My Book Review of "JP to BJP: Bihar after Lalu and Nitish" authored by Santosh Singh
Originally published in Bhaskar Live
https://www.bhaskarlive.in/book-review-jp-to-bjp-bihar-after-lalu-and-nitish-written-by-santosh-singh-by-saagar-srivastava/
There is something irresistibly powerful about the soil of Bihar, its value systems, and its cultural and ethical milieu. While the people of the state may silently tolerate injustices, inequities and social evils such as corruption and communalism for years, not for once will you hear anyone from Bihar justifying these ills? There are several parts of India which, though miles ahead on parameters of economic development, have also internalized corruption as a part and way of life.
In such regions, when a Government official takes a bribe to perform his duty, as long as he does the job, the client/consumer will justify it by saying, “so what if he takes money…at least he does the work”. Bribing Government officials is a part of common culture and an intrinsic part of society’s value system, something that is not even perceived as wrong. Not in Bihar. The moral fabric of society is so strong that while people may be forced to silently suffer, there comes a tipping point when the society hits back and revolts against injustices, a la “The Tunnel Effect” pointed out by Princeton University’s Albert Hirschman.
Renowned journalist Santosh Singh’s latest book “JP to BJP: Bihar after Lalu and Nitish”, through its remarkably vivid portraits of political leaders of Bihar from pre-independence days right up until 2020, brings out this fascinating aspect of Bihari society and its people in undeniable ways. That Bihar has been a land of revolutions, both ideological and political, that have shaped the destiny not just of the state, but of the entire country, is the invisible driving force behind this incredible book. As Editor of The Indian Express, Raj Kamal Jha, succinctly puts it, JP to BJP is truly an invaluable compass for understanding the political journey of Bihar.
Through his pioneering work in the field of journalism covering Bihar politics for the last 15 years, especially through path-breaking investigative journalism, Santosh Singh, Bihar Bureau chief of The Indian Express, has built a formidable reputation for himself as one amongst those dying breed of old-school journalists – conscientious, committed, detail-oriented, one who seeks to understand the complexities and nuances of a story, and someone who relentlessly pursues the truth. I have had the good fortune of interacting with him of late on a few occasions.
This sincerity of approach and pursuit of value-based journalism reflects in this book. JP to BJP is an honest attempt to cover the political journey of Bihar and its entire landscape through the prism of the arrow of time (last 75 years), and the prism of ideological divide and progression – from Congress-centred politics (post-independence till 1967, and 1980-1990), to the rise and fall and yet another rise of socialism (1967-1980 and 1990 till 2020), to the slow but steady rise of right-wing ideology. In fact, it even goes further into the past and also discusses the formation of the Triveni Sangh, the rival camps in the Bihar Congress led by Rajendra Prasad, Srikrishna Singh, Anugrah Narayan Sinha, and Swami Sahjanand, and the role played by JP and Narendra Dev in Bihar politics pre-independence.
Thus, the book is breathtaking in terms of the sheer expanse of its coverage. Laced with gems and nuggets in the form of a plethora of never-before heard anecdotes, the book is an easy read and is hard to put down for anyone who has an avid interest in politics. The anecdotes stem not from hear-say, but meticulous research carried out by the author, and scores of interviews conducted of the who’s who of Bihar politics, including the second and third generation progenies of the iconic leaders of the past. Stories of CM Karpoori Thakur calling up the DM asking him not to accord any preferential treatment while investigating the case of his father (a barber) being beaten up by a village landlord for not turning up after being called as he was unwell, and the fiery Kapildeo Singh standing up to Babu Jagjivan Ram while passionately defending officers of the Bihar Government, stand out for bringing to light an era where politics was driven by values and was moored in ethics and a fierce sense of propriety.
The writing style is intentionally non-academic, written in a narrative, story-telling form, that brings to light various hues and shades and different facets of the personality of the many remarkable political figures who have shaped the politics of Bihar. Yet, wherever possible, without losing the plot, the author has tried to weave the stories and the anecdotes into broader themes and intellectual/academic arguments.
The lasting contribution of this fine book, which surprisingly has few parallels in terms of what has been attempted, is that it makes a passionate attempt to increase awareness amongst the current generation about the political giants of the past, and their enduring contributions in shaping Bihar’s society. The Bihari youth, who is perceived to be politically more aware than her counterparts in the rest of the country, is only exposed to the post-Lalu Yadav era, i.e. 1990 onwards, and will at best know about, inter alia, Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan, Sharad Yadav, George Fernandes, Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Sushil Modi. Only the names of JP, Ram Manohar Lohia, Karpoori Thakur, Srikrishna Singh, AN Sinha, etc. would have been heard, without any knowledge of their political philosophy, ideological beliefs, and their passionate pursuit of politics as a tool for societal transformation. The names of Socialist stalwarts such as Ramanand Tiwari and Kapildeo Singh, whom the author himself calls “the unsung socialists” in his chapter dedicated to them, would probably, unfortunately, not even ring a bell.
