The findings of the Bihar caste census released on Gandhi Jayanti are, while not entirely predictable, broadly in accordance with projections from previous surveys. It marks a tipping point in our politics, one that promises to significantly alter the Hindu Rashtra trajectory charted by the Modi government. In a trice, it takes our political discourse back to the late 1980s when the two themes, Hindutva and Mandal began to dominate our politics. Vast changes emanated from that moment three decades ago; and the vast changes likely to emanate now will challenge the sagacity of our leaders and people alike.

The main finding of the Bihar survey is that the Economically Backward Classes (EBCs) are 36% of the state’s population. Together with the Other Backward Classes (27%), they form the biggest social bloc of 63%. The case is easily made that backward classes are vastly under-represented at all levels, in all institutions of the state. Similar advocacy can be done for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) who are 19.65%, and, even more plausibly, for Muslims who make up 20% but hardly get even 4% of representation in any institution. Conversely, the 15% who identify as upper caste claim a disproportionate share of everything, including the ‘General’ category within the reservation policy and the 10% quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS). Clearly, the results of the caste census have something for everyone to feel hard done by.

While this is only the Bihar picture, it has portents for all states and for the Union. Already there is a clamour for similar surveys in other states and one for the whole country. The JD(U)-RJD in Bihar and the Samajwadi Party in UP surely see this as an opportunity for mobilisation of the backward classes as one lot, to beat back the Hindutva juggernaut in the north. The Congress will have to go along with this as an expedient, if not by conviction, but no real happiness can accrue to it from this: The backward classes are not its natural constituency, and in no state have they ever yielded to its courtship, even in Indira Gandhi’s days. Of all the parties, it is the Congress that is likely to be impaled on this caste dichotomy.

Obviously, the survey results will trigger demands to increase the Backward Class quota beyond 27%, and to provide for a quota for EBCs (or even Pasmanda Muslims) within the BC quota. A whole number of sub-quota agitations are rife in the states, and the contents of the Justice Rohini Commission which examined the question of sub-categorisation are eagerly anticipated. One expects that the Modi government will release them at a time advantageous to it, certainly to queer the pitch for the Yadav-dominated OBC parties.

If the Backward Class quote is to be raised to ‘proportionate’ levels, it will inevitably bring up the challenge of the 50% ceiling set by the Supreme Court in the Indira Sawhney case in the 1990s. And should that ceiling become fractious or infructuous, a whole line-up of dominant castes—the Marathas in Maharashtra, the Gujjars in Rajasthan, the Jats in Haryana, the Lingayats in Karnataka— are in the queue to appropriate quota benefits. Each of those parties has the social and economic muscle to reshape politics in their respective states, just as the Yadav parties did three decades ago. We are truly at a Mandal 2.0 moment in our history.