By Vivekanand Jha*
Can Mandal upend Kamandal again? Giving a twist to its earlier decision of refusing to stay the August 1 order of the Patna High Court that cleared the way for a caste survey in Bihar, the Supreme Court today fixed October 6, 2023, to hear petitions challenging the High Court order, once the survey was released yesterday.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti today told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that it had listed the pleas for hearing.
The Patna High Court, while giving its 101-page verdict, had stated that it found the Bihar Government’s action to be “perfectly valid, initiated with due competence with the legitimate aim of providing development with justice”.
Yesterday, the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar Government made the caste census public which revealed Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) constituted over 63% of Bihar’s population (EBCs 36% and OBCs 27.13%), while the Yadavs constituted 14.27% population of the state. Dalits, also known as the Scheduled Castes, accounted for 19.65% of the State’s population, as per the survey.
The whole caste census episode, at a time when the general elections are approaching, has triggered a debate on whether India was again on its way towards the revival of the Mandal Commission. Whether the agenda of casteist leaders who thrive by manipulating caste sentiments had again thrown the gauntlet at the “progressive forces” (read the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance)! The votaries of Kamandal argued that the Bihar government and other opposition parties were desperately trying to abort the consolidation of Sanatanis on the solitary issue: dangling the carrots of the reservation policy to them and, thereby, disrupting their common Hindu identity, for the sake of vote bank politics.
In the wake of Bihar jumping the gun on the caste census, nine states have already indicated following suit. Not to say that Nitish Kumar, who seldom tires from tom-tomming his political tutelage under the stewardship of Atal Behari Vajpayee, finally took recourse to the politics of VP Singh.
The opposition block of I.N.D.I.A. which purportedly appears to be highly excited with this caste census programme extending to the entire country, has the only opponent from its own side: Mamata Banerjee. The West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo seems sceptical of her own apparent Brahminical background and appears to be deeply scared of the caste virus getting imported into West Bengal, once the tempo of the caste census reaches its culminating point in the different parts of the country.
The shrewd politician that Mamata is, she knows that once the feverish pitch of caste polarisation engulfs the different parts of the nation, even her hitherto caste impervious state, shall willy-nilly fall prey to its inevitable temptation. Consequently, her own rule will be in jeopardy.
But then, can just one person in the block, Mamata, be able to resist the wind of revival of Mandal fever which has already gripped the constituents of I.N.D.I.A. Block?
As for the state of Bihar, it ironically, has captured the nation’s attention, yet again. All eyes are now on the Supreme Court. Can it deliver the goods, that will be good for the nation? And how?
*Vivekanand Jha is an Author, Academician and Public Intellectual. The views expressed are personal.
