Caste in Contemporary Society

Chapter 138 examines caste as a contemporary social institution rather than as an unchanged survival from the past. Caste can shape marriage choices, neighbourhood relations, land access, political organization, educational trajectories, occupational networks and claims on the state, but none of those outcomes follows automatically from a person’s jati or administrative category. Modern constitutional rights, migration, schooling, markets, affirmative action, urbanization and digital communication have changed the settings in which caste is reproduced and contested. The chapter therefore rejects two opposite simplifications: that caste has disappeared under modernity, and that every social or political behaviour can be explained by caste alone. The useful historical question is how caste operates through institutions, and how those institutions have changed across Mithila, Vajji, Anga and the India–Nepal borderland. The evidence is unusually rich but methodologically difficult. Bihar’s 2022–23 Caste-Based Survey produced a recent state-wide enumeration of caste and broad social categories together with a separate socio- economic report, while Census 2011 remains the last completed all-India census baseline for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes at district, sub-district, town and village levels. Nepal’s National Population and Housing Census 2021 records caste/ethnicity through a different classification system, including Madhesh/Tarai castes, Madhesh/Tarai Dalits, Tarai Janajatis, Hill castes and religious/linguistic groups. Those categories are not equivalents of Bihar’s Backward Class, Extremely Backward Class, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and general/unreserved categories. Cross-border comparison must therefore compare institutions and outcomes without pretending that the legal-statistical taxonomies are interchangeable. 138.1 Caste is contemporary because institutions keep remaking it Caste persists through repeated decisions and organizational routines rather than through an unchanging social script. A marriage broker asks about family and jati; a political party weighs local social coalitions; a student applies under a legally defined reservation category; a village dispute may turn on land, status and kinship; a migrant uses a hometown network to find work; and an association may mobilize around education, hostels, scholarships or symbolic recognition. Each activity is modern in form even when it draws on older social boundaries. Caste is therefore best understood as institutional reproduction under changing conditions. The same category can lose importance in one domain and gain it in another. Education may reduce dependence on hereditary occupation while competitive examinations increase the salience of administrative caste certificates. Urban anonymity may weaken village surveillance while digital groups make caste associations easier to organize across distance. Contemporary change is not a single movement from caste to castelessness; it is a redistribution of where caste matters. 138.2 Jati, social category and legal status are different analytical objects Everyday jati names, broad survey categories and constitutional reservation categories should not be collapsed into one vocabulary. Jati is a social identity that may be localized, internally segmented and historically variable. Bihar’s Caste-Based Survey groups people for administrative summary into Backward Class, Extremely Backward Class, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and general/unreserved categories, but those umbrella categories contain many communities with different occupations, assets, histories and political trajectories. Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe status derive from constitutional schedules; backward-class lists are governed through separate legal and administrative processes. A historian must therefore state which level is being analysed. A percentage for a broad category cannot be used to describe 14191419 GAJENDRA THAKUR every jati inside it, and an administrative label cannot by itself establish lived status in a village, town or profession. Figure 548 — Contemporary caste is produced and contested across interacting institutions rather than operating as a single autonomous hierarchy. 138.3 Bihar’s 2022–23 Caste-Based Survey changed the evidentiary landscape The Bihar survey was politically consequential because it supplied recent state-wide population counts by caste after decades in which public discussion relied on older censuses, sample surveys, electoral inference and category-level administrative records. The state reported a total population of 130,725,310 and released the first caste and social-category findings on 2 October 2023, followed by a socio-economic report tabled in the legislature on 7 November 2023. The survey recorded caste, education, income, occupation, migration and other household information. Its significance is not that it ends debate. Survey design, self-reporting, classification choices, non-public microdata and the distinction between enumeration and causal explanation remain important limitations. Its value is that claims about Bihar’s contemporary social composition can now be tied to a dated administrative exercise rather than to impressionistic estimates. 