New Delhi: Final month when Nitish Kumar took oath for the eighth time because the chief minister of Bihar, but once more with Congress as one in every of his allies, his professed ideology — Lohiaism, rooted firmly in anti-Congressism — was sacrificed as soon as extra on the altar of political pragmatism.
Whereas the concept of an India with out Congress, or “Congress-mukt Bharat”, could now be irrevocably related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, it might simply as effectively have been the calling card of the motley group of which Nitish was a member, that first challenged the grand previous social gathering within the Sixties and ’70s. Most of them now discover themselves inside a political galaxy centred across the Congress social gathering.
In distinction to their ideological mentor Ram Manohar Lohia, these leaders scaled far better heights of success in electoral politics.
Among the many outstanding faces that had been as soon as part of the political caucus often known as Lohiaites, just one is presently the elected head of a state — Nitish Kumar. Although he isn’t the one one amongst fellow Lohiaites (or their political successors, nearly all the time relations) flirting with ideological contradictions and facile alliances.
The once-firebrand Sharad Yadav is now wishing success to the Congress for its ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, and Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag is negotiating phrases for his Lok Janshakti Social gathering (LJP) to return to the fold of the BJP-led NDA, having been pushed to the alternative facet since 2020.
Satya Pal Malik is an NDA-nominated governor who has often refused to toe the stringent political line laid down by his social gathering, the BJP, whereas former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, who started his political life as a member of varied Janata factions, reached the head of his political profession as a Congress chief.
There’s one widespread thread although — throughout the political spectrum, from Lalu Prasad Yadav to Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Yadav, Lohiaites have largely been vocal of their opposition to the Girls’s Reservation Invoice.
“There was Lohiaite ideology and there have been the impressed political claimants, those we presently categorise as Lohiaites. They’re a fractured fragmented lot. There’s one lot that’s persevering with with the OBC and social justice politics, a splinter that has gravitated in direction of the Congress, and a 3rd that has moved in direction of the BJP. Then there are some teachers with Lohiaite leanings who joined the AAP after which moved out. The premise challenge is that politics not is that of ideology, it’s of pragmatism,” political commentator Badri Narayan Tiwari tells ThePrint.
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Legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia
Lohia began his political innings as a Congressman, however emerged because the principal opponent of Nehruvian concepts after quitting the social gathering in 1948.
Throughout his stint as a doctoral pupil in Germany, he derived his core thought of socialism from the social and democratic ethos of Western Europe. His concepts spawned an entire era of politicians who, within the pre-BJP period, had been the one political options to the Congress within the face of receding Left affect of their respective states.
Lohia, curiously, is remembered most frequently for his misjudged description in Parliament of Indira Gandhi as “goongi gudiya” (dumb doll) within the first few years of her preliminary tenure because the Prime Minister of India.
In his 2018 article ‘Caste Politics in Bihar: In Historic Continuum’, Rakesh Ankit, then a lecturer at Loughborough College, England, had described Lohiaism as thus: “Inside his ‘New Socialism’, Lohia retained Liberal Populism and Gandhism however changed Marxism together with his personal understanding (since referred to as ‘Lohia-ism’), which linked the persevering with caste and social-assertion actions of the backwards with the socialists. In so doing, he recognised a home-truth of Bihar Politics, as The Indian Nation re-affirmed fifty years in the past: ‘The overall impression is that just about everyone seems to be casteist’.”
Lohia’s slogan, “pichhda pave sau mein saath” (60 per cent of alternatives for the backwards), laid the bottom for a number of many years of politics centred round reservation.
“Congress, in these days, derived its assist primarily from Brahmins, Muslims and SCs — Harijans. There was little illustration of the farming and cattle rearing communities just like the Jats, Gujjars, and so on., those that we presently know as OBCs. Lohia tried to kind an alliance of those castes and the concept has been in Indian politics because the Sixties and culminated within the Mandal Fee,” says journalist Dilip Mondol.
Mondol provides, “However through the years, OBC politics took completely different hues in North and South India. In North India, it harmed states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar however within the South, the give attention to improvement, well being and training served these states effectively.”
The unique tenets of Lohiaism have been changed by up to date political exigencies, taking the inheritors of Lohia’s political legacy distant from what he had preached.
ThePrint takes inventory of what the self-proclaimed Lohiaites are as much as throughout states.
Nitish Kumar
The Bihar Chief Minister has gained a fame for performing probably the most ideological flip-flops amongst all his fellow Lohiaites, with the only real exception maybe of the late Ram Vilas Paswan.
Nitish first entered the NDA fold in 1996, subsequently changing into a minister within the Vajpayee authorities in 1998. He remained with the BJP — in some ways the ideological reverse of Lohiaism with its then predominantly city, upper-caste base although its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, was one of many components that made up the Janata Social gathering submit emergency — for a great 17 years, changing into the chief minister of Bihar with its assist.
He walked out of the NDA solely in 2013, citing his unhappiness concerning the communal previous of BJP’s then prime ministerial hopeful, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
He has since returned to the BJP, locked horns together with his one-time ideological colleague Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), change into chief minister with the assist of RJD and Congress, dumped them in favour of BJP after which returned to the RJD-Congress fold once more.
