Days after declining the proposal of several INDIA bloc parties, including the Congress, to become the alliance’s convener, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his party JD(U) have been going all out to hold a three-day celebrations of the birth centenary of socialist icon Karpoori Thakur during 22-24 January in Bihar.

Significantly, a public meeting will be held in Patna on 24 January as part of these celebrations, where Nitish is likely to make some significant announcements. Other parties, including Nitish’s key Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) ally RJD, have been waiting for the rally to decipher the signals from there if the JD(U) chief will remain committed to the INDIA bloc or he has some other plans.

Karpoori centenary events

January 24 will mark the birth centenary of Karpoori Thakur’s birth centenary. A Karpoori anniversary function is usually held every year on 22 January at his ancestral village Pitaunjhia, known as Karpoori Gram, by his son and JD(U) Rajya Sabha MP Ramnath Thakur.

This year, an organisation Jannayak Karpoori Thakur Janm-Shatabdi Samaroh Samiti is holding the function in Karpoori Gram on January 22 on a bigger scale, getting several prominent politicians, socialist activists and intellectuals as

speakers. While the Bihar Legislative Council’s chairperson and JD(U) leader Devesh Chandra Thakur will open the event, the party’s chief national spokesperson K C Tyagi would be its chief guest. The speakers would include senior JD(U) leader Manganilal Mandal, JD(U) MP Anil Hegde, ex-Union minister Devendra Prasad Yadav, RJD leaders Abdul Bari Siddiqui, Ramchandra Purve and Manoj Kumar Jha, socialist leaders Ramashankar Singh and Noor Ahmed, and intellectuals such as Anand Kumar and Alok Mehta. All legislators from the state Assembly and Council have been invited for the function too.

On January 23, the state government-run Jagjivan Ram Institute of Parliamentary Studies and Political Research, Patna, will hold a discussion on Karpoori’s legacy and release two books on him.

On 24 January, Nitish would visit Karpoori Gram as he has been doing for several years. Later in the day, the JD(U) is set to hold a rally at Patna’s Veterinary College ground, where the party expects a large gathering.

The JD(U) has been holding “Karpoori Charcha” (discussions on Karpoori) programmes across the state for some time as part of the centenary celebrations.

Why is Karpoori invoked by all parties

A two-time Bihar CM and socialist stalwart, Karpoori is popularly referred to as “Jannayak” or people’s leader. He is widely considered as the pioneer of EBC (Extreme Backward Classes) and OBC (Other Backward Classes) reservations in the country.

As the CM in 1978, Karpoori implemented a layered reservation regime, despite resistance from the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, a major constituent of the then Janata Party government. His quota system, an unparalleled one at that time, provided a 26% reservation model in which EBCs got 12%, OBCs got 8%, women got 3%, and economically backward classes (EBWs) from among the upper castes got 3%.

After his demise in 1988, Karpoori became the biggest socialist icon after Jayaprakash Narayan and Rammanohar Lohia. After the then V P Singh government announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report in 1990, which ensured OBC reservation, Karpoori’s importance grew further. And now almost all parties, including the BJP, regularly commemorate Karpoori in their bids to reach out to EBCs and practise assimilative politics or even symbolism politics.

Caste pitch and EBC factor

After Bihar’s caste-based survey report 2022-23 showed the EBCs as the largest social block accounting for 36.1% of the state’s population, Nitish has doubled down on his efforts to consolidate his EBC constituency in Bihar that he has been expanding ever since he became the CM for the first time in November 2005.

All parties have been wooing voters belonging to EBCs – a conglomerate of 130 smaller castes that often decides the winner in closely-fought elections. Although the BJP and the RJD have mounted an outreach to EBCs, Nitish has been

positioning himself as a principal champion of the EBC cause for a long time. This is where EBC icon Karpoori becomes more important for Nitish. “After B R Ambedkar, Karpoori Thakur is the most feted political icon in India,” claimed K C Tyagi.

JD(U) bid to compare Nitish to Karpoori

The JD(U) has often tried to draw parallels between the politics of Karpoori and Nitish. “Like Karpoori, Nitish has been also practising inclusive and assimilative politics,” said Tyagi. “Nitish is an extension of Karpoori model of governance in terms of strengthening Panchayati Raj system by giving 50% quota to women at the panchayat and local bodies’ levels, waiving school fees for girls, enforcing prohibition and implementing pro-people and pro-poor policies. Nitish realised Karpoori’s dreams to a great extent,” he said, explaining how Karpoori has been at the heart of the JD(U)’s politics.

Mandal vs Kamandal politics

With the BJP going all out with its Ayodhya push amid the Ram Temple consecration event scheduled for January 22, the INDIA alliance has been struggling to come up with a counter-narrative. On its part, the JD(U) has however been pressing ahead with its social justice plank, centred round the EBC and Dalit consolidation, to counter the BJP’s Temple card, even though Nitish is yet to spell out his stand on the Ayodhya event.

The Nitish dispensation conducted a caste survey in the state, made public its report, and took several measures on its basis. It has now been playing up the Karpoori symbol to boost its EBC pitch.

The JD(U) often takes credit for Bihar not witnessing any major communal violence under the Nitish regime. The JD (U) wanted the Congress and other constituents of the INDIA bloc to step up the demand for a nationwide caste census. Disappointed that its INDIA partners “could not really turn the caste census demand into a national narrative”, the party has now taken upon itself to lead this campaign from the front in the run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Centenary takeaways

Although the BJP has publicly remained dismissive about warming up to Nitish again and RJD has denied any rift in the Mahagathbandhan, all parties will closely follow the January 24 rally to read Nitish’s mind for his next moves.

The RJD camp says that if in his address to the rally Nitish takes a stand against Modi or the BJP, it would indicate that he would stick to the Mahagathbandhan and the INDIA bloc.

And if Nitish remains ambivalent, it could mean that other possibilities could also not be ruled out. Amid various speculations doing the round, the Karpoori centenary rally might clear the air.