With the media houses christening him as the "Indian of the Year" and the World Bank and the Gates Foundation acknowledging a drastic turnaround in the fortunes of what has long remained one of the most backward states of the Indian Union, in both social and economic terms, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar has many reasons to smile on the eve of the State elections. This is the election that political observers believe, will be a decisive indicator of whether Bihar has finally come out of its post Mandal infatuation with divisive, caste based politics and whether the future politics of this long maligned state will be determined by wars fought on the development plank or will continue to be based on caste arithmetic and calculations.
The political landscape of the state stands as follows: the current government is an JD(U)-BJP combine headed by Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister coming into power after 15 years of RJD led rule in the state. The combine currently enjoys a comfortable majority(~150 seats in an assembly of 243). The RJD+ combine was trumped in the last state elections garnering just 66 seats while LJP, headed by Lalu Prasad's long time friend-turned-foe-turned-friend-turned foe... , Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan got 14 seats. The denouement that this people's verdict made was clear, specially seen in the light of the opinions held by World Bank which believed that issues faced by the state was "enormous" because of "persistent poverty, complex social stratification, unsatisfactory infrastructure and weak governance" and The Economist which unequivocally stated "Bihar [had] become a byword for the worst of India, of widespread and inescapable poverty, of corrupt politicians indistinguishable from mafia-dons they patronise, caste-ridden social order that has retained the worst feudal cruelties". Having spent a childhood in the safer confines of a semi-urbanised state capital, Patna, it was obvious to us from reading both the English dailies and vernaculars that something had gone terribly wrong with a state , a state that once boasted of statesmen and leaders like J.P., Dr. A.N. Sinha and Mr. L.N.Mishra had kneeled for 15 years to a government that consisted entirely of self serving individuals and groups who had no commitment to political ideologies or norms of governance.
The past 5 years have been in stark relief with the previous administration with the growth rate of the state increasing from its 1999-2008 average of 5.1%(national average 7.3%) to the 5 year 2004-2009 average at 11.08%. And despite apprehensions, this wasnt a result of fudged data(a theory which does have some takers simply because the data collection authority, CSO merely guides the states in collecting data rather than verifying it) but was a very real growth.
Much of this impetus, however, was not provided by private investments which are still yet to pick up a healthy pace or by agricultural expansion which is expected of a priamrily agricultural economy but by a rigorous public funded expansion of the dilapidated road network and construction. A mammoth 47% boom in construction activities in the last 5 years, an eightfold increase in yearly road construction and government development spending increasing from 2000 crores in 2004 to over 16000 crores per year in the last 5 years speaks for themselves. The companies and industries have been a bit more hesitant in buying in the Bihar boom mainly because of political uncertainities that is hogging the upcoming state elections, especially in light of the fact that in the not-so-recent by-elections on 18 seats, JD(U) won 5 while RJD won 9 seats.The organised sector has stagnated but the Finance Ministry has worked hard to garner investments from industrial houses. A lot, thus hinges on the Nitish Kumar government being re-elected in 2010.
But for most Bihari people, the statistics and awards for the Chief Minister havent really mattered a lot. If anything, it brings to the populace's memory the 'India Shining' fiasco that brought down the NDA in the 2004 general elections. In fact, there are very real fears of that happening in the state elections though there have been very faint indications of complacency from the current government. Part of the confidence stems from the fact that the Government has touched the lives not only of the urban middle class but of the more obscure, interior regions of the Gangetic plains. Outside of the improvement of connectivity to the rural hinterland, there has been a pervasive crackdown on criminal elements with almost 40,000 convictions of big and small time goons that once controlled entire districts and displayed illegal armory with gay abandon in public. The fear of criminal power has decreased in most areas, major victories in that context being the conviction of Shahbuddin, 4 time winner from the Siwan constituency , now serving life imprisonment. Whereas in the past, the well know Don of Siwan had fought and won elections while being jailed, in 2009 the proxy candidate from Siwan, his wife, lost the Lok Sabha elections. Another high profile casualty of the new regime change was Pappu Yadav, a 4 time Lok Sabha member who was convicted for CPI(M) activist, Ajit Sarkar's murder and is now serving life imprisonment. Coupled with concerted efforts to improve medical facilities in the state's primary health centers by improving and streamlining doctors' and nurses' attendance and filling up of long vacant teacher positions in primary and secondary school, the current government has taken care that the policies are premeating to the services provided to the lowest rungs of the society and are not restricted to the middle and upper classes.
