In 1980s, a famous political scientist (US based) working on Bihar, Harry Blair, said, 'Bihar must contend with a political reality characterized by tension, violence and corruption'. This statement about the eastern province of India may hold equally true for many other provinces but with a great difference of degree. Another scholar, Francine Frankel (France based) went on to say that, 'Bihar represents the extreme case of multi stranded dominance by upper castes'. Laloo Yadava's emergence as the most powerful politician of Bihar in 1989-90, took place in a context when the V.P Singh led political front had emerged mainly on the plank of the corruption in the Congress ruled India. He later on implemented affirmative action/positive discrimination/reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the government jobs, only at the cost of political instability.

Laloo's greatest political strength was social mutiny against the upper caste's repressive hegemony and prevention of communal riots. But his miserable but wilful failure in giving good governance and economic development led to slow but definite erosion of support base when roads, electricity, irregular or non payment of salaries to the government employees and acute lawlessness, kidnappings for ransoms and vehicle snatchings were the greatest problems faced by the people. Laloo-Rabri led government (1990-2005) remained arrogantly confident of continuing in power because of  its tremendous popularity mainly among Muslims (due to relative control on communal riots but providing a political economy where communal hatred kept increasing), who have least proportion of middle class, and among his own caste Yadavas, who got favours in licenses, contracts etc. The Nitish Kumar led front could come to power in November 2005 precisely on these two issues of good governance (Sushaasan against the Jungle Raj) and development (vikaas against vinaash or destruction). The initial days of his administration did demonstrate it amply that he was able to keep his promises, which is resulting into his rising popularity among common people, particularly among the middle classes of Bihar, but increasing unpopularity among even the legislatures of his own party, JD-U. In 2006 elections of the local bodies, he announced reservations for the EBCs and women which pushed ahead the agenda of social justice and went well among most marginalized sections of the society. His attempts towards bringing administration to the door step of the common people through Janata Darbars, large scale construction/repairing of roads, augmented supply of electricity, punctual payment of salaries to the government employees, several steps towards reforming and streamlining higher education etc were few steps which earned laurels and brought hope.

But the murder, among many other murders, of the famous historian, Papiya Ghosh, in December 2006 proved that Nitish led administration is not unblemished. In early October 2007, the fast track judicial court pronounced verdicts of life imprisonment and death against 'powerful' political leaders (of his own party) like Munna Shukla and Anand Mohan Singh, one Bhumihar and another Rajput. Soon, they started campaign among their caste fellows against the style of functioning of the Nitish led administration, which is supposed to be making relatively less interference in bureaucratic affairs. Analysts started assessing whether Bhumihars (about 5% of the total population of Bihar but with very high proportion of middle class) will remain with Nitish.

Apart from casteism, criminalization, corruption and natural calamities like recurrent devastating floods, one great problem of Bihar is its history of lack of developmental vision among its political-bureaucratic elites and also among the intelligentsia .

Except Sachidanand Sinha (d. 1950) and the people of his generation, who asserted for regional identity of Bihar and launched a successful movement actualizing the objective of a separate province of Bihar (out of Bengal) in 1912, we don't find many leaders who articulated concrete programmes of economic development of Bihar.

In 1920s, casteism (and communalism) mainly with Bhumihar & Rajput polarization started in the Congress led anti colonial struggle. Other social groups demonstrated their political relevance only by joining one or the other of the two poles. The middle and the lower peasantry, constituted most numerously of the intermediate castes like Yadavas, Koeris, Kurmis, increasingly developed conflicting relationships with the Congress. The 1967 elections witnessed changes in the social composition of legislatures/political elites. This transformation became radically visible in 1977 elections when Karpoori led Janata Party came to power in Bihar.
The 1980s saw further changes in the social composition of the provincial legislatures cutting across the political parties. Then emerged Laloo, who in the name of social justice (against the upper caste hegemony) promised many things but his 15 years rule rapidly degenerated into a horrible misrule and decay of all institutions. Development and democracy suffered badly, only relevant question was, as always, which caste will remain in power in Bihar. Historically, Bihar has not witnessed a big anti caste movement in medieval and modern period. Surprisingly, even the politicians of the Nehru's generation also remained afflicted with this problem. So was/is the case with the academics and journalists. Most prominent example of this is a book on the history of an English daily Searchlight of Patna written by Dr N.M.P. Srivastav (1998). Another such example/evidence is the memoir written by a former Chief Minister, Satyendra Narayan Sinha, Meri Yaaden, Meri Bhoolen (2005).

