There are around 190 castes having population less than one percent, as there are many among them whose population is even below 500
Bihar, the land of Buddha, Mahavir, Guru Govind Singh Ji and also boasted as the seat of first democracy in the world, appears to have been again thrown into the poison of caste politics by the current lot of ruling socialist stalwarts- Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.
The analysts of real-politics claim the Bihar government’s decision of conducting and publishing caste survey (census) data as a master-stroke of Nitish-Lalu combine against BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of 2024 elections.
However, they all remained unmindful of its social and political implication, which is certain to take an already poor state like Bihar further to impoverishment, which will have a long-lasting impact on the lives of more than 13 crore people.
Bihar government had on October 2 released caste survey data, with the figures showing that Other Backward Caste (OBC) and Extremely Backward Class (EBC) together account for 63 percent of the state’s population.
According to the data, Scheduled Castes make up 19.65 percent and the Scheduled Tribes 1.68 percent of the population of the state. The data also revealed that the Hindus comprise 81.99 percent of the population, Muslims 17.7 percent, Christian 0.05 percent, Sikhs 0.01 percent, Buddhists 0.08 percent and other religions 0.12 percent.
The data said that Yadavs, the OBC group to which RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his son Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belong, is the largest and accounts for 14.27 percent of the state’s population. Kushwaha and Kurmi communities form 4.27 per cent and 2.87 percent of the population respectively. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar belongs to the Kurmi community in the state.
The data as published by the government of Bihar shows the political intent of the ruling JD(U)-RJD combine, as numbers of several castes defy reality. If the numbers thrown up are to be believed there are some 190 castes whose population is less than even one percent and then it is even more strange to see that the population of many castes is even below 500.
For example, one of the castes identified as “Bhaskar” has only 37 members, while the population of Jadupatia caste is just 93. Similarly, the total population of Sauta caste is 107, Ho caste is 143 and Birjia caste is 169.
Likewise, the Santrash caste population is only 287 whereas the Dhekaru caste’s population is 190. Again, the population of Birhor has been identified as 359 and Binjhia accounts for just 448.
According to reports State’s prominent transgender activist Reshma Prasad alleged the data is “fake”. “As per the 2011 caste census, our total population in Bihar was over 40,000 but this time, the population of our community has been shown at only 825.This is strange!” said Prasad adding the transgender community people had boycotted the survey works.
Similarly, an MLA from JD(U), who belongs to Teli-Sahu caste, says the number of his community shown in the survey is not true. “I am the president of my community at the state level and convenor at the national level. We are now conducting our own survey and bringing out the real data and submitting to the Chief Minister with a request to rectify the anomaly in the government data,” he said.
National president of Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal, Upendra Kushwaha, though welcomed the survey, he raised questions on the authenticity.
According to a report Kushwaha said, many families said that the data was being released but no one has asked them about their caste. He also urged the state government to take necessary steps to put such suspicions to rest.
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