Flip-flop on Bihar

The subtlety of the point the Congress party is trying to make about Bihar will elude most people who know that a change of leadership in the ruling RJD will be tokenism at best and can only mean another stand-in for Laloo Prasad Yadav. Another massacre in Jehanabad and there are Congress calls once again for Rabri Devi to accept moral responsibility and resign. At the best of times moral exhortation is like water off a duck8217;s back for a political class whose moral sensibilities have coarsened to such a degree that it cannot tell right from wrong any longer. For the likes of Laloo Prasad Yadav who can recognise only what is advantageous in political or pecuniary terms, morality gains weight only when it furthers his aims. The question then is why the Congress is wasting its breath. When Congress spokesperson Ajit Jogi cites the dismissal of its own chief minister in Orissa on moral grounds as being in the highest democratic traditions he is of course being disingenuous. Realpolitik within the Orissa Congressparty had much to do with the politically besieged J B Patniak8217;s exit. To say that step set high standards of democratic accountability is making a virtue of necessity which is a fair enough tactic in politics but does not exactly allow the Congress to monopolise the moral high ground or, for that matter, exert any pressure on the RJD.

A credible explanation for why the Congress is prepared to throw morality at Rabri Devi but not the Constitution lies in the need to carve out political space for itself in Bihar as best as it can. From that perspective, the Congress8217; recent actions in helping, albeit indirectly, to restore the RJD to power appear consistent. While allowing that it had qualms about the misuse of Article 356, it is clear the Congress was also motivated by the fact that it was in no position to fill the power vacuum created by the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government. That space would have been taken over by the BJP and the Samata Party and, as the Congress repeatedly asserts, by the RSSunder the stewardship of then Governor SS Bhandari. The way to keep them at bay was to allow the RJD to continue to hold the fort while distancing the Congress from Rabri Devi8217;s acts of commission and omission which are alienating popular opinion in the state. But this hire-wire balance is tough to hold. The fall when it comes is bound to expose the hollowness of the Congress8217; moral stance and leave its political strategy in a shambles.

If as Ajit Jogi now admits the state government has 8220;practically no control over law and order8221;, at what point will the Congress come to agree with the BJP that the machinery has actually broken down? Since no one can predict where and when the next tit-for-tat killings will occur in rural Bihar, the Congress looks as though it has made its political agenda hostage to the Ranbir Sena. It would make more headway in Bihar if moral harangues were tempered by some serious efforts aimed at bringing an end to the cycle of violence. For a start, it should demand a rigorous actionplan from the government to deal with the armed militias.