Author: T V R Shenoy
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 2, 2005
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83067
My doctors tell me I should cut down on the
salt. I respond that this is not possible for an Indian journalist today,
we must take every political statement with whole tablespoons of the briny
stuff. Does anyone believe the high-sounding sentiments that preceded the
mini-Kurukshetras on the streets of Bhopal and Mumbai? I can scarcely believe
that the lessons of Bihar have been forgotten barely a week after the results
of the Vidhan Sabha polls came out.
The elections in Bihar, I thought, marked
an end of the road for two factors that have dominated Indian politics for
the past twenty years - the sterile debate over communalism and the centrality
of dynasty. Governance and development had taken centre-stage at long last,
hadn't they? And every political party had finally got the message, right?
Apparently not! So, permit me to reiterate the lessons of Bihar as I saw them.
The United Progressive Alliance ministry has been in power for about a year
and a half. The regime rests on the back of support from the Left Front and
the Samajwadi Party, "over 110 votes" as the weary refrain went
a fortnight ago. It has become fairly obvious that the CPI(M) and the Congress
have differences on everything from foreign policy to economic reform. The
sole ideological veneer covering the cracks in this unlikely alliance is fear
of the BJP (Lord knows why, given that party's sudden desire to emulate the
lemming!) But Bihar tore apart even that flimsy veil of principle, exposing
naked ambitions.
Much ink has been spent on the way in which
Ram Vilas Paswan and Laloo Prasad Yadav went their separate way, to the detriment
of both. But the depths to which Indian politics has sunk becomes truly clear
only when you consider the CPI(M) and the CPI. The two may pay lip service
to the ideal of 'secularism' but they have very weird ideas of what it is
supposed to be. While the Marxist Big Brother backed Laloo Prasad Yadav to
the hilt, the CPI - which actually has more of a presence in Bihar - stood
firmly by Ram Vilas Paswan. And what, pray tell, were these two actually supporting?
Laloo Prasad Yadav had a two-point platform,
cement the Yadav vote and try to scare the Muslims. Ram Vilas Paswan was not
as ambitious, he was content to stick to the Muslims alone. Put up a Muslim
puppet as the Chief Ministerial candidate, his cynical calculation went, and
that was all it would take to win enough seats to play kingmaker in the Vidhan
Sabha. So enamoured is he of this thesis that he was repeating it long after
the last vote had been counted; it was the Congress's backing for Rabri Devi,
he insisted, that had done all the damage.
Come to think of it, why shouldn't Paswan
continue to harp on the theme? Everyone else, not excluding the media, was
doing much the same, confining the discussions to speculation about which
community had voted for whom. Despite the efforts of the Election Commission,
this was one of the dirtiest elections in the history of Bihar. No, there
was no violence, but never before had the appeals to caste and creed been
so naked. The Congress went to the extent of calculating not just the caste
but even the sub-caste of its candidates. Asked to explain this, the best
that the party's embarrassed spokesperson could offer was that the list was
not supposed to have been released. I suppose we should be glad that the Congress
still has enough of a sense of shame to recognise that some things should
not be brought out in the open. Ram Vilas Paswan and Laloo Prasad Yadav certainly
displayed no such inhibitions.
All credit then to the voters of Bihar! Displaying
a political sophistication that could teach a thing or two to other states,
they voted for development over the sterile 'secularism' they have enjoyed
for fifteen years. I suspect it was not so much a vote for the Janata Dal
(United)-BJP alliance as it was a despairing vote for change. 70 per cent
of the electorate in Siwan is Muslim. Hajipur is the Lok Sabha seat that once
put Ram Vilas Paswan in the 'Guinness Book of World Records'. The voters of
both put their faith in the "communal" alliance.
I refuse to believe that either Siwan or Hajipur
was swayed by any grand ideology, certainly not by anything that the BJP could
have said. If Nitish Kumar is Chief Minister in Patna today, it is because
he was the only leader intelligent enough - and humane enough - to talk of
'development'. A few hours of water at a convenient hour of the day, roads
that are something more than a poor joke, perhaps the possibility that they
wouldn't have to pay so many bribes, that is all that Bihar seems to want
today. And Nitish Kumar seemed to be the only leader who cared about that
kind of detail.
Five days ago, my friend Saeed Naqvi wondered
aloud how long the "quarrelling band" could stick together in Delhi
when they were at each other's throat in Bihar. My answer is that they will
stick together just as long as voters are taken in by the 'secularism vs.
communalism' arguments.
The gloomy lesson drawn from Bihar is that
you must apparently hit rock bottom before development takes centre stage.
Until that happy day I shall keep a packet of NaCl open while watching the
latest political pronouncement.
