If state institutions have become comatose, there is stasis on nearly every front, and if the chief minister — even if well-meaning — becomes the custodian of all authority, the capacity of the system for intelligent, efficient and transparent decision-making cannot but suffer, as the case of Bihar shows under Nitish Kumar, the so-called modernising chief minister who is thought by many to stand in contrast with Lalu Prasad who believed in back-to-the-stone age methods.
How does the articulation, and diffusion, of power occur in such a situation? Does the caste network, then, provide the only cushion? Will the forthcoming Assembly election be lost or won on this basis primarily?
Prof. N. K. Chaudhri, the well-known social scientist here, has strong words to say, “Bihar is ruled not by a council of ministers as the Constitution stipulates, but by a council of secretaries led by a super-secretary who calls himself chief minister. This is very disturbing.”
This is a statement of the problem. An idea of the manner in which the issue is being sought to be resolved, and power possibly being distributed, comes from P.K. Mani, a literary intellectual and JD(U) MLC.
Says Mr Mani, “In the chief minister’s household, and in the JD(U) party structure and the Bihar government, the positions that matter the most are now generally occupied by Kurmis, that is people from the CM’s own caste. It wasn’t always Like this.”
This suggests something has changed over Nitish Kumar’s five years in office, and not for the better. I’ve also heard references from diverse sources in Patna to a publication that names prominent power-wielders and their caste affiliation, with Kurmis widely seen in the lead.
According to someone in a position to know, when Mr Nitish Kumar first came to office, he probably aspired to the status of a “backward caste Nehru” as distinct from a “Pandit” (or Brahmin) Nehru, in terms of subscribing to the modernising ideal.
Instead, says the source, “Nitish ended up casting himself in the mould of his bete noire, Lalu, on the caste question, and acquiring his methods.”
Isn’t this harsh? I enquire. What about the chief minister’s roads project linking Bihar’s towns? Isn’t that a statement of modernism? My source checks me.
He says, “What do you say to a school which advertises that it has black-boards! Shouldn’t that be a given instead of being a matter of tom-tomming?”
So, what about voting in the elections? To what extent will caste matter? Kurmis and Koeris (who have an affinity to the former in occupational terms), even if they are substantial landowners as in central Bihar, especially Patna district, are unlikely to desert Nitish. This is caste preference, of course. But there is a widespread perception that large sections of other landowning groups, such as Bhumihars and Rajputs, are leaving the ruling JD(U)-BJP alliance.
The CM is unlikely to entertain thoughts of divesting landowners of their property, but his appointment of the Bandopadhyaya Commission to record the names of “bataidars” or sharecroppers has frightened landowning sections, although probably needlessly.
Mr Nitish’s critics say the commission was appointed to earn plaudits from the sharecroppers, mainly dalits. Its recommendations weren’t even translated into Hindi officially, and a committee has now been set up, effectively to scuttle it.
At any rate, it is significant to note, rural landowners may be leaving Mr Nitish on account of worries relating to class, not caste.
In the Assembly election of November 2005, an inordinately large number of seats were won by the ruling NDA alliance by narrow margins of fewer than one thousand votes. It is to be seen how the NDA will be affected on account of class/caste re-alignments being widely discussed around the state, as I discovered during a recent 600-kilometre sojourn of Bihar.
In addition to the NDA and RJD, thought to be the main contestants (on 143 out of the 243 seats, according to even JD-U dissidents), the Congress is fighting all the seats, and a Left Front nearly 200, even if most of these might be token. CPI(ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya says a three-way or four-way division of votes can produce winners with even 35,000 votes. RJD spokesman Shakeel Ahmad Khan holds a similar view. In such a melee, strong local factors, selection of candidates, and caste and class equations should all play a role.
n Concluded