As Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the village of Karpoori Thakur today, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has raised three direct and pointed questions challenging the government on issues of social justice and caste-based policies.
Ramesh’s first question revisited Karpoori Thakur’s historic 1978 decision to grant 26 percent reservation to backward classes, a landmark in India’s social justice movement. He asked whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge that his party’s ideological predecessors—the Jan Sangh and RSS—openly opposed this policy, raised derogatory slogans against Karpoori Thakur, and played a role in destabilizing his government. “Will the Prime Minister today apologize on behalf of his ideological predecessors for that historic mistake?” Ramesh demanded.
His second question focused on the contentious issue of the caste census. Ramesh accused the government of insulting Dalits, backward classes, extremely backward classes, and tribal communities by labeling Congress’s demand for a caste census as an “urban Naxal agenda.”
He pointed out that despite demands in Parliament (July 2021) and the Supreme Court (September 2021), the government has refused to conduct the caste census, deliberately ignoring the legitimate rights of millions from these marginalized sections.
Finally, Ramesh questioned why the Bihar Assembly’s proposal to increase reservations to 65 percent after the caste-based survey was not included in the Ninth Schedule for constitutional protection, unlike Tamil Nadu’s 69 percent reservation which was secured in 1994. “Why was Bihar’s 65 percent reservation not similarly protected?” he asked, highlighting the continued struggle for stronger safeguards for backward and marginalized communities.
Karpoori Thakur’s legacy as a champion of social justice continues to evoke passionate debates, and Jairam Ramesh’s pointed questions bring renewed focus on how political parties address the aspirations and rights of India’s deprived sections. The Prime Minister’s response could shape the discourse around reservation policies and caste representation in the country’s evolving socio-political landscape.