To begin with, it is obvious that Nitish Kumar started with an enormous cache of goodwill and that one year later he is still being given the benefit of most doubts. But it is equally clear that this is still largely his predecessor’s gift to him.

Lalu Prasad Yadav may have played out his historical role in Bihar. In a state of raging inequalities, his politics and his charisma almost single-handedly shifted the balance of power in favour of historically disprivileged castes. But as this magnificent achievement became more routinised, less reversible, it began to blow his cover. It became more difficult to hide his spectacular failures: to make a broader coalition for social justice, or give it a more spacious platform by linking it with an agenda of governance.

Lalu’s successor has a tough task on the political front. Nitish Kumar must guard against the return of the old insecurities about upper caste dominance. That will undercut the democratisation process in the state. More pertinently for Nitish, it may set the stage for Lalu’s return. But Nitish has limited room for manoeuvre. Unlike his predecessor, he still lacks a reliable political base. He must, therefore, woo influential Bhumihars even as he doles out sops to Extremely Backward Castes — the other social group which consolidated behind him in the election Lalu lost.

So is Nitish’s state also made up of sectional agendas that never meet? Will caste wars continue as usual in Bihar? At the end of a year, some caste tensions seem a little more subdued — there have been no major incidents of OBC versus SC violence, for instance — but a new fault line is opening up. The upper backwards — Nitish belongs to this group — may be chafing at the government’s attempts to woo the lower backwards or EBCs. The paltry 27 per cent turnout in the Lok Sabha by-poll recently in Nalanda, Nitish’s own constituency, was widely read as evidence of discontent in the chief minister’s backyard.

... contd.