Good governance poster boy to political weatherman, many shades of CM Nitish Kumar

Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, has returned to the NDA, becoming chief minister for the ninth time after leaving the Mahagathbandhan alliance.

For Bihar, Nitish Kumar is many things. He is the young son of an ayurveda practioner who was studying electrical engineering at the Bihar College of Engineering in the early seventies, and like so many of his contemporaries, got swept up in a great wave of socialist politics. He is the man that gave the state its counterfoil to Lalu Prasad, and framed his politics around “sushasan” (good governance). He is both social engineer, and political survivor; his political epitaph written many times over. And yet, like on Sunday evening, when the dust inevitably settles on another political manoeuvre in a storied but controversial career, for the past two decades, Nitish Kumar has nearly always been one, very important identity — chief minister of Bihar.

For the past two decades, Nitish Kumar has nearly always been one, very important identity — chief minister of Bihar. (PTI)

Born in Bakhtiyarpur, a nondescript town on the outskirts of Patna in 1951, Kumar was in college in the early seventies; a time of great churn both in India and in Bihar, when the Jayaprakash Narayan movement against Indira Gandhi and the Emergency was building steam. He came from a generation of student politics that produced both Lalu Prasad and Sushil Modi, and by 1985, he won his first assembly elections from Harnaut, fighting on a Lok Dal ticket. He was already creating ripples, winning a seat in an election cycle swept by the Congress. Five years later, he moved to Delhi as the MP from Barh.

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It was the early nineties, and as the Mandal storm blew over the Hindi heartland, politics in Bihar saw the arrival of a new generation of leaders. If there was Lalu Prasad of the Janata Dal, Kumar sided with George Fernandes to float the Samata Party in 1994, the first iteration of what is now known as the Janata Dal(United). The JD(U) grew from strength to strength, as did Kumar. He was first chief minister for seven days in 2000, but led his first full term as head of the state, in alliance with the BJP, in 2005.

In many ways, it is that first tenure which earned Kumar the political goodwill that has kept him in good stead for the two decades after. If the years of social churn that preceded him were labelled by his supporters as “jungle raj” and failing law and order, Nitish Kumar was “sushasan babu”, who restored a semblance of administrative order. If Lalu was the dynast, his entire family budding politicians; Nitish Kumar kept his family away from the limelight. If the Yadavs battled allegations of corruption; Nitish juxtaposed his own image as a clean leader.

“Nitish Kumar never compromised on three Cs – crime, corruption and communalism,” said JD (U) spokesperson Abhishek Jha.

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But it wasn’t just governance that kept Kumar at the head of Bihar’s politics. A product of the Mandal churn, the Kurmi leader set about creating sub-quotas among backward classes and Dalits, called Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) and mahadalits, bringing them dividends through affirmative action, but also creating a political cache that has largely stayed loyal to him since. He may have been with the BJP, but Kumar constructed an image of himself that was deeply “secular”, reaching out to Muslims and by and large, attempting to keep a lid on communal vigilantism. He brought in measures like free bicycles and school uniforms for school-going girls, and returned to power in 2010, leading the JD(U)-BJP combine to a landslide victory in 2010.

“There is no denying that his first five years as chief minister brought refreshing changes in Bihar and was marked by vast improvements in restoration of law and order in a state that made headlines for massacres by rivalling militias and kidnappings for ransom,” said DM Diwakar, former director of AN Sinha Institute for Social Studies.

But the next five years saw the beginnings of two other aspects of Kumar’s political identity that have come to define him since; his political ambition beyond Bihar, and his malleability that has seen him jump from one grouping to the next.

By 2013, it was clear that the era of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, two leaders Kumar had excellent relationships with, were over, and Narendra Modi was India’s Prime Minister in waiting. Kumar snapped ties with the BJP, arguing that the then Gujarat chief minister stood for communalism and sectarianism. For a while, with the spotlight on Kumar, it seemed that he could emerge as the counterweight to a rapidly growing BJP. But when the 2014 Lok Sabha elections came, Kumar had been blown away; his party won only 2 of the 40 seats, and he resigned as chief minister.

“Instead of focussing on Bihar’s development, Nitish is still nursing his undeclared national ambition. In the process, governance in Bihar started suffering,” said Gyanendra Yadav, associate professor of sociology, College of Commerce.

In less than a year, he was back as chief minister, unceremoniously elbowing out his protégé Jitan Ram Manjhi, and forming the “Mahagathbandhan” with the RJD and the Congress. The social coalition was formidable, and they swept the 2015 assembly elections. But the government lasted only two years, with Kumar breaking off the alliance, ostensibly because the RJD was too corrupt, and that he was unable to work with his deputy Tejashwi Yadav. He returned to the NDA, and in 2020, they won the assembly elections. But only just, and Kumar sensed not all was well. The JD(U) was reduced to a far third in the state, and he was chief minister again not necessarily because of his party’s political heft, but in a fractured state, its indispensability.

In August 2022, he walked out of his own government again, accusing the BJP of trying to harm the JD(U), and allied with the RJD, Congress and Left.

Soon, he re-enacted his once practised role of a national opponent to Prime Minister Modi again, rallying the constituents of the INDIA alliance, traveling across the country to meet leaders, and pushing for seat sharing negotiations to take place. Yet, at the meeting held on December 19, 2023, Kumar was reportedly left peeved when TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, herself now unhappy with the INDIA bloc, pitched for Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge to be convenor.

Though the JD(U) has publicly maintained that Kumar was not looking to the Prime Minister, leaders have pointed to contradictions within the INDIA alliance as a key reason for his departure on Sunday.

“The goal and intentions with which Nitish Kumar succeeded in bringing non-Congress parties with the Congress have come unstuck. The INDIA bloc is on the verge of collapse. The alliance is almost over in Punjab, West Bengal and Bihar. Kumar never hankered for a position in the alliance, but a section of the Congress leadership repeatedly insulted him,” said JD (U) spokesperson Tyagi.

On Sunday then, after days of speculation, Kumar walked out of the Mahagathbandhan again, and returned to the NDA, becoming the convenor in the state, and chief minister for the ninth time. He has never had the numbers on his own. Six times, he has formed government with the BJP, and thrice with the support of the RJD, and the Congress. To many, this now means his national ambitions have been curtailed for the time being, and his identity has become from “sushasan babu” to “paltu ram”. But Kumar’s epitaph has been written many times before. And yet, as of Sunday, the cabinet may be new, the deputy chief ministers may be new. But he is still chief minister of Bihar.