The Riddles of Democracy: Election and the Reproduction of Dominance in a South Bihar Panchayat

The introduction of universal adult suffrage, operation of market forces, and measures taken by the state to include politically marginalised sections of population in the power structure have considerably loosened the grip of the dominant castes over the electoral system. However, election results from the local to the national level show that in the open (unreserved) constituencies, the electoral process continues to revolve around a few dominant castes. The paper, a study of a panchayat in south Bihar, brings out the mechanism through which the dominant castes retain their electoral dominance in Panchayati Raj Institutions, even when they are a numerical minority. It suggests that, firstly, more than the numerical strength of a caste, it is the caste composition of a village that plays a decisive role in who gets what where, and, secondly, without reservation, the weaker sections of population do not have much chance to get elected.