‘Miracle’ of Bihar propels Kumar

Nitish Kumar has always been an unusual Indian politician, not least because of his reputation for honesty and quiet efficiency.

But the chief minister of Bihar and a possible future prime minister seems to be behaving even more strangely now: he insists that the inhabitants of his state, one of India’s most populous, are even poorer than outsiders believe. There are good political reasons for this apparent self-flagellation at a time when Bihar’s economy has in fact grown faster than any other state in India.

Mr Kumar, 62, wants many more of Bihar’s 104m people to be classified as living “below the poverty line” than the 53 per cent calculated by the central government. That would give the overwhelmingly agricultural state access to more funds from New Delhi and bolster his case for extra investment incentives.

A record of curbing crime, boosting economic growth and helping farmers raise output has brought him to national prominence. He is credited with engineering the “miracle” turnround of Bihar, the poorest state in India.

A modest and methodical politician, Mr Kumar is entering a crucial phase of his career. With a general election due by May 2014, the two main national alliances – one led by Congress, which heads the Indian government, and another led by his current ally, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party – are jostling for the support of a man seen as an exemplar of efficient governance.

“We don’t think we have done miracles, so we are scared of these kind of words. It’s not miracles,” he responds with a smile during an interview in Patna, the busy capital on the Ganges River.

Mr Kumar, who demanded the economic benefits of “special status” for Bihar at a rally for tens of thousands of his supporters in Delhi on Sunday, is being courted by both of India’s main political alliances ahead of next year’s general election.

His comment that only a political group that believed in “inclusive growth” could govern India next year prompted intense speculation that he was poised to shift his support to the ruling Congress, whose campaign slogans include the mantra of “inclusive growth”, based on subsidies for the poor.

“People used to say that Bihar was a case of bad governance,” he says. “But when we took over, I came to this point of view that it was not a case of bad governance – it was absence of governance.

“There was no law and order. Everybody was afraid of coming out after the evening hours. Even the capital city Patna wore a deserted look after 7 o’clock.”

While playing down talk of miracles, Mr Kumar says expectations are now rising.

“In the first term they didn’t have much expectations from me. We were suffering from a bad period and there was a sense of relief. But now in the second term everybody expects everything. The expectations are too high.”

Unless we provide education to all our girl children, this population cannot be controlled

Mr Kumar’s measures are simple but effective. They include ensuring prosecution witnesses turn up at court so that mafia dons can be convicted of weapons offences, and providing free bicycles for girls so their families send them to school.

He says the bicycle plan, which helped quadruple the number of girls entering secondary education, began six years ago when the sight of a smaller project in Patna “created waves” in his mind.

All the efforts of Mr Kumar are nevertheless in danger of being overwhelmed by the fast-rising population of Bihar. In the decade to 2011, the number of its inhabitants rose by a quarter, the highest rate in India. In those 10 years, Bihar added 21m people, roughly the population of Australia.

“It’s all due to lack of education, so basically we are putting emphasis on primary education, secondary education,” says Mr Kumar, noting that fertility falls to replacement levels among women who have completed two years of secondary schooling.

“Unless we provide education to all our girl children, this population cannot be controlled . . . So we are making our plans to open at least 1,000 schools every year.”

Yet while Mr Kumar organises electricity transmission lines, bridges and new schools, he knows it will not be long before he is drawn into the intense political wrangling that precedes any Indian general election.

His Janata Dal (United) party is now allied to the opposition BJP, but he refuses to be drawn on who might be the next prime minister or whether he would openly oppose Narendra Modi, the ambitious chief minister of Gujarat, as a BJP candidate because of the killings of Muslims that happened on his watch in 2002.

“The basic thing is that we are in a coalition era and that is going to stay,” he says. “People are getting disillusioned with the present government but whatever the next government is, it will be going into a coalition.”

Additional reporting by Jyotsna Singh