Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s chief minister and would-be kingmaker at the Centre, remains an enigma even in his state. He is known to be squeaky-clean, but his government, it might be said, is as corrupt as any the state has had. There has been much talk of a crackdown on criminals, but his government looks the other way when dons like Suraj Bhan, Anant Singh and Sunil Singh grab houses and land. In fact, Nitish publicly thanked another don, Ranbir Yadav, for saving his life: Ranbir had grabbed the carbine of his wife’s bodyguard and opened fire to scare away a mob demonstrating agai­nst the chief minister. And for all his condemnations of Laloo Prasad Yadav’s “jungle raj”, Nitish has shown little hesitation in rehabilitating many close associates of the former chief minister, whom he calls his “bade bhai”.

The list of contrasts could go on. Nitish has received much praise for distributing bicycles to girl students and motivating them to attend school. But, by all accounts, school and college education have themselves collapsed in...