PATNA
THREE YEARS AGO, BJP leader and Lok Sabha member Rajiv Pratap Rudy set out on his Bihar Vision 2025 Yatra, travelling across the state to talk about roads, schools and development. A former Union minister for skill development, Rudy wanted to appeal to people’s aspirations and transcend the vocabulary of caste.
At his early rallies, he posed a question: why was a state rich in talent so poor? People came, listened, clapped and went home. There was politeness, but no passion. “There was little traction,” Rudy recalled in Patna. “The day I declared that I am going to talk about Rajput icon Maharana Sanga and his community, there was a huge response.”
What began as a development yatra soon transformed into a movement of Rajput identity and pride. Rudy started invoking Maharana Sangram Singh, better known as Maharana Sanga, the 15th-century warrior-king of Mewar who united Rajput chieftains against the Mughals. Bihar, he admits, has little connection to Sanga. But symbolism matters, and Rudy found his audience.
“Sanga united fragmented clans to face an empire. I am trying to unite fragmented Rajputs to face their disunity,” he said. In his Sanga Yatra, Rudy covered nearly 3,000 villages, mostly with significant Rajput populations. “It’s not against any government or party,” he said. “It’s a positive agenda.”
In the run-up to the assembly elections, Rudy helped organise Patna’s first-ever air show dedicated to Babu Veer Kunwar Singh, the Rajput hero of 1857, whose birth anniversary is now marked as Shaurya Diwas. He does not hide his frustration with Bihar’s social fault lines. “Everything in Bihar boils down to caste,” Rudy said. “If I were not a Thakur or a Rajput, I don’t think any political party, including the BJP, would have offered me a ticket.”
In Bihar, caste identity overrides even history. Statues, symbols and heroes have all been recast through the lens of caste. Giant sculptures of Ashoka and Jarasandha have become new political idioms.
This February, as the birth anniversary of Shivaji was celebrated across India, a rally in Bihar projected him as a Kurmi leader. The demand: a statue of Shivaji in Patna. Similarly, the Kushwaha community, which venerates Emperor Chandragupta Maurya and his grandson Ashoka, has been courted by major parties. Even mythological figures are claimed by communities. Jarasandha, the ruler of Magadh in the Mahabharat, is worshipped by the Chandravanshi community.
Such reinterpretations are not unique to Bihar, but nowhere else do they so completely dominate the political discourse. Two years ago, Gujjars and Rajputs in Haryana fought over the caste of Raja Mihir Bhoj, a ninth-century ruler. The dispute grew so intense that the state government appointed a panel to settle it.
In Bihar, the context is sharper. Rajputs make up barely 3.5 per cent of the population; forward castes, around 10 per cent. They feel they have been pushed to the margins since the Mandal era. Rudy says his community can influence results in nearly 70 of Bihar’s 243 constituencies. Kushwahas, who make up 5 per cent of the electorate, can impact around three dozen seats.
Sociologists see this as the state’s new grammar of politics. “Identity politics was born of caste; it survives through icons,” said sociologist B.N. Prasad. “Each community now seeks pride in its own past.”
Across Bihar, statues and yatras have acquired both cultural and electoral dimensions. The Rajput have Maharana Sanga; the Kurmi, Shivaji; the Kushwaha, Ashoka; the Chandravanshi, Jarasandha. The vocabulary of development has been replaced by the vocabulary of belonging.
BIHAR’S GREATEST gift to the world is Buddhism, and one man behind that story was Ashoka. The third-century ruler governed much of the subcontinent before turning to peace. No ancient text links Ashoka to the Kushwaha community, yet political parties celebrate him as one. The BJP, the Janata Dal (United) and smaller outfits all mark his birth anniversary.
Bhishma Kumar, an IIT alumnus who runs a UPSC coaching centre in Patna and heads the Samrat Ashoka Club, says the Ashoka being revived in Bihar is not the conqueror of Kalinga, but the emperor who renounced violence and built a welfare state. The new statue at the Ashoka Convention Centre shows a youthful emperor in ceremonial headgear holding a sapling of the Bodhi tree—a fusion of kingship and renunciation.
Nitish Kumar has played a key role in building this legacy. In 2016, he declared Ashoka’s birthday a state holiday; in 2022, the grand convention centre followed.
Ashoka’s caste remains unknown. Some texts say his grandfather Chandragupta Maurya was born to a Shudra woman, while others describe him as a Kshatriya. Either way, it has not stopped the Kushwahas from embracing him as their own.
Nitish Kumar, a Kurmi, had consolidated the Kurmi–Kushwaha base, but many Kushwahas have now drifted to other parties. Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, a Kushwaha, says the BJP’s embrace of figures like Ashoka and Chanakya shows its intent to unite every social group. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to honour every hero who built this nation,” Choudhary said.
Bhishma Kumar traces Ashoka’s revival back to 1996, when a government employee in Uttar Pradesh, Subash Singh Maurya, founded the Ashoka Club. “Since then, it has grown rapidly,” he said. “Once the state declared a holiday in 2016, people’s interest exploded. A public holiday gives official recognition—and recognition builds legacy.”
Ashoka’s appeal, Kumar adds, also lies in his spiritual link with Buddhism. “In India, unless you attach faith and rituals, people don’t get involved. The spiritual connection gives visibility. Governments take note, ASI (Archaelogical Survey of India) preserves sites, tourism develops. Without that, heritage gets ignored,” he said.
PRANAV PRAKASH of Nalanda is trying to bring Shivaji’s spirit to Bihar. A quiet activist and engineer who once worked abroad, Prakash returned during the India Against Corruption movement, joined the Aam Aadmi Party, and later founded Kisan Zindabad, a farmers’ outfit.
He organised a huge conference in Nalanda celebrating Shivaji’s birth anniversary and his “Kurmi roots”. “We come from the vansh of Chhatrapati Maharaj,” Prakash said. “We were told this in childhood. When I visited Kolhapur and Sindhudurg, I realised Shivaji wasn’t just a Maratha. He was a decentraliser, a reformer, a man who stopped his mother from sati and trained women soldiers.”
Prakash says the Kurmis descend from the same warrior-farmer lineage. He cites local folklore: when Shivaji escaped from Agra, he passed through Nalanda—a story once explored by the 19th-century Bharatiya Kurmi Mahasabha.
“We are not doing this against anyone,” he said. “We are reminding Kurmis what governance and dignity look like.”
IF HISTORY PROVIDES one kind of legitimacy, mythology offers another. In Rajgir, a 40-foot statue of Jarasandha, the Mahabharat king torn apart by Bhim,. now towers over the Chandravanshi heartland. “This is our identity,” said Shyam Kishor Bharti of the Jarasandh Dham Samiti. “When you have been invisible for decades, even a statue gives you visibility.” The monument, built with state funds and inaugurated by Nitish, has made the Chandravanshis—officially counted as 21 lakh, but claiming over 90 lakh—feel seen. Rahul Gandhi, too, paid homage there this June.
Bharti recalled the lore: Jarasandha was born to two mothers who each received half a fruit from a saint. Two half-children were born and fused by the goddess Jara—hence the name. The temple of Jaradevi nearby honours that goddess. “We are not talking mythology,” Bharti said. “We are talking ancestry.”
Former minister Prem Kumar, one of the community’s senior leaders, backs this assertion. “Every caste in Bihar now has an icon,” Bharti said. “Jarasandha is ours.”