In such circumstances, silence does not mean consent, but an unwritten condition of agreement to continue to exist.
The politics of deception and sabotage rarely have the same script. Every occasion for a conspiracy creates its own grammar, shaped by circumstance, ambition and the lust for power. Whatever is happening around Nitish Kumar in Bihar seems to be a great example of such a script. The deception in it is not only political but also psychological. This is not just a matter of changing the direction of the alliance or altering the power equation, but of carefully creating such a situation where the leader who is being deceived is deprived of even the speech that would give the impression of deception.
Expressing grievances also has meaning in democratic politics. A defeated leader may level allegations, a colleague turned adversary may express regrets, a betrayed colleague may complain of hurt feelings. These things, whether true or clever, are part of the farce of democracy. From them people derive the meaning of political events through different narratives. The one who is deceived speaks, the one who deceives defends, and people try to filter the truth and find meaning from the words of both of them.
But there are some occasions when the structure of power is so thin that even minor privileges are snatched away, as has happened in the case of Nitish Kumar. The one who is deceived is forced to remain silent. It is not necessary that this should be done through open pressure, but a subtle weave of dependence and political survival can also be sufficient. Remaining silent in such circumstances is not in any way an expression of consent, rather it is an unwritten condition of the circumstances or agreement.
The texture of the current story of Bihar seems to be exactly this. On the surface, this development may appear to be another version of the old practice of changing the direction of alliances in the country. But in this case the plot threads lie elsewhere and the main character fails to express his views. The leader remains on stage, but the script is quietly changed by others.
This is nothing new in today’s politics. A kind of template was created from the political drama that unfolded in Maharashtra with Eknath Shinde. There too, the power equation was executed very neatly. On the surface there was talk of rebellion and new coordination, but internally dissent was suppressed by strategic design. However, what is happening in Bihar seems less like a repetition and more like a change in the earlier script. Perhaps the look and feel of every comedy is different.
The biggest tragedy of such politics is not just deception. After all, politics has never been considered a place of permanent loyalties and relationships. Alliances are constantly being formed, broken and re-formed. Therefore, the real tragedy is the silence imposed on the deceived. That is, even if his political ground has been snatched away, he continues to play his role in public life, keeps his mouth shut and appears practical in behaviour.
To an outside observer, this silence may seem like political maturity or strategic restraint. But there can be a very scary thing hidden in it that a leader may start losing the ability to speak openly about those situations, due to which his own politics is getting erased. In such cases, politics becomes a theater where the hero is visible but his voice is missing.
History reminds us that betrayal in politics often happens twice. The first betrayal occurs when trust is broken, when agreements are silently broken. The second betrayal occurs when the offended party is not allowed to say that the relationship has been broken. Losing power is one thing, losing the narrative is a bigger thing.
The reason is that democracy depends not only on the capture of institutions and electoral mathematics, but also on the freedom to know and understand political events accurately. People know and understand the political world through the words and stories of leaders, parties, journalists and experts. When these narratives are carefully managed, when some voices are silenced and others dominate the discussion, the meaning of political events becomes a matter of controlled debates rather than open debates. These controlled debates are organized in such a way that people remain ignorant of the real reasons or forget them as normal, so that only a neatly prepared narrative can proceed.
Bihar is probably now reaching a similar phase. The question is not just who will rule or who will become the Chief Minister or how the alliance will ultimately be decided. These are common aspects of electoral politics but the more serious question is who will ultimately tell the story of what has happened. Will those who carried out this strategy sitting far away in the corridors of power tell? Or will one day one of the so-called “inside sources” decide to narrate this incident with such frankness that one rarely gets the chance in politics?
But the people of Bihar want answers. After all, democratic decision making does not end with the counting of votes, it continues with the interpretation of what those votes meant and why the new ‘meaning’ was ascribed to them. When power brokers, away from voters, secretly change that interpretation, the democratic script becomes a sad footnote. People may be surprised to see all this that he had not given such a mandate.
Perhaps this is the most lasting lesson of this incident. The verdict of the people may be expressed in statistics on the day the votes are counted, but its real meaning is often decided later, sometimes in front of everyone, and sometimes in rooms with the doors closed to the public. Whatever the essence of this story of Bihar may seem certain now, democracy is a game of uncertainties.
(RJD Rajya Sabha member, views are personal)