Narendra Modi: The Force of One

 The Magahi paan leaf is exclusive to Bihar’s Magadh region and is considered the king of betel leaves. It got its GI tag in March 2018, along with two other traditional farm products—the Jardalu mango and the Katarni rice— from the state. The Chaurasia community of marginal farmers is its  best known cultivators. It is this shiny green leaf that Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to, in his trademark style, to establish a personal connect with the teeming crowds at his public rally in Nawada, the heart of the Magadh region. “I represent Varanasi, fa­mous for its paan, enriched immeasurably by the famous Magahi paan leaf,” he told the cheering crowd on November 2. It was an instant hit. The people roared in appreciation.

The public rally, just days away from the polling date for the first phase, was crucial at different levels. Most of all, the hold of the Mahagathbandhan in the region that includes Nawada, Arwal, Jehanabad, Aurangabad and Gaya has been strong. Nineteen of the 26 seats in the region were won by the Mahagathbandhan in 2020, with only six seats held by the Na­tional Democratic Alliance (NDA). However, after Modi’s 2024 visit to Nawada, BJP’s Vivek Thakur won the MP’s seat, leading many to conclude that the prime minister’s return to Nawada, based on his popularity, could swing the picture region-wide. As Bihar stood on the cusp of transformation after decades, it was the message of peace, social justice, and development under the baton of NDA that the prime minister came de­termined to drive among voters in the region. Little won­der that this time he was accompanied by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his one-time béte noire Chirag Paswan, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha on stage in a pow­erful show of unity and strength. Since 2014, this was only Modi’s fourth visit to Nawada but the welcome he received from crowds of people, including youth, old and young wom­en, elderly men, even young kids, almost all armed with smart­phones recording his speech nonstop, was overwhelming.

In a region dominated by the concerns of small farmers and livestock owners, Modi pointed out that his government in New Delhi was the first, since Independence, to link them to bank accounts so that they could benefit directly from welfare schemes run by the state. “We put small farmers at the centre of the country’s agriculture policy. Under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, ₹30,000 crore have already been disbursed to you and in Nawada alone, some two lakh small farmers have got ₹650 crore in their bank accounts thus far. The NDA poll manifesto has given ₹6,000 annually and now, the Bihar government will add ₹3,000 more to that. If the RJD and Congress come to power, they will line their own pockets with this money and, instead of raising the status and historical honour of Bihar that birthed the likes of the iconic mathematician Aryabhatta, your state will return to the dark ages.”

Liberally sprinkled with sarcasm, witty anecdotes, sharp barbs and acerbic colloquial metaphors that rocked the very diverse crowd cutting across class, caste, gender and community, Modi maintained, “When there was ‘Jungle Raj’ in Bihar, there were electricity wires everywhere, but no power. People thought these were clotheslines; now, we give you several units of free power. MGB [Maha­gathbandhan] leaders made fun of Chatti Maa but they do not know the power of the sun; we use its power to provide the poor funds up to ₹80,000 per family to mount rooftop solar panels, and you can even sell your extra power to the state.” Directly ad­dressing the thousands of women attend­ing the rally, several of whom had already received ₹10,000 under the Mukhya Mantri Rozgar Yojana, with a promise of another ₹2 lakh in loan to grow a flourishing busi­ness, Modi said, “There were 37,000 kidnap­pings during Jungle Raj and you were too afraid to venture out at night. There was bad governance, bitterness, corruption. Will you let this happen again?”

At another point, the prime minister, urged hundreds of red and saffron gamcha-sporting youth in the gathering to raise their phones and switch on the torch. When the rally grounds were lit up from end-to-end with the glow of cell phone torches, he proclaimed, “When you have such a powerful light in your hands to brighten your future, why would you still need a lantern?”

Modi invoked historical heroes, such as mathematician Aryabhatta and the aspirations that defined Bihar, the new state, under its first Chief Minister ‘Bihar Kesari’ Shri Krishna Sinha (1946-61). Flags and pennants of both the nation and BJP flut­tered in the wind as the crowd roared with appreciation, chant­ing Modi’s name as he proclaimed, “In decades of Jungle Raj and Congress rule at the Centre subsequently, no one addressed the core concerns of the poor and the underprivileged. But Modi has done so; this is true social justice.”

