By Professor Mohammad Sajjad for TwoCircles.net
The conviction of Lalu Prasad Yadav by the CBI court in some of many cases of the fodder scam, is hardly a news, given the fact that in such cases he has earlier been convicted, has been incarcerated many times, and has also been debarred from contesting elections.
Secondly, when the CBI is investigating and its own court has to deliver a verdict, then it should always be less likely that its verdict will embarrass its own investigation, notwithstanding the theoretical separation of powers.
What is notably newsworthy is the fact that a Brahman predecessor of Lalu, Jagannath Mishra, during whose tenure, the fodder scam actually started, has been acquitted in the same case. The political fallout of this caste-based variation of the verdict is, therefore, more significant than the merit of the case and the verdict. Precisely along these lines, Lalu’s tweets have come out; and this is how other office-bearers of his outfit, RJD, have reacted on social sites.
An irony is worth noting here. Unlike Mishra, Lalu was the one during whose tenure investigation began in Singhbhum (now in Jharkhand) in January 1996, and it went without let or hindrance; the Block Development Officers extended all cooperation, rather than trying to hush these up. This is amply testified by one of the whistle-blower bureaucrats, Amit Khare, in his blog (written retrospectively on 23 December 2017, print.in).
Is Lalu, a disproportionately maligned man?
Just turn the pages of news stories and columns when Mishra was the Bihar chief minister, one will come across a fact that among the masses, he symbolised corruption. Moreover, in post- liberalization era, for the urban middle classes, no issue has been more important than fighting corruption in the government offices. This is also the period (since the 1990s) when the backward castes have risen to power. There was considerably less noise about corruption when a majority of the politicians and bureaucrats who benefited, were from the upper caste, landed families and from the predominantly upper caste, urban middle class.
It is not merely a coincidence that the word, “scam”, appears for the first time in an English dictionary, only in 1992, which is an American slang, meaning “a trick or swindle; a story or rumour”. Thus, till it was an upper-caste monopoly, the word meant only a playful trick. The moment this percolated down to subordinated groups, it acquired the meaning of a massive criminality. Because of this lexical/semantic power-play, the moral outrage varies from class to class, or more aptly to say, in the Indian context, from caste to caste. Why? Because, the historically disadvantaged castes, in their neighbourhoods, have seen how lower officials in various public offices, had generated illicit income, without ever being caught, so long as the offices were outnumbered by upper castes. Nailing the corrupt could become a reality only after the caste-identity of the accused began to change.
Shekhar Gupta’s column (Indian Express, December 24, 2011) demonstrated that “there is a preponderance of the underclass among those charged with corruption, or even targeted in media sting operations”.
Thus, an average upper caste Hindu in India would like to preferably remember Lalu for his corruption, whereas, the underclass will prefer to remember him as a messiah, a protector, and as somebody who helped/enabled them to rise the ladder of power, who changed the social compositions of the structures and processes of power irreversibly. Though, both types of attributes of Lalu are equally true, undeniably. This is certainly not to deny the fact that the Rabri regime did suffer from massive lawlessness, and also, assured with Muslim support (M-Y constitute around 30% of votes in Bihar), Lalu-Rabri era established Yadav hegemony, alienating most other disadvantaged castes. This is how he did away with his electoral invincibility. Otherwise, he may have gone into the annals of history, in much better words.
Karpuri Thakur (1924-88), a Socialist, and coming from less numerous backward caste of barber (naai), was absolutely upright chief minister (1977-79), yet there were disdainful remarks against him by the upper castes in Bihar in the 1970s: Hey Karpuri, kar puri, nahin to dhar chhurhi (Hey Karpuri, fulfil our demands, else, go back to your traditional occupation of holding the barber’s razors). This was the palpable casteist slogan, massively popularised, then.
These are possibly ironical coincidences that, the most upright chief ministers of Bihar were: Abdul Ghafoor (1918-2004), a Muslim, and Karpuri Thakur, a lower OBC (Ati Pichhrha). There were movements and slogans against both. Gai hamari mata hai, Ghafoor us ko khata hai. Yet other upright chief ministers (though with brief stints) of Bihar were: Bhola Paswan Shastri and Ram Sundar Das. Both were Dalits. Unlike Ram Vilas Paswan, arguably the tallest Dalit leader from Bihar in recent times, who, in public perception, is not supposed to be an upright politician. Yet, BJP takes him as its ally quite frequently.
True, such thing cannot be said about Lalu. He and his family did make huge wealth during the period of their stay in power. But that is a reality about many others, who have not been chased and nailed in the manner Lalu has been.
Yet, the justice today has been played up as scales which are skewed in favour of the upper caste. A plethora of cases has been foisted upon Lalu and his family. He will play a victim card to the hilt. His caste vote (around 12% in Bihar) will solidify, and so would other OBCs and deprived folks. The current regime has already thrown instances of institutional subversions, more particularly in desperate bids to win Gujarat Assembly elections. Hence, CBI, judiciary (where caste quota is yet to be implemented), etc., are seen by the vulnerable sections, with a lot of renewed suspicions.
The BJP government of Madhya Pradesh under Shivraj Singh Chauhan is not being asked to quit the office despite massive merit scam, Vyapam, in which too many witnesses have died mysteriously. Despite the PDS scam of Chattisgarh of Rs 36,000 crore, the chief minister Raman Singh has not stepped down from the office. Amit Shah’s son, Jay Shah’s hopping profits within an incredibly short time of BJP coming to power in New Delhi, is not seen as dubious by the votaries of Hindutva. Despite the Srijan Scam (Rs 880 crores), Nitish is not being hounded the way Lalu was hounded.
Nitish will, therefore, appear perfidious, as he took Lalu’s support in 2015, and then ditched him in 2017, which has dented his moral capital. Lalu was in the vanguard of oppositional unity to be built up for the 2019 general elections.
Nailing of Lalu may ring an alarm bell for Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav that the saffron regime will stop at nothing to finish them unless they joined forces. So, Lalu’s incarceration may impart unity-moves to a degree of desperation. It could be an advantage to both the Congress and the RJD. On the national political sphere, Rahul’s challenger, Nitish, has already gone out to the BJP—a good riddance for him; and on the provincial level in Bihar, Tejaswi, is the lone centre of power to contest BJP. One may not rule out, yet again re-union of Kurmi-Yadav alliance in Bihar, as it happened in Gujarat where dominant rival OBCs came together against BJP. It is to be seen: if Tejaswi will rope in leaders from various sub-castes of lower OBCs and Dalits; and upon this will depend his political future in Bihar.
Though, to offset it, the Modi regime too, is contemplating to stitch together a non-Yadav OBC coalition by splitting the OBC quota of 27% into 9% each for three segregated quotas within the OBC. This is a model which the Karpuri government had implemented in Bihar in 1978, by splitting the OBC quota into two layers.
To sum up, notwithstanding the merit of the judgement against Lalu, it is the caste equation (social engineering) which will be played out politically in the elections to come, as much as it has been in past, or even with much greater virulence. This is why the danger of saffron forces playing out communal polarizations, to obfuscate the caste divides and thereby retaining power, will lurk even more from now. That is the biggest worry.
The author is with the Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. He has published two books: Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours (Routledge, 2014) & Contesting Colonialism & Separatism: Muslims of Muzaffarpur since 1857 (Primus, 2014)