Biharis show the way
Bihar has been synonymous with the very worst. But the ‘aam’ Bihari, however uneducated and downtrodden, has now shown that (s)he knows how to vote. Will the ‘niz’ Goenkar follow suit? Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (U)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine has bagged a stunning 85 per cent of seats in the states assembly election, dumping the doughty Lalu Prasad Yadav in the dustbin of history.
But does this, as the experts on TV say, mark the victory of the politics of development over the politics of caste? Not really. Crafty politician that he is, Nitish carefully carved out his caste combinations. He systematically eroded the Yadav caste base (20 per cent of the population) of rival Lalu Yadav, creating a special sub-quota for a special category called extremely backward castes or EBCs, comprising Kahars, Dhanuks, Kumhars, Lohars, Telis, Mallahs and Nais (32 per cent of the population).
He clipped the wings of Lalu’s dalit ally Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) by creating a similar sub-quota among scheduled castes called Mahadalits; the Paswan community was left out. He also won over a section of Muslims by keeping Bihar free of communal riots as well as making extravagantly visible public gestures, dictating to his coalition partner, the BJP, that its most rabidly fanatic leaders – like Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi – were not to campaign in Bihar. The alliance with the BJP brought Nitish a part of the upper caste vote, particularly Brahmins.
But his development agenda applied a huge multiplier effect. Since he took over as CM, Nitish has concentrated on a few areas that have won him enormous goodwill, like law & order, roads and bridges, education, healthcare and power. In the last five years, roads across Bihar have improved enormously, and hundreds of small bridges have been built. Bihar’s cottage industry of kidnapping has been shut down. Thousands of anti-social elements have been jailed, giving people a sense of security. He has encouraged the education of girls, providing them with free school uniforms and bicycles. He has restarted hundreds of abandoned schools and primary health centres. Villages that never, ever, got electricity now get power for a few hours a day. For Bihar, that is a minor miracle.
This has given his party a massive majority in every area in Bihar, even in the Yadav and Muslim strongholds that earlier voted en bloc for Lalu Yadav. In that very limited sense, this verdict transcends caste. The outcome has seriously diluted the long-prevailing excessive emphasis on caste, at least partly. This ‘unfinished agenda’ of very visible development has created real hope in the future, prevailing over the deeply entrenched cynicism of the Bihari voter.
Expectations will now be sky-high, and Nitish will, no doubt, face much greater challenges in his second term regardless of his huge mandate. But he has shown how the combination of inclusive and genuinely secular politics and a focussed agenda of good governance and appropriate development can upset established political equations. How long before Goa can hope for a similar prospect of change?
Great RP2021!
If the taluka plans for the border talukas of Pernem and Canacona, along with overall policy decisions are any indication, the prolonged three-year wait for the Regional Plan 2021 has not been in vain. The State Level Committee, after considering draft plans submitted by each panchayat in the state, as well as thousands of individual suggestions, has come up with a remarkable document. It is now for all Goans to extend their support to this plan and prevent vested interests from trying to sabotage it.
