka Tejashwi Prann', MGB's manifesto claims to pose a philosophically and ideologically adversarial position to the BJP in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections while presenting an electoral challenge to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) bloc.
Recently, 'Behenji' Mayawati organised a grand rally in Uttar Pradesh, reviving hopes among Bahujan voters and analysts for a future where BSP makes an electoral comeback. However, in Bihar, the party is not seen as a significant part of the electoral ethos.
A Phule-Ambedkarite reading of the MGB manifesto under the format constraints is, therefore, only restricted to some key points.
Reiterating Buddhist Expression Against Hindutva
First: MGB promises to empower Buddhist monks with control of the Mahabodhi Temple.
The over-a-century-long struggle for Buddhist control over the Mahabodhi Temple first encountered political expression through RJD under the aegis of Lalu Prasad Yadav in the year 1992. It was the same year when the Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh was demolished. Yadav, as the then Chief Minister, promised to hand over complete management of the Mahabodhi Temple site to the Buddhists and drafted a new bill to replace the The Bodh Gaya Temple Act (BT Act) of 1949. The Act was born out of a report by Rajender Prasad that mandated “sanatan” involvement.
The newly drafted bill challenged Brahmanical domination in many ways, like banning Hindu rituals in the vihara premises. This bill was pushed to inaction following an incident on 18 May 1992, when the activists from the Bodhisattva Ambedkar Sangh entered the temple premises and destroyed a smaller "Pandava temple" (as the structure was christened by Hindu priests) situated inside the vihara premises.
It isn't just the Mahabodhi Temple. Many religious, Hindu sites depict a history of Brahmanical appropriation against Buddhism. Lalu Prasad pacified the Buddhist protestors by appointing four of the protesting Buddhist monks to the Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC).
In the year 2025, under the leadership of Akash Lama (AIBF), this struggle took the shape of a wider, organised movement, popularly called Mahabodhi Mahamukti Andolan. The campaign has been receiving support from people all over the world; Kamaltai Gavai, the mother of current CJI Justice BR Gavai, has expressed her unconditional support.
The hearings regarding the writ petition are ongoing in the Supreme Court. It is interesting to note that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is often found at international platforms referring to India as the land of Buddha, which it is. But his party has never featured any Bodh Gaya-related Buddhist demand in their manifesto.
Safeguarding Students from Marginalised Backgrounds
Second: MGB has committed to sending 200 SC/ST students to pursue further education abroad and to declare "Not Fund Suitable/NFS" as a null and void status.
The data in the backdrop of this announcement makes it significant. In 2021-22, Bihar's Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education was 17.1 percent, significantly lagging behind the National GER of 28.4 percent.
In 2024, the draft guidelines by the Union Grant Commission (UGC) went on to propose “de-reservation” of positions within the institutions, which is causally related to NFS.
Academicians doing the progressive politics and Dalit-Bahujan student organisations have always critiqued NFS as a complex and institutional way used by the universities to keep OBC, SC, and ST individuals outside of the educational institutions.
MGB’s promise to voters of Bihar can be seen with reference to the Telangana overseas scholarship program for higher education available to OBC, SC, ST, and minority students since 2015. It has brought some impacts, although very slowly.
In 2023 it faced a major setback. The students who had secured admission had to face bitter consequences due to the withholding of their scholarship by the state government. This should be read by MBG to understand the importance of administrative swiftness and transparency and the damages to the marginalised communities’ students that can occur if absent.
Several studies and surveys point to how students from marginalised communities face institutional apathy in higher education even inside the premier institutions of India. The reported death by suicide of such students is an issue that various concerned bodies have long failed to address. Deshbandhu College, which is a part of the University of Delhi (DU), recently lost its sixth student to suicide this year. The young Dalit girl was a younger sister of the presidential candidate of the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students' Association (BAPSA) in Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU) election 2025, Raj Ratan Rajoriya.
This process of surviving the journey of higher education is a difficult one for the marginalised students.
This reminds me of the Supreme Court’s recent judgement. The landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in Sukdeb Saha vs State of Andhra Pradesh (July 2025) established that mental health is an integral part of the fundamental Right to Life (Article 21).
Although the case originated in Andhra Pradesh, the guidelines issued are binding national directives applicable to the entire educational sector, including all State Universities across the country, alongside all schools, colleges, and coaching centres.
