Luv-Kush equation
The Luv-Kush equation is a political term used in the context of the politics of Bihar, to denote the alliance of the agricultural Kurmi and the Koeri caste, which was assumed to be approximately 15% of the state's population The alliance of these two caste groups has remained the support base of Nitish Kumar, as against the MY equation of Lalu Prasad Yadav, which constitutes Muslims and the Yadavs. Caste consciousness and the quest for political representation largely drive the politics of Bihar. The political alliance of the Koeri and the Kurmi castes, termed the "Luv-Kush equation" was formed when a massive Kurmi Chetna Rally was organised by members of the Kurmi community in 1994 against the alleged casteist politics of Lalu Yadav, who was blamed by contemporary community leaders for promoting Yadavs in politics and administration.
File:The Union Minister for Railways Shri Nitish Kumar unveils a plaque for foundation of a new station building at the Ajmeri Gate entry of New Delhi Railway Station in New Delhi on January 25, 2004.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|Union Minister for Railways Nitish Kumar unveiling a plaque for foundation of a new station building at the Ajmeri Gate entry of New Delhi railway station in New Delhi on 25 January 2004
Unlike the Yadavs, the Kushwahas, who are traditionally a farming community, are very like the Kurmis with whom they have a better social alliance than with the Yadavs. Since the 1990s, Nitish Kumar had garnered the support of a number of Kushwaha leaders including Shakuni Choudhury, Nagmani, Tulsidas Mehta and Upendra Kushwaha. The call for unity between the two castes by Kumar in the 1990s gave rise to the new social alliance and a new term in the political lexicon of Bihar.
Etymology
The Backward Castes in Bihar are divided into two Annexures. While the Annexure-I castes are socio-economically more backward and are also called Extremely Backward Castes, the castes included in Annexure-II are comparatively prosperous. Annexure-I contains approximately 113 caste groups, while there are only four caste groups in Annexure-II: Koeri, Kurmi, Bania and the Yadav. The Yadav make up the single largest caste group in Bihar, followed by Koeris, who comprise 4.2% of the state's population. The Kurmi make up 2.86% of the state's population and are concentrated around Nalanda, Patna and a few pockets of central Bihar. The Koeris, who are more numerous than the Kurmis, are distributed more heterogeneously across Munger, Banka, Khagaria, Samastipur, East Champaran, West Champaran and Bhojpur district.The Koeris were basically vegetable growing farmers, unlike the Kurmis, who grow staple crops and food grains. The Koeris claim descent from the mythological Hindu deity Kusha, a son of Rama, an incarnation of lord Vishnu. The Kumis claim their descent from Kusha's twin brother, Lava. Pseudo-historical facts were used to forge an alliance between the two caste groups in 1993, when Nitish Kumar, earlier an ally of Lalu Prasad Yadav, caused a split in his political party to form his own Samata Party.
In the 1930s, the three numerically important caste groups of Bihar: Yadav, Kurmi and the Koeri formed a political party called the Triveni Sangh to challenge the over-representation of the Forward Castes in politics. From 1990, the political scenario in the state changed and led to the fall of the upper castes from power. They were now replaced by the upwardly mobile backward caste groups, like these three agricultural castes. This led to the formation of a Yadav dominated state government in the 1990s under Lalu Prasad Yadav. It had the support of the other two caste groups, which together constituted the Triveni Sangh. According to political theorists of Bihar, the Yadav, though numerically superior, fell behind the Kushwaha and the Kurmis in terms of education and in other spheres of life. This caused dissension between them, and the latter refused to accept the leadership of the Yadavs. Nitish Kumar is said to have utilised this dissension in the early 1990s to break the hold of Lalu Prasad Yadav over a section of the Backward Castes.
Despite having a cultivator background, the twin castes of the Koeri and the Kurmi have many differences. The Kurmis had manned key bureaucratic positions in the 1960s and 70s and have remained far ahead of other backward castes, both socio-economically and educationally. The Koeris have remained comparatively backward, much like the Yadavs. The socio-economic ascendancy of the Kurmis led them to join the ranks of landlords. Consequently, they were involved in the formation of a private army called the Bhumi Sena, which was known for perpetrating massacres of the Dalits and other atrocities. In contrast, the Koeris have always remained at the forefront in the battle of weaker sections against the landlords. Jagdeo Prasad was a well-known Koeri leader, noted for championing the cause of the lower strata of society.
