12-02-2005, 01:39 AM
Bihar redeems its pledge
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Balbir K Punj
The recent Assembly elections in Bihar will be treated as a milestone in the history of Indian democracy. Though all elections are important in one way or the other, Bihar elections were a cut above the rest. First, they ended the 15-year misrule of 'family farm' Government that had reduced the status of this historic State to a farce.
Both the masses and the media have reacted positively and enthusiastically to this change which was long overdue. It was celebrated not only in Bihar and among non-resident Biharis of Delhi and Mumbai, but expatriate Biharis in New York and Maryland as well. Second, it was a thumbs-down for the invidious casteist politics practiced in Bihar.
In these elections the electorate as a whole voted more as a Bihari than a Kurmi, Yadav, Brahmin, Bhumihar or Rajput. It was a vote against stagnation and degeneration and in favour of change and progress. Third, it shattered the myth that Muslims will not vote in favour of an alliance that constitutes the BJP. This was a bogus proposition popularised by deposed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu after TDP bowed out of power last year.
Neither the attraction of Osama bin Laden look-alike Mohammed Noor who escorted Lalu Prasad Yadav, nor the lollipop of 'Muslim Chief Minister' offered by Ram Vilas Paswan cut much ice with Muslims of Bihar.
Four, the Election Commission of India, showed it is capable of conducting fair and violence-free elections. Its Legal advisor KJ Rao visited 200 of the 243 Assembly constituencies. He interacted with common people; and developed strategies from inputs that he received. He caught up with dishonest and incompetent officers through his unscheduled visits.
He discovered there were 70,000 unexecuted warrants, often poll related, pending for years against gangsters all over Bihar. He got hundreds of those executed as a result of which a number of criminals were sent behind bars. While there were 80 poll related fatalities during the inconclusive February polls, this time there were only two.
The new Chief Minister of Bihar, Mr Nitish Kumar, has spelt out three priorities of his Government. These are governance, governance and only governance. Governance ensures development, enforcement of law and order, investment and social amity. As Mr Nitish Kumar said, there was no law and order in Bihar for the last 15 years because no one was allowed to work in accordance with the law. This was almost like being a witness to the withering away of the State in the literal sense of the term.
It is not as if Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav was unaware of this fact. Look at the sting in his tail. He said he would congratulate 'his younger brother' Nitish Kumar on his victory but not the BJP. Building upon Mr Kumar's promise to put the State on the right track within three months, he said that hopefully migration of labour and students from Bihar would stop within that period.
He did not forget to add that people would be disillusioned within three months. It is up to Mr Nitish Kumar to prove that Bihar can be governed, but how dare Mr Yadav dictate terms even in defeat? However, truth to tell, Mr Kumar does not have any magic wand to undo the ill-effects of 15 years of misrule under his and his wife Rabri Devi's regime.
The RJD, instead of conceding defeat, has the temerity to say that electorate of Bihar became victim to false propaganda of JD(U)-BJP. The false propaganda referred to here is the question of non-development and non-performance of Bihar. The economic misery of the State's populace is all too obvious. Its impact is felt not only by Biharis who migrate out of the State but also cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Kanpur who bear the burnt of the expatriate population.
The Bihar High Court in 1998 had observed that jungle raj prevailed in the State. Bihar finishes at the bottom of almost all indices of the Planning Commission or UNDP reports. The State had a wholesome educational system since British times but it has collapsed under Lalu raj. The health sector, roads, industry, government offices are all in deplorable state.
One remembers former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, who, after being routed in legislative Assembly elections nearly two years ago, had said that the Congress was defeated by 'emotional issues' like bijli-sadak-pani. One wonders how electricity-road-water are emotional and not practical issues. No wonder Mr Digvijay Singh considers Mr Yadav as his 'political guru'.
Another myth busted was the 'secular' or 'Muslim-Yadav' vote-bank. It is true that Muslims of Bihar had thrown their lot with Mr Yadav in the elections that followed the Bhagalpur riots in 1989 when the Congress was in power. But in the last 15 years Muslims have received little else than rhetoric from Mr Yadav. In fact, this is true for all castes or communities in Bihar.
Mr Yadav had been befooling not only the Muslims but his allies and other 'secularists' with his war cry of 'secularism'.