Nitish has made agency believers out of Bihari ladies, who represent a serious chunk of his ballot base, with the prohibition regulation. With a majority of OBCs in Bihar in RJD’s nook, Nitish coined phrases akin to Mahadalit (poorest amongst Dalits), luring them with land, jobs, radio units and spectacles. He additionally created political capital by reaching out to Extraordinarily Backward Castes (EBCs) comprising teams akin to Nishads/Sahnis, Mandals and Kahars, amongst others.
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Sharad Yadav
Very like his colleagues, Yadav, a Parliamentarian of a number of many years, has moved from anti-Congressism to anti-BJP-ism however is presently in the hunt for his personal area. Earlier this yr, he merged his social gathering (Loktantrik Janata Dal) with the RJD. Yadav’s identify is synonymous together with his derisive description of short-haired ladies as “parkati auratein” (reduce off ladies) and his strident opposition to the Girls’s Reservation Invoice.
In 2009, he had even threatened to kill himself ought to the Invoice cross.
Yadav can be identified for his occasional bouts of misogyny. In 2015, whereas speaking concerning the Insurance coverage Invoice within the Rajya Sabha, he used a reference to the “darkish” South-Indian ladies and their our bodies.
Ailing now, Yadav attended the RJD state council assembly earlier this week throughout his first go to to Patna in a very long time.
Mulayam Singh Yadav
The Samajwadi Social gathering patriarch had maintained his robust maintain on his caste base until his social gathering was swept out of energy in Uttar Pradesh by a BJP juggernaut, first in 2017 after which once more in 2022. For a lot of his political profession, Yadav, too, opposed each English and computer systems. Each had been part of the social gathering’s election manifesto as late as 2009 when Yadav additionally promised to convey company pay at par with authorities salaries.
However as pragmatism hit residence in 2012, and likewise maybe underneath the affect of Yadav’s Australia-educated son, Akhilesh, SP promised free laptops for college kids. The social gathering fashioned the federal government in Uttar Pradesh later that yr, dethroning Bahujan Samaj Social gathering (BSP) chief Mayawati.
In 2022, Akhilesh made free laptops his calling card not simply through the election marketing campaign but in addition later. Having travelled removed from its anti-Congress roots, SP even fought the 2017 Meeting elections in alliance with the Congress, although it led to a defeat and far bitterness between the 2 largely dynasty-run events.
The SP had prolonged assist to the UPA authorities earlier, most notably through the vote on the nuclear power deal in 2008.
In an interview with The Financial Instances within the run-up to the 2017 UP Meeting polls, when Akhilesh Yadav was requested whether or not the Congress-SP alliance went in opposition to the SP’s Lohiaite philosophy, he justified it, saying that it was Lohia’s argument that when Congress is weak, socialists will probably be its “greatest mates”.
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Lalu Prasad Yadav
Yadav, one other outstanding Lohiaite, has traversed a protracted highway from his occasions as a younger anti-Emergency activist who responded to the clarion name given out by J.P. Narayan. Yadav went to jail for opposing the federal government that he and his fellow activists discovered to be corrupt and autocratic.
In reality, his firstborn is called Misa after the Upkeep of Inner Safety Act (MISA) that was invoked to jail anti-Emergency activists. Yadav was part of the Manmohan Singh authorities and remained within the UPA fold until the very finish as a trusted colleague of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
It’s broadly believed that the notorious ordinance that Rahul Gandhi tore on the Press Membership of India in 2013 had been introduced in to assist Yadav. His son Tejashwi, educated at Delhi Public College in Patna, is presently deputy chief minister of Bihar in a authorities that counts Congress as an ally.
Satyapal Malik
The Meghalaya governor who has been making headlines for his pro-farmer stance by means of the extended farmer protests in opposition to the now-withdrawn farm payments, has been one thing of a political wanderer, having began his political profession in 1974 as a member of Chaudhary Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal. Singh, who went on to change into the fifth prime minister of India, was not strictly a Lohiaite, says Mondol, however he was a mentor to the present crop of once-Lohiaite politicians.
Malik joined Janata Dal and Samajwadi Social gathering earlier than he was made nationwide vice-president of the BJP in 2012. He was then appointed the governor of Bihar in 2017 and has since referred to as varied Raj Bhawans residence.
Variety of political events he has embraced however, Malik emerged as a powerful voice for farmers. In June 2022, a number of months after the withdrawal of the farm legal guidelines, he struck a belligerent notice as soon as once more, this time on the problem of MSP (Minimal Help Worth) when he stated that farmers would take to the streets as soon as extra if that demand isn’t met.
Siddaramaiah
Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah’s political origins lay with the Lohiaites and until as late as 2005, he was nonetheless in that fold as a Janata Dal (Secular) MLA and deputy chief minister of Karnataka.
Nonetheless, by the point he was sworn in as chief minister in 2013, Siddaramaiah was a Congress legislator. On the time of becoming a member of the social gathering in 2006, he had stated: “I’m becoming a member of Congress to strengthen the palms of Sonia Gandhi and the party-led authorities on the Centre.”
Siddaramaiah is now within the operating for the submit of chief minister because the Congress gears as much as unseat the BJP in the one southern state the place Modi’s social gathering has managed to make inroads.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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