Kartikey Shukla for BeyondHeadlines
It is same land where Karpuri Thakur’s political strategy of social inclusion found a place to redefine India’s backward politics. Bihar chief minister resigned from the post backing his moral responsibility for his party’s political defeat in the general election. Naturally, the question needs to be identified and discussed whether ‘backward political forces’ are inclusive at ground or positive social polarization to eradicate backwardness of exploited social groups.
Another important outlook of this defeat can be related with what happened in ‘Mandal Kamandal’ doctrine during 1990s. It was for the first time biggest political confrontation between ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Pichda Rajniti’. This time under the leadership of Narendra Modi, the Hindu forces organised and achieved political mandate by propagating ‘development modal of Gujarat’. The states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar commonly known as ‘cow belt’, epicentre of both ‘communal polarization’ and ‘secular outlook of backward politics’ have seen shocking result in the general election. I would focus on the recent political decision of Nitish Kumar and discuss discourses around this first post-election decision.
After backward socialism in Bihar which was initiated by post-congress leadership of Bihar, the political shift took place from social revolution to the formation of government with the support of national parties. In the recent years, discussions over development were centrally focused around Bihar and Gujarat. Bihar had seen criminalization, stagnant economy and social retardation during Lalu’s political tenure which created fertile land for Nitish to activate his skills of ‘Vikash Purush’ with support of the BJP. Nitish entertained political power while keeping aside his ‘secular propaganda’.
Political landscape of this election were came long back at public platform, the UPA led government has failed to communicate with people of India after committing various administrative mistakes including corruption changes, inefficient to tackle inflation and economic degradation in the second term. BJP utilised all these issues with projecting Modi as the ‘real Vikash Purush’ who got support from not only corporate houses but political opponents, The Congress party appeared to be already defeated much before the election.
Swiping victory of Modi is different in the caste politics, Nitish’s political decision to leave NDA somehow created space to test his vote bank one the basis of what he had done as a chief minister and his secular politics. Modi’s political speeches started from development then later changed into ‘backward caste solidarity’ and his own new face ‘backward Modi’.
Jitan Ram Majhi, once a bonded labour becomes first Mushar chief minister of Bihar. Mushar community is one of the most backward section of India, people from Mushar community consume rat because of food scarcity. Does this decision of the JDU is to revisit its political ideology to regain faith within its traditional voter or to see it as liberation symbol for the Mushar community of Bihar? After having long discussion within party’s top leadership, officially it has declared as ‘moral responsibility’ of Nitish Kumar to resign from the post.
Personally, I can visualize it as a revolutionary step towards liberating ‘Mushar’ community but still it needs to interrogate empirically. In the meanwhile of development agenda or ‘Bihari Asmita’, Nitish’s social programme to identify oppressed within Dalits and Backwards classes and ensure their participation in the mainstream failed to gain support in ‘Modi wave’. The question arises here, what is the possibly of reassuring political ground of JDU by promoting Manjhi as the chief minister? In the process of gaining lost ground, it is necessary to check political mood of people and find out political agenda on which the party can continue its political project in ‘popular path’.