It was to cover up his ineptitude or unwillingness for governance. He has reduced fighting against 'communal forces' to a farce. But one can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.
Shortly before the Bihar Assembly elections in February 2005 the Bihar State Minority Commission came up with some startling discoveries on the condition of Muslims in Bihar. Its most important findings were: Muslims in the State have sunk to the bottom from a relatively mid-income position. 49.5 per cent of Bihar's Muslims in villages and 44.8 per cent in towns live below the poverty line.
The corresponding figures for general population are 44.3 per cent and 32.9 per cent. Thus poverty level of Bihar's Muslims remains high. In towns 78.5 Muslim births take place at home (not hospital) compared to 58.9 per cent for general population.Only 35.9 per cent of the rural Muslim households in Bihar possess any cultivable land.
Barely 8.2 per cent of the Muslim households in rural Bihar have over two acres of land. Land-alienation is increasing with Muslim households selling more land in last one decade than they bought. Muslims constitute about 16.5 per cent of Bihar population, but only 1.5 per cent of the rural households and 1.8 per cent of these in the urban areas have a member participating in panchayat or municipality administration.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This, in short, describes the power aristocracy built around Mr Yadav. His utter disdain for merit and development was reflected in his words 'Yeh IT- baiti kya hai?' (What is this information technology?) and making the bureaucracy servile.Since May 1994, when Mr Nitish Kumar parted ways with Mr Yadav's and declared frontal war against his regime, he was longing to overturn it.
Though he had to expand the size of his cabinet to 25 ministers from contemplated 12, he immediately dropped Jitan Ram Majhi from his Ministry after learning that he faced charges of forgery in the court of law.
This shows his concern for maintaining transparency.
It will amount to speculation to say that the outcome of Bihar elections will affect the stability of UPA Government at the Centre. Its constituents might just draw closer out of fear after losing Bihar. But the Congress now has an excuse to cease playing second the fiddle to the RJD - a role it immensely detested but had no options than to play. This will only help the BJP-JD(U) combine.
(The writer, a Rajya Sabha MP and Member of BJP's think-tank, can be contacted at bpunj@email.com )<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Balbir K Punj
The recent Assembly elections in Bihar will be treated as a milestone in the history of Indian democracy. Though all elections are important in one way or the other, Bihar elections were a cut above the rest. First, they ended the 15-year misrule of 'family farm' Government that had reduced the status of this historic State to a farce.
Both the masses and the media have reacted positively and enthusiastically to this change which was long overdue. It was celebrated not only in Bihar and among non-resident Biharis of Delhi and Mumbai, but expatriate Biharis in New York and Maryland as well. Second, it was a thumbs-down for the invidious casteist politics practiced in Bihar.
In these elections the electorate as a whole voted more as a Bihari than a Kurmi, Yadav, Brahmin, Bhumihar or Rajput. It was a vote against stagnation and degeneration and in favour of change and progress. Third, it shattered the myth that Muslims will not vote in favour of an alliance that constitutes the BJP. This was a bogus proposition popularised by deposed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu after TDP bowed out of power last year.
Neither the attraction of Osama bin Laden look-alike Mohammed Noor who escorted Lalu Prasad Yadav, nor the lollipop of 'Muslim Chief Minister' offered by Ram Vilas Paswan cut much ice with Muslims of Bihar.
Four, the Election Commission of India, showed it is capable of conducting fair and violence-free elections. Its Legal advisor KJ Rao visited 200 of the 243 Assembly constituencies. He interacted with common people; and developed strategies from inputs that he received. He caught up with dishonest and incompetent officers through his unscheduled visits.
He discovered there were 70,000 unexecuted warrants, often poll related, pending for years against gangsters all over Bihar. He got hundreds of those executed as a result of which a number of criminals were sent behind bars. While there were 80 poll related fatalities during the inconclusive February polls, this time there were only two.
The new Chief Minister of Bihar, Mr Nitish Kumar, has spelt out three priorities of his Government. These are governance, governance and only governance. Governance ensures development, enforcement of law and order, investment and social amity. As Mr Nitish Kumar said, there was no law and order in Bihar for the last 15 years because no one was allowed to work in accordance with the law. This was almost like being a witness to the withering away of the State in the literal sense of the term.
