Bihar is Not for Beginners

The political foundation in Bihar is caste which carries the burden of its own class

- Tanvir Aeijaz

THE more things change in Bihar, the more they remain the same. Not because people are averse to change, but their level of acquiescence to the so-called 'system' is such that they accept, at the end of the day, the status-quo as something which has been ordained to them. This could be seen in the formation and the affectivity of the caste-based associations and groups. The power-relations, embedded in the caste-ties, controls impulses, emotions and motivations so firmly that any socio-cultural transformation is met either with oppression or political violence. The caste wars in Bihar are replete with the stories of tyranny and hope.

Bihar is, to put it succinctly, a history of a 'surrealistic tale of violence', a politics of 'an inversion of insurgent citizenship', a sociology of the 'construction of docile bodies through hegemony' and an economics of 'a behavioural irrationalism in the dismal rules of the game'.

The stakes of State-power, caste and class essentially try to sustain, what Jeffrey Witsoe once remarked about Bihar, a 'feudal democracy'. Typically, Bihar is a case of 'class-in-caste' politics, wherein the political foundation is caste which carries the burden of its own class.

Dalit Politics in Bihar