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Opinion
History Grants Nitish Kumar
An Opportunity in Bihar
by Ramesh
Menon
 India
is looking at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Will he take the reins
that history has graciously given him to change the future of one of the
most backward states of the world’s biggest democracy? Some television
stations in India have conducted polls on the popularity of chief
ministers and Nitish is one of the best. If he wants a place in the
history of India’s fractured politics, he can bid for it. But it is not
going to be easy.
One cannot help feeling tickled with the poll predictions that the media
toyed with before the results of the Bihar elections came pouring in.
Most of them were far off the mark. Sometimes, the media would do well
to look into the mirror and accept how poorly prepared it is. Even in
Bihar where the majority is illiterate, unemployed, hungry and poor,
voters can vote for change and hold out a candle of hope for democracy.
The golden rule in old-fashioned journalism of yesteryears was that if a
journalist had his ear to the ground, he would hear the tremors. But in
the age of Google, the way most journalists get information has changed.
More than anything else, the Bihar election screams at journalists
asking them to see beyond stereotyped valuations of sociology, caste
prejudices and ideology. Politics can often teach us simple truths about
how truth is what someone somewhere wants to hide and the rest is all
advertising. But journalists went around quoting Laloo Prasad Yadav and
pretended it to be analysis. After all, he had mastered the art of
offering unsolicited election arithmetic in the last fifteen years.
 Laloo,
the cowherd from Phulwaria who kept talking of how he was just a peon’s
brother, learnt new lessons when the results came pouring in. He could
not use caste anymore to win elections as the poor wanted change. They
wanted development, roads, schools, employment, law and order. Laloo
gave them none of these. The schools that he started for cowherds got
him into international headlines as he advertised himself as so caring
for the needs of the poor, has been in shambles. Once the ink dried on
the headlines, he was not bothered. When he was forced to resign because
of the fodder scam, he foisted his wife, Rabri Devi, within minutes.
There are many miracles in Indian politics, but this had no parallel.
There is no politician in India who used the media like he did. With his
typical buffoonery, he attracted both the print and electronic media who
ate out of his hands. His betel chewing habits, his spittoon, his
typical gamcha, (a cotton towel thrown around his neck or
shoulders) his vest, his bare feet, his stylized hair cut, his
deliberate regional accent, all were lapped up. His rustic jokes and
pranks were blown up by the media showing him up to be a lovable
people’s leader. The media almost showed him as a social engineer whose
only passion was social justice.
But, fifteen years down the road, the state of Bihar is appalling. It is
the poor who have no say while the rich and the politically connected,
run a diktat. So do criminals, gangsters and political touts. Bihar's
per capita development expenditure last year was just Rs. 1211 when it
is Rs. 2650 for the country as a whole. Nitish needs to do all he can to
get the centre to give him more funds. He will have to reform public
administration and insulate the bureaucracy political and criminal
interference. Only then will he be able to insulate himself from daily
governance and concentrate on the larger picture of salvaging his state
from the depths it has fallen.
Ironically, Dr. Paul Henson Appleby of the University of California who
was a respected American public administration expert had with the
Indian Institute of Public Administration presented Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru with a detailed report evaluating public administration
in the various states. The study said that Bihar was India’s
best-administered state! As Chief Secretary, G.S. Kang says, “The only
way to go now is up.”
It is certainly not going to be a cakewalk for Nitish Kumar. Today, he
heads one of the most backward states of India that is caught in a
whirlpool of political depravity. The state has crumbled. In many
pockets, there is no semblance of law and order. Country made guns can
be bought off the shelf and criminals are at your beckoning if you have
the money. Kidnappings for ransom continue. The annual real per capita
income of Bihar of Rs. 3650 is about a third of the national average of
Rs.11, 625. Bihar is also the only Indian state where the majority of
the population - 52.47% - is illiterate.
It is not that the media ignored the reality of crumbling Bihar. There
were reports, but not enough. Unless reporters travel and live in the
hinterland, there will only be superficial reports that are basically
hearsay of planted stories by vested interests.
Nitish Kumar’s assurance that he will change the focus in Bihar from
politics to economics and development, is heart warming to say the
least. He has raised millions of hopes not only in Bihar but every
corner of India. He will now have to work against all odds to get to
change the way we all see and feel about Bihar.
