With a ration card in the pocket of his kurta, Balram Saday was about to step out to pick up the family's monthly supplies of subsidised grain. His children were out at school. His wife and sister-in-law were home – the paddy had been watered recently and there was no work in the fields. Walking into the courtyard of the family's modest brick home in the village of Mahisham in Madhubani district in North Bihar, I asked: Whom were they voting for?
"Abhi out nahi hua hai, sir (It's not been decided yet, Sir)," said Balram, his face creased with a frown.
The Sadays are from the Musahar community that came into national prominence last year when Jitan Ram Manjhi, an MLA from the community, became the chief minister of Bihar. Manjhi was handpicked by Nitish Kumar, the leader of the Janata Dal (United), ostensibly to cement his reputation among the Musahars and the other 20-odd castes that his government has categorised as Mahadalits.
Most assumed Manjhi would be a puppet leader but within nine months, he rebelled. Resigning from the JD (U), he went on to form his own party, the Hindustani Awam Morcha, which is now contesting the assembly elections in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP believes Manjhi's presence as an ally will help it secure the votes of the Mahadalits.
But the Sadays were dismissive of such claims. Waving her hand, Balram's sister-in-law Kamleshwari said, "Manjhi-Fanjhi kuch nahi (Manjhi is nothing)."
"We will vote for the person who has given us suvidha (services)," said Balram. Ending the ambiguity, he named Kumar, and said: "Nitish ji has done a lot of work. We are getting anaj (grain) every month. Our children are getting poshak, khichadi and cycle (uniforms, meals and bicycles). A Tola Sevak (government-appointed community worker) takes them to school. We also got a free radio."
"And there is electricity," said Kamleshwari. "Upar dekhiye. Look up please."
A solitary bulb shone brightly on the edge of the courtyard.
Power push
Bihar is India’s darkest state, if per capita power consumption is the measure.
Half-way into his second term, on Independence Day in 2012, Nitish Kumar announced that he would not seek votes in 2015 if his government failed to improve the power situation in Bihar. If building roads and bridges was the focus of his first term, rural electrification was the ambitious goal he set for the second.
Data from the Central Electricity Commission shows Bihar has made some headway: by May 31, 2015, 95.5% of the villages in the state had been electrified under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, the central government-funded scheme that provides free electricity connections to households Below the Poverty Line. This is marginally lower than the national average of 96.7% village electrification.
But there's a catch: lighting up villages is not the same as lighting up homes. Under the RGGVY scheme, if 10% of households get power connections, a village is deemed electrified.
In the populous villages of Bihar, this has been a recipe for chaos. As transformers were installed in villages, those who were not given power connections hooked up unofficially. Unable to handle the load, the transformers burnt out. The state government asked the Centre for funds to replace them. When the money did not come, it dipped into its own coffers. So keen was Nitish Kumar to fulfil his promise, he moved Pratyaya Amrit, the secretary who had overseen the transformation of the state's roads, to the energy department in 2014. “In 45 days this year, we have replaced 11,000 transformers,” said Amrit, who is the Energy Secretary as well as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited.
Seated in a plush office in Patna, he reeled statistics to show the progress Bihar had made in the power sector. "From 70 kWh in 2005, the per capita power consumption in Bihar went up to 128 kWH in 2012, and we have further raised it to 203 kWH in 2015," he said. “This is modest compared to the rest of India but it is the highest jump in the eastern region."
Private supply
But not everyone is impressed.
In Mahisham village, the Sadays are grateful for their free power connection – even though it supplies just 60 Watts, which can at best light up a bulb and charge a mobile phone.
In the Brahmin tola of the village, however, there were loud complaints that the electrification was merely cosmetic."Dhange ki tarah tang diya hai (The wire is no better than a thread)," said Jay Kumar Jha, a middle-aged man, who sat in the verandah of a large house. The connections installed in his home at a cost of Rs 875 could supply up to 2,000 MW, which can power fans in addition to lighting up bulbs. But the power was available only for a couple of hours at best.
The erratic supply has created space for a flourishing private business – about half a dozen bijli walas in the village have set up large kerosene-fuelled generator sets that supply low-voltage power to hundreds of consumers for four hours in the evening. The voltage is just enough to light up one bulb between 6 pm and 10 pm. But the supply is reliable.
