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Something is rotten in the Hindi heartland

Anant Gaundalkar

If India has had as many as three Lok Sabha elections and six prime ministers (V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P V Narasimha Rao, A B Vajpayee, H D Deve Gowda, and I K Gujral) in the Nineties, politics in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has been no less tumultuous.

These two states, which together account for a quarter of India's population and constitute a large part of the Hindi heartland, have been going through what may be their worst decade politically, with chief ministers, governors, and members of the state assemblies being constantly in the news more for their misdeeds than any achievements.

Think Bihar, and the first image that comes to mind is poll violence. Mention Uttar Pradesh, and summon democracy's ugliest face. Unfortunately, neither image is confined to electoral politics. Both states are also synonymous with corruption and backwardness.

Yet this very region was once the crucible of vision and leadership, and still abounds in natural wealth. Who is responsible for this sordid state of affairs, you ask? The finger points in only one direction -- unwaveringly, accusingly -- at politicians and their abettors, the bureaucrats.

Following is a comparative table of the sorry state of affairs in the two provinces in the last decade of the twentieth century.

 

	Uttar Pradesh	Bihar
Chief ministers	Four -- Mulayam Singh Yadav, Kalyan Singh, Mayawati, Jagdambika Pal	Three -- Jagannath Mishra, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Rabri Devi Yadav
President's rule imposed	Twice -- December 1992 to December 1993, October 1995 to March 1997	Once -- March to April 1995
Change in leadership	Nine times, or an average of once a year	Four times -- with husband and wife together holding the post for a record eight years
Assembly elections	Thrice -- in 1991, 1993, 1996	Twice -- in 1990 and 1995
Parties at the top	Five in all -- Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Loktantrik Congress Party	Three -- Congress, Janata Dal, Rashtriya Janata Dal
Poverty level	41% (national average 36%)	55%
Major killings	135	150
Major scandals	NOIDA scam (Rs 40,500 million), Ambedkar Udyan scam (Rs 1,250 million), Mandi Parishad scam (no estimate yet)	The fodder scam (Rs 9500 million), other scams (total Rs 2000 million)
Miscellany	For the first time in India, the BJP and the BSP experimented with a coalition in which the chief ministership was to be transferred from one to the other every six months. It failed.	Faced with an arrest warrant issued by the Patna High Court in the fodder scam, Laloo Prasad Yadav handed the baton over to his wife Rabri Devi in 1997.

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