Bihar - Elections, Caste politics and Democracy

Mahabodhi Temple, Bihar

Recently concluded Bihar elections gave a whopping four by five majority to the ruling JD(U)-BJP allience. NDA increased its tally from 143 in 2005 to 207 in 2010(JD[U] 116[2005:88], BJP 91[2005:55]); whereas the main opposition RJD-LJP alliance's tally reduced to 25 from 64 (LJP 3[2005:10], RJD 22 [2005:54]). Congress got 4 seats [2005:9] and CPI got 1 seat. Rest of the seats went to others.

You may be wondering what is the difference between election in Bihar and in Other states. The difference emergence of development as the main political issue in a highly criminalised,corrupt and caste based politics of Bihar. I am not saying caste and religion lost its political shine, it will be there and it is possible that it many come back with more power - look at the situation Karnataka. But there is no doubt that the developmental issues at least for this time came out from the shadow. A spectacular turnaround for a state where caste wars and kidnappings were institutionalised. For a long time Bihar was an example for what can be go wrong in India, and if this model sustained it may become a role model for other states.

A lot of things are changed in the last 5 years. One news paper even quoted a person saying that he no longer feared about kidnapping when going out of home in the night. NDTV report says that "According to Police records, 48427 criminals were convicted and punished by fast track courts across the state between 2006 January and 2010 May...During this period, 124 people including criminal turned politicians were sentenced to death, 8602 people sentenced to life imprisonment, 2282 were awarded Jail terms of over 10 years".

Improvements:

According to Bihar government's own economic survey, economy had grown at an annual rate of 11.35% from 2004-05 to 2008-09 as compared to just 3.5% in the previous five years. Construction sector recorded a growth of 35.8%,communication sector have a growth of 17.68% and 17.17% growth in trade, restaurants and Hotels. There is a considerable improvement in tourism sector also. Number of foreign visitors to Bihar increased by six fold from 61,000 in 2003 to 3.46 lack in 2008. Domestic tourism numbers increased from 52.28 lack in 2003  to 118.9 lack in 2008. An impressive turnaround for a state where some years back people afraid to go.


Government scored good on infrastructure also; around 2417kms of roads were constructed on 2008-09 alone as compared to 415kms in 2005-06.Automobile sales recorded a 700% growth. Crimes by bandits fell from 1297 to 640 and kidnappings for ransom dropped from 411 to 66 between 2004-08.

Sustainable Growth?

It will not be an exaggeration to say that in 2005 Nitish Kumar inherited Bihar in one of the worst forms a state can possibly have. From this lowest point a small but consistent support and direction from a stable government will enable the state to improve dramatically. It can acquire impressive growth rates in the short term, but how far this momentum will go? Will the state be able to grow at this rate for a considerable future? And what about growth sectors? is it a sustainable one?

In many cases not only in Bihar but in other parts of country also the growth are not driven by technology sector or High level manufacturing products. But huge amount of money are going in to bubbling construction sector, which raises the price of property beyond the reach of common man. This construction is not mainly focused on increasing office space but on over prized housing projects. How far this construction led growth will go is still not certain.

The other point of growth in the country is in the form of mining, where the established and dubious companies are excavating and exporting huge amount of minerals in the lower value chain. The scams in this sector involves mind blowing figures and acquisition of the land for mining not always peaceful. But how far this mineral export led growth can move the society forward is still an open question. It may be better than the 'curse of oil' in Africa but certainly in the absence of accountability and transparency this will not lead us anywhere;instead of leading to the upliftment of people it may only lead to the upliftment of the society from the inherited lands.

Government reports states that the use of cement in Bihar in has grown 28% in last year- what they are constructing? budget housing or office spaces? or over prized apartments?

Nalanda University ruins, Bihar

Manufacturing sectors contribution towards the state GDP of Bihar is mere 4.69%. According to the third All India census of SSI, based on RBI criteria, 32.04% units in Bihar were sick and have outstanding loans. The two main reasons for this sickness is 'shortage of working capital' and 'power shortage'. Percapita power consumption in Bihar is just 76 units where as national average is 612 units(2005). In the case of poverty, the poverty ratio for Bihar is around 54.4% well above the national average of 37.2%. Growth rate in Electricity, Water supply and Gas in the state is mere 1.48%.