138.4 The broad Bihar profile shows why “upper” and “backward” cannot be treated as small margins At the broad category level, the Bihar survey reported Extremely Backward Classes at 36.0148 percent of the population, Backward Classes at 27.1286 percent, Scheduled Castes at 19.6518 percent, Scheduled Tribes at 1.6824 percent and the general/unreserved category at 15.5224 percent. The first analytical lesson is demographic: BC and EBC together form nearly two-thirds of the state population. The second lesson is methodological: demographic share does not itself reveal economic position, political power, educational achievement or representation in public employment. Those outcomes have to be measured separately. The third lesson is geographical. These are state-wide figures for Bihar, not a direct demographic map of Mithila, Vajji or Anga. District and sub-district variation remains essential, especially because the historical regions do not coincide with a single modern administrative boundary. HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II Figure 549 — Bihar Caste-Based Survey 2022–23: broad social categories as a share of the state population; rounded state-wide figures, not a direct map of Mithila, Vajji or Anga. 138.5 The socio-economic report shows inequality across broad categories, not a single caste ladder The second survey release makes it impossible to equate social category mechanically with prosperity. Using a state-defined threshold of family monthly income up to ₹6,000, the report classified 34.13 percent of Bihar’s families as poor. The broad-category poverty shares were 25.09 percent in the general category, 33.16 percent among Backward Classes, 33.58 percent among Extremely Backward Classes, 42.93 percent among Scheduled Castes and 42.70 percent among Scheduled Tribes. These differences are large and socially important, but they do not mean that every household in one category is better or worse off than every household in another. Poverty also exists within the general category, and substantial non-poor populations exist within disadvantaged categories. The correct interpretation is distributional: historical disadvantage remains visible in aggregate outcomes while class differentiation cuts across caste. 138.6 Within-category heterogeneity is a central fact, not statistical noise Broad categories can conceal inequality among the communities they aggregate. Some jatis have accumulated land, education, public employment or political organization more effectively than others; some remain concentrated in insecure labour or poorly serviced settlements; and others display sharp internal class differentiation. The Bihar socio-economic report itself published caste-wise information, but category averages remain useful only as a first layer. For Mithila, Vajji and Anga, local history can be especially important because the same jati may occupy different economic positions in different districts, irrigation regimes or market corridors. A community connected to a commercial town, a migration route or a specialized craft economy may follow a different trajectory from members of the same broad category elsewhere. Caste analysis must therefore combine category-level statistics with locality, occupation, landholding, gender and migration. 14211421 GAJENDRA THAKUR Figure 550 — Bihar survey poverty shares by broad social category; survey-defined poor means family monthly income up to ₹6,000, and the descriptive association is not a causal hierarchy. 138.7 Land remains one of the strongest links between caste and material power Land connects social status to food security, credit, housing, political influence and the ability to absorb shocks. Yet land relations are more complicated than inherited stereotypes of “landowning” and “landless” castes. Bihar’s agrarian structure is dominated by very small holdings, fragmented parcels, informal leasing and migration-linked cultivation. Members of historically dominant landholding communities can be poor or own only small plots; members of historically disadvantaged communities can acquire land through purchase, reform, migration earnings or state programmes. What remains unequal is the distribution of secure, productive and well-located land and the bargaining power attached to it. Contemporary caste history should therefore ask who owns, who leases, who cultivates, who supplies labour, who controls irrigation and who can use land as collateral. Cadastral records, agricultural censuses and local surveys are more informative than caste reputation alone. 138.8 Occupational change weakens hereditary closure without erasing network effects The movement from hereditary occupation to diversified work is one of the clearest forms of social change. Agricultural labourers enter construction, transport and services; artisan families pursue education and salaried employment; migrants work in factories, logistics and hospitality; and public-sector recruitment creates occupations that have no traditional caste analogue. Even so, networks can remain caste-inflected. Job information, apprenticeships, labour contractors, credit and accommodation often circulate through relatives and co-villagers, and these networks may overlap with jati. Such overlap should not be confused with a fixed occupational essence. The same network can facilitate mobility away from a stigmatized occupation. A contemporary account must therefore distinguish occupational inheritance from network- based recruitment, and it must recognize that migration can both loosen local hierarchy and reproduce social clustering at destination. 138.9 Education changes caste relations by changing the resources through which status is claimed Schooling and higher education create credentials that can compete with inherited status, while also becoming new arenas of unequal access. Chapter 134 showed large expansion in girls’ education and HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II continuing differences in employment outcomes. Caste adds another layer: school quality, parental education, ability to finance coaching, access to hostels, language proficiency and digital resources affect who converts formal enrolment into competitive advantage. Scholarships, reserved seats and targeted welfare can widen access, but their effects depend on information, documentation and institutional quality. First- generation students may enter colleges without the cultural or financial resources available to established professional families. The relevant question is not whether education “abolishes” caste. It is whether educational institutions reduce inherited disparities, create new class divisions within castes, and enable identities based on profession and achievement to coexist with or displace older hierarchies. 