The best-administered state of a time until it hopped into the most unstable and volatile state, Bihar has thrown into the darkness of corrupt and bloodsuckers lord’s universe, where politics injects the infection of corruption in the very nascent stage in politicians to make them a lord. Bihar had a single party rule until 1990 except in 1977 when Janta dal had dethroned congress and Karpoori Thakur became chief minister of Bihar but it did not last for a long. After the death of Lalit Narayan Mishra in a bomb attack in 1975, who was the then railway minister and had a towering political stature in Bihar, Congress lost its traction on the ground and Congress ruled in the state through puppet chief ministers until 1990. The outset of the 90s came with a big political change in Bihar, Janta Dal trounced the Congress and Lalu Yadav became chief minister. The year 1990 reversed the dice of politics and political representation. Now the backward castes were in majority in the assembly. Being from low caste and flag bearer of Yadav community’s well-being, he had the support of lower caste faction of the society for 15 years but he did nothing but sow the seeds of castism and distrust. He was the man who widened the chasm between lower and upper cast in Bihar for his own political and economic gain.
Metamorphosis into goons land
When Lalu came into power at the time when he ran the government through the proxy, there was a condition of living not governed by law, in which the powerful prey on the weak, aware that they will not be held accountable for their transgressions. Lalu provided, in return, immunity to the goons who had harvested votes for him, particularly in the latter part of his long tenure.
A new industry engendered, kidnapping for ransom did seem to have become a zero investment business. It was flourishing and deteriorating the law and order. Businessman and doctors with flourishing career were targeted especially. Death was the penalty, in case of denial to give ransom or if the help of authority had been sought. There was a time in Bihar, when the people were not able to differentiate between the goons and politicians, although, the condition has not changed yet, it is way better than it was before as every politician was tainted and had the additional support of goons for eliminating and controlling the adverse situation.
Development Mantra
Challenging the Yadav dominance in backward class politics, Nitish Kumar, a Kurmi, broke away from the erstwhile Janata Dal (JD) in 1994, with his OBC Kurmi and Koeri caste supporters. With George Fernandes, he formed the Samata Dal, which forged an alliance with the BJP for the 1996 general elections. The JD(U) was born from the merger of the Sharad Yadav faction, Lok Janshakti Party and SD within the NDA on October 30, 2003. The NDA thus pieced together was an ingenious combination of various castes from top to bottom. Nitish came with development Mantra, BJP-JDU led coalition won 2005 Bihar assembly elections and utilised the anger of youth and upper castes who were forgotten in Laluraj era and he became chief minister. Nitish government did come with successful endeavours and improved the problem-ridden Bihar, although, some of them failed grossly, even created bigger problems in the development process of Bihar.
Though the appointment of 100,000 teachers in Bihar appears a big step towards improving the education system, it annihilated existing skeleton of the system rather than putting a skin on the existing skeleton. Topper scam and interviews of illiterate teachers proves that the condition in Bihar is severe and can be festered, so, there is a dire need to overhaul the existing education system of Bihar. The socio-political structure of Bihar has many virtual layers and often creates hurdles in the development process. Votes are divided on the caste basis in Bihar, people from remote villages and even from the cities blindly vote for their own caste politician, which helps the politician in manipulating people and creating an illusion of self-dignity.
This article was posted by Manish Kumar (2nd year)
