Bihar is the epicentre of political news today, sending shock waves day after day, with media groups trying hard to keep pace with speeches of political stalwarts and manifestos of innumerable parties. What has become even more intriguing and murky is the colossal face-off between Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) and the BJP on one hand, and the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) on the other, led by the RJD and Congress.

Political churning at the constituency and regional levels is seeing parties like Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular), Rashtriya Lok Morcha, Communist Party of India (M-L), CPI, AIMIM, Vikassheel Insaan Party, Jan Suraaj Party jostling for alliances and negotiations with their partners.

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Not only is the electoral pie being sliced thin, but the caste and sub-caste arithmetic continues to dominate Bihar’s dusty heartlands. On this political chessboard, the Economically Backward Class (EBC) is now just a pawn, along with the Most Backward Class (MBC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) being the other chess pieces moving across the board. When the BJP began its election outreach in 2024 with the Pasmanda Muslim community, the fight for political rights and entitlements became intense with promises for social justice, welfare, free rations, education for the girl-child, monthly pensions for women and the elderly being made.

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Currently what is shocking, and equally surprising, is the complete silence by parties across the political spectrum in Bihar on the findings and recommendations of the Sachar Committee report which was released in 2006 and had been in preparation through 2004-05. Almost twenty years after the landmark report, officially titled: Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslim Community of India was presented, this utter disregard, disdain and devaluation of the report is a telling commentary on our times. Drawing a fascinating time-line from 1949 to 2005 in the recently-released Empowering the Marginalised, senior journalist AU Asif, said “this period of approximately 55 years and 10 months, was very important and extraordinary for the second-largest community in the country.

It is evident that on May 11, 1949, under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who chaired the consultative sub-committee, the Muslim members of the sub-committee, guided by the first Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, chose to abandon the proposal for a separate and exclusive electorate for Muslims. In........

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