Caste Politics: In Bihar

Submitted to- Submitted by-

Dr. Sangeet Kumar Vaibhav Shukla
Roll no. 1392

Aims & objectives:

The aim so as to research on the topic ‘Caste politics: in Bihar’ is as under:
1. To understand the Concept of caste in political setup.
2. To study the Historical perspective of caste politics.
3. To throw light on statuary provisions against same.
4. To find out and analyze the views of common people, political leaders as
well as Legal Experts and Sociologists on various aspects of caste politics.
 5. To analyze the impact of Politics in caste based stratification in the society.
6. To find out the reasons, as to why caste politics is still prevalent in Bihar?

Introduction:
Caste in Indian society refers to a social group where membership is decided by
birth. Members of such local group are endogamous, i.e. they tend to enter into
marital relationships among themselves. They often have related political
preferences, similar to the racial preferences for the Democratic and Republican
parties in USA.
For political/government purposes, the castes among the Hindus are broadly
divided into

 Forward Caste
 Other Backward Class (OBC) (about 41% of population)
 Scheduled Caste (about 20% of population)
 Scheduled Tribe (about 9% of population)
The Indian Muslims (13.4%), and Christians (2.3%) often function as a caste since
they too marry among themselves.
Official lists are compiled by states recognizing the OBC, Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled tribes. The dividing lines can be ambiguous, several castes have
demanded a lower rank so that they can avail of the privileges offered. The term
"Upper caste" often includes Forward castes and the OBCs, when news reports
refer to the Scheduled castes in relation to the two upper groups.
It was institutionalized into government organizations by British colonizers. The
removal of the boundaries between "civil society" and "political society" meant
that caste now played a huge role in the political arena and also influenced other
government-run institutions such as police and the judicial system. Though caste
seemed to dictate one's access to such institutions, the location of that caste also
played a pivotal role. If a lower caste were concentrated enough in one area, it
could then translate that pocket of concentration of its caste members into political
power and then challenge the hegemony of locally dominant upper caste. Gender
also plays a significant role in the power dynamic of caste in politics. Women's
representation within the political system seems to also be tied to their caste.
Lower, more conservative castes have less female participation in politics than
upper, more socially liberal, castes. This has caused a disproportionately large
number of upper-caste women to occupy political office when compared to their
lower caste counterparts. The hierarchy of caste and its role in politics and access
to power and resources has created a society of patron-client relationships along
caste lines. This staunchly rigid structure was most prevalent during the Congress-
dominating period. This eventually led to the practice of vote banking, where voters
back only candidates that are in their caste, or officials from which they expect to
receive some kind of benefits.
Historically it has been very hard to change the structure of caste politics in India.
More recently however, there has been a flux in caste politics, mainly caused by
economic liberalization in India. This upsurge in lower-caste empowerment was
accompanied in some regions by a spike in the level of corruption. This was partly
due to lower caste perceiving development programs and rule of law as tools used
by the upper caste to subjugate lower castes. More contemporary India, however,
has seen the influence of caste start to decline. This is partly due to the spread of
education to all castes which has had a democratizing effect on the political system.
However, this "equalizing" of the playing field has not been without controversy.
The Mandal Commission and its quotas system has been a particularly sensitive
issue.
It has been argued by Professor Dipankar Gupta that the role of castes in Indian
elections have been overplayed

Hypothesis:
The Researcher’s Hypothesis regarding the topic “Caste Politics: in Bihar” is:
Political Secularism in India has been confined to a mere concept, rather than
being in practice.
Researcher also believes that the major barring stone in the path to stratification
free society is hellacious Politics which is totally dependent on caste based vote
banks.
Researcher is of the view that People, even if they start following the statuary
provisions somehow then also they don’t do it by heart; so generally the concept
of caste less politics is not assimilated in the minds and hearts of general masses.
Methodology:
1: Study Area- Researcher mainly focuses on Socio-Legal aspects of caste
politics, for which the universe contains every common person, every political
leader, every legal expert and other experts from various fields.

2: Sample Selection
Procedure- Researcher will follow non-probability sampling method by both
convenient as well Purposive means.

3: Sources of Data-
 Primary Sources- Laws, Acts, Field work, etc.
 Secondary Sources- CNLU Library, Journals, Books, Articles, Previous
Researches, etc.

4: Tools of data collection- The main tool of data collection will be the
Interactions with several people from various fields on the topic as the topic is
very general. Other tool will be Questionnaire. The researcher will also use
previous researches on this topic as one of the tools to analyze the situation in a
better way. Research on this topic which would require the researcher to access
through both DOCTRINAL and NON DOCTRINAL research methods.

Tentative Chapterization:
1) Introduction
2) Historicity of The concept of politics of caste
3) Statuary Provisions
4) Politics and caste
5) Common Perception of politics
6) Conclusion
Bibliography

Tentative questions:
What do you understand by caste?
Are you aware of the statuary provisions for caste based political paly in India?
What is your take on the topic? Whether caste based political play should be
demoted or not?
Do you think India democratic in true sense if this sort of politics continue to
exist?
What reason do you think is acting as a barrier in removing caste politics?
What impact do you think general people have on same?
Can you suggest a way to do away with caste based politics.

Sources:
http://ceobihar.nic.in/affidavits.html
http://ariseasia.blogspot.in/2013/06/electoral-dynamics-of-bihar-gains-for.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Bihar