Chirag casts his net wide across Bihar's Dalit votebank

Bihar has produced some of the most popular Dalit leaders in India’s history, starting in 1937 with Jagjivan Ram. He held sway over North India’s power politics with an unbridled run as a Union minister and later as a deputy prime minister, albeit as a Dalit face of the Congress, till his resignation from the party in 1977. The politician’s exit coincided with the drop in Dalit votes for Congress in North India. His successor, daughter Meira Kumar, could not hold onto the region’s numerically strong Chamar community to which they belonged.

In the subsequent years, Bihar witnessed the rise of another Dalit scion, Ram Vilas Paswan. Belonging to the Dusadh caste, a community of soldiers famed to have been part of the victorious East India Company Army in the battle of Plassey of 1757, Ram Vilas Paswan had an impressive yet chequered career in politics since his meteoric rise (with the largest winning margin in a general election) in 1977 till his death in 2020.

While Jagjivan Ram holds the record for longest-serving Union minister, Ram Vilas Paswan holds the same record for a non-Congress leader.

It was again Dalit politics that placed another non-Congress leader, Mayawati, in the Uttar Pradesh chief minister saddle four times. Unlike the failure of Jagjivan Ram’s successor and Mayawati’s flip-flops over naming her political heir, the successor Ram Vilas Paswan anointed, his son Chirag Paswan, has come to the fore to reclaim the largest space for Dalit politics through his Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas). 

The one-time Bollywood hero had it going tough for a while after his father’s demise and the subsequent split in the Lok Janshakti Party. Nevertheless, Chirag led the party to claim a cent percent strike rate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections winning all the five seats it contested.

Meanwhile, the 2023 Bihar caste census data has exposed the low numerical strength of once-influential castes such as Brahmins (3.65%), Rajputs (3.45%), Bhumihars (2.86%) and Kayasthas (0.6%). In the electoral gamble, parties become more calculative ahead of Assembly polls. Chirag, already commanding the support of his Dusadh caste (5.31% of Bihar’s population), has cast his net wider as an emerging Dalit leader, endearing the leaderless Chamar community (5.25%).

The junior Paswan emerged as a national leader in 2018 when he challenged the NDA government’s silence on the dilution of the SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act when a Supreme Court bench of U U Lalit and A K Goel delivered a verdict on March 20 that year. Nationwide violence and arson broke out against the judgment on April 2. The latter judge, upon his retirement, was elevated to the National Green Tribunal by the NDA government. Chirag wrote to the prime minister seeking removal of the judge from the NGT. He also demanded an immediate ordinance to neutralise the verdict. The Union government promptly acceded to his demands and also agreed to issue an ordinance.

In August 2024, Chirag openly opposed a Constitution bench order which allowed sub-classification of the Schedule Castes. He also criticised the concept of creamy layer mooted by the court as anti-Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Interestingly, the numerically dominant Chamars in North India are opposed to both sub-classification and creamy layer. The Union government partially accepted Chirag’s position and decided to not impose creamy layer on Dalits and Adivasis, and passed a Cabinet resolution in this regard.

Chirag seems to be voicing support for important issues of the larger Dalit community and also such matters that will either unite the SC subgroups or bring other Dalit groups into his fold. This has the potential for reaping rich electoral dividends. For example, the Chamar votes (5.25%) are up for grabs in Bihar where the caste was originally aligned with the Congress and later drifted to Tejaswi Yadav’s RJD. Both parties have not created a Dalit face to influence the caste politically. 

Unlike Ram Vilas Paswan’s inclination to confine himself to national-level politics, Chirag’s recent ideation to enter Bihar politics is an indication of his acceptability among different Dalit groups. These communities were otherwise divided, especially after the Mahadalit concept (a loose term to group certain SC communities) of incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had created the umbrella term almost two decades back. The chief minister’s own Kurmi caste (OBC) constitutes 2.8% and the ally Kushwahas 4.2% of the state’s population, potentially giving a numerical edge to any party representing a united Dalit grouping, which is pegged at around 20%.

Also, following the 2023 caste census, the Bihar government increased the quota percentage from 50% to 65%, but it was shot down by the high court in 2024. This has rendered reservation-based politics ineffective for Nitish.

On the other hand, the new kid on the block, Prashant Kishor, a Brahmin, with his Jan Suraaj Party is also eyeing the Dalit votes. However, riding on the strong legacy of Ram Vilas Paswan and with the perfect performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Chirag has emerged as a leader to watch for in the North Indian Dalit politics in general and Bihar in particular.

While the Lok Janshakti Party under Ram Vilas Pawan played a comparatively smaller role in Bihar politics, Chirag seems to be eying a larger pie, potentially at the cost of Nitish Kumar and his JDU, in the politically significant state.

(The writer teaches political science at University of Allahabad)