Lessons in Bihar, for vanquished and victors

Despots don’t learn the ways of democracy easily. Laloo Prasad Yadav, whose party’s 15-year misrule turned Bihar into a byword for...

Despots don’t learn the ways of democracy easily. Laloo Prasad Yadav, whose party’s 15-year misrule turned Bihar into a byword for backwardness and lawlessness, had been dethroned in February itself. Although the elections held then had produced a hung Assembly, its outcome was unambiguous. RJD — and its allies Congress and the CPI(M) — had lost the mandate to rule Bihar again. But, misusing their power at the Centre, they dissolved the Assembly and illegitimately prolonged their reign through the proxy of a pliant and thoroughly discredited Governor. The illegitimacy of all this was pronounced by the Supreme Court. In the end, it took a decisive and deafening mandate of the people in the second round of Assembly elections, with a massive 10 per cent anti-incumbency swing, to put an end to this disgrace to democracy.

What has been defeated in Bihar is not only the RJD-led alliance, but also the pernicious philosophy that it stood for. Its proponents — Laloo Yadav, Sonia Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury — believe that secularism, as they define it, must take precedence over democracy at any cost. To keep ‘‘communal forces’’ at bay, the Congress and the Communists condoned the worst form of malgovernance in Bihar. To Laloo himself, secularism became a license for corruption of governance, criminalisation of politics and for practicing casteism and minorityism (the so-called MY or Muslim-Yadav combination) of the most degenerate and divisive kind. Such was his arrogance of power that, through all his frequent visits to jail on corruption charges, he continued to rule the state by making his wife the surrogate chief minister. We have known of Panchayati Raj becoming ‘‘Pati Raj’’ in some villages after the introduction of 33% reservation for women — that is, male politicians using their wives as fronts to keep real power in their own hands. Laloo elevated this to the state level.

Given the magnitude of the JD(U)-BJP win, it is no doubt a positive vote for liberation of Bihar from Laloo’s Jungle Raj. However, the people of Bihar have scripted a message not only to the vanquished, but also to the victors. For the victorious NDA, the main lesson is that the alliance in Bihar, unlike the one at the Centre, is led by the JD(U) and not by the BJP. This has great significance for the evolution of anti-Congress politics in India in the coming days. The BJP had to keep its ‘‘Hindutva’’ appeal scrupulously out of its election campaign. I know of local BJP leaders in Bihar who used to urge the central leadership not to speak about ‘‘Hindutva’’ issues in the campaign. I also know of several Muslim activists from Bihar who used to say: ‘‘If the BJP focuses only on governance and development, we are prepared to work for the victory of the JD(U)-BJP alliance.’’ The fact that a significant section of Muslims in Bihar voted against Laloo this time shows that they refuse to be yoked forever to a particular party for the defense of ‘‘secularism’’.

Story continues below this ad

Can the pattern be any different in parliamentary elections, whenever they are held next? If the BJP wants to continue to lead the anti-Congress alliance in the country, it has perforce to stick to the NDA agenda. Which means: it must keep equal place for every section of our diverse society in its scheme of politics and governance. Further, it must consciously strive to reach out to Muslims. If it shuns the NDA agenda, its allies will desert it, and India will see the emergence of a third front or conglomeration, with the BJP itself isolated to the third position. Thus, the Bihar verdict poses highly inconvenient questions and options before RSS leaders who smugly insist that the BJP lost power in May 2004 because the Vajpayee-Advani leadership abandoned ‘‘Hindutva’’ and are now claiming equally smugly that they are satisfied that the party is slowly returning to its ‘‘core ideology’’. If the BJP, in its current state of turmoil, abandons the Vajpayee-Advani line and chooses instead to toe the RSS line, there is little doubt that it will weaken itself further in state after state. It will also have little chances of leading a government at the Centre again.

The Bihar verdict also has a lesson for Nitish Kumar, the new chief minister. He and Sushil Kumar Modi, his deputy, face enormous challenges as they try to turn Bihar around. Both are battle-hardened. Both have a clean image. But both, and the parties they represent, must now stay focused on good governance and Bihar’s rapid development. The Centre, too, must fully assist Nitish Kumar in reviving Bihar from its ravaged state, not yielding to the temptation of discrimination against a state that could herald a new political development at the national level. After all, if Bihar bounces back, who can stop India from surging ahead?

Write to sudheenkulkarni@ expressindia.com

Trump announces TikTok deal, surprise China visit ‘early next year’ after call with Xi

World9 hr ago

Trump and Xi had a successful phone call, addressing trade, Fentanyl, and TikTok. They plan to meet at APEC Summit and for Trump to visit China, with Xi visiting the US. Congress wants TikTok to sell its US assets or shut down, but Trump has not enforced this due to the app's value and progress.

View all shorts

Live Blog