India, Oct. 30 -- On October 27, HT launched a complete caste database - it has been prepared by the first author of this story - of Bihar's 3,629 MLAs from 1962 onwards in these pages. The methodology and possible limitations of this database were mentioned in that piece. The first story based on the database looked at the representation of Muslims in the Bihar assembly.

From today, we begin a three-part series looking at overall caste dynamics in Bihar assembly from 1962.

The first part of the story will provide summary stats on the overall social composition of all MLAs in the database and compare this with the social breakup of the population to ascertain its social representation or lack of it.

The second part of the series will l...