Bihar Elections:The state is the loser in the caste vs religion contest

Mayank Mishra explains how the debate on development has been sacrificed as political parties polarise the voters on caste and religious lines

It was supposed to be a contest between two models of development. What we saw instead was a tussle between cow and all that she represents on one hand and agda-pichara (backward-forward) on the other. The electoral contest has been reduced to one set of primordial loyalty vs another.

In the last few days, Biharis have been bombarded with advertisements on the importance of cow, on how the state has been soft on terror with a view to garner votes of a particular community and on how there is a move to give reservation to members of a particular religious community at the expense of others.

The rival alliance has countered these advertisements with arguments articulated in public speeches that are nothing but casteist. I saw one rally where most of the speakers would begin their speeches by exhorting their fellow caste members to vote for an alliance that takes care of their interests.

This is happening in a state where development is supposed to have mattered in elections not so long ago. And it is happening in a state that needs to scale up the development ladder more than most states.

It does not matter to the claimants of power in Bihar that the state capital is bursting at its seams. That another important town of Siwan has become inhospitable. That you will be greeted with massive traffic jams if you try to enter most towns. We encountered one while entering Motihari, the headquarters of East Champaran district and home to Mahatma Gandhi’s first Satyagraha, in the evening. There is no drainage system in most parts of Purnea, one of the important towns of north east Bihar.

Bihar’s urban centres are in shambles. And it has happened when the level of urbanisation is dismally low at just 11 per cent. Imagine the plight of existing urban centres if the urbanisation picks up steam in next few years. But who has the time to discuss this?

We saw schools, even the one established by the Mahatma some 98 years ago, where teacher-student ratio stands at a dismal 1:100. The menu of mid-day meal scheme includes just khichdi-chokha.  The public transport system is non-existent and the cost of private transport for hire is exorbitantly high. Everybody wants a decent job. But where are the skill enhancement centres? The farm productivity has plateaued amidst the talk of a second green revolution of the east. Does that figure in the to-do list of any alliance? And what is worse, the people of the state seem to have forgotten these pressing issues.

Isn’t the festival of democracy that elections are a time to discuss important issues and seek accountability from the elected representatives? What we heard and saw instead was rumours and nothing else--the rumour of increasing tension between communities, the rumour of backward consolidation etc.

Even as the farcical debate is going on accompanied by naked display of money power, I could clearly sense people’s fatigue with the way democracy is playing out. What is worrying though is that one sane voice of an elderly gentleman in Vaishali district saying “ban cow slaughter if it brings development but don’t make it an election issue” is getting drowned in the midst of scores of other voices openly flaunting primordial loyalties.