Last year around this time, Bihar was jostling its way to the headlines, not for its predictable poor-performance rankings, but on account of the upcoming elections to the State Assembly. It was dramatically billed as a mahasangrama. An incomprehensible grand alliance between erstwhile intractable foes, JD (U) and the RJD, with the Congress as a junior camp follower, was being attempted with the professed haloed objective of keeping the dark forces of fascism and communalism at bay. And the unthinkable happened. The strategy was a thumping success, stumping political observers and analysts. Nitish Kumar, “Sushaasan Babu” of JD (U) was anointed as head of the coalition government. It was claimed by the CM that jungle-raj, though synonymous with the party with the largest number of seats in the Assembly , the RJD, would be tossed into the trash heap of history. It would only be good governance all the way. Not many were convinced and unsurprisingly, being in a tight and cosy cinch, jungle-raj effortlessly slithered its way back centrestage soon enough. Notwithstanding vehement denials, it was yesterday once more, a decade-plus removed.

And then came the addictive idea of prohibition which Nitish Kumar believed would catapult him into the history books and take the heat off continued jibes about caving in to the relentless onslaught of jungle-raj. What temporarily deflected public attention from the tried-and- failed idea and its draconian implementation was the order of the Patna High Court on 7 September, releasing on bail, four-term MP and two-term legislator of the RJD, Mohammad Shahabuddin, after an incarceration of 11 long years, citing a six-month delay in the Rajiv Roshan murder case, disregarding its own stipulated deadline, cryptically stating that an accused could not be kept indefinitely behind bars. The uber don-turned-Robin Hood-turned-politician has 58-odd criminal cases against him since 1986. This does not take into account crimes which may have failed to find their way into the police registers because of the all pervading fear-factor he generated. Between 2007 and 2015, convictions have been handed down in eight cases, including two life-terms, for the murders of CPI(ML) leader, Chhote Lal Shukla, and brothers, Girish and Satish Raj. Of the cases pending trial, many have been stayed for various reasons, among them a highly mysterious one of notices not being served although the accused was all along in judicial custody. Government appears not to have made any effective moves to get these stays vacated.

For Nitish Kumar, justifiably credited with initiating firm legal action against the don back in 2006, which led to his consequential, though limited, debarment from active politics, the release should have been a major jolt. But evidently it was not. It was only the naive people of India, who rubbed their eyes in shocked disbelief as Shahabuddin breezed out of Bhagalpur Jail, as if emerging from a rejuvenating stint at a well endowed Retreat. It may well have been so, by all accounts. He was welcomed by a tumultuous mob, including fawning MPs and MLAs. There were sharp-shooters and history sheeters, too, allegedly implicated in the recent murder of Siwan journalist, Rajdev Ranjan, within air- kissing proximity. The grand SUV studded cavalcade that whisked him off on a 400 km drive to home turf must have turned many into an incandescent green with envy. The authorities, it is learnt, had issued instructions to provide the smoothest of passages and not charge tolls en route, never mind the loss to the public exchequer and brazen flouting of laws .

The release was benignly dismissed by Nitish Kumar as a simple playing out of the “due process of law” and, therefore, insignificant. Though ostensibly jarring from one who counted maintenance of law and order as his USP, in fact, it sat well with the State Government&’s policy of indulgence towards the don in the last few years and expectedly, invited sharp criticism of strategic complicity from his political opponents.

After all, the idyllic jail conditions — yes the citizens now stood educated about this strange possibility — with daawats, high-level political meetings and public durbars had been generously facilitated even when JD (U) was not in a political relationship with the RJD. It was almost a throwback to the 1990s, albeit on a nano scale, when the Bihar Government had shifted its headquarters to Beur Central Jail, Patna, in the immediate aftermath of the infamous fodder scam. Where was the much touted sushaashan in all this? Nowhere.

What did rattle Nitish Kumar to the core, however, was the disdainful remark of Shahabuddin that he was a CM of circumstances and would never be acceptable as his leader. That special status was reserved for the one and only, Lalu Prasad, his political mentor and staunch ally of 30 years, who valued him immensely for his perceived vote-bank potential. Though Nitish again valiantly tried to play this down as a media concoction, he could not really deny the salvo&’s raw potency to damage his standing and set in motion a political tremor. After all, being in power mattered much to him. 

Adding to the keenly felt vulnerability was the ringing endorsement of the loyalty-infused disclaimer of Shahabuddin by the RJD supremo himself. An unwelcome new season of Bihar&’s Game of Thrones had just unspooled, unannounced. It was this, rather than any concern about criminalisation of politics that shoved the Bihar Government towards the Supreme Court, seeking a cancellation of the bail, 10 days later.

By then the moral moment had been seized by legal activist, Prashant Bhushan, on behalf of Chanda Babu, who lost three sons to the don&’s most horrific and brutal machinations. After ceding the pehle-aap advantage, by choice or otherwise, the State filed its SLP, pillorying Shahabuddin as a “terror” and a “menace to society”, artfully steering clear of accepting any responsibility for its own failures which brought things to such a pass. The bail has not been stayed and things are back to square one till 26 September, the next date of the hearing.

Ironically, the party of which the SLP-designated “dreaded criminal” is a National Executive member, continues as an honoured coalition partner in the Bihar Government and has only been beseeched through a media meet to conduct itself according to coalition dharma and not rock the boat for the CM!

The dangerous nexus between criminals and politicians has been a near permanent fixture of our polity but it seems to have dipped below the radar in the cacophony of anti-corruption campaigns of the last few years. Shahabuddin&’s case has brought it back in focus and ripped apart many myths peddled about good governance by wannabe PMs.

Among other salient policy imperatives, the PIL filed in the Delhi High Court by Ashwini Upadhyaya seeking lifetime bans on persons, once convicted from contesting elections, by declaring unconstitutional Sections 8 and 9 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, if allowed, will go a long way in detoxifying the system. Indian democracy will continue to remain constantly imperilled if the fatal liaison of politics and criminality is seen and believed to jive and rock.

The writer is a retired IAS officer and comments on governance issues.