Let's say as an ambitious entrepreneur you are planning an aggressive expansion strategy and want your product to reach the maximum number of customers. You'll need to develop a brand, position it and use tools to differentiate it in a crowded marketplace of similar products. If the brand is to succeed it must, therefore, create a unique identity.
Creation of a unique identity in the rough and tumble of politics is just as important. Regional leaders ambitious enough for a national role must differentiate themselves from other players to transcend state boundaries. More so if they lack the political assets of a BJP or the Congress.
So, we find Arvind Kejriwal running a high-pitched, media-based campaign. By constantly attacking the Prime Minister, the Aam Admi Party chief has been able to stay in the headlines and create the brand placement of both a crusader and a victim. AAP's rapid rise and bright prospects of expansion in new states such as Punjab prove that his strategy is working.
No less ambitious, Nitish Kumar is more old school. His methods are more conventional. Instead of a media-driven campaign, the JD(U) chief is in search of an ideological plank that may pitchfork him into national consciousness. He has a two-pronged strategy. In calling