By Madhulika Gupta

The length of sentence of Rashtriya Janata Dal Chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and 15 others was announced on January 6, 2018. A few hours after being convicted in two of the total five cases against him and others, Lalu Prasad Yadav tweeted, “Rather than practising BJP’s simple rule—”Follow us or we will fix you”, I will die happily fixing myself for social justice, harmony, and equality.”

Interestingly enough, the period from 1990 to 1997 with Lalu Prasad Yadav as the Chief Minister of Bihar, is the period when crime and corruption were growing uncontrollably in the state. ‘Jungle Raj’ came to be used as a parallel name for the kind of governance that was rampant in Bihar.

After his name got tainted with the fodder scam, Lalu stepped down from the post of Chief Minister (CM) and promoted his wife Rabri Devi as the next CM. Lalu continued to rule the state from behind the curtains through his wife who had no knowledge of politics or governance

Leaders born out of the JP movement

Lalu Prasad Yadav is perhaps, the most colourful politician India has ever seen. He wears candour up his sleeve like no other. His political anecdotes are known to be laden with sarcasm and humour. Lalu is known to have left fellow Parliamentarians in splits with his uncanny wit.

He started off as the youngest Parliamentarian in active politics. However, it was the much acclaimed JP movement (named after the veteran Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, and also called the Bihar movement) that gave birth to political leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Sushil Modi, and Shivanand Tiwari among others. It was almost a trend in those days that an earnest political leader was born after they had spent a good amount of time behind bars seeking a revolution (sampoorna kranti). Due to massive uproar and unconstrained protests across the country, Lalu Prasad Yadav and others ended up spending 19 months in jail. It was also during their time together in jail that Lalu and Nitish became close aides and developed a friendship.

Political timeline

During the 1974 JP movement, Lalu (a Patna University Student Union President) gained momentum as a serious political leader. Four years later, in 1977, Lalu Prasad Yadav participated in the General Election for the first time and won from the Chapra seat. This was due to his alliance with the Janata Party. However, Lalu quit Janata Party in 1980 and started raising issues that plagued the lower caste population of Bihar. Muslims and Yadavs, which formed the majority of this population started to look up to Lalu for change and upliftment.

The merger of a spectrum of regional parties formed the Janata Dal under the sponsorship of VP Singh. The party contested the 1990 Bihar election with Nitish Kumar as its ‘Chanakya’ and won with a sweeping mandate. Lalu took charge as the CM for the first time in 1990.

He won the 1995 Assembly election too (with a Janata Dal ticket), but parted ways with the party in 1997 as reports of a fodder scam started pouring in. He formed the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). A few days later, he surrendered as the CBI investigated the fodder scam and promoted his wife Rabri Devi as the CM. However, Lalu is known to be the one running the government from behind the curtain and giving orders. Despite their family’s name being at the centre of the fodder scam, Rabri Devi won the 2000 Assembly election and became the Chief Minister again.

Advani’s arrest and the Mandal Commission

His first stint as CM (in 1990) was categorically significant. Two important highlights of his tenure were the arrest of LK Advani and his stand on Mandal Commission.

Firstly, Lalu gained Muslim support when he got Lal Krishna Advani arrested in 1990, a few months after assuming his role as the CM. Advani was arrested when he was in the middle of Rath Yatra and entered Bihar as a part of it. Then, he supported the Mandal Commission Controversy wherein 27 percent of government jobs would be reserved for the OBC section of the society. This made Lalu a popular figure among the lower castes.

The era of Jungle Raj

With sky-rocketing reports of corruption and crimes such as murders, rapes, robberies, and kidnappings, the Lalu-Rabri regime is aptly termed as the ‘Jungle Raj’. The crime that proliferated was kidnapping. Incidents of doctors, businessmen, and women being kidnapped in broad daylight for ransom were very common and regularly made headlines in the newspaper. Mohammad Shahabuddin, a mafia and a close aide of Lalu, ran a strong network of gangsters. He later contested from Siwan.

Lawlessness along with faulty governance made Lalu the ‘Lord of Misrule’. When he was accused in the fodder scam and investigations were in its course, a total of nine people (including witnesses) were killed either by a gun to their head in broad daylight or a truck ran over them. Surprisingly or not, there were no reports of these ‘mysterious’ deaths and no one probed them.

Bihar is unwell

In August 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed to four North-Indian states as Bimar (unwell). He termed Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh collectively as BIMARU—states that were in poor health and were plagued because of lagging development.

It is almost noteworthy that most politicians have connoted Bihar as a state where not much has developed. It is not only that the Lalu regime has invited criticism for the lack of development; the preceding tenures of Karpoori Thakur and Jagannath Mishra were also criticised across the world. Steven R Weisman of The New York Times reported, “Bihar is not merely India’s poorest state; it is also its most corrupt, violent, and lawless state.”

Vikas nahin, samman chahiye

Lalu has time and again reiterated, “Vikas nahin, samman chahiye”(we want dignity, not development). Development in the state was not considered as important as social justice. The issue of development and basic necessities was not given due significance since dignity and respect for members of specific castes took prominence over everything else.

There were ample funds that were allocated to Bihar for the state to realise its goal of development and putting in place proper infrastructure. Alas, very few of that were used under Lalu’s tenure as the CM. There was also a lack of policies that aided in taking Bihar forward along with other states of the Indian Subcontinent.

The tenure of lowest development

Before the onset of the 21st century, present-day Jharkhand was a part of Bihar. It is ironic to note that a state producing close to 30 percent of India’s coal is its darkest. Electrification is still a big problem in Bihar. Under Lalu’s rule, there were little efforts made to scale up the power generation capacity of Bihar.

The Super 30 emerged in Bihar, where 30 students from economically backward classes are educated for the sole motive of admission into IIT on pro bono basis. Ironically, Bihar has the lowest literacy rate. While the average literacy rate of India was 64.84 percent in 2001, the literacy rate for Bihar was a mere 47 percent. The literacy rate of women in Bihar was less than 33 percent whereas that for Indian women on an average was 54 percent.

Under Lalu’s rule, lowest development took place in the education sector. The education sector was neglected and little was done to encourage young students or recruit eligible teachers in government schools. Although there were schemes like cycles for female students in government schools, they were rarely implemented.

Uplifting lower castes

The upliftment of certain backward classes has been what Lalu Prasad Yadav has been most vocal about. Lalu raised the slogan of ‘Bhurabaal Hataao’, where Bhurabaal stands for Bhumihars, Rajputs, Brahmins, and Lalas—the upper caste communities.

Lalu’s big project was doing away with the dominance and atrocities of these upper castes and he was successful. With his secular ideologies, lower castes and Muslims were empowered and uplifted. However, the brutal Laxmanpur Bathe massacre stood testimony to the laws of Manusmriti, where Lalu’s dream of demolishing the upper caste domination died a bloody death along with 58 Dalit lives.

What next?

Lalu Prasad Yadav is now prohibited from contesting the elections for more than a decade (further trials would roll out later). It will now be fascinating to watch what RJD has in store for Bihar’s public, after it goes on to retrospect what the party supremo executed in the years he has ruled Bihar.

Featured Image Source: Smapk (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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