Think politics, think Bihar

FOR about a decade now, Bihar's fortunes have been intricately woven around the personality and phenomena called Laloo Prasad Yadav. This man once nursed ambitions of donning a police uniform. All he wanted to do was to sustain himself and his family, with a little dignity thrown in. But circumstances proved different and he was cast in the role of a politician, riding the crest of a caste wave. Donning the mantle of an opposition leader he went on to snatch the reins of the kingdom itself and became a chief minister.

Initially, his task was to establish his own raj, and to that extent he was helped by mismanagement by the earlier Congress(I) regime. He went on to undo the damage in a manner totally unconventional, but very effectively. Once it was neutralised, Laloo Prasad became a hero and a saviour. Then came the next step. Idolised by the poor and the minorities, he went on to play god. The caste-pregnant atmosphere of the Bihar made him powerful enough to be able to dictate terms to New Delhi.

Laloo Prasad Yadav was all powerful. Not only could he do anything in his own State, he could even make or unmake prime ministers. He did more too, giving new meaning to democracy. Caught in a web of corruption and forced on moral grounds to resign as chief minister, he appointed his wife, Rabri Devi, to the job. The sheer audacity of the move shook the political situation. In a country which has thrown up some outstanding politicians, the man from a Bihar village, outfoxed every one.

What makes Laloo Prasad Yadav the man he is? He has proven to be invincible as far as elections are concerned. He just refuses to be cowed down. He does what he wants, right or wrong. Is he the messiah of the downtrodden or a megalomaniac? You can hate him, detest him, love him or condemn him, but you cannot ignore him.

There is no denying the fact that he is a complex person and defies description. Not many have understood him, but journalist Sankarshan Thankur has taken on the onerous task of deciphering the man. The result is The Making Of Laloo Yadav - The Unmaking Of Bihar.

Laloo Prasad Yadav is an extraordinary person, where instinct and a great sense of timing is his forte.

How else can one elaborate on a personality enveloped with such disarming imperfections? "Look at his achievement," says Thakur. "No chief minister of Bihar has ever ruled from the two-room tenement of a peon employed by his government. No chief minister of Bihar has ever held court under a tree by the roadside. No chief minister of Bihar has ever held a cabinet meeting on the lines of a village chaupal, on a cement platform under open skies. No chief minister of Bihar has ever summoned the State's high and mighty to the streets of the Patna Veterinary College compound and turned their dismissal into a public spectacle. No chief minister of Bihar has raided liquor shops, hawaldar-like, and cancelling their licences on the spot. No chief minister of Bihar has stood in line with the hot pollo at the Patna Medical College Hospital to get his fever-ridden son treated.

"No chief minister of Bihar has gone about undoing style and structure established by a succession of predecessors as drastically and determinedly as Laloo Yadav.

In the first few months, Laloo Yadav was more than just a whiff of fresh air. He was a storm blowing through, devastating norms and conventions, bending and breaking rules, slicing through red tape, casting aside definitions of what could be done and what could not, of what could be said and could not. As a senior retired bureaucrat in Patna put it, "He was like an exotic animal on the rampage. One did not know whether to keep staring at him in awe and admiration or to do something to stop him. He spoke a strange tongue, a rustic mixture of Hindi and Bhojpuri littered with English words in odd and wrong places. But he always conveyed what he wanted, bluntly and forcefully.

"What was astounding was the way he insisted on staying on in his brother's peon's quarters even though he had become chief minister. We told him it would create administrative difficulties, security problems, unnecessary inconveniences to ministers and officials and even to residents of the veterinary college. But he would say this everytime. "I am the chief minister, I know everything. Do what I say."

This was to be his refrain for years. "The State Government's aircraft had logged 4,600 unaccounted flying hours during Laloo Yadav's first six years in power, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The State exchequer had paid a bill in excess of Rs. five lakhs to ferry lawyers arguing Laloo Yadav's case in the fodder scandal from Delhi to Patna and back. Among other things, the expenditure was on building, repairing and extending two cowsheds at his residence.

Then the cowsheds were electrified, at government expense. He dug into the exchequer for providing his household 25 beds, 32 cots, 26 sofa sets, 399 metres of curtain cloth and other items worth Rs. 16.73 lakhs which the CAG terms as "expenses much beyond the prescribed norms". While the Chief Minister's cows lived in luxury with table fans to shoo away troublesome flies, the people lived in darkness.

As Vinod Mishra, the late Marxist-Leninist preacher puts it, "The achievements of Laloo Yadav for the poor and the underprivileged will remain limited. He does not represent real change. He only represents the change of guard in the old exploitative order. He has the same goons, contractors and liquor agents around him. They only belong to a different caste group. The old socialists have been outflanked in the Janata Dal with criminals and contractors masquerading as soldiers of social justice having taken their place.

Laloo Yadav can always claim that corruption was something he inherited from the Jagannath Mishra Congress(I) Government. But he did not do anything to stop it. Instead he went on to amplify the issue as in the fodder scandal. According to the CAG's report, excess withdrawals from the animal husbandry departments between 1988 and 1995 went from Rs. 6.13 crores (17 per cent) to Rs. 170.61 crores (229 per cent) registering a quantum leap in the first year after Laloo Prasad Yadav took over as chief minister. All these accounts were seen, or should have, by Yadav who was also the finance minister. The issue was ignored.

The fodder scandal should have been Laloo Prasad Yadav's Waterloo. But the man has not only survived but has also managed to have the last laugh.

But for all the scandals, an extended tenure of misrule and maladministration, his coterie and his (shadowy) charmed circle, his dynasty, the greed for power and his sins, Laloo Yadav, according to Thakur, did have justifiable grievances. If he said he was being singled out and persecuted, he had a point. Few senior politicians in this country would pass the tests he did.

The Making of Laloo Yadav ... is an important contribution to political literature. Laloo Yadav is certainly not the ideal politician but few will deny that he has managed to leave in tatters popular theories by exposing a totally raw and somewhat ugly side of the game as played on the caste-fields of Bihar.

RAMU SHARMA

The Making Of Laloo Yadav - The Unmaking Of Bihar, Sankarsan Thakur, HarperCollins India.

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