Different tracks

At another level, Lalu8217;s acquittal is part of a process of his political reinvention. Now that he does not have this particular shadow hanging over him, it will be interesting to see the extent to which Lalu further transforms himself. He remains a formidable force and has political assets few leaders can match. He is a shrewd political thinker. He is a genuine crowd puller and scene stealer. He is one of the very few politicians about whom this can be said: 8220;He is his own man.8221; He does not owe whatever power he has to anybody, he does not take instructions from others. You always get the sense that his words and thoughts are his own. In short, he is a genuine leader like few others on the contemporary political scene.

For more than a decade Lalu was responsible for Bihar8217;s unconscionable slide away from a development agenda. What made his record more unforgivable was that keeping Bihar backward was almost a deliberate ploy. He had come to power on the crest of OBC assertion; he had personified their quest for dignity, and made his success a sign of social change. But his political strategy did not rest on transforming caste relations in Bihar. He wanted the caste equilibrium that had propelled him to power to continue; and it was imperative to that end that development that might create new constituencies and expectations, be blocked. This was successful for 15 years but the politics of stagnation ran into its inevitable limits.

But doubts about Lalu8217;s political acumen or administrative prowess were quickly laid to rest by his record as railway minister. The railways still faces huge challenges, but by all accounts he has restored vibrancy to a part of the public sector that was once thought to be irremediable. He was the first railway minister to grasp the central challenge facing the railways: that it was moving too little freight. But he took two politically bold decisions: opening up the container market to the private sector, and altering the shift system amongst railway employees. Such is the measure of Lalu8217;s political authority that decisions which should have sent everyone screaming 8220;red8221; were passed without much opposition. This, along with his asset management strategy, turned him from a development disaster into an IIM icon.

But the question that Lalu8217;s acquittal raises is this. What is going to be his larger game plan for the future? He has demonstrated a capacity to silence the very elites and chattering classes that had looked upon him with some degree of embarrassment. But can he now transform himself into something bigger and larger than a provincial OBC leader? One of the great tragedies of modern Indian politics is that the final stage of dialectic of caste and politics that Lohia envisioned never quite happened. Lohia had suggested something to the effect that the caste revolution would have two stages: the first in which the talk would be of empowerment along caste lines, of the recognition of identity. It was through this form of empowerment that caste would finally be transcended like class struggle would lead to the abolition of class.

Arguably the form of caste empowerment that Lalu represents was more symbolic than real: the underlying economic changes that would render caste less relevant are still too slow in coming. But there is also no doubt that if the kind of transcending of caste that Lohia imagined were to occur, it could happen only through the transformation the caste based parties like the RJD and the BSP. The democratic upsurge of the backward castes has left both the Congress and the BJP too insecure to talk of transcending caste seriously. The Congress, having no OBC base of its own, is desperately trying to get into this game, and the BJP is too insecure to resist it. So ironically, the only forces that could possibly overcome caste with any degree of confidence are caste based forces. It would be the caste analogue of communist parties turning to capitalism. The current state of political discourse, as evidenced in reservations politics, makes this is a very dim possibility indeed. But somewhere we must hope that Lalu8217;s acquittal will lead to an expansion rather than a diminution of his ambitions. For the only way he can redeem himself is by becoming a leader of more than just his caste.

On most matters he cares about, Lalu usually has the last word. He could have the last laugh too, if he becomes the first OBC mass leader to move beyond his base, and transcend his own brand of politics. If he can reinvent himself, he will truly have revolutionised Indian politics.