Caste survey pledge adds a new poll edge

April 2, 2018 is the day Anil Jatav came of age. Then 17 years old, Jatav spent the spring of 2018 fretting about doing poorly in his school-leaving examinations, alternating between the possibility of spending another year in the grimy concrete cubbyhole that was his local school, and the opportunity of bunking yet more soporific morning classes to watch movies.

- Ranjan and Dhrubo Jyoti

"I woke up worried every day that the results would be announced," he said.

In March that year, the Supreme Court delivered a controversial verdict, diluting significant provisions of the 1989 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act. Despite his detachment from what he called GK (general knowledge) issues, Jatav couldn't help overhear anguished murmurs from his parents in their two-room house. Anger simmered at what was perceived as an unjust move in a country where a crime against a Dalit person is recorded every 10 minutes.

On April 2, 2018, that bitterness burst forth. Irate crowds of Dalit protesters swelled through major cities, awash in the blue flags and Ambedkarite imagery. The agitation was particularly intense in Madhya Pradesh, where per-capita crimes against Dalits is among the highest in the country. By sundown, nine people were dead, felled by police bullets and clashes, and scores injured.

Days later, the Centre brought in amendments that effectively bypassed the changes. Tempers cooled, scars healed. Yet, what lingered in Jatav's mind was the memory of the people who hurled slurs at his cousins and friends. Now 22, Jatav remembers going up to his father, a small-time shopkeeper, and asking why.

"I didn't exactly know what SC was. I had read about it in our textbooks, but dad sat me down and explained what was what," he said. That day, he added, he learnt about the term "other backward classes" or OBC. "I thought that people who got quotas stuck together because in class, the teacher would often call us quotawalas and make us sit in a corner.