Bihar and the evolution of Mandal politics

Politics in Bihar is ready to revolve across the Mandal-Hindutva axis as soon as extra with the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) becoming a member of palms once more to type an alliance. In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP), after 2014, has trounced the primary Mandal celebration, the Samajwadi Get together (SP), in each single election. Nonetheless, the BJP now faces a tougher job in Bihar as Mandal politics within the State has advanced in a way that makes it extra immune to the BJP’s advances.

A rewind to the previous. By the mid-Nineteen Nineties, Mandal politics in Bihar had fractured and turn out to be two competing political formations — Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Janata Dal (later the RJD) and Nitish Kumar’s (and George Fernandes’) Samata celebration (later the JD(U)). The roots of each events have been every in a dominant backward caste: the Yadavs and the Kurmis, respectively. The political competitors between each events compelled every one to evolve differing methods of mobilisation, stopping the sort of political stagnation that beset Mandal politics in Uttar Pradesh. A JD(U)-RJD mix, due to this fact, wouldn’t have the identical evident weaknesses to the BJP’s backward caste technique that proved decisive in Uttar Pradesh.

Challenges in Bihar

Allow us to begin with a quick sketch of the political battleground. The core vote base of the JD(U)-RJD mix (15% Yadavs, 11% Kurmis-Koeris and 17% Muslims) is far better than that of the BJP’s (15% higher castes). Thus, the BJP can solely win the State if there’s a main consolidation of the floating voters (26% Extraordinarily Backward Castes, or EBCs, 16% Dalits). The BJP has effected a profitable ‘coalition of extremes’ technique in Uttar Pradesh to mop up these very segments, however such a consolidation in Bihar faces two challenges.

First, the EBCs are higher built-in within the broader Mandal framework than in Uttar Pradesh. Actually, the politicisation of non-dominant backwards in Bihar began within the pre-Mandal, socialist part below the management of former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur. The sub-quota for EBCs was constructed into the scheme of reservation that Thakur (who himself was from the EBC nai caste) launched in 1977. The existence of a separate reservation pie had ensured that the tussle between dominant and non-dominant backwards was usually not as sharp as in Uttar Pradesh, which nonetheless has not seen the implementation of sub-quotas. Lalu Prasad carried the EBCs on the backward caste platform all through the Nineteen Nineties. When the EBCs have been ultimately repelled by the Yadav domination below the RJD, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) picked up the mantle.

Regardless that Nitish Kumar’s base lies among the many Kurmi-Koeri castes, he has adopted his mentor Karpoori Thakur in positioning himself because the chief of the EBCs, a heterogeneous grouping of smaller castes. One of many first main choices he took as Chief Minister after first coming to energy in 2005 was to implement a 20% quota for EBCs in panchayat elections. This quota gambit allowed the JD(U) to start the method of constructing a base among the many EBCs, who had until then solely flocked to the NDA as a substitute for RJD rule. Subsequently, it might not be simple for the BJP to mobilise the EBCs towards the dominant backwards. Even in 2015, when the BJP was anticipating to brush the EBC vote, they cut up virtually evenly between the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) or the RJD-JD(U) Mahagatbandhan and the BJP.

Dalit issue

Second, Mandal events in Bihar have a long-standing document of accommodating Dalits inside their platforms. That is one purpose why lower-caste politics in Bihar neither ruptured alongside the Mandal-Dalit axis nor birthed a pan-Dalit celebration such because the Bahujan Samaj Get together. Because the political scientist Amit Ahuja has mentioned in his guide, Mobilising the Marginalized, whereas Dalits in U.P. noticed Mayawati as their chief, they noticed Lalu Prasad, and later Nitish Kumar as their chief in Bihar. In a broad sense, the Dalit vitality in Uttar Pradesh was cultivated by the BSP within the politics of Ambedkarism and the idiom of on a regular basis assertion, whereas in Bihar, it grew below the politics of Marxism and the idiom of sophistication battle. Because the commmunist events have been declining in affect, the RJD co-opted their leftist vocabulary of attacking feudal higher caste landlords and mobilised the Dalits alongside class traces. In a Nationwide Election Survey in 2004, over 50% of Dalits agreed with the assertion that Lalu Prasad was a “messiah of the poor”. Later, the JD(U) waded into Dalit politics by nurturing the constituency of Mahadalits (strategically excluding the dominant Paswans).