The high-voltage speech and the people power coursing through crowds bursting at the seams of the maidan, jostling to listen to the prime minister, would turn out to be a crucial and deciding factor in the resounding win of NDA at the hustings. It was the stamp of Modi that swayed them, even in erstwhile Mahagathbandhan ‘strongholds’. They believed him when he promised that Bihar would witness the return of industrial de­velopment and factories, jobs and the stemming of outmigration for work, in the near future. Older women at the rally—many of whom had lived through the Jungle Raj era of Lalu Prasad and had grown up with school aid and bicycles, the Panchayat reserva­tions, the liquor ban, the ₹10,000 for the eligible poor women and free power over two decades of the Modi-Nitish Kumar rule—vo­ciferously asserted their faith that the largesse of the state through women-centric policies would be guaran­teed by Modi at the Centre.

By the end of the polls—held around Chhath Puja to accommodate maximum votes from homebound Biharis—their con­fidence in the Modi-Nitish Kumar dynamic showed up clearly at the hustings. A record 71.6 per cent of the women voters exercised their right to vote in comparison to 62.8 per cent of the men voters. This was a stunning 9 per cent gap, even accounting for the Special Intensive Revisions (SIR) deletions. Modi’s message had hit the bull’s-eye—you, the voter, have the power to transform Bihar with your ballot. Use it carefully. The Elec­tion Commission of India (ECI) does not provide data on voting percentages among those in the age-range of 18-30 years but the thumping victory for NDA only proved that the unalloyed message had percolated down decisively to the youth, the unemployed, the students, the first-time voters. According to official ECI data, Bihar had 7.45 crore regis­tered electors this year, comprising 3.93 crore male and 3.51 crore female voters.

Endorsed by Modi, Nitish Kumar’s own initiatives and policies to restore the basics of governance in a state—they had become a byword for anarchy in the 15-year-long tenure of Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi between 1990 and 2005—proved a surefire winner of the ballot over the bullet of the “katta”. With the Modi-Nitish Kumar duo as the face of NDA, development and decisively ending the return of the architects of Jungle Raj, both proved to be major themes that resonated loudly among the 7 crore-plus voters of Bihar to elect NDA to power. Ulti­mately, it overturned the conventional logic that a large turnout of voters at the hustings meant anti-incumbency against the gov­ernment in power. Despite two decades in power, ailing health and a host of other problems, including slow industrialisation, Nitish Kumar, handheld by Modi at the Centre, unleashed a slew of policies, including free foodgrain since Covid, Ayushman Bharat, pucca homes for the poor, and so on, and remained the face of a progressive state.

Bihar witnessed a historic voter turnout. Phase 1 of the polls, according to provisional figures put out by ECI, saw 65.01 per cent of voters exercising their rights, and Phase 2 saw an even higher 67 per cent turnout. Overall, the state recorded a 66.91 per cent turnout that surpasses all previous records since 1951, the year of Bihar’s first Legislative Assembly elections.

The resounding win in Bihar, the one Hindi belt state where BJP and its allies failed to make a telling dent in the Opposition camp thus far, was not a freak development. The plans for a mas­sive offensive were laid months prior to the November poll. From Chhapra to Muzaffarpur to Nawada, Modi addressed 10 rallies in Bihar this election season, supported by his top aide, Home Minister Amit Shah. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also addressed several rallies daily, including standing with the prime minis­ter on every stage throughout the campaign, which began post Deepavali. The visibly celebrated partnership between Modi and Nitish Kumar proved to be a catalyst at the hustings, bolstered by the promise of impending industrial, infrastructural and socio-economic transformation.

Spearheading the campaign blitz of NDA, Modi also called to action Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. In each of his meetings, enthusiastic crowds brimmed over at rally grounds, reinforcing the overarching im­age of the prime minister among ordinary voters as the revered family elder, the guiding voice of reason and action, someone who cares to address the concerns of the underprivileged and marginalised through the worst of times even while building a society that is progressive and development-oriented, the trade­mark of trust.

