Late Ram Vilas Paswan
Paswan's death is another reminder that the wheel is now coming around a full circle, both on -Mandal" and coalition poitics, the two themes of the last 25 years, of which he was an advocate. Paswan, who died in a Delhi hospital last week at the age of 74, had been a convinced proponent of Mandal and "social justice°. He spoke about it long before V P Singh, or Sharad Yadav or others got around to it. But he was not its beneficiary in Bihar. That space was taken over by Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. Mandal unleashed forces which devoured the V P Singh government, changed power equations, spaawned a new breed of OBC leaders who went on to rule North India in the quarter century afterwards, like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar, Shivraj Chouhan, Uma
Bharat, Kalyan Singh and Ashok Gehlot. Though Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 on 'vikas" and Hindutva, an underlying theme of his victory was his OBC credentials — that for the first time an OBC leader would be becoming prime minister. Paswan's death has created a piquant situation for the NDA government It is left without any Cabinet-level minister, from its allies, after the exit of the Akali Dal and earlier of the Shiv Sena. The second major shift in politics of which Paswan became an accidental -chehra" had to do with alliances which, like reservation, threw up coalition poitics. In early 2004, Sonia Gandhi walked across from 10, Janpath, to Paswan's home, seeking to join hands with him in the general election that followed.
He was the first non-Congress leader she reached out to in an attempt to sew up aliances, shedding the Congress's go-it-alone policy. The aliances she forged in early 2004 catapulted the Congress to power for 10 years at the head of the United Progressive Alliance of which Paswan was a minister.
In later years, Paswan used to say that going with the Congress was a major mistake, for he was thrown
at the mercy of the party's Bihar leaders, and that he should have launched his regional party earlier, rather than waiting for 2000, when he formed the Lok Janshakti Party. The realist that he was, he decided to concentrate on national politics, when he could not break into the Bihar landscape as he had wanted to. Like Jagjivan Ram, he became a Dalit face at the Centre, in his case under six prime ministers, V P Singh, H D Deve Gowda, I K Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi.
That he managed to retain his relevance in six governments, despite the support only amongs a section of the Dalits and that too in one state of India, spoke volumes about his political savvy. In the eighties and the nineties, there were two political weathercocks who used to be talked about, who could sense which way the wind was blowing — Ram Vilas Paswan and Sitaram Kesri! In private, Paswan would concede that he had had to compromise on his earlier ideals to be able to survive in parliamentary politics where money, MP ship and ministership determine a political role or relevance. Paswan had started his political journey on a different note — first by winning an assembly seat in 1969, on the Samyukta Socialist Party ticket, brought up as he was on the ideals of Ram Manohar Lohia and Karpoori Thakur. He was one of the six who had resigned his assembly seat in 1974 when JP gave his call for a `total revolution and became a hero for many in Bihar. His stature grew further when he won by a record 5 lakh votes from Hajipur at the end of the Emergency, during which he was imprisoned. Paswan’s death is another reminder that the wheel is now coming around a full circle, both on “Mandal” and coalition politics, the two themes of the last 25 years, of which he was an advocate. However, both caste and alliances remain factors in states, particularly in Bihar, where elections are scheduled from October 28.
How will history judge Ram Vilas Paswan? A Mandal proponent who wanted “satta mein shirkat” for all those kept out of the power structure? “A disappointed social reformer”, as a socialist friend of yesteryears put it? “A populist democrat?” Or a Dalit leader who managed to hold his own in the Delhi durbar?