Insight - From darkest India, an enlightened leader

PATNA, India (Reuters) - There's an apocryphal story about Bihar, a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India that for decades held the dubious honour of being the most violent, poverty-stricken and corrupt in the land.

A Japanese minister visiting in the 1990s, shocked at the decrepit buildings, the darkness at night even in the centre of town and the crumbling roads, declared that it was all solvable.

"Give me three years," he told a state leader, "and I can turn Bihar into Japan."

"That's nothing," came the laconic reply from his host. "Give me three days and I will turn Japan into Bihar."

Bihar is no longer the butt of jokes, however, not since Nitish Kumar took charge of the ruined state in 2005 and began to turn it around -- winning such respect that he stands a decent chance of one day becoming prime minister of India.

"My first priority was governance, my second priority was governance and my third priority was governance," Chief Minister Kumar told Reuters at his office in the state capital, Patna, a dusty city where property prices have soared to levels paid in far away New Delhi, even as its streets teem with the desperately poor.

"Bihar suffered not because of bad governance but because of a lack of governance."

When India launched reforms to open up its state-stifled economy 20 years ago, many states surged ahead, leaving behind the 3.5 percent "Hindu rate of growth" that had plagued the decades after the country's independence from Britain in 1947, and with it Bihar.

Bihar, as the article points out, is still horrible. It’s next-door to me, and is still to unsafe for a westerner to visit. I’m with this guy’s detractors: 250% of nothing is still nothing. Unfortunately, Bihar is not alone in Eastern India in being paralyzed by poor (or no) governance. Odisha is in similar straits, though with somewhat better infrastructure. The Odisha PM is unable to effect any real change, and has a well-documented habit of throwing the ministers under him to the wolves as appeasement when things go wrong. The problem being that he’s running out of ministers and excuses.

Also, it’s unlikely this guy will be the next Prime Minister here. The Gandhi dynasty still has some cards to play, and it’s more likely Rahul will be the next PM. Singh is pretty ineffectual, and there is considerable opinion that he needs to be replaced.

I’m not willing to downplay his achievements given the scale of the mess he inherited. And add to it being blessed with endemic caste conflict, Maoisim, occassional sectarian flareups and rampant political opportunism. So he needs credit for what he has achieved. More so than Naveen Patnaik of Orissa who only has a ‘clean’ image and nothing else.

About who will be Premier, if qualifications really counted somebody like Nitish Kumar would take the cake in my book. The fact remains that given the chaotic nature of coalition politics in India, who becomes Prime minister would make little or no difference to the bigger picture. Your effectivenes is a product of your political freedom.

Where in Odisha are you? I was in Bhubanshwar this week and I noticed it has gotten more crowded. The city seemed much more well-kept three years ago. I’ve noticed that in India, infrastructure spending and new construction is done with much fanfare, but then very little upkeep is done. The mosquitoes were twice as bad this year, too.

I’m in Bhubaneswar as well. Pity we didn’t have an opportunity to link up. And yes, the city is getting much better. Open drains are being converted to buried culverts, roads are being widened, etc.

However, you have to keep in mind that the city is still riding the wave of Potemkin beautification resulting from the 99th Indian Science Congress being held here earlier this month. And also yes, building and then abandoning seems to be an Indian habit, as is building to 10-10 (or in this case, 10-100) standards, that being it looks like a “10” but only from 10 yards away (or 100). A good case in point is the building I work in, which looks like it has modern wall-of-glass windows, but really has them as a facade over ordinary sash windows. Not to mention roads with lanes just a little too narrow, stop signs placed nearly randomly, and road median breaks that do not correspond to side roads (to say nothing of no turn lanes or parking lots, though I blame this on the city being a designed city, and they’re apparently still following the original 1940s design plan which apparently felt 5 cars in a city was all that anyone would ever need).

And the mosquitoes are probably the result of a practically-unprecedented week of winter rain we had a little while ago.

It’s kind of sad, really. This could be a really nice city (and country), if the citizens cared enough to take care of it. That socialist bit in the government founding document has left (I feel) too many believing that things are Somebody Else’s Problem.

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