That Nitish Kumar may not be rewarded for his good governance is one of the most perplexing issues to emerge out of Bihar this time. Though I definitely think there is an underpinning of caste, maybe there are esoteric issues at play here - as Shekhar Gupta seems to suggest, a Bihari craving for more. Even as I was working on this piece, the Times of India ran a story on it.
What gave me a lot of pleasure is the fact that after I finished it, I came across Gupta's and Sankarshan Thakur's pieces: the fact that such senior editors had looked at the same issue told me I was on the right track. I tend to agree with Thakur's piece more - the man's written a book on Nitish, goddammit - as it agrees with my worldview. However, Shekhar manages to catch a sense of what I was getting, too - people everywhere were telling me they wanted more. I put it down as quotes in my stories, but writing about what Shekhar tries to capture was beyond my brief. Also, is being aspirational a uniquely Bihari trait? Even Shekhar seems to agree how difficult it is to pin down this anti-Nitish feeling: "You need someone with much greater scholarship than I to explain this. Or maybe even a soil scientist."
Maybe we are all wrong. Maybe Nitish will emerge from this one giving the likes of me the middle finger. However, my concern - as with everything else that I have written during this election - is not losing or winning. I am merely looking at the factors at play, merely holding a wet finger in the air. However, whatever happens, most of us in the media would have missed one thing from Bihar this time: the question of what women want. With their husbands and brothers staring them down, I was not successful in this. I really hope some other reporter emerges with clues.
What gave me a lot of pleasure is the fact that after I finished it, I came across Gupta's and Sankarshan Thakur's pieces: the fact that such senior editors had looked at the same issue told me I was on the right track. I tend to agree with Thakur's piece more - the man's written a book on Nitish, goddammit - as it agrees with my worldview. However, Shekhar manages to catch a sense of what I was getting, too - people everywhere were telling me they wanted more. I put it down as quotes in my stories, but writing about what Shekhar tries to capture was beyond my brief. Also, is being aspirational a uniquely Bihari trait? Even Shekhar seems to agree how difficult it is to pin down this anti-Nitish feeling: "You need someone with much greater scholarship than I to explain this. Or maybe even a soil scientist."
Maybe we are all wrong. Maybe Nitish will emerge from this one giving the likes of me the middle finger. However, my concern - as with everything else that I have written during this election - is not losing or winning. I am merely looking at the factors at play, merely holding a wet finger in the air. However, whatever happens, most of us in the media would have missed one thing from Bihar this time: the question of what women want. With their husbands and brothers staring them down, I was not successful in this. I really hope some other reporter emerges with clues.
If Bihar is rejecting development politics - we may know for sure only after the 2015 assembly elections here - there are larger implications, of course. What does it mean for this post-liberalisation idea of vikas?
For the moment, the way I see it, both Narendra Modi as well as Nitish Kumar are poised to be foiled by caste in Bihar.
P.S. Friend and former colleague Vinay Sitapati too, has a piece on this today.
You have to feel for Nitish Kumar. Statistics are testimony enough, but the people of the state have recognised that the JD(U) government has been good for them. This reporter is yet to come across someone who failed to reply in the affirmative; the trend is unlike the circumstances under which Sheila Dikshit had to leave Delhi: her voters seemed to have forgotten the massive infrastructural boost. Yet, the Bihari voter is refusing to vote for Kumar and his party this time.
So, some questions - however blunt - have to be asked: Is there no vote for development in Bihar? Is the Bihari electorate, which gave Lalu Prasad's "jungle raaj" 15 years, an ungrateful one?
The narrative that has gained currency is that the voters are poised to punish Kumar for his arrogance. However, scratch the surface a bit, and the complexity of the theory comes to the fore. "Because Nitish got arrogant. He was doing so well, but he had to go and anger the Yadavs. The police was told not to help us," Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, a Yadav voter who lives in the Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency. "He thought he could do it all on his own. We have to show him his rightful place," said Anirudh Kumar of the Teli caste who will vote in Vaishali, in reference to the JD(U) ending its alliance with the BJP.
So, Kumar clearly has multifaceted arrogance. Like almost everything in Bihar, it seems to be split along caste lines: the Yadav Theory of Kumar Arrogance clearly originates from Lalu Prasad, who in his speeches portrays Kumar as a shrewd operator who played a trick too many. The BJP's narrative has been that Nitish tried punching above his weight and should be taught a lesson for that.
Another theory is that the Extremely Backward Classes - a group that the Kumar government consolidated and the JD(U) considers a vote bank - identifies with Narendra Modi, who is from a caste of that standing. While it is something the BJP has been telling voters and journalists, there is scant evidence to prove it. This is mostly because the EBCs are consolidated only on paper - in the villages, they remain scattered with no unifying trait: Jai Narain Nishad is a Mallaah leader, not an EBC champion. In fact, the only two people who admitted they identified with Narendra Modi was a Teli - Anirudh, who said he liked the fact that Modi was from the "vaishya community" and Pankaj Kumar - a Bhumihar in Vaishali constituency who admitted he has a, "soft corner" for Modi. When the EBCs of Muzaffarpur district said they would vote for Modi, they explicitly said it was not because of his identity, but because of what he has promised to do. "My vote is for Narendra Modi. He said he will bring back black money.... I don't want a government that does not respond when soldiers' heads are cut off," said Fakeeri Sahni, a voter in Muzaffarpur.