This is where the book does due justice in its coverage of the Socialist movement in Bihar, and its iconic leaders. While leaders such as JP, Lohia, and Narendra Dev provided the ideological and philosophical basis for shaping the movement, practicing politicians such as Karpoori Thakur, Ramanand Tiwari, Jagdeo Prasad, and Kapildeo Singh brought electoral success to the movement post-1967, albeit one which was chequered and interrupted. The formation of the Socialist Party, its split into the PSP and the SP, their subsequent merger into SSP in 1964, Government formation by the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal, the Total Revolution movement (Sampoorna Kranti Andolan) by JP – all have been covered as much detail as possible within the word constraints of a commercial book.
The rise of Lalu Yadav, his social justice movement and empowerment of the voiceless and the downtrodden, as well as Nitish Kumar’s attempts at social engineering and his decision to provide reservation in Panchayati Raj institutions to women and reservation for EBCs, are all logical progression of the socialist politics and policymaking of the likes of Karpoori Thakur, whose protégés they claim to be. The post-1990 politics and its main characters – Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ramvilas Paswan, right up to Tejashwi Yadav, Chirag Paswan, and Kanhaiya Kumar – have also been discussed at length. The politics of Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar has in any case been covered in great detail in the author’s earlier book, Ruled or Misruled: The Story and Destiny of Bihar. So strong and ingrained is socialism in the DNA of Bihar politics that even the BJP has grown in the state by remaining moored to the JD(U) and its earlier avatar, the Samata Party. This is best captured by the book’s memorable line:
“One day Green asked Saffron: What keeps you so vibrant? Saffron smiled: A lot of green inside me.”
This finally brings me to the only disappointing aspect of the book. While the book is titled JP to BJP, details of the process of saffronisation of Bihar’s politics, discussed in a later chapter called “Saffron Journey”, is sketchy at best. While the role of Kailashpati Mishra in building the party organization in Bihar has been discussed in some detail, the chapter misses a holistic overview of the reasons behind the growth of saffron politics in Bihar, and how and why, slowly but steadily, the BJP has grown in the state. The role of organization builders such as Late Thakur Prasad in the earlier years, and leaders such as Sushil Modi in later years, has not been covered. The chapter also misses out on providing any sociological or political reasons for the growth of saffron politics in the state. This is one place where a slightly academic approach could have been taken in discussing the underlying reasons for such a dramatic ideological shift in a state famed for providing direction and meaning to socialist politics across India.
The academic discussion instead focuses on generic reasons for the growth of organizations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS pre-independence across India, which was perhaps a bit out of place and not in sync with the overall flow of the chapter or the book, and was not Bihar centric. In fact, even the chapter on the Congress could have done with more detail and a more elaborate discussion about some of its leaders, who were pivotal to Bihar’s politics from independence till at least the cut-off year of 1990. That the discussion on the national parties is perhaps the only weak point of the book speaks volumes about how Bihar’s politics has revolved around regional social parties, and the cult of strong regional leaders such as Karpoori Thakur, Lalu Prasad, and Nitish Kumar.
The author’s views on how and why the Left movement in Bihar holds sway over strong pockets of influence, and the growth of parties such as the CPI-ML(L) which put up a stellar show in the recent Bihar assembly elections, would make for an interesting read. This can be part of a separate project altogether, and this certainly can trace its roots to the strong undercurrents of idealism and romanticism that is still alive in Bihar’s politics.
All in all, JP to BJP is a breezy, lucid yet well-researched and detailed account of Bihar’s political history, and is a seminal contribution in the field of expanding awareness about its political movements and icons. An extremely well-written book, it leaves the reader feeling satiated in her quest for substantially enriching her knowledge about Bihar and its political history. The other great plus point of the book is that it has managed the unenviable and often impossible task of remaining free from political biases and maintaining objectivity, which is even more commendable achievement as the author has been a political journalist for almost two decades. The book is a must-read for anyone who has even the slightest interest in understanding the politics of India’s most politically conscious and aware state. In short, the book is a definitive political biography of Bihar.
Book: JP to BJP: Bihar after Lalu and Nitish By Santosh Singh
Published By: Vitasta Sage Select
Price: INR 595
Format: Paperback
Pgs: 352
