Caste Quagmire
6 October 2009: The Times of India
The Khagaria massacre in which 16 people were killed is a warning that caste wars aren’t a thing of the past in Bihar. Though Maoists were initially suspected to be behind the killings, the government has now clarified that the violence was over farmland and involved Dalit Musahars and Kurmis and Koeris, two backward caste groups. Interestingly, both the perpetrators and the victims of the massacre belong to castes wooed by Nitish Kumar to be part of a social coalition he has tried to build in Bihar in recent times. The incident, coming after a lull in caste violence, could impact the political future of Nitish and his party, Janata Dal (United).
Nitish’s political strategy to counter Lalu Prasad was to build a caste coalition of a few backward castes and Dalit communities. His government created a sub-category among Dalits Mahadalits that included Musahars, ostensibly to streamline delivery of reservation benefits to the scheduled castes. The move helped Nitish to forge a political alliance between Kurmis and Mahadalits that paid off in elections. The alliance could well be unravelling now. Kurmis, the victims in Khagaria, are reportedly angry at Nitish, himself a Kurmi. They have threatened to walk out on him for allegedly favouring the Mahadalits. Clearly, the political alliance has not transformed into a social coalition at the grass roots. The caste arithmetic has not helped to amicably resolve livelihood issues.
Agrarian conflicts need policy interventions that go beyond affirmative action. The chief minister has said anti-socials will not be allowed to break the law. He needs to firm up the law and order machinery, of course. But Nitish must go further and address the root cause of the conflict, which is the desperate struggle in rural Bihar to possess cultivable land. Issues like land rights, wages, low agriculture productivity and incomes call for a political paradigm different from the obsession with caste. A committee, set up by Nitish, to study agrarian relations in the state has reportedly suggested that the government should initiate land reforms. The government, perhaps wary of its political repercussions, has so far refused to discuss the report.
The social justice politics, viewed through the prism of affirmative action, has reached a dead-end in Bihar even though caste continues to be an influential factor in elections. Nitish tried to break the deadlock by focusing on economic development and good administration. He needs to up the ante on governance so that the emphasis doesn’t return to building caste alliances. More jobs need to be created in industry and services to lift the pressure off land. Bihar needs to build a broad-based economy to absorb the tensions of social empowerment in a post-Mandal era. That’s the challenge staring at Nitish Kumar.
