The Last Battle for the Class of 1974

 NO NARRATIVE OF THE POLITICS of modern Bihar can stand the socio-political test without naming the JP Movement and its key torchbearers in the state, Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. For 35 years, these two Mandal warriors have dominated the political discourse of the state. As Bihar, the third most populous and politically crucial state in the country after Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Maha­rashtra, stands at the threshold of a new era, witnessing these two power centres of the Mandal movement in their denouement, it is making space for new concerns about development, infrastructure, industry, invest­ments, health and education, good governance, unem­ployment, and outmigration for work.

Lalu Prasad, who left his indelible imprint on Bihar between 1990 and 2005, and Nitish Kumar, chief minister since 2005 and set to face his last attempt at keeping the job, both radically transformed Bihar’s socio-politics. Together, these two leaders irrevocably changed the entrenched political discourse, mainstreaming non-upper caste influence. Caste identity was furthered in tandem with their ascent. Their politics—directly challenging the monolithic, centralised and elitist wielding of power, excluding the voices of the less privileged—led to an af­firmative realignment of social forces and tilted governance in favour of backward castes in Bihar. It played a prominent role in the democratisation of power and policymaking. But it also led to widespread corruption, skewed resource distribution in favour of powerful caste formations, and a lack of development combined with plummeting social indices.

Caste as a key variable in Bihar’s socio-economy is deeply root­ed. “Caste has served since Independence both as an instrument of political democratic India, castes—as a social unit—have always been perceived as a strong vehicle of improving access to power and promotion of interests and it continues to matter. Increased political significance of castes has provided them a greater social hold. Democracy, industrialisation and an equitable economic redistribution have softened their edges but have not eroded their bases. In fact, they have provided an added economic dimension on mobilization and as a constraint on inclusive governance,” wrote Rajkishor in his ‘Understanding the Politics of Bihar’ (Indian History Congress journal, 2016).

However, observers contend that the green shoots of a post- Mandal era have begun emerging even as both Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar walk into the sunset. However, caste, historically a formidable force in Bihar, is unlikely to wither away completely. But dynamic, new and constantly changing realignments among not just castes and sub-castes but also advocacy and voter-inter­est groups (such as youth), with regional, local and hyper-local priorities, will likely shape the political narrative of the state more than ever. This, in turn, is seen as leading to the next level of democratisation of power and resource distribution, prioritising accountability from policymakers, and paving the way to a new era in Bihar’s socio-politics.

A key driver is likely to be the state’s youth. Over 40 per cent of Bihar’s population is under 25, with an average of 20. The lack of quality education and joblessness at home, although far bet­ter today compared to two decades ago, remain big concerns, leading to an estimated five crore Biharis migrating out of the state for employment. The extent of outmigration for work has also meant that Biharis are more aspirational and aware of how governance not mired in mere caste concerns has driven other states way ahead in social indices and overall development, in­cluding industrialisation, investment, infrastructure, health and education—resulting in more equitable gender and caste/ community-neutral economic growth. Slow urbanisation and a high fertility rate have also eaten into Bihar’s development and resource management. Harnessed through precision-targeted policies, this is slowly turning into a promise of a potentially huge demographic dividend.

 THE MANDAL COMMISSION was established in 1979 and implemented in 1990, reserving a 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in govern­ment jobs and educational institutions. It led to the political mobilisation of OBCs, taking social hierarchies head-on to make way for social justice and the parties that advocated it. The 1990s proved to be a watershed for Bihar, bringing back to the mainstream discourse the politics of Bihar’s first backward caste and socialist chief minister, Karpoori Thakur, who imple­mented the Mungeri Lal commission report in 1978, long before the Mandal Commission report became the buzzword for OBC politics. But the Mandal era radically transformed the social al­legiances and political alignments on the ground and put an end to the monopolistic post-Independence, upper caste-driven poli­tics of Congress, leading to the resurgence of powerful regional parties and OBC leaders.

