India, Nov. 2 -- Nishant Ranjan, Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha The first of this three-part series - it is based on a complete caste database of Bihar MLAs prepared by the first author of this story - looked at the overall caste composition of all 3,629 MLAs Bihar has had since 1962. This part of the series will look at how the caste composition of Bihar's MLA has changed over time. The third part of the series will look at the intersection of political parties and caste among Bihar's MLAs. Bihar's long-term caste representation story is of the rising share of BC MLAs at the cost of upper caste MLAs If one were to look at the social group-wise cumulative share in the pool of MLAs in Bihar over the years, a clear pattern can be seen: a rise in the share of backward class (BC) MLAs at the cost of falling share of upper caste MLAs. The cumulative share of upper caste MLAs has fallen from 47.7% in 1962 to 34.3% by 2020, while that of BC MLAs has increased from 27.6% to 35.6% during this period. As can be seen from the chart given below, the change really began in the 1990s, which is when Mandal politics, under the leadership of Lalu Yadav, attained primacy in the state. To be sure, the cumulative share of even EBC MLAs has increased from 1.3% to 5.3% in the 1962-2020 period -- and the trend accelerated after Nitish Kumar gained power in 2005 -- but they are still significantly under-represented in comparison to their share in the state's population. Because of SC-ST reservation in the legislature, their share has remained almost consistent while that of Muslims too has remained almost the same. See Chart 1: cumulative share at social-group-wise level in Bihar assembly At the sub-caste level, cumulative Yadav representation peaked with Lalu's rise while Rajputs and Brahmins have suffered the biggest fall The only sub-caste which shows a long-term increase in cumulative share of MLAs in Bihar is Yadav, and on a smaller level, Dusadh. Their cumulative share in total number of MLAs in the state increased in almost every election between 1962 to 2005, which is when the Janata Dal (United) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led alliance defeated Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the state. To be sure, the Yadavs have not seen a decline in their cumulative share in MLAs even after the RJD lost power. Among the biggest losers in the cumulative share of MLAs are Rajputs and Brahmins among the upper castes who have seen their numbers fall from 20.1% to 13.7% and 13.8% to 8.1% respectively. Other significant sub-castes such as Bhumihars among upper castes and Kurmis and Koeris among the BCs have seen their cumulative shares staying largely constant in the last six decades. See Chart 2: cumulative share at sub-caste level in Bihar assembly Lalu's dominance saw a grand counter-polarisation under Nitish who built the coalition of extremes While cumulative shares are useful to understand long-term trends on social representation, they do not tell us a lot about politics as it happens. The third part of this series will look at political-party-wise social representation in detail, but it is useful to look at the social composition of each Bihar assembly to understand how politics and caste were shaping each other. The share of Yadav MLAs in Bihar assembly reached its peak of one-third in the 1995 election, the only one when Lalu Yadav won a majority of his own. It fell consistently to reduce by half by 2010, which is when the JD(U)-BJP alliance registered its biggest victory in the state. While upper caste fortunes saw a revival along with the rise of Nitish Kumar, his real political genius has been in widening the social pool of MLAs to give greater representation to hitherto unrepresented social groups such as EBCs instead of usurping most gains for his own caste group (Kurmi). This was the cardinal mistake Lalu Yadav made at the peak of his politics. See Chart 3A: social-group-wise share of MLAs in every election See Chart 3B: sub-caste-wise share of MLAs in every election...