The villagers can pay the private bijli wala in kind – by passing on their quota of free kerosene received under the government’s public distribution system – or in cash, which comes to about Rs 80-Rs 100 per month. Saroj Kumar Jha, a dealer under the public distribution system, said he paid Lalu Ansari, one of the power suppliers, Rs 1,000 for 12 bulbs.
Jha declined to comment on the elections, citing his job as a PDS dealer, but the others in the Brahmin tola minced no words: They would not be voting for Nitish Kumar.
Support despite grievance
A little ahead was the Muslim quarter of the village. Along with the Brahmins, the village is dominated by Muslim landlords. Both Brahmin and Muslim zamindars have similar status and wealth. They also have similar complaints to make about the power supply.
Mohammad Salauddin had spent the day in the local electricity board office to draw the attention of officials to the recent power cuts in his neighbourhood. “We used to be part of the market zone of Madhepur,” he explained. Madhepur is the block headquarters which is about a kilometre away. Most block headquarters get between 20-22 hours of electricity. “But now we have been attached to the transformer in the rural zone, which means the electricity doesn’t stay for more than a few hours."
An executive engineer in the electricity department in Madhubani, who requested anonymity, said these were teething problems on account of a recent separation of urban and rural feeders. The official who has worked in the department since 1984 claimed that the power situation had improved dramatically in the last three years after the installation of new sub-stations and transformers. The rise in the number of complaints reflected the rising expectations among consumers, he said.
Despite his visible annoyance with the power situation, Salauddin did not waste a second when asked about the forthcoming elections. “Of course, we will vote for Nitishji," he said. "He has done great work. Look at the roads, the bridges, the cycles that he had given to girls.”
But what about the power situation? “Earlier, even the block did not get regular power,” he said. “Now the block is getting it for 20 hours. If Nitishji becomes the chief minister again, I am sure we will get it soon...”
Caste politics
What explains the difference of response in the Brahmin and Muslim tolas?
Saroj Kumar Jha's brother, Rajkumar Jha, explained why they were reluctant to vote for Nitish Kumar. “I am not saying Nitish babu isn’t a good leader,” said Rajkumar Jha. “But his graph came down in the second term because he got embroiled in politics.”
“You mean to say he parted ways with the BJP?”
“Yes, exactly. We have no complaints with him. But he has gone with the wrong man.”
This was a reference to Lalu Prasad Yadav, the flamboyant leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, who rose to power in the 1990s by challenging the supremacy of the upper castes who controlled the state's politics through ownership of land and resources. While Lalu's politics gave powerful voice to the lower castes, it was eventually hijacked by his own caste men. By the end of his 15-year-rule, which was marked by disorder, Bihar was on the brink, and in 2005, Nitish Kumar, his former ally from the backward Kurmi caste, trounced him with the support of the BJP.
Under Kumar's leadership, the JD(U)-BJP government worked furiously to repair roads, hire teachers, undertake welfare programmes. In 2010, it was voted back with a thumping majority, a victory termed by commentators as a mandate for development. But after the breakdown of the alliance in 2013, this view stands exposed as naive: the 2010 victory was possible only because of a carefully crafted social coalition. The BJP brought the votes of the upper castes, while Nitish carried appeal among a large section of the backward castes, Muslims and Dalits. Together, this created a powerful echo effect – seemingly everyone in the state was praising Kumar’s development work.
This election, minus the upper castes, the most vocal and influential social group in the state, the chorus of vikaas has died down. A senior official in the government put it this way: “We are in this room and ten people are seated with us. All of them are backing me. Four people leave this room. Once they step out, they will not praise me, they will say I am arrogant. Then, another two leave. I am left with just four supporters. Our work has not changed. But the perception has.”
Long-term change
Far removed from the rough and tumble of politics, and the rise and fall of governments, a remarkable research project by the Institute of Human Development has studied the long-term changes in 36 villages of Bihar over three decades between 1981 and 2011. Mahisham is one of them.
