BIHAR – INDIA’S MOST NOTORIOUS STATE AND ITS POLITICS

India's most notorious state is failing to live up to its reputation

ONE of the more unlikely case studies offered by Harvard Business School

describes the turnaround of Indian Railways under Lalu Prasad Yadav, a

shrewd, roguish politician who ruled Bihar, India's most depressed and

unruly state, for 15 years. His predecessor at the railways, Nitish Kumar,

now leads Bihar. He may one day draw similar interest from Harvard's

Kennedy School of Government, for rarely has a failed state escaped

political bankruptcy so fast. With a population bigger than Germany's, Bihar

still suffers from potholed roads, indolent teachers, apathetic officials, insurgent Maoists,

devastating floods, shortages of power, skewed landholdings, caste resentments and an income per head that is only 40% of India's as a whole. And yet, bad as that may sound, Bihar is far better today than it was in November 2005, when

Mr Kumar came to power. Today Bihar has potholes,

where formerly it didn't have roads.

Businessmen grumble that they cannot raise money to invest in the state,

whereas before they spirited their capital out of it. People complain that Mr

Kumar's government has fallen short of its ambitious development plans.

But at least it has ambitions. Mr Yadav did not offer development. At best,

he promised selfrespect, to downtrodden castes, who once voted as their

landlords demanded, and later enjoyed picking someone their "superiors"

could not abide.

How has Mr Kumar pulled off this transformation? He first imposed law and

order, restoring the state to its role as nightwatchman

rather than rogue.

He has put several gangsters—the sort of people who in the past became

heroes—behind bars. He demanded speedy trials, where formerly

defendants could intimidate witnesses and drag out proceedings.

He has ensured that convicted criminals no longer get lucrative licences for

liquor stores and ration shops, which sell subsidised food and fuel. And

just as police reformers in America fixed broken windows, Mr Kumar's

police improved perceptions of safety by forcing Bihar's many gunowners

to conceal their weapons, rather than brandishing them out of their cars.

People now feel confident enough to buy cars and go out after dark. The

economy, always volatile, has grown at doubledigit

rates, on average,

since he took power, partly thanks to funds from Delhi.

Now what?

The policies Mr Kumar has pursued so far have broad appeal. After the

national elections in May 2009, a survey found that 88% of people were at

least somewhat satisfied with the state government's work. His second act

will be trickier. He has shied away from land reform, which is both

fiendishly complex and deeply unnerving to the uppercaste

landowners

included in his coalition. And to overcome what one minister describes as a

"crisis of implementation" teachers who don't teach, nurses who don't

nurse, roads built but not maintained, funds received but not spent—he

will have to overcome the most obdurate caste of all: the local

bureaucracy.

More than the floods that frequently test Bihar's embankments, local

officials fear the rising expectations of people who no longer meekly accept

their lot in life. Their instinct is to contain the waters by discouraging such

selfassertion.

But it is only by giving people their say, by turning unmet

need into a political demand, that the state apparatus will begin to do its

job. The biggest risk to Mr. Kumar may be the rising expectations of his

constituents. But that is also the measure of his success.