Bihar, historically has always been a politically active state. A state, where people eat and sleep with politics. With feelings of caste and religion deeply rooted in the mindset of an average Bihari, any election eventually turns out to be a caste warfare. A dismal literacy rate of 47 percent also is one of the factors why caste and religion play a dominant role in elections in Bihar.
Laloo Prasad Yadav was the first person to realize this. His social engineering found a large audience in the form of poor, underprivileged people in rural sections of Bihar. Development went for a toss and casteist politics became the call of the day. He (mis)ruled the state first himself, and then with a proxy from 1997 till 2005, when JD(U) with the support of BJP first ousted him from the power.
Once a best governed state during independence, Bihar turned into a mess which no one cared to clear. The first winds of change was seen in 2005, when JD(U)-BJP combine won fair number of seats in Assembly and laid claims for forming a coalition government in Patna. With Ram Vilas Paswan playing a "king-maker" role, Laloo was almost certain to be ousted from power. That was when, once a strong ally, and then a power in Center, the great Congress Party came for his help. Congress agent and Bihar Governor, Mr Buta Singh dissolved the assembly and thwarted NDA, which was almost certain to form government in Bihar. President rule was imposed on Bihar and re-election was scheduled for October-November. People of Bihar, sensing the foul play, gave NDA complete majority this time to lay claims for power and Nitish Kumar became the Chief minister.
This was the turn around moment for many's fortunes.
Nitish Kumar, because he got a chance to undo whatever bad was done during Laloo-Rabri-Congress regime. With the extensive work done on improving infrastructure and law and order in Bihar, he established himself as "Vikas Purush", never before heard in the history of the state. People began to see a light at the end of the long dark tunnel of 15 years misrule by RJD.
Laloo Yadav, because he was relegated in the back seat for the first time in his political career. In subsequent elections his vote bank began to erode, so much so that in 2009 general elections he managed to win only 4 seats out of 40.
Congress, sensing that there is no more steam left in Laloo, started distancing itself from him. In 2010 assembly elections, it for the first time went all alone contesting on all seats on offer in Bihar. If exit polls are anything to go by, it clearly shows that Congress can dent hard the vote bank of RJD-LJP combine. For now, we can wait till November end to see the actual results.
Ram Vilas Paswan, once touted as king-maker, now is nowhere near to his glory days. He too suffered the similar fate as that of his now staunch ally Laloo. His disastrous showing in Lok Sabha elections 2009 was a clear signal that people can't be fool again and again on casteist agendas.
Rabri Devi, a reluctant and least qualified person to ever sit on CM's throne, with due respect, can peacefully go back to her kitchen. Seriously, how can you expect a simple housewife with 5th grade education as her only achievement in life to rule over second most populous state. This was a blasphemy and something for which people of Bihar can never forgive Laloo.
And finally Bihar, which till 2005, a laggard state in every aspect, has begun to show some signs of recovery. With increased investment in infrastructure, greater emphasis on education, vastly improved law and order situation and a visibly better governance, Bihar can look forward to attain its long lost glory.
Development is the new theme on which elections are set to be fought over in Bihar now. May the politics over caste and religion be history now and so may Laloo and Paswan.
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Your views are facts but certainly not 'apolitical'. You can come to above conclusion only after result of assembly polls but still that's partial. Bihar still has caste structured polity system, which is currently crafted by Nitish to accommodate bigger social audience. Perhaps for the first time, development is one of the political agendas in election. Though it's path breaking but not a paradigm shift yet.
ReplyDeleteWell,I too want Nitish to win because this victory will be seen as a victory for a politics which prioritizes development.Development has traditionally not been an issue with the voters of this country and caste and religion instead have been a rallying point.With people not caring about development, politicians too don't give a damn about it.And because development needs political initiative, we obviously continue to be a third world country with a 800 million poor people.A victory for development will force the political parties to adopt this as a political issue.And when this happens, we can look forward to more prosperity.
ReplyDeleteWe will also then have more qualified people holding public offices as development requires skill.This will help reduce the number of criminals in our parliament and assemblies.And, therefore will strengthen our democracy.
I hope the people of Bihar are still tired of being poor and vote of Nitish.
Anubhav, this post was never meant to be apolitical...taking an exception here. Any sane person, however apolitical he may say himself, cannot take sides with Laloo government :).
