After a lacklustre career in the
1990s and the first few years of the 21st century when he remained
in the shadow of both friends and foes, Nitish Kumar has now
emerged in the full glare of the political spotlight with his name
being mentioned as a possible prime minister.
Even if he fails to make it to the very top, he will still be
playing a seminal role in redefining the contours of the two major
political formations - the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National
Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Yet, few could have imagined that he would gain such prominence
when he played a secondary role to Lalu Prasad in Bihar and to
George Fernandes at the centre. The basis of these connections was
their common membership of the Janata Dal. However, the parting of
ways came when Nitish Kumar broke away from his old friend, then
Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, to form, first, the Samata party
in 1994 and then the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) in 2003.
Although Nitish Kumar was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee
government, he remained a figure in the margins until he was able
to consolidate his position in Bihar. He however might not have
been able to do so but for Lalu Prasad's embroilment in corruption
cases and the rise in the incidents of lawlessness in Bihar.
If the latter had not let Bihar run to seed, Nitish Kumar would
have remained a bit player if only because his primary base of
support, the Kurmis, the caste group to which he belongs, is the
smallest of the three major backward castes - Yadavs (making up 13
percent of Bihar's population), Koeris (5 percent) and Kurmis (2.5
percent).
It was because the Kurmis and Koeris felt that they were not
getting their due under the Yadav-dominated Lalu Prasad's
government that they not only broke away to form the Samata Party
but also reached out to the upper castes (comprising 12-13
percent) affiliated to the BJP to form an alliance.
The antipathy of the non-Yadav backward castes and the upper
castes towards Lalu Prasad has been strong enough to enable the
now-defunct Samata Party and the JD-U to remain powerful political
forces for nearly a decade. But this lower caste-upper caste
combination would not have survived for so long but for Nitish
Kumar's amiable personality and administrative capabilities.
A fortuitous combination, therefore, of Lalu Prasad's dismissal of
the need for good governance and development as an elitist fad,
and Nitish Kumar's realization of the value of precisely these two
factors, was responsible for the latter's success in the 2005 and
2010 elections. But no less crucial was his ability to crack the
MY or Muslim-Yadav combination that Lalu Prasad regarded as his
trump card.
Since the MY vote bank added up to nearly 30 percent (Muslims 16.5
percent, Yadavs 13 percent) of the population, Lalu Prasad was
sure of his electoral security, especially when he believed that
he would be able to get a fair portion of the 15 percent Dalit
vote via his ally, Ramvilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).
But these calculations sank in the quicksand of Bihar's descent
into anarchy in the 15 years of Lalu Prasad's and his wife Rabri
Devi's rule.
Since it is the weaning away of sections of the Muslims from Lalu
Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) which contributed to Nitish
Kumar's success, his aversion for Narendra Modi is understandable.
Considering that Nitish Kumar did not even allow the "modern-day
Nero", the Supreme Court's phrase for Modi, to campaign for the
JD(U)-BJP combine in the assembly elections lest he scared away
the Muslims, there was no way that the BJP could have expected him
to endorse Modi's candidature for the prime minister's post.
It has to be remembered that Nitish Kumar has been able to win
over at least some of the Muslims despite the BJP's presence in
his government by ensuring that the BJP remains very much a junior
partner even if this displeases the Bhumihars, Rajputs and Banias
who constitute the saffron outfit's main base of support.
In this respect, Nitish Kumar can be said to have partly
replicated the old Congress electoral base comprising Brahmins,
Muslims and Dalits, except that the Dalits are not fully with
Nitish Kumar. There may be questions, too, about the quantum of
Muslim support since there is little doubt that the RJD has
retained a fair share.
However, one of Nitish Kumar's achievements has been to tone down
the caste antagonism which marked the RJD's tenure when armed
groups of the upper castes like the Ranbir Sena were at
loggerheads with the senas of the lower castes, creating a mayhem
in the countryside. By ensuring that hundreds of these brigands
are jailed, Nitish Kumar has pushed the state, which was regarded
with derision earlier, to the No. 2 position in terms of the
growth rate.
Amulya Ganguli is a
political analyst. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com
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