PRAGOTI

A blog post on the perception of good governance and "anti-crime" NDA government led by Nitish Kumar in Bihar

The period of high economic growth from 2004-05 to 2008-09 in Bihar has been unequivocally attributed to the restoration of ‘law and order’ associated with sushasan (good governance) of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

While the myths associated with crime in Bihar since the 1990s has been an off shoot of the urban metropolitan manufacturing of opinion about the state, it must be noted that Bihar never had the honour of making it to the top of the state-wise crime league tables. That glory of topping the crime charts has historically been the achievement of the ‘high growth performers’. However, between 2001 and 2003, Bihar did record the highest number of armed dacoities in India.

Given the media hype around crime in Bihar in the pre-NDA period, which certainly is not borne out by either social experience or crime statistics, in most eulogistic commentaries, restoration of law and order has been cited as a prime reason for the high economic growth since 2004-05. Table 1 shows the state CID’s crime statistics alongwith trend growth rates calculated by the author. It is clear that certain kinds of crime have declined since 2004. These are different types of dacoity, robbery, kidnapping for ransom and murder. In the same period, burglary, rape and theft have increased. Total cognizable crimes under the NDA have increased (annual increase of 3.79 percent between 2004 and 2008) faster than the period before its reign (annual increase of 1.75 percent between 1998 and 2004).

Table 1: Overview of Crime in Bihar 1998-2008

Source: C.I.D., Government of Bihar

Table 1 (continued)

It is often argued that the increase reflected in certain crime categories is due to higher reporting and recording attributed to the restoration of trust in the state under the NDA. However, this is untenable if one scrutinizes the government’s published crime statistics. If there has been a general restoration of trust in the state, it should reflect a more secular pattern of higher reporting. The crimes against women, dalits and adivasis show an alarming increase between 2004 and 2008. The annual trend growth in the period of sushasan in rape of dalits (14.5 percent), kidnapping of women (18 percent), arson against dalits and adivasis (22 percent) and the annual growth in number of crimes recorded against dalits and adivasis under the Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989, (24 percent) indicates the change in the social base of crime victims (Table 2).

Table 2: Crime against Women, Dalits and Adivasis 2004-2008

Source: C.I.D., Government of Bihar

Contrary to assertions of freeing Bihar from ‘swaggering goons’ from the Rashtriya Janta Dal’s (RJD) period, and the ushering-in of ‘peace and confidence’ and feelings of safety exuded from varied constituencies that ranged from ‘women’ to Bharati Airtel’s Sunil Mittal, it is clear that the social basis of crime has changed in Bihar under the NDA government. The feelings of safety and confidence are associated with the decline in the kind of crimes that affects the safety of life, work and business of the dominant propertied social constituencies. At the same time, this growing ‘peace and confidence’ has ominous portents in the increasing threats to life, livelihood and security of women, dalits and adivasis. If indeed the ‘swaggering goons’ of the RJD period, who made the propertied and the affluent lose sleep, have been leashed, they seem to have been replaced by a different set of ‘swaggering goons’ whose targets are the most discriminated, oppressed and exploited. Bihar’s traditional upper caste feudal patriarchy is reasserting its social power through the front door of sushasan under the NDA.

It is indeed tragic that the government which is claiming the credit for fast-tracking the judgment against the perpetrators of the Laksmanpur Bathe massacre of Dalits by the private army of upper-caste landlords in the late 1990s, is also presiding over a law and order regime that has paved the way for the resurgence of Bihar’s upper-caste feudal patriarchy. It is ironic that the government’s own crime statistics bear this out. It is farcical that Nitish Kumar’s admirers who make opinion about him and shower accolades on him nationally and internationally do so on the basis of uninformed faith-based trash. They are indeed the true allies of criminal perpetrators of Bihar’s feudal patriarchy.