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WITH its Human Development Index (HDI) ranking the lowest among 16 major Indian States, its poverty ratio being one of the highest at 42.6 per cent against the national average of 26.1 per cent; and its literacy rate remaining a poor 47 per cent against the national average of 65.4 per cent, Bihar needs to grow at a whopping 15 per cent a year in the next 15 years, entailing an annual expenditure of Rs.38,500 crores, in order to attain an average growth rate of 10 per cent in the next decade, which is envisaged for the country as a whole. This is the challenge that faces the new Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar. According to figures from the EPW Research Foundation, the growth rate of Bihar's economy during the 1990s was the lowest among any of the regions in India in any of the decades since Independence.
So, was it tardy development, combined with the absence of good governance and law and order, that led to the end of the 15-year Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) rule in Bihar? Perhaps yes, if one takes into account the opinions of the RJD's voters and social scientists. Failed dreams and unfulfilled promises, which masked whatever Lalu Prasad was able to achieve in the decade and more that he was in power, proved to be the party's undoing. If social scientists are to be believed, caste dynamics were not his only strength; class dynamics had also worked in his favour. But this time, both caste and class dynamics went against him. "He was not the leader of Yadavs and Muslims alone. He was the leader of all the poor people, cutting across all backward castes, along with Muslims. The reason for the RJD's defeat was that the coalition of the poor deserted him," says Dr. Shaibal Gupta, prominent social scientist from the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna. This, combined with the fact that even those among his core constituency of Yadavs and Muslims did not vote for him in full strength.
This was attested by die-hard Lalu Prasad supporters in Raghopur constituency, a Yadav-dominated area represented by his wife and previous Chief Minister Rabri Devi. Although Rabri Devi was elected from this constituency, it was after an initial setback. Her victory margin too was not very wide; she polled a little over 5,000 votes more than her immediate rival. In the Bidhupur block, for example, she actually lost. "People voted for change this time because it is a fact that despite some development in the rural areas, it was far below the people's expectations. There was not enough work, so people had to go outside for employment. There was little or no power and the worst was that even kerosene, which was meant to be sold through ration shops, was not available for months on end, although it was available for Rs.25-30 a litre in the black market," said Shashi Bhushan Rai in Raghopur.
This meant that even the "good work" undertaken by Lalu Prasad, such as building pucca roads, opening schools and primary health centres, or providing drinking water, got overlooked.
Another point that has now come to light and has been acknowledged even by his supporters is the fact that his own people proved to be his undoing. "He was surrounded by the wrong type of people. They were indulging in all sorts of criminal, corrupt activities which brought him a bad name," said Arjun Yadav in Raghopur, referring to Lalu Prasad's brothers-in-law Sadhu and Subhash Yadav. Significantly, the two brothers evoked such disdain in Raghopur that even staunch RJD supporters refused to speak positively about them. In hushed voices, they discussed the activities of the local anti-social elements who were sponsored by Sadhu and Subhash Yadav. "He [Lalu Prasad] tried to distance himself from them, but by that time it was too late. The damage had already been done," said Akhilesh Prasad Rai, another RJD worker in Raghopur.
Social scientists see another phenomena that worked behind the RJD's defeat. Lalu Prasad has still not quite lost his personal charisma, but he failed to impress the voters largely because the expectations were too high. Having become used to enhanced social respectability and status, the RJD's core vote bank, the poor, now hankered for economic uplift, which Lalu Prasad failed to provide.
"His survival was based on the cultural subsidy that he provided to his coalition of the poor. The cultural subsidy consisted of his typical Bihari lingua franca, his zest for the folk, his penchant for the cockney elite and his contempt for anything even remotely intellectual. Because of his lack of patience for criticism, he never realised that his base vote was shrinking. He actually believed that he can continue on the basis of cultural subsidy alone, which was not the case though," said Shaibal Gupta.
But this does not mean that the post-Mandal brand of politics, which has manifested itself in the form of the backward castes dictating political terms in Bihar, is about to end with the exit of the RJD. Lalu Prasad's espousal of social justice has ensured that Bihar politics will always be guided by the Mandal dynamics. It could be a Nitish Kumar or a Sushil Modi or anyone else for that matter, backward castes have acquired a leading role and it is there to stay.
"Ab vote hamara raj tumhara nahin chalega" (our vote and your rule, this will not work anymore). Although it is not Lalu Prasad, it is only another backward leader who is holding the reins now. The rule of upper-caste people is over. Gone are the days when they could make us sit on the mat on the ground and they themselves sat on chairs," said Shashi Bhushan Rai.
According to him, the legacy that the RJD leaves is the awakening among backward-caste people to the power of their vote, which gets them social respectability as well. Even social scientists agree with this. According to them, the political hegemony of upper-caste people in Bihar is forever gone. They say that if it was not for Nitish Kumar, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would have found it difficult to unseat the RJD.
What, however, defies logic is that if Lalu Prasad was sharp enough to decipher the kind of "cultural subsidy" that sustained him for so long, how and why did he fail to see the need to provide financial subsidy by way of development. But, according to figures available, lack of development is not the sole responsibility of Lalu Prasad. According to Dr. P.P. Ghosh, Director of the Asian Development Research Institute, Bihar had lagged behind the rest of India for decades in economic growth. Its degree only heightened with the onset of RJD rule. "For this, the strategy adopted by the Central government for economic growth, which centred around industrialisation, was responsible. The industry-driven initiative resulted in the agriculture-based economies falling behind, especially during the 1990s," reasons Ghosh.
Figures provided by the EPW Research Foundation on the growth rates of aggregate, sectoral and per capita income during the 1980s and 1990s in Bihar and in India in general bear this out. While the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in Bihar during the two decades grew by 4.66 and 2.87 respectively as against the all-India average of 5.55 and 6.10, the picture is different in the agricultural sector.
Surprisingly enough, the difference between the GSDP from agriculture in Bihar and India is not as sharp as in the non-agricultural sector. While the growth rate in agriculture was 2.21 during the 1980s against India's 3.38, during the 1990s it rose to 2.35 in Bihar while at the all-India level it fell to 3.14. In the non-agricultural sector, the growth rate of GSDP in Bihar was 6.62 against 6.61 for India as a whole during the 1980s, but the picture changed dramatically during the 1990s when the growth rate of GSDP in Bihar plummeted to 3.19 while for India it rose to 7.25. This gets reflected in the per capita income as well. While the per capita income in Bihar grew by 2.45 per cent only during the 1980s against 3.32 per cent in India as a whole, the situation changed drastically in the 1990s when the per capita income grew only 0.12 per cent in Bihar as against 4.08 per cent in India.
The figures make it obvious that while the average growth rate remains low in Bihar, the State's agricultural growth rate had improved slightly, benefiting people in rural areas. This is also reflected in the HDI in the rural areas of Bihar. While the State remains at the bottom of the list of 16 major States in urban areas, it occupies the 14th place in rural areas, ahead of both Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Another problem the State had to grapple with was the fact that its share of revenue from the Central pool had declined by Rs.5,000 crores in the 1990s as the Centre's revenue collection had gone down.
According to Shaibal Gupta, this, coupled with the fact that the State failed to get its plan allocation released because it could not contribute the matching non-plan grant, aggravated the financial crisis. So Lalu Prasad alone was not responsible. "He is guilty for the mess that Bihar is in today to the extent that he never reached out for professional advice and he himself did not have the wherewithal to sort out the mess," he says.
Lalu Prasad's work was made doubly difficult because he had to tackle the twin agendas of social justice and development. The challenge is no less for the coalition that Nitish Kumar leads.
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