A Tarzan act

The BJP dispensation had, right from the start, made the removal of Lalooone of its central objectives. When direct action like theextra-gubernatorial activities of an S.S. Bhandari and the Cabinet’srecommendation for the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government failed, it setabout systematically discrediting the regime. This, of course, was aremarkably easy thing to do given its pathetic track record. The epithet“Jungle raj”, that the BJP used to characterise the RJD government, seemedboth clever and irrefutable. When Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayeedeployed it at a public speech in Patna last September, it also assumed somerespectability. Everyone agreed with it, it seemed, including thesmooth-cheeked He-ma Malini. No roads, no electricity, no policing worth thename, an empty treasury and wave upon wave of caste massacres, if ever therewas “Jungle raj”, it was here.

After the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Bihar continued to be top-of-the-mind.No fewer than 11 MPs from the state were accommodated in the Cabinet,including the little known first-timer, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, bearing theonerous responsibility of being the only Muslim in the Vajpayee Cabinet,after the venerable Sikander Bhakt was unceremoniously eased out. Theattempt here was to swing the cleaver at Laloo’s legendary MY (Muslim-Yadav)base. By December 1999, the Bihar election had been already won it seemed.

The Prime Minister announced a Rs 26,000-crore package and swore totransform the face of the state. With the elections came innumerablehelicopter sorties, as politicians and film stars were scattered like seedsover the countryside. Jungle raj, jungle raj, jungle raj, they taunted.

Endgame, endgame, endgame, echo-ed the political analysts and the pollsters.The India Today-DRS Opinion Poll gave the BJP-Samata-JD(U) combine 175-180seats and the RJD and CPI(M), 65-75. With the certitudes of the opinion pollresults to back it, the magazine headlined a story from Bihar with astatement, `Laloo Pays for Fodder’. The mandatory question mark was missing.Metropolitan India, with its prophetic powers of mathematical deduction, haddecreed that this would be the case. Subaltern Bihar did not oblige.

So why did Laloo not pay for the fodder scam? On every social indicator theRJD government had failed the people. According to NCAER figures, 71.7 percent of its rural houses were kutcha, electricity reached only 9.8 per centand piped water only 3.6 per cent of rural homes and just 5 per cent ofhouseholds of rural Bihar have access to the PDS. The state, notsurprisingly, had also not held panchayat elections for over two decades.

The man who came to power under the self-cleansing aura of JayaprakashNarayan’s Total Revolution; who cut his political teeth castigating thecorrupt ways of Congress Chief Minister Abdul Ghafoor, was himself severelyindicted by the judiciary and jailed twice for his involvement in a scam ofmonstrous proportions. The man who swore by social justice, presided overthe systematic killings of hundreds of Dalits by the private armies of theBhumihars which, in turn, set off a spate of retaliatory killings byextremist groups. Ever since it came into existence in 1993, the Ranvir Senacontinued to terrorise with impunity, despite the Bihar chief minister’spromises of crushing it and ushering in land reform. So why didn’t Laloo payfor all this?

He stayed afloat thanks to two safety belts: the politics of symbolism andthe politics of secularism. Much has been written about the former and ofhis ability to impart a sense of self-worth in communities that have forcenturies been trodden into the slush. Nothing testified to the power, andbankruptcy, of such politics as the charwala vidyalayas of Laloo’simagination. Only he could have come up with such an idea: makeshift schoolsfor young goatherds and buffalo-tenders. Characteristically, too, these werequickly reduced to empty, unused sheds.

Laloo achieved conspicuous success, however, in his politics of secularism.Ten years after the Bhagalpur riots the last major communal conflagrationthat Bihar witnessed — it is easy to forget the real import of thisachievement. In the run up to the 1989 Lok Sabha election, when Ramshilaprocessions were cutting swathes across the country, an estimated 55 placesin nine states witnessed communal disturbances. In Bihar, there was violencein Doranda, Giridih, Jharia, Ranchi and Jamshedpur, but without doubt it wasat its most visceral in Bhagalpur. Indeed, the Bhagalpur riots in theirintensity and spread could well be the worst Hindu-Muslim confrontation inthe country since Partition.

They began around October 22 and raged on until October 31. Over 1,000people were killed (official figure: 891). Both Bhagalpur town and some 156villages in the district burned. At its peak, 40,000 people, mostly from theminority community, were forced to live in relief camps.

Laloo made his debut as chief minister a few months later and quicklyattracted attention when he halted L.K. Advani’s rath in Bihar and ensuredthat there was peace in the state. Two years later, Bihar was largely sparedthe vicious blood-letting that followed in the wake of the Babri Masjiddemolition. It was a successful demonstration of the transformativepotential of the Laloo brand of politics. Yadavs, who were once am-ong thefirst to pick up stones in communal skirmishes, now provided a fire breakagainst such onslaughts.

It is political expediency without doubt that drives Laloo to champion thesecular cause. But unlike his social justice plank which at times appearstermite-ridden, his secular credentials continue to carry conviction withvoters, as was proved this time around. The question, of course, is how longcan a leader, even one who sees himself as the alu in Bihar’s samosa, tradeon his voters’ sense of caste grievance and communal fear? Laloo’s politicalfuture depends on how he chooses to answer this question.