Bihar resurgence more by design than default

Dec 29, 2010

Critics dismissed the claim, Bihari Diaspora looked up with nostalgic pride and a large section of Bihar population kept wondering; but the conventional school of economics had just got a new case study. And the eminent economist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar was only stating the obvious. The state of Bihar, known for poor perception, projection and performance had managed to achieve a growth rate of 11 per cent at a time when the national GDP had nosedived to 6 per cent and many developed countries hovering around 2.5 per cent.
Everybody had their own reasons to react-the critics who were always apprehensive with the competitive edge of the talent pool were just comfortable with the denial theory. The Bihari Diaspora who has by and large seen the worst side of reverse racism in metro cities and has preferred silence in exchange of a decent living had suddenly found that their time had come. The large part of the Bihar, however, kept wondering that if Bihar has actually made history then where have the fruits of development gone? 
The turnaround of the fortune of Bihar will be discussed and debated at various level- economic, social and political. However, the fact stands that this turnaround has been made possible without any economic package by the centre, without any big-ticket investment, and despite coping with the legacy of state being at the rock bottom of governance, all human development indicators and nature’s fury with flood. All this is a clear indicator of the resilience of the state.
No wonder, in a fragmented polity where anti-incumbency is the only indicator to judge the governance; the voters of Bihar gave the unquestioned mandate to its turnaround man in recently held Assembly elections. The real challenge for the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar starts now with the burden of expectations on governance and much more. The moot point now is that what is the road map ahead and whether Bihar can sustain its resurgence as the state with highest GDP.
The fact of the matter, however, is that much water has flown in the Ganges in the last five years and there is visible change in the perception and projection about the state. Already the economists have started discussing whether the new economic wave in India will be heralded through Green Revolution in Eastern India in general and Bihar in particular. After all, the migration rate of Bihar at this moment is the lowest in the last three decades and that is clear reflection of Bihar emerging as the food basket of the country.
Waiting for a young prosperous landlord at his place in Gurgaon of Haryana, I was pleasantly surprised to see him coming straight from his farm land in swanky car but hands all soiled. He was cutting a sorry figure for working himself in the harvesting since the third generation landlord was all clueless as to where have all the labours gone? After all, he had seen Bihari migrant labours since childhood, and never even dreamt of working himself in the field.
But it not just the migration check that makes me optimistic with the resurgence of Bihar. I recently met a well settled business man of Nepal, who was sulking as to how the improved law & order in Bihar has fled all the criminal elements into the Himalayan state. Unable to cope up with the emerging extortion demands over there, he is looking to shift base to Delhi. These are the case studies that suggest what is paving the way for investment in Bihar. What Bihar needs now is one big ticket investment and that will set the ball rolling. It will not just add to the employment opportunity in the state, but also be a trend setter for more investments, big and small.
Already there seems to be intent by the Bihari Diaspora to get back to its roots. When a well settled friend from Saudi called me up to inform that he has immediate plans to wrap up the flourishing business in the Gulf, I felt as if it is a routine story of the Indian Diaspora. After all, behind all the swanky living of the Indians across the world is a stark reality of accepting second class citizenship in exchange. But what surprised me is the fact that his future plans are to settle business in the home state of Bihar.
Already there are very many professionals who have, of late, opted for working at the grass roots in the state, instead of a cushioned job in the metro cities. There is no doubt a sea change in the perception, projection and performance of the state. Critics and pessimists among us may argue that Bihar’s resurgence and astonishing growth rate has been by default, but by all indicators its continuance and the roads ahead are going to be a case study for the academic and governance purposes. The Bihar’s reach to the pinnacle of glory will definitely be by design than default.

