The historical and contemporary significance of Bihar, which goes to the polls soon, is undeniable. Contemporary issues, more often than not, dominate electoral discussions. The dire straits of Bihar’s economy are nearly always discussed, and understandably so. But in the process we often forget some of the resplendent aspects of Bihar’s past. It may be worthwhile to look at Bihar’s history, however briefly.
Perhaps the best known part of Bihar’s history is that Buddha received enlightenment in Bodh Gaya in the 5th century BCE. Buddhism spread to several parts of Asia—China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka—becoming in effect a world religion. Its reach in India though became increasingly smaller over time.
Two other historical features are also worth mentioning. In Western discourse, the Greek city state of Athens is viewed as the birthplace of democracy. Analysts of democracy, who cast their net wider, contend something different. In his 2020 book, The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today, political scientist David Stasavage describes the “Republics of Ancient India” as the earliest examples of democracy, along with those in ancient Greece and Mesopotamia. These early republics were the so-called sanghas of Bihar. There is considerable truth in the claim that Bihar is a mother of democracy. This claim is sometimes quite vociferously made, as it was during the Congress’ Vote Adhikar Yatra in August.
Second, though Bihar’s per capita income as a state is among the lowest in India today and is often a topic of discussion, that appears not to have been true in ancient times. Poor kingdoms or poor republics don‘t produce world-famous universities. In the 5th century CE, the Gupta Empire founded Nalanda University in Bihar, more than 500 years before Oxford as well as before the birth of Europe’s oldest university in Italy’s Bologna. It is not a historical achievement to be taken lightly.
As for Bihar’s modern history, at least four features are noteworthy. Two of them have great contemporary relevance, which for that reason will be discussed at greater length below.
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Satyagraha to Mandal
But prior to that, let us note that before his nationwide civil disobedience movements shook the British, Gandhi first experimented with a small-scale satyagraha—very much like his South African agitations—in Champaran, Bihar in 1917. Bihar thus can legitimately be viewed as the birthplace of Gandhian satyagraha in India. Kheda in Gujarat came later.
Moreover, Jayaprakash Narayan, a significant figure of India’s modern history, was born in Bihar. In the early 1970s, he led a powerful movement against Indira Gandhi’s rule. And in 1977, when the Emergency ended with her defeat, he was also critical to the formation of the first ever non-Congress government in Delhi. Because of internal contradictions, that government did not last long, but it did enhance India’s democratic credentials and vitality.
Let us finally turn to two other features of modern Bihar, which are intimately connected to these elections.
It is not often noted that in the Hindi-speaking North, Bihar is the only state where the BJP has not come to power on its own. In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana, BJP’s Hindu nationalism eventually overwhelmed the caste politics of Mandal. But in Bihar, lower caste politics is so deeply ingrained that Hindu nationalism has thus far only been able to forge a partnership with it. Of course, the BJP would eventually like to be the sole ruling party of Bihar. But that may not happen any time soon, and in all probability, not after these elections.
Why is that so?
Historically, of course, Mandal-style politics, seeking empowerment of the lower castes, was born in South India, especially in the old Presidency of Madras, as early as the late 1910s. But in North India, such politics took another five or six decades to emerge. And its birthplace was Bihar.
In Bihar, Karpoori Thakur led Mandal politics. In 1978, as chief minister, he adopted an affirmative action programme for the OBCs, over and above the reservations for SCs and STs. It was called the 26 per cent reservation model for government jobs. It was mostly, though not wholly, aimed at uplifting the OBCs through job quotas.
Karpoori Thakur is viewed as the mentor of both Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, who paradoxically became the arch competitors for power in Bihar. In other words, Thakur’s politics continued well beyond his terms as chief minister. Rather, under the rule of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, a period that covers three and a half decades, it got institutionalised.
That is why, while the BJP may have broken the hold of Mandal politics in UP, it has not been able to do so in Bihar. Indeed, the Modi government’s posthumous Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur, given in January 2024, was an attempt to develop a partnership with Mandal politics. It was partly aimed at cementing an alliance with Nitish Kumar, and partly to show that the BJP, far from being an upper caste party, also cared for the OBCs.
How much progress in these elections will the BJP make towards achieving a UP-style outcome in Bihar, aimed at a full majority in the state assembly? The results will be watched closely.
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Democratic backsliding
Finally, there is the vital new question of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Bihar is the first state where the Election Commission (EC) has attempted to “cleanse” electoral rolls. It is hard to disagree with the central claim of the EC and the central government—that only citizens have the right to vote in a democracy. But as I’ve written in ThePrint earlier, the contentious issue is the profoundly problematic implementation of a defensible principle.
Essentially, SIR has become a project of disenfranchisement, which seeks to eliminate, or severely abridge, the voting rights of those communities that are likely to vote against the incumbents. The Supreme Court’s orders have partially addressed the problem of disenfranchisement, but large numbers of voters remain excluded. The EC wishes to extend the idea of SIR to many other states after Bihar.
This development directly corresponds to the fast burgeoning literature on democratic backsliding worldwide. Typically, democratic backsliding begins with the executive seeking to curtail the power and autonomy of independent institutions—the courts, the election commissions, the intelligence agencies, the tax authorities, the central banks, the media, the universities. In a democracy, these are not supposed to be partisan institutions, whose job is to enable the unchecked spread of executive power. Rather, in various institutionally appropriate ways, their primary responsibility is to constrain executive overreach. They are “neutral referees”.
We also know that after this initial institutional push, backsliding normally concentrates on elections. By enacting rules and laws about citizenship and voting rights, backsliding seeks to tilt the electoral field in favor of the incumbent. India is going through this latter phase of backsliding now.
But the research also points to how backsliding can be reversed. In a heavily empirically-researched 2022 book, Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies Against the Erosion of Democracy, political scientist Laura Gamboa shows that a three-fold strategy has worked best, as for example in Poland (and later in Brazil as well). When the opposition uses (1) non-violent protests, (2) litigation through the courts, and (3) electioneering to mount a struggle, the chances of restoring democratic vitality are greater than they would be otherwise.
Bihar’s elections, therefore, pose another central question for the further evolution of Indian democracy. Will they deepen democratic backsliding, or check the downward slide?
Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)