In the decades that followed, both Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, driven by multiple factors including subterranean power tussles, caste struggles, personal ambition and rivalries, as well as the overarching urge to hold on to power, constantly rearranged their allegiances.

In his paper, ‘Towards the Fourth Transition in Bihar’s Politi­cal Process’, Arup Singh argues against oversimplifying the role of caste in Bihar’s politics or viewing the state’s socio-economic and political roadmap solely through the prism of caste. Move­ments for social change in Bihar have endured for longer than popularly perceived and their ‘changing contours’ required a historical narrative as well as an ethnographic analysis. More recently, it has been contextualised as the product of a “state for­mation that produced structures of power and identity within which a caste-based politics democratically captured the state in order to systematically weaken it”. Old accounts of caste in Bihar politics were framed in binaries of social stagnation or economic growth, while newer works juxtapose the categories of democracy and development. In the last decade, land, religion, conflict management, government transfers and Red terror have informed Bihar’s present political pathologies. Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, in this context, are seen as the most significant socio-political influences on modern Bihar.

Bihar’s political process is poised “on the cusp of a major transi­tion: the fourth one in the last hundred years.” Each phase was marked by shifts in dominant ideological formations, political discourse, and changing alignments. The first transition in Bihar’s political process, according to Singh, was in 1947 when the state transitioned from British to Congress rule; the second was after the 1967 election when political developments made it clear that democratisation had deepened and newer strata were emerging as autonomous electoral forces. Congress split and Indira Gandhi adopted a “top down” populist mobilisation strategy, making the state Congress and its leadership irrelevant. The third phase began in 1990 when Bihar transitioned from Congress to non- Congress rule backed by the Mandal coalition.

Congress dominated the politics of Bihar after Indepen­dence, banking on continued support from upper-castes and big landlords. Official positions in the legislative and administra­tive structures were out of access for backward and lower castes between 1947 and 1967. The social churn of the 1960s, influenced by socialist ideologies and agrarian movements, began to change this. With a leading figure like Ram Manohar Lohia proclaiming the backward classes’ rights and mobilising them for political power, change was well underway.

In their paper, ‘Caste and Governance in Bihar Politics; An Evolutionary Analysis of Electoral Trends, Policy outcomes and Socio-Economic Development’, Rajbir Singh Dalal and Utsav Kumar contend that the elections of 1967 marked the beginning of the departure from Congress to more non-Congress coalitions, including socialists, briefly capturing power and showing how caste interests could mobilise for space in an already established power set. The emergence of the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP) and, subsequently, the Janata Dal showcased the phenomenon of backward classes coming together to demand their political rights.

Such political movements laid the ground for the later mass mobilisation of underprivileged castes like those Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar belonged to. Since then, caste-based politics has defined electoral politics in Bihar, with alliances and vote banks dictated by caste identities and aspirations. However, caste as a variable in Bihar’s social, political, and economic movements has a much longer history. The freedom movement, for instance, did not prioritise the oppression of backward and lower castes by the elite. Against this backdrop, the process of backward or low­er-caste empowerment began with the Janeu Andolan which saw the Yadavs and other lower castes Sanskritising themselves through the early 1920s. Violent and non-violent clashes ensued between peasants of the Yadav, Kurmi and Koeri castes and their upper-caste adversaries.

The Janeu Andolan peaked between 1921 and 1925, described as “the first modern milestone on the long road to mobility”. It pro­vided the Yadavs with “a social-cultural legitimacy, which paved a political path”. Yadavs were, then and now, the biggest caste in Bihar, comprising almost 14.7 per cent of the population. They were mostly milk suppliers and cultivators as were the Kurmis and Koeris who were not as populous. The Triveni Sangh was an organisation born of natural progression from the Janeu Andolan on May 30, 1933 at Kargahar village of Shahabad district. It was the first platform where a political ideology was coined for the back­ward classes. The road lead to the New Socialism of Lohia and to Jayaprakash Narayan, both of whom played a crucial role in shaping the politics of Bihar after separating from an indifferent Congress.