The judgement mandates adopting a uniform Mental Health Policy, appointment of at least one qualified counsellor or psychologist (in institutions exceeding 100 students), and instituting confidential grievance mechanisms. This philosophy underlying this judgement and the list of mandates must act as a guiding resource for MGB in their process of ensuring a hurdle-free route to and of higher education within the state or during the overseas scholarship process for the OBC, SC, ST, queer and disabled students.
Inclusion in the Face of Historical Erasure
Third: MGB has proposed inclusion of Sant Raidas, Saint Kabirdas, and Dr BR Ambedkar in the school curriculum.
The manifesto commits to the establishment of the Savitribai Phule-Fatima Sheikh Women's University and residential schools for EBC and SC girls. These promises can be critically juxtaposed with the contemporary reality of syllabus revisions within the educational institutions.
Again, in 2023, the university's Standing Committee on Academic Matters suggested dropping the Discipline Specific Elective (DSE) course titled 'Philosophy of BR Ambedkar' from the syllabus for BA students as part of the New Education Policy (NEP) update.
The course has been taught since 2015. The Philosophy Department under the then-HoD Keshava Kumar strongly objected. In response to opposition, the committee changed its proposal, suggesting that the paper be changed to focus on modern philosophers in general, including Ambedkar. The philosophy department objected to this change as well.
DU even wanted the word "Hindu" dropped from the titles of two chapters on Ambedkar titled 'Ambedkar on Caste and Critique on Hindu Social Order' and 'Rise and Fall of Hindu Women'. Faculty members countered that this alteration would distort Ambedkar's work, as his original writings explicitly mention the word "Hindu," and his analysis of the social system was specifically in the context of Hindu society.
The political landscape in North India has produced many socialist leaders, but it has historically lacked the presence of organised political or socio-cultural movements and prominent figures such as Manywar Kanshiram, Lalai Baudh, and the Arjak Sangh.
Many leaders, academics and organisations within the Indian polical spectrum have been openly and fundamentally critical of the Hindu religion and orthodoxy from the Periyar-Phule-Ambedkarite perspective.
In Manywar Kanshiram’s words, an understanding of “social justice” without “social transformation” with context to Hindu philosophy is not possible. The approach used in the employment-promised readings for the school curriculum in the manifesto will therefore form the criticality of this pedagogical factor.
Empowering Workers and Women
Fourth: MBG promises to secure labour and employment rights for frontline women workers.
These workers form a very important part of carrying out government projects and policies. For Jeevika community mobilisers, the manifesto promises a fixed monthly salary of Rs 30,000, a waiver on existing loan interest, and an additional allowance of Rs 2,000 per month for other tasks.
The MGB manifesto also promises to grant contractual status and raise the monthly honorarium of accredited ASHA workers to Rs 10,000. Pan-India, ASHA workers form an important population of neglected frontline women workers. ASHA workers of different states have protested for employees' status and benefits under the labour laws all over the country at different points of time, including the recently long lasting protest in Kerala against the Left Democratic Front alliance in the state government.
Given this history, the manifesto's commitment to ASHA workers can be seen as a long-overdue, delayed, and incomplete recognition of ASHA workers’ contribution. The contractual worker status does not grant access to retirement, pension, and other employment benefits.
In addition, the manifesto also promises an increase of workdays for MNREGA workers and their daily wage to Rs 300.
Land and Social Justice
Fifth: MGB promises residential plots and proposes the leasing of barren government land for collective farming.
The Bandyopadhyay Commission, established in 2006 to identify illegally held land, was ultimately discarded by the Nitish Kumar government in 2009 after facing intense pressure from dominant landowning groups. He said that if redistributive land reforms could not be implemented in West Bengal, it had null scope in Bihar.
The Mahagathbandhan's 2025 manifesto attempts to tackle the theme of land by promising residential plots (three decimals in urban, five decimals in rural areas) to all landless individuals and proposing the leasing of barren government land for collective farming, especially to those from SC, ST, and Economically Backward Class (EBC) communities.
But these initiatives lack the major adaptation of the Bandyopadhyay Commission recommendations.
Even the major social justice-campaigning political parties are, thus, lacking comprehensive land reform out of fear of upsetting the landed class/caste. The issues in question has been frequently and strongly raised by contemporary young leader Rahul Sonpimple, national convenor of AIISCA.
(Aishwarya AVRaj is an independent journalist, writer and culture critic. This is an opinion piece and the view's expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)