Bihar as eternal subsidiser of national elite

Even in the post-Independence period, a new benchmark of incentive structure could not be created. Freight equalisation had favourable consequences for South and Western India, unlike in the eastern India. This freight policy, announced in 1948, in fact subsidised the industrialisation of India with the coal, iron ore and cement from mineral- rich states. Over the years, not only did their own markets develop but, with their superior industrial base, they were able to substantially capture consumer markets outside their home state. In the process, they integrated their economy fully with the national and partly with international industry. Therefore, the social agenda revolved round the promotion and the development of the incentive and the market structure. Consequently, political competitions centred around implementation of development programmes and any under-performing leader got replaced.

Thus politics became stiched up with the commensurate economic concerns, though it may have manifested itself through liberal or subnational or even right wing agendas. When the reform agenda was initiated in the country, the states with a developed market structure were structurally more prepared to take up the alternative development path. For those political elites, national and state concerns converged instead of taking a centrifugal spin. Even when state governments were voted out for pursuing the reform, the applecart of that agenda was not essentially affected. In contrast, the underdeveloped states were not prepared to escape the ‘state’ centric trajectory, in the absence of a level playing field. Politics in under-developed states, revolved not around ‘growth’ of the market and the economy, but around participation in the state structure, manifesting in positive discrimination in different tiers of civil service for the socially marginalised. Since the mammoth edifice of the state is becoming increasingly unsustainable in view of the massive crisis of public finance, the national elite considers such politics of social justice as ‘sunset’ politics.

For the national elite, the state has outlived its historic utility and creativity. Any politics which is not wedded to the market promotion is outside the pale of productive discourse. However, sunset politics has survived in nearly all the underdeveloped states. This underdevelopment, not the result of quality of regional leadership but essentially a burden of history, is almost certain to continue, until and unless tenurial related inequity is completely banished, releasing social forces that are productive as well.

In the Ryotwari states where the incidence of inequality is less, there has in contrast eveloped a bond of accommodation between the developed and the underdeveloped groups. This has resulted in power-sharing among diverse social groups which in turn has ensured liberal, pluralistic and accommodative approach to governance. Whereas market is increasingly replacing the state as the key development agency in the national and international discourse, its resonance is not being heard even in areas which are just outside the urban or the metropolitan enclaves. The share of Bihar in the national market is only 4.8 percent even though it has 8.3 percent of the national population; the grammar of political discourse here is thus very different. Society here is acrimonious, not consensual. A million mutinies are always taking place around social and economic equity. With the increasing withdrawal of the state, this agenda is being further extended to the private sector. Politics here is completely innocent about the increasing paradigm shift in the national and international economy.

The mandate of the Planning Commission to bridge the spatial diversity cannot be operational, because the market expects ‘survival of the fittest’. Ironically, the biggest ideological dismantler of the state is heading the biggest planning agency which is supposed to promote the cause of the state and remove regional economic divides. India may witness the ominous possibility of ‘cessation of the successful’ states unburdened by history. For those states, history is factored into their favour.

For example, establishment of Indian Institute of Science by the Tatas in ’20s and broad banding of telephone system in Karnataka in ’80s has ensured that Bangalore leads the software revolution in India. While the macro economy leap frogged in India, there followed increasing public finance crisis. Since the 80s, to keep electoral pace or populism, the Congress Party started embracing right wing politics. Later on, the authentic right wing parties stole its thunder and led to its ultimate marginalisation. However, inspite of political differences, there is complete unanimity over the question of development in these states.

How can states like Bihar, without the muscle of the market or the mineral or the high valued human resources, matter for the national elite? How do they view the forthcoming assembly election here? As long as the parliamentary democracy exists in India, states like Bihar cannot be dispensed with totally. It will continue to provide electoral subsidy in the central government formation, in the way freight equalisation subsidised India’s industrialisation, without Bihar benefiting on either count. Not only was Bihar historically ignored, it was punished from time to time. When a new social segment rose to the helm of political power in Bihar through existing democratic institutions, it was so unimaginable that it was considered almost a blasphemy. Bihar was unceremoniously bifurcated, without being given any financial package. The retarded and the spastic political elite and the (un)intelligentsia of the state did not realise the implication of the division. The 2000 Assembly Election gave a de facto seal to the division spelling near financial doom. Even after acceding to the whim of the national elite, Bihar was discriminated equally by NDA as well as by UPA on this count. Unfortunately, these concerns do not get reflected in the manifestoes or in the discourses of the different political parties that are jockeying for political power in the state.

In recent period, especially since the parliamentary election of 2004, the ruling elite in Bihar is trying to incorporate or being incorporated by the same social forces with whom it had fought a relentless battle in the last one and half decade. In case it happens, what will be its implication in the ‘social justice’ constituency, is to be seen in the assembly election. For the Congress, marginalisation of the social justice constituency is the main agenda in Bihar. From the way it allowed the UPA constituency to fall apart in the Bihar Assembly Election, it is indicated that it cannot hope for any revival of its fortune in the tri- or quadrupolar politics of today. It can thrive only on bipolar politics, even if it entails bringing NDA back to power in Bihar. Otherwise, it cannot be a party of reckoning in the next parliamentary election of 2009.

Given a choice, BJP will also not like to pursue a different strategy. One may remember here that in the last parliamentary election, Advani exhorted the voters in Haryana to vote for Congress rather for INLD, a regional ruling party. Unlike Maharastra, the Bihar election is not important for the Congress because of its limited market and meagre internal resource base. In the market dynamics, it is not a sunrise state. Because of its small market, Bihar may go out of the cognitive world of the national elites. However, this is the only state in the country where various streams of politics still survive in an authentic manner. In Bihar, bipolar politics of the same ideological persuasion has not predominated. Here different ideological concerns are robust and kicking. Will the Congress and the BJP together will be able to ensure the end of ‘sunset’ politics in Bihar, in this election? That would determine the survival or extinction of sunset politics in the rest of the country.

The writer is an economist and member secretary Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), Patna