Two-day National Conference on Traversing Bihar: The Politics of Social Justice and Development July 5-6, 2012, Tata

Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai Venue: 602, Guest House (Main Campus)

Background Note Overview The idea and reality of Bihar generates a particular kind of image, impression, prejudice and understanding. For a curious onlooker, the state is a perfect example of a house chockfull of paradoxes that is ripped apart between the enigmatic binary of past and present. A state that has very rich cultural heritage from the civilisation past evokes an image of uncultured, primordial and rustic in the civilisation present. Politically, the past pride that Bihar shows the way, carried through early republics of Vaishali to the all powerful Magadh Empire, Gandhis Champaran Satyagraha to JPs movement, counter-electoral naxal stronghold to backward caste assertion in electoral polity, could not salvage the image of a state increasingly becoming difficult to govern. It is the same state that, a la Godden Appleby, was the best governed state of the country in the sixties. The rich alluvial soil and the wealth of minerals before separation of Jharkhand could not avoid its slide to the lowest rung of economic development leaving behind the enormity of development deficit. And then comes the current phase of the so-called turn-around which is best described by some as reality and by others as illusion. Such conflicting impressions lead to intense and contentious debates and discussion. Post-Independence, the first two decades witnessed the dualism of the ruling elites who were quick on legislative actions and equally passive in their implementation, popularly known as lack of political will. Thus, the state was the first in the country to enact zamindari abolition. Further, it continued with the Bihar Tenancy Act which is still considered very progressive and ambitious, imposed ceiling limits on individual holdings and built the edifice of a public distribution system. Yet the tardy implementation of each one of these and several other legislations, coupled with the culture of political patronage, consolidation of social control through the traditional institution of caste, and brazen disregard for democratic norms culminated in widespread disenchantment with the Congress rule within two decades of the Independence. While the democratic polity gave rise to hope and aspiration of social freedom and broad-based political power, and vast majority of masses who were poor dreamt of improvement in their material condition, the political processes became less and less accommodative and accountable to them. By mid-sixties, students rose against the prevailing regime. Once again people started treading the same path of street movements which they had mastered during the freedom struggle. The ouster of the Congress in 1967 elections and formation of Socialists-led though short-lived coalition government was the beginning of a process which finally came to occupy the centre-stage of Bihar politics firmly, seemingly irreversibly, in the nineties. The spring thunder of the peasants of Naxalbari found resonance rather sooner, in the plains of the north and central Bihar. And of course, the popular movement of early 70s, the JP-led Sampoorn Kranti movement, was not far away. By 1974,