Alliance
1990–2000
After Lalu Yadav had assumed the premiership of the Bihar as a leader of the Janata Dal in 1990, he took several bold steps, which were welcomed by the downtrodden communities. There was strong support for the Yadav's government from the Other Backward Class Yadav community to which he belonged and from Muslims. They saw in him a saviour after the arrest of Lal Krishna Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, in Samastipur. He was undertaking a massive Ram Rath Yatra, which was polarising the state along religious lines. He also revised the Karpoori Formula, a scheme drawn up by former chief minister Karpoori Thakur, which provided three per cent of government jobs and educational institutions were reserved for members of the Forward Castes and a separate three per cent for women. These went to upper castes, in case suitable women candidates could not be found. Yadav abolished the upper-caste quota and reduced the women's quota to two per cent. Four per cent of the extracted quota from this rearrangement was distributed equally among both the Extremely Backward Class and the Upper Backward Castes.During this period, Yadav's charismatic personality led him to believe he was the sole leader in Janta Dal. To an extent this was true, given his hold over the poor and rural people of Bihar and the lower castes and the minorities. Yadav sidelined other leaders, and the party witnessed a period of dominance by his fellow caste men. The dominance of Yadav's people from the cadres to the higher party positions at the cost of other aspirational backward castes created dissension in their ranks. The growing face-offs led to a split in the Janata Dal in 1994, when Nitish Kumar and George Fernandes formed the Samata Party, which was supported by the other leaders of the Koeri and the Kurmi castes. In the 1995 elections to the Bihar Legislative Assembly, there were two rival factions, one dominated by the Yadavs under the leadership of Lalu Prasad, and the other dominated by the Koeri-Kurmi community. In the 1996 general election to the Lok Sabha, the Samata Party formed an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was popular among the upper caste and urban population of the Bihar. The Samta Party's performance in the 1995 elections for the Bihar Assembly was poor. It won only seven seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the main opposition party against the Janata Dal with 41 seats. Lalu Prasad emerged victorious with Janata Dal getting 167 seats. The only impact of the Nitish Kumar factor was the loss of some votes of the Koeri-Kurmi community, while the lower caste supported the Janta Dal firmly.
After the 1995 elections, the upper-caste alliance with the Koeri-Kurmi community was strengthened around the common question of challenging the dominance of the Yadav caste and Lalu Prasad, who allegedly made insulting comments against them in the 1995 election campaign. The Kurmi Chetna Rally, which led to cultivation of alliance between the upwardly mobile Koeri and the Kurmi castes, was preceded by other caste-based rallies, which were organised by other caste groups like the Nishad, and the Dhanuk, motivated to flaunt the might of their respective castes. Senior leaders of various political parties often addressed these rallies to garner support from the castes.
Background to the Kurmi Chetna Rally (1994)
The Kurmi Chetna Rally was a historic movement in the politics of Bihar, which led to the formation of new caste coalitions and the degradation of the Yadav caste dominance under Lalu Yadav. The rally was the brainchild of some of the non-notable community leaders, and the aim was nonpolitical. It was being seen by the community leaders as a forum to raise political consciousness among community members under the banner of "All India Kurmi Kshatriya Mahasabha". Some leaders of the Kurmi community like Satish Kumar, who organised the event, found it difficult to get the consent of Nitish Kumar, who was reluctant to attend the great rally. He was concerned public support for it was unclear and it could be a failure. Some leaders who were amongst the coordinators of this event also revealed later that the Bhumihars, a caste which opposed Lalu Prasad during his political ascendency, were supporting the rally implicitly. The organisers used the posters of national level leaders like Uma Bharti and Sharad Pawar, but the day preceding the organization of the main event, Nitish Kumar issued a statement against it and refused to attend.Kumar had been critical of Yadav's policies. Some gave influential Yadavs high-value government contracts and other opportunities which came with the administrative apparatus. Relatives of Lalu Prasad, including his brothers-in-law Sadhu Yadav and Subhash Prasad Yadav, took the lead in high-value business with the support of government. In 1993, at a memorial ceremony for Karpoori Thakur, Nitish warned Yadav against these policies which undermined the interests of non-Yadav OBCs, but no solution was found. Sankarshan Thakur, who wrote the biography of Nitish Kumar, wrote:
According to Sankarshan Thakur, there was an explicit indication from the Lalu Prasad that any step taken by Kumar to support or join the rally would result in his expulsion from the party, which Kumar understood. Hence, he hesitated even after being invited by other community leaders who had gathered at the Gandhi Maidan. Earlier, it was thought the public and even the Kurmi community were not paying any attention to the rally. This proved to be wrong. On the day of the rally, many Kurmi caste men gathered at the Gandhi Maidan. In his hesitation whether to attend the rally, Kumar stopped at the residence of Vijay Krishna, a leader and an erstwhile ally of Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had resigned from his ministry after a few skirmishes over their ideological differences with Yadav.
Krishna realised the only way to pose a political challenge to Yadav was by harnessing the votes of the disgruntled Kurmi community. After a long discussion, Krishna got Kumar's consent, and the decision was made to speak directly against the Janata Dal and Lalu Prasad Yadav. After defending Yadav for some time, Kumar talked about the over-representation of some castes at the cost of others and put forward his anti-government feelings to the mob. Reiterating his words, he asked the crowd to reject such a government, which was not conscious of the rights of its own people. The leaders gathering at this rally also appealed for the alliance of the Kurmi and the Koeri castes. The roti-beti relationship between the two was also proposed to consolidate the ties.