It is not as if Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav was unaware of this fact. Look at the sting in his tail. He said he would congratulate 'his younger brother' Nitish Kumar on his victory but not the BJP. Building upon Mr Kumar's promise to put the State on the right track within three months, he said that hopefully migration of labour and students from Bihar would stop within that period.
He did not forget to add that people would be disillusioned within three months. It is up to Mr Nitish Kumar to prove that Bihar can be governed, but how dare Mr Yadav dictate terms even in defeat? However, truth to tell, Mr Kumar does not have any magic wand to undo the ill-effects of 15 years of misrule under his and his wife Rabri Devi's regime.
The RJD, instead of conceding defeat, has the temerity to say that electorate of Bihar became victim to false propaganda of JD(U)-BJP. The false propaganda referred to here is the question of non-development and non-performance of Bihar. The economic misery of the State's populace is all too obvious. Its impact is felt not only by Biharis who migrate out of the State but also cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Kanpur who bear the burnt of the expatriate population.
The Bihar High Court in 1998 had observed that jungle raj prevailed in the State. Bihar finishes at the bottom of almost all indices of the Planning Commission or UNDP reports. The State had a wholesome educational system since British times but it has collapsed under Lalu raj. The health sector, roads, industry, government offices are all in deplorable state.
One remembers former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, who, after being routed in legislative Assembly elections nearly two years ago, had said that the Congress was defeated by 'emotional issues' like bijli-sadak-pani. One wonders how electricity-road-water are emotional and not practical issues. No wonder Mr Digvijay Singh considers Mr Yadav as his 'political guru'.
Another myth busted was the 'secular' or 'Muslim-Yadav' vote-bank. It is true that Muslims of Bihar had thrown their lot with Mr Yadav in the elections that followed the Bhagalpur riots in 1989 when the Congress was in power. But in the last 15 years Muslims have received little else than rhetoric from Mr Yadav. In fact, this is true for all castes or communities in Bihar.
Mr Yadav had been befooling not only the Muslims but his allies and other 'secularists' with his war cry of 'secularism'.
It was to cover up his ineptitude or unwillingness for governance. He has reduced fighting against 'communal forces' to a farce. But one can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.
Shortly before the Bihar Assembly elections in February 2005 the Bihar State Minority Commission came up with some startling discoveries on the condition of Muslims in Bihar. Its most important findings were: Muslims in the State have sunk to the bottom from a relatively mid-income position. 49.5 per cent of Bihar's Muslims in villages and 44.8 per cent in towns live below the poverty line.
The corresponding figures for general population are 44.3 per cent and 32.9 per cent. Thus poverty level of Bihar's Muslims remains high. In towns 78.5 Muslim births take place at home (not hospital) compared to 58.9 per cent for general population.Only 35.9 per cent of the rural Muslim households in Bihar possess any cultivable land.
Barely 8.2 per cent of the Muslim households in rural Bihar have over two acres of land. Land-alienation is increasing with Muslim households selling more land in last one decade than they bought. Muslims constitute about 16.5 per cent of Bihar population, but only 1.5 per cent of the rural households and 1.8 per cent of these in the urban areas have a member participating in panchayat or municipality administration.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This, in short, describes the power aristocracy built around Mr Yadav. His utter disdain for merit and development was reflected in his words 'Yeh IT- baiti kya hai?' (What is this information technology?) and making the bureaucracy servile.Since May 1994, when Mr Nitish Kumar parted ways with Mr Yadav's and declared frontal war against his regime, he was longing to overturn it.
Though he had to expand the size of his cabinet to 25 ministers from contemplated 12, he immediately dropped Jitan Ram Majhi from his Ministry after learning that he faced charges of forgery in the court of law.
This shows his concern for maintaining transparency.
It will amount to speculation to say that the outcome of Bihar elections will affect the stability of UPA Government at the Centre. Its constituents might just draw closer out of fear after losing Bihar. But the Congress now has an excuse to cease playing second the fiddle to the RJD - a role it immensely detested but had no options than to play. This will only help the BJP-JD(U) combine.
(The writer, a Rajya Sabha MP and Member of BJP's think-tank, can be contacted at bpunj@email.com )<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->