Bihar was the centre of the movement that passed through the tumultuous, dark years of the Emergency and finally resulted in the historic change of the regime at the centre in 1977. Ironically, while the masses of Bihar were left with no other option but to tread the path of struggle, some parts of the country, notably the southern and a couple of western and smaller northern states embarked on the path of capitalist transition, the so-called development. The alternative of the Congress post-JP movement did not prove any consolation to the people of Bihar. The Congress party bounced back in the power. An ever greater politicianbureaucrat-criminal-contractor nexus held sway over the governance. Riots, violation of human rights (how can one forget the Bhagalpur blinding cases), police raj, unbridled corruption and nepotism led the state to the lowest level of disgrace and under-development. The poor in rural areas challenged the feudal-type hold of landed gentry new and old and rallied behind non-parliamentary left groups in many areas. Both the declining, mostly upper caste, landed gentry and upcoming, mostly immediate caste, landowners retorted by organising private caste militia like Ranvir Sena (Bhumihar), Lorik Sena (Yadav), Bhoomi Sena (Kurmi), etc. Among many other things, this movement is credited for bringing dignity to the downtrodden particularly the landless agricultural labourers and low caste people and pushing up wages. The vast majority of the poor has survived extreme levels of penury by their sheer resilience that exploded like a cannon in the form of migration. With industrialisation in the Western and Southern states and Green Revolution particularly in the North and at the same time the decline of Calcutta, once the mighty capital of British empire from Lord Canning to Lord Minto, the route of their migration changed from eastern areas in Bengal and North-Eastern Assam to Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Western UP to further far flung places like Mumbai, Bangalore, etc. But it came at a huge cost. It changed the image of the state from the ancient seat of civilisation and knowledge (after all, Nalanda and Vikramshila are in Bihar and Aryabhatta had established his lab (perhaps the first telescope in this part of the world near Patna at a place called Khagaul) to a supplier of raw labour a commodity which is in every way indispensible for growth and development but equally undesirable, loathsome and contemptuous. It also became an exporter of students to universities and technical colleges in Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The vast majority of children of lesser god remained in the state, either not to be educated or poorly educated, an education largely devoid of any instrumentality. Cursed to lead a life of pendulum between past pride and present pity, the people of Bihar brought back the spirit of 1967. A new leader, Lalu Prasad Yadav, undertook to deal a decisive blow to the old social order, represented by the Congress. A great social churning process, called the politics of social justice, followed. The state ushered in a process of deelitisation of politics which had further and far-reaching consequences the fear of the police ended; bureaucracy, a symbol of elite power, immobilised and broken down; centres of power became accessible and amenable to influence and manipulation by the subaltern masses. This loud revolution rode on a new lingo and grammar. The grammar had to be rustic in tone and style in order to identify with its mass constituency. Gradually, crime and abduction, so long a preserve of the heavyweights belonging to the upper castes, became a lucrative vocation for a section of the subaltern groups. Spread and easy availability of locally manufactured fire-arms made possible for them to challenge the traditionally dominants groups. The state which used to be draconian and an instrument in the hands of the elite changed its allegiance. It either did not intervene or allowed a peculiar way of transfer of power to happen. Development was seen as a clich of the inorganic intellectuals.
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Government contracts became the main fodder for corruption. Politics emerged as a largescale vocation for the new aspirants and unemployed particularly among the intermediate castes. And, of course, the majority of the toiling masses continued to toil in the fields of Bihar, Punjab and Haryana and in the indifferent and inhospitable enclaves of Delhi and other metros. The number of direct trains from Bihar to labour destinations in all corners of the country increased as the number of such desperate labour increased. The promises of land and tenancy reforms were hurriedly withdrawn in the very first term of this regime for the fear of losing broader backward alliance. The degeneration of educational and health services made the poor more vulnerable. One wishes that the churning process of Bihars politics during Lalus regime could have been orderly and proactively combined change and development. But Lalu Prasad was no visionary. The forces that were unleashed by his social engineering could not find positive avenues to channel their force. Besides, his regime increasingly became narrowly based in terms of caste and class composition. The dysfunctional state could not stand in solidarity with the dalits who were increasingly subjected to massacres by the upper-caste armed gangs in the name of fighting Naxalites. He thrived on his creation of chaos and finally perished though this is not his final epitaph. Its detractors called it a dysfunctional state and failure of development. Sense of fear due to breakdown of law and order machinery, lack of governance in most walks of life and insecurity and threat experienced by migrant population (emanating from the image of state) and overall atmosphere of gloom among the citizen of the state was all pervasive. The idea that progressive political culture must rest on reason, democracy and civility was subjected to serious scrutiny. By late 1980s and in 1990s the state started getting characterized as most misgoverned state. Ironically, one cannot find a suitable metaphor than the half-filled or, alternatively, the half-empty glass to express the claims of the success of social justice and counter-claims of the failure of development In this backdrop, people voted for another change in 2005 that brought a JDU-BJP coalition in power under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. It restored the state the police, the quiescent bureaucracy, rules and regulations, etc. Development is the buzzword. The results of these are being applauded in and outside the state. It gave a perceptible impression that concerted efforts were being made to improve the climate of development in the state. A range of projects were initiated to improve physical infrastructure and to improve education status and health situation. Law and order situation in the state improved substantively and return of sense of confidence among business houses and common masses were talked about. Along with 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayat elections, reservation of seats for extreme backward caste in panchayat, homestead land for maha-dalits and several other efforts have been made by the government to widen the scope of public participation in socio-political sphere. The debate continues about the character of the development regime. Is this re-elitisation of politics? How to explain the disciplining of masses by the police, best reflected in gross intolerance for any mass dissent and several cases of police firings? Is restoration of bureaucracy not responsible for raising the scale of corruption several notches up to unimaginative levels? Whether restoration of law and order and the model of development carry an inherent inclination to satisfy middle class sense of security and sensibilities? Why the development state (symbolised by vikas purush Nitish Kumar) retracted on his promises of tenancy reforms (exactly the way Lalu did)? Whether the model of Nitish
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Kumars development devoid of social justice? Whether the politics of maha prefix (maha-dalit, pasmanda, most backward castes, etc.) an effort to marry development with traditional social structure that are antithetical to development? There are growing concerns over the fact that right-wing RSS has got free hand to organize its activities and spread its organizational network even in remote corners of the state. Though riots might not have taken place during JD (U)-BJP rule of seven years, the pace with which communalization of mind is taking place, it makes the polity and society vulnerable and susceptible to future communal polarization. The way the spaces are being appropriated by right-wing coalition partner of present political regime, the concerns around its implication for secular fabric of Bihars society is legitimate and need to be explored. No less important is the articulation of various conceptions of development, their dilemmas, and aspirations of the lower and the marginalised communities in literature, films, music and folk traditions. Cultural narratives are often overlooked in the discourse on politics of justice and development. They depict and interpret the internal contradictions of Bihars society and the struggles that continuously bring in changes in the material and cultural lives of people. In the centenary year of Bihars foundation, we propose to organize a conference on Bihar Traversing Bihar: The Politics of Social Justice and Development. The conference, to be held in the Mumbai campus of TISS, will bring together academics and activists working on various facets of Bihar. The invited speakers of the conference are requested to send their paper by 31st May 2012. We propose to bring out the conference papers in an edited volume that would examine and analyze crucial political, social and development concerns of Bihar. Through various chapters authored by eminent academicians, scholars and political activists issues of growth and development, politics of water resources, social exclusion in flood response, land rights, agrarian relations, Left movement, voting pattern and the rise of backward caste politics, communalisation in contemporary Bihar particularly with BJP as a partner of ruling coalition, Bhagalpur communal riots of 1989, both elementary and higher education, public health, Panchayats, urbanisation, womens empowerments, folk tradition, Bihars depiction in Hindi cinema, hopes, despair and growing tensions of development reflected in literary works of Bihari writers, etc. and related issues would be examined in detail. Conference Organisers Manish K. Jha, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, TISS E-mail: jhamanishk19@gmail.com Phone: 022-255 25472 (o) Mobile: 9821196890 Pushpendra Kumar Singh, Professor, Directors Office, TISS E-mail: pushpendra@tiss.edu; pushpen@yahoo.com Phone: 022-255 25144 (o) Mobile: 9930 14 5323