Bihar - The Agony, The Irony

As the dust settles from Bihar Assembly elections, PM Modi and BJP top leadership face an uphill task. BJP must have been counting on this election to get them required strength in the upper house of Indian parliament. Many reforms need to be passed and bills (including GST bill) need to become laws to help economy but it seems, despite having cleared them in lower house where BJP has majority, it would be a while till something gets done.

Critics of BJP attribute the loss to the argument that PM Modi and his government have not done enough after coming to power about a year and a half ago. There is a feeling of discontent among general public as the miracles they expected from him did not materialize. What we fail to realize is that things take time to mature, especially in a complex country like India. Our forefathers have written the constitution in a way that it is immune to tectonic changes and establishes decentralization of power. It has its benefit, prevents us from being like Pakistan where government is relatively easy to usurp. But at the same time, it makes it a herculean task even to shift the momentum of development from decline towards growth. Quick wins are not permitted, any change has to go though both houses and majority must vote in favor of it. The writers of constitution were perhaps under assumption that elected member shall by and large judge each bill on its merit, individually. The current political scenario suggests contrary – elected members subscribe to the directions from the party they belong to and a few party leaders make decisions. Independent thinking is discouraged; an example would be senior party leader Shashi Tharoor being rebuked by Congress for genuinely praising PM Modi. Further troublesome is the fact that these party decisions are generally not based on merit but based on politics of opportunism. Opposition is quick to support populist schemes no matter how detrimental they might prove for the country in the long run. They tend to oppose for the sake of opposing.

PM Modi seems to be trying to do the right thing, projecting India as a prospective manufacturing hub on a global scale and focusing on development. For a country where government officials generally work on kickbacks and politicians are generally opportunistic, manipulative and exploiters, establishing pro-developmental mentality cannot be an easy task. Indian politics is a quicksand which pulls back anyone trying to do the right thing. Bihar proves this again.

In this election, Bihar again demonstrated that its people are still unwilling to look beyond caste. This election was again won on the same basis. Anyone believing that Grand Alliance got votes on the basis of good governance image projected by Nitish’s must be overlooking the regrettable fact that Lalu Yadav's party has won more seats than Nitish Kumar's JDU. For Bihari votes, it seems having someone from their own caste in power matter above having good governance, therein lies the tragedy of Bihar – the 3rd poorest and populous state of India with maximum unemployment.

Another factor behind Nitish-Lalu victory is their ability to convince that BJP is a threat to India’s secularism. They were able to unite all small faction which were not part of mainstream, against common enemy - BJP. India is secular and there is no threat to it. Generally, it is the so-called-seculars that create differences in a society. In the name of secularism, vote banks are targeted and people are manipulated. Common man must be able to see this that every time someone screams secularism, it is not without an undertone of some personal agenda.

National Stock Exchange of India fell as much as 2.3 percent after Bihar results, the lowest since Sep 29 this year. It shows that Bihar verdict is seen as impediment to the economy and growth by trade pundits. I find it hard to imagine how voters in Bihar have ignored this basic indicator.

Having said that, BJP is also guilty of communalizing the election campaign. The divisive cow-based politics inciting Hindu vote bank deviated them from their agenda of development. Not only such politics is morally wrong, it was also a huge gamble which might have worked in Uttar Pradesh but not in Bihar. Bihar is divided more by caste than by religion. They say in Bihar, even a 10-year-old child can clearly state the differences between his caste and that of his friend. Regardless, I believe a simple and clean promise of growth and development would have produced better result than what BJP achieved.

In all of this, Bihar has the most to lose. An inherent handicap for democracy is that 51 fools can control 49 wise. Foolishness as Albert Einstein describes is repeating the same activity expecting different results. I don’t know what makes Bihar think that Lalu in power this time would be any different from Lalu of the last time when his governance was compared to ‘jungle raj’. For the sake of Bihar, I hope Nitish is able to pursue ‘Vikas’ without RJD holding his hands tight.

Modern India has to look beyond caste, religion and other differences and be united in sole perspective of inclusive growth. It has to discourage divisive politics and hold leaders accountable on their promises. They say, in democracy, people get the leader they deserve. If it is true, it is about time we raise the consciousness, awareness of the country and set aside personal gains. Because if we won’t, our leaders will never.