ReplyDeleteReally nice to know that a person who is generally keep himself mum in all the political issue finally come up with these kind of excellent thought.No doubt ,that you certainly proved that you are having a great writing skill with a certain good observation. But still, though i am not a writer but as a good reader and some good blog follower all i can say that there are some mistake in your this blog.But on the whole having a great feeling also that i am having a good friend in the frame of a great political observer. :)
ReplyDeleteThere are other states as well, where government is doing fair development work. But, Bihar due to its long history of backwardness is getting entire attention now a days. Congress, too realizing that politics over caste and religion is not going to do any good to them, is changing its stance. As clear in Rahul Gandhi and other Congress stalwarts' public rallys where they openly denounce RJD's government, even if they were once a part of it.
ReplyDeletenteresting post..Before commenting on Laloo or the paswans or the Nitishes, I must first resolve my predominant confusion. Why are people , the poor and so called intellectual like u and me just cribbing about government ? Any attempt to speak about government actually speaks about our own slavery. Just think of it--- Government means who governs, who rules !!!
ReplyDeleteDo u see the kind of foolishness we are trapped into ?
Not yet ? Let me make myself clear--- The whole point is liberation of the people from their own social structuring, from their own past, from their own hypocrisy. And it can be brought about by people themselves. Not by any so called 'Government' or the 'Ngo' or blah blah blah......
I can say one thing very clearly, politicians are politicians .. they are maggots of our society. Ironically it our own society that produces them.They are great psychologist, they know how to manipulate human and social conditions. They actually behave like 'government', though narcissistically, tyring their best to enslave people's mind ( though try only for a selected section but even intellectual like u and me get trapped into it often )
If we really need development, and there is exactly one, then we must strive for liberation.
Think of some ways we can actaully liberate human minds of its past. People of Bihar ( and I must say the whole nation ) is lingering with something very cumbersome, something very heavy.
U can see what I am saying. Lets not loose our paths discussing politicians. Lets do our work totally independently ( as far as possible ). We have a purpose, our own liberation and liberation of people around us.
But how can tht be done ????
Does India need a shock !!!!
ReplyDeleteDevelopment is the new theme on which elections are set to be fought not only in Bihar but in most parts of the country now. The typical caste-based mindset is changing for good in India. Today the growing young, aspirational working class is more concerned about securing their future than to care about caste, religion, Ram Janmabhoomi, Babri Masjid et al. No chaos and turmoil after the Ramjanmabhoomi verdict is a case in point. All that much of today's young, dynamic population care about any governance is their ability to deliver decent governance, stability, development (both socio-economic and physical infrastructure) and growth & aspirations for a better tomorrow. We donot expect politics to take a back seat in Bihar or any other part of the country. All I want to say is that any governement which comes close to any and/or all of these parameters will defintely succeed.
ReplyDeleteIsn't word 'Election' consists of 2 components ? The voters and vote seekers. To get any necessary or desired outcome, aspirations and goals for both the parties must match.
ReplyDeleteAs both of these consist of one population ( voters + seekers = indian population ) so logically thinking aspirations of them must match and Interestingly they match, has always matched !!!
So why the conflict ??
1. In the past demand for development was never there. There was only demand for basic survival( roti, kapda, makan ). votes wanted that and voter-seekers made that an issue.It happened all by itself.
It continued and perhaps still continuing.
But wat was hapennig behind the scenes --- Technological development in the world has been moving and people who took birth since 1950 started getting influenced by it, which has now created the so called demand for so called 'development'.
2. Both voters and seekers are dynamic entities. i.e they are growing at a different rate. A huge section of young Voters have really ( but subconsciously ) been influenced by cross-border thoughts may be US, or other European counteries that tend to have a far better life-style.There is another section has been influenced ,the businessmen who have a been a part of the growing economy, particularly outsourcing and outsourcing-related
So reason for conflict is voters have evolved but seekers are still old people. Perhaps It will take some more time before aspirations start matching.
When the seekers will themselves be part of the population who want 'development'.
But, you see, Interesting part is that VOTE_SEEKERS is a part of voters. If the voter changes then voter-seeker will also change.
So the whole stuff to me is --- CHANGE THE VOTERS !!
So far the change has been uncounscious, or subconcious ( blindly influenced by the 'external influence' ).What is required is to make a fully CONCIOUS effort.
a.) Outlining what we really need
b.) Making ways to create it.