Bihar / Betrayal

Some notes about the recently concluded Bihar state assembly election

People never change, but I will
‘cause I never give a fuck, that I’ll never be enough
I have washed away, my sins
So I never gotta face, consequences, consequences

People so afraid, they’re mindless
They don’t wanna see you learn
They just wanna see you burn
They don’t wanna see the world turn

Lyrics of the song People Never Change, by PeterCat Recording Co

Aamir Khan tried to imitate Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan when he made a 200 crore-budget movie Laal Singh Chadda. Apparently the movie was a commercial flop and Aamir admitted that he was overconfident.

Though one can’t compare political phenomena to a flop cinema, one can clearly see that overconfidence can sometimes disappoint even the sharpest minds.

A cinematic election season has concluded recently in the state of Bihar, where Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraj Party got a big zero in spite of massive buzz and progressive agenda.

Prashant was quite right when he said that no individual could change Bihar unless people of Bihar chose to change. And he claimed that the response to his padyatra and rallies was a strong indicator of change.

The outcome shows that the people of Bihar said “no thanks” to his efforts and indirectly said that they don’t want to change (at least for now).

Having spent considerable amount of time following this entertaining, but critical election for one of the poorest states in India, I felt like sharing a few thoughts.

Future of Children vs ₹ 10,000

People of Bihar were not unaware of Prashant’s pitch to vote for their children’s future rather than caste or freebies. Political Pundits often say that the electorate is wise and their decision is often wise.

Of course, they can be gaslighted at times. But after twenty years of having the same establishment (with brief break of one or two years), they chose the same set of leaders who had failed on key areas like education and jobs.

In a state where the bare minimum (like electricity, law and order and roads) was being seen as an achievement, the electorate failed to take a ‘leap of faith’ ( a phrase used by Prashant Kishor during his interviews).

TV anchors say that the ‘mahila’ voter gave a thumbs up to the good work done by Nitish Kumar. But don’t they see the value in improving education and creation of jobs through credit disbursal (as proposed by Prashant Kishor)?

The claim that ‘democracy delivers’ and ‘voter is wise’ has been reduced to rubble. A ₹10,000 cash transfer seems to have swayed a large chunk of women voters.

In addition, the Jan Suraj Party leaders claim that a loan from the World Bank was rerouted to fund this scheme. Even if this proven to be true, the election outcome can’t be reversed.

One wonders if ₹10,000 is the price at which a common voter (a large chunk if not all) can be persuaded to sell their future (and by extension their state’s future).

In spite of this pathetic state of affairs, people can also claim that the funds given to these women would spur economic activity, though one doesn’t know how to measure the outcome.

An Out-of-Touch-Opposition

The opposition’s big idea to sway votes is funny and delusional.

A government job for every family?

Did they use common sense before arriving at this decision? Even a lay man can understand that every family can’t get a government job in any state of India.

It seems that the leader of opposition lacked the intellectual heft to craft an idea good enough to capture the imagination of voters.

Though it seems easy to comment, shirking off the historical albatross over the neck i.e. ‘Jungle Raj’ would have required a rebranding exercise by the key opposition party RJD.

Lack of forethought and imagination compounded in ways that no pollster would have predicted.

One can understand the importance of electoral malpractices like ‘Vote Chori’ can muddy the democratic process. But does merely screaming about this issue mean anything substantial to a voter?

The common man would look for some positive agenda as well. Even if people did vote on this matter, the opposition didn’t have any concrete solutions to end ‘Vote Chori’.

The opposition which could have been an alternative in the election turned out to be a lazy bunch of parties which had very little imagination or ability to turn the tide.

A Cruel Joke

Even if you set aside these issues, one can see that the vote shares of all major parties hasn’t changed much. These are ossified vote banks as Shekhar Gupta puts it. The better social/political alliance managed to secure votes.

One would wish that the people of the poorest state of Bihar would take a quantum leap to improve their lives by voting for a better brand of politics. But, then the results seem to be a cruel joke on the calibre of the electorate.

After documenting these rather gloomy thoughts, I get back to the song that I quoted in the beginning. Maybe, you should also listen to it.