IT WAS NOT MERELY the free rations to the poor since Co­vid that fuelled the trust and confidence in the man and his brand among the public. It was also not just the fact that the government took care of the needs of migrants travelling back to Bihar during the Chhath Puja and staying back to vote, including arranging for dozens of prepaid special trains back and forth. One estimate suggested that 50 lakh people travelled to Bihar to be part of the only surviving Vedic festival. The ar­rangements were a big improvement over the previous years and bore the hallmark of Modi. Bihar was important for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister and his wife and ex-Chief Minister Rabri Devi herself conducted pujas. But he did nothing close to what Bihar and India witnessed recently on this front.

In a state bordering Bangladesh and Nepal, both nations hav­ing witnessed widespread tumult of late, SIR is a welcome move. This contrasts with the manufactured narrative of “vote chori”, raised by Congress vociferously, that failed to click among ordi­nary voters. With the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leadership itself battling the powerful Jungle Raj charge of NDA led by the prime minister, Rahul Gandhi’s story did not find any takers. Again, take Operation Sindoor. Modi’s word on the three-day conflict successfully teaching Pakistan a lesson is trusted implicitly, de­spite the issue being hotly debated in every mohalla and nukkad. An acutely politically aware citizenry in the state may not have easy access to televised expert opinions on the sensitive issue, but that has not diminished its awareness of the prowess of the Indian Air Force, the fourth-largest in the world by personnel and aircraft.

However, the biggest challenge in terms of campaign mes­saging for the prime minister and NDA at the regional and local level was to effectively revive and translate the story of the Lalu Prasad-ruled Jungle Raj on the ground, positing it dia­metrically next to the powerful promise of a developed Bihar under NDA, fuelled by good governance. Making the challenge even tougher among the youth was the fact that those in the 18-30 year range were too young or had barely witnessed the excesses of the era of Yadav predominance in the socio-politics of the state. In fact, they had little to compare the government of Nitish Kumar with, unless they compared it to the rapid de­velopmental progress made by other states they migrated for work to, year after year. There was huge intrinsic risk in the NDA narrative that the Jungle Raj trope would fail to resonate among the youth sufficiently. But Modi successfully used RJD’s Bhojpuri campaign songs to revive memories of the dark ages headed by Lalu Prasad. He warned voters at one of his rallies: “Al­ready, the Congress and RJD leaders and supporters have begun to speak openly and brazenly of tharra, katta, dunaali, and so on, threatening the return of abductions and kidnappings. They are campaigning on this, set to beats and music. Every Bihari voter needs to be cautious.”

Far from being just simple jingles and campaign music, these folk-type Bhojpuri songs hold out veiled threats of the return of a strategy from the past when the rule of law was extinct and the law of the jungle reigned supreme through Bihar. Political analysts contend that they are designed to instil fear and intimi­dation, to “demoralise rivals and systematically foster a culture of dominance and superiority.” One such ditty that is popular among the RJD’s support base brazenly declares: “Let the broth­er/ come to power/we’ll hold a gun to your head/separate you from your mother.”

Another track, explicitly glorifying caste supremacy and boasting of shooting a political rival, threatens, “Six bullets to his chest/this is the power/of the Ahir”, and “Only Ahirs have ruled here/Only Ahir can rule here.” Yet another ditty warns rivals: “I will have you bow at my feet/We Ahirs will rise to power.” Many believe such content cross a critical line, moving beyond mere political campaigning into the territory of normalising criminal acts. Most echo feudal worldviews of the past. At some RJD ral­lies, reportedly, a Bhojpuri song openly glorifies muscle power with the line: “RJD Sarkar Banto Yadav Rangdar Banto (When RJD government is formed, Yadavs will assert their dominance).” The term “Rangdar” often carries the connotation of dominance achieved through extortion and muscle power.

Modi’s double-engine guarantee of a better Bihar has now decisively flipped the direction of that story and those songs.