138.10 Public employment makes caste simultaneously a social identity and a documentary category Reservation in public employment and education transforms caste into a legally documented administrative status. Certificates, lists, non-creamy-layer rules where applicable, roster systems and recruitment categories become part of everyday state interaction. This can intensify the visibility of caste even as the policy objective is to remedy historical exclusion. The Bihar survey reported large differences in public- employment participation across communities and categories, but those figures should not be read as a direct measure of discrimination or merit. Recruitment reflects education, age structure, urban access, historical entry into services, exam preparation, reservation, migration and the size of the eligible population. A sound analysis separates three questions: whether a group is historically disadvantaged, whether it is adequately represented in a particular service, and whether a specific recruitment process complies with law. 138.11 Bihar’s 2023 reservation increase demonstrates the constitutional limits of demographic arithmetic After the caste survey, Bihar amended its reservation laws in 2023 to raise the combined reservation for BC, EBC, SC and ST in public employment and educational admissions from 50 percent to 65 percent, apart from the separate EWS framework. On 20 June 2024, the Patna High Court in Gaurav Kumar v. State of Bihar set aside the amendments, holding that the increase could not be justified simply by population proportions and emphasizing the constitutional distinction between proportionate and adequate representation. On 29 July 2024, the Supreme Court granted leave in the State’s appeal but refused interim relief at that stage. This chapter does not invent a later final disposition where the publicly located record does not establish one. The episode is historically important because it shows how new caste data immediately entered a constitutional debate about equality, backwardness, representation and the 50-percent rule. 138.12 Local government makes representation visible at village and town scale Panchayat and municipal reservations move caste representation from abstract constitutional debate into local institutions. Bihar State Election Commission tables for the 2021 Panchayat elections record reserved positions for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and women across ward membership, mukhiya, panchayat samiti, zila parishad, panch and sarpanch posts. Reserved office can open political careers to groups previously excluded from formal authority, but election does not automatically eliminate social dependence, financial inequality or proxy control. Nor should one assume that a representative speaks for a homogeneous caste bloc. Local governance is where caste intersects most directly with roads, drainage, welfare lists, schools, housing schemes and dispute mediation. The historically meaningful question is whether representation changes resource allocation, administrative access and the social legitimacy of office, not simply how many reserved seats exist. 14231423 GAJENDRA THAKUR 138.13 Gender changes the meaning of caste because women often carry boundary-making work Caste reproduction is deeply gendered. Marriage rules, family honour, inheritance, residence after marriage, care work and control over sexuality have historically placed much of the practical enforcement of group boundaries on women’s lives. Contemporary education, migration, legal rights and women’s employment alter these arrangements, but not uniformly. A woman may gain a degree and salaried work while still facing strong constraints on partner choice; she may hold a reserved local-government office while male relatives manage public interaction; or migration may leave her with greater farm responsibility without formal land title. Intersectional analysis is therefore necessary. “Women” are not one caste-neutral category, and “caste” is not experienced independently of gender, class, age and marital status. 138.14 Marriage remains one of the most durable sites of caste reproduction, but its mechanisms are changing Chapter 133 showed how marriage practices are changing through education, delayed marriage, digital matchmaking, migration and legal registration. Caste remains salient because marriage links households, property, ritual networks and social reputation. Endogamy can persist even when occupation and residence become highly mobile. Yet the process of arranging marriage is changing: matrimonial websites, WhatsApp networks, diaspora associations and university contacts expand the search radius while allowing families to filter by caste more efficiently. Conversely, education and urban interaction create opportunities for inter- caste relationships and marriages. The coexistence of these tendencies explains why modern communication does not necessarily reduce caste boundaries. Technology can widen individual choice and strengthen categorical sorting at the same time. 138.15 Urbanization changes the spatial form of caste more reliably than it eliminates caste In cities and expanding district towns, occupational diversity and rental housing can weaken the dense surveillance of village hierarchy. Neighbours may know one another first through profession, school, apartment or workplace rather than lineage. But urban land markets, neighbourhood reputation, informal brokerage and social networks can reproduce clustering. Caste associations may become more formal in towns through hostels, community halls, welfare trusts and annual gatherings. The result is not simply persistence or decline but spatial transformation: practices once tied to village settlement may reappear as voluntary association, electoral networking or matrimonial organization. Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Patna-linked corridors and Janakpur all create urban settings in which caste interacts with class, education and migration in new combinations. 138.16 Migration can loosen everyday hierarchy while making origin networks economically valuable Large-scale migration from Bihar and Nepal changes caste relations because people leave the institutions that once enforced local status. In destination cities, employers may care more about skill, contractor networks or willingness to accept particular work than about village rank. Workers from different castes share worksites and transport; students share hostels and coaching centres. At the same time, origin networks can become valuable precisely because migrants need trusted contacts for jobs, rooms, loans and emergency support. These networks may follow village, kin, religion, language or caste lines. Migration therefore does not have one predictable effect. It can create new solidarities across caste, expose migrants to new forms of HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II discrimination, or turn caste networks into practical social capital. Return migration can then bring new expectations back to the village. 138.17 Digital media has created caste publics that are larger, faster and more archival Chapter 136 showed how social media expands regional-language publics. Caste associations, commemorations, recruitment networks and political campaigns now circulate through the same platforms. Historical figures are claimed, genealogies simplified, conference speeches clipped into short videos and local disputes amplified beyond their original setting. Digital media can support anti-discrimination organizing and educational mutual aid, but it can also intensify stereotyping, abuse and misinformation. A viral post should never be treated as evidence of a whole community’s view. Digital caste history therefore requires source criticism: identify the account, audience, platform incentives, date, editing and offline organization behind the post. The scale of visibility is new; the representativeness of that visibility is not guaranteed. 138.18 Caste associations have shifted from ritual status claims toward education, welfare and lobbying Associational life is one of the clearest bridges between older community organization and modern civil society. Community bodies may run hostels, scholarships, marriage networks, conferences, legal-aid funds, temples or memorial projects. They may lobby for inclusion in backward-class lists, sub-categorization, welfare schemes or symbolic recognition. Such organizations can produce social capital and educational opportunity, but they can also harden boundaries by presenting internally diverse populations as unified political constituencies. The historian should therefore examine what an association actually does, who funds it, who participates, how leadership is selected and whether benefits reach poorer members. The existence of an organization does not prove that its claims represent every person who shares the label. 138.19 Dalit assertion has transformed the public vocabulary of dignity and rights The post-independence expansion of constitutional rights, education, reservation, political representation and Ambedkarite public culture has changed how caste subordination can be named and contested. Dalit organizations, student groups, elected representatives, writers and local activists frame exclusion as a question of rights rather than custom. This matters historically even where discrimination persists, because the legitimate public vocabulary has changed. Practices once defended as traditional can now be challenged through Article 17, the Protection of Civil Rights Act, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, administrative complaints, electoral mobilization and media exposure. The transformation is not complete, but it alters the balance between social coercion and legal claim-making. 138.20 Untouchability is constitutionally abolished, but legal abolition and social practice must be studied separately Article 17 of the Indian Constitution abolishes untouchability, and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 criminalizes disabilities arising from its practice. The existence of these norms is a foundational change from earlier social orders. Yet law cannot be used as evidence that discrimination has vanished, just as reported offences cannot be treated as a direct measure of the total prevalence of discrimination. Access to temples, water, burial grounds, schools, rental housing, barber shops, eating places and social ceremonies can 14251425 GAJENDRA THAKUR vary by locality. Researchers need complaints, court records, fieldwork and institutional observation, while protecting the dignity and safety of affected people. The analytical standard should be precise: identify the practice, location, institution and evidence rather than describing an entire district or caste through an unverified allegation. 