The thick volume on the history of the Searchlight, which for more than 9 decades, was the most popular English daily of Bihar, has only a fraction of one particular chapter which may be said to be dealing with developmental issues of Bihar. A part of the chapter 2 deals marginally with the agrarian relations that too quite superficially. This suggests that either the newspaper did not publish much of news and views on the subject or the author of the history of the newspaper preferred not to dilate much upon the subject. The 15 th chapter of the book deals with the issues of the nation building in the early years of India's independence. But we don't come across anything on the food scarcity and other issues like the flood problem, rural poverty, lack of land reforms resulting into caste based rural violence. If the newspaper suffered from the class/caste prejudice, similar remarks can be made about the author of the history of the newspaper. Because, the author does pay much attention to caste based polarizations/factions within the ruling Congress of 1950s and 1960s, so much so that its contents have been brought out as a separate, highly saleable volume, on the subject. Its title is 1957, Shri Babu and JP: Allegations and Counter Allegations.   

University and college campuses also remained divided along caste lines. Except one or two, all the Undergraduate and Post Graduate colleges have been established by powerful politicians, mostly of upper castes, making almost cent percent of recruitments in such colleges from the caste fellows. This was a 'brilliant' arrangement of almost hundred percent reservations for the caste fellows. About this the government appointed Naik Committee Report on Education (of 1960s) had to say that the 'government has abolished zamindari in land but has created zamindari in education'. Ironically, the historic beneficiaries of this kind of un-written caste based reservations in government jobs, turned out to be the greatest and most desperate critics of the caste based reservation for the OBCs in early 1990s.

This kind of compromise with meritocracy has adversely affected academics and researches in social sciences; where socio-economic problems of Bihar have not been addressed to the extent it was warranted. The Five Year Plans of India were not directed to develop the rural agrarian economy. In the first 7 five Year Plans, highest allocation was given to water and power production, which served the purpose only of a small class of rich landowners (mostly upper castes and marginally intermediate castes like the Yadavas, Koeris and Kurmis). The gigantic river projects like those of Gandak and Kosi failed to contain flood problem and to fulfill irrigational needs. Such was the incompetence of the technocrats of such projects that the beds of the canals were dug deeper than the fields to be irrigated. The corruption in bureaucracy and technocracy in league with the politicians benefited mainly the upper castes and consequently more than 80% of the Bihar's population suffered. Academicians, media-men, bureaucrats, politicians (both in ruling as well as opposition political formations) and all such elites came from the same social/caste background, who willfully failed in subjecting these actions/policies to critical scrutiny. The few major industries that came up did not benefit Bihar in a big way. Even petty cultivators could not find alternative source of employment due to lack of education and skills. Such industries imported workers from outside and the industries, in turn, had no noticeable spread effects into the impoverished hinterlands of Bihar. The industries sent both their products and profits outside the state. Moreover, from the fourth Five Year Plan onwards, the state funded social and community services underwent drastic decline. Carrying out minimum land reforms in these situations when the dispossessed/affected social groups had no urban industrial field to migrate in order to escape the social oppression perpetuated by the upper caste landowners, gave rise to Naxalism/Maoism. Commenting upon such horrific situation in Bihar, Harry Blair had to say, "The purpose of Five year Plans was not to develop the rural economy for that might bring real change, but rather to develop patronage network among elites, linking caste alliances between villages and the state capital".

