In keeping with the trend of violent protests, vandalism and arson on the basis of ignorance and speculation, even ‘Agnipath’ has become the subject of rioting. Protests have been reported from some parts of the country. However, it is Bihar that has come into the limelight due to reports of trains being torched, and houses of the Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and the state BJP chief being attacked.
The protests have been instigated by rumours and fake speculation about the Agnipath scheme. Now, one can speak at length about how the Agnipath scheme doesn’t actually do injustice to armed forces aspirants. Yet, the main concern is why it is Bihar that is witnessing most of the violence, vandalism and arson?
On digging up the reasons behind the ongoing violence, we will find that it is decades of political incompetence and stagnation that has left Bihar’s youth unemployed and frustrated.
Unemployment Continues to Haunt Bihar
At the outset, the popular sentiment may be that Bihar has seen its worst and is now out of the ‘Jungle Raj’ era, but the state remains troubled by lack of job opportunities.
As per CMIE, unemployment rate in India stood at 7.12% in May 2022. On the other hand, it was as high as 13.3% in Bihar. In absolute terms, Bihar is estimated to have around 38 lakh unemployed youth and figures among states with the highest number of unemployed youth in the country.
The state is, therefore, full of government job aspirants, who have no hope in life except the prospect of finding a job in the public sector. Bihar’s cities and towns are, in fact, full of coaching centres and private tutors actively selling the dream of a government job.
So, Bihar definitely has an unemployment problem. To add to it, there are millions of youngsters in the state who are frustrated by lack of job opportunities and believe that it is the prerogative of the government to employ them all in the public sector, even though the government can only employ a small fraction of the total job-seekers.
The Dark Era of Jungle Raj in the Lalu Era
The real misery of Bihar actually dates back to the Lalu era. This was the time when Bihar got the ‘Jungle Raj’ tag and in the middle of the crime and chaos, murder and kidnapping became the main industries. The state was engulfed by institutionalised crime and kidnapping-for-ransom from 1990 to 2000. In fact, kidnapping-for-ransom was described as e-business in Bihar, wherein ‘e’ stood for extortion.
When murder and kidnapping take up industrial propositions, the real industries are naturally the first ones to fly out. No business, whether Indian or overseas, would want to operate in a state where the law and order isn’t being properly managed. This is what happened with Bihar too and the hangover of that era still seems to be an overbearing influence on the state.
Stagnation Under Nitish Rule
However, Bihar has left the Lalu era far behind and Nitish Kumar has been the CM of the state for the past 16 years with a brief hiatus in 2014 and 2015. Nitish has been getting constant BJP support and he gets better PR than Lalu. What went in Nitish’s favour was very low pressure of expectations. When you take over after an era of ‘Jungle Raj’, you don’t have to perform really well to distinguish yourself.
However, Bihar hasn’t really come out of the unemployment crisis it was in. Numbers show that Bihar isn’t moving in the direction of attracting businesses and boosting employment.
Worse still, Nitish Kumar doesn’t even show the intent to change the abysmal state of affairs in Bihar. He is totally invisible as a Chief Minister when it comes to issues like employment and economic growth. It is as if the issues of bringing in businesses and boosting employment aren’t even on his radar. And this could go back to his emergence as an ideologically socialist leader from the days of the Emergency movement.
The state government, therefore, doesn’t seem keen on inviting businesses to Bihar. At the end of the day, Nitish Kumar’s politics ends up revolving around the demands of ‘special category’ status for Bihar.
On the other hand, states like Gujarat have scaled up growth and job generation by attracting businesses and holding summits like Vibrant Gujarat.
Take the example of Uttar Pradesh. Neighbouring Bihar, the state of Uttar Pradesh has its own history of slow economic growth, joblessness and law and order issues.
But you have a government in Uttar Pradesh that is inviting global businesses to come and set up base in the state. The state is inviting businesses from American, Korean and Japanese companies and has succeeded in getting corporate giants like Samsung to establish their presence in UP.
It all boils down to the leader’s mindset. Building on the argument of the dichotomy between Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, you can also notice how Uttar Pradesh has not banned alcohol. In fact, the state is milking record revenue through liquor sale. On the other hand, prohibition in Bihar did lead to major disruption in the state. It has led to loss of revenue and even turned out to be a disruptive move.
Take the case of Carlsberg. Nitish had wooed the company to set up a $25 million plant near Patna in the state and then banned liquor. A miffed Michael Jensen, CEO of Carlsberg India, had then said, “It was a sizeable market and investment but they decided to do prohibition in 12 hours.”
At the end of the day, it is the unemployed youth that suffers due to such anti-business policies. Today, many of the protesters may not even be armed forces aspirants. Possibly, some of them may even be ineligible to join the armed forces due to their age.
However, it is easy to incite a mob that consists of unemployed and hopeless youth. This youth has no option but to look for government jobs. The government cannot employ millions of youth. Yet, Bihar’s jobs market isn’t really accommodating them and it is the incumbent Chief Minister and one of his predecessors who are to blame.
Akshay Narang is a columnist who writes about international affairs and developments in the defence sector. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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