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TALKING to a group of journalists in Patna a day before the last phase of polling for the Assembly elections in Bihar, Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar opined that the people's verdict of November 2005 would impart new and creative dimensions to Bihar's struggle for social justice and empowerment of the weaker sections of society. Elaborating on his thinking, he said the progress of the struggle would no longer follow mechanistic perceptions about social tussles between the upper castes on one side and Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) on the other. "The new struggle would draw from all sections of society and work towards the overall development and betterment of society."
As he explained this "new" perspective, Nitish Kumar indulged in self-approbation. This came in the form of the contention that it was the formation of the Samata Party in 1994 under his leadership that first concretised the "unified struggle" for development. "The stirrings that we saw in society then made us come up with the Agada, Pichada Ek Ho (Forwards, Backwards Unite) slogan and the past 11 years have recorded the growing relevance and magnitude of this idea," he said.
On the face of it, the November 2005 verdict corroborates Nitish Kumar's view. The victory of the Janata Dal (United)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was on the strength of a social coalition consisting of almost the entire upper caste population and large sections of the OBCs, such as Kurmis, Koeris and Baniyas, and the EBCs, such as Kewats, Binds and Tantis. Even a marginal segment of the Muslim and Yadav communities, the traditional support base of the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the self-professed "original" social justice political force of Bihar, became part of this social coalition.
Talking to Frontline after the NDA swept the elections, Nitish Kumar said one of his primary tasks would be to maintain and enhance this social unity and utilise it for the greater good of the people.
However, political analysts and activists are of the view that Nitish Kumar's " unity motto" is easier said than implemented. Hariraj Singh Tyagi, veteran political analyst and long-standing associate of Ram Manohar Lohia, legendary socialist leader and Nitish Kumar's ideological guru, said the new Chief Minister would be making a cardinal mistake if he believed that the social unity reflected in the defeat of the RJD was a phenomenon of permanence. He pointed out that different communities had come together to support Nitish Kumar for different reasons and even their concepts of development were disparate and, at times, mutually contradictory.
A closer look at the prevailing social situation in Bihar and the way it was reflected in the recent elections substantiates Tyagi's viewpoint. The near-total support Nitish Kumar and the NDA got from the upper-caste communities such as Bhumihars, Brahmins and Thakurs is based essentially on their unconcealed animosity towards the "backward assertive" politics pursued by Lalu Prasad and the RJD.
One can often hear it being said in the upper-caste villages across the State that Nitish Kumar, the OBC Kurmi leader, is the thorn capable of removing another thorn. With the dislodging of Lalu Prasad and his brand of Backward Caste assertive politics, there are indications that large segments of the upper castes, especially the aggressive Bhumihar community, are getting ready to assert their supremacy over the State's social structure.
The growing caste tension in the districts of Jehanabad and Arwal, following the naxalite attack on the Jehanabad jail on November 13, has given ample indications of this upper-caste unrest. Upper-caste militias such as the Ranveer Sena have reportedly become active after the jailbreak. Moreover, the swearing-in of a new government, with a sizable role for the upper-caste Bharatiya Janata Party in it, has apparently given a fillip to their revival manoeuvres.
The non-Yadav OBCs and EBCs such as Malhas, Nayis, Kawars, Kewats, Binds and Tantis, rallied behind Nitish Kumar because there was an overwhelming perception among these communities that the RJD's social empowerment measures were confined to the Yadav community. But that does not mean that they would be ready to revert to the days of upper-caste domination, Hariraj Tyagi said. These communities still look forward to caste-based empowerment, and that too in a more broad-based form.
Put more specifically, the 100-odd EBC communities of Bihar, constituting approximately 30 per cent of the State's population, would want to have the same socio-economic mobility that Lalu Prasad's Yadav community, Nitish Kumar's Kurmi community and Ramvilas Paswan's Dussadh community have achieved over the past 15 years. As highlighted by Professor Kishori Das, chairperson of the Coordination Committee of Neglected and Extremely Backward Communities (CCNEBC), what the EBCs are looking forward to is a renewed and real commitment to the ideology of social justice. "We do not want slogans like the ones that Lalu Prasad gave us repeatedly since 1995, but concrete and meticulous measures that make a fast and effective change."
If Nitish Kumar is to work towards fulfilling the aspirations of this sizable segment of the electorate which helped him win, it would involve taking such steps that militate against the vested interests of not only the upper-caste communities but also against the recently empowered castes. In the context of the conflicting expectations of the upper castes and the EBCs, such measures have immense potential to cause social turmoil.
Segments of the Muslim population drifted away from the RJD and collaborated with Nitish Kumar essentially because they felt Lalu Prasad's brand of secularism had turned into a kind of political antic, which did not do any good to the community. But these sections too would want to retain the level of social protection they enjoyed during the RJD regime.
Addressing all these concerns and aspirations and at the same time balancing the conflicts that would arise out of such efforts is going to be a daunting task.
Nitish Kumar told Frontline that he had a realistic understanding of the variants before him. Since he has been managing some of these conflicts and contradictions at the political level since the days of the Samata Party, the Chief Minister is hopeful that he can repeat that act at the level of governance and unify all the communities under a broad slogan of development. He feels this would herald an era of new social justice.
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