THE 1974 JP MOVEMENT decisively turned the politically conscious backward castes, classes and trib­als away from Congress. Almost all later leaders of the 1990s were a product of this movement. Their politi­cal launchpads were the same (JP Movement, Karpoori Thakur, Mandal agitation) but there was a world of difference between the governance strategies of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. Lalu Prasad, in fact, was not the natural choice to head the govern­ment in 1990 and was elected party leader neither by a unanimous majority nor by consensus but only as a compromise candidate. A student leader who had cut his teeth in the JP Movement, Lalu had won elections on his long journey to become leader of the op­position in Bihar in 1989. But when the Janata Dal came to power in the state, his name came up for chief ministership and was suggested by then Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal. But it was not until after the arrest in October of LK Advani in Samastipur during the Rath Yatra that Lalu Prasad became the darling of the secular forces. He also had the numerically dominant Yadav votes, (then around 13 per cent of the population) in his favour. Besides, lower castes and Muslims, who had until then backed Congress, viewed him as their saviour.

That was the cocktail of Lalu Prasad’s success and long tenure. He stole the limelight by projecting himself as a crusader against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The broader coalition that came into being was resentful of the exploitative caste system and his rhetoric drew Muslims in large numbers. For someone from the Yadav clan, Lalu even went to the extent of poking fun at Lord Rama and his followers. His political calculations worked magic, catapulting him to the stature of a national politician.

In the 1990s, Bihar became synonymous with lawlessness and a high crime rate, including murders in the open by the ruling par­ty-sponsored goons like Mohammad Shahabuddin. There were kidnappings for which the ransom deals were decided at the chief minister’s residence, earning the Lalu era the infamous moniker of ‘Jungle Raj’. By then, he was leading the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Lalu was, however, undeniably the man who spearheaded the Mandal juggernaut in Bihar and was responsible for the radi­cal shift in the state’s politics. On the national stage, he became a one-stop shop for the urban power elite to gawp at, cosy up to, and win instant credits for ‘secularism’. The legend of Lalu Prasad as a rustic messiah of the underprivileged and a swash-buckling anti-establishment hero came to be, as one historian put it, “because he emerged at a particular historical conjunction... Even before him, there had been lower or Scheduled Caste CMs, but they had not personified empowerment, barring Karpoori Thakur. Lalu Prasad Yadav, the grassroot Lohiaite, hardened by JP’s Total Revolution, became the prince of social justice and secularism in power.” The exploitative nature of caste predated his reign and was rein forced by Congress that chose to co-opt various sections of society with sops to remain in power and not address the ugly underbelly of caste. Therefore, “Lalu Yadav was a response.”

In 1995, notwithstanding his government’s poor record, Lalu staged the biggest electoral triumph of his career. It was the fear of the old system and feudal caste lords returning to power that forced the backward castes and others to choose him. Although a section of pundits had written him off, he won by a clear margin. Lalu Prasad had also relaxed taxes on toddy and fishing, endearing himself to the poor and ensuring a consolidation of OBC votes. A large number of non-Yadav OBCs had also tagged along under the banner of social justice when Lalu came up with his ‘Bhura baal saaf karo’ slogan (exhorting his followers to finish off the up­per castes politically). In July 1997, Rabri Devi became the first woman chief minister of Bihar after her husband, Lalu Prasad, was forced to resign following the arrest warrant issued against him on corruption charges relating to the fodder scam.