138.21 The SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act creates a specialized rights-and- remedy framework The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, with later amendments and rules, recognizes that some offences involve caste-based domination and therefore require specific offences, special courts, relief, rehabilitation and victim-witness protections. For contemporary history, the Act is evidence of institutional recognition that formal equality alone is insufficient. Court and police statistics can reveal patterns of reporting and processing, but they cannot by themselves establish the true incidence of violence: reporting propensity, policing, legal awareness, charge-sheeting and court capacity all affect the numbers. Legal data should therefore be used to analyse state response as well as social conflict, with careful distinction between allegation, charge and conviction. 138.22 Caste and religion intersect, but neither can be reduced to the other The region’s Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Christian and other communities contain distinct histories of social stratification. Hindu caste categories cannot simply be transferred to every religious setting, and religious affiliation does not erase all inherited occupational or status distinctions. Conversion, reform and sectarian membership may challenge older hierarchies while family and marriage networks persist. The correct approach is empirical and tradition-specific. Census religion tables, caste survey categories, local histories and ethnography answer different questions. This is especially important in border regions where the same language community may contain multiple religions and where administrative categories differ between India and Nepal. 138.23 Muslim social stratification should be analysed on its own historical terms Bihar’s caste survey enumerated numerous Muslim communities within its caste list, showing that social differentiation among Muslims is administratively visible in the state. Scholars often use terms such as ashraf, ajlaf and arzal to discuss South Asian Muslim stratification, but these are historical analytical categories rather than a simple mirror of Hindu varna. Occupation, lineage claims, region, sect, class and marriage networks can all matter. A contemporary history of Mithila, Vajji and Anga should therefore avoid two errors: assuming that Islam produces a socially undifferentiated population, and assuming that Muslim hierarchy is identical in structure or meaning to Hindu caste. The same caution applies to other religious communities. 138.24 Nepal’s caste/ethnicity census framework is not a translation of Bihar’s reservation categories Nepal’s 2021 census classifies the national population into broad groupings that include Hill castes, Madhesh/Tarai castes, Hill Dalits, Madhesh/Tarai Dalits, Mountain/Hill Janajatis, Tarai Janajatis, religious/linguistic groups and others. Nationally, the census counted 4.68 million people in Madhesh/Tarai caste groups and 1.39 million in Madhesh/Tarai Dalit groups, but province-level composition is different from the national distribution. These labels reflect Nepal’s own history of caste, ethnicity, indigeneity, regional identity and inclusion policy. They cannot be mapped one-to-one onto Bihar’s BC, EBC, SC and HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II ST categories. Cross-border kinship may connect communities with similar names, but legal status, reservation eligibility and census coding remain state-specific. 138.25 Madhesh housing data shows material inequality without converting census groups into causes Nepal’s NPHC 2021 Housing and Household thematic report provides an unusually concrete measure of inequality in Madhesh Province. Across all Madhesh households, 44.4 percent were classified as living in pakki housing and 31.9 percent in kachchi housing. Among Madhesh/Tarai caste households, the corresponding shares were 49.3 and 28.8 percent; among Tarai Janajati households, 41.3 and 33.8 percent; and among Madhesh/Tarai Dalit households, 27.2 percent were pakki and 44.0 percent kachchi. Religious/linguistic-group households recorded 50.9 percent pakki and 28.0 percent kachchi. These are strong descriptive inequalities, but housing type is shaped by income, location, land tenure, remittances, urbanization and disaster exposure as well as social exclusion. The data should support questions, not deterministic explanations. Figure 551 — Madhesh Province housing quality by selected broad caste/ethnicity categories in Nepal’s NPHC 2021; the classifications are descriptive and are not equivalent to Bihar’s reservation categories. 138.26 Nepal’s constitutional inclusion framework links caste inequality to citizenship and representation The Constitution of Nepal, 2015, embeds equality, social justice and specific Dalit rights within a federal political order. Article 40 provides rights relating to Dalits, while Article 42 addresses social justice and participation for groups that have experienced exclusion. These provisions make caste and ethnicity matters of constitutional citizenship rather than private custom alone. Implementation occurs through public-service recruitment, elected representation, education, welfare and federal, provincial and local institutions, and the details can vary across sectors. For Madhesh, this is especially important because caste inequality intersects with regional identity, language, citizenship history and the politics of federalism. A category may be disadvantaged through more than one institutional pathway, so analysis should not isolate caste from the wider inclusion regime. 