Bihar doesn’t need bigotry: It needs a blueprint

As Bihar inches closer to the crucial 2025 Assembly elections, the Congress-led INDIA bloc appears bereft of any meaningful political vision. Instead of proposing tangible solutions for the state’s future, they are resorting to stale, divisive tropes—calling for a ban on the RSS, fear-mongering about constitutional amendments, and whipping up caste insecurities. This isn’t political strategy; it’s desperation masquerading as ideology. What’s baffling is their refusal to introspect despite a string of electoral setbacks last year using the same tired narrative.

Their hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reached such extremes that their entire campaign seems driven by emotional sloganeering and anti-Hindu posturing. The frequent attacks on Sanatan Dharma and efforts to paint Hindus as anti-Muslim while projecting themselves as minority saviours only fuel polarisation. One glaring example is the repeated criticism of Hindu seers like Dhirendra Krishna Shastri of Bageshwar Dham, who is building a state-of-the-art cancer hospital offering free treatment to poor patients. Such positive acts are ignored while no such criticism is ever levelled against minority leaders or their institutions—revealing the deep-rooted hypocrisy of the opposition.

Instead of addressing real national security concerns, like Pakistan’s espionage activities through a Nepali spy module—which sought to extract crucial military deployment details—the Congress and its allies are fixated on RSS-bashing. They remain silent on how Pakistan’s ISI allegedly directed its mission through handler Yasir and Indian mole Akhlaq Azam. Such threats to national security don’t make it to their speeches or tweets.

Equally ignored are the stories of persecuted Hindu professionals, who fled Pakistan and are now languishing in India. According to an article in Times of India, Dr Chandra Das, a gynaecologist with over a decade of experience in Pakistan’s public hospitals, fled Sindh due to religious persecution. In Jaipur, her skills are not recognised by Indian authorities; she now draws blood samples and schedules appointments.

Similar is the story of Dr Roop Singh Sodha, a neuro-specialist who now checks sugar levels and files vitals. Dr Nirmala Maheshwari, another doctor, works in hospital administration while her anaesthetist husband lives in obscurity. These stories reflect a humanitarian tragedy, but the Congress ecosystem is too busy politicising caste to care.

On law and order, the silence of opposition is deafening. The brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate medical student inside RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata in August 2023 drew no outrage from the Congress or the INDIA bloc. Nor did the recent rape of a 24-year-old law student by a TMC-linked faculty member in Kolkata’s Kasba area. Despite being led by a woman Chief minister, West Bengal has seen zero accountability and yet, the opposition does not bat an eyelid in demanding Modi’s resignation over crimes in Delhi.

This selective outrage betrays their intent: politicisation, appeasement, and polarisation—not justice or governance. If the AAP, Congress, and SP are genuinely concerned about women’s safety, why not analyse and compare crime data across all states—BJP-ruled or otherwise—over the last decade and demand a uniform national response?

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi continues his global sojourns when Parliament isn’t in session but returns just in time to peddle fear-“Samvidhan khatre mein hai” and “Ban the RSS.” This lazy rhetoric ignores history. Sardar Patel, India’s first Home Minister, had initially banned the RSS post-Gandhi’s assassination but later lifted it, clarifying in a letter to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on February 28, 1948 that RSS had no role in the assassination. Yet, Congress continues to link Nathuram Godse to the RSS, conveniently forgetting that Godse had left the Sangh long before 1948.

By that flawed logic, should we then label Mohd Ali Jinnah—a former Congress leader who worked closely with Nehru—as proof that the Congress divided India? Jinnah and Nehru both sought independence from the British, but while Jinnah later pivoted to a communal ideology, Congress cannot escape the fact that he was once their own. History isn’t a buffet—you can’t pick what suits your narrative and discard the rest.

Today, Congress is as rudderless as the INDIA bloc. The AICC president admits he’s not the final authority—decisions lie with the “High Command.” But who is the High Command—Rahul or Sonia Gandhi? There’s no transparency, only a dynastic fog.

So, what do Congress or RJD stand for in Bihar today? Ask their leaders, and you’ll either get romanticised nostalgia about their glory days or apocalyptic warnings about BJP “destroying the Constitution.” Both are irrelevant to the present voter.

The Bihari electorate of today isn’t swayed by emotion alone. They want better roads, reliable electricity, industrial development, healthcare, education, jobs—and above all, dignity. But instead of feeding aspirations, the opposition feeds anxieties.

Congress leaders offer nothing on skilling Bihar’s youth, industrialising the state, or addressing its chronic outmigration. Instead, they speculate that the BJP wants to tear apart the Constitution—a bogeyman narrative without basis. Ironically, the Constitution has been amended over 106 times so far since Independence, the most draconian of which came during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. If any party undermined the Constitution, it’s the Congress. Yet, they now claim to be its last line of defence.

And when fear doesn’t work, the opposition unleashes its old weapon: caste. By pitting communities against each other, they aim to consolidate vote banks. But even here, their hypocrisy is laid bare. It was the Modi government that implemented 10 per cent EWS reservations across castes. It was this government that conducted the long-demanded caste census in Bihar. What has Congress or RJD done for backward castes apart from symbolic gestures and dynasty preservation?

The voters are asking hard questions: What did Lalu Prasad Yadav achieve for OBC upliftment apart from installing his own family across government posts? What did decades of Congress rule deliver except tokenism and communal appeasement?

Caste rhetoric without a development agenda is dead-end. Voters today want a roadmap—not rants. They want schools, not slogans; industries, not incitement.

If the opposition truly seeks to regain relevance, it must abandon its hate-fuelled narratives and present a positive, forward-looking vision. This means articulating clear policies on infrastructure, employment, law and order, education, women’s safety, and healthcare. But these are glaringly absent. Instead, we get conspiracy theories, RSS paranoia, caste arithmetic, and communal dog-whistles. This isn’t leadership. It’s political bankruptcy.

Bihar—and India—deserve better.

(The author is former Chief Editor of The Hans India)