Lalu Yadav: Agent of change in Bihar

As the Chief Minister of Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav, may not have taken any tangible steps to advance the material development of Bihar. Yet nobody, not even his political rivals, can deny that he was a significant catalyst who ushered major social and political transformations in the state during the 1990s. 

Notwithstanding the BJP’s continued rhetorical charge built around the ‘jungle raj’ Lalu was supposed to have presided over, it is difficult to brush aside that the 15-year period, between 1990 and 2005, was indeed an eventful period in the history of Bihar. Had there been no Lalu at the centre stage then, the state would have continued to stagnate politically and subsequently economically and socially too, as it did between 1961 and 1990 when two dozen Chief Ministers came and exited without impacting the social and political conditions in Bihar in any fundamental way. 

It must be said that critics who are dismissive of the part usually played by catalytic agents in history, show a lack of scientific temper. No doubt, dismissing 15 years –– that is half a generation–– is politically convenient for the Grand Alliance’s rivals. But, in reality, such assertions amount to a denial of the fundamentals of political theory. Lalu’s political opponents can allege the collapse of the state administration following the installation of the first full-fledged backward castes’ government on March 10, 1990. But consider the social and political transformation that the government catalysed across the state. For the first time, Bihar did not just have a backward caste Chief Minister –– as it had several times in the past –– but OBCs, EBCs and Dalits came to constitute a majority in the assembly, which was earlier dominated by upper castes. 

The implementation of the Mandal Commission report further deepened this caste polarisation as well as the assertion of backward castes. On the other side, the Ram Mandir movement, unleashed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had ratcheted up communal tension, leading to the Bhagalpur riots in October 1989. 

The political and social turmoil of this period did take a toll on Bihar’s administration. Yet, Lalu did rise to the challenges of his time. By arresting the senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani on Oct 23, 1990, Lalu, prevented a communal flare-up in the state. But his efforts to extract political and electoral mileage from the changed socio-political equations, kept the caste divisions intact. Also, during the upheaval of the 1990s, Lalu enjoyed full backing of Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan as well as many others considered to be part of the vanguard which led the subalterns’ movement. 

But the collapse of the state’s law and order machinery –– if we may use the term ‘collapse’ — shouldn’t just be judged in isolation. Consider, in this context, the observations of people in the early years of independence, prone to nostalgically praising the British rulers for having provided better administration than the present rulers of free and democratic India. At the same time, there is no doubt that Bihar did witness an era of anarchy during the 1990s. But examined in hindsight, this phenomenon of anarchy did also contribute to the making of a new chapter in Bihar’s history. 

We should be mindful of the fact that development did not emerge as a dominant slogan for political parties in this period. The BJP was busy leading the Ram Janmabhoomi movement for obvious political goals even as VP Singh and Chandrashekar ran weak and unstable governments at the Centre. Later, the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh team introduced economic restructuring based on liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. This was the turning point in India’s historical narrative with development coming to occupy a key position in charters of political parties, especially in Bihar, during the late 1990s. By then, embroiled in the fodder scam, Lalu found himself in prison. He handed over the reins of the state to his wife, Rabri Devi, in July 1997. In the subsequent period, the Patna high court first made its observation about jungle raj prevailing in Bihar. 

On the economic front, the separation of Jharkhand from Bihar in 2000, led to a loss of mineral resources, hurting Lalu. On the other hand, Union ministers in the NDA cabinet — Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan, Sharad Yadav, George Fernandes and Yashwant Sinha — started bringing in big projects for the development of their respective constituencies in Bihar. Their main aim was to politically neutralise Lalu and carve out their own electoral turfs through the slogan of development. Lalu, for his part, would initially sneer at these developmental measures launched by his rivals. Given his belief that development agenda would not generate votes, he would not even highlight his own achievements. Never mind that a big bridge came up over the river Ganga in Bhagalpur during Lalu’s rule while another bridge was also built over the river Gandak. A planetarium came up in the heart of Patna as did the Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI). The cooperative milk federation too was growing strong, and Bihar was emerging as one of the leading horticulture states in the country. 

Yet, Lalu held himself back from highlighting even these little bits of success stories to woo voters. Instead, he continued to describe himself as the Messiah of the poor, a leader who has consistently worked for their emancipation and empowerment. It was only after occupying the office of railway minister in 2004 that Lalu realised his folly, and began to understand the importance of marketing one’s achievements in development. Not only did he bring projects worth thousands of crores to Bihar, he adopted an approach to development that was differed from the mainstream approach. 

In contrast to the Lalu-Rabri era during which the political executive was supreme in its power, Nitish enjoyed full support of the bureaucracy. Lalu’s relationship with bureaucrats, on the other hand, was brittle. Before rushing in with hasty assessments of these two leaders, it’s necessary to underline the two very different styles of functioning they represented in Bihar. True, Nitish has turned the economic situation around in the state. But, unfortunately, Lalu’s significant contributions in providing backward castes and the poor with a sense of assertion and dignity, seem to have got lost in the rising cacophony of his critics with their intonation of jungle raj.

The author is a senior journalist