A road block is called in Jharkhand on 6 October. The Central Backward Classes Struggle Committee has announced the programme. The reason is plain. The caste-census form does not have a separate OBC column. OBC means Other Backward Classes. SC and ST have a column. OBC does not. That is why programmes are set for 5, 6 and 7 October.
This is the news as of 3 October 2026. It is an organisers’ call. Not a police order. Whether a school will shut, and whether a road will really be blocked, depends on the district order and on the day itself. There is no official crowd number yet.
The three-day programme
Prabhat Khabar printed the Khunti plan. The evening of 5 October is a torch rally and effigy burning. On 6 October the call is to keep shops shut and block the road. On 7 October there is a dharna at the district headquarters. A memorandum is to go to the Centre through the deputy commissioner. Dainik Bhaskar reported a bandh and a road block from Gumla on 6 October.
The committee named five districts. Khunti, Gumla, Ranchi, Simdega and Lohardaga. This is not a shutdown of all of Jharkhand. It is a call for five districts. Ranchi also had a separate march on the evening of 3 October, from Jaipal Singh Stadium to Albert Ekka Chowk. That is not the result of this dharna. A number for how many people came out is not public.
Why the block is being called
The committee’s press note says the form has columns for ST, SC and others, and no separate column for the backward classes. People say that without a column their count will not be clean. If the count is not clean, reservation in jobs, college and schemes will not stand on a number.
The column and the reservation are not the same thing. Reservation is the share in jobs and college. At the Centre the OBC quota is 27 percent. Many states have their own percent. The census is the count that says how many people are in this class. The block is not a decision to raise the quota. The block is a demand for a clean count.
Who said what
On 24 September, people from the Jharkhand OBC society met the governor. Hindustan printed the report. Dr Suraj Mandal said a clear count of every sub-caste is needed so social and economic plans can be made on real figures. The memorandum also spoke of representation in panchayat polls by population, and of delimitation.
On 21 September in Hazaribagh, the Rashtriya OBC Morcha gave a memorandum to the National Commission for Backward Classes. Prabhat Khabar wrote it. The morcha said the missing column is hurting them socially, economically and politically. They put the OBC population at about 70 percent. That is their claim. Not a printed census number. So this article does not treat 70 percent as an official figure.
So the 2011 mess does not return
In 2011, castes were written by hand with the social and economic census. Names were written in different ways, and the data could not be read. So this time the demand is not for an empty space. It is for a column named OBC, and for a drop-down. A drop-down means a list opens, and the person doing the count picks the caste from the central list or the state list. They should not write it by hand.
Say a village has Yadav, Kurmi and Lohar families. All of them can be on the OBC list. If the name is written by hand, one house gets Kurmi and another gets farmer. Later the two do not become one number. A drop-down puts the names in one place. Only then can a district say how many people are in OBC.
This is not the voter-list protest
The 6 October block is about the census column. Do not mix it with the voter-list or SIR story. The 27 percent held recruitment in Madhya Pradesh is another story. The appointment letter there comes on a department order. The Kunbi certificate in Maharashtra is separate. Chalo Delhi on 1 November is the national plan. The Jharkhand block is the local part of the same demand.
Pages in the same line: the separate column demand, today’s agitation, the 2 October sit-in and Chalo Delhi on 1 November.
The numbers here are the numbers in the reports. Five districts. Three dates, 5, 6 and 7 October. 27 percent at the Centre. 70 percent is the morcha’s claim, not a census figure. There is no crowd number.
What to make of the road that day
By a road block the organisers mean vehicles stopped on the road, so the column demand is seen. A shop bandh means a call to shut the market. Both lines are in the press note. That does not mean every crossing will be shut from 6 in the morning. The programme is fixed in Khunti. Gumla has a report of a bandh and a block. The committee named Ranchi, Simdega and Lohardaga too. Other districts are not in this call.
Reports say the count for the 2027 census has started in the cold hill states. Whether an OBC column has been added to the form is not settled in these reports of 3 October. What is settled is the demand. The block is the way to take that demand onto the road.
Advice:
The plain point is this. On 6 October a road block and a shop bandh are called in Khunti, Gumla, Ranchi, Simdega and Lohardaga, because the census form does not have a separate OBC column. Torch rally on 5, dharna on 7. This is not a police order. Check your district order for a closed school, bus or road. If WhatsApp says the whole of Jharkhand is shut, or quotes a crowd in lakhs, do not take it as a government paper. This block will not put an appointment letter on your roll number. Check the state list to see if your name is on the OBC list.