In 2015, the BJP corralled smaller Dalit events such because the Lok Janshakti Get together (LJP) (a Paswan celebration) and the Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM), a Musahar celebration, throughout the NDA coalition, and but couldn’t garner a transparent majority of Dalit votes. It’s because these events don’t totally command even their very own caste base: the LJP has by no means managed to garner greater than 50% of the Paswan vote. Certainly, its efficiency towards the MGB within the 2015 elections was disastrous — it gained solely three out of the 63 seats they contested. Thus, Bihar doesn’t have the sort of intense antagonism between Dalits and the backwards that the BJP has exploited to the hilt in Uttar Pradesh.

Nonetheless, caste chemistry alone wouldn’t suffice to maintain out the BJP, which is a rising drive, and now the chief occupant of the anti-incumbency area in Bihar politics — a rising area after practically 20 years of Nitish Kumar-led rule. Thus, the coalition would additionally must fine-tune its governance platform in order that it doesn’t lose out on the rubric of ‘ vikas’ (growth).

Grades of Mandal politics

The RJD and the JD(U) have traditionally practised totally different manufacturers of Mandal politics, which may be crudely categorised as exhausting Mandal and comfortable Mandal, respectively. The RJD below Lalu Prasad framed its politics in a pronounced ideological mould as a battle for izzat (dignity). Politics was framed as a zero-sum sport between higher castes and backward castes. In his guide, Democracy towards Improvement, Jeffrey Witsoe characterised Lalu Prasad’s regime as marked not simply by intense politicisation of the state equipment, however even a deliberate weakening of the paperwork because it was seen to be managed by higher castes. If this led to poorer state capability, and therefore worse developmental outcomes, it was an affordable value to pay for a radical reconfiguration of social energy. A well-liked RJD slogan was ‘ vikas nahi samman chahiye (we want dignity, not growth)’.

However, the JD(U) practised comfortable Mandal, the place higher castes have been by no means solid because the ‘Different’ to be mobilised towards. In fact, this was necessitated by the alliance with the BJP, which introduced higher caste voters into the JD(U) fold. Nevertheless it additionally allowed Nitish Kumar to centre his celebration extra across the pre-Mandal Janata mannequin of social betterment reasonably than the put up Mandal ideological politics of ‘forwards versus backwards’. Nitish Kumar expounded an inclusive, subnational Bihari identification and exhorted voters to rise above caste and vote for growth. Thus, growth was portrayed as the final word goal of politics, whereas social justice insurance policies have been merely the required complement to make sure an equitable distribution of its fruits.

The JD(U)-RJD tie up is due to this fact a wedding between exhausting and comfortable Mandal. The success of the wedding relies upon upon whether or not the respective strengths of the companions rub off on one another or do the weaknesses.

Squaring up

Within the best-case situation, the RJD may use the clear and development-oriented picture of Nitish Kumar to dilute the ‘jungle raj’ notion that also afflicts the celebration and limits its help base to Yadav and Muslims. In the meantime, the JD(U) may benefit from the dose of ideological replenishment supplied by the grand Mandal alliance. Competing towards the BJP means it may well write off most of its higher caste vote, which had already slipped within the final election. Additional, the BJP has largely co-opted the comfortable Mandal platform (each of its deputy Chief Ministers belonged to backward castes), along with its core Hindutva attraction. Thus, with the intention to fend off the BJP’s forays into its backward caste base, the celebration may require the ideological reinforcement of exhausting Mandal. In 2015, it was Lalu Prasad who had managed to rework the election into an ideological ‘forwards versus backwards’ contest.

In fact, there’s an equally believable worst-case situation the place the coalition will get outlined by the governance deficits of the RJD and the ideological rootlessness of the JD(U). Furthermore, it’s unclear if the coalition’s strengths can coalesce in the identical method they did seven years in the past: Nitish Kumar’s approval scores have registered a pointy decline, and Lalu Prasad’s campaigning capability stands severely restricted.

The subsequent few years of Bihar politics would make it clear whether or not the Mandal platform nonetheless has the potential to compete towards the Hindutva juggernaut. Or is the brand new alliance the final, futile stand of a receding previous towards the inevitable future?

Asim Ali is a political researcher and columnist based mostly in Delhi