It hit me as I listened to Laloo Yadav lecture me this past Sunday on why Bihar was such a desperately poor state. As he sat there - in khadi vest and pyjamas - in the outhouse he has built behind the chief minister's residence in Patna and expounded on the theme that Bihar was poor only because the Centre had been looting it of its coal and bauxite without paying adequate compensation, it hit me. This kind of politician, although he may still be able to pull in the votes, can never do anything for the state he governs. Quite simply, he has no idea that there is such a thing as modern governance. Laloo is what I like to think of as a post-feudal politician. Yet, his approach to politics is as feudal as any prince's. His ideas too date back to another time. As he lectured me on the intricacies of Bihar's impoverishment by Delhi, a small group of courtiers cheered him on. They were cabinet ministers in his wife's government. I discovered this when he ordered one of them to corroborate what he was saying and introduced him as Bihar's finance minister. The finance minister tried his best to say what Laloo expected him to say. When we switched to talking about education, the education minister did the same.There are many, many ministers in Patna these days. Every other Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA (nearly 80 of 160) is a minister. In keeping with the best traditions of feudal politics, they all seem to feel the need to regularly pay court at Laloo's evening durbar.On the evening I was there, a stream of white Ambassador cars, red lights on their roofs signifying ministerial status, screeched into the Yadav residence. They unloaded endless quantities of ministers. Most seemed happy to just sit around silently in Laloo's court, just as Chief Minister Rabri Devi did. It was left to the feudal lord to do the talking and he did so in feudal style - albeit in peasant garb but for a massive sapphire ring surrounded by what looked like yellow diamonds. An expensive bauble but appropriately reminiscent of feudal times. "Someone gave it to me," he said dismissively when I asked if it was a sapphire.By coincidence my visit to Bihar came just after a trip to Andhra Pradesh. It is almost frightening to travel between the two states these days. The contrasts are so glaring that you have to keep reminding yourself you are only travelling between Hyderabad and Patna and not backwards in time.N. Chandrababu Naidu is Laloo's exact opposite. He is a modern politician who appears to have understood that with a mixture of efficient governance and a new approach to old problems extraordinary things can be achieved. For instance, he has recently raised Andhra Pradesh's tourism budget from Rs 1 crore to Rs 46 crore because he realises tourism can bring in not just foreign exchange but also jobs, infrastructure and improved standards of living.Laloo also knows this. He told me that he was fully aware of Bihar's enormous potential for tourism development - because of Gautam Buddha having been a Bihari. But instead of making a study of how this potential can be developed, Laloo finds excuses for doing nothing. Again, it's the Centre's fault: "I told them that we should make Patna airport into an international airport but they didn't listen. What can we do? As for roads, it is the Centre's responsibility to look after the national highways. The others are alright."In fact, Patna has not a single decent hotel, a serious deterrent to tourism. Roads in the state are so bad that travel becomes a nightmare. Patna's airport looks like a cowshed. Its railway station will probably count among the filthiest in India. All these problems don't help the cause of tourism. Nor will they go away simply by giving the airport international status.We talked of many other things that evening: education, healthcare, the fact that Bihar had the lowest economic growth rate in the country and the largest number of people living below the poverty line. But I discovered quite soon that there was no point. Laloo's answers, in typical feudal style, revolved entirely around himself. They had opened more schools than ever before since he became chief minister.There had been no communal riots in the state since he became chief minister. The poor people had been ignored till he became chief minister. Harijans had found a voice only since he became chief minister. In short, whatever had been wrong with Bihar earlier, it was now alright because it was in the safe hands of Mr and Mrs Laloo Yadav.If you talk to Naidu, on the other hand, he tells you in detail what he is trying to do and why. He talks of the vital importance of infrastructure - roads, telecommunications, power - as also the need for schools and healthcare.These are the issues of the 21st century. These are the things that will matter. Not secularism and communalism, not caste and creed. To understand this though you need leaders who are aware of how rapidly the world is changing. This is simply not possible as long as we continue to elect leaders who build feudal fiefdoms on the basis of a reverse caste system.Bihar is truly a depressing experience. It has about it a terminal sense of decay. Go instead to Andhra Pradesh and you see a glimpse of what could happen if we started electing real leaders instead of feudal chieftains..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 19, 1998--- ENDS ---
