The Dye Was Always Caste

For all the talk of 'development first' politics, Bihar remains a state where caste is the primary currency

- Mohammad Ali

THE sun had begun to sink over the paddy fields spread throughout Samastipur district.

Just a few hours earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had flown out of Karpoorigram, the birthplace of Karpoori Thakur, one of Bihar's most prominent backward-caste leaders, who also hails from Samastipur. The dust from the chopper's landing still hung in the air as Ram Nath Thakur, Karpoori's septuagenarian son and a minister in Modi's cabinet, spoke with calm conviction, dressed in a white dhoti-kurta.

His answer appears to have leapt straight out of the modern political playbook: deny any relation to caste even though it is caste that defines the ground beneath one's feet. Across the road, a freshly painted sign reads 'Singh Niwas', the home of a Bhumihar family, the local upper-caste majority.

Later, in nearby Tajpur, Sanjay Nayak, a backward-caste activist, bristled at the same question. “Those who now seek to claim Karpoori Thakur’s legacy,” he said, “were the same who insulted him when he was alive.” He recalled hearing slurs hurled at the barber-turned-Chief Minister of Bihar, along with chants mocking his caste and his 1978 reservation policy that gave 26 per cent of government jobs to backward classes.

“Modi came to Karpoorigram to woo the backward caste. But everyone here remembers the (derogatory) slogans Bhumihars would raise against Jan Nayak Karpooriji,” Nayak said.

Roots Beneath the Soil

What Modi was invoking at Karpoorigram had roots far older than Lalu’s Mandal-era politics, stretching deep into the early twentieth century. Contrary to popular belief, caste politics in Bihar did not begin with Lalu Prasad Yadav. Its origins go further back to the 1920s, when land, labour and ritual intersected. Rakesh Ankit’s paper