New Delhi: Tadi, or toddy, is churning the politics of poll-bound Bihar, a ‘dry’ state since 2016 when the Nitish Kumar government implemented total prohibition on the sale and consumption of alcohol. Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav is leading the voice demanding the ban be lifted on the alcoholic beverage created from sap of palm trees.
He has found support not just from the Mahagathbandhan allies but also forced the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents like Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) to come out in its favour.
At the heart of the demand is the reach out to the Pasis, who traditionally made a living as toddy-tappers. Going by the Bihar caste survey findings released in 2023, the Scheduled Castes (SCs), or Dalits, were pegged at about 20 percent of the state’s population. The Pasis may form barely 0.98 percent of the state population—per the Bihar caste survey—but the overall Dalit vote share is hard to be ignored in the caste-driven politics of Bihar.
And, it is the breach of Pasi vote bank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 general elections that is driving the Mahagathbandhan’s race to consolidate and prise away the Dalit sub caste from the bucket of the ruling NDA in Bihar.
Sensing the danger, as seen in the BJP’s Lok Sabha tally plunging from 62 to 33 seats in UP, the NDA allies—barring Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), or JD(U)—are seemingly supporting the demand for lifting the ban on sale of toddy.
On Thursday, Tejashwi promised to exempt toddy-tapping from the stringent prohibition law brought in by the Nitish Kumar government.
“Under the Prohibition Act, about 12.80 lakh people have been sent to jail so far, of which 98-99 percent belong to Dalit and extremely backward classes,” he said. “Under the cover of this law, the poor have been greatly harassed by the NDA government. A large population of Dalit and Pasi society is being physically, socially, mentally and economically exploited.”
His father Lalu Prasad, the RJD leader said, had exempted taxes imposed on the sale of toddy.
Making a beeline were the likes of Jan Suraaj’s Prashant Kishor and Congress MLA Pratima Kumari Das. In Bettiah, Kishor went on to announce that he would end liquor ban within an hour if his political party came to power. Bihar is likely to go to polls in October-November.
From the NDA ranks, LJP’s Chirag Paswan stated that toddy and Neera (which ferments to become tadi) should not be categorised as alcohol. “There is a large community that is associated with this business. … Natural substance cannot be brought into the category of alcohol,” the Union minister said in Hajipur.
Chirag Paswan and, previously, his father Ramvilas Paswan are wooed by the BJP for transferring Dalit votes to its kitty in the eastern state.
As for the BJP, its leaders acknowledge in private that the liquor ban consolidated women votes for the NDA but it has drifted away a section of Dalits. The general consensus is that the penalty clause should be rationalised but the RJD’s demand is “more political” than any other factor.
Nitish Kumar’s decision to ban liquor ban, a JD(U) leader said, has positively impacted the lives of women. “When the Pasis highlighted their difficulties, the CM asked officials (in 2022) to open Neera centers so that their livelihood means are not hampered.”
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Mahagathbandhan’s Pasi outreach
Almost every party in Uttar Pradesh is trying hard to get the Pasi on its side before the assembly polls in 2027. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav makes it a point to keep Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad, a Pasi, in the same frame at social events.
BJP inducted four-time MP Kamlesh Paswan, a Pasi, into the Union cabinet in June last year. At the party’s state working committee meeting the next month, BJP leaders hailed king Lakhan Pasi’s role as the actual architect of Lucknow.
In the last two months, Congress’ Rahul Gandhi has twice visited Bihar to broaden his social justice via mandal politics through which the Congress party and the Samajwadi Party made a huge dent in BJP tally in Uttar Pradesh.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in February, attended the 130th birth anniversary celebrations of veteran freedom fighter and Pasi icon Jaglal Choudhary in Patna.
Although Dalits and Muslims are key votebanks of the RJD since the advent of Mandal politics in the 1980s, the NDA has managed to wean away a significant percentage of SC votes due to Nitish Kumar’s Maha Dalit outreach.
As part of its Pasi outreach, JD(U) made Ashok Choudhary a Bihar minister as well as a national general secretary of the party. The RJD boast of Pasi leaders such as Uday Narayan Chiudhary, a two-time assembly speaker, Santosh Nirala, and Muneshwar Chaudhary.
The RJD doesn’t want the Pasi community to flourish so it is offering them to continue their tadi cultivation, alleged BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel. “It is only eying their votes, not upliftment.”
He, too, asserted that the Neera store scheme was started keeping in mind the Pasi community’s livelihood needs.
BJP’s SC Morcha former Bihar president Ajit Choudhary, a Pasi himself, recalled how he had voiced the concerns of his community way back in 2016. “When the ban was implemented in 2016, I was the first to lead a protest march to Gandhi Maidan (in Patna)… Since mostly Pasi people were booked for violating liquor ban, changes are required in rules,” he told ThePrint.
Choudhary acknowledged the absence of a big Pasi face among the BJP ranks. “(There was) three-time MP from Gaya, Ishwar Choudhary. In 1971, he defeated Dalit icon Jagjivan Ram’s son (Suresh Kumar). He then won in 1977 and 1989.Later, his brother Krishna Choudhary became an MP as well. Those years, the Pasi votes were with the BJP. But after 1990, the RJD and the JD(U) captured most of the Pasi votes in Bihar,” he told ThePrint.
Currently, two-time assembly speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary is the BJP’s most recognisable Pasi leader.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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