By Arun Srivastava
Instead of surviving on borrowed human resources and strength the JD(U) supremo, Nitish Kumar has started the exercise of reworking his old trickery and the first step he took in this regard was to install the upper caste Bhumihar face Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh as the national president of the party while he personally has been pursuing the mission to raise the demand for caste census of the backwards and Dalits.
With the conjecture of Lalu Yadav’s return to active politics suddenly swift political changes have started taking place in Bihar. Armed with his social justice tenet Lalu has always been the fulcrum of the unity of the secular, democratic and socialist forces. A general perception dominates the psyche of the people particularly in the eastern states that Narendra Modi and his BJP would not have seen ache din (good days) if he was not in jail notwithstanding imposition of ban on his contesting the elections.
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His meeting Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Yadav is viewed as a major step in this direction. Lalu strongly holds that the unity of the opposition forces cannot take a concrete shape without the participation of any such unison process. It is widely believed that he met Mulayam to realise the importance and efficacy of the prevailing political situation. If the country and secularism have to survive then Modi must be defeated at the 2024 hustings. The ground-level class and caste alliance need to be worked out and to accomplish the task, the presence of the Congress is imperative. For some time Akhilesh has been harping on going alone. This will prove detrimental to the idea of uniting anti-BJP forces to ensure Modi’s and Yogi’s defeat.
Sharad Yadav might have lost elections in the past. But the fact remains that he symbolises the aspiration of the rich and affluent class of Yadavs. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, a significant proportion of this section had shifted its loyalty to the BJP. Under Lalu’s plan of action, they must identify them with the rest of the Majhraut and Gaderia Yadavs.
Much before the post-Mandal phenomenon the Yadavs in Bihar had come to acquire centre stage of the politics, show their presence in the electoral domain, and considerable impact on the political economy of the state. Yadavs had emerged as a major political force in the eighties itself under the leadership of Karpoori Thakur. His reservation policy helped them to have a strong grip on the state apparatus. Lalu helped them consolidate further their economic gains.
This was the period which witnessed a significant number of Yadavs emerge on the political horizon of the state. Their emergence in fact witnessed a caste clash between the Yadavs and other lower and backward castes. In the 1995 elections, OBCs were 44 per cent of the MLAs (including 26 per cent Yadavs), more than twice the proportion of the upper castes, who had always had more MLAs until then. In 2000, in Rabri Devi’s government, OBC ministers represented almost 50 per cent of the total, whereas there were not more than 13 per cent upper castes.
With the emergence of Yadavs as the neo-ruling elite, the upper caste deserted the Congress and switched over to the BJP. A survey by the Institute of Human Development revealed that in 2009, Bhumihars had the highest land per capita (0.56 acres) followed by Kurmis (0.45 acres). Bhumihars owned twice as much land as Yadavs and four times the average land owned by most backward castes. Brahmins had the highest per capita income with Rs 28,093, followed by other upper castes (Rs 20,655), while Kushwahas and Kurmis earned Rs 18,811and Rs 17,835 respectively. Yadavs’ income was lowest among OBCs at Rs 12,314. The reason was the gains which Yadavs acquired did not percolate uniformly to the Yadavs at the lower level. It took some time. Now in the existing situation, the scenario has completely changed. The poor Yadavs now are fully committed to the RJD of Lalu.
Their development also triggered a class clash between the rich and neo-rich Yadavs who had later shifted their sympathy to BJP. Lalu’s prime task in the existing scenario has been to win over the rich and affluent Yadavs and bring them back to the mainstream. As Bihar and UP are the two key states to decide the fate of the aspirants for the job of prime minister, Lalu is focusing on these two states. A unity of purpose amongst the Yadavs and other backward castes would prove v to the decisive. The Congress leadership may continue to meet the other opposition leaders and bring them on a common platform.
One thing is also clear that Lalu is not contemplating any alternate front at the national level. He would prefer to form an electoral alliance at the state level with the dominant partner leading the pack. Naturally the NDA and BJP leadership, more precisely the RSS have been feeling quite uneasy. If the sources are to be believed the BJP leadership is seriously planning to put him once again in prison. Already the senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Modi has been making noise. He has also met his bosses in Delhi with the idea to curtail Lalu’s movement.
Sensing Lalu’s role in uniting the opposition parties on one platform Sushil Modi objected “Lalu, who was convicted in fodder scam and currently on bail on health grounds, is becoming active in politics. The CBI should take notice of it.” Modi had demanded that the CBI should file an appeal in the Supreme Court soon after Lalu was granted bail by the Ranchi High Court in April this year.
There is yet another reason for BJP to feel discomfort. The change of electoral strategy, providing long rope to the OBC and EBC, has not gone well with the upper caste supporters of the BJP. They feel cheated. They had switched over to the BJP in the hope that their class interest would be protected. But the latest developments have turned them restless. True enough Nitish’s move to install Lalan Singh an upper caste Bhumihar leader ought to be seen in this backdrop. He has been a conscious keeper of Nitish Kumar and has been a minister during the last 15 years.
Lalu meeting the top opposition leaders are being perceived as the step towards forming a united opposition front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Lalu is aware of his political limitations. Moreover, with his existing physical state, he cannot aspire to play a national-level role. He has preferred to confine himself to the two most electorally volatile states. Lalu is also busy to find out the acceptability quotient of the opposition leaders about Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi. To explore it he will be meeting the national communist leaders. The BJP leadership nurse the view that with Lalu around the scene the BJP would have to face a tight situation. They confess that they would not have won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 2020 Bihar Assembly polls if Lalu was not in jail.
BJP has been put on edge by Nitish Kumar extending support to RJD’s demand for the caste-based Census and asking for a probe into the Pegasus spyware scandal. He has also rejected the BJP move for bringing law for population control. The new JD-U national president Lalan Singh met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and also demanded a caste-based Census. Singh led a delegation of JD-U MPs and submitted a memorandum for a caste-based census to be conducted.
There is no need to read too much in what Nitish says, as he has lost much of his political credibility in the eyes of the people of Bihar, his moves certainly deserve close scrutiny and watch. It is an open secret that he is being treated as a second-class citizen by the BJP leadership, especially by Amit Shah. Obviously, with the mission to gain back his old standing, he may resort to some new machination. He may make some unexpected decisions like once again joining hands with Lalu. This development coming before the 2024 Lok Sabha can ensure Modi losing in the Hindi heartland, and at the same time, Lalu would gain significantly.
Whatever may be the immediate political compulsions which forced Nitish to adopt divergent stands, the fact remains that this has unnerved the support base of the BJP and also its state leaders. The Sangh Parivar has been against holding any caste-based census. Agreeing to this demand from Nitish would virtually amount to committing hara-kiri which the RSS-BJP cannot afford. With Lalan Singh becoming the president, any nature of the soft approach to the issue would trigger many problems. It is also said that by demanding a caste-based census, Nitish has been trying to make the position of RJD vulnerable. Incidentally, Nitish and Lalu have been old votaries of the caste-based census. It was at the core of Mandal politics.
It is worth mentioning that the Bihar Assembly had adopted a unanimous resolution for conducting a caste-based census in February 2019 and again in February 2020 and had sent it to the Centre. On both occasions, the BJP had supported the motion, but in the existing scenario, it is not willing to support it. It would be against the political line of the Sangh and BJP.
However close aides of Nitish maintain that the caste census would provide the correct picture of the backwardness of the poor. This is also important for the reason that it would help revise the reservation policy and educational priorities on the basis of the strength of the various castes. Nitish wants to emerge as a national leader before the coming Lok Sabha poll riding on a new agenda. (IPA Service)
