THE PAST IS PRESENT

From Ashoka to Jarasandha, ancient emperors and mythic heroes are being recast through caste lines

- PRATUL SHARMA/PATNA

THREE YEARS AGO, BJP leader and Lok Sabha member Rajiv Pratap Rudy set out on his Bihar Vision 2025 Yatra, travelling across the state to talk about roads, schools and development. A former Union minister for skill development, Rudy wanted to appeal to people's aspirations and transcend the vocabulary of caste.

At his early rallies, he posed a question: why was a state rich in talent so poor? People came, listened, clapped and went home. There was politeness, but no passion. “There was little traction,” Rudy recalled in Patna. “The day I declared that I am going to talk about Rajput icon Maharana Sanga and his community, there was a huge response.”

What began as a development yatra soon transformed into a movement of Rajput identity and pride. Rudy started invoking Maharana Sangram Singh, better known as Maharana Sanga, the 15th-century warrior-king of Mewar who united Rajput chieftains against the Mughals. Bihar, he admits, has little connection to Sanga. But symbolism matters, and Rudy found his audience.

“Sanga united fragmented clans to face an empire. I am trying to unite fragmented Rajputs to face their disunity,” he said. In his Sanga Yatra, Rudy covered nearly 3,000 villages, mostly with significant Rajput populations. “It’s not against any government or party,” he said. “It’s a positive agenda.”

In the run-up to the assembly elections, Rudy helped organise Patna’s first-ever air show dedicated to Babu Veer Kunwar Singh, the Rajput hero of 1857, whose birth anniversary is now marked as Shaurya Diwas. He does not hide his frustration with Bihar’s social fault lines. “Everything in Bihar boils down to caste,” Rudy said. “If I were not a Thakur or a Rajput, I don’t think any political party, including the BJP, would have offered me a ticket.”