NITISH KUMAR : A POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT BY DHRUB KUMAR (HARDCOVER)

Nitish Kumar won a historic election in
December 2005 to become Bihar’s chief minister.
At that time, popular opinion held that the Indian
state had reached such a low point that the
situation could not get much worse. This
sentiment buoyed the new chief minister’s reform
efforts, which followed a 15-year period of single-
party dominance that had earned Bihar the
reputation in The Economist of being the
“armpit” of India.1 The previous regime was
widely suspected of maladministration ranging
from nurturing criminal elements to siphoning
billions of rupees from state coffers. Development
pundits and academic observers had all but
written off Bihar as a lost cause when Kumar
emerged as an unexpected winner in the state
election. Through a strong reform effort in
administration, infrastructure, and law and order,
he was able to turn Bihar around in a relatively
short period.
The government in Bihar lacked not only the
structural components of good governance but
also the basic elements of everyday administration.
A financial scandal in the previous regime
involving billions of rupees embezzled from funds
for cattle fodder had constricted government
decision making.

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