From IAS officer associations to Dalit organisations, including those abroad such as Global Ambedkarites, have taken strong objection to the release of Bihar’s mafia-politician Anand Mohan Singh, who was convicted for the 1994 murder of Dalit IAS officer and then-Gopalganj District Magistrate, G Krishnaiah. Mohan’s release could potentially dent the public image of Bihar Mahagathbandhan parties on the issue of social justice, and hamper their campaign to save democracy and the constitution.
Why then would the JD(U)-RJD) Bihar government take such a decision and its coalition partners — Congress, HAM, CPI, CPI(M), and CPI (ML)—agree to it? Let’s decode this puzzle by examining the social and political messages behind the Bihar government’s decision to release Anand Mohan Singh, who belongs to the Rajput community.
Search for new caste coalition
The government’s decision wasn’t accidental—it had long been planning behind the scenes to release the convicted killer. In a video released by Bihar-based Dalit journalist Ved Prakash on 16 April 2022, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar can be seen pacifying supporters of Mohan in a rally by telling them to ask the gangster’s wife (Lovely Anand) about the state government’s efforts for his release.
There seems to be a well-considered plan in place that has taken into account the potential pros and cons of this decision. CM Kumar and his administration must have anticipated possible public outrage, especially from the Dalit community. But it didn’t worry them. The question that arrises is why?
As per reports, it is likely that Mohan has been released to consolidate Bihar’s 5.2 per cent of Rajput voters who are decisive in eight Lok Sabha constituencies—Maharajganj, Aurangabad, East Champaran, Vaishali, Sheohar, Baksar, Ara, and Banka.
The RJD-JDU alliance desperately needs the support of Rajput voters because the BJP is rumoured to induct Chirag Paswan into the union council of ministers, which could shift Dalit voters towards the BJP.
To overcome this fear, the RJD-JDU alliance has gone looking for new social coalitions — of Yadav-Kurmi-Muslim-Rajput. Except Muslims, all these communities enjoy similar social status. Their tactical alliance had overthrown Congress governments in several states before Mandal and Mandir politics began. The most prominent example of this could be AJGAR (Ahir-Jat-Gurjar-Rajput) mobilisation of Charan Singh, which led to the defeat of Congress in Uttar Pradesh in the 1967 election.
The Mandal and Mandir politics broke this alliance, but these parties seem to be seriously working on a coalition again. To do so, a new slogan of Dahi-Chuda (curd and puffed rice) has been coined in Bihar. Dahi represents Yadavs and Chuda represents Rajputs.
Since the voting behaviour of Muslims is primarily guided by the consideration of defeating the BJP candidates rather than their material advancement, these parties only need to materially empower Yadavs, Kurmis, and Rajputs. Yadavs and Kurmis are already with the RJD and JDU, so they only need to mobilise Rajputs.
The alliance could have mobilised Rajput voters by elevating some other leader from the community but didn’t because of two possible reasons. First, with the 2024 Lok Sabha election fast approaching, there isn’t enough time to foreground a new leader who can quickly develop rank and profile within the community.
Second, in the 1980s, Anand Mohan was considered to be a leader of equal status to Lalu Prasad Yadav. I have been told that both were supposed to be arch-rivals when the former used to declare that he would overthrow the latter. Lalu Prasad used to reply in a sarcastic tone, “Main gajar-mooli nahu hun jise jo chahega ukhad fekhega. (I am not a carrot or radish that anyone can uproot me).” So, a section of the Rajput community might still fantasise about Mohan being their stalwart leader, and the alliance wants to materialise this fantasy.
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Power without empowerment
The financial situation of Bihar has been precarious for decades, and parties have been demanding special central assistance to overcome this. Nevertheless, the situation hasn’t improved. Meanwhile, the RJD has made untenable promises during the election campaign, such as providing 10 lakh government jobs. Until now, only two lakh teaching posts have been advertised, and even that is caught up in controversy.
I have been told that a reputed OBC intellectual from South India has approached the Bihar government with a proposal to start English classes for backward caste students. Senior ministers allegedly refused to accept the proposal because of lack of funds.
Similarly, a section of Delhi-based Bihari students by Piyush Anand who also has an admission offer to pursue LLM in SOAS, approached the state’s Education Minister Chandra Shekhar and the state’s deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav to start fellowships for students to study abroad. The campaign was also launched on social media. Neighbouring states have already launched this scheme, but the Bihar minister has refused to do so. However, at an annual function of Patna Women’s College in February, Tejashwi Yadav announced that the government will send top 100 university students from Bihar to study abroad. news has come out recently that the government is considering providing a financial loan for studying abroad. This further substantiates that the state lacks funds to materially empower its core support groups.
When the Bihar government cannot empower its core constituents materially, it can make them realise the power they command and also prevent the growth of marginal communities while discouraging law enforcement agencies from taking reasonable action when members of the core support groups do something wrong. Perhaps this explains why law and order deteriorated under the rule of OBC leaders such as Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar and Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh.
The decision to release Anand Mohan needs to be seen as a signal to the police and local authorities to refrain from taking strict action against petty criminals belonging to certain castes, as the government is overall lenient towards gangsters from these communities. This move may also be seen as an attempt to encourage the core support groups of the RJD and JDU — Yadavs and Kurmis — to develop better relationships with Rajputs, which may not have been the case previously.
Also read: Nitish Kumar govt is anti-Dalit as it released Anand Mohan from jail: Ramdas Athawale
Anti-Dalit measures
Besides giving free hand to its core support base, the RJD-JDU government seems to have adopted a series of anti-Dalit measures to prevent the material advancement of marginalised groups. The most notorious among these is the termination of Post-Matric Scholarship for SC/ST students on the pretext of lack of funds. This scholarship has provided avenues for Dalit students to secure upward mobility — even though it only means mobility from agricultural labourers to rural or urban labourers.
Freedom of Dalits has challenged the rural hierarchy of agricultural castes. And the dominant castes often resort to violent means to reverse this process. When leaders from these ‘upper caste’ communities assume political power and form a government, they take policy measures to disempower Dalits. Such moves give them psychological satisfaction that some community is below them.
And so, the Bihar government’s strategic move to release mafia-politician Anand Mohan Singh is guided by its political calculation to form a new social coalition of Yadav-Kurmi-Muslim-Rajput voters. But the most marginalised in this coalition seem to hardly have any space. And political parties like RJD-JDU will keep resorting to such moves until they evolve a cogent economic policy of development.
Arvind Kumar, PhD Scholar at Department of Politics, IRs and Philosophy; and Visiting Tutor at Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London. Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy, United Kingdom.