During Lalu Prasad’s time in power, the abnormal became the new normal. There was a constitutional requirement that the As­sembly be convened at least once in six months. So rare was this that once it was convened on a Sunday because those in charge forgot that the deadline was the following day. As chief minister, Lalu Prasad refused to attend his office in the secretariat. Officials would come to his residence for approvals instead, negotiating their way through a bevy of proudly exhibited bovines that roamed the premises of 1, Anne Marg (Rabri Devi had herself brought five acres of land and three cows as part of her marriage dowry). Pending full clearance, consequently, most decisions of the government had a caveat attached, proclaiming a post-facto approval: “Pending approval by the Cabinet.” Newspapers in Patna used to run a story, every now and then, stating that the chief minister was scheduled to travel but would be clearing pending files. His favourite places were National Highway guest houses on the outskirts of Patna and circuit houses in Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur. These travels were by and large made on a chopper, with his Principal Secretary Mukund Prasad in tow, lugging a pile of files. But on arrival at his destination, the mercurial chief minister would change his mind and decide to cook for those accompanying him. Fish and Champaran mutton cooked by Lalu Prasad graced the tables at the guest houses. Jokes and camaraderie overflowed, with the “friendly” media giggling at his every story. The files made their way back to Patna without a single signature.

The blank files were only part of the story. There was a reason why private entrepreneurs and corporate houses were reluctant to set up shop in Bihar. Mithila Motors was an established auto­mobile showroom in Patna. On the eve of his daughter Misa’s marriage, Lalu’s brother-in-law Subhash Yadav “borrowed” the entire inventory of the shop. Most cars at the wedding, conse­quently, were brand-new unregistered vehicles from Mithila Motors. The family liked jewellery from Alankar Jewellers and, naturally, laid claim to that booty and forgot to clear the bill.

In Patna, every shop downed its shutters by sunset. Ordinary people refused to step out at night because the only flourishing industry in the state was kidnapping. Gangs led by Mohammad Shahabuddin and Mohammad Taslimuddin would go on the prowl, followed by ransom calls. After the kidnapping of two fa­mous doctors, RC Ram and Ramesh Chandra, the practice of doctors going on home calls stopped altogether. The deals for the release of the victims were made at the chief minister’s residence at times. Nor were police complaints from ordinary citizens easily enter­tained. Phones routinely were inoperative at police stations for non-payment of dues. Those who still wanted to file a complaint were advised to bring their own paper to file the FIR. Power cuts were constant and the generator business thrived, as did crime. Lalu once quipped: “I’ve heard of football grounds, what are moral grounds?”

Despite his incarceration on the fodder scam charges and other cases, Lalu Prasad clung to power until 2005, with Rabri Devi as his proxy in the chief minister’s seat. By then, Bihar had slid into a kind of ‘Yadav raj’, with Yadavs gaining dispropor­tionate prominence compared with other backward groups. In his paper, historian Rakesh Ankit contends: “The story of Lalu Prasad Yadav then was also his transformation from being ‘the solution’ to becoming the problem, through the 15 years from 1990 to 2005. Since then, ‘just as Indira was not India, so Lalu is not Bihar’. Nitish Kumar’s government ‘expedited the enquiry process into the Bhagalpur riots (1989) and many aggressors convicted [were] Yadavs, which raised uncomfortable questions about Lalu’s famous mantra of the Muslim-Yadav electoral partnership...”

The extremely backward classes (EBCs), who account for close to 30 per cent of Bihar’s population (36.01 per cent as per the 2023 caste survey), also felt betrayed. Similarly, the Mahadalits, the poorest and most marginalised among Dalits, felt stifled under Lalu. Nitish Kumar began to sense an opportunity in those com­munities that felt outraged by the rejection of the Lalu Prasad-led government they had backed wholeheartedly till then.

THE GLOOM AND doom of the Lalu Prasad era changed under Nitish Kumar who has remained chief minister since 2005, barring a short break in 2014-15. In 2005, he became chief minister for the second time as part of the Janata Dal (United)-BJP alliance. Cabinet meetings were regularly held on Thursdays and the secretariat functioned fully. Breaking out of the restrictions of his own community of Kurmis who accounted for less than 3 per cent of Bihar’s 13.07 crore people, Nitish Kumar constantly reinvented himself and the caste alignments he engineered to remain in power. The fact that the caste he belonged to accounted for so little of Bihar’s population meant that Nitish had to constantly design new sup­port groups and issues outside the caste spectrum. Earning kudos as a Bihar chief minister who prioritised development and de-escalated the supremacy of caste, Nitish turned the focus to good governance and earned the moniker of ‘Sushasan Babu’. Roads became motorable, police stations and the police force started working for people rather than for just the chief minister and his family, government schools remained open through the en­tire school year, teachers were paid their salaries regularly, shops remained open longer without fear of extortion or kidnapping, doctors resumed house calls, and women and families went out for night walks. For a people who, for 15 years, lived in terror and despair, even these basics were enough to feel good.