In 1981, the village had a typical feudal order: Brahmin zamindars owned vast tracts of land that were cultivated by labourers attached to them. By 2009, the number of landlords had declined and the practice of bonded labour had been nearly wiped out. Now, most fields are being cultivated by small and middle peasants who hire labour on cash payments – provided they can afford to pay the wages which have been rising steeply.
The main engine driving the change has been migration. In 1981, there were migrants in 24% households of the village. By 2009, 82% of the households had at least one member living and working in distant states. The high rates of migration have made labour scarce in the village and has led to a rise in wage rates. The remittances sent by the migrants have raised the standard of living even among poor families.
The Sadays once lived on the brink of starvation. Motilal Saday, Balram's father, told the researchers: "Thirty years ago, we ate one evening, and stayed hungry or fasted the next evening. Now, we have breakfast, lunch during the day, and dinner at night." While part of the support comes from the remittances sent by his older son Baleshwar, who works as a plumber in Chandigarh, the old man told me that some help has also come from the government. For one, Nitish Kumar's government has vastly improved the functioning of the public distribution system, as documented by multiple studies. Altogether, the family gets 50 kilos of grain under PDS, said Balram, showing me their ration cards.
The feudal order might not have disappeared, but it has faded dramatically. The upper castes have still not reconciled to the erosion of their power. Nor have they accepted that the state could prioritise the poor.
While the Brahmin tola got electricity poles and wiring as early as 1999 – even though regular power supply did not materialise – the Musahar tola got its first pole just three years ago. Despite the improved circumstances of the Sadays and their neighbours, the Musahar tola is the only one that cannot afford a private generator set. If it wasn't for the government, the Sadays wouldn't even be able to light up that solitary light bulb.
In the Brahmin tola, expressing displeasure at Nitish Kumar's choice of ally, Rajkumar Jha said: “If Nitishji had fought on 243 seats on his own, he might not have won the elections but at least he would have known what was the dakshina (offerings) that people were willing to give for development.”
For the moment, it seems that the dakshina is coming from the poor, and not from the affluent sections of Bihar, even though the last ten years of economic growth in the state have disproportionately benefited them.
The next story in this series looks at why the upper castes have deserted Nitish Kumar despite reaping major economic gains during the ten years of his government.
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"Abhi out nahi hua hai, sir (It's not been decided yet, Sir)," said Balram, his face creased with a frown.
The Sadays are from the Musahar community that came into national prominence last year when Jitan Ram Manjhi, an MLA from the community, became the chief minister of Bihar. Manjhi was handpicked by Nitish Kumar, the leader of the Janata Dal (United), ostensibly to cement his reputation among the Musahars and the other 20-odd castes that his government has categorised as Mahadalits.
Most assumed Manjhi would be a puppet leader but within nine months, he rebelled. Resigning from the JD (U), he went on to form his own party, the Hindustani Awam Morcha, which is now contesting the assembly elections in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP believes Manjhi's presence as an ally will help it secure the votes of the Mahadalits.
But the Sadays were dismissive of such claims. Waving her hand, Balram's sister-in-law Kamleshwari said, "Manjhi-Fanjhi kuch nahi (Manjhi is nothing)."
"We will vote for the person who has given us suvidha (services)," said Balram. Ending the ambiguity, he named Kumar, and said: "Nitish ji has done a lot of work. We are getting anaj (grain) every month. Our children are getting poshak, khichadi and cycle (uniforms, meals and bicycles). A Tola Sevak (government-appointed community worker) takes them to school. We also got a free radio."
"And there is electricity," said Kamleshwari. "Upar dekhiye. Look up please."
A solitary bulb shone brightly on the edge of the courtyard.
Power push
Bihar is India’s darkest state, if per capita power consumption is the measure.
Half-way into his second term, on Independence Day in 2012, Nitish Kumar announced that he would not seek votes in 2015 if his government failed to improve the power situation in Bihar. If building roads and bridges was the focus of his first term, rural electrification was the ambitious goal he set for the second.
Data from the Central Electricity Commission shows Bihar has made some headway: by May 31, 2015, 95.5% of the villages in the state had been electrified under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, the central government-funded scheme that provides free electricity connections to households Below the Poverty Line. This is marginally lower than the national average of 96.7% village electrification.