Caste Politics:

Just like the news papers across Indian told us - caste issues may not got an upper hand this time.. Whenever the politicians doesn't have anything else to boast off,they will quickly jump in to caste and religious fever. These people are sawing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. There should be a clear separation between religion and politics, religious fever should be kept out of politics, its private to the individual not a magic 'mantra' for acquiring votes.

Conclusion:

But all these things will not reduce the importance Nitish's work in Bihar. Indeed he deserved this landslide victory for driving Bihar back to the track. What lay ahead of him is more important and demanding, he have to continue his initial success and move the state forward - indeed the capital of First pan indian empire and place of enlightment for Buddha deserve to be among the great cities of the world.

Sajeev.

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

From Kitchen to power; Women Reservation - A Kerala model

Different people may have different opinions about reservation, for some it may be a tool for lifting under privileged people, for others it may be an option to get vote, for others it may be one of the worst option that can be implemented by politicians - who are less eager on developmental issues and more interested in caste equations, to get votes. But 33% reservation for women was a shock even for many of the reservation hungry leaders in Indian politics. They tried all sort of methods to drop the bill or to delay it as common people understood or opposing the act because of the absence of separate reservation for women from lower castes according to them! In this situation of intense opposition for '33% women reservation in Parliment', rising attacks against girls and women, we have to analyse the merit of the implementation of whopping 50% reservation for women in the recent Kerala panchayath elections.

Now, women heads 489 gramma(village)panchayats out of the total 978, 76 block panchayats out of 152, 31 municipalities out of 60, 7 district panchayats out of 14, 3 corporations out of 5 and more than 21,682 wards in Kerala. These are the minimum figures as many more women may elected from the general seats too.

It may be true that many of the elected women representatives may be the wives, sisters, relatives of powerful politicians, or dummies to fulfill obligation of law. You can even argue that there may be back stage administration in the case of fresh and inexperienced women members. But all these things will not reduce the sheen of the election of more than half women representatives - may be a difficult fact to digest even for the champions for the women rights in the west - in the local bodies. We can also easily assume that this situation will make the local bodies more approachable for women as they may find another women more approachable.

But do we have any chance to think that women reservation will improve the system? No one can guarantee that a women representative will perform better than that of a male representative, in terms of administrative efficiency or cleaning the Indian bureaucratic system which fell deep on corruption and inefficiency. Will this move eliminate corruption in the system? Again there is no guarantee.

The policy of reserving 50% seats exclusively for women also opens a pandora's box of problems. 50% exclusive women reservation automatically indicates that men can't contest on 50% of the electoral seats for five years. Many women candidates who are going to the local bodies have no previous experience in active politics, this will make them vulnerable in decision making. Its another matter that many of the highly experienced members didn't make the system working. What will happen after 5 years? When these seats will become general seats, will the parties issue tickets to them? or they will exit from the political circles? As of a now the candidate selection committee of various parties (if they have something like that) doesn't have that much representative from women.

Any way in this stage where the scandals after scandals about politicians are exploding in the media circles, the large amount of women influx to the politics may help it to recover some of its prestige. Its a good opportunity for women to show their efficiency and justify the reservation by working hard for the welfare of the people using these panchayat bodies, which are acquiring more autonomy and new funds to implement various schemes.

Sajeev.

PS: Please don't make this 50% reservation institutional. May be India is the only country in the world where people are striking for getting lower status [to taste the fruit of reservation], and parties are ready to make fresh offers or increase the existing quotas under reservation for various castes before elections. In fact instead of getting away with caste system we are making it institutional, hope that women reservation will not fall in this pit.

Glimpses of British Raj

This incident may not be an interesting one. After reading this story you may even question the validity of the title itself. Any way I am sharing this experience with you; before that I would like to ask one question to you. What is your opinion about the quality of public works at the time of 'British Raj'?

An interesting question? As most of us born after the days of Raj, we can only imagine the situation existing at that times from the stories of 'National Movement' and contemporary literary works.You may be wondering why I am suddenly talking about the days of Raj? OK, let me describe an incident.

Some days back I was on my way to a bus stand, on the the banks of famous Bharatapuza river(Second longest river in Kerala) to catch the very next bus to Thrissur. I took an auto for travelling the last ten minutes to the stand. Please note that in Kerala (at least in Palakkad district) for return autos charges are equal to that of bus fare. There were two more persons in that auto, one is close to 50-55 years old -wearing shirt and pant, other one is around 60-65 years old - white hair, wearing shirt and mundu. Frequent rains almost transformed the road to a small river, pot holes of varying depths are filled with brown coloured water. Pot holes thus formed in the middle of the roads are many times proved to be dangerous, especially for two wheelers, even for three wheelers these holes (filled with water) are posing considerable threat.

