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A group of Left extremists carried out simultaneous attacks at three supposedly high-security locations in Bihar’s Jehanabad town on 13 November 2005.
The attacks on the police lines, on a local college ground where CRPF personnel were guarding electronic voting machines (EVMs), and the city jail where 340 prisoners were ‘freed’ rattled the state administration.
Shockingly, no one had a clue as to what had happened. The extremists were reportedly carrying 186 rifles and 3,000 bullets that were smuggled in from neighbouring Jharkhand.
The incident exemplified what Bihar was then: A place where the state had unfortunately withered away. Eleven days later, when Nitish Kumar became the chief minister of the seemingly lawless state, he had an almost insurmountable challenge to overcome.
What followed was nothing short of a miracle, now well-documented by a range of scholars of different persuasions.
Noted commentator Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar had written in one of his essays (published in The New Bihar: Rekindling Governance and Development, edited by NK Singh and Nicholas Stern) that:
As result, the number of violent incidents fell from 1,309 between 2001-05 to 514 between 2006-10. The number of civilians killed fell from 760 to 214 in the same period.
How did the turnaround happen?
But Nitish knew that administrative measures alone were not enough to bring Bihar on track. What was required was a slew of supplementary steps, and Nitish’s famed social engineering was aimed at achieving that.
The years preceding Nitish’s rule in Bihar were marked by caste militias. Dominant castes and communities had divided the state into separate fiefdoms – a coalition of dominant castes would rule one, and yet another set had complete control over other territories.
Since dominant castes had access to political power as well, they used to break rules with impunity. There was total convergence of political and muscle power. The convergence had to be broken to give enforcement agencies any chance of punishing the offenders.
Nitish balanced the power of erstwhile dominant groups by creating a new set of equally powerful groups that became numerically influential and politically significant.
There is perhaps a lesson in Nitish’s experiment for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is expected to fix the deteriorating law and order situation in the country’s most populous state.
Data shows that the first month of Adityanath’s maiden innings has not been able to inspire much confidence. In fact, the situation has taken a turn for the worse.
According to an agency report:
Very much like Bihar, UP has seen a convergence of political and muscle power in recent years.
Any change of regime means one set of ruling political class gets replaced by another, with accompanying social groups wielding considerable muscle power. Depending on which party is in power in UP, we hear about Yadav or Jatav rule in the state.
At least, that has been the perception so far. If Adityanath’s administration witnesses the hegemony of one particular coalition of castes, even Nitish’s innovative measures may prove unhelpful.
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Published: 13 Jun 2017,07:48 AM IST