Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Bihar joins the national mainstream

Harish Khare

Lalu Prasad refused to understand that Bihar could not remain a stranger to the larger process of growth and development that characterises much of the rest of India.

UTTAR PRADESH went to the polls in March 2002. The Bharatiya Janata Party was in power in Lucknow and New Delhi. The country had been whipped into a frenzy, especially after the December 13, 2001, terrorist attack on Parliament House. L.K. Advani was playing sheriff in New Delhi. In Lucknow, the incumbent Chief Minister, Rajnath Singh, had banned the Muslim outfit, SIMI, and was threatening to put in place a POTA-like law if voted back to power. On the other hand, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Vishwanath Pratap Singh were predicting that the National Democratic Alliance regime in New Delhi would collapse after the BJP got routed in Lucknow. Both believed Mulayam Singh Yadav was the ideal instrument to lead the secular offensive against the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In the event, the BJP lost but that was about it. After a few months of President's Rule, the BJP joined hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party and installed Mayawati as Chief Minister in Lucknow whereas Atal Bihari Vajpayee went on to complete his term at the Centre.

This little bit of recent history is recalled in the context of the Bihar election outcome. Just as a BJP defeat in Uttar Pradesh had no bearing on the last Lok Sabha, the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-CPI(M) combine's debacle cannot possibly have any ramifications for the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre. Just as the 2002 U.P. defeat lent a degree of coherence to the Vajpayee Government, the 2005 Bihar defeat can only have a salutary effect on the UPA partners and friends who have of late developed rather complacent mind-sets. In any case, the Bihar verdict is not a licence for the NDA to instigate disruption in the polity.

Is there anything in the latest Bihar vote that can be construed as distracting from the raison d'etre of the UPA at the Centre? Nothing, indeed. The vote is not at all an endorsement of the BJP's brand of aggressive Hindutva. It should be kept in mind that in Bihar the BJP is not a senior partner in the alliance with the Janata Dal (United). The BJP did not show its Hindutva colours at any time; and, Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister-apparent, had been careful to distance himself from any BJP-instigated suggestion of any kind of calculated hostility to the minorities. If anything, in recent months the JD(U) has not been averse to being seen to be in agreement with the UPA plank of some kind of affirmative action in favour of the minorities. Whether the Bihar verdict provides Mr. Advani any elbowroom to linger on for a few more months as BJP president is between him and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bosses. But there is little comfort in the Bihar vote for the BJP ideologues.

Is Lalu Prasad's rout a defeat of the secular platform at the Centre? On the face of it, the vote is a setback only because the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had chosen to justify their alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal in terms of secular consolidation. On the other hand, Ram Vilas Paswan's single-point chant of "Muslim Chief Minister" denied Mr. Prasad the luxury of painting himself in secular colours. The secular "card" worked in the 2004 Lok Sabha election because the BJP/RSS/VHP combine loomed large; by the time the Bihar electorate was asked to vote a second time in 2005 for the Assembly, the Hindutva threat was a distant memory. In this round of electioneering, the RJD itself did not raise the secular war cry. Mr. Nitish Kumar's decisive victory will not allow the RJD/UPA leaders to point accusing fingers at the Election Commission. A narrow margin would have invited attention to the Commission's bias. The nature of Mr. Nitish Kumar's victory should put an end to all arguments as to whose cause Mr. Paswan helped most and hurt most. Bihar was ready for a change.

Mr. Prasad got entangled in a politics of preserving a narrow caste support base, which had nothing to do with the secular versus communal divide not to speak of the larger issues of the rulers' obligation to be sensitive to citizens' needs. He wallowed in a partisan politics of an extremely self-serving kind, craftily invoking caste antagonisms to his electoral advantage. He stumbled upon the winning formula of combining Yadav consolidation with Muslim insecurity. Admittedly, Mr. Prasad did not invent caste or the political usefulness of the caste appeal in Bihar; he was merely carrying on the traditions and habits established by the Sri Babus and the K.B. Sahays in the 1950s and the 1960s. Like the Bhumihars, the Brahmins, and the Kayasthas, he too finessed the art of producing legislative majorities based on limited caste appeals. His politics was relevant to the Bihar of the 1990s. But he forgot that Bihar was part of a changing India.

Obviously, Mr. Prasad refused to understand that Bihar could not remain a stranger to the larger process of growth and development that characterises much of the rest of India. Though a considerable section of the Bihar population opted to migrate out to other parts of India in search of security and stability, the majority (most of them poor) had to stay put, most of the time on Mr. Prasad's terms. But those who stayed back were not oblivious to the change and growth in the rest of the country. In these times of ever-increasing connectivity, the Bihar voter was in a position to have a fairly good idea of how growth, development, and governance were changing people's ambitions and aspirations. This voter could not remain content with what Mr. Prasad had to offer. What began in 1990 as a refreshing promise of genuine social change degenerated in 15 years into crony rule. Nobody in Bihar was amused when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose to bestow the "Vikas Purush" salutation on Mr. Prasad.

One lesson emerges. No political leader or party can ignore the obligation to undertake some basic tasks of governance. A strong, well-oiled party machine helps electoral mobilisation; an emotional pitch may work magic temporarily; but the business of democratic politics has to centre around governance and delivery. Democratic politics, especially if it insists on seeking its very legitimacy from the welfare of the masses, cannot sustain for long a leadership style that thrives on contempt for the masses and their minimum needs. In a way Mr. Prasad should be grateful to the voters for their rebuff; otherwise he and his cronies would have remained untutored in this basic obligation.

Task for Nitish

No one knows whether Mr. Nitish Kumar himself would be able to answer the crux of the Bihar voter's desire for change. Bihar was always a much divided society and politicians of all varieties have deepened those divisions. And these divisions are now sorted out by private armies. The only course open to Mr. Nitish Kumar is to summon a higher raj dharma, instead of getting sucked into numerous demands and intractable claims of past grievances and vendettas. This would be a very exacting task, especially because his rivals and enemies can be relied upon to provoke violence and animosities. The eruption recently in Jehanabad was a reminder, if a reminder was indeed needed, that Patna's writ does not run in large chunks of Bihar. The benighted State needs a new idiom of argumentation and a new political culture.

Does the Bihar vote mean the politics of social justice has run its course in the country? Can, for example, Mr. Mulayam Singh or Ms. Mayawati persist with their preference for the caste idiom? This appeal of caste-based regional parties will continue to find favour with the voter as long as the national political parties do not find the leadership and the vision to tap all-India passions and aspirations. But it is becoming increasingly clear also that a family-based political outfit can no longer appropriate the promise of the politics of social justice. The voter will reject all those leaders, political parties and outfits that refuse to observe democratic decencies and remain indifferent to the ruler's fundamental obligation to govern, fairly, firmly and equitably. It would be an outright absurdity if the NDA crowd or the third-front hopefuls chose to interpret the Bihar vote as a mandate to destabilise the Centre. The country is in a business-like mood and does not want to favour manipulators at the expense of administrators.

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