Development of Bihar and Mandal Politics

Politics in Bihar is once again set to revolve around the Mandal-Hindutva axis Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are joining hands once again to form an alliance. In the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has defeated the main Mandal party, the Samajwadi Party (SP), in every single election since 2014. However, the BJP now faces a more difficult task in Bihar as Mandal politics in the state has evolved in a way that makes it more resistant to the BJP’s progress.

An upside to the past. By the mid-1990s, Mandal politics in Bihar had fragmented and two competing political structures had formed – Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Janata Dal (later RJD) and Nitish Kumar’s (and George Fernandes’s) Samata Party (later JD(U)). Both parties had their roots in a major backward caste: Yadav and Kurmi respectively. Political competition between the two parties forced each to develop a different mobilization strategy to prevent the political stagnation that surrounded Mandal politics in Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, a JD(U)-RJD alliance would not have the same obvious weaknesses as the BJP’s backward caste strategy that proved decisive in Uttar Pradesh.

Challenges in Bihar

Let us start with a brief sketch of the political battlefield. The basic vote base of the JD(U)-RJD alliance (15% Yadav, 11% Kurmi-Kori and 17% Muslim) is much higher than that of the BJP (15% upper castes). Thus, the BJP can win the state only if there is a large consolidation of floating voters (26% Extremely Backward Castes, or EBCs, 16% Dalits). The BJP has effected a successful ‘extremist alliance’ strategy to annex these regions in Uttar Pradesh, but in Bihar such integration faces two challenges.

First, the EBCs are better integrated into the wider divisional structure than those of Uttar Pradesh. In fact, the politicization of non-major backwards in Bihar began in the Mandal East, Socialist era under the leadership of former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur. The sub-quota for EBC was created in the scheme of reservation introduced in 1977. Not as fast as in Uttar Pradesh, which still hasn’t seen the implementation of sub-quota. Lalu Prasad pushed the EBC on a backward caste platform in the 1990s. When the EBC was finally driven out by Yadav domination under the RJD, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) took the lead.

Even though Nitish Kumar has a base in the Kurmi-Kori castes, he has established himself as the leader of the EBC, a heterogeneous group of smaller castes, by following his mentor Karpoori Thakur. The first major decision he took as Chief Minister after coming to power for the first time in 2005 was to implement 20% quota for EBCs in Panchayat elections. This quota stake allowed the JD(U) to begin the process of building a base among the EBCs, who had till then joined the NDA only as an alternative to the RJD regime. Therefore, it will not be easy for the BJP to mobilize the backward class dominated EBC. Even in 2015, when the BJP was hoping to win the EBC votes, they split almost equally between the Grand Alliance (MGB) or RJD-JD(U) Grand Alliance and the BJP.

Dalit factor

Second, the Mandal parties in Bihar have a long-standing record of accommodating Dalits on their platform. This is one of the reasons why the politics of the lower castes in Bihar did not break along the Mandal-Dalit axis and neither did an all-Dalit party like the Bahujan Samaj Party. As political scientist Amit Ahuja puts it in his book, mobilize marginalized peopleWhile Dalits in UP saw Mayawati as their leader, they saw Lalu Prasad and later Nitish Kumar as their leader in Bihar. In a broader sense, the Dalit energy in Uttar Pradesh was cultivated by the BSP in the politics of Ambedkarism and the idiom of everyday claim, while in Bihar, it developed under the idiom of Marxism politics and class struggle. As the influence of the communist parties was waning, the RJD resorted to their leftist terminology of attacking the feudal upper caste landlords and mobilized Dalits along class lines. In a national election survey in 2004, over 50% of Dalits agreed with the statement that Lalu Prasad was the “messiah of the poor”. Later, the JD(U) entered Dalit politics by nurturing a constituency of Mahadalits (except the strategically prominent Paswans).

In 2015, the BJP corrupted smaller Dalit parties such as Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) (a Paswan party) and Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM), a Musahar party within the NDA alliance, and still could not achieve a clear majority. Dalit vote. This is because these parties have absolutely no authority to even their own caste base: the LJP has never managed to garner more than 50% of Paswan’s votes. In fact, its performance against the MGB in the 2015 elections was disastrous – it won only three of the 63 seats it contested. Thus, Bihar does not have the kind of intense opposition between Dalits and OBCs that the BJP has taken full advantage of in Uttar Pradesh.

However, caste chemistry alone will not be enough to oust the BJP, which is a rising force, and now the main occupier of the anti-incumbency in Bihar politics – after nearly two decades of Nitish Kumar-led rule. A growing space after. Thus, the coalition will also need to strengthen its governance platform so that it can Development‘ (Development).

grades of board politics

The RJD and JD(U) have historically practiced different brands of Mandal politics, which can be classified as Hard Mandal and Soft Mandal respectively. The RJD, under the leadership of Lalu Prasad, framed its politics as a fight for dignity in a clear ideological mould. Politics was framed as a zero-sum game between upper castes and backward castes. in his book, democracy against developmentJeffrey Vitso marked Lalu Prasad’s regime not only as intense politicization of the state machinery, but also as a deliberate weakening of the bureaucracy as it was controlled by the upper castes. If this undermines the capacity of the state, and therefore leads to worse development outcomes, then it was a fair price to pay for a complete restructuring of social power. A popular slogan of RJD was ‘ development not respect (We want dignity, not development)’.

The JD(U), on the other hand, practiced soft circles, where upper castes were never cast as ‘others’, mobilized against. Of course, this was necessitated by an alliance with the BJP, which brought upper caste voters to the JD(U). But it allowed Nitish Kumar to center his party around the pre-Mandal Janata model of social betterment rather than the Mandal ideological politics of ‘forward versus backward’. Nitish Kumar enunciated an inclusive, sub-national Bihari identity and called upon voters to rise above caste and vote for development. Thus, development was portrayed as the ultimate objective of politics, while social justice policies were only necessary complements to ensure equitable distribution of its fruits.

Hence the JD(U)-RJD alliance is a marriage between a hard and a soft circle. The success of the marriage depends on whether the respective strengths of the partners rub off on each other or the weaknesses.

square up

In the best case scenario, the RJD can use Nitish Kumar’s clean and growth-oriented image to dilute the notion of ‘jungle raj’, which still plagues the party and narrows its support base to Yadavs and Muslims. Is. Meanwhile, the JD(U) may benefit from a dose of ideological replenishment provided by the Mahamandal alliance. Competition against the BJP means it could write off most of its upper caste vote, which had already slipped in the last election. In addition, the BJP has largely co-opted the Narram Mandal Manch (both its deputy chief ministers were from backward castes), in addition to its core Hindutva appeal. Thus, to prevent the BJP’s invasion of its backward caste base, the party may require the ideological reinforcement of the rigid Mandal. In 2015, it was Lalu Prasad who managed to turn the election into an ideological ‘forward versus backward’ contest.

Of course, there is an equally plausible worst-case scenario where the alliance is defined by the governance deficit of the RJD and the ideological rootlessness of the JD(U). Furthermore, it is unclear whether the coalition’s strength can be met the same way it was seven years ago: Nitish Kumar’s approval ratings have dropped sharply, and Lalu Prasad’s campaigning ability is severely restricted.

It will become clear in the next few years of Bihar politics whether the Mandal Manch still has the potential to compete against the Hindutva juggernaut. Or is the new alliance the final, meaningless stand of a dwindling past against an inevitable future?

Asim Ali is a political researcher and columnist based in Delhi