Bollywood, Bihar elections and messages

Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, in a recent chat show with Shekhar Gupta, made an interesting observation about films as products, as commodities. He said that the ordinary utility items or commodities could be repetitive and that might become its USPs, but films have to be different and innovative every time, in order to command larger viewership and fandom.

The NDA alliance and its Bihar election campaign was like a Bollywood product, both in scale and grandiose, which attempted to mimic itself, of its 2014 performance and in the process failed miserably. There was enough dialogue delivery, the campaign had an impressive star cast, army of workers, lots of pomp and show but it lacked vernacular sensibility of people and the region. More significantly it took the "local" for granted.

Much before the verdict came, the reports of massive woman voters' turn out, especially in the rural Bihar, had dropped enough hints about the trend and the tilt. This should have alerted the exit poll experts who played either diplomatic or unduly enthusiastic in their assessment and invited huge embarrassment for themselves in the first few hours of the poll result day. Given that the upper strata do not quite like the idea of their women being seen in public, the murmur from the ground was unequivocal.

Lalu Yadav's old investment in making the backward communities aware of their rights and identities (and sadly just that) found Nitish's cycle of development a handy and ready vehicle to reach the election booths in large numbers. While the NDA depended too much on calculator, arithmetic, spin doctors and air dropped ''2014 experts'', the MGBN depended largely on its years of experience in local politics, retained its earthy humour and some innovative local rustic campaigning alongside a hired group of young professionals to carry out their social media campaign. That how distant and delusioned the strategist were in the NDA is clear from the way they looked and worked with the data on various backward caste communities in Bihar. To get the Mahadalit votes, they lured Manjhi; to add the Paswan vote, they had Ramvilas Paswan himself and to cut in to Kurmi-Kuswaha votes of Nitish they had an Upendra Kushwaha. While the NDA stitched theses patches together, they still could not get the right blanket. For the patches had only colour but no real stichable fabric, they were at best good dummy representatives of their communities with just some, that too "perceived" base.

In contrast MGBN partners appeared more organically interlocked and in perfect fit, with each segment being represented by the best of the variety, the original ones. In other words NDA may have had many Yadavas in their side but they could not simply add up to the persona of one Lalu Yadav. Same goes for the other communities. Nitish's clean, humble and Sushashan Babu image provided that perfect fevicol to get these overtly disparate looking and even opposed groups fall in to a perfect harmony where the strategy on the ground worked exactly the way they were perhaps planned. While Nitish kept quiet most of the time, Lalu, with not much to lose by way of reputation, not just took on the loose cannons of the NDA but also provoked them sufficiently to climb down the bar.

This, to my mind, was the single most decisive strategy of the MGBN, which not only created a semblance of fight, a spectacle of real contest between the equals (though in reality unequal) but also made Lalu first prominently relevant and eventually the best performer in the election. Nitish's humility and pro-development image proved to be a formidable argument to counter Lalu's Jungle raj legacy and its associated fear. Interestingly while Lalu fired on all cylinders, his sons were politeness personified. In fact when the opposition mocked at one of them to be an idiot who did not know how many zeroes were there in Rs 1 lakh, the affable young man actually counted the number of zero to a reporter.

The messages on the ground, coming out of this nasty verbal duel, were received differently by the community at large. As a proverbial saying in the countryside goes one should never mess up with one's Jar (Cattle), Joru (Women) and Jameen (Land). They are most emotive subjects. The opposition's attack on Lalu's daughter, family and of courses his supposedly irreverential reference to beef eating completely backfired. Lalu proudly belongs to a caste group which has traditionally been buffalo/cow lovers and nurturer. Engaging with Lalu on animal husbandry is like engaging with Narayana Moorthy on software engineering. The opposition made a fool of themselves by taking on Lalu on this front. More belligerent and below the belt opposition became against Lalu, brighter became the prospect for him in the contest and in turn for the MGBN.

There have been a lot of speculations as well as apprehensions about Lalu's phenomenal show in the election. Many commentators are calling it a casteist verdict which will take Bihar back to Jungle Raj. I disagree on the caste angle and have reasons (rather, a gut feeling) to believe that this is a reincarnation of sort for Lalu Yadav. In the joint press conference on 8th November, post the verdict, at Nitish's residence, Lalu was clearly not his old flamboyant self. Those of us who have been witness to his trade mark celebrations in his hey days, like Kurta phaad holi and rustic Launda dance; Lalu was most polite by his standards. He still made some little noises (dariye nahi, he said to those upper caste voters who voted for the NDA), but that is his USP and it will take some time before he learns the diplomacy of modern day politics. He is shrewd enough to know that this is the best possible scenario for him: to get his sons nurtured under the tutelage of Nitish Kumar, a seasoned politician and strategist, and also simultaneously mend his ways to get rid of the obstinate and pernicious Jungle raj tag around his neck.

In the same press conference, after Nitish first addressed the press, Lalu took over the mike and almost concluded it without realizing the other arm of the MGBN, the Congress Party, was as much there. Nitish was quick to intervene and hand over the mike to a reluctant and shy Congress spokesperson. The moment was telling. The veteran Nitish knows the worth of a partner, with no less than 27 seats in the Vidhan Sabha, in this age of coalition and political realignment. Lalu too knows he has just about less than a dozen more seats than the JD (U) but hardly anyone to collaborate with in the prevailing context. Hence the arrangement seems nicely balanced. In a crisis situation, Nitish perhaps will have many little boats to sail through, Lalu, I am afraid, has just this one to either sail or sink.

The Bihar election tells us that the politics in India is an art form and still not an enterprise in management. More than the arm chair, NSSO- type analysts; it requires a deft decoder of anecdotes and folk narratives to read the pulse of the people on the ground. So a piece of advice to the managers of various political parties- have as many number crunchers and math wizards as you wish in your bandwagon but do not ignore a local Sociologist when you go in to the fray next time.

If the depth of democracy can be gauged by the supreme ease with which transition of power happens and obedient acceptance of the people's verdict by the mighty and powerful but on the losing side, these elections should make us proud of our democracy. As for Bihar, much will depend on how Nitish Kumar reconciles with his national aspiration while sticking to his local development agenda and how much Lalu Yadav manages to distance himself from his past and curb his natural instinct of one-upmanship.