Opinion In election year, Congress appointing Dalit leader Rajesh Kumar as party president in Bihar has many implications
Demand for regaining political ground within the Congress ranks and files in Bihar has been evident, and bringing in young faces from marginalised communities in leadership roles seems to serve this purpose
Rajesh Kumar, the newly-appointed Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president (Express photo) 
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The relevance of Congress’s appointment of Rajesh Kumar, a young Dalit leader, as the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president in the year of assembly elections, has many political implications. Kumar is the fourth Dalit chief of the BPCC after Mungerilal (state-in-charge) in 1977, Dumarlal Baitha in 1987 and Ashok Choudhary in 2013. However, Choudhary later joined JD (U) and Congress appointed a Brahmin face as its BPCC chief. Earlier, by appointing Mallikarjun Kharge, a senior Dalit leader, as the national president of the party, the Congress set a precedent. It was accompanied by the party’s pre-Lok Sabha pitch for caste census and its claim that the BJP would change the constitution if it came to power. The campaign had a notable impact among Dalits and other marginalised communities – the BJP failed to retain its position as the single largest party in the Parliament.
The party’s protest against Home Minister Amit Shah’s allegedly condemnable comments against Babasaheb Ambedkar, coupled with Rahul Gandhi’s decision to wear a blue T-shirt in Parliament – blue is considered to be a colour of the Dalit movement – consolidated its position as a party that is constantly signalling to the community. The 2024 Lok Sabha, though, gave Congress formidable numbers in the Hindi heartland, Bihar was a state of exception where Nitish Kumar’s hold remained unquestioned. The organisational restructuring in Bihar may be seen in the continuity of its campaign.
The socio-economic caste survey in Bihar further reinforced social engineering politics. Dalit votes constitute about 15 per cent of Bihar’s population. The state has a history of Dalit politics that propelled many prominent leaders – Bihar had three Dalit CMs: Bhola Paswan Shastri, Ram Sunder Das, and Jitan Ram Manjhi. Renowned social activist and political leader Babu Jagjivan Ram was also from Bihar. Meira Kumar, his daughter, carried his political legacy and went on to become the speaker of Lok Sabha during the UPA regime.
Notably, the Dalits, minorities and upper-caste Hindus were the traditional vote bank of the Congress Party that was affected during the JP movement. Upper castes and parts of OBCs moved towards the BJP, whereas the minority, Yadavs and Kurmis along with EBCs and Dalits inched towards the socialist political formations that came out of the JP movement.
Demand for regaining this political ground within the Congress ranks and files in Bihar has been evident, and bringing in young faces from marginalised communities in leadership roles seems to serve this purpose. Congress has also appointed a young leader from Karnataka as the state in charge.
However, Nitish Kumar created a new sub-group of Dalits through the Mahadalit Commission to allegedly weaken the hold of Ram Vilas Paswan on Dalits. Dalits are also no longer a monolithic category. The politics of representation has to take this into consideration.
Political visionaries in India have diagnosed caste as social evils, and Ambedkar prescribed the “annihilation of caste” to end the exploitative structure of caste hierarchy affecting historically disadvantaged sections of society. Caste dynamics have been crucial in Indian politics for integrating the lowest rungs of society into the mainstream of development. While the situation has changed, social engineering still plays a significant role in vote politics. Many committees and commissions have been established to address social inequalities in Bihar, including the Mungerilal Commission, aimed at positive discrimination. These actions have reinforced caste politics in Bihar, where caste conflicts and radical movements have empowered Dalits, allowing them to regain dignity over time. Dalit leadership has, in turn, created new configurations of caste-based political leaders and increased their presence in various political parties. However, it will be a tough task for political parties to retain their leaders without an adequate share of seats; the art of politics lies in striking a delicate balance to keep these leaders within their ranks.
The writer is former director, A N Sinha Institute of Social Science, Patna
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