Can a Caste Census Reverse the BJP’s Advantage in Wooing Lower Castes?
Abstract
The release of Bihar's caste survey has sparked jubilation among social justice advocates and anxiety within the BJP, revealing the party's vulnerability in its caste-based social engineering strategy. While the BJP's success lies in exploiting intra-caste rivalries, the caste census poses a threat by highlighting socio-economic disparities and challenging the party's overarching narrative of Hindutva, nationalism, and development.
This paper has been withdrawn.