Politics of perception in Bihar

The election commission has announced the date of voting for the upcoming Bihar assembly election. Performance of government matters in the Indian election but there is also one factor that matters more is the perception in the mind of voters regarding development. The campaign which had been done in the last Lok Sabha election is all about the Gujarat model. BJP’s landslide victory was the perception that was created by the BJP party through an aggressive campaign of Gujarat being the most developed state in India.

On the basis of that perceptions, people voted for Narendra Modi and expected that the man who could do that in Gujarat being a chief minister, could also change the country being prime minister of our country. But after analyzing the data from the recent State Human Development Reports, suggesting that Gujarat is somewhere at Number 5 or 6 on the development ladder, and certainly not at the top. Believing in the perception as a key of winning election both the alliances reciting their own respective stories.

BJP led NDA is telling about his special package for Bihar by showing itself as a philanthropic nature of BJP and on the other hand, Nitish Kumar led party popularly known as Lalu-Nitish alliance is telling about the ‘Sushasan’, a kind of good governance which has been done by Nitish Kumar in his tenure. We are going to analyze three tenures Rabri Devi’s tenure (2000-2004), Nitish Kumar First term (JDU+BJP) in between (2005-2009), Nitish Kumar Second term(JDU only) in between (2010-2014).

Law and order situation

A comparative analysis of the law and order situation in Bihar during these three tenures reveals that Nitish Kumar first term of governance with the BJP alliance gave the best performance in maintaining the law and order. As per NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data, In Rabri Devi’s tenure during (2000-2004), grievous crimes such as murder, robbery, and dacoity have reduced considerably over the years but the murder rate is highest in Rabri Devi’s tenure among the three tenures and lowest in the Nitish Kumar first term governance(JDU+BJP) in 05-09 but in the Nitish Kumar second tenure in 10-14, Its rate increased.

In short we can say the incidence of murders fell during Nitish’s first term but rose marginally in his second term. But If we analyze the whole scenario in the comparison of Lalu regime overall average is still lower in Nitish Kumar tenure. On the other hand If we look at the incidents like Kidnapping, Crimes against women, Crimes against minority like SCs there have been an alarming rise in crimes. Specially If we talk about the crimes on Dalits which rose very sharply in Nitish Kumar second term. In other words, we can say that it almost doubled in Nitish kumar second term as compare to Rabri’s tenure following first term at moderate rate.

These has been analyzing on the basis of those data which was registered under the SC/ST Atrocities Act, the massive rise cannot be ignored. Similarly crimes against women and Kidnapping both increased enough in Nitish Kumar second term following first term as mediator. It might be possible that the people would become so much empower that they started registering their cases in the respective places. There are chances of one more thing that people might not be going through the administration process in the Lalu era to get rid of those problems. I think due to this problem, its massive data were missing on the ground level.

Social Sectors (Education, Health)

In the Social sectors like literacy & education, Employment, Poverty, heath, Labour Bihar has improved itself a lot. Bihar has improved appreciably its literacy rate between 2001 (47.0 percent) and 2011 (61.8), with an increase of 14.8 percentage points. This increase of 14.8% is achieved by all the three tenures. Challenges are still alive especially in western Bihar. In the Rabri devi tenure there was not much facility for the students to go.

Especially girls were deprived of it. But after that the efficiency of the Good governance increased over the year. New schemes had been launched like providing cycles for girls to attend the school. There were some changes found in MDM system for urban and rural separately which increases attendance as well as health status of the students also.

Apart from those things, if we try to analyze the whole scenario about literacy in the comparison with India we will find that literacy rate of India was 64.80 in 2001 and at that time literacy rate of Bihar was 47.00 by person as per data of Bihar economic survey 2015. It is to be noted that the difference in literacy rate between India and Bihar was (64.8-47.0=17.8) percentage points in 2001, which has been significantly reduced to (72.9-61.8=11.1) percentage points in 2011.

In the same fashion the gender disparity in literacy rate was as much as 21.6 and 26.7 percentage points in India and Bihar, respectively, in 2001. The gap has come down to 16.3 and 19.7 percentage points for India and Bihar, respectively, in 2011. This implies that Bihar has been able to narrow the gap at a faster pace than the country as a whole.

The absence of literacy and formal education may restrict a person’s choices with respect to livelihood and other life-supporting activities, but in the absence of good health conditions, it will not be possible to utilize even the limited choices that a person may have. Good health includes not merely freedom from disease, but other dimensions as well (nutrition, medical care, reproductive and child health, etc.).

However, ‘Expectation of Life at Birth’ is generally considered as the one of its 114 most sensitive indicators. The Life Expectancy at Birth (LEB) is one of the sensitive indicators of the health status of a population. The relevant data as per economic survey 2015, on this indicator, both for Bihar and India, has been presented. It becomes apparent from the survey that the gap between India and Bihar which was 2.1 years in 2001-05 in Rabri Devi’s tenure, which has narrowed down to 0.3 years in 2006-10 in Nitish Kumar’s governance. In other words we can say that that Bihar has been able to narrow the gap at a faster pace than the country as a whole in health sector also.

Net/Growth State Domestic Product (NSDP) & GSDP

Basically, Net State Domestic Product is defined as a measure, in monetary terms, of the volume of all goods and services produced within the boundaries of the State during a given period of time after deducting the wear and tear or depreciation, accounted without duplication. According to Reserve Bank of India Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy 2011-12, during the Rabri Devi tenure from 2000 to 2004, the change in NSDP is (59701-52519=7182)cr.

Basically, the percentage change in NSDP declines very sharply in 2001-2002 by -0.4% from the preceding year. In Nitish Kumar’s first tenure with BJP as an alliance, it is quite interesting to know that change in NSDP is (139,061-66,041=73020) increased. Similarly, If we analyze the scenario of Nitish Kumar second tenure alone without BJP alliance the change in NSDP is (243,116-163,555=79561).

One more interesting thing is that growth rate of Bihar is not uniform during Rabri Devi tenure decline and rise very sharply over the year. But in the Nitish kumar’s second term governance, growth rate increased more constantly over the year than Nitish Kumar first term.

As per data of Economical Survey 2015-2016 there are some changes found in GSDP in those three tenures what I mentioned earlier. First of all in primary sectors like Agriculture, Fishing, Mining decreased over the year from 2000 to 2014. There was contribution of 34% of GSDP in Rabri Devi tenure where this contribution declined to 27% in the first term Nitish Kumar tenure and 22% in second term of Nitish kumar. Specially there was a huge decline in the field of agriculture since 2000. But If we look the data to analyze in secondary services like Manufacturing, construction the process is completely reversed.

There was the contribution of 11.6% of GSDP in Rabri Devi tenure, while the contribution of GSDP in the first term of Nitish kumar increased to 17% and 19.2% in the second term of Nitish kumar tenure. Similarly in the tertiary sectors the contribution of GSDP increased over the year which is max in Nitish Kumar second term with 58.8% and minimum in Rabri devi tenure with 54%. Contribution of GSDP in Nitish kumar first term was 55.9%.

Overall if we analyze the whole scenario of Bihar development then will find that Nitish Kumar’s tenure is the best tenure for the Bihar. He has won accolades as Chief Minister for his efforts in developing and implementing several activities, including construction of bridges that were long due, re-laying roads, ensuring participation of doctors in primary health centers, controlling crime rate, and many more.

He has successfully appointed more than one lakh school teachers during his tenure as Chief Minister of Bihar. In every area he did well and improved the situation. So It is perception has been spreading in the public mind ‘Jungleraj’ and all that. Bihar has been performing really well for the last ten years.