and
University of Virginia (USA) on the topic "Turn Around of
Indian Railways," in New Delhi on March 16, 2007. With the coming in power of Lalu Prasad, the representation of
OBC saw a spurt in the legislative assembly of state. The
upper-caste were at great disadvantage due to the new caste composition of the state legislature. In his second tenure, when the elections of 1995 took place in the state, the OBC legislators became 49.69 per cent in the assembly and the upper caste legislators fell to 17.28 per cent, a massive decline since 1960s (In
1995 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections, only 61 upper caste legislators were elected, while the number of Backward Caste legislators was 165). The domination of the Backwards in the
legislature brought it into conflict with the
bureaucracy, which was still dominated by the upper-castes. There witnessed a hike in incidents of corruption, because the upper-caste bureaucrats utilised the 'lack of knowledge' in administration of the new legislators (from the OBC background) to stealthily sabotage and subvert constructive policies of the Lalu's government. Since, the administrative class belonged to landed class of upper caste; the
Thakur,
Bhumihar,
Kayastha and
Brahmin, they aimed at this obstruction, in order to secure not only their personal interest, but also the interest of the social class, they belonged to. The advent of Lalu Prasad to power was considered as end of their dominance. Hence, amidst confrontation between the bureaucracy and the legislature, the upper-caste dominated bureaucracy became determined to obstruct the caste based social justice promoted by the
Janata Dal government under Lalu. They often resorted to frequent defiance of orders to maintain the status-quo. Hence, the government undermined the bureaucracy, as the government, which is said to have voted to power on the platform of OBC empowerment, was also determined to bring the
social justice, even at the cost of administrative disfunction.
Naxal leaders like
Ravindra Singh Kushwaha, who were waging a war against the landlords through various naxal organisations active in the state, were invited to
Janata Dal and allotted tickets to contest in assembly election. Subsequently, all the criminal cases against him were dropped, during the premiership of Lalu. A popular opinion outside Bihar with respect to weakening of bureaucracy and "breakdown of governance" was the presence of rampant corruption and leadership's ineptitude in Lalu's regime. But, according to Jeffrey Witsoe, the
RJD deliberately weakened the state institutions controlled by upper-castes in order to empower the lower castes. The OBCs were in control of government but the media and the bureaucracy along with the judiciary was still in control of upper-castes, it was this upper-caste dominance of the other state institutions that the OBC leadership was vying to end by trying to displace the upper-castes effectively from power. In the meantime, accusations were laid against Lalu's government for fomenting
caste based antagonism between various social groups. Various commentators have stressed that under Lalu's Janata Dal rule, the agricultural labourers and
untouchables became vocal for respect from the dominant class and the fair
wages. Retaliation on the part of lower castes were also seen, when the dominant caste
militias tried to quell their revolt on these grounds. In one such case, in December 1991, a dominant caste militia called "Savarna Liberation Front"
gangraped and murdered ten
Dalit women, in retaliation, the left wing militants all belonging either Dalit or Backward Castes killed thirty five people from the dominant caste.
William Dalrymple has chronicled the account of a dominant caste landowner who survived the massacre. The interlocutor of Dalrymple, who declared the incident to be a handiwork of Bihar government under Lalu Prasad said: Another account from the
Sargana Gram Panchayat area testifies the change in established socio-political order brought by the government under Lalu Prasad. A large
Rajput farmer from the Panchayat constituency, who had been a predecessor of the incumbent
Mukhiya of the village said: As per one opinion, Lalu extended tacit support to the
Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC), and in the period of caste wars, he, as a Chief Minister frequently visited the places, where the victims were from Backward Castes. It is opined that many people from these castes voted him, only because he represented their aspiration of speaking back and becoming virile. The poor of the state couldn't gain much in terms of jobs and services of state, but they were no longer left to be treated with disdain. Nandini Gooptu has mentioned some studies from the rural Bihar, belonging to the time period following the coming into power of Lalu Prasad, where the
Schedule Castes like
Musahars became vocal for their rights including wages, for the work they do under 'employment guarantee schemes' of government. In one such study, a Musahar woman was recorded abusing the government officials belonging to Rajput caste for cheating [them] on wages due to them. Similarly, in another case, a
Schedule Tribe Santhal was recorded taunting son of a Kayastha landlord. Many changes were observed at the lowest level of governance too; in one such case, a Rajput landlord family was replaced by a
Kevat caste man for the post of
