With assembly elections in the politically crucial state of Bihar less than a month away, one of the main accusations from the ruling parties against the opposition is that the Lalu Prasad Yadav-Rabri Devi regime was a period of “jungle raj".

The INDIA bloc has defended against this by stating that the term ‘jungle raj’ was originally used by the Patna High Court regarding a waterlogging issue in the state capital during the monsoon.

The opposition argues that if waterlogging during the monsoon in urban centres is considered ‘jungle raj’, then similar situations exist across various states. Although the term might have been used by the high court to describe a civic crisis, it has been more widely used in public discourse to denote lawlessness during the Lalu-Rabri regime.

To students of social and political history, the period starting just before the onset of the Lalu-Rabri regime and lasting for several years after is considered the bloodiest chapter in Bihar’s history. This era was marked by caste wars and Maoist violence.

During this time, extreme left-wing forces, including the Communist Party of India (Maoist-Leninist-Liberation), Indian People’s Front (IPF), People’s War Group (PWG), and Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC), were engaged in fierce battles with caste armies rather than directly with the state. The state, on its part, willingly acquired “incompetence" to intervene in these battles, which lasted for two decades.

The complex caste compositions of the landowning and landless classes made the ruling regime stay aloof to avoid jeopardising its electoral base. While the landless were mostly from the scheduled castes and extremely backward classes, the landowners included not just the upper castes but also a significant portion of the........

© News18