Lalu 1.0, Lalu 2.0, or Lalu 3.0? 

The nation owes Bihar a huge thanks. What the liberals and intellectuals could not achieve in their protests was hopefully achieved by the Bihar electorate for India with their resounding rejection of the divisive politics of hatred.

Now that communalism has been rejected though, the focus will come back to development and corruption. And I would be most interested in seeing how Lalu performs in the upcoming 5 years.

Lalu v1.0, of course, was the epitome of corruption and misgovernance in the days of jungle raaj as the Bihar CM (1990-97). However, even his severest critics do concede two points: a. that he was able to improve the social (if not the economic) status of the backwards, and that he kept communalism and riots from flaring in Bihar during the 1992-93 era, and b. his appearance is deceptive and he is smarter and savvier than he looks.

After being rejected subsequently by the electorate, however, he seemed to have mended his ways, and Lalu v2.0 as the Railway Minister (2004-09) was the antithesis of the Bihar days. He performed well, and came up with innovative projects like the Garib Rath. Overall, his tenure was generally considered satisfactory to above-average. So-much-so, the IIM (at that time free of significant political pressure) invited him to give a pretty well-received lecture for its students.

What made him change? Perhaps he learnt his lessons, and realized that the caste card alone was no longer enough to guarantee victory as it was the national stage. Or perhaps it was because he was no longer the boss, but working in a larger group under a respected leader like Manmohan Singh (who was pretty good in his first term, when Lalu was the Railway Minister). Perhaps experience helped a bit as well?

Either ways, it will be interesting to see how Lalu will perform as a coalition partner in Bihar. While the stage is Bihar again, similar to v1.0, he has more experience, has burnt his hands with corruption (and facing a probable jail term), and has Nitish as his senior ally, similar to v2.0. Of course, he himself will play more of a guiding role this time, and it will be his party men and family who will be in the direct administration. Is there ground to hope for a more mature and statesman-like role, with him grooming the youngsters to learn administrative skills under Nitish, a v3.0? It will be very very interesting to watch, just like most of what Lalu does.

Negativity breeds negativity

A lot has been written on social media on the rise or the absence of rise of intolerance in India recently. Going from several comments, many believe that the rise of intolerance is a mere myth.

I personally disagree. Yes, there were incidences of intolerance and appeasement politics in India for a long time, as in banning Rushdie or Jaimes Laine or digging the Wankhede pitch for the India-Pak match, amongst others. But majority of such incidences were predominantly limited to political parties/ religious groups and protests/ rallies organized by them. Most of the general population was unconcerned or, at worst, only silently supporting these actions. But you didn’t see the average Indian gunning for blood.

Now however, intolerance and radicalism has gone beyond the fringe groups, and seeped into many an average Indian-a scary phenomenon. Cold-blooded murder is not something which is easy to commit psychologically; it needs a pretty extraordinary inciting factor. But now we are reading about innocent people being killed in a trifle due to mere rumors and text messages. Isn’t that a rise in intolerance? There was so much hatred bred in them by the incessant negative media they were exposed to, that the tiniest inciting factor caused them to explode.

The only other time I have seen something similar was during the height of Raj Thackeray’s anti-Bihari campaign. I could see hatred and anger in the average Maharashtrian on the street then. And manifest it did, with one innocent Bihari killed in the train because, well, he was from Bihar. But that incident opened everyone’s eyes; people realized they had gone too far and the average Maharashtrians (hats off to them) themselves stopped the hate campaign; they stopped talking bad things about Biharis and stopped sharing messages with negative connotations on social media, and turned their backs on Thackeray. And things did calm down almost immediately.

This time however the juggernaut is still rolling on and on. After three deaths (or maybe more), there is no remorse or regret. Unlike the Maharashtrians then, many of us who do agree that these deaths are ‘unfortunate’,  still fail to admit that this polarization is the result of ‘divide and rule’ politics bred by religious fundamentalists. We do not realize that every time we share another negative message or article, or speak aloud against the artists’ protests, against SRK, against ‘presstitutes and libtards’, instead of speaking louder against the needless deaths, the clamping of freedom of expression, or the beef ban, they are feeding the growing negativity, and such ‘unfortunate’ incidents will continue to happen as a result. Let’s stop sharing the negativity for a month, and I am sure things will improve.

I do hope good sense prevails again, and quick