But public memory, as one would imagine, is fickle, especially in a state that has long been the laboratory for Mandal politics and due to the extremely low reaches of education, boasts of an antiquated mindset that is more comfortable talking about caste than about development. And much as an intellectual would wish to see RJD and JD(U) fight it out in the state elections in a logical and clean manner upon matters of policy and ideology, he can't hide the whimsical smile that such a false hope elicits universally. Indeed, Nitish Kumar's success in turning tables on the RJD was not entirely due to the fatigue of the people of Bihar with Lalu Prasad's(or Rabri Devi's, if you will) administration. Sure, the emphatic wins of BJP and JD(U) in the urban centers could be attributed to the highly dissatisfied middle class who saw in Nitish Kumar , a change from old practices, a man who could improve the current system. But this dice wouldn't roll in the more rural areas simply because politics has almost come to be equated to caste allegiances here. Society in Bihar has long been very sensitive about castes, quite a bit of that observation stemming from the inability of post-independence governments to enact and implement land reforms. The bloody class wars of the nineties only reaffirmed the lines that had been drawn long back and it is no wonder that Mandal politicians talk not as much of policies as they do of vote banks and the caste of a candidate. But Nitish Kumar displayed his knack in the art of rajniti as well when he reformulated Lalu Prasad's caste equations and postulated one of his own. His creation of the "Mahadalit" faction will always be famously(or infamously) remembered as one of the greatest tour de forces in political battles in recent times. By including almost all backward castes in the state and branding them Mahadalits, thus making them eligible for extremely benevolent government programs that promised land, economic statbility and assurances of safe living and protection, Nitish's ploy ate into the classical Yadav + Muslims +OBC combine that Lalu Prasad had had firm backing of. More significantly, since this hardly left out a couple of OBC factions which were firmly behind LJP and RJD (the Yadavs and Paswans included), there wasn't as much social fragmentation as such divisions are wont to cause. Thus breaking up an assured RJD vote bank, Nitish came up trumps and chalked a marvelous victory in the 2005 elections.
The question that remains: the political landscape, like the ever changing ever morphing montage it is, what are the chances that RJD and the LJP combine might play to upset the incumbent government's plan? More importantly, since the RJD and LJP have been decimated in the Lok Sabha Elections (RJD coming down from 21 to just 4 and LJP from 4 to no members in the Lok Sabha) ,it almost seems like JD(U)'s game to lose. Nitish Kumar recently held out sops reserved for the Mahadalit category, to the paswans to wean that vote bank away from the now decimated LJP and there are indications that this move would win him additional support from that community. His secular image among muslims, though, is dented by his coalition with the communally tinged BJP but his public remarks against Narendra Modi, the star son of VHP and BJP, to campaign in Bihar have won him sympathisers among the muslims as well. The administration's willingness to reopen cases from the Bhagalpur riots has also gone down well among the minority community and the muslim group seems eager to look beyond the rhetoric of Lalu Prasad Yadav who became a secular messiah after stopping L K Advani's rath yatra from entering Bihar.
As Swaminomics said in one of his articles, industrial participation in the Bihar story would only materialise if Nitish Kumar again wins a mojority in the new set up. A hint of power to RJD or LJP would put the brakes on what is promising to be a good period for the state after a very very long time. But there are a couple of factors that could play spoilsport. There has been public dissent in JD(U) with party members complaining of the one man show that the Chief Minister seems to be running. There was a tricky period when there were doubts about whether JD(U) would split after a very public dichotomy of opinions between Nitish Kumar and his second in command, Sharad Yadav. With the bill again coming up for discussion in the Winter session(or even before that) it is important for the CM to keep his flock disciplined and together. Another unknown entity this time around would be the Congress, which heady after its success in Uttar Pradesh LS elections, would be anxious to replicate its experiments in Bihar by going alone, head to head against staunch UPA supporters, the RJD. Rahul Gandhi, though not as active in Bihar as he was in UP still has the ability to turn a few votes here and in case of some unforeseen events on the eve of the state elections, its not inconceivable that the Congress could play spoilsport in some crucial seats. In my persona opinion, though, it seems hard for Congress to really make that much of an impact in the coming elections since its party infrastructure on the ground is dismal and the central leadership, after an initial spurt of interest, seems to have backed down, seeing the rather subdued response to its overhyped enlistment drives in the state.
All said and done, the upcoming elections in Bihar would set the agenda, not just for the next 5 but for the next 50 years. I Think.