An open Letter to Bihar Chief Minister

Nov 6, 2010

Dear Mr Nitish Kumar
As you are poised to take over the realm of the second largest state in the country, Bihar the 2nd consecutive time, I feel like interacting with you directly over certain issues that I feel deserves due attention. You or even many of my friends may dismiss this letter as a publicity gimmick and question my locus standi to such an interaction. After all, why should a lone person without any political mass base and a non-Resident Bihari who does not even cast his vote in the state evoke your interest? Still I felt like writing an open letter to a man who is my Hero but yet there are shades of grey in his governance that is a matter of concern as well.
Mr Kumar, you may be more concerned with admirers and critics who matter the most as far as the political calculation of the state is concerned. But then all these admirers and critics also have some vested interest that has goaded them to their respective line of ideology. I have none. Still I am one of your ardent fans. As a non-Resident Bihari I have been quite vocal on the issue of Bihari Diaspora and their legitimate rights. And this is precisely the reason that you are my Hero as far as Bihar getting its pride back is concerned. Had it not been you turnaround performance as the Chief Minister of Bihar, the state would not have got its due place back. You have suddenly transformed Bihar into new power centre in this part of the world.
The average non-Resident citizen of Bihar is no longer living with subdued silence in exchange of a decent living across the country. The unprecedented development of the state in the last five years has equipped us with the kind of statistics that the outside world often wonders. Of course, it is also backed by the fact that many of those who left the state in the last couple of decades have made a mark with their impeccable merit, unquestionable hard work and live in a new aspiration driven economy. Still a large share of the credit for the new-found confidence goes to you. After all, it is not just about boasting our individual success, but the issue has been perception and projection of the state at large. 
Though you have absolutely no background in media, you have successfully cultivated the art of media management and the positive perception and projection of the state is a Case Study in itself. It is due to this dramatic turnaround that a section of regional parties mooting the possibility of another Third Front Government at the Centre think of you as the future Prime Minister. If that happens and when that happens, we all will hold our head high with pride. And it is precisely such a big picture in vision that I am compelled to write this open letter to you.
As we at the TRACK2MEDIA Consulting conducted election forecast survey in Bihar, I was wondering as to how opinion on your government’s performance has been diametrically opposite in different pockets. I can understand that normally in any given election there is a sharp contrast between the macro level indicators and micro level sentiments. But in Bihar there has been something more than what average pollsters would have noticed. For the last few days the political commentator in me was trying to figure out whether development always translates into votes. My understanding of Indian polity and electoral politics says that the governments who have performed even decently have got reelected in a democracy like India where political overtones on every nook and corner are most often silenced by the voters at large who are generous with least expectation level.
However, there are very many visible examples where development has not translated into votes. The question is if development doesn’t translate into votes, what else can be done? Well, it is just a matter of looking at development with a holistic vision-development for whom and at what cost? when development is confined into select pocket, when there is absence of inclusive growth and when the fruits of development are not shared equally in the society; it leads to not only the process of political marginalization and resultant mobilization, but also leads to long term social unrest. I wonder whether already divided Bihar (on caste and other socio-political parameters) can afford such unrest.
I understand that by and large you have served your constituency (caste, class, geographical and political) reasonably well. The failure has been more on the part of your alliance partner who remained so clueless with sudden found power in Bihar that they started repeating the same mistakes that Congress did during its alliance with the RJD Government. The BJP failed to either create a separate constituency or serve the section that has been its traditional strength in the state. But then the BJP today appears to be more Congressised than the Congress itself. They are well known to follow the Congress in their quest to understand the intricacies of governance, and their corruption and lust for power at every level is a testimony to it.  
As far as you are concerned, I, and many like me, expect you to be a statesman. A proven performer who can do wonders for the state. And it is in this perspective that I feel your second term as Bihar Chief Minister will be even more challenging. This can well be your make or break innings in the state. I am not saying this because there will be sky high expectations to deliver; rather I am more concerned with the fact that my Hero should set a new benchmark for the overall inclusive growth of the state. Destiny, after all, doesn’t favour those who take corrective measures only when confronted with the crisis. Even Laloo Yadav did his best when dethroned from Bihar to turnaround the Indian Railways. It proved to be too little & too late. I just wish that the visionary Nitish Kumar will not repeat the same mistakes.
Yours….
A Concerned Non-Resident Bihari 

