Opinion Does Nitish really believe that Padmavati shoudn’t dance?
Tau Devi Lal, if he was alive today, may have had a thing or two to say about the Bihar chief minister
Bihar CM and Janata Dal (U) leader Nitish Kumar. (Express File photo) 
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar (Express file photo by Renuka Puri)
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar continues to want the best of both worlds. His several, confusing positions on the ‘Padmavati’ film are a reflection of that. At first, the Bihar government did not issue any formal order banning the film. But after several of his BJP colleagues protested loudly against an independent artist’s work, the Bihar chief minister seems to have abandoned his principles to the demands of realpolitik.
The problem with Nitish now is that he may have fallen squarely into the category of men for whom the irrepressible former deputy prime minister Devi Lal used to reserve some colourful adjectives. “Na ghar ka, na ghat ka…” (belonging neither at home, nor at the dhobi ghat), Tau once said in his inimitable and homespun Haryanvi, to hundreds of journalists in his home in the Rashtrapati Bhawan complex, hookah in hand and sundry cows mooing in the background.
No one asked him who he was referring to, of course, but everyone understood. The VP Singh government was falling, in 1991, and Chandrashekhar was taking his place. Which great leader was Devi Lal talking about? No matter. His distaste for people who hankered for power so much that they didn’t mind selling their soul, was clear.
Does Nitish Kumar fall into this category of men? Naturally, the jury is out. There’s certainly no one of Devi Lal’s stature in India today, so no one’s to tell what Nitish’s real reasons are for changing his mind like Hema Malini. Naturally, this is no affront to Hema Malini.
The problem with Nitish Kumar is that he wants to be liked by everyone. He wants his erstwhile hero-worshipping constituency to see him as a man who had no option but to cave in to the BJP, to look at the larger picture of him being the savior of the state. He wants his current friends in the BJP to see him as an equal, not equal to them but to their boss.
Problem is, his erstwhile supporters believe he has caved in, not only politically but morally as well. These people are now beginning to agree with his erstwhile detractors that the spine was merely a ‘mukhauta’, a cover-up, a façade. That Nitish Kumar always intended to jump ship and betray The Larger Cause.
The Bihar chief minister’s announcement that ‘Padmavati’ will not be shown in Bihar until Sanjay Leela Bhansali clarifies all sundry objections only proves how skin-deep his secularism is, these people say. Perhaps these second thoughts have to do with the coalition of social extremes which is what Nitish Kumar represents today – the BJP’s voter base of OBC and upper caste voters, like the Rajputs, which must align with the Extreme Backward Castes and Dalit base of the Janata Dal (United).
Perhaps Nitish Kumar did not want to antagonize the floating upper-caste voter which sometimes finds favour with the JD(U) – think Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Jagdanand Singh — which is why he has joined the chorus against ‘Padmavati.’ Perhaps he hasn’t gone as far as his chief ministerial colleague Shivraj Chauhan of Madhya Pradesh, who called the erstwhile Rajput queen – a mythological Rajput queen ? – ‘Rashtramata,’ although he did come out strongly against the dance sequence.
Fact is, Nitish Kumar’s gratuitous comment that the character of Padmavati should not have been made to dance is in keeping with the BJP’s patriarchal ideology.
Perhaps Nitish Kumar was being safe in his protesting because he didn’t want a law and order problem on his hands. So has that become the new ‘lakshman rekha’ in the ideological struggle of the Socialist?
Truth is, Nitish Kumar is polishing the art of compromise to a new finesse. He is no longer his own person in the NDA, but he knows well the art of survival. Even the so-called decision of JD(U) independently fighting the Gujarat election will either be irrelevant or only serve to undercut the anti-BJP coalition. Perhaps this is the real Nitish Kumar, the man who will do anything to stay in power, which is why we should not be surprised that he is pandering to the lowest common denominator on the ‘Padmavati’ controversy.
The real Nitish Kumar doesn’t need to stand up. The Bihar chief minister has made his views crystal clear from the company he keeps.
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