Muzamil Jaleel / IE
It’s hard to escape caste in Indian politics, but more so in Bihar, where politicians, with their enviable grip over caste arithmetic, play the game like no one else can. Last week, the RSS queered the pitch for the BJP when sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat called for a panel to decide “which categories require reservation and for how long”. Though the BJP was quick to distance itself from Bhagwat’s views, for the party, the RSS chief’s remarks were just bad timing. Bihar’s voter, especially the young voter who has grown up on a diet of Mandal politics and politicians, is all too politically astute to have missed the significance of the remark. Lalu only sharpened the lines further with his call for Mandal II.
For young voters, many of them born after 1990 when caste changed the narrative of politics and elections, this is an election unlike any of the recent ones — 2005 was about RJD’s ‘misrule’, 2010 was a test of Nitish’s ‘vikas’ and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls were only about Narendra Modi. With the first phase of polling on October 12, the election and its complex caste calculations are the subject of discussions at street corners, nukkad sabhas and addas such as this one at Hostel No. 7 in Magadh University. more
It’s hard to escape caste in Indian politics, but more so in Bihar, where politicians, with their enviable grip over caste arithmetic, play the game like no one else can. Last week, the RSS queered the pitch for the BJP when sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat called for a panel to decide “which categories require reservation and for how long”. Though the BJP was quick to distance itself from Bhagwat’s views, for the party, the RSS chief’s remarks were just bad timing. Bihar’s voter, especially the young voter who has grown up on a diet of Mandal politics and politicians, is all too politically astute to have missed the significance of the remark. Lalu only sharpened the lines further with his call for Mandal II.
For young voters, many of them born after 1990 when caste changed the narrative of politics and elections, this is an election unlike any of the recent ones — 2005 was about RJD’s ‘misrule’, 2010 was a test of Nitish’s ‘vikas’ and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls were only about Narendra Modi. With the first phase of polling on October 12, the election and its complex caste calculations are the subject of discussions at street corners, nukkad sabhas and addas such as this one at Hostel No. 7 in Magadh University. more
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