The humble bicycle has become the abiding image of Bihar CM’s efforts to give women the power to carve their own paths in elections.
2006: Nitish Kumar, who has taken over as CM a few months ago, is invited by Patna district administration to distribute bicycles to girls from underprivileged sections under the centrally-sponsored Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojna. As the girls take turns to receive the keys, Nitish notices the glint in their eyes and the happiness on their faces. That gives him an idea. “What if all schoolgirls get a bicycle of their own?” he thinks. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.
2015: Barely a few months before assembly polls, Nitish is addressing a programme of Jeevika, the World Bank-aided Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project, at S.K. Memorial Hall in Patna when Sushma Devi from Nalanda gets up to ask him when he would enact a law to stop people from consuming alcohol? There is thunderous applause from the crowd, mostly women, and Nitish senses the sentiment. He announces he will implement prohibition if voted to power.
Nitish Kumar’s detractors often dismiss him as ‘CM by circumstances’ for his political somersaults, swapping allies and adversaries almost at will to his advantage. But an unmistakable pattern has underlined his 16-year tenure in Bihar: women’s support beyond caste lines. Women have fought prejudices to vote for Nitish in successive elections, making him a formidable leader. The reason: the longest-serving CM in the state looked at women as an independent category with no caste strings attached, and sought to empower them all.
Since taking over Bihar’s reins in November 2005, following Lalu Prasad-Rabri Devi’s 15 years in power, Nitish has introduced schemes exclusively for women and carved out a separate constituency, if not vote bank, long ignored by all parties and leaders.
From 50 per cent reservation in panchayat elections and free bicycles and uniforms for schoolgirls to 35 per cent reservation in field postings, not to speak of prohibition, women’s welfare has been the fulcrum of Nitish’s development agenda so far. In the past few parliamentary and assembly elections, women have outnumbered men at polling stations. Many social scientists interpret this as a tell-tale sign of the groundswell of women’s support for Nitish’s policies. In the 2010 assembly polls, 54.85 per cent of women cast their votes (a jump of about 10 per cent from the November 2005 polls), surpassing men (50.70 per cent). Five years later, the figures were 60.5 and 53.3 per cent. In the 2020 assembly polls held during the Covid pandemic, 59.7 women and 54.7 per cent of men exercised their franchise.
The jury is still out whether it proved to be Nitish’s X-factor at the hustings, but he has certainly had the backing of more women than any of his predecessors—a remarkable feat in a state that has long carried the millstone of caste politics around its neck, and where a woman voter’s identity was appropriated with impunity by male members of her family in the past. Political analysts, though, are not surprised. Srikant, director of Jagijivan Ram Institute of Parliamentary Studies and Political Research in Patna, attributes this phenomenon primarily to Nitish’s decision to empower women at the grassroots. “Nitish’s landmark decision to provide 50 per cent reservation to women in panchayats overhauled the traditional power structure in villages,” says Srikant. “It was a major step, a paradigm of change that led to a turnaround in women’s empowerment. It was unprecedented and created a lot of awareness among rural women.”
Srikant points out that women, like the extremely backward castes (EBCs), were at the core of Nitish’s political agenda even long before he became CM. “He would talk about women’s upliftment soon after he broke ranks with Lalu in 1993,” he says. “It was part of Lohia’s ‘Sapt Kranti’ theory, which played a big role in shaping his thoughts.”
In November 2005, when women turned out in large numbers to vote for Nitish after he was declared the NDA’s CM candidate, it was read as anti-incumbency against the erstwhile RJD regime. In the 2010 assembly polls, Nitish finally had the irrefutable seal of approval by women voters, who outnumbered men in almost every polling booth. Former JD(U) minister Neeraj Kumar says it was the result of a silent revolution Nitish had ushered in. “The CM struck at the roots of social inertia through steps like reservation for women in panchayats and the bicycle scheme for schoolgirls,” he says. “He worked for women’s empowerment in a phased manner. He brought mothers out of their homes to contest rural polls and then gave bicycles to the daughters to give wings to their dreams.”
The gender gap, of course, remains a challenge, admits Neeraj. For instance, there are far more boys on the list of beneficiaries of the government’s credit card scheme for students. “Very few girls have availed of the benefits,” he says. Yet, women have supported Nitish to the hilt, claims Neeraj. “You will never see a woman publicly denouncing the CM,” he says. “Women from those communities that are not seen as our traditional supporters have also voted for him.”
Nonetheless, Bihar has long way to go before it could be said women have risen as a separate block to root for Nitish or any other leader. Pushpendra, chairperson, Centre for Development Practice and Research of the Patna chapter of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, says it is only partly true that women across caste lines voted for Nitish. “But, then, even if you get a margin of one or two per cent, it makes a lot of difference in an election,” he points out.
Recalling his fieldwork in an underdeveloped area of Araria district about a decade ago, Pushpendra says he would notice girls from underprivileged families wearing school uniforms even in the evening because that was the best dress they had. “The free school uniform was immensely popular,” he says. “It takes time to change things on the ground, but such schemes definitely catch people’s imagination. A schoolgirl riding a bicycle became a symbol of improved law and order.”
Pushpendra, however, contends that Nitish only followed in the footsteps of J. Jayalalithaa, who had successfully implemented such schemes in Tamil Nadu. Also, he points out, women’s agency has been increasing gradually. “They are taking their own decisions and not following men blindly,” he says. “There is a bit of change, and it is reflected in the voting pattern too. Many women are independently deciding to vote for Nitish now.”
Economist Nawal Kishore Choudhary, however, says the impact of women voting for Nitish is only marginal. “If women really crossed caste, creed and community lines to vote for Nitish, it would be nothing short of a revolution, and in tune with the philosophy of liberal democracy and its talk of individualism, but has that stage come yet in Bihar?” he asks. Choudhary claims there is no empirical data to suggest women cast away factors like caste to vote for Nitish. Had half the population been solidly behind Nitish, Choudhary believes he would not have faced problems in winning elections on his own. “Muslim and Yadav women do not vote for Nitish, regardless of his policies,” he says.
The Opposition also dismisses suggestions that Nitish has carved a separate women’s vote bank of his own. RJD spokesman Mrityunjay Tiwari, who calls it a perception created by the JD(U)’s PR machinery, wonders how Nitish finished a poor third in the last assembly polls if he enjoys overwhelming support of all women . “And how did Tejashwi Prasad Yadav emerge as leader of the state’s largest party, with RJD winning more seats than JD(U) and BJP?” he asks. “The Nitish government may pat itself for steps like bicycles for girls, but ask any woman whose husband drinks about the impact of prohibition. She would tell you the liquor her husband used to get for Rs 20 now costs him Rs 200 in the black market. That is the reality of Nitish’s pet projects.”
(This appeared in the print edition as "A Ride Of Her Own")