Behind Nitish Kumar's triumph
Editoria, The Hindu, 26th Nov. 2005

From Chief-Minister-in-waiting to Chief Minister, it has been a long
roller-coaster ride of despair and hope for Nitish Kumar, once bosom
pal and now arch rival of the strongman of Bihar, Lalu Prasad. The
Nitish-Lalu pair burst on to the political scene together. One became
a Chief Minister, a real political character; the other missed his
chance once too often. Coming from backward caste origins, both spoke
the language of Mandal. But they were strikingly different: one loud,
charismatic, and proudly rustic, and the other soft-spoken,
uncharismatic, and consciously understated. Over the next decade and
more, Mr. Prasad emerged as India's most enduring symbol of secularism
and social justice. At a superficial level, Laluspeak was the engaging
banter that, by turns, fascinated and exasperated the world. But to
Mr. Prasad's loyal constituency, this was the political idiom of a
new, awakened era. So overpowering was the Lalu phenomenon that a
falling out of friends became inevitable. Unable to strike out on his
own and dogged by an identity crisis, Mr. Kumar chose to hitch his
wagon to the Bharatiya Janata Party. This was a watershed in Indian
politics: it marked the beginning of the legitimisation of Hindutva
and the BJP brand of sectarian politics. The discomfort was evident in
the early years, and indeed Mr. Kumar would describe the alliance as a
marriage of convenience. But the bond proved viable and productive.
Mr. Kumar's Samata Party mutated, evolved, and finally merged with the
Janata Dal(United).

The Nitish-BJP alliance frequently came under strain. Pundits
speculated a reunion between Mr. Prasad and Mr. Kumar. Yet Mr. Kumar
stayed with the BJP — through the many Ayodhya programmes and the
anti-Muslim Gujarat pogrom. While party colleague George Fernandes
thought nothing of defending the indefensible, Mr. Kumar rarely struck
a politically incorrect note. He threatened the BJP when Hindutva
reared its head; he defended Lal Krishna Advani on the
Jinnah-appreciation issue that earned him the wrath of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh; he even took care to appear Muslim-friendly. Thanks
to this adroit tightrope walk plus a lot of hard work on the ground,
Mr. Kumar succeeded in shifting the focus of the discourse from
Hindutva to development. The strategy paid off: the emphasis on
development blurred the dividing line between the pro- and anti-Lalu
forces. For far too long, Mr. Prasad spoke of social justice without
bridging the gap between word and deed. He would tell his people he
had given them swar (voice) and one day he would give them swarg
(heaven). The wait proved unending. Mr. Kumar snatched his victory
from a regime that, in the public perception, came to symbolise
anarchy and was anti-development. As the new Chief Minister savours
his triumph, he will surely be conscious of the looming presence of a
BJP increasingly driven by the RSS. The party has already had its way
on the appointment of a Deputy Chief Minister.