Oh Bihar! My Bihar! I am ashamed of you

July 23, 2010                                                                                                                                            

It is not easy for a blogger/journalist to eat his own words. But there are certain earth shattering moments when you are failed by your convictions; when your optimism falls flat in the wake of harsh realities; and when your role models ditch your trust. The obvious choice is then left between justifying your perception & assumptions to defend your ego and an honest acceptance about error of judgment.
Within a week of my last blog post on “Bihar elections and Barack Obama effect” where I had expressed pride and optimism about the state politics transforming into techno zone and opting for an inclusive dialogue with the common man through social media tools, ruckus in the state assembly has yet again shattered my faith. The world will notice the hooliganism in Bihar Assembly through the prism of collective consciousness about the state and its politics over the years. 
However, a common man from the state and a writer in me hangs his head with shame for being optimistic about the state after a spate of development and seemingly sophistication on various social media sites. “Oh Bihar! My Bihar! I am ashamed of you” is a result of this frustration with the collective failure of the Bihar legislature where all the political parties have been an active participant in turning the elected House into a den of street fighters and goondas.
Had it been the act of a few opposition members in the House, my reaction would not have been that strong. But on July 20, 2010 the entire bunch of elected representatives in the Bihar Assembly seemed to have vowed for callous disregard of every norm of civilized behavior in politics. I had earlier witnessed one such unruly incident in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in the year 1998. While I still remember my story “Constitutional climax in UP with opposition’s Governor”, I personally feel there was no such compelling politics in Bihar Assembly now to bring democracy to this low.
Though the outrage on the democratic process can not be justified in any given situation, what had happened in Uttar Pradesh had a much larger stake in retrospect. It was the question of survival for Governor Romesh Bhandai himself, Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, coup Chief Minister for nine hours Jagdambika Pal and Mulayam Singh Yadav. I wonder was there any such situation in Bihar at the moment. The drama that continued in the House till next day clearly reflect that it was not even heat-of-the-moment kind of situation.
In Uttar Pradesh the BJP had then taken a moral high ground following the Allahabad High Court intervention. However, the same party in the ruling alliance in Bihar has a lot to answer now since the responsibility for the floor management in the House rests with the ruling alliance. But when your own legislators are part of the fighting hooligans where is the question of any moral high ground? Probably the BJP, being on the other side of the fence in parliament, should have by now learnt the art of floor management with their own conduct. Whenever their MP’s slogan shouting creates ruckus in the parliament the Lok Sabha speaker has time and again adjourned the House to prevent further ignominy to the House. 
The ruling party JD(U) is even bigger a guilty here and adding insult to the injury for the Bihar in general and democratic institutions in particular has been the statement of JD(U) national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP, Shivanand Tiwari. In an explicit display of no remorse for the damage done to the state and its democratic institution he defended the act by saying that this has not only happened in other states, but it happens across the world in democratic countries. It seems he is still carrying the baggage of his background with Laloo Yadav in RJD.
Nitish Kumar has over the last around four years quite successfully done the balancing act of turning his critics into admirers. However, he failed to rise on this occasion and came out of the House smiling, just dismissing the whole vandalism as the desperate act of opposition. The young lot of Bihari voters who sees in him dynamism and turnaround capabilities was expecting the Chief Minister to be the first one to condemn the legislators cutting across the party lines. He, however, was busy calculating the whole incident in terms of gains and losses in the forthcoming elections.
The Congress has to do a lot of introspection if they are looking forward to emerge as the first choice of youth in the state under the charisma of Rahul Gandhi. They seem to be making the same mistakes that created the crop of Laloos, Paswans and Nitish in the state. Of course, if a woman legislator was manhandled in the House, it needs to be condemned. But resorting to undemocratic norms and creating histrionics like the one Jyoti Devi displayed, reflects an ill designed method in her madness. There are much better democratic and civilized ways to protest, get noticed and emerge as better Brand Ambassadors of Bihar politics.
Laloo Yadav seems to be living in his own time zone that derailed Bihar from every possible Human Development Index. Crowded by fly-by-night alliances like the LJP of Ramvilas Paswan, he fails to see the larger picture emerging out of the state. It is no longer politics of poverty and deprivation with symbolic empowerment to few that he can continue with. He needs to understand that he has to replicate his performance of Union Railway Ministry and not his previous stint of Chief Ministership where lawlessness ruled the roost.
But the biggest culprit has been the Speaker of the House Uday Narayan Chowdhary for letting this bedlam happen. He failed to protect the integrity of the Chair and instead became a spokesperson of the ruling alliance. His stand that interference by any constitutional body or a statutory body in the functioning of the Assembly, its Public Accounts Committee or any other legislative committee would constitute a breach of privilege of the House, not only sets the Bihar legislature on the course of possible confrontation with the judiciary but also sets a wrong precedent in shielding the guilty and prosecuting future governments in office against scam. 
It is debatable at the moment whether or not the Patna High Court order asking for a CBI enquiry into the alleged bungling of funds to the tune of Rs 11000 crore between 2002 and 2008 amounts to scam. And if it is scam, Rabri Devi led RJD Government has to answer as much as the Nitish Kumar Government. If BJP will have to explain being a coalition partner in Nitish Government, Congress will have to as much explain for its support to RJD Government.
The question here is if the guilty of yet-to-surface scam are all or none, then who is the beneficiary of bedlam in the Bihar Assembly? Has any political party came out with the moral high ground for whatsoever reasons? If the answer is none then what was the high voltage media show all about?
Should we assume that all the political parties were hands-in-glove in diverting the attention of the voters from the real issues? May be all the parties were carrying home the point with their own set of calculations that a House ruckus at this point of time would benefit them.  It is difficult to point out which of the above two assumptions are more dangerous for the civilized Bihar, but the elected representatives have definitely put their electorates head hang in shame who are left with no choice but to so…..”Oh Bihar! My Bihar! I am ashamed of you.

