Will 2015 Battle of Buxar be Ides of October for Grand Coalition?

As Buxar goes to the poll, uncertainty looms for the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan, writes Chandan Nandy.

It is far from clear around whose neck—the BJP-led NDA or the Mahagathbandhan—the noose of electoral defeat will tighten once all the five phases of the Bihar Assembly polls are done with on November 5.

On October 26, when the BJP’s mascot for the polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, railed at the Janata Dal (United)-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress Grand Alliance at the Buxar aerodrome, a few undertrials in the town’s Central Jail (a couple of kilometres from the rally venue) toiled away on a loom that helps them make “Manila ropes” from a highly durable blend of banana fibre and cotton. Buxar, on the western periphery bordering UP, votes along with Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Patna and Nalanda in the ongoing third phase of the poll.

These are special, made-to-order ropes that are used to hang death row convicts; the Union Home Ministry is the only client. The latest to be hanged using Buxar jail’s waxed ropes was the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict, Yakub Memon. Buxar’s Central Jail is the only prison in India where the hangman’s rope is made by prisoners. The practice has been continuing since the Raj era.

Disenfranchised Prisoners

“The Model Code of Conduct is in force so I cannot let you into the jail premises to see the prisoners at work,” said Jail Superintendent S K Choudhary, who sent word through the hanging rope-making in-charge, Shashikant Kunwar. An aging Kunwar was most apologetic as he had earlier promised to take me around on a tour of the jail precinct where the ropes are made.

The prisoners of Buxar jail use a solitary machine to make the ropes using the twist and torque technique for which they undergo training once they set foot into the grim colonial-era prison four kilometres away from Kathauli Maidan, the site of the October 23, 1764 Battle of Buxar that sealed the fate of the subah of Bengal, which also included the territories of Bihar and Odisha.

The undertrials, mostly from the most marginalised and disadvantaged strata of Bihar (as jail documents show), do not have the right to exercise their franchise, but their ‘free’ brethren outside—Dalits, Mahadalits and extremely backward castes (EBCs)—do.

The ‘Silent’ EBC Voters

Modi’s well-attended Buxar rally speech, which subsequently led Nitish to give a point-by-point, enough-is-enough rebuttal the same evening in Patna, may have pumped up the “forward castes” of the district, but the Yadavs, Dalits, Mahadailts and EBCs who constitute to be a significant percentage of the district’s voting population were not amused.

“There was no substance in Modi ji’s speech. Humrey gaon mein bikaas huyi hai jiska haq Nitish ji ko milna chahiyye (there has been development in my village and the credit must go to Nitish),” said Tejnarayan Yadav of Ramgarh village in Brahmpur constituency. Tejnarayan, who runs a ‘paan-beedi-gutka’ shop on the Arrah-Buxar state highway is a Yadav and, as his caste affiliation suggests, a Mahagathbandhan supporter.

The predominantly Rajput- and Bhumihar-dominated Buxar, despite rooting for the BJP, must contend with the sizeable combined vote of the Muslims and Yadavs, while also being wary of which side the EBCs might swing. The EBCs traditionally vote for Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. But they could vote strategically for either of the two coalitions only when their vote has a probability of producing a desired outcome. On most occasions, the “silent” EBC voters, driven by material or psychological motivations, wait till the last moment to exercise their preference for a combine most likely to win.

Is BJP on a Sticky Wicket?

If the voices from Brahmpur and Dumraon, the birthplace of Bharat Ratna shehnai player Bismillah Khan, are any indication, the Mahagathbandhan is in a position to give the NDA a run for its money.

Already word is out that BJP leader and former Union Health Minister C P Thakur’s son Vivek Thakur, contesting from Brahmpur, is on a sticky wicket. While this could be because of the relative importance of the EBC swing vote, which the BJP is vying for across most of Bihar, there is also dissatisfaction within the party ranks, much of which could be attributed to the lesser prominence state-level leaders have been given so far. Besides, Dilmarni Devi, the daughter-in-law of BJP founder-member Kailashpati Mishra, who was denied a ticket this time, joined the JD (U).

“Had the BJP declared a chief ministerial candidate, it would have gone down well with the voters,” says Manoj Kumar Rai, a Bhumihar from Buxar’s Naat village, which has 1,143 registered voters. About 10 kms from the district headquarter, Naat could send only 50 BJP supporters to Modi’s October 26 rally, but the villagers seek change in Bihar because some villagers are not confident that Nitish Kumar will be able to continue with his “development mission” in partnership with Lalu Prasad.

Will Modi alone be able to tilt the balance in favour of the NDA in the Battle of Buxar? It should be a sobering reminder that the grand coalition of forces of the crumbling Mughal empire, the Nawab of Awadh and the Nazim of Bengal were crushed by the smaller but smarter army of the British East India Company in 1764.