The Patna high court’s order staying the caste-based survey in Bihar appears to have shocked the ruling Mahagathbandhan – mainly the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal (United) – but also holds the potential to revive the ‘Mandal Magic’ that altered the course of Indian politics in the 1990s.The high court on Thursday put an interim stay on the ongoing survey that was scheduled to be completed on May 15. The order has also asked the government to ensure that the data collected is “secured” and not shared with anyone till the final order. The government was about to get the final report on the survey on May 15 and table it in the state legislature in its monsoon session.The V.P. Singh-led Union cabinet had decided to implement the report of the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBC), commonly known as the Mandal Commission, on August 13, 1990. The then prime minister announced this formally in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 1990, setting off upheaval in the country.North India – mainly the Hindi heartland – witnessed widespread protest against the move, with students from the upper castes committing self-immolation, patrolling the streets and setting trains and buses on fire. V.P. Singh had emerged as a villain for the upper castes and a proverbial ‘messiah’ for the backward classes, which as per the report constituted 52% of India’s population.There are striking similarities between the political situations then and now. Soon after its implementation, the opponents of the Mandal Commission report had moved the Supreme Court, which put an interim stay on its implementation. But after almost 1.5 years, in 1992, the apex court validated the V.P. Singh cabinet’s decision to give a 27% quota to the other backward classes (OBCs) in government jobs.Also read: The Point Is That There Is Not Enough Social Justice, Not That There Is Too MuchBy that time, the P.V. Narasimha Rao government had taken over. It recommended excluding the well-off segments of the OBCs to deliver better justice to the deserving strata in the OBCs, and also 10% quota to the economically poor among the upper castes. The apex court introduced the concept of the “creamy layer”, prohibiting the affluent sections from taking advantage of the quota, but rejected the plea for the economically poor on the ground that the “Constitution has stipulated quota on the basis of social and educational backwardness”.Secondly, the Mandal Commission which had been constituted in 1979 by the Indira Gandhi government was headed by the then MP from Madhepura Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, B.P. Mandal. Bihar had emerged an epicentre of the job quota movement with the Janata Party chief minister Karpoori Thakur implementing reservation for the OBCs and the extremely backward classes (EBCs) in 1977-78 on the formula enunciated by Nitish Kumar – then a young but erudite Socialist leader. Thakur’s move had put the backward castes and upper castes at war against each other.Mandal MagicThe Supreme Court’s interim stay had given momentary relief to the protestors. The Bharatiya Janata Party didn’t overtly oppose it but its party president L.K. Advani embarked on the Ram Rathyatra from Somenath to Ayodhya during the period of the stay to divert the agitating backward classes towards the “movement” to build Ram temple at Ayodhya.However, Advani’s move backfired in Bihar, with then chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav getting him arrested and in the process emerging as the hero of disadvantaged classes. The period also saw the emergence of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was a champion of the Mandal Commission in Uttar Pradesh.But Bihar under Lalu became one state in which the BJP failed to take off in the 1991 Lok Sabha polls. Today discussions are on about who will be the next prime minister or an alternative to Narendra Modi.But the non-BJP parties were in the worse shape then. The Chandra Shekhar government had fallen, necessitating mid-term polls in 1991. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in the middle of the 1991 elections. Sonia Gandhi had gone into isolation. Rahul and Priyanka were too small to think of politics. The only party that looked strong, under L.K. Advani and A.B. Vajpayee’s leadership, was the BJP. The Congress, the Janata Dal and its splinter parties were in disarray.Still, the Janata Dal under Lalu’s stewardship won 49 out of the 54 Lok Sabha seats in united Bihar. The BJP was wiped out from the state while the Congress won the Begusarai and Sasaram seats. Its enormous loss in Bihar had halted the BJP from getting close to the majority despite it doing relatively well in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and also Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, Lalu had emerged as the biggest leader of social justice in India’s firmament.The consolidation of the backward classes was so strong that the BJP and the Congress were far behind the Janata Dal in Bihar. For example, Nitish Kumar won the Barh Lok Sabha seat with over 2.57 lakhs of votes – the biggest margin in his six victories from Barh and Nalanda Lok Sabha seats in his career.Also read: Congress’s Push for Caste Census Is a Step Towards Ideological Unity in Opposition RanksOf course the parties of Lalu and Nitish are upset at the Patna high court’s order staying the caste survey. But they are not disappointed. Nitish is believed to have been studying the high court’s order to try possible legal recourses. And the deputy chief minister, Tejaswhi Yadav, said, “We will study the order and discuss the next court of action with the chief minister (Nitish). Both Nitish ji and Lalu ji are committed to carrying out the caste survey. We are committed to doing it and we will do it.”Their parties’ spokesmen have sharply reacted to the order. “The high court’s order is unfortunate. It’s painful when institutions become an obstruction in the matter of social justice,” Manoj Jha, the RJD spokesman and MP, said. JDU spokesman Neeraj Kumar said, “It’s only an interim order. Moreover, we are not the only state to do such a survey. Telangana and Karnataka have already done it and Odisha is doing it.”BackgroundThe concept of a caste-based census was first enunciated by historian and compiler Willian Hunter and social reformer Jyotiba Phule in 1882. It was put to practice through the Minto-Morley Reforms in 1909 and the Government of India Act in 1919. However, the reservation system that is currently in use was introduced in 1933 when the British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald presented the “Communal Award” known as the Poona Pact.The British government used to carry out the caste census in India. The last caste census had happened in 1931. Initially, the reservations in government jobs were offered only to those who fell under the bracket of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Their numerical strength was ascertained from the census reports.However, the implementation of the Mandal Commission report and also the implementation of the quota for the OBCs and EBCs in Bihar in 1977-78 required the knowledge about the numerical strength and social-educational status of the castes concerned to effectively work out the reservation and other welfare schemes for them. In that light, the Nitish government was carrying out a caste survey and the regional parties have been pressuring the Narendra Modi government to carry out a caste census at the all-India level.Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, media educator and independent researcher in social anthropology.