With Eye on Bihar, Modi Walks Caste Line in Times of Resurgent Identity Politics
Not admitting to the emergence of identity politics would have taken the BJP on a path of self-denial.
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The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) on Wednesday, 30 April 2025, accorded approval to caste enumeration in the next decadal census in the country. The decision is pivoted towards the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, and comes after a substantive meeting of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) supremo Mohan Bhagwat with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of Union Minister for Home Affairs, Amit Shah, the day before.
The decision to enumerate castes in the next census has principally been rationalised by the government to clear “confusion” amid states holding caste surveys.
To Put the Caste Genie Back in the Bottle
Evidently, the horses pulling the caste census bogey had bolted around the Lok Sabha elections. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar claimed to have been the architect of the caste census demand. He along with his then deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav had led a delegation to the Prime Minister within the first few months of the formation of the government after the Bihar Assembly elections in 2020.
While Kumar returned to the saffron tent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) subsequently, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, picked up the caste census plank as his principal political pivot.
Gandhi in recent weeks has visited Bihar on three occasions. His thrust remains on the caste census. The CCPA decision, thus, aims to blunt Gandhi’s principal political weapon in the Bihar Assembly elections.
Mohan Bhagwat in Huddle with Modi and Shah
In Nagpur earlier this year, Modi had no chance of holding a private meeting with Bhagwat. But the RSS supremo has been in New Delhi for the past 10 days, attending to three publicised programmes. He finally met Modi, with Shah also present, at the 7 Lok Kalyan Marg residence of the Prime Minister.
Old timers in the BJP assert that Bhagwat is a master of persuasion and in serving blunt messages. Bhagwat had persuaded BJP patriarch LK Advani to drop his opposition against the party’s decision to name Modi as the Prime Minister face in 2013.
The BJP and the RSS insiders concur that Bhagwat had been worried about the political campaigns for caste census by non-RSS entities. After all, the outfit asserts the political philosphy of 'Samarasta' (social amity) as the core thrust of the RSS to attain consolidation of Hindus. The demands for the caste census are in direct conflict with the ‘Samarasta’ of the RSS.
Silencing the Blazing Caste Census Guns
The BJP’s defeat in Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections had stunned the party’s political brains. Unlike Haryana and Uttarakhand, the BJP-led government was voted out with the Congress win credited to the demands for the ‘Old Pension Scheme' (OPS).
The BJP saw the writing on the wall. Union Minister for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman announced a committee to look into the demands of the unions. Afterwards, the Union Cabinet accorded approval to a Universal Pension Scheme. The political teeth of the OPS were broken, and it now ceases to exist. The employees felt relieved that “something was better than nothing”.
The approval to the caste enumeration in the next census is, thus, a textbook replication of the manner in which the politics of OPS was killed. With the government having already agreed for the caste enumeration in the next census, the politics over it loses the basis and relevance, at least until the outcome of the census is not known.
The 2021 Census is running behind schedule. The delimitation of parliamentary constituencies is due in 2026, as the 25-year freeze in 2001 by then Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government expires next year. The next few weeks will reveal if the census will roll out in time to meet the delimitation deadline.
No Instant Gratification on Anvil
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said, during the Cabinet briefing, that the census comes under the Union List of the Constitution. This implies that states can no more order caste census. Also, it will be the Centre that will decide the broad parameters of holding the caste enumeration.
The Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011, commissioned by the Manmohan Singh-led government, didn’t yield the caste data even after 14 years. The officials had flagged data entry inaccuracies which remained unresolved until the tenure of the UPA government ended, and afterwards it was forgotten.
Even while the caste enumeration exercise is done in the next census, which may be held as per the convenience of the Centre, the actual caste data will possibly still be withheld to fully meet the demands of accuracy in data capturing. This will possibly put the politics behind the caste census on years of amnesia.
Reviving the Rohini Commission Report
The Justice G Rohini Commission submitted the report on the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) to President in 2023. The Commission was constituted in 2017. Last year, the Supreme Court allowed the states to sub-classify reservations within the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The apex court verdict is now a sub-categorisation lamppost for the BJP.
The BJP is testing the political heft of sub-categorisation of reservation in states. The saffron outfit is now close to getting convinced that the politics of OBC is an emerging threat for the BJP. To checkmate the challenge, the fragmentation of the OBC identity aligns with the larger RSS aim for the consolidation of Hindus.
The BJP will aim for dilution of the political heft of dominant OBC castes in state politics. The resurgence of the M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination in Bihar has the BJP-Janata Dal (United) worried. The BJP lost a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha in the 2024 general elections after the Samajwadi Party took the pole position in Uttar Pradesh.
Not admitting to the emergence of identity politics would have taken the BJP on a path of self-denial. The BJP leaders believe that Bhagwat sensitised Modi to deal with the challenge urgently.
(The author is a Delhi-based political journalist, who for over two decades worked for The New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, The Asian Age, and The Statesman. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.))
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