The 2010 election established Nitish Kumar as a clear winner in Bihar and elevated him to the status of a national leader with 115 seats; BJP won close to 90 per cent (91) of the seats it had contested. Cultivating a low personal profile with no ‘First Family’ pretensions and prerogatives, in stark contrast to Lalu’s flamboyance, Nitish was a foil to RJD’s political Goliath. In power, he set about expanding vote bases in heretofore unlikely places in Bihar: he wooed women voters with bicycles and computers, reserved half the seats in the panchayats for them, implemented liquor prohibition with suc­cessful symbolism, and restored women’s dignity while empower­ing them quietly. Ahead of the upcoming elections, his government announced Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) sops to women and 125 units of free power to households. Despite holes in the symbolism, women have largely remained Nitish’s supporters.

In 2013, Nitish broke ties with BJP after Narendra Modi was ap­pointed chairman of the BJP Lok Sabha campaign committee. He quit as chief minister the next year after his party managed only two Lok Sabha seats but joined hands in 2015 with Lalu Prasad and Congress in the Mahagathbandhan to sweep the Assembly polls. Just two years later, he quit the alliance to rejoin hands with BJP in 2017. In 2020, he returned to power as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) but his party got only 43 seats to BJP’s 74. Nitish had hinted that this would be his last election but failed to garner enough support even on that emotional wicket. BJP, which has relied heavily on Nitish to drive its engine in Bihar, had begun coming into its own meantime, stitching together a patchwork of caste and sub-caste federations, fishing for sup­port among EBCs with over 130 caste groups, Kushwahas and non-Yadav OBCs, Nishads and Mallahs, as well as upper castes to reinforce its own vote base, BJP had also successfully wooed Mahadalits, including Musahars, in previous elections, knitting disparate groups into a cohesive whole.

Again, almost like clockwork, Sushasan Babu, who had by then earned the moniker ‘Paltu Chacha’ from his critics, dumped BJP in 2022 and formed a government with the Mahagathbandhan. On the eve of the 2024 General Election, however, Nitish again returned to the BJP-led NDA, lending support to Modi’s third government at the Centre. In his long political innings, Nitish Kumar has been with NDA for 20 years and with the Mahagathbandhan for only four. His confusing switches in allegiance between the two just to remain chief minister created a public profile of a whimsical leader who cannot hold power on his own. Yet, this carefully culti­vated profile—marked by humility, a muted public persona, and caste-neutral policies and politics, while showcasing good gover­nance—has bolstered Nitish Kumar’s reputation for stability in Bihar’s turbulent and often troubling politics.

A big factor in this image is BJP. Unlike Ram Vilas Paswan, whose political journey in Bihar was longer than that of Lalu or Nitish, the chief minister managed to break free from the limita­tions of his community’s spread. Given the caste and ideological flexibility shown by the JD(U) chief, BJP’s association with him has stood the test of longevity, allowing joint grassroots mobili­sation to consolidate vote banks that have typically backed the BJP-JD(U)combine. During the two decades of its alliance with JD(U), BJP either chose or was constrained to make Nitish NDA’s key face in Bihar, even when lending unwavering support and quietly building its own base, especially after the death of its leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, bringing in lesser known but younger and energetic faces.

