Caste system has played a major role in India over the past few centuries. Places, jobs and religions were thought to be based on caste. There were certain caste people who would do only a particular kind of work and other people will not do that job. Similarly, there were people who would worship only in certain places and they had their own Gods based on their religion. The religions that did not differentiate between the higher and the lower caste had a major influx of people from the lower castes. All these things made the politicians to think hard and come up with a strategy to use caste in politics too.

Religion based political parties were replaced with parties that has caste overtones and several caste leaders started their own political parties and started making inroads. One of the best examples of this in India was the state of Bihar. This state had been under the rule of Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife for over 15 years. In these 15 years, there was rarely any development in that state. It became a state that was synonymous with lawlessness in the country. This has changed the investment plans of many bog companies that thought twice before investing there.

All this has changed with the change of guard in the state a few years back when Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister of the state. This changed the way the people lived in the state. He started developing the condition of the state. Some of the best things that he promised the people and acted on the promise were the laying of roads. This made many places accessible to the people. People who lived in hitherto inaccessible villages were suddenly able to send their kids to school. They were also able to reach their produce to other markets and earn more money.

The lawlessness of the previous regime changed to complete law and order. There were very less kidnappings and other crimes that occurred in that place. As the crime rate decreased, investments started coming in and the infrastructure in the state increased over a period of time. This was one of the major developments in the state that had been on the brink of disaster for many years.

All this changed the way people voted too. The people were stunned by the changes that had happened in the span of a few years with the new regime. This motivated them to vote for the party that was again standing for election on the high ground of development. All the other parties that did not talk about development and instead talked of caste system again were decimated by the voters. This is one of the most important changes in the country and is a lesson for the many political parties and politicians who are still trying to woo the people on the basis of caste system.

As the new India wakes up to the challenge, the politicians know that the people are not the same again. They are able to think on the basis of development and will vote only for the people who are not corrupt and will select the government that is based on the growth for the people. This could possibly be the beginning of the end of caste politics in India!

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