Nobody has ever accused former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav of number crunching. All his life he has milked cows and caste without ever needing to count. Yet, he is all set to lead a protest march in Patna on July 13 seeking the publication of caste data in the socio-economic caste census. If the other big Yadav chieftain, Mulayam Singh Yadav, rakes it up in Uttar Pradesh too, this issue can assume critical mass forcing the BJP-led central government to act. And if it doesn’t act, the refusal to publish caste numbers could become a rallying point against the BJP in the Bihar polls, where castes are the constant factors in the poll calculus.The pundits have insisted that the government is hiding the caste census data fearing a backlash from the backward castes. According to the 1931 census and the 1980 Mandal commission, the backward classes numbered around 54% of the total population and if the new census figures are higher than this, the backward classes could ask for a bigger share in education and jobs.Denial of caste numbers could be portrayed as an attempt to deny the rightful proportion of jobs and educational opportunities and be turned into an emotive issue for Lalu Prasad’s 12% Yadavs who lag behind in education, jobs and upward mobility.If Yadav identity and the denial of rights become the big issue, Lalu could hope to get his Yadav brethren to ensure a remarkable comeback after being relegated to the sidelines of Bihar politics.But is that all? Is the government hiding the figures just to deprive the other backward classes (OBCs) of a few seats in government educational institutions or a clutch of jobs in the dwindling government job market?Well, the government circles are abuzz with a conspiracy theory of a different kind. Unlike the pundits who believe that the government has conspired to deny the backward masses a little more of their due, some top bureaucrats believe that the attempt is not to hide the OBC figures but to suppress the more dangerous upper caste numbers.A large section of the upper castes, particularly the castes that dominated the upper and lower bureaucracy, had a long time ago shifted their focus to the private sector. They now control the wheels of power in the entire private sector where no Dalit or OBC can easily break the invisible glass ceiling. It is not government jobs that would bother the upper castes, but the government itself.The upper castes have been running governments at the Centre and the states for so long that they don’t want the caste census to finally proclaim that the Indian democracy is not really representative The only backward caste minister of any consequence in the Narendra Modi cabinet is Modi himself. In the 27-member cabinet, 20 are from upper castes.Roughly 30 per cent or eight of the cabinet ministers are Brahmins, four are from the Kshatriya community and there is Vaishya, Kayastha, Kamma, Maratha and Khatri representation. So, less than 10 per cent of the population is virtually running the government and ruling the masses. If the OBC numbers are about 60 per cent of the total population and the SC/ST, the only known figures, are 30 per cent, the upper castes can only be 10 per cent of the population. Or if we go by the generous Mandal Commission figures the upper caste numbers ought to be just 16-18 per cent and nothing more.Now, the strangest aspect of the Indian democracy is that since Independence we have been ruled only by the upper castes: about 50 years by Brahmins, if we count Rajiv Gandhi too, 10 years by a Khatri Sikh and the others have largely been blips on the governance radar. Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda’s Vokkaligas are backward, so he is the first backward caste PM. Though Modi’s caste was listed as OBC in 1994, he played the caste card only during the 2014 polls, and now his team is largely upper caste. This is the context in which the BJP government is refusing to announce the exact number of upper castes in the country.States No Different The situation is similar in many states. West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Goa have Brahmin chief ministers, Rajasthan has a Maratha from a former royal family, Telangana a Velama landlord caste, Andhra a Kamma, Haryana a Khatri, Punjab a Jat Sikh, Kerala an upper caste Christian, Himachal a Rajput and so on.In the 29 states of the Indian Union, there are hardly five or six OBC chief ministers and no Dalit leadership.According to a story making the rounds, when the caste data was compiled a top official was so startled to see the upper caste numbers (because they were insignificantly low in comparison with the rest of the castes) that he immediately jumped into his vehicle and sped towards Raisina Hill to share the findings with his bosses. They too were convinced that the upper caste numbers are dangerously low to be revealed to the world. Whether the story is true or false, only a disclosure of caste numbers can push administrators and people towards proportionate representation in all walks of life.