Have Bihar poll results begun new phase of ideological battle?

It should be acknowledged that for the first time in recent Bihar history, the opposition entered the electoral battle with a coherent narrative. The narrative has one more significant aspect, which reopened the long-lost struggle against the vestiges of colonialism

There seems to be autism in the Indian media and the academic world. It often fails to decode political or social developments in the country. The same thing has happened in the recent polls in Bihar. If the ill-intentioned Special Intensive Revision by the Election Commission derailed the state's politics and made the electoral system resistant to public criticism, the media, as usual, resorted to gimmickry with its sallow reports, hollow debates, and vox pops. The campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah further derailed the political process. It had the divisive narrative on expected lines. Both leaders spent a significant part of their campaign convincing people that Ghuspaithia (infiltrators) would make their lives miserable. The attempts by Rahul Gandhi, Tejaswi, and Marxist leader Dipankar Bhattacharya, however, remained focused on issues of migration, unemployment, education, and health. They made a concerted effort to revive the discourse on these issues.

The intellectual elite in India is lethargic and has lost its creativity, which manifests in its inability to locate the cause of the illnesses of Indian states such as Bihar. It also fails to understand the undercurrents that are coming from below.

The academic interventions are largely rote in nature. What is new in data on economic growth and human indicators? They appear intelligent because the urban intelligentsia is trained to decipher it. The lamentation over the scale of poverty in the state or the alleged absence of dynamic leadership lacks depth. There is a clear tendency behind it to blame the victim. Does the allegation that the people have allowed themselves to be caught in the trap of caste and religion hold any water? No state in India can claim to have removed the religious or caste divide.

It is not difficult to understand why the academic world has struggled to grasp the thread. The ills of Bihar have colonial roots. The state has been fighting against it since very early. The national and international vested interests want to keep the BIMARU states, including Bihar, poor. The global economic order cannot survive without a system that perpetuates internal colonialism. Bihar supplies cheap labour to developed states. The unjust economic order in the world sustains itself through the web of exploitative relationships between classes and regions.

But it should be acknowledged that for the first time in recent Bihar history, the opposition entered the electoral battle with a coherent narrative. The narrative has one more significant aspect, which reopened the long-lost struggle against the vestiges of colonialism. Although Bihar has a long history of resisting and opposing colonial rule, in recent years, this resistance has been blunted.

The fractured tools are unable to analyse the roots of caste conflicts. Most of the castes who have been categorised as Extremely Backward Class are artisans of pre-colonial days. Popular historian William Dalrymple, in his bestseller on the topic, mentions how the East India Company’s factor at Patna attacked the wealthy Kashmiri merchant Mir Ashraf, and his Saltpetre stocks were looted within two months of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s defeat at Plassey in 1757. The EIC had opened its third factory in India at Patna to control the Saltpetre (Sodium Nitrate) trade. The manufacturers of the chemical were known as Nonias, a caste that the Nitish Kumar government has classified as Extremely Backward Class (EBC). Once a wealthy caste, it is now struggling to regain its worth. The BJP appointed Renu Prasad, a senior leader from Nonias, as the deputy chief minister in the BJP-JDU government in 2020. It was a symbolic gesture aimed not at addressing the deprivation caused by the deindustrialization of artisan castes during colonial rule. It was only to promote identity politics among artisan castes. However, the BJP fails in it because of their insistence on Hindu unity. Caste-identity is antithetical to the idea of Hindu unity.

The other colonial legacy—the Permanent Settlement by Lord Cornwallis —is also significant for its role in distorting the peasant economy and society. The violence in Bihar has its roots in the Zamindari System introduced by the Permanent Settlement.

The manifesto of the INDIA alliance not only addresses issues related to colonial deindustrialisation but also distortions in land relations caused by the Zamindari system.

The NDA's manifesto, on the other hand, talks of investments, capital-led growth, airports, and metros, and assures making Bihar a backyard of international finance.

It shows the hidden ideological battle that has opened in Bihar. The point that needs attention is that the ambiguity in the ideological position of the INDIA alliance has diminished to a large extent. Until recently, Congress was unclear on the roadmap for reviving the economy in the state. The party was yet to come out of the hangover of Manmohan Singh’s era of economic liberalisation. The party is now advocating for the government’s intervention to revive the state's economy. This aligns with the RJD’s declaration of giving government jobs. The acceptance of social justice as the core of its campaign, since the Nyaya Yatras of Rahul Gandhi, is a leap forward for the party in terms of ideology.

Both the RJD and the Congress have accommodated the Left programs on land reforms. It also has larger implications for both the state and national politics.

The shift in the ideological positions of opposition parties will have a significant impact on the country's politics. It would provide a clear direction for national-level decisions. The consensus on the so-called policies of reforms that suit the corporate sector and the international unjust economic order is likely to crumble. It will also require restructuring within centrist parties, such as the Congress, where advocates of the liberal economy have traditionally dominated.

The Bihar poll results have shown stagnancy at the state level and continuation of backwardness in the economy. However, it has initiated a restructuring of Indian politics.

(The author is a senior journalist. He has experience of working with leading newspapers and electronic media including Deccan Herald, Sunday Guardian, Navbharat Times and Dainik Bhaskar. He writes on politics, society, environment and economy)