Author: Saba Naqvi Bhaumik
Publication: Outlook
Date: May 5, 2008
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080505&fname=Nitish+Kumar+(F)&sid=1
Introduction: After the storm, the calm. A
ravaged Bihar finds succour and sustenance in its CM, Nitish Kumar.
"I am a methodical man. If there is anything
on earth I hate, it is genius. Your geniuses are all arrant asses."
-Edgar Allan Poe
Nitish Kumar is certainly a methodical man. When I go to meet the Bihar chief
minister, he has just spent the entire day reading 3,000 written complaints
from the people at his janata durbar. His ministers and bureaucrats sit around
him in attendance. The sudden heat wave that has descended on the state capital
doesn't seem to bother him; he keeps smiling at many complainants and hastily
dismisses the others. At the end of the exercise, he finds 1,700 complaints
valid, and passes them on to his ministers and bureaucrats. And throughout,
he has managed to keep both his cool, and his spectacles, on.
This is quite a leap of faith for Bihar. Its
politicians are usually not in the habit of reading petitions from the public.
They are more comfortable making speeches, posing for photographs with villagers
and leaving the dirty work for their clerks and officials to do, who do not
do it anyway. Nitish, in contrast, clearly has the patience for paperwork.
His janata durbar is a remarkable feat of endurance. The CM has managed to
introduce order in what can easily descend into chaos (every valid complaint
is given a number), and inspired the belief that it is not impossible to seek-and
get-redressal from the system.
If you ask economist Saibal Gupta, he tells
you that, historically, Bihar was never a functioning state. Even before Independence,
it had the most organised zamindari system and the lowest per capita expenditure
on health, education and other public investments. Politicians in Bihar traditionally
followed the route of forging social coalitions, seeking caste support and
riding the crest of the state's many social justice or land reform agitations.
Social upheaval or transformation has been seen as the key to change in Bihar;
not "vikas" or development schemes.
But ever since he came to power, the government
has begun preparing economic surveys (written by nationally known economists)-the
first time ever in Bihar's history. The second survey published in March this
year duly notes that the state has the lowest per capita income of Rs 5,772,
only a quarter of the national average of Rs 22,946. "For the first time,"
says Gupta, "Nitish is giving the impression that he is trying to build
a state. It is a mammoth task, but he has tried to make a beginning."
And it is by no means an easy beginning. Given
the state he inherited Bihar in, the CM has a long way to go-that too on a
path ridden with ridicule. First off the block is state RJD president Abdul
Bari Siddiqui. "Nitish organised a three-day seminar on poverty indicators,"
he said. "I told him it is a shame you don't recognise poverty. Lalooji
knows that a man who does not get two square meals is poor. Do you need to
attend a seminar to understand poverty?"
Laloo certainly wouldn't. Flamboyant rival
to Nitish's calm, efficient demeanour, he would never sit through a seminar
or examine public petitions. Chaos, he would say in the early years of his
15-year rule, helps loosen the grip of the upper castes. Development, he famously
argued, would not help the poor; its benefits would be cornered by the landlords,
the Bhumihars. A master in the art of political rhetoric and guile, Laloo
used caste antagonisms and Muslim insecurities to remain in power even as
Bihar slipped on every socio-economic indicator. Nitish, who had co-scripted
the Mandal strategy with Laloo before breaking away 15 years ago, is now a
wiser man.
"You can't think about Bihar in the traditional
way," he says. "Mandal did empower some castes. But we can't justify
the breakdown of the system and all rule of law."
And it is not as if Nitish is not forging
social coalitions. He has been wooing the extremely backward castes systematically,
and making a serious bid to win over Muslims, or at the very least, blunt
any organised opposition to the JD(U)-BJP alliance. Syed Nizamuddin, the secretary
general of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and head of Bihar's leading
Islamic school, the Imarat-i-Sharia at Phulwari Sharif, was consulted regularly
by Laloo and continues to be wooed by Nitish. He is quite blunt when he says,
"Nitish is serious about winning over Muslims or he wouldn't have sent
two backward caste Muslims to the Rajya Sabha besides many schemes for minorities."
However, the extent of Muslim electoral support, he adds, will depend on his
positioning vis-a-vis the BJP.
It helps that the BJP in Bihar operates on
a caste basis and does not play overt communal politics. Even so, during the
assembly polls in 2005, Nitish campaigned independently and avoided sharing
the platform with BJP leaders. He continues to avoid attending too many NDA
meetings and was the only CM to give L.K. Advani's book release a miss in
Delhi. BJP leader and deputy CM Sushil Modi says: "He never interferes
in our affairs and we know he comes from a different ideological stream. Even
the Bihar BJP is supportive of his effort to woo Muslims. They make up a large
chunk of society and can't be ignored. Besides, there are boundaries that
separate the JD(U)-BJP though we are in an alliance."
Nitish is also trying to alter other political
traits that have left such a mark on Bihar society. Patna residents are stunned
at the manner in which political dons are landing in jail, one after the other.
Figures like the notorious Shahabuddin of Siwan have finally been convicted,
and there is now a strong buzz that JD(U) MP Prabhunath Singh may get a long
jail term. The results are there for all to see. There has been a sharp drop
in crimes like kidnapping for ransom in just two years. The CM himself says:
"Please see the numbers of those who have been arrested under the Arms
Act." One of the state's top police officials says Nitish believes it's
possible to change the image of a state where every small goon walks around
with gun-toting guards.
Can he, though? According to Krishna Deo Yadav,
member of the CPI(ML) central committee: "Laloo destroyed the state while
laughing loudly, Nitish is smiling gently and destroying the state."
Neither, he argues, has addressed the crux of Bihar's problem-the redistribution
of land. Nitish did set up a commission to look into land reform, but its
report has been buried quietly. Any development initiative, therefore, can
at best bring about cosmetic changes. But then, politicians bringing about
radical transformation is never the norm anywhere-and it might be unfair to
judge Nitish against that.In Bihar, to even try and build a road or pick up
a health system from a shambles can be seen as an achievement of sorts.
It is no surprise, therefore, that Nitish's
opponents concede, albeit grudgingly, that he is currently on a good wicket
and maintains a good image among all sections. Will it be cakewalk then for
Nitish to trounce Laloo in the Lok Sabha polls next year? After all, the RJD,
with 22 MPs, is one of the largest constituents of the UPA in Delhi. If Laloo
ties up with Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP, he would have mopped up a chunk of the
caste votes, making it difficult to counter merely with clean politics. But
the RJD could well suffer losses. And, even as his opponents try to work out
the caste math, Nitish himself is trying to rise above the electoral game
and do the sort of things that have not, in the history of Bihar, reaped electoral
dividends. He could well be rewriting the rules that have governed the fortunes
of the state so far.
By Saba Naqvi Bhaumik in Patna with Inderjit
Singh