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Rajiv Shukla

How can Rabri Devi be an administrator and clever politician overnight?

I had an opportunity to meet Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi recently. She was exactly what I expected her to be.

I had once met her about two years ago at the chief minister's residence in Patna when she was just a housewife. I did not notice any change in her. Though she has completed more than six months as chief minister, she still retains her housewifely characteristics and can hardly speak on politics or administrative matters. Even general queries about her government trouble her very much.

Unlike her husband Laloo Yadav, she is not at all comfortable with the media. At every question, she would look towards her assistants and repeat whatever they whispered, word for word. Sometimes it is her brother Sadhu Yadav who does the whispering, sometimes it is a government official. The only sentence which she is confident to speak on her own is, "Hum wohi karenge jo hamare saheb hamey batayange. Hum saheb ki neetiyon par challenge." (We will do whatever our boss tells us. We will move according to his diktats.) Her equation with Laloo Yadav is simple: he is her saheb, her lord and master.

I find a number of people criticising Rabri Devi, ridiculing her, seeking her removal. At elite parties, she is a 'funny' figure. They maybe right -- today we should not tolerate a chief minister who is not educated and incapable of running an administration. The new generation is quite sharp, well educated and learning a lot from developed nations. The moment they come to know about politicians like Rabri Devi, they lose their faith in political system. They also want their politicians highly qualified and competent as in America and Europe.

But how can Rabri Devi be blamed for all this? I have got nothing but sympathy for the lady. She is not responsible for being what she being accused of. She never wanted to be chief minister. It was imposed upon her by her husband. And in her kind of society, a husband's word is final and binding. So like the tame wife she is, she accepted Laloo's order. No one in the United Front, not the prime minister, not the steering committee chairman, objected to it.

Rabri Devi is trying her level best to run the office. But how can she be an administrator and clever politician overnight? How can she be an educated chief minister at 38? We will have to accept her as she is.

In the six months of her rule, she has not committed any crimes. Neither was she involved in any corruption charges. (And that's more than what you can say about certain 'educated' politicians!) She sits in the office like an idol and has left everything to trusted bureaucrats. She only conveys her husband's directives to these officials. At this point of time her husband is trying to wriggle out from the crisis and has no time for Bihar. So, everything is left to the bureaucrats. Rabri Devi does not interfere -- she simply does not understand administration and knows it fully well. The little politics she knows is to speak in support of Sitaram Kesri because her husband has told her to do so.

After 60 people were mowed down in Bihar last week by the militant Ranvir Sena, United Front leaders like Sharad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Mulayam Singh Yadav wanted Rabri Devi sacked. They went to Gujral who called the CM to Delhi and told her to 'tighten the security system' and improve her administrative skills. That was ridiculous. How can you dismiss a chief minister on the basis of one incident? And if Gujral really thinks that an uneducated housewife can switch over from the kitchen to the cabinet and dish out good governance, then he should think again.

Rajiv Shukla