Caste survey puts OBC count in Bihar at 63.13%

Backward communities comprise nearly two-thirds of Bihar’s population, the results of a landmark caste survey in the state announced on Monday, marking the completion of an exercise that has the potential to upend heartland politics and propel caste into the core of the electoral discourse in the 2024 polls.

- Subhash Pathak

This is the first time that all castes have been successfully enumerated in a physical government headcount since Independence. India’s decennial census only counts the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The preliminary results of the exercise — which was rushed after the Patna high court suspended the survey for three months this summer — threwup significant, though not surprising, results. It showed that extremely backward communities — which comprises 112 castes — constituted 36.01% of the population, and backward castes — formed by 30 communities — made up another 27.12%. Together, other backward classes (OBC) — the umbrella group consists of backward castes and EBCs in the state— is population, while Kushwaha and Kurmi are 4.27% and 2.87%.

"The data collected during the exercise, conducted in two phases, would help the state government plan developmental strategy in future," said acting chief secretary-cum-development commissioner Vivek Kumar Singh as he read out the survey results from a sheaf of paper.

Muslim caste groups were also included in the list of 215 names notified by the government ahead of the exercise.

The data on other socioeconomic parameters collected 17 criteria ranging from employment, education and marital status to land holding and property ownership were part of the survey's questionnaire - was not released. This data could be crucial in understanding how castes are benefitting from reservation, and how intra-caste bloc divisions are evolving.