But there's a catch: lighting up villages is not the same as lighting up homes. Under the RGGVY scheme, if 10% of households get power connections, a village is deemed electrified.
In the populous villages of Bihar, this has been a recipe for chaos. As transformers were installed in villages, those who were not given power connections hooked up unofficially. Unable to handle the load, the transformers burnt out. The state government asked the Centre for funds to replace them. When the money did not come, it dipped into its own coffers. So keen was Nitish Kumar to fulfil his promise, he moved Pratyaya Amrit, the secretary who had overseen the transformation of the state's roads, to the energy department in 2014. “In 45 days this year, we have replaced 11,000 transformers,” said Amrit, who is the Energy Secretary as well as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited.
Seated in a plush office in Patna, he reeled statistics to show the progress Bihar had made in the power sector. "From 70 kWh in 2005, the per capita power consumption in Bihar went up to 128 kWH in 2012, and we have further raised it to 203 kWH in 2015," he said. “This is modest compared to the rest of India but it is the highest jump in the eastern region."
Private supply
But not everyone is impressed.
In Mahisham village, the Sadays are grateful for their free power connection – even though it supplies just 60 Watts, which can at best light up a bulb and charge a mobile phone.
In the Brahmin tola of the village, however, there were loud complaints that the electrification was merely cosmetic."Dhange ki tarah tang diya hai (The wire is no better than a thread)," said Jay Kumar Jha, a middle-aged man, who sat in the verandah of a large house. The connections installed in his home at a cost of Rs 875 could supply up to 2,000 MW, which can power fans in addition to lighting up bulbs. But the power was available only for a couple of hours at best.
The erratic supply has created space for a flourishing private business – about half a dozen bijli walas in the village have set up large kerosene-fuelled generator sets that supply low-voltage power to hundreds of consumers for four hours in the evening. The voltage is just enough to light up one bulb between 6 pm and 10 pm. But the supply is reliable.
The villagers can pay the private bijli wala in kind – by passing on their quota of free kerosene received under the government’s public distribution system – or in cash, which comes to about Rs 80-Rs 100 per month. Saroj Kumar Jha, a dealer under the public distribution system, said he paid Lalu Ansari, one of the power suppliers, Rs 1,000 for 12 bulbs.
This kerosene-fuelled generator set supplies power to 400 homes.
Jha declined to comment on the elections, citing his job as a PDS dealer, but the others in the Brahmin tola minced no words: They would not be voting for Nitish Kumar.
Support despite grievance
A little ahead was the Muslim quarter of the village. Along with the Brahmins, the village is dominated by Muslim landlords. Both Brahmin and Muslim zamindars have similar status and wealth. They also have similar complaints to make about the power supply.
Mohammad Salauddin had spent the day in the local electricity board office to draw the attention of officials to the recent power cuts in his neighbourhood. “We used to be part of the market zone of Madhepur,” he explained. Madhepur is the block headquarters which is about a kilometre away. Most block headquarters get between 20-22 hours of electricity. “But now we have been attached to the transformer in the rural zone, which means the electricity doesn’t stay for more than a few hours."
An executive engineer in the electricity department in Madhubani, who requested anonymity, said these were teething problems on account of a recent separation of urban and rural feeders. The official who has worked in the department since 1984 claimed that the power situation had improved dramatically in the last three years after the installation of new sub-stations and transformers. The rise in the number of complaints reflected the rising expectations among consumers, he said.
Despite his visible annoyance with the power situation, Salauddin did not waste a second when asked about the forthcoming elections. “Of course, we will vote for Nitishji," he said. "He has done great work. Look at the roads, the bridges, the cycles that he had given to girls.”
But what about the power situation? “Earlier, even the block did not get regular power,” he said. “Now the block is getting it for 20 hours. If Nitishji becomes the chief minister again, I am sure we will get it soon...”
Caste politics
What explains the difference of response in the Brahmin and Muslim tolas?
Saroj Kumar Jha's brother, Rajkumar Jha, explained why they were reluctant to vote for Nitish Kumar. “I am not saying Nitish babu isn’t a good leader,” said Rajkumar Jha. “But his graph came down in the second term because he got embroiled in politics.”
