Winston Churchill was voted out of power in 1945 even though his government ensured victory for Great Britain in the second world war. Perhaps British voters found him unfit to lead the nation during a time of peace.

This is in sharp contrast to the situation in India. Indira Gandhi exploited the 1971 war for political gains. The war, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, brought victory to the Congress in the state elections in 1972. In 1999, the Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance cashed in on the Kargil War to win the Lok Sabha election held that year.

The British voters demonstrated a degree of maturity by electing the Labour Party to power in spite of the great achievement of the Conservatives. However, in India, chief ministers are now busy making tall claims about their respective‘models of development’. In reality, what they have done is build a few roads, bridges and schools, that too with the help of Central funds, apart from bringing some investments. Had they matched Churchill’s feat, they would have certainly declared themselves to be rulers for life.

But ordinary people appear to possess more wisdom than our chief ministers. They rejected the so-called ‘Bihar model’ in a debate organized by The Telegraph in Patna on April 5. (The topic for the debate was as follows — “In the Opinion of the House, the Bihar Model of Governance is the Future of India”). Not only did the four speakers who spoke against the motion score brownie points over their opponents, but the jam-packed house, which included people from all walks of life, also rejected the motion in a show of hands.

Clear verdict

The verdict was clear. The people of the state may have voted a leader to power because they had to choose one among the many. But they are not prepared to accept his model of development as the ideal alternative. Interestingly, those who spoke against the Bihar model rebuffed the Gujarat model as well. They even questioned the wisdom of giving credit to individual leaders for the development of a state at a time when most development plans are conceived at the Central level by the Planning Commission. The funds, too, are allotted by the Union government.

However, even they failed to point out the manner in which some intellectuals are busy negating what is being taught to students of political science. While highlighting the essentials of democracy, they are taught about the role of opposition parties as well. Their presence, and, at times, their resistance to certain policies, help the government of the time to function properly.

Those who spoke in favour of the motion mixed up the ‘Bihar model’ with the ‘Nitish model’, which was not the topic of the debate. The ‘Bihar model’ does not suggest the role of one man. It reiterates what Union ministers from the state did for Bihar — there were 10 of them in the UPA-I. They brought projects worth thousands of crores to Bihar, which played a big part in giving a fillip to the growth rate in the state.

What needs to be discussed — but is never done — is how the ‘Bihar model’ has evolved in the last few years. It is true that Lalu Prasad hardly did anything for the development of Bihar in the 1990s. But then, one can not deny that ‘Mandal’ and ‘Mandir’— and not development — were of primary importance to most political parties then. None else but Nitish Kumar was the hero of the biggest caste conglomeration, and Ram Vilas Paswan was busy with his Dalit Sena. The sole aim of the Bharatiya Janata Party then was to construct the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

A decade later, when Kumar emerged as the champion of development, Prasad turned out to be a much better railways minister at least from the safety point of view. This is the real Bihar model.