Bihar elections and Barack Obama effect

July 16, 2006

Can Bihar, predominantly seen as one of the most underdeveloped states of India in collective consciousness replicate Barack Obama’s model? I understand the question itself will be seen as cynicism but wait. Give it a thought and there will appear some parallel in these two different poles on various given parameters of governance, development and overall human development index. My assessment, or rather I should say optimism is not based on the phenomenal and unbelievable growth rate of Bihar in times of global recession. Of course, the GDP projection of 11 per cent by an eminent economist and 16.5 per cent by the Central Statistics office would definitely be a cause of envy even to the world’s super power in America.
However, my above assumption is not based on the reports of Bihar revival by the now unquestionable turnaround man in the Chief Minster Nitish Kumar. What has actually surprised me is the sheer presence of the state, its governance and its politics on social networking sites like the Facebook and Twitter. When the Economist magazine analyzed how politicians around the world from Venezuela to Japan and from Greece to Chile are using social media tools to get out their messages to constituents and voters, they had actually no idea about the penetration of the medium further deep.
Considering that LinkedIn was established in 2003, Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, it no doubt seems to be a fast forward march by the politicians of the state. With some of them without any background in the formal university level education, it is all the more surprising that they are adapting and accelerating quicker and faster medium for political dialogue.
In a way it spells good for democratic institutions in Bihar where wide engagement combines with open sharing of information. It is clearly an issue, as social recommendation becomes bigger the challenge is to engage individuals deeply enough that they will escalate from passive viewer to active participant. Most of the Bihar centric discussion revolves around the performance of Nitish Kumar government and the forthcoming elections. By extension this also applies to those who aim to unseat him.
My Facebook wall is generally full of heated discussions on Bihar elections nowadays. What seems to be the result of the vocal nature of Biharis in general and educated and migrated non resident Biharis in particular is actually more than what meets the eyes. It is not that only the educated Biharis who have migrated to metropolitan cities for a decent living are the ones who are demand drivers of Bihar debate. The young lot in the state with limited access to electricity and even lesser access to internet are as much active on these sites as their non resident counterparts. 
The question as to why development in the backdrop of politics and elections are the only issues to be discussed automatically comes into the mind. Perhaps the answer lies in the restlessness of the youth in the state, which had for around a couple of decades been clueless, have suddenly found a medium to air their grievances. Many politicians from the state too have sensed this transformation and want the first-movers-advantage in the cyber space networking.
The moot point here is that whether it is a natural progression of the state into technology zone or the political parties have taken this first-movers-advantage a bit too seriously. On the basis of Facebook and Twitter discussion Prima Facie it seems a carefully crafted social media campaign has been launched by at least two parties (JD (U) and BJP) in power, with Congress social media campaign racing up along the charisma of Rahul Gandhi, while the other two players (RJD and LJP) seem to be clueless as to what is this hype all about.
My assumption, however, proved to be wrong when some more searches found the presence of even Laloo yadav and Ramvilas Paswan on the Facebook. Not only this, individual ministers and MLAs in the state with relatively less exposure to the technology and global obsession with social networking too have got their own website done, with some of them adding dynamic features. It seems everybody is omnipresent on various social networking sites; even the illiterate ones too have social media managers for shadow boxing.
Easy to dismiss, but less easy to master; the mantra of social media is perhaps yet to come of age in Bihar politics. But its growing influence and ubiquity, particularly among younger voters, cannot be ignored. The complications of this new reality are that 18- to 24-year-olds are not prepared to consume political messages passively. The catalysts to this transformation have been the mainstream media that are largely into the mode of broadcast and not conversation.
The 2010 Bihar campaign can prove to be India’s first true social media electoral cycle, if the momentum picks up and reflects some tangible vote swing. Whether the JD (U) uses these tools to their maximum advantage or whether the BJP or Congress figure out how to employ social media to explain incumbent policies and rally their base will be analyzed in-depth following the November elections. It may not prove to be India’s first true internet campaign, won and lost Obama-style, Bihar elections nonetheless have a distinct Barack Obama effect this time around.