Which begs the question - Why is the Bihari voter seemingly choosing Modi over Kumar for work the former only promises to do while ignoring the fact that the latter has been good for them over the past nine years? "Badlaav chaahiye," said Gautam Sahni, whose caste Mallaah falls in the EBC category and lives in the Vaishali constituency. The call for change is part of the BJP rhetoric - something that the party's leadership has customised here to mean the state government too.
According to Sahni, a graduate who organises tuition classes for school students, the government has done too much. "Why did he give reservation to women? Now, there are women netas, while their husbands sit at home. When it came to recruiting shiksha mitras, women got preference," he said. However, for him, the election boils down to one thing: "This is a Hindu-Musalmaan ladaayi. The Muslims are on one side, we are on the other."
As it turns out, Sahni's sister-in-law is a ward member - a direct beneficiary of the 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats, which he opposes. "This government made so many laws for women. But then, do I sit where the rest of the village is sitting?" Renu Devi asks, not answering a question as to whether she still supports Nitish Kumar. With husband Sikander Sahni in the room, Devi's answers were limited to cryptic smiles. Whether the women of the backward castes, a constituency that the media does not talk to often, have exercised their free will in the polling booth is anyone's guess.
In some ways, the BJP's Kumar Arrogance Theory is right - the Bihar CM seems to be losing a leadership battle in which both Modi and Prasad have shown him his rightful place. If that is true, there is no better barometer than the Muslims, who have stood as one across the country against Narendra Modi's ambition: will they return to the JD(U) once the Modi mission is complete? "There is a case to renew Nitish Kumar's license," said Mohammad Javed, who lives in the Hajipur constituency, referring to a possible third term for the JD(U) government. "But will I vote for him in 2015? Let's see if he gives us a good candidate," he added.
Unlike what the Narendra Modi-heavy campaign of the BJP would have you believe, candidates do matter. To be precise, their castes do. With the BJP leaving by taking away the upper castes, the JD(U) is having to fend for itself with a bouquet of backward castes that are being lured with the promise of more development.
The grip of caste is so strong, one comes across many instances where people are torn by the choices they have to make. "Why can't the rest of Bihar vote for Nitish? We Yadavs cannot; he has troubled us so much, said Raghuvansh Singh of Hajipur. "No one in Bihar gives vote for work done," said Surendra Kumar Singh, a Bhumihar in Vaishali constituency. Singh, who himself will not vote for the JD(U), let his frustration spill at one point: "If only the Election Commission banned campaigning altogether. People would judge their leaders on work done," he said.
Pankaj Kumar, a very articulate youngster in Vaishali village of Vaishali district and a Bhumihar, probably put it best. "Itna se galti ka itne se sajja na milna chahiya tha [There shouldn't have to be such a harsh punishment for such a small error.]," he said, even as he indicated he wouldn't be voting for Nitish this time.
Kumar may have been crippled by the shocking Hindu-Muslim polarisation in the state and the caste divisions that followed, but in this frustration lies his hope. If he can keep the JD(U) together - the countryside is rife with rumours about Sharad Yadav's future - there could be a comeback waiting at the end of the next assembly elections. Having built his politics on the foundation laid by Lalu Prasad - who had to counter violent uppercaste hegemony with violence of his own - Kumar can afford to be non-confrontational, thus bringing together even the upper castes, unlike Prasad. "Look, he is not against us. The Chief Secretary and DGP are Bhumihars," said Surendra Singh of Vaishali.
For the moment, the way I see it, both Narendra Modi as well as Nitish Kumar are poised to be foiled by caste in Bihar.
P.S. Friend and former colleague Vinay Sitapati too, has a piece on this today.
An edited version of the following was published here
Vaishali, May 6You have to feel for Nitish Kumar. Statistics are testimony enough, but the people of the state have recognised that the JD(U) government has been good for them. This reporter is yet to come across someone who failed to reply in the affirmative; the trend is unlike the circumstances under which Sheila Dikshit had to leave Delhi: her voters seemed to have forgotten the massive infrastructural boost. Yet, the Bihari voter is refusing to vote for Kumar and his party this time.
So, some questions - however blunt - have to be asked: Is there no vote for development in Bihar? Is the Bihari electorate, which gave Lalu Prasad's "jungle raaj" 15 years, an ungrateful one?
The narrative that has gained currency is that the voters are poised to punish Kumar for his arrogance. However, scratch the surface a bit, and the complexity of the theory comes to the fore. "Because Nitish got arrogant. He was doing so well, but he had to go and anger the Yadavs. The police was told not to help us," Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, a Yadav voter who lives in the Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency. "He thought he could do it all on his own. We have to show him his rightful place," said Anirudh Kumar of the Teli caste who will vote in Vaishali, in reference to the JD(U) ending its alliance with the BJP.
So, Kumar clearly has multifaceted arrogance. Like almost everything in Bihar, it seems to be split along caste lines: the Yadav Theory of Kumar Arrogance clearly originates from Lalu Prasad, who in his speeches portrays Kumar as a shrewd operator who played a trick too many. The BJP's narrative has been that Nitish tried punching above his weight and should be taught a lesson for that.
Another theory is that the Extremely Backward Classes - a group that the Kumar government consolidated and the JD(U) considers a vote bank - identifies with Narendra Modi, who is from a caste of that standing. While it is something the BJP has been telling voters and journalists, there is scant evidence to prove it. This is mostly because the EBCs are consolidated only on paper - in the villages, they remain scattered with no unifying trait: Jai Narain Nishad is a Mallaah leader, not an EBC champion. In fact, the only two people who admitted they identified with Narendra Modi was a Teli - Anirudh, who said he liked the fact that Modi was from the "vaishya community" and Pankaj Kumar - a Bhumihar in Vaishali constituency who admitted he has a, "soft corner" for Modi. When the EBCs of Muzaffarpur district said they would vote for Modi, they explicitly said it was not because of his identity, but because of what he has promised to do. "My vote is for Narendra Modi. He said he will bring back black money.... I don't want a government that does not respond when soldiers' heads are cut off," said Fakeeri Sahni, a voter in Muzaffarpur.
Which begs the question - Why is the Bihari voter seemingly choosing Modi over Kumar for work the former only promises to do while ignoring the fact that the latter has been good for them over the past nine years? "Badlaav chaahiye," said Gautam Sahni, whose caste Mallaah falls in the EBC category and lives in the Vaishali constituency. The call for change is part of the BJP rhetoric - something that the party's leadership has customised here to mean the state government too.
According to Sahni, a graduate who organises tuition classes for school students, the government has done too much. "Why did he give reservation to women? Now, there are women netas, while their husbands sit at home. When it came to recruiting shiksha mitras, women got preference," he said. However, for him, the election boils down to one thing: "This is a Hindu-Musalmaan ladaayi. The Muslims are on one side, we are on the other."
As it turns out, Sahni's sister-in-law is a ward member - a direct beneficiary of the 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats, which he opposes. "This government made so many laws for women. But then, do I sit where the rest of the village is sitting?" Renu Devi asks, not answering a question as to whether she still supports Nitish Kumar. With husband Sikander Sahni in the room, Devi's answers were limited to cryptic smiles. Whether the women of the backward castes, a constituency that the media does not talk to often, have exercised their free will in the polling booth is anyone's guess.
In some ways, the BJP's Kumar Arrogance Theory is right - the Bihar CM seems to be losing a leadership battle in which both Modi and Prasad have shown him his rightful place. If that is true, there is no better barometer than the Muslims, who have stood as one across the country against Narendra Modi's ambition: will they return to the JD(U) once the Modi mission is complete? "There is a case to renew Nitish Kumar's license," said Mohammad Javed, who lives in the Hajipur constituency, referring to a possible third term for the JD(U) government. "But will I vote for him in 2015? Let's see if he gives us a good candidate," he added.
Unlike what the Narendra Modi-heavy campaign of the BJP would have you believe, candidates do matter. To be precise, their castes do. With the BJP leaving by taking away the upper castes, the JD(U) is having to fend for itself with a bouquet of backward castes that are being lured with the promise of more development.
The grip of caste is so strong, one comes across many instances where people are torn by the choices they have to make. "Why can't the rest of Bihar vote for Nitish? We Yadavs cannot; he has troubled us so much, said Raghuvansh Singh of Hajipur. "No one in Bihar gives vote for work done," said Surendra Kumar Singh, a Bhumihar in Vaishali constituency. Singh, who himself will not vote for the JD(U), let his frustration spill at one point: "If only the Election Commission banned campaigning altogether. People would judge their leaders on work done," he said.
Pankaj Kumar, a very articulate youngster in Vaishali village of Vaishali district and a Bhumihar, probably put it best. "Itna se galti ka itne se sajja na milna chahiya tha [There shouldn't have to be such a harsh punishment for such a small error.]," he said, even as he indicated he wouldn't be voting for Nitish this time.
Kumar may have been crippled by the shocking Hindu-Muslim polarisation in the state and the caste divisions that followed, but in this frustration lies his hope. If he can keep the JD(U) together - the countryside is rife with rumours about Sharad Yadav's future - there could be a comeback waiting at the end of the next assembly elections. Having built his politics on the foundation laid by Lalu Prasad - who had to counter violent uppercaste hegemony with violence of his own - Kumar can afford to be non-confrontational, thus bringing together even the upper castes, unlike Prasad. "Look, he is not against us. The Chief Secretary and DGP are Bhumihars," said Surendra Singh of Vaishali.
No comments:
Post a Comment