“You mean to say he parted ways with the BJP?”
“Yes, exactly. We have no complaints with him. But he has gone with the wrong man.”
This was a reference to Lalu Prasad Yadav, the flamboyant leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, who rose to power in the 1990s by challenging the supremacy of the upper castes who controlled the state's politics through ownership of land and resources. While Lalu's politics gave powerful voice to the lower castes, it was eventually hijacked by his own caste men. By the end of his 15-year-rule, which was marked by disorder, Bihar was on the brink, and in 2005, Nitish Kumar, his former ally from the backward Kurmi caste, trounced him with the support of the BJP.
Under Kumar's leadership, the JD(U)-BJP government worked furiously to repair roads, hire teachers, undertake welfare programmes. In 2010, it was voted back with a thumping majority, a victory termed by commentators as a mandate for development. But after the breakdown of the alliance in 2013, this view stands exposed as naive: the 2010 victory was possible only because of a carefully crafted social coalition. The BJP brought the votes of the upper castes, while Nitish carried appeal among a large section of the backward castes, Muslims and Dalits. Together, this created a powerful echo effect – seemingly everyone in the state was praising Kumar’s development work.
This election, minus the upper castes, the most vocal and influential social group in the state, the chorus of vikaas has died down. A senior official in the government put it this way: “We are in this room and ten people are seated with us. All of them are backing me. Four people leave this room. Once they step out, they will not praise me, they will say I am arrogant. Then, another two leave. I am left with just four supporters. Our work has not changed. But the perception has.”
Saroj Kumar Jha, the PDS dealer of Mahisham
Long-term change
Far removed from the rough and tumble of politics, and the rise and fall of governments, a remarkable research project by the Institute of Human Development has studied the long-term changes in 36 villages of Bihar over three decades between 1981 and 2011. Mahisham is one of them.
In 1981, the village had a typical feudal order: Brahmin zamindars owned vast tracts of land that were cultivated by labourers attached to them. By 2009, the number of landlords had declined and the practice of bonded labour had been nearly wiped out. Now, most fields are being cultivated by small and middle peasants who hire labour on cash payments – provided they can afford to pay the wages which have been rising steeply.
The main engine driving the change has been migration. In 1981, there were migrants in 24% households of the village. By 2009, 82% of the households had at least one member living and working in distant states. The high rates of migration have made labour scarce in the village and has led to a rise in wage rates. The remittances sent by the migrants have raised the standard of living even among poor families.
The Sadays once lived on the brink of starvation. Motilal Saday, Balram's father, told the researchers: "Thirty years ago, we ate one evening, and stayed hungry or fasted the next evening. Now, we have breakfast, lunch during the day, and dinner at night." While part of the support comes from the remittances sent by his older son Baleshwar, who works as a plumber in Chandigarh, the old man told me that some help has also come from the government. For one, Nitish Kumar's government has vastly improved the functioning of the public distribution system, as documented by multiple studies. Altogether, the family gets 50 kilos of grain under PDS, said Balram, showing me their ration cards.
The feudal order might not have disappeared, but it has faded dramatically. The upper castes have still not reconciled to the erosion of their power. Nor have they accepted that the state could prioritise the poor.
While the Brahmin tola got electricity poles and wiring as early as 1999 – even though regular power supply did not materialise – the Musahar tola got its first pole just three years ago. Despite the improved circumstances of the Sadays and their neighbours, the Musahar tola is the only one that cannot afford a private generator set. If it wasn't for the government, the Sadays wouldn't even be able to light up that solitary light bulb.
In the Brahmin tola, expressing displeasure at Nitish Kumar's choice of ally, Rajkumar Jha said: “If Nitishji had fought on 243 seats on his own, he might not have won the elections but at least he would have known what was the dakshina (offerings) that people were willing to give for development.”
For the moment, it seems that the dakshina is coming from the poor, and not from the affluent sections of Bihar, even though the last ten years of economic growth in the state have disproportionately benefited them.
The next story in this series looks at why the upper castes have deserted Nitish Kumar despite reaping major economic gains during the ten years of his government.
