Who's afraid of a caste X-ray across the land?

Social justice is a political issue but the caste survey released in full detail by Bihar shows economic disparities that are not terribly stark. Discontent on its basis won't be easy to stir

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The politics of social justice has long held salience in India as an echo of the ‘class struggle’ of leftist extraction. As general elections loom, the question is whether it can evoke a rush of fervour that could spell an upset at the 2024 hustings. In the view of some analysts, just as the ascent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took a revolutionary path at first, with Hindu nationalism its rallying cry, so must the opposition find a heady issue, an arouser of passion, if it expects to shake today’s status quo. After all, expectations are rife of a third BJP victory. The ruling party’s political heft is undeniable. Yet, polls aren’t over till the last vote is counted. By one reckoning, how contestable key swing seats prove in a pivotal belt of the country could depend on vote shifts among caste groups classified as Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Little wonder that calls have arisen from the Congress and its allies for a caste census, pitched as an ‘X-ray’ of Indian life that will lay bare a crisis of caste disparity. Bihar has already taken such a snapshot. Its detai