Mukhiya in a village. These changes in the rural Bihar was found to be remarkable, considering the brutally enforced inequalities persisting therein for years. In the early years of his rise in political circle, Lalu Prasad was also successful in creating defection in the left-wing political parties of the state, which had long history of association with
Naxalism. In the areas around
Nalanda and
Aurangabad, the weakening of the
CPI-ML liberation is attributed to the significant rise of
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led by Lalu Prasad. The RJD successfully attracted the
Koeri and
Yadav leadership of the party, thus strengthening itself at the cost of
liberation. The leaders of CPI (ML) liberation, who defected to RJD included,
Shri Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha, Umesh Singh, K.D Yadav and
Suryadev Singh. Lalu's rule also led to breaking away of patron-client relationship in elections between the upper castes and the Dalits. The labourers of the upper caste landlords were primarily people from Dalit background, who were forced to vote in the elections as per the wishes of their masters, the upper castes. But, in this period, the agricultural labourers were given free hand in exercising their power to select their representatives. This transformation of the existing system brought political freedom for a large number of Dalits. In some of the regions of the rural area of South Bihar, after the establishment of rule of Janata Dal under Lalu Prasad, the realignment in the policy of militant organisations like
Maoist Communist Centre was observed. The MCC was dominated by the members of
Yadav caste in the leadership position and the Schedule Castes served as the foot soldiers. Before advent of Lalu Prasad on the scene in 1980s, MCC was waging a "
class war", however, after Lalu Prasad assumed the premiership of the state the Yadav caste and Schedule Castes of the MCC shifted their loyalty to him. Earlier, the MCC had targeted
Rajputs in the
Dalelchak-Bhagaura massacre, but according to author Shashi Bhushan Singh, Lalu wanted a political alliance with the Rajputs and he directed the MCC members, specially his castemen to stop targeting the Rajputs. The Rajputs also accepted the dominance of Naxalite groups over the time in some regions of south Bihar and the Bhumihars remained the major challenger to both the Naxalites as well as the rule of Lalu Prasad. After perpetrating a number of massacre of
Dalits,
Ranvir Sena, the caste based
militia of Bhumihar caste perpetrated Miyanpur massacre in 2000, in
Aurangabad, Bihar. In this massacre, the
Yadav caste was victim; over 30 people were killed by Sena in this incident. However, it is reported that this incident set tone for decline of Sena. As the party of Lalu Prasad, which was in government took stringent administrative policies on one hand to counter Sena, on the other hand various
naxalite group also resolved their internal differences and started an extermination campaign of the men of Sena in small operations.
Combination of political and non-political conflicts The society of Bihar was divided into
OBCs,
SCs and Forward Castes (upper caste); the
forward castes had dominated the democratic institutions of the state in the rule of
Congress and only a section of OBCs were politically conscious to think of replacing them from political power, this section, which included only three caste (
Koeri,
Kurmi and
Yadav) also owned land in other parts of Bihar, but was poor in the areas dominated of the forward castes. They took land on tenancy from the forward castes, as they were marginal farmers in these areas. A fair number of the OBCs were also employed in the state institutions and were among educated servicemen in the urban areas. They remained victims of the high handedness of the upper-caste colleagues and the rivalry between them was evolving over time. In rural areas, the OBCs were also confronting the MBC or Extremely Backward Class (also called Most Backward Castes, the category which includes more than hundred Backward Castes, other than trio of Koeri, Kurmi and Yadav) and the Scheduled Castes, but the upper-castes treated all sections of Backward Castes in the same manner, causing much resentment among the elite section of the Backwards. In the rural areas, the upper-castes countered the Most Backward Classes and
Schedule Castes, when they wanted to eschew the village based livelihood options. They [upper-castes] reacted violently, when the MBC or the SCs tried to detach from any social institutions, that were symbol of low caste status. Since for different reasons, the OBCs, MBCs and the SCs were all pitted against the common rivals, the upper-castes, and the bitterness between the OBCs and the forward castes had strengthened after the
anti-reservation protest launched by the upper-castes, unification of these social groups took place against the forward castes. According to author Arun Sinha, though Lalu and his colleague and successor
Nitish Kumar belonged to same political roots, in the matter of quota politics and the politics of social justice for the deprived section of society, Kumar was accepted to upper castes. One reason behind this was step taken by Kumar for exclusion of well off section of the
Backward Castes from the benefits of
reservation in government jobs and other state sponsored program for social upliftment. In contrast to Kumar, Lalu Prasad has been described by Sinha, and was perceived as a staunch anti-upper caste leader. == Political symbolism ==