Ara, Patna: To any old-timer, the earliest image of the Bihar caste wars is from 1977. Belchhi in Patna had seen 14 Scheduled Caste workers killed, and the enduring image is of a visit by Indira Gandhi, otherwise lying low since the post-Emergency defeat. She had to ride an elephant to the small hamlet of Dalits, the monsoon having waterlogged the approach road. The caste wars Belchhi triggered would not stop...

Friday's murder of Brahmeshwar Singh, chief of the outlawed Ranvir Sena (a private army owing allegiance to the powerful upper caste Bhumihars) in Bhojpur, 71 km from Patna, could become a major test for the seven-year-old Nitish Kumar government's continued ability to maintain social harmony in Bihar. Within hours of the killing in the early hours, Singh's supporters went on the rampage, upsetting the delicate caste equilibrium in south Bihar,...

-PTI ARA: Ranvir Sena Chief Brahmeshwar Singh was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Bihar's Bhojpur district early this morning, police said. Singh was on a morning walk when he was accosted by gunmen who pumped several bullets into him, killing him on the spot at Katira Mohalla under Nawada police station, 71 kms from Patna, they said. Singh alias Mukhiya ji, who was earlier facing life imprisonment in various carnage cases, was...

-PTI Ranvir Sena Chief Brahmeshwar Singh was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Bihar's Bhojpur district early Friday morning, police said. Singh was on a morning walk when he was accosted by gunmen who pumped several bullets into him, killing him on the spot at Katira Mohalla under Nawada police station, 71 kms from Patna, they said. Singh alias Mukhiya ji, who was earlier facing life imprisonment in various carnage cases, was...

Why has there been such a silence from dalit leaders over the Bathani Tola judgment acquitting all those accused of killing 21 dalits? At the same time, what explains their loud protests over the Ambedkar cartoons in the textbooks? Has the elevation of Ambedkar as an icon relegated the dalit leadership to a politics of empty symbolism? Is the issue of a lack of accountability in the judicial system towards...