An apolitical election: Has there ever been such an insipid Bihar campaign?
Bihar sits at the centre of modern Indian politics. From Gandhi’s 1917 Champaran Satyagraha to the 1974 anti-corruption movement led by Jayprakash Narayan that presaged Indira Gandhi’s Emergency to Lalu Yadav’s 1990 arrest of LK Advani during the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, the state’s politics has always kept political watchers on the edge of their seats.
But trust the year 2020 to put an end to that glorious run.
With assembly elections in the state expected in a couple of months, Bihari politics should be peaking. What we see, on the other hand, is a listless political campaign dominated not by issues of the economy of social justice, or even identity politics – but by the death of an actor in faraway Mumbai.
Focus on Bollywood
Sushant Singh Rajput, a leading Bollywood actor was found dead in his flat in June. Since then, the case has gripped the attention of India’s hysterical English and Hindi news channels as well as social media. The attention has been so intense that it has spilled over into the domain of Bihar politics, given that the actor was an ethnic Bihari and spent most of his childhood in Bihar before moving to Delhi.
As part of this politics, the leader of the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal,...
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