When the intelligentsia (academics and media) has remained so 'blissfully' ignorant about or prejudiced   against the developmental necessities of Bihar, it is hardly surprising that the politicians suffered from the similar disease. Satyendra Narayan Sinha's memoir,  does not give anything illuminating on the economic problems of Bihar. This is even more disappointing because of the fact that he may be categorized as an 'enlightened politician', a kind of politician whose family and kin have produced so many civil servants and parliamentarians including few women. His father, Anugraha Narayan Sinha's memoir, Mere Sansmaran is also deficient on offering such deliberations. Few biographies of Shri Krishna Sinha, the first Chief Minister of Bihar, also give evidences of lack of developmental vision. It amply proves that even the cleanest of Bihar politicians do/did not have any concretely defined vision/programme of the economic development of Bihar. Even Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Indian Republic had to confess that in the elections of 1937 and 1946, caste based favouritism played its role in distribution of tickets. Sahajanand Saraswati, JP like people had expressed same agonies for the subsequent times. These are the reasons, why the living socialist intellectuals like Sachidanand Singh argue that the bourgeoisie of Bihar, in league with the national bourgeoisie have turned Bihar into the internal colony of India. Whereas, the scholars like Shaibal Gupta went on to suggest that lack of 'Bihari sub-nationalism' is the reason for such apathy. Responding to such observations, Arvind N. Das had suggested that division of Bihar into Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi provinces, may help generate a strong regional loyalty above caste, which may bring people's commitment to regional economic development.  Will it really help, is a question to be debated fiercely and comprehensively.

What about the Communists?

They (CPI and CPI-M) put their greater emphasis on economic revolution and neglected social revolution. Their sheer neglect of the caste based oppression resulted into their political obliteration in Bihar. This gave rise to the political formations believing in armed revolution in 1970s and 1980s. The state repression forced a section of them to come to terms with the parliamentary democracy but extreme hostility of the middle class in civil society and continuing state repression has left them in disarray. Moreover, after the question of honour ( Sammaan) for the poor Dalits have been actualized by the radical political assertion of the CPI-ML, these social forces have now got an urge for 'middle class' material needs like contracts, licenses, education, hospital, jobs etc which can be delivered only by the mainstream political formations. These social forces are therefore, now, moving towards such 'state-power wielding' political formations, representing Dalits and OBCs.   The emergence and survival of the political formations like Laloo led RJD, Nitish led JD-U, and Ramvilas Paswan led LJP may be understood in this context.

Is there any way out to these problems of Bihar? Do we see any political economy forthcoming which could dilute such a high degree of casteism? Do we see anything coming forward in Bihar which could address these problems so that formation of middle classes in definite proportion takes place in Bihar? The plank on which the Nitish led dispensation came and the way in which Nitish led administration moved (viz. revamping and streamlining the elementary and higher education, augmenting power production and streamlining its supply, paying attention to roads and maintaining law and order to attract private investments and empowering most backward social groups through enhanced political representations in the local bodies), many expected that Bihar will change for better and the NRI Biharis expressed much hopes and expectations from this regime. Nitish led administration appears to be making its efforts towards fulfilling these expectations by initiating a crack down against criminal politicians. But the recent developments suggest that changing Bihar for better is horribly daunting task.   Nevertheless, a sustainable developmental vision is still elusive. No mainstream political formations (Centrist, Leftist or Rightist) have ever made a significant insistence on pressurizing the Central/Federal administration to negotiate with Nepal so that several small Dams could be built which will help containing flood and will provide hydroelectricity, facilitating irrigation and industrialization paving the way for genuine economic development in Bihar. No Bihari NRI has ever demanded this diplomatic initiative from India.  No rallies against turning Bihar into a source of supplying cheap labour to construction 'industries' of Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Gujarat.

In such situation one is required to be extraordinarily optimist to expect the emergence of a new resurgent, vibrant Bihar. How many of us have such a grossly inflated optimism?

I fully agreed with the view of Dr Mohammad Sajjad that  “Bihar's Political Elites Lack Vision for Development” but nothing can stop an idea whose time has come i.e idea of development, growth and success! I think that present Nitish Kumar’s Government is in the right direction and doing right things to achieve optimum development in Bihar. But it needs time, money ,political will and peoples support to achieve this. This Govt. has a political will and peoples support. But not sure about time and money! Anil Kumar Bangalore anil.kumar@conformia.com ------------------------------------