Bihar assembly elections: A tale of two leaders

Ashutosh Kumar

For any keen observer of the ongoing Assembly elections in Bihar, besides Narendra Modi, it is Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar who are the face of the electoral campaign. The two receive extensive media reportage, be it for well-attended election meetings in both north and south Bihar or due to the slanging matches with Narendra Modi.  As the sole campaigner for his party, the Prime Minister will address an unprecedented string of rallies in what is an assembly election. This shows that there is no BJP leader from Bihar, who can match these two leaders in terms of mass appeal, even after two-and-a-half decades of their political life. This is mainly why the BJP has not projected any chief ministerial candidate. 

The political career of the political friends-turned-foes-turned-electoral allies shows they were co-travellers in state politics as leaders of the Janata Party/Janata Dal, before parting ways in 1993. They started their political journey as student leaders in Patna University, leading the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti that launched the Sampoorn Kranti Movement of 1974. Both of them were inspired by Ram Manohar Lohia and Karpoori Thakur. They belong to two numerically strong, upper-backward peasant castes — Kurmis and Yadavs. They emerged in politics at a time when Bihar was undergoing a process of social churning, waiting for “Mandal” to happen. Until their ascent, political leadership in the state had remained strictly with the “twice-born” upper castes.

They deserve credit for effectively challenging the traditional feudal social power structure in the state. They were responsible for the politicisation and empowerment of the hitherto dormant lower castes.  Transfer of land to the peasant OBCs, affirmative policies and the growing realisation of the numerically strong OBCs of the importance of numbers contributed to this change. As a Chief Minister, Yadav consolidated his power base by playing the Mandal card and also projecting himself as a secular leader during L.K. Advani’s rath yatra. He assured the Muslims protection from communal violence in the aftermath of the Bhagalpur massacre.  All through this phase, even though he was playing second fiddle to Lalu Yadav (his Chanakya), Nitish Kumar steadily climbed the hierarchy within the Janata Dal. 

The turning point in Lalu’s political career was the fodder scam, which saw him resort to dynastic politics. Further, Lalu not only broke the Janata Dal by creating his “own” party, the RJD, but also allowed the state’s administration to fall apart. He lost political ground because he neither pushed any development agenda nor provided a fresh vision for the state, allowing it to lapse into lawlessness. Nitish Kumar, then in the Samata Party, astutely seized the opportunity and emerged as a credible alternative. Nitish Kumar not only “consolidated” his OBC support base, but also broadened his support base among the upper castes as a “development-oriented” leader.  The coalition of the Janata Dal (U) with the BJP also helped, as proved by the massive victory for the alliance in the 2010 Assembly elections. The BJP as a junior ally allowed Nitish Kumar a free hand in governance. The slide in Nitish Kumar’s political career can be traced to the unilateral decision to break the long-standing alliance of the JD (U) with the BJP in 2012. The “stated” reason was to retain the sizeable Muslim vote, following the elevation of Modi as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Nitish Kumar had remained with the BJP as a Union Minister in the NDA government even after the anti-Muslim riots in 2002.  Thus his decision had more to do with a hurt ego (he had opposed Modi’s candidature) as well as personal ambitions at the national level.

The break-up was disastrous for a state recovering from an economic crisis. As governance suffered, Nitish Kumar’s hold over the government became shaky even though only the JD (U) was in power. Not only did he lose the services of competent ministers from the BJP, but he also had to compromise with  unscrupulous elements within his party. His image as a broad-based leader suffered as he took recourse to “social engineering” by nurturing “new” voting categories like ati pichda, pasmanda Muslims and mahadalits. A reversal in the 2014 elections saw Nitish Kumar seeking an electoral alliance with Lalu Yadav, his bête noir, who is a pastmaster of caste-based politics. A politically marginalised Yadav, convicted and ineligible to fight elections was desperate to keep his legacy. A desperate Nitish, after the 2014 electoral reversal, in a cynical attempt to boost his image as “not a power-hungry leader” (in reality, to consolidate the mahadalit vote), handed over the chief ministership to Jitan Manjhi. There is no doubt that Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) or Lalu Yadav’s RJD fighting alone would have been no match to the BJP. Their “coming together” poses a formidable challenge to the BJP, as the electoral gains in the assembly by-elections late last year showed. Seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress also indicates the desperation to mobilise support by bringing in fringe Congress supporters. What does the alliance of these two Bihar leaders augur for the BJP that is desperate to win this election before the crucial elections in UP and West Bengal next year? The party, hoping to win elections on its own, with possibly a little help from the LJP and the HAM, led by Ramvilas Paswan and Jitan Manjhi, respectively, is overtly relying on Narendra Modi’s charisma. He is asking for votes with the promise of vikas and the much-touted economic package to Bihar, gifted with an eye on the elections. The BJP is reminding the people of the lawlessness of “Lalu raj”, a fear not unfounded given the fact that RJD and JD(U) both are contesting on 100 seats each. The post-election scenario can drastically disturb the power equation  between the two leaders.  With Lalu Yadav openly using the casteist appeal and talk of the return of Mandal Raj-2, the upper castes are likely to rally behind the BJP, despite Nitish Kumar’s talk of development and sushasan. Interestingly, both Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar have been raising the issue of Bihari asmita. Regionalist parties like the AIDMK, the TRS and the TMC survived the Modi wave in 2014. The recent debate on the ban on cow slaughter and beef eating can be seen as the tactics by the BJP to effect communal polarisation in the state, like UP in 2014, to counter caste-based mobilisation by the opposition. 

Notwithstanding the political calculations of the leaders and parties who remain convinced that elections in Bihar are all about getting the caste arithmetic right, both the 2009 and 2010 elections in the state had shown that the people of Bihar can transcend parochial considerations, provided they trust a leader and his party to bring a turnaround in the fortunes of the state. The highly political and well-informed voters of Bihar have not been given a fair chance by the parties and their leaders to prove that given the opportunity they can rise above parochial considerations. As always, Bihar and Biharis have received a raw deal, irrespective of what the electoral verdict will be.

The writer is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, 

Panjab University, Chandigarh.