AAccording to the recent caste survey, Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) are a diverse caste group that constitutes 36% of the population of Bihar. Together with the upper OBCs or upper backward castes, they form the category of backward castes, which constitute a total of 63% of the population of Bihar. While backward caste politics have dominated the political discourse of Bihar since at least the 1990s, EBCs have been marginalized in terms of political representation. That is, despite numerical importance, their political representation in the Bihar Legislature has rarely gone above 10%.
Category Structure
There are about 112 EBCs in Bihar, also known as the most backward caste. In Bihar, they are called ‘Annex-I’, while OBCs are called ‘Annex-II’. Annex-I (‘More Backward’) includes about 88 Hindu and Muslim castes, some well-known (for example, Dhanuk, Hajjam, Kahar and Mallah castes), while others quite lesser known (Gulguha, Jadupatiya etc.). Annex-II (‘Less Backward’) includes 30 castes including upper backward castes like Kurmi, Koeri, Bania and Yadav. According to political scientist Harry Blair, many of these communities, such as the Barhis, Qandus and Kumhars (as well as some Muslim castes such as the Momins and Rayyans) were difficult to distinguish from the communities given in Annex I in terms of social and economic backwardness. However, the Gazetted Ordinance of the Government of Bihar in 1951, followed by the first Backward Classes Commission under the leadership of Kaka Saheb Kalelkar in 1955, helped identify 837 “most backward” castes out of a total of 2,399 backward castes in India. In Bihar, the Commission counted a total of 127 Hindu and Muslim castes as backward castes, which has now increased to 112 as per the caste survey conducted in 2022. Out of the 112 caste groups, 24 castes like Ansari or Momin, Raine, Shershahabadi, Rangrez, Dhobi, Idrish, Kasai, Nat and Bhatiyara are Muslim EBCs, also known as Pasmanda Muslims.
Political mobilization among EBCs
If seen from the prism of caste, the politics of Bihar can be divided into several phases. For a long time after independence, during the Congress rule in Bihar, the upper caste alliance of Brahmin-Bhumihar-Rajput and Kayastha dominated. Although backward caste mobilization had begun in Bihar in the late 20th century, through historical events such as the Triveni Sangh (establishing cooperation among the Kurmis, Koeris and Yadavs) and the Janeu Movement (a movement where backward castes in Bihar began wearing the sacred thread to challenge upper caste dominance), the proliferation of multiple caste unions among the upper backward castes also played a major role in their political integration. This phase of political mobilization of backward castes reached its peak in the 1990s. In the assembly elections of 1990 to 1995 and the Lok Sabha elections of 1991, the number of backward caste MLAs eventually exceeded the number of upper caste representatives, marking a significant change in the social background of politicians in Bihar, which has never been reversed since then.
The former Chief Minister of Bihar, Karpoori Thakur, whom Harry Blair described as the initiator of ‘backward raj’, has been credited by many observers for this social restructuring in Bihar. With the implementation of the Mungeri Lal Commission Report (1976), which facilitated reservation for backward castes in higher education and state government jobs, Karpoori Thakur initiated two major policy decisions that changed the caste dynamics of Bihar’s political landscape. The first of these was the removal of English language as a compulsory subject for Class 10 examinations, which enabled a large number of Hindi medium students from backward castes to gain access to government jobs and other opportunities in higher education. Second, there was the decision to hold local elections at the Panchayat level in 1978, which created opportunities for participation in democracy at the grassroots level which ultimately began the process of democratization. Years later, in his efforts to consolidate EBC support for himself, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar facilitated such democratization by promulgating the Bihar Panchayati Raj Amendment Act in 2006, implementing reservations for EBCs (up to 20%) and women (up to 50%) in Panchayati Raj institutions. According to a study by Subhesh Kumar, Neetu Sharan and Shrikant Pandey, these reservations allowed the election of about 1,464 chieftains. 18,901 gram panchayat members, 1,464 sarpanches and 18,900 panches are from the EBC category, making them significant beneficiaries of such grassroots participation in democracy.
However, at the state level, EBC representatives have remained marginalized in electoral politics compared to upper backward OBCs, as backward caste dominance has been claimed by the Yadavs, Kurmis, Koeris and Banias. As Srikant and Prasanna Kumar Choudhary point out, between 1957 and 1962, the EBC had no representation in the Bihar Legislative Assembly. Between 1967 and 1995, there were 753 MLAs from Yadav, Kurmi, Koeri and Bania castes (higher OBCs), while for the same period, the number of EBC MLAs in Bihar was 55. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of EBC MLAs in Bihar ranged between 6 and 16. In 2005, 19 EBC MLAs were elected to the state assembly, which dropped to 17. 2010. This number increased to 29 in 2020; This was also the first time that the share of EBC MLAs in the Bihar Assembly went above 10% of the total MLAs. For a community that accounts for 36% of the state’s population, this is still grossly under-represented.
emergence of new leadership
The heterogeneous mix of castes within the EBC category poses substantial challenges to political mobilization. Among EBCs, only a handful Jatis According to the 2022 caste survey, the population of Teli, Dhanuk, Carpenter, Kumhar (Prajapati), Mallah, Barber, Noniya and Kahar (Chandravanshis) is between 1-3% of the total population of Bihar. The population size of all other castes within the EBC category is less than 1%, making political mobilization difficult in terms of numerical consolidation.
The example of Nishad community is a good case of political mobilization through numerical consolidation. The Nishad community was formed by bringing together about 22 castes (such as Mallah, Noniya and Bind, Kevat) among the EBCs. Jatis), making their combined numbers about 9.8% of the total population of the state, according to the 2022 caste survey. This makes them an important part of the EBC group and highlights their political importance in terms of electoral support. However, while the Mukesh Sahni-led Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) has emerged as a major political group representing the interests of the Nishad community, the leadership of the Nishads is scattered across several parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) and even the Congress. Therefore, the feasibility of electoral influence of the Nishad community among the EBCs as a consolidated vote bank has not yet been realized.
A close reading of the nominations of candidates for 2025 by various political parties shows that EBC representation has increased among the candidates fielded, especially among regional parties like JD(U), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and VIP. Both Congress and BJP are lagging behind in terms of EBC representation in their party ticket distribution. In fact, a close look at the nominations of the candidates reveals that among the various EBC castes, political parties mostly nominate candidates from a few key communities such as Dhanuk, Mallah, Noniya, Teli in the Hindu EBC and Ansari or Momin in the Muslim EBC.
long way to go
Be it the appointment of Dhanik Lal Mandal as the first EBC Speaker of the Bihar Assembly in 1967, or the Rajya Sabha nomination for Pasmanda leader Ali Anwar, or even the appointment of Renu Devi as the first EBC Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar in 2020, the accommodation of EBC politicians by various parties in Bihar has been largely symbolic without much structural change in the political representation of the community, which remains highly marginalised.
Grassroots empowerment through representation in local level leadership positions has yet to translate into visible material changes among the community, which is still mired in poverty and precarity.
Sarthak Bagchi teaches political science at Ahmedabad University and Ashutosh Kumar Pandey is a freelance journalist based in Arrah, Bihar.
