By Sidharth Mishra
While penning obituary to the memory of one of the best-known modern day intellectual from Bihar, Arvind N Das in year 2000, his mentor Dileep Padgaonkar wrote, “In his (Das’) eyes, Bihar was a metaphor for India itself. At a pinch, he would have deemed it to be the very centre of the universe. While he loathed its venal, caste-ridden, ineffective governance, the violent nature of its society, its decrepit intellectual and cultural life and the slothful ways of its elite, he never missed an opportunity to recall its rich cultural and spiritual legacy, the noble character of its long-suffering people and the revolutionary potential of its youth.” A social scientist, Das’ collection of seminal essays were published as book titled Republic of Bihar.
Addressing party workers at the function to celebrate BJP-led National Democratic Alliance victory in Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too said, “Bihar Loktantra Ki Janmbhumi Hain (Bihar is cradle of democracy).” Now Modi and Das come from diametrically opposite ideologies but still there is something in the nation’s politically most complex state that it invites such admiration.
Those analysing poll results should take a cue from Das’ dictum of Bihar being metaphor for India. This poll has given everybody their due. While it has given more seats to stability, it has also a big pat to novelty. While it has given thumps up to espousers Marxian theorems, it’s the right of the Centre which has been the final winner. In short, voters have risen and vote banks have shrunk.
NDA has won, and one factor which has contributed most is the political momentum which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided to the party. The BJP strategists realise that Bihar happened because there was Narendra Modi, using metaphor from cricket, to bat for them in the death overs. While this may be cause for great confidence but it’s similar to, using another cricketing allegory, the scenario where Indian cricket idol Sunil Gavaskar would turn up for Bombay to ensure victory in Ranji Trophy. So, the first take away from the result is that Modi’s push saw NDA cross the Rubicon in the politically sensitive state.
Now the second -- return of the Left. In these columns right at the beginning of the campaign it was mentioned that CPI (Maoist-Leninist) Liberation would emerge as the X-factor in the polls. They have emerged as the party to watch for times to come.
Contesting for the first time as part of an alliance, consequent to their leader Deepankar Bhattacharya’s decision to end radical isolation and follow pragmatic politics, CPI(ML) has given indication about their presence across the state especially the rural areas. The seats won by them show a clear trend of bipolar contest with big vote shares.
They was won in many constituencies trouncing their closest rival by huge margins and snatching some close contests. Winning 12 out of the 19 seats they contested, the strike rate of CPI(ML) in these polls is 63 percent, that is next only to the BJP.
Given their performance, there cannot be a doubt about CPI(ML) cadres contributing to the impressive margin which the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led Mahagathbandhan managed to notch – 110 against 125 scored by NDA, just managing to scrape past the halfway mark of 122 seats.
This brings us to another interesting fact of the result, which has largely been overlooked – failure of the Rashtriya Janata Dal to evolve into a non-caste entity despite best efforts made by its leadership. Taking into account the number of seats contested and won, RJD, despite emerging as the largest party in the state, managed an average strike rate of 52 percent. Not to forget that it was the dominant partner of the Mahagathbandhan alliance and not equal partner with Congress or the Left, as in the case of BJP-JD(U) in the rival NDA.
In case of the NDA it was BJP’s high strike rate of 67 percent which compensated for the JD(U)’s low strike rate of 35 percent. This raises the hypothesis on the possibility of greater success if the RJD was to shed some more seats from its quota to the Left than the Congress being blamed for not doing it. Not to forget that the social composition of the CPI(ML) voters overlaps with RJD and not the Congress.
The aforementioned facts also indicate towards the limitations of the regional parties, which are largely deficit of ideology and mostly dependent on caste composition, in countering pan-India agenda of the BJP. RJD’s Tejshwai Yadav, understood this shortfall, and tried best to keep the poll narrative local, refusing to engage on issues which could have led to polarization on the communal issues. But his ‘novelty’ didn’t possess such potency which could demolish the stability which NDA is providing to the state.
Coming back to Arvind N Das’ Bihar being metaphor for India, what is the message for the regional parties across the spectrum. The first and foremost, BJP-led alliance is now managing to win despite its failure to polarize voters on communal lines. This adds strength to their arsenal. Second the days of post-Mandal caste politics is almost over.
This has message for regional parties in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, that to counter a Modi-led BJP, they would have to devise a strategy which would compensate for the growing irrelevance of caste/community-based vote bank politics.
(First Published in www.News18.com)