Suddenly the person sitting next to me started talking by comparing today's road construction with that of the Raj. Within no time the other one and the auto driver joined. None of them have any good opinion about today's road. Driver said that "Today's roads are like Jack fruits, when it is dry its OK, but at rainy season roads will torn open,like a Jack fruit". Suddenly the first one said roads were good at the time of British, now a days, its good for nothing in rainy season (Monsoon in kerala - from June to November).  I remembered last night's one hour long journey in state run KSRTC bus, if the road is in this state for some more time, then these buses will no longer be in the position to run. These roads will definitely increase the market for pain balms. Slowly we crossed the bridge across Bharatapuzha, after successfully escaping from several holes in the road.

This is not the first time I am hearing about comparison of the 'very high quality' works (especially public construction) after independence and that of Raj. There are decades old British bridges still in use whereas the one made recently fell down twice. If the government is not ready to improve the quality of works at the ground level, then the billions flowing-in for the infrastructure development will fill the deep pockets of the people who are pulling the threads instead of potholes in the ground.

Sajeev.

Shivsena heading towards a wall? An argument for an open society

What is the first thing coming to your mind when you hear the name Shivsena? At least a good percentage of the answers may look like – ‘banning some books, movies, channels etc’. This may be because of the active criticism (also due to the cut throat competition for primetime space) of electronic media or Shivsena themselves wants to be like that. A party, which always works for banning ‘everything’, that are supposed to be/ or imagined to be against them (in their words – against the culture).

Now a days Shivsena is always in paper, requesting (or ordering?) the government to ban something.  Usually parties and leaders are coming to the frontline politics by using some issues/strikes as their carrier. Some will remain in the forefront by working for or against something, others will simply fade away. They always require something to act against, living in a constant confusion – will their support base erode if they are not inflating the already hyper inflated negative ego of people?

There is nothing wrong in protecting our own culture, opinion etc. But every element of culture and opinion can’t be a universal truth. For example, respecting elders and divisions based on caste lines (untouchables and all other worst things related to it) are part of Indian system for a long time. But first one doesn’t become bad practice and the second one will not become good practice only because the system belongs to us or existing here for a long time. If you are keep on saying (no matter what others think) that the first one is correct and second one is also correct because it is part of out system, what will happen?

There are many things in our society which have to change. All these rotten eggs will be visible when some one dares to challenge it – like Raja Ram Mohan Roy did, like Sri Narayana Guru did. But if you are not allowing some one to raise their voice, to hear their opinion how we will came to know what is actually rotten in the system? European society took long time to agree that Earth is round; many people in India are still unable to wipe out the feelings of caste divisions from their mind.

Many radical changes pushed us a lot of degrees in the progress bar. Like the changes from Newtonian Mechanics to that of theory of relativity, from the hand written books to that of the printing machine. But for that to happen we have to open our ears and eyes to see the world, to hear what others have to say. I agree that all the ideas airing every day have any weight than air itself, many are coming simply to fade away in the flow of time. But a lot of ideas came and withstood even the strongest whirlwind. Sun may finally set in the British Empire but still the Westminster democracy is active in India. Gandhi lost his Physical body but his ideas still form a huge body in front of us. These are possible if you are ready to hear, assimilate the good and reject the bad portion of it – like what we are doing with food.

Now some may argue that everyone don’t understand good from bad and they are required to put all the good things in a capsule and give them in a regular interval’s. But let me ask one question– why some people believes in the some other ideas – not yours? Why huge number of people joined Buddhism along with B.R Ambedkar? Why a ruling party is failing in election even if they think, they ruled well?

It’s all about perceptions, it’s not necessary that your golden ideas have to be golden for others also. Another interesting thing is that, the subject of ban will become an instant hit. I don’t know whether writers secretly like requests to ban their books from political parties and groups. These are the best helping hand they can have. It is another matter that whether all the people who are requesting for banning books already read it etc.

