India, Oct. 31 -- NEW DELHI As Bihar prepares to go to the polls in November, HT is launching an in-house caste database of the state's legislators, covering 3,629 MLAs elected over 15 assembly elections from 1962 to 2020.

While caste is critical to politics across the country, it is particularly important in Bihar. The database goes beyond broad social categories such as Scheduled Castes (SC), Other Backward Castes (OBC), or upper castes and provides details at the level of each sub-caste or jati. It is often the latter that has driven political churn in the state. What makes such an effort particularly rewarding in Bihar is the fact that the state government conducted a caste survey in 2023, providing a detailed break-up of the populat...