Bihar is possibly the only state in the country where bipolar politics has not taken roots, inspite of one and half decades of Laloo Prasad’s rule. Contrary to the general impression, election for the Bihar Assembly will thus not be the test of incumbency factor alone; it will also be a test for the politics of ‘sunrise’ or ‘sunset’, the former being concerned with the ‘market’ and the latter with the ‘state’. The politics of sunrise specially operates in the developed regions like Maharastra, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Gujrat and Andhra Pradesh where incentive structure had evolved through a less iniquitous land tenurial system. The public investment in the pre-British period was concentrated in the Ryotwari areas, comprising those states, for expanding the land revenue base. In the Permanently settled (Zamindari) areas, generally in the states of the eastern India, fixity of the revenue between the intermediaries and the state, acted as a disincentive for public investment. In any case, the intermediaries there appropriated the surplus created by the tenants, thus forestalling creation of incentive structure and rural entrepreneurs. Even in the post-independence period, a new benchmark of incentive structure could not be created. The freight equalization had favourable consequences for South and Western India, unlike in the eastern India. This freight policy, announced in 1948, infact subsidized the industrialization of India with the coal, iron ore and cement from the mineral rich states. Over the years, not only their own market developed but, with their superior industrial base, they could also substantially capture the consumer markets outside their home state. In the process, they could succeed in integrating its economy fully with the national and partly with the international industrial grid. Therefore, the social agenda there revolved round the promotion and the development of the incentive and the market structure. Consequently, the political competitions there were around implementation of the development programmes and any under-performing leader there got replaced. Thus politics got sutured with the commensurate economic concerns, though it may manifest itself through liberal or subnational or even right wing agenda. When the reform agenda was initiated in the country, the states with developed market structure were structurally more prepared to take up the alternative development path. For the political elites there, national and state concerns converged instead of taking a centrifugal spin. Even when state governments were voted out for pursuing the reform, applecart of that agenda was not essentially affected, because the alternative pole of the bipolar politics there operated in the same ideological constituency. In contrast, the underdeveloped states were not prepared to go out of the ‘state’ centric trajectory, in the absence of a level playing field. The politics there revolved not around ‘growth’ of the market and the economy, but around participation in the state structure, a euphemism for positive discrimination in the different tiers of civil service for the socially marginalized. Since the mammoth edifice of the state is becoming increasingly unsustainable in view of the massive crisis of the public finance, the national elite considers such politics of social justice as ‘sunset’ politics. To them, it has outlived its historic utility and creativity. Any politics which is not wedded to the market promotion is outside the pale of productive discourse. The sunset politics has, however, survived in nearly all the underdeveloped states. This underdevelopment, not the result of quality of regional leadership but essentially a burden of history, is almost certain to continue, until and unless tenurial related inequity is completely banished, releasing social forces that are productive as well. In the Ryotwari states where the incidence of inequality is less, there has in contrast developed a bond of accommodation between the developed and the underdeveloped groups. This has resulted in power-sharing among diverse social groups which in turn has ensured liberal, pluralistic and accommodative approach to governance along with subnational ownership. Whereas market is increasingly replacing the state as the key development agency in the national and international discourse, its resonance is not being heard even in areas which are just outside the urban or the metropolitan enclaves. The share of Bihar in the national market is only 4.8 percent even though it has 8.3 percent of the national population; the grammar of political discourse here is thus very different. The society here is acrimonious and not consensuous. The million mutinies are always taking place around social and economic equity - without entailing accumulation. With the increasing withdrawal of the state, this agenda is being further extended to the private sector. The politics here is completely innocent about the increasing paradigm shift in the national and international economy. This is leading to a situation where two contradictory trends of politics based on varying incentive structures have evolved in India. If the diversity of the politics is not abandoned, this will further accentuate the regional inequality. The mandate of the Planning Commission to bridge the spatial diversity cannot be operational, because the market expects ‘survival of the fittest’. Ironically, the biggest ideological dismantler of the state is heading the biggest planning agency which is supposed to promote the cause of the state and remove regional economic divide. India may witness the ominous possibility of ‘cessation of the successful’ states unburden by history. Even here, history is factored into their favor. For example, establishment of Indian Institute of Science by the Tata’s in twenties and broad banding of telephone system in Karnataka in eighties has ensured that Bangalore leads the software revolution in India. While the macro economy leap frogged in India, there followed increasing public finance crisis. Since eighties, to keep electoral pace or populism, the Congress Party started embracing right wing politics. Later on, the authentic right wing parties stole its thunder and led to its ultimate marginalisation. However, bipolar politics emerged in these states without essentially altering the politics of promotion of incentive structure and the market. Thus, inspite of political differences, there is complete unanimity over the question of development in these states. These development convergence leads to political concurrence also, inspite of deep differences in many matters.

How the states like Bihar, without the muscle of the market or the mineral or the high valued human resources, matter for the national elite? How do they view the forthcoming assembly election here? As long as the parliamentary democracy exists in India, states like Bihar cannot be dispensed totally. It will continue to provide electoral subsidy in the central government formation, in the way freight equalization subsidised India’s industrialization, without Bihar benefiting on either count. Not only Bihar was historically ignored, it was punished from time to time. When a new social segment rose to the helm of political power in Bihar through the existing democratic institutions, it was so unimaginable that it was considered almost a blasphemy. Bihar was unceremoniously bifurcated, without being given financial package. The retarded and the spastic political elite and the (un)intelligentsia of the state did not realize the implication of the division. The 2000 Assembly Election gave defacto seal to the division spelling almost financial doom. Even after acceding to the whim of the national elite, Bihar was discriminated equally by NDA as well as by UPA on this count. Unfortunately, these concerns do not get reflected in the manifestoes or in the discourses of the different political parties that are jockeying for political power in the state. In recent period, specially since the parliamentary election of 2004, ruling elite in Bihar is trying to incorporate or being incorporated by the same social forces with whom it had fought relentless battle in the last one and half decade. In case it happens, what will be its implication in ‘social justice’ constituency, is to be seen in the assembly election. For the Congress, marginalisation of the social justice constituency is the main agenda in Bihar. From the way it allowed the UPA constituency to fall apart in Bihar Assembly Election, it is indicated that it cannot hope for any revival of its fortune in the tri- or quadrupolar politics of today. It can thrive only on the bipolar politics, even if it entails bringing NDA back to power in Bihar. Otherwise, it cannot be a party of reckoning in the next parliamentary election of 2009. Given a choice, BJP will also not like to pursue a different strategy. One may remember here that in the last parliamentary election, Advani exhorted the voters in Haryana to vote for Congress rather for INLD, a regional ruling party. Unlike Maharastra, the Bihar election is not important for the Congress because of its limited market and meagre internal resource base. In the market dynamics, it is not a sunrise state. Because of its small market, Bihar may go out of the cognitive world of the national elites. However, this is the only state in the country where various streams of politics still survive in an authentic manner. In Bihar, bipolar politics of same ideological persuasion has not predominated. Here different ideological concerns are robust and kicking. Will the Congress and the BJP together will be able to ensure the end of ‘sunset’ politics in Bihar, in this election? That would determine the survival or extinction of sunset politics in rest of the country.

Dr. Shaibal Gupta*
Member Secretary,
Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI)
Patna
E-mail : shaibalgupta@yahoo.co.uk