Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was speaking in Bihar’s Kutumba on November 4, the last day of campaigning for the first phase of voting in the assembly election. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has listed corporates, the bureaucracy and even the armed forces as placed where upper castes “have total control” and Dalits, backward classes and minorities, who he said form 90% of India’s population, are not adequately represented. He was speaking in Bihar’s Kutumba on November 4, the last day of campaigning for the first phase of voting in the assembly election set for November 6.
“Take out the list of the 500 biggest companies, and search for Dalits, Extremely Backward Classes, Mahadalits, Minorities, Adivasis in them. You will not find anyone. You won’t find a single one. All of them (their owners) come from the 10% population,” he said, referring apparently to the Upper Castes. “All the bank wealth goes to them. All the jobs go to them. They get a place in the bureaucracy,” he added, referring to key leadership positions at large. “Look at the the judiciary. They get everything there too. They have control over the army,” he said, speaking in Hindi, “And the 90% population — you will not find them anywhere.”
Over the past few years, Gandhi’s political pitch has remained that of “social justice” and “anti-caste”, particularly in Bihar where the Congres’s bigger regional partner RJD has traditionally been a party of the OBCs, Yadavs in particular, and Muslims, though its base has widened or changed over elections. As for his numbers, any recent caste Data for the entire country is not available — the next census will count that — but Bihar carried out a caste survey in 2023 that put the ratio of so-called upper castes or unreserved category at just over 15%.
The survey said EBCs, for whom the RJD- and Congress-led Mahagathbandhan has made specific promises, are the largest caste or community group in Bihar at 36%, followed by the OBCs at 27%, Scheduled Castes at just short of 20%, and tribals at a little under 2%. In terms of religion, just under 18% of the population is Muslim, and about 82% Hindu. Rahul Gandhi has been citing surveys and data to make the point that the backward classes are deprived of representation in all spheres mainly due to discrimination over caste.