A geriatric Lalu Prasad, tarred by the fodder scam and other cases of corruption, an abysmal governance record, and absent law and order, has passed the baton to his son Tejashwi Yadav, who has been largely able to project himself as the voice of youth and tap into a new caste-neutral narrative centred on unemployment and education. Yadav Jr, while banking on RJD’s traditional MY vote base, is attempting to expand it for political expediency. The new acronym coined by RJD, MY-BAAP, represents the party’s target voters including Muslim-Yadav, Bahujan (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes), Aghda (forward, or upper castes),Aadi aa­baadi (half the population, or women), and the poor. The hardcore MY vote bank, which Tejashwi is aware has to be widened to se­cure his party a sustainable victory against erosion, constitutes around 31 per cent of the state’s population.

There is hardly a candidate in JD(U) to whom Nitish Kumar’s legacy—marked by longevity and sobriety, eventful in its un­eventfulness—can be convincingly passed to. While women may still be the steadiest and best-cultivated vote bank not based on caste, the JD(U) stalwart does not have age or health on his side. Or even a politically bankable second rung that can hold its own.

The alliance between Nitish’s JD(U) and Modi’s BJP, both at state and Central levels, has worked advantageously for Bihar, ringing in a marked transformation through a slew of economic and social changes in a sustained manner since 2014. BJP’s ac­ceptance of a caste census has likely reinforced OBC support. Compared to the Lalu era, the state has experienced a sea change in the two decades of Nitish Kumar. Over 73.88 lakh farmers in Bihar benefited from the PM-KISAN scheme in FY 2025-26 alone, till August. Over 1.57 crore rural households had tap water con­nections under the Jal Jeevan Mission. Bihar achieved 100 per cent household electrification in November 2018 through the SAUBHAGYA scheme. More than 49 lakh rural houses were sanc­tioned under the PM Awas Yojana–Gramin (PMAY-G), and more than 1.16 crore LPG connections were given under PM Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). The pace of development in the state has gained remarkable momentum.

Earlier, rural Bihar spent more than 50 per cent of its income on food and necessities. For the first time since Independence, ru­ral expenditure on food has now fallen below 50 per cent, reflect­ing rising disposable incomes and improved purchasing power. As of July 2025, over 20 lakh women in the state have achieved the status of Lakhpati Didis, highlighting the success of ongo­ing women empowerment initiatives. Infrastructure develop­ment, especially in rural areas, has ensured since 2014 that the time taken to traverse distances has been reduced to a fraction of what it was in the early 2000s. Over 53,419km of rural roads and 1,153 bridges worth  ₹28,292 crore were constructed in Bihar as of September 2024 under PMGSY, with an additional 6,285km of roads and 194 bridges being upgrading worth Rs 5,229 crore.

Aware of the need to further reinforce the youth and women vote bases and address their core concerns in the poll-bound state, Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Jannayak Karpoori Thakur Skill University recently. This was the start of empower­ment policies totalling about  ₹62,000 crore nationally, targeting youth. Also, the revamped Mukhyamantri Nishchay Svyam Sahayata Bhatta Yojana offers a monthly  ₹1,000 allowance for two years to nearly five lakh graduates, bundled with free skill training. This followed the  ₹7,500 crore first instalment under the Mukhya Mantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, disbursed on September 26 to 75 lakh women for self-employment ventures. Under this, a one-time payout of  ₹10,000 would be disbursed.

Rakesh Ankit argues: “Conflicts have plagued Bihar not so much from economic deprivation, but a deep sense of exclusion and marginality along caste lines, which must be moderated as much by means of a social transformation as by economic develop­ment.” The real question in an emerging new era after Mandal, he says, is “whether social mobility in Bihar, having been expressed through the sphere and language of politics, will ultimately reflect a proper economic dimension—a new ‘social contract’—what {Jeffrey} Witsoe alternatively calls ‘popular sovereignty’: ‘the experi­ence of local power’ and ‘everyday interactions with state institu­tions’ that revolved around ‘dignity’; a democratic demand that ‘verily characterizes India’s postcolonial democracy.”