What the voters in Bihar were looking for is governance. Voters told
themselves that it was pointless to waste their votes on anyone or any
party that would not give them anything in return. So they voted for
change. It is now pointless for political pundits to sit in
air-conditioned television studios and proclaim that the caste divide
was responsible. Or some ridiculous analysis. We must accept this truth:
Yeh public sab janthi hai…
And that is the greatest hope for India. The Bihar elections showed us
what the poorest of the poor could do when in an election booth. The
electorate was actually desperate and wanted someone who would rescue
them from a present, which seemed to be heading towards a bleak future.
They no more wanted to be a part of a failed state. I remember how on
one of my visits to shoot news stories in Bihar, I had my cab driver
telling me to pack up early as he would not drive at night as the night
belonged to the dacoits. The schools I visited had no roofs, some had no
teachers, and some no students. The hospitals had no medicines and
patients were lucky if they had doctors attending to them. Thousands of
poor people were being transported for Laloo’s rally in Patna. The
visual of a poor emaciated woman trying to pick up puries strewn
in a ground after the rally haunts me as if I saw it yesterday.
I had interviewed Laloo just outside his sprawling house and he asked me
counter questions to every question asked. There was arrogance in his
voice as he mocked every question that came from the feeling that an
illiterate and poor populace would never have the courage to stand up
and show him the door.
Nitish now has to put the fear of law into those who thought it was land
that was created for dacoits. He will have to inspire the bureaucracy
that has been numbed by years of Rabri’s rule. They have to be allowed
to get back their self-esteem and pride in building a state and infusing
it with their commitment and vision. He will have to seduce
industrialists into investing and that is not going to be easy either.
There is just too much of cynicism. He will have to sweep in literacy,
as that is one great hope for Bihar. It is just that it will take a
decade for the results to show. Development indices have to start
climbing the graph so that Bihar is not a state he will be ashamed of.
He has to learn how to humor the coalition. The BJP is silently waiting
in the wings. It is desperate for more power in the state as it wants to
build a base there. Having a deputy chief minister will not do for the
BJP. Desperate for tasting power, it will want its own agenda addressed
and it might not go well with Nitish’s plans to ensure social justice
for the poor. Sooner or later, the BJP in its typical style will try to
dominate the bureaucracy and other potent centers of power.
He can look towards Orissa chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, who is
rapidly changing the face of Orissa bringing in investment, creating
employment, infrastructure and also working on improving the poor
development indices. Patnaik never even seemed like a politician when he
took reins over the state and critics said that he was lucky that his
father, Biju Patnaik, was a former chief minister. But the son has done
far better than the father ever did though he was such a seasoned leader
and politician.
Nitish knows that he carries a heavy weight on his shoulders. He has to
tame a bureaucracy that has forgotten how to work. He has to bring in
fiscal discipline. He has to take unpopular decisions. He has to be
tough in implementing law and order. He has been in power for a year
now, and the honeymoon period with the electorate is over. Now, it is
time to act with courage and determination.
There could be a new dawn in Bihar. Nitish has got a chance in a
lifetime. If he loses this, history will never forgive him.
November 14,
2006
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Opinion
The Week of November 12, 2006
Ekla Chalo: Any Point Talking to President Hu?
by Rajinder Puri
Chinese President's Visit to India: Much Ado
about Nothing by Dr. Subhash Kapila
History grants Nitish Kumar an opportunity in
Bihar by Ramesh Menon
Pakistan's Military Dictator Besieged by Dr.
Subhash Kapila
Status: Nemesis of Fools, Smarts and Nations by
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Reaping the Peace Dividend in India's North East
by Col. Rahul K. Bhonsle
A Panoply of Orchestrated Fraud by V.
Sundaram
Buddhism and Quantum Physics by Christian
Thomas Kohl
Are We Really Civilized? by TA Ramesh
Anger of Varunavrat by VK Joshi
Shaking up the Structure by Zofeen T Ebrahim
Wanderlust by Attreyee Roy Chowdhury
Khat e Kabuliwala: Inside an ancient temple near
Mazar-e-Sharif by Rajesh Talwar
Following the Coast by Naiya Sivaraj
Pachmarhi, Nature's Gift to Madhya Pradesh by
Anil Gulati
If You Can't Slap 'Em, Snap 'Em by Elayne Clift
Women Presidents Pack a Punch by Ambujam
Anantharaman
The Politics of Hair by Nilanjana Biswas
Murky Meat Factories by Alka Arya
Sex Workers' Bank - Healthy Returns by
Nilanjana Bhowmick
A Louder Voice by Rodrick Mukumbira
Reneging the Blue Billion by Priyadarsi Dutta
Strange are the Ways of God by Arya Bhushan
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai
How to Deal With - Analytical Physiologist Disorder
by Michael Levy
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