From Proud Gowala to Reluctant Gentleman, Lalu is Boss in Bihar

Powerhouse politician Lalu Prasad Yadav turns 67 today, 11 June.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav speaks during a meeting with his party workers. (Photo: Reuters)

In the heady days of the Jayaprakash Narayan (JP)-led movement, JP addressed a hugely-attended rally in Patna’s storied Gandhi Maidan in 1974. There, he called for “total revolution” against Congress rule. He told his audience, largely composed of students and the deprived, that Delhi under Indira Gandhi, was wrecking the system with lawlessness, high inflation and lack of opportunities for people all over India.

Listening to him were two youngsters, one an MA in Political Science, age 26; the other, studying Electrical Engineering, age 23. Their stories, and lives, would be forever intertwined for the next 40-odd years.

The Pol Science guy was called Lalu Prasad Yadav; the engineer’s name was Nitish Kumar. At the time, both belonged to oppressed castes, one a Yadav, tracing descent from cattle-herders; the other a Kurmi, a numerically small ‘caste’ of farmers, known for green thumbs – the ability to grow fruits, vegetables, flowers – anything from the soil.

Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav shared platform at a rally. (Photo Courtesy: Facebook/laluprasadrjd)

Years later, they became brothers in arms for the ‘Lohiaite’ cause, named after Ram Manohar Lohia. Unlike communists, who saw politics through the prism of class anatagonism, Lohia realised that – in most parts of India – politics centred around caste and its many abuses.

On June 11, Lalu will celebrate his 67th birthday, or be too busy to cut a cake with his large, extended family.

Both Lalu and Nitish have ruled Bihar for 25 years: Lalu from 1990 to 2005, either directly or through his wife as a proxy. Nitish, from 2005 to now, with a brief interregnum, when, after the Lok Sabha defeat of his party, JD(U) he handed over power to Jitan Ram Manjhi, only to take it back within months.

Former Chief Minister of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/apkajitanram)

Once comrades, they fell out bitterly in the mid-1990s, with Nitish carving out a slice-and-dice combination of caste coalition, to offset the huge, Yadav-Muslim vote share that Lalu commanded. He also allied with the BJP to garner the small but infleuential, upper-caste vote, and was Minister of Railways in the first and second Vajpayee-led BJP governments at the Centre.

By that time, relations between Lalu and Nitish had become so awful that name-calling became common: Lalu was the perpetrator of “Gunda Raj” in Bihar; Nitish was a “Communal Stooge.”

1, Anne Marg is the official residence of the Bihar chief minister in Patna. It is a vast property, probably because during Lalu’s heydays, he kicked the chief secretary of the state out of the adjoining estate and merged both into one large estate. He probably had personal and political reasons to do this: half of 1 Anne Marg was devoted to cattle shelters, actually, the best-kept in India I’ve ever seen.

It shouldn’t even be called Anne Marg, and most Biharis called it ‘Anna Marg’, closer to the name of Madhav Shriram Aney, a Marathi politician who was one of Bihar’s earliest governors.

Lalu is a charmer. He welcomes you home and there is chhanch, with pudina if it’s a hot afternoon, with littis and other tidbits. His feet, tired after campaigning, are on a cane ‘mohra’ and he constantly asks after your welfare: “More water, chhancch? Perhaps a couple of vadas?”

Lalu Prasad Yadav at his residence in Patna. (Photo Courtesy: Facebook/laluprasadrjd)

One time we visited in the evening and he took us on a tour of his beautifully kept bovines. Around the time we ended the tour, he suddenly summoned all of us to a backyard, where one of his favourite cows – he had a name for her, which I forget – and asked for a pail and glasses.

To our astonishment, he sat down and milked the cow, and offered the first glass to one of India’s greatest superstars of English news TV: who actually blanched at the offer.

“Drink it, don’t be shy,” said Lalu, “It’s warm and fresh. Nothing like what you’ll get in Delhi.” And laughed, uproariously.

But it’s among crowds that Lalu shines. In 2005, campaigning for wife Rabri Devi in Saran, her seat. The day was unusually hot, and everybody in the crowd had been kept alive by locally bottled water. Most of us poured it over our heads.

Political campaigns in India are so awfully structured by the Election Commission, that everything has to be rushed. So the main speakers are always late, even if they take choppers from one meeting to another.

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/laluprasadrjd)

Well, Lalu turned up maybe an hour or so late, and everyone, though parched, rushed to see the sight of the helicopter descending, blowing up a little local dust storm. When he came to the podium and sat down, the local political circus-barkers and singers were still at it.

But his presence electrified the crowd as he sat down. The first thing he did, was to take off his kurta, revealing a slightly tattered banian, and started fanning himself, as most of us were doing, with a local newspaper. Unlike unfortunates in the sweltering heat, he really didn’t really have to do this: giant upright fans were positioned around him.

When it was time for him to speak, he casually asked an aide for his kurta; it was a freshly pressed one – after all, he was the boss. Then he did his stuff: one-liners, jokes, anecdotes and so on, which had the audience in splits.

Oh, Lalu is a charmer. And in Bihar’s caste and religion split politics, he’s a giant, never mind if he can’t contest or become Chief Minister himself. The kids are too young, Rabri Devi must have household chores.

But go to Bihar, just once, meet this fellow. Language, jokes or body language – there’s nobody like him. Even Nitish comes nowhere close. Well, anyway, happy birthday Lalu, June 11, and thanks for the snacks.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist.)