Under normal circumstances ethnic identity happens to be far stronger than Hindu identity. It has positive side as well as negative side. The negative side is each caste tends to strengthen itself at the expense of the other. That's why the upper castes want to continue their hegemony at the expense of the rest.
When the Yadavas come to power, they try to strengthen themselves at the expense of the rest -- the case in point is the situation in Bihar where out of around 300 tickets (nominations) given by the ruling RJD, Laloo Prasad Yadav gave away over 100 to Yadavas alone.
Positive Side of "Caste Identity"
The positive side of the ethnic identity is that by empowering each caste in proportion to its population, the same ethnic identity can be used to bring about true democracy and usher real independence. A country ruled by 15% minority cannot be said to be independent; it is more of a colony of the 15% minority. Independence means "self-rule". What kind of self-rule is it where all structures and institutions of the country are under exclusive and full control of the said 15% minority?
Long ago B.R. Ambedkar had concluded: "Solution to all problems lie in politics". His conviction was timeless ... The oppressed (must) gain their appropriate share of political power ... Political emancipation is not possible under the current electoral system which is highly discriminative against the weaker communities and their parties, and tends to evolve towards a two-party system, ignoring the interest of the smaller and weaker segments ...
India is a finely segmented country of various castes with relatively small population. So an artificially concocted majority is likely to oppress all of the other caste.
Defects of Democracy
The key to bringing about real independence (self-rule) and true democracy lies in how we hold elections. Basically there are two types of election. One is plurality system, also called "first-past-the-post(FPTP) ... Major flaw of this system lies in its highly discriminatory characteristics against smaller parties.
Until and unless a party gets to have a base that is greater than 15-20%, the party has very little chance of winning any seats. Under these circumstances we cannot expect any caste-based party to win any seat. A number of castes have to cluster together to win any seats. In the process one or the other caste tends to take advantage at the expense of the others. It has been happening in RJD, Samajwadi Party, Samata, JD, JD(U), etc. Even in BSP, in spite of eagerness on the part of Kanshi Ram to dist." tickets as evenly as possible, one cannot deny that there tends to be hegemony of one caste or the other in various regions.
Proportional Share
What then is the solution? Solution lies in the proportional representation (PR) system of holding elections ... This is second kind of electoral system that is prevalent in over two-third of the democratic countries of the world, including all of Europe except UK and France ...
PR system has many variations. Its oldest and crudest form is list-PR system. In this system multi-seat constituencies are created. In case of Holland and. Israel the whole country is a single constituency. In case of Germany, each of its state is a single constituency. In our country each of our states could be a single constituency.
In the more primitive system, parties announced list oft heir candidates. People voted for parties. Each party was awarded seats in proportion to the votes it polled. If a party won 10 seats on the basis of its votes, 10 persons from the top of its ... list would go to parliament or assembly, as the case may be. In the more modern systems used in the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, people vote for individual candidates as well, in addition to voting for parties. Votes for individuals determines position of candidates on candidates on the list of their respective party lists. Again, each party is awarded seats in proportion to votes polled by it. This allows even small parties to win some seats.
If India adopted this kind of system, immediately numerous caste-based parties will crop up. Castes too small to win a single seat would be forced to band together and elect a couple of their own.
... There may even be more than one party in the same caste, A divided caste would not necessarily hurt that caste as far as total representation of that caste is concerned ...
For example (party of) Paswans (will) win two seats in Bihar (out of its 55 seats), as Paswans (or Dusadhs) constitute 4 per cent of Bihar population. Chamars too are nearly 4 per cent ... Pasis are only 0.5 per cent of the population so they will have to combine with some other smaller castes to be able to elect any. Yadavas, with their 10-12 per cent would have 5-6 MPs from Bihar. They may all belong to RJD. But Yadavas can easily support more than one party
BJP will be Cut to Size
... In 1931, the total percentage (of high castes) in Bihar was 13.3 per cent. In all likelihood, their percentage has decreased by now, as the lower caste population generally increases faster ... The upper caste stopped taking caste-wise census for obvious reasons ... So the best predictions we can make is on the basis of the 1931 Census.
S.No. Upper Castes 1931
1. Brahman 4.7
2. Bhumihar 2.7
3. Rajput 4.1
