“He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant: … falling, falling but not yet fallen, still unfallen but about to fall.”
- James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Nitish Kumar has finally departed. The curtain has fallen on the interminable political farce which had brought the government to a standstill. We are grateful that the circus is over. The people of Bihar will now divert themselves with the next big show in town.
Survival in politics, independent of any other consideration, is an achievement in itself. Nitish Kumar’s record in this respect is nothing short of phenomenal. His party has been, most of the time, a minority constituent of political coalitions, and yet he has presided over the government as the dominant partner, making the ally routinely bend to his will. After his very first term, the news of the imminent fall of his government livened up everyday political gossip. But Nitish Kumar did not fall.
To pre-empt power slipping from his hands at critical junctures, he dumped his ally of the moment to join hands with the party in opposition. With complete sang froid, he ripped off the labels of Good and Evil from the two political parties that courted him alternately – RJD and BJP – and interchanged the labels. By this simple expedient, he happily ruled, seemingly forever.
Winning elections today is the ultimate virtue in politics, and Nitish Kumar has demonstrated an uncanny ability to win elections for himself and his longest political ally. In that sense of the term, he can claim to be the most virtuous politician alive. So the issue of his political defections never presented itself to the people of Bihar as a question of political morality. In fact, his seasonal peregrinations and routine political treachery have led to the valorisation of Aya Ram Gaya Ram politics, which had fallen into desuetude for some time after the passage of the anti-defection law. For good measure, he has lent a philosophical gloss to it. Like the Tathagat (tatha + aagat: thus he came; Tathagat: tatha + gata, thus he went) – his going and coming were mere optical illusions, the veil of Maya. He was there – for all times – selflessly, for the good of Bihar. And the people of Bihar were complicit in this knowledge. His famous dictum ‘aap to janbe karte hain, hum din raat Bihar ke liye kaam karte hain’ found most Biharis nodding in approval.
Mr. Nitish Kumar has finally called it a day. On his own terms. His incoherence in public was becoming increasingly difficult for his cronies to cover up. Quite in keeping with his carefully crafted persona, he has made it look like renunciation, making a virtue of necessity. But before bowing out, he showed the BJP that he still was the uncrowned champion of the game of thrones. In a consummate display of realpolitik, he installed a man of his own choice from within the BJP ranks, leaving BJP leadership, who may have had other plans, stunned and dumbstruck. Game, set and match, Nitish Kumar.
Nishant Kumar was launched with great fanfare as a lateral entry at the very top. That Nishant is the son of the outgoing CM does not even carry the taint of dynasty. It is merely an incidental detail. A grateful Bihar is lining up to express its gratitude to him for having led it out of the valley of tears after the misrule and ‘Jungle raj’. You can look at the many posts by political analysts, media persons, academics – they are all honourable and wise men.
My assessment of his twenty years’ rule, however, goes against the common sense on Bihar. Nitish Kumar’s political career, as described by his fawning biographers, consists only of the best and most successful of his acts; it is not the sum of all of his actions. Even though the time was one that we lived in and observed the government from very close quarters, newspapers constantly dressed up reality to such an extent that it led to a complete defamiliarization.
While we are at it, we may ask: where does Badhta Bihar, Viksit Bihar stand today? It still ranks at the bottom in most indices measuring development at the end of more than two decades of uninterrupted Sushasan. Despite the runaway, rampaging development, an unconscionably large number of Biharis have sunk below the poverty line, according to one estimate – 26; others say more – of the population, the highest in the country. Opportunities for quality education or health care have become non-existent, unemployment is an inescapable fact of our lives, migration the only mantra for survival. As the Red Queen tells Alice: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
The idea of imposing moral goodness is a favourite occupation of messianic leaders, and in India, introducing prohibition is seen to be marching with the Mahatma. Prohibition was Nitish Kumar’s pet nostrum, to which he dedicated himself wholeheartedly. He was committed to make it work, whatever the cost! Biharis, in turn, countered prohibition with civil disobedience, the chosen weapon of the saint himself. It is a matter of common knowledge that, in rampant disregard of law, the commoners and elite of society alike – ministers, senior-most civil servants, and police officers – consume liquor. An army of young boys and girls have taken to home-delivering the contraband liquor, which is now almost an overground activity. Allegedly, an inspector general of police and his superintendent of police openly fought for their share of the spin-offs from the arduous task of enforcing prohibition. They were perhaps wise; those who conduct prohibition raids to fulfil quotas get badgered and beaten, sometimes even face the bullet. But Bihar is never found lacking in comic timing: media reported that a drone procured for aerial surveillance over the bootleggers was plucked straight out of the sky by those who were not amused by this invasion of their privacy. Stolen, simply stated. Prohibition kills more Biharis now than when alcohol was freely available. The effort at moral rearmament has completely eroded moral values of society, ruined the financial health of the state, created formidable mafia gangs, and driven new addicts to drugs and crime. The jails are overflowing and, perhaps in a first of its kind, judicial officers have complained that they have no time for anything else except hearing prohibition-related bail petitions. The Gandhi vs Gandhi contest has broken the back of Bihar.
Corruption is rampant. The revenue administration – with the largest public interface – has become its emblematic symbol: pay up the speed money or stay away. The government knows, and knows it too well, but finds itself helpless in reining it in. In every showdown, it is the government that buckles down to their blackmail and makes concessions. Roads, bridges, buildings capsize before inauguration, and falling bridges have given rise to generic dark humour in popular discourse. In short, every available indicator points to gross maladministration. Bihar is in a state of complete moral meltdown and social chaos. And yet, the superstition called Sushasan lives on.
What set Nitish Kumar apart from ordinary politicians was his consummate skill at managing public opinion. His image seems to have become impervious to stain and weathering – like a wind-swept monument, it reverts to its former glory, and the mud that it attracts ever so often gets washed off from public memory as if by a natural process. Despite the worst form of political opportunism and his despicable attempt to cling to power at any cost, Nitish Kumar still claims a seat at the moral high table. A large section of the media, till sometime back, propped him up as a credible alternative to rule the country. While he merrily takes a ride to Delhi on a Rajya Sabha ticket, he leaves behind quite a legacy: an empty purse and a system broken beyond repair.
