The dark spectre of purported caste census in Bihar, if given a green signal, the prospect of which appears certain today, has the combustible potential to take Bihar and India back to the days of conflagration brought about by the implementation of Mandal Commission report. Significantly, when Hindu awakening is gaining currency, the diabolical agenda to emasculate the consolidation of Hindus, by creating the irreplaceable fissures within Hindus, will be the death knell to the collective identity of Hindus as a homogeneous identity. No wonder, the onus is on Nitish Kumar, whether he will step into V.P. Singh’s shoes and be a tainted iconoclast for all time to come, for caste census is not weakening BJP, but throttling Hindu unity when the prospect of the same appears to resonate with one and all.
Vivekanand Jha Ranchi: Nitish Kumar has stirred the hornets nest. His persistent effort, in the wake of the rumours gaining currency that BJP was seeking to replace him by its own candidate, has galvanised him to go for a kill; to show his power to BJP, what drastic he is capable of doing to the BJP by engendering the process of institutionalising the Caste Census. Small wonder then, showing his inbuilt chameleon like colour, he has once again knocked at the door of his old ally: Laloo Prasad Yadav. Interestingly, his outreach to Laloo and Tejaswi, on this impending Caste Census, as expected, immediately brought BJP on the backfoot for the obvious reasons: BJP, despite being no more the party of forward castes, even though mistakenly is being presumed to be so, and therefore, in view of the statistical proportion of the composition of population along caste lines would surely expose the hitherto nurtured secrets of BJP: the permutation and combination of its electoral arithmetic along caste lines where forward caste is its pivot. However, BJP’s giving a boot to Nupur Sharma, its spokesperson, ostensibly for her fulminations against Islam, where she was nowhere at fault, once again reinforces the fact that BJP has no more inclinations to back its forward caste leaders, especially if the face is Brahminical, even though inadvertently Brahmins may continue to count upon BJP as its very own party. Unequivocally, the Caste Census, if implemented, will further marginalise the forward castes, especially Brahmins, for the naked truth that caste census is likely to expose is the numerical insignificance of Brahmins and other forward castes vis a vis the numerical behemoth of so called backward castes in Bihar.
In 1992, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, rising to power, based on the image of being an honest man, framed a seductive slogan: Raja nahi faquir hai, desh ka takdeer hai( Not a king, but a mendicant, yet the destiny of the nation) That same faquir (mendicant) would inflict such a permanent damage to the country, was beyond anyone’s remotest of imaginations. Presuming his own vulnerability, Vishwanath Pratap Singh unleashed hitherto the unprecedented damage to the unity of Hindus by implementing the dubious Reservation policy which had sought to throttle the meritocratic structure of the polity. This, in the process, had contributed to meritocracy taking the back seat, and the numerical supremacy began asserting its power in the polity. Worse still, the avowed mission was ‘ divide and rule’, for the majority of Hindus, most of whom languishing at the bottom of the social pyramid, found an obvious succour in the Reservation Policy. However ironically, as the decades passed, the creamy layer among the backwards grabbed this bonanza and progressed upward in the ladder of success. Significantly, the obvious motto, far from being altruistic, had an ulterior malafide intention too: To divide Hindus yet again into many fragments. Small wonder then, Lal Krishna Advani’s Rath Yatra was the most appropriate antidote to Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s clever stratagem to further emasculate Hindus. It was then touted as the battle between Mandal versus Kamandal. Finally, Rath Yatra reaching crescendo, Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s Mandal, even though won the day for reservation, nonetheless had to pave the way for Kamandal to gain currency: The pan unity of Hindus, if not in totality, yet the initial semblance of the same was palpable in the wake of demolition of Babrimosque, for the imprints of foreign invasion and subjugation which had come to define this secular India, finally was nipped in bud.
Incidentally, the departure of Vishwanath Pratap Singh had failed to obliterate his toxic legacy of Reservation policy which had killed meritocracy in India by a single stroke of pen. No political dispensation worth its name could sum up the courage to dismantle the roots of reservation. The general class ended up as the victim of this lopsided policy which favoured ignorance over intelligence. The flood of most undeserving lots making to the merit lists in all competitive government examinations, including Civil Services, has dealt a severe blow to the meritocratic structure of the society. Thus, Vishwanath Pratap Singh had wrought the heaviest blow to the meritocratic structure of the nation, and dividing and sub- dividing Hindus further. Regrettably, the divide between the so called forward and backward became even more starker. Unfortunately, despite being an architect of Reservation policy, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, so called messiah of poor people, was dumped in no time; the ironical part of which was his being given a decent burial by the so called backward castes for whom he sought to be a messiah and re-write their collective destiny
Nitish Kumar too stands on a political crossroad today. His party being second largest, yet he continues to govern the coalition with an ease. However, of late , the voice of dissension growing up to upset his applecart: The clamour for his removal was ringing in the corridors of power, with the rumours doing rounds was his being sent to Rajya Sabha while someone from BJP will take the charge of the government, injected a sense of demoralisation in Nitish Kumar. This propaganda almost drove Nitish Kumar to the acts of desperation: His latest gimmick to go for the Caste Census is brought about by sheer vengeance, rather than a calibrated move to outmanoeuvre his senior partner in the government through some rational political moves. The caste census, if implemented, will not only further expose the numerical insignificance of Brahmins and other forward castes, it will usher in a new social engineering. This will also provide Muslims with a handle to beat Hindus, for Jai Bhim and Jai Mim, will surely get the greater traction in the polity. Worse still, the sense of larger awakening among the Hindus about their homogenous identity will also get a severe beating if Caste Census is given the green signal to go ahead. Significantly, in such a fragile situation when the unity among Hindus has been eluding then since independence, and some tangible effort is made to unify them now, to go for Caste Census will tantamount to drive a wedge into this equation yet again. Moreover, whether desired or not, the situation will surely escalate to the boiling point where the number game will prove to be the chink in the armour of this growing awakening of Hindu consolidation. Hence against this backdrop, Nitish Kumar’s stepping into the shoes of Vishwanath Pratap Singh will not only attach him with the tag of an iconoclast, but also he will go down with an eternal taint of having betrayed the altruistic cause of unifying Hindus. In fact, his decision of Caste Census will damage Hindus irretrievably than harming BJP. No wonder, the decision to align with such leaders as Tejaswi for mere ego satisfaction should not be the vision of such leaders like Nitish Kumar who is considered to have liberated Bihar from the historic curse of Laloo-Rabri regime.
Vivekanand Jha, an author, academician and a Public Intellectual.
