Bihar Elections: Will Bihar Rise to Glory Beyond the Shadow Jungle-Raj

Bihar Elections – State of Current Jungle Raj

Once a land of great scholars, philosophers, rulers and freedom fighters; Bihar has been infamous for many reasons in recent past. Most of it was attributed to Lalu Yadav’s rule. Political anarchy, lack of basic facilities in the state and rampant criminalization of politics have alienated not only the business but also the states own young and progressive population from the state. Due to such situation, ongoing Bihar elections are totally different from other state assembly elections.

Lalu created an epitome of misuse of ‘Mandal’ for personal gains. Caste sentiments were proliferated and political crops were harvested. In absence of strong opposition Lalu Prasad was able to mobilize people on caste and religion lines and crafted dangerous equation of Muslims and Yadav Yadav. With the help of Maoist type organizations such as IPF (Indian People’s Front) and its rival ‘Ranbeer Sena’, Lalu Yadav fueled the caste enmity among the people of Bihar. As a result, caste Armies were raised and thousands of people from so called general caste and so called lower castes lost their lives. The criminals were given freehand as they were party workers and contractors who funded the party’s lavish rally and rellas.  The Jungle Raj was so horrifying that a common person no matter from which caste he belongs, could not go out after 7 p.m. in the evening. Anyone could be a victim of sprawling criminal while police was there only to help criminals in abduction, murders and extortions. Such crimes were daily affairs and most of the time the local leaders were involved in to these crimes. Common people were not only victimized by these criminal elements; but they were also denied the basic amenities of daily life such as road, electricity and potable water.

It is a popular myth that Nitish Kumar was elected for his development agenda, but in contrary, He was elected to get rid of Lalu’s anarchy and lawlessness. And when Nitish Kumar was sworn in for the first time, he and his party had lesser number of MLAs than BJP. However, Nitish Kumar couldn’t do anything remarkable during his decade old reign despite unconditional and non-interfering support from the BJP. His greatest achievement was to bring out normalcy and pullout Bihar from grips of Jungal-Raj. It was a great life saving relief for the people of Bihar.  It was necessary to keep Lalu and his Jungle-Raj out of power. A restoration of law and order to the normalcy was a huge progress for the people of Bihar. It went well till the time Nitish Kumar broke alliance with BJP. It was for his PM dream or other reason, only he knows. However, for two remaining years, people experienced the difference of governance – Nitish Kumar with BJP and Nitish Kumar with RJD. The difference was quite remarkable; as per people’s account, Lalu Yadav activated his old criminal-contractor syndicate and interfered with the transfer in administration and in police. As result, there were many political murders and rampant corruption started at lower level. The political nepotism was another characteristic of this Jungle-Raj, which is still visible in Nitish-Lalu alliance as Lalu’s sons got veto positions. At present, for the electoral this entire thing is being perceived as a sample of JDU-RJD rule.

People of Bihar were living horrifying life during this jungle-raj, where anyone could get killed at any point of time without reason – Sometimes, for being born in a particular caste,  no matter lower or upper, sometimes for being a supporter from other political party, or sometimes just for being a bystander.  No one would like to live that nightmare again. Not even on lure of caste, Mandal or the upper-lower enmity. People are also not happy with the Hindu-bashing secularism of Mahagathbandhan. Hindu youths now openly ask for equal respect to Hindu-beliefs. Therefore, Lalu Yadav had to suffer within a day, after calling Hindus as beef-eater.

This feeling is so obvious and common that it can be felt every at nook and corner of the state. Sensing this mood of public, Mahagathbandhan under leadership of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav is under panic mode. Nitish’s caste-wise ticket announcement earned a very bad teaste among people of Bihar and they openly expressed their dissent against it. On the other hand, Lalu Yadav certainly has lost his mind. When his Mandal-Raj-2 card was failed, he tried to invoke forward vs backward fight, but since it was very basic precondition of his erstwhile Jungle-Raj, people got further alerted. It helped them in consolidating in favor of NDA under leadership of PM Narendra Modi. Taking leverage of Dadri beef incident also went against Lalu’s own vote-bank. In eastern Bihar, Seemanchal, Owaisi brothers are adding further adversaries to the Mahagathbandan’s dream of clinging to the power.

Bihar elections are not about development, neither is it caste. It is directly and indirectly for and against the type of misrule during erstwhile governments under Lalu Prasad Yadav. In times of Internet and Social Media, people can’t ignore development, livelihood just for caste-frenzy politics of Nitish-Lalu. As they have seen, under Nitish-Lalu rule, Bihar continued to lagged behind in terms of education; especially the higher education; industries and youths of Bihar have no option but to migrate outside the state. There is a clear message from the people of Bihar – This time they are certainly rejecting the Jungal-Raj and also going beyond it. They want development, employment and peace. Hope, people of Bihar would like it to the old glory of Bihar and the state would rise again to the heights of old glory.

By Amit Srivastava (@AmiSri)

Amit is an independent researcher and writer. He is also an IIT Bombay alumnus, JNU Survivor, Thinker-Executor, Participant-Observer, Philosopher- Practitioner, Frequent Traveller, Former Social Entrepreneur.YA