Pavan K. Varma | Bihar’s turn to vote next: Jan Suraajj has a fair shot
Just this week, PM Narendra Modi launched the BJP’s campaign. The Bihar Cabinet has also been reshuffled
The next big electoral battle will be for the Bihar Assembly elections at the end of this year. Just this week, PM Narendra Modi launched the BJP’s campaign. The Bihar Cabinet has also been reshuffled. The three established political players, the BJP, the RJD and the JD(U) have been in power for 30 years, in different combinations.
But their political strategies have become fatiguingly repetitive. Bihar is where it was 30 years ago, the poorest and most backward state in the country. Obviously, therefore, politics and politicians have failed the aspirations of 13 crore Biharis. The cradle of India’s civilisation remains a cesspool of abject poverty, unbelievable deprivation, educational backwardness, and rampant corruption. The 15 years of Lalu Yadav’s ‘jungle raj’, was followed by a brief ray of hope when Nitish Kumar came to power, but that hope was short lived, and the state has lapsed back into unethical political alliances and misgovernance.
In January 2013, I joined Nitish Kumar as adviser with Cabinet rank, and came to know him closely. Later, I represented his party, the JD(U), in the Rajya Sabha, too, and was its national general secretary. Nitish in those days was a different person, someone who stood out from the other politicians in Bihar. An engineer, he was well-educated, known for his personal rectitude, a very sharp mind, and administrative, giving him the title of “sushasan babu” — the man capable of good governance. But after 2016, his decline was equally precipitous. In a series of inexplicable political flip-flops, he first joined the BJP, then broke with it to join hands with the RJD, and then pivoted back to the BJP. Somewhere along the line, he lost both is credibility and his focus on governance, and transitioned from “sushasan babu” to “paltu kumar” — one who is forever changing sides. He was also derisively called “kursi kumar”, a man in love with the chair of the chief minister for which he would make any compromise.
In the midst of this ideologically barren landscape, Bihar has continued to suffer. The state’s paradox is stark: it is rich in human resources yet deprived of even basic opportunities. Over 25 per cent of its youth are compelled to somehow eke out a living in distant states, a testament to chronic unemployment. Agriculture, employing 70 per cent of the workforce, remains subsistence-based. Industrialisation is almost non-existent. Primary education is largely one where if there are schools there are no teachers, and if teachers, no schools. Primary health is pathetic; higher education only produces an army of the mostly unemployable.
What Bihar needs now is a quantum shift in the quality of governance. Can the current political players deliver this? So far, their obsession with political power has focused overwhelmingly on caste arithmetic and religious polarisation. The RJD relies on the M-Y consolidation, an alignment of the estimated 14 per cent Yadav community with about 17 per cent Muslims. The Muslims vote for the RJD because of the fear of the BJP; and the other castes vote for the BJP because of the fear of demonstrated Yadav misrule. Between these two polarities, the JD(U) obtains its shrinking share of seats banking on other sub-castes.
Within this troika, political alliances shift with unashamed expediency, but little changes on the ground. The people of Bihar are used as canon-fodder on the altar of dharma and jati. The gods of this temple reward the manipulators, not the manipulated. The same set of people come to power, and the same praja is cheated of its expectations.
Nothing, then, will change in Bihar unless its voters say: Enough is enough. This will require an attitudinal revolution. Voters will have to rise above the repeated tropes of religion and caste, and vote for what can concretely change their own lives. In this context, a new entrant on the political landscape is Jan Suraaj, led by Prashant Kishor. Kishor’s message is dramatically simple: Vote for the future of your children and a better life for yourselves, instead of allowing cynical politicians to use you only to come to power.
The entry of Jan Suraaj strongly interrogates old political formulas. Kishor’s message is corrosive, even as the challenges he faces are daunting. Jan Suraaj is a new party, launched as recently as October 2, 2024. But its launch was preceded by a two-year arduous 3,000 km padyatra by Mr Kishor across Bihar’s countryside, reminiscent of Gandhi’s Champaran odyssey. Mr Kishor’s organisational prowess as the architect of electoral triumphs of dozens of parties, and his ability for relentless work, are his strengths. Being in his 40s, he also resonates with Bihar’s large youth population. His clarion call for foundational change in governance, also has takers. But whether he will succeed in persuading Bihar’s voters to accept a qualitatively new brand of politics focused on the immediate and radical development of Bihar, is to be seen.
Given Bihar’s size, both geographically and numerically, its continued lack of economic development has become a drag on India’s overall development. The need for change is, therefore, an imperative not only for Bihar but for all Indians. To achieve this, those who have thus far been governing Bihar, need to see the writing on the wall. More of the same kind of political cynicism will be disastrous. Above all, the people of Bihar must do their own bit in ending their exploitation, and erasing the mortifying jibe of being ‘Bihari’ in the eyes of others. Once the capital of India’s greatest empires, and the very womb of unprecedented cultural and intellectual renaissance, Bihar’s current condition presents a humiliating contrast. Better politics, and much better governance, is the only solution.
The next Assembly elections provide the opportunity to find that solution. Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s lines resonate: Kshama shobhti us bhujang ko jiske paas garal hai, uska kya jo dantheen, vishrahit, vinamra, saral hai: Forgiveness is becoming of the serpent that’s got venom; who cares for the weak, gentle, kind and forgiving one. The toothless, meek and humble of Bihar must realise that democracy, while imperfect, remains the only arena where the marginalised can script their destiny.