I am not fully against bans. There are materials whose only purpose is to create negative influences in the society. But a blanket ban is not a solution for anything just like selective reading will not do much good. As we usually say, at least reading two news papers is necessary for getting the real news, reading for and against is necessary to find a good solution. By not giving a chance for opposite opinions, people are making their stands much weaker. US give almost full freedom to their citizens and in China, until some years back (even now?) everything is controlled by party. But this procedure doesn’t make US a weaker state or China stronger (in terms of openness – Tiananmen is a good example) one.

Shivsena can do a lot of good things for the development of Maharashtra, than simply making noises. Indeed Maharashtra needs a credible opposition and strong parties for the future. Shivsena can fill these gaps. Their name gives them more responsibility!!!

Sajeev

A village market in Bangalore

I didn’t think about walking so long at first. But in that morning – nothing seems to be better than that. Walking long distances always helped me to solve my problems. But Hosur road (NH-7) is no longer a better one for walking. Here you can breathe as much carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide etc. as you like, that too, free of cost. No more green cover in the sides; six lane highways along with its four lane service roads are as good as desert for walking.

Still it offers a long stretch for walking, and I slowly moved through it in the direction of Hosur. The usual noises and carbon dioxide winds are yet to gain its momentum. After all who wants to wake early in a Saturday morning? Even if it is ‘Navami’ – the ninth day of Navrathri – not much people are in the streets; shops are yet to open. As I continued down the road life slowly started creeping in to the streets. Many buses are decorated using mango leaves and banana trees.

In such a situation a large crowd in the side of the road wasn’t natural. There is no possibility for any politician to come early in the morning and give new promises to the people – that too at a time when all the elections are already over. Elected representatives are more interested in going to the luxury hotels in Goa – to prepare for the next boxing in the legislative assembly - than coming to these hot areas of Bangalore.

As I went on, the visual become clear to me. These people constitute a village market – and the items to sell are sheeps. As I approach the market, I can saw more and more sheeps coming in Bajaj’s new pulsars, Omnis and other vehicles and many are going out in similar fashion.

Now I am right in front of the market, one person is pulling a sheep to the other side of the road. The poor four-legged white animal is unwilling to go – yet to come in terms with his new owner. Suddenly another person pressed its tail side by his right hand and sheep started jumping forward.  Whenever it stops this person repeated the procedure.

Suddenly two more sheeps came and joined in this pandemonium. Their arrival was in a royal way – One is sitting in the lap of a person who is driving the bike, another is sitting behind him in his co-passengers lap, two front legs in one side of the bike and another two in the opposite side. After getting down from this royal chariot they slowly marched towards the middle of the market and joined in the rank of other sheeps – waiting for the new master.

All of a sudden one man in his locally made ‘Honda Raincoat’ (in this part of the world you can get any brand you want, it doesn’t matter whether it is existing or not!!!) approached them; he wrote something in his book and removed a coupon from it. At first I thought he was selling some lottery ticket or raising money for something else. But the man who owns the two sheep gave him a five hundred rupee note. Seems like people who have sheeps too sell, have to buy these tickets (anyway not sure about this thing). I can’t see what type of facilities they are getting in return. The tarred road in which they are standing – full of water and sheep’s urine – hardly had anything special; it’s an extended portion of the service road. Why they have to pay for selling their sheeps in a public road? Road tax for sheeps?

As time went on more and more people came and joined in this pandemonium. Market is dominated by men but ladies are also there. After some time a couple – man wearing a pant and shirt and lady wearing a yellow sari came with their sheeps. Both are appearing more aged than they actually are – may be the result of their hard work. Suddenly ticket seller approached them started played his part in the act. They too give him some money in return of a ticket.

Now from the other side some one is shouting in top of his voice. The other one is requesting – almost begging – some more money for his sheep. But the buyer is not ready to shell out anything more. As the seller becoming more and more earnest the buyer become more and more stern. Buyer is running from pillar to post, trying to justify his request for more money. Finally they offered some more many and this person went back to his earlier position. A typical view of old markets; where a man’s physical appearance and bargain strength tilts the transaction in his favour.

As the time went on, more and more people started shouting in top of their voice – some times it’s buyer and in other cases it’s the seller. The new age ‘customer relationship principles’ are yet to present their identity in this small road side market. Slowly the views become a repetition of the earlier ones and slowly moved from there. Life is slowly creeping back to the streets; ladies are buying new flowers (especially the yellow ones) and other things to celebrate the ninth day of Navarathri. Still I am walking with out any idea about the destination.

Sajeev.