IT seems the RJD government has suddenly become very sensitive about the ‘image’ of Bihar. First, we had Rabri Devi walking out of the India Today sponsored conclave in Delhi protesting against the ranking of Bihar as India’s worst state to live and work in. And now we have just seen the Bihar government ‘close down’ a national seminar in Patna. The seminar was meant to elicit comments on a special Bihar Development Report prepared by a Delhi-based institute at the behest of the Planning Commission.
In Delhi, Laloo Prasad and Rabri Devi were guests. So the most they could do was Rabri Devi staging a walkout and Laloo Prasad threatening to burn copies of the India Today. In Patna, the RJD government was a co-host. So they managed to send back all invitees who had gathered for the seminar and stop any open discussion on the report till it is sufficiently ‘revised’.
The message the government wants to send is that it could not care more about the image of Bihar and that it would do everything possible to protect and promote the ‘image’ of Bihar. Whether this new found obsession with ‘image-building’ is actually helping improve Bihar’s image is anybody’s guess. If the government wants, it can also hire a whole new team of spin doctors to conjure up a new brand image for Bihar. But will such gloss enjoy any real credibility?
The question will remain, because in the long run images have to correspond to the reality they are supposed to reflect. And no amount of theatrical anger or rhetoric and subterfuges can transform Bihar’s reality or make it any more palatable.
Presenting his case as a guest columnist in the May 26 issue of India Today, Laloo Prasad has recalled Bihar’s rich historical legacy starting from the era of Licchhavi rule, Nalanda University, Ashoka and Chandra Gupta Maurya to the achievements of Sher Shah Suri, Veer Kunwar Singh and Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha. All these are chapters of history which would remain equally valid even if Bihar were to be ruled today by the Congress or for that matter the NDA. The point is whether thirteen years of uninterrupted Laloo raj has helped enrich that legacy and convert it into any tangible material improvement in the average quality of life in Bihar. And on this score, even for Laloo Prasad and his acolytes, mum’s the word. Patna is Delhi’s stepchild, complaints Laloo Prasad. Pray, what prevents the ‘empowered’ stepchild from wresting justice through a battle against the stepparents? Once again, mum’s the word.
The India Today rankings and several other studies clearly show that the new economic policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have proved an absolute non-starter in Bihar. Laloo Prasad is of course quite right when he says that Bihar has been at the bottom since years and decades before 1991 and that the roots of this backwardness run deeper. Neither the so-called ‘administered’ economy of yesteryears nor the ‘free’ market of today has made any difference to this stubborn deep-rooted economic backwardness.
What according to Laloo Prasad are these causes? In his own words, and in his own ranking, these are "naxalism, floods, drought and poverty." A queer mix of history and geography, economics and political science. And what is the cure prescribed by Laloo Prasad and his School of Economics and Politics? (i) More central grants. That does not however answer why huge amounts of funds either remain routinely unspent or get routinely embezzled. (ii) Promotion of social capital and knowledge-economy. Can such bypass surgery ever improve the failing heart of Bihar’s economy which is anyway already led by the service sector? After all, organised crime and networked corruption are the biggest money-spinners in the state. (iii) More decentralisation and retreat of the state. How does that tally with our actual experience with the Bihar version of panchayati raj and the existing level of institutionalised and persistent anarchy? (iv) Rise of Bihari sub-nationalism. On what basis can sub-nationalism flourish in Bihar? And who among the following will have to serve as the engine of this ‘Bihari’ pride: the oppressed rural poor, deprived women, migrant labourers, unpaid employees, deceived students, kidnapped professionals and/or harassed traders?
The truth is the roots of backwardness must first of all be located within the system in Bihar, a system that has been chronically inimical to labour and production. The feudal apathy to production and hostility to labour has found its perfect match in the ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’ arts of swindling and speculation. Organised crime and institutionalised loot remains the surest and fastest way to accumulation of wealth and power in Bihar. And vulgar ostentation and unmitigated arrogance remain the hallmarks of the rich and the powerful. Development in Bihar therefore means turning the whole order upside down and bringing labour and production to the fore in a determined battle against the nexus of social parasites and unproductive swindlers. In other words, Bihar demands nothing short of a socio-economic and political upheaval.
Laloo Raj in Bihar is essentially a political insurance for the ruling classes, both in Patna and Delhi, to guard precisely against the risk of such a possible upheaval. And continued economic stagnation and all-pervasive anarchy is the daily payable premium for insuring the status quo. For the rest of Bihar, development can only presuppose deliverance from this historic complicity between Delhi and Patna.
— DB