138.27 Cross-border kinship connects social worlds while national law assigns different categories India–Nepal marriage, pilgrimage, labour and market networks mean that families can recognize similar jati names across the border. Yet the legal consequences of those identities differ. A community listed as an 14271427 GAJENDRA THAKUR OBC, EBC or SC in Bihar does not thereby acquire an equivalent status in Nepal, and a Nepal census category or inclusion entitlement has no automatic force in India. This distinction matters for education, recruitment, certificates and welfare. It also matters historically: cross-border cultural continuity should not be used to invent a single transnational caste bureaucracy. The borderland is socially connected and administratively plural. Good regional history holds both facts at once. 138.28 Contemporary caste labels must not be projected backward as timeless medieval sub-castes This volume has repeatedly separated later social classifications from the periods to which they are sometimes retroactively assigned. The rule is especially important for Mithila’s genealogical traditions. Present-day or early-modern Maithil Brahmin sub-classifications, including the historically late consolidation of Śrotriya as a distinct sub-caste around the turn of the nineteenth century in the evidence used for this project, must not be treated as fixed medieval categories. The same principle applies more generally: a caste name recorded in a 2023 survey does not prove that the category had identical boundaries, rank or meaning centuries earlier. Contemporary data are indispensable for contemporary society; they are not a licence to rewrite medieval social history backwards. 138.29 Measurement requires an evidence architecture rather than a caste master-variable A rigorous contemporary caste history should triangulate at least six kinds of evidence. Population and caste surveys establish self-reported identity and broad demographic shares. Socio-economic surveys show income, education, work and assets. Land and housing records reveal material position. Election and recruitment data show representation in specific institutions. Legal records establish rights, disputes and state response. Ethnography and oral history show how categories are experienced and negotiated. Each source has limits: survey categories can be coarse; administrative data reflect eligibility rules; court records capture litigated conflicts; and ethnography is local. The analytical discipline is to ask the same question across different sources and preserve disagreement rather than forcing every dataset into one hierarchy. 138.30 Conclusion: caste persists through unequal institutions, but the institutions are changing Caste remains consequential in contemporary Mithila, Vajji, Anga and Madhesh because it is embedded in marriage, property, networks, political representation and state categories. Yet it is not a frozen remnant. Mass schooling, reservation, migration, local democracy, urban growth, rights law, women’s education, digital communication and new labour markets continually alter the resources through which caste is reproduced and challenged. Bihar’s caste survey makes social composition and inequality more measurable; Nepal’s 2021 census shows a different but equally structured caste/ethnicity field; and both sides demonstrate why cross-border comparison requires methodological caution. The central finding is therefore neither “caste is disappearing” nor “caste explains everything.” Contemporary caste is a changing architecture of unequal opportunities, collective identities and legal claims whose effects vary by institution, locality, gender and class. HISTORY OF MITHILA, VAJJI & ANGA — VOLUME II Table 138.1 — Evidence architecture for analysing caste in contemporary society Evidence source What it establishes Use in Chapter Main limitation Bihar Caste-Based recent caste/social- demographic and self-reported state Survey 2022–23 category population; socio-economic exercise; category design income, education, baseline for Bihar and unpublished occupation and microdata limit causal migration analysis Census of India SC/ST population to local spatial does not enumerate all 2011 PCA / SC-ST district, sub-district, baseline on the castes; 2011 is dated tables town and village level Indian side Bihar State Election reserved posts and local political office-holding does not Commission, elected representation representation equal social or Panchayat 2021 by category economic power Patna High Court legal status and reservation law and procedural posture 2024 + Supreme constitutional dispute judicial reasoning must not be mistaken Court order 29 July over Bihar 65% for a later final 2024 reservation judgment amendments Protection of Civil formal legal rights framework legal cases measure Rights Act 1955; prohibitions, offences and state response reported and processed SC/ST PoA Act and remedies conflict, not full 1989 prevalence PLFS / NFHS / NSS employment, cross-check social sampling and category and education data education, health and inequality definitions differ from household outcomes caste survey with limited social- group variables Nepal NPHC 2021 caste/ethnicity Madhesh and not equivalent to Bihar Population distribution under national social BC/EBC/SC/ST Composition Nepal’s classification composition categories Nepal NPHC 2021 housing quality by material inequality descriptive association; Housing & broad caste/ethnicity in Madhesh housing also reflects Household report and province income, location and remittances Constitution of equality, Dalit rights, formal inclusion rights on paper do not Nepal 2015 and social justice and framework directly measure inclusion participation implementation institutions Ethnography, oral lived boundaries, mechanisms and local studies are not history, local marriage, networks, change over time automatically archives and media discrimination and representative of the assertion whole region 14291429