Bihar’s policy changes every 15 years. A visible trend in the iconic Jayprakash Narayan movement is taking shape again in this year’s Bihar elections. For the first time in more than three decades, the youth are emerging as an independent caste electorate for a state leader.
While the Lalu-Rabri duo ruled the state for 15 years and Nitish Kumar took over from 2005 to 2020, the youth of Bihar appear to have voted for ‘badlaav’ (change) rising above the caste matrix.
“I am a Rajput. In 2010 and 2015 I was with the BJP. But this time I am supporting Tejashwi Yadav. We want to eliminate Nitish Kumar. We are young and obviously we will think about youth. We want jobs. It has been two years since I applied for a job. at NTPC. It has been a long time since I also applied for the state service commission exam, “said a young voter from Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Motihari in East Champaran, which is known to be a saffron stronghold.
In almost every demonstration attended by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, a large crowd of young people followed him on a wave. The 31-year-old appears to have made good on his promise of 10 lakh of government jobs. He often repeated at his rallies that he would sign his job promise the day he became prime minister.
It seems that the RJD did the math too. The party has claimed that there are 4.5 thousand rupees of pending vacancies in the Bihar government and that another 5.5 billion jobs should be created.
The promise has found resonance among young people, especially in a state where lack of employment is one of the biggest drivers of migration. The unemployment rate in Bihar was 10.3 percent last year and was among the highest in the country. According to CMIE, the state’s unemployment rate increased by 31.2 percentage points, reaching 46.6 percent in April 2020, almost double the national average.
The 64th round of the National Sample Survey indicated that around 30.7 per cent of all Bihar migrants moved in search of employment because they could not find work.
Added to this is the fact that Bihar is the youngest state in India, according to the 2011 Census. And projections are that its average age will be less than 30, even 16 years from now, when the average age of India around 34.7 years. According to the 2011 census, the average age of Bihar is currently 20 years.
It was only for Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the youth emerged as an undivided constituency in 2014 and 2019. It is the first time this trend has been repeated for a state leader.
Bihar youth have not been a close bystander to caste-related policy changes. On August 7, 1990, then-PM VP Singh announced in Parliament that his government had accepted the Mandal Commission report, which recommended a reserve of 27 percent for CBO candidates at all levels of their services.
This young electorate also has no vivid memories of what the BJP-JD (U) called the ‘jungle-raj’ to attack the opposition that is targeting the Lalu-Rabri regime.
For young voters, this election is very different from the recent ones they have witnessed, so the shift towards tejashwi came only after discussions between different generations.
“For the past 15 years, Nitish Kumar has said that the state needs special status. I can’t believe he doesn’t have a plan for the state. He said that Bihar is landlocked, there is no sea near the state, so may not develop and there may be no work. So what has he been chosen for? Such is the state of education in Bihar that a three-year undergraduate course is completed in 6 years, we do not get degrees on time “, said another young voter in Bihar’s Maner Sharif.
Nitish’s image of ‘Susashan Babu’ also seems to have become outdated in the eyes of the young voter. As part of a welfare plan, in order to promote education and safety, she had provided bicycles to girls across the state, but even that seems to have shown a lack of direction and additional vision.
“The state has developed a bit, but Bihar has not yet been able to reach its desirable potential. Roads and electricity are on the priority list, but our education is not served. We do not believe in this twin-engine government. Nitish Kumar He gave us cycles, but now what awaits us? The government must change, “said a student at LN Mithila University in Darbhanga.
This is exactly where Tejashwi Yadav seems to have made the most of it. He quickly learned that Lalu Yadav’s call for secularism and social justice did not relate to the post-Mandal, post-Babri generation. That is why the clarion asks for jobs. He also promised pay parity to more than five lakhs of hired teachers along with increased wages for the aanganwadi and ASHA workers.
The degree of job distress in Bihar was perhaps measured by the fact that a young voter at the Nitish rally said: “I have a graduate degree and have not been able to find a job for the past seven years. I keep going to the state offices. looking for work, but they have always been rejected. “
Bihar is seeing the rise of an aspirational vote that wants more than just ‘bijli, paani aur sadak’. This is where Nitish Kumar, despite putting the state on the path of development, seems to have lost connection with young Biharis.
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