Thirty-eight months ago, when Nitish Kumar dictated his first Departmental Order (DO) as the Chief Minister of Bihar, it was typed out on a rickety Remington. This was the challenge he faced. It was not just governance Bihar needed — his job was to resurrect the State. Mr Kumar first focused on crime control as a way to reestablish the authority of the state and simultaneously launched a host of social sector programmes that touched the everyday lives of people. The simplicity of the Arms Act (the sworn testimony of a policeman to the use of an unauthorised weapon is enough for conviction) and fast-track courts were used to arrest and try criminals and kidnappers. An auxiliary force of retired Army JCOs and NCOs was created to apprehend them. And no quarter was given if a criminal was an elected servant of the people. Anand Mohan Singh, accused of inciting a mob to kill an IAS officer, was prosecuted despite being a former member of Parliament. Sivan’s sitting MP Shahabuddin is still in jail, convicted of one set of crimes and awaiting trial for others.
Alongside, Bihar launched deep and wide reforms in education and health sectors. Over 100,000 primary school teachers were recruited by the Panchayats. To make village schools effective, Mr Kumar introduced 50 per cent reservation in Panchayats for women (although his party, the Janata Dal United, is opposed to 33 per cent reservation of seats for women in Parliament). His logic was simple: every mother would like to see her child in a functioning school. The results were immediate and gratifying. Pratham, an NGO, finds the dropout rate of primary school children in the state declining from 13.1 per cent in 2005 to 5.7 per cent in 2008. Over the same period, the proportion of girls in the age group of 11 to 14 years and not going to school has dropped from 20.1 per cent to 8.8 per cent. State hospitals were refurbished, linked by a common computer system and pathology services were outsourced, to be paid for by the state government which did pay. Footfalls in government hospitals and dispensaries have increased dramatically and private practice is no longer as lucrative as it used to be.
But buffeted by floods and hamstrung by the absence of infrastructure, there is much Mr Kumar has not been able to do. Although the Bihar Land Reforms Commission has been set up, West Bengal continues to be the only state in east India to have carried out any meaningful land reform and has gained politically by it. The "Common Schools" agenda designed to provide uniformity to government and private sector school education is yet to become a reality. Infrastructure development in Bihar takes on a different meaning because of frequent, unforgiving floods. But the state is gritting its teeth to meet this challenge as well: till recently under liquidation, the Bihar Pul Nirman (bridge building) Corporation has been revived and turned into a running concern. The state government has launched a massive programme to build police stations: large parts of the state had no buildings for the thana, let alone homes for policemen. That Bihar hasn’t seen a single communal riot since the new government took over and that Mr Kumar has won every single election he has faced suggest appreciation of his efforts. But this is a state much more comfortable with sliding down than clawing its way up. The question is, can Nitish Kumar motivate Bihar enough to defy the law of gravity?
