To understand why Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, till recently hailed as “honest and development-oriented” is losing out to RJD’s Lalu Prasad who was convicted in the fodder scam, you need to focus on Bihar’s complex caste system.
In 2005, the JD(U)-BJP combine scripted a new chapter in Bihar’s history by ending Lalu’s 15-year reign and formed what Shaibal Gupta, Member Secretary of ADRI (Asian Development Research Institute), calls “coalition of the extremes.”
This coalition embraced the upper classes, already with the BJP and the backward classes, Dalits and Muslims. Nitish’s first reign (2005-10) focused on improving law and order, strengthening institutions weakened by Lalu’s regime, and removing political interference from the State’s bureaucratic machinery.
As law and order improved, Muslims became confident that an NDA regime wouldn’t discriminate against them and women felt safer on the streets.
In Patna, both the chattering classes and the poor were happy with the government. And the NDA swept the Assembly elections in 2010 winning 206 (115 for JD(U) and 91 for BJP) of the 243 seats. The RJD-LJP alliancewas trounced and reduced from 153 in 2005 to 25 seats.
Modi blues But then Nitish ended the 17-year-old alliance with the NDA when Narendra Modi was declared its PM candidate.
“He was seen as a traitor, his social base split, with the upper castes and the privileged who also dominate the bureaucracy, walking out,” says social scientist and ADRI Director, Prabhat P Ghosh.
His colleague Gupta has a slightly different take. He thinks the forward classes, including the powerful and rich who dominate hundreds of villages, were already unhappy with Nitish for reserving half of the seats for women and more for the backward and Dalits in the panchayats. “In Bihar, the powerful upper classes can’t bear to watch a woman or a Dalit preside over official functions or hoist the national flag,” he says.
Yadavs return Against the 12 per cent of the “articulate upper classes” is a matching 12 per cent Yadav population, a bulk of which deserted Lalu and crossed over to the NDA hoping for a better future. But once Lalu, their “tallest leader” was jailed, it hurt the Yadav prideand they are now determined to re-empower Lalu.
Then comes the substantial 16.5 per cent Muslim votewhich won’t go to the BJP, but is again split between Lalu and Nitish, with the privileged upper class Muslims supporting RJD-Congress and the poorer, backward Muslims, such as the Ansaris and Pasmandas rallying behind Nitish.
Coming to the backward castes, here too there is both the upper and lower backward, and the support base of each section is split.
For instance, while the upper backward Yadavs are rooting for Lalu bolstering his hopes, the Koiris and Kurmis, Nitish’s traditional support base, are still with him.
Dalits The Dalits form about 15 per cent of Bihar’s population and to further complicate matters, we have the Maha Dalits (more backward, disadvantaged) category under which Nitish put 20-odd Dalit castes, including the Paswans, so they could get extra benefits from the State. But by striking an alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, and also giving tickets to many BC candidates, the BJP is doing its own caste arithmetic.
With the Yadavs back with Lalu and Muslims determined to vote tactically to “keep out communal forces,” the Muslim vote is likely to consolidate behind the Lalu-Congress combine.
And with Bihar’s history showing a decisive change in political coalitions every 10 years, small wonder the BJP, riding on a Modi wave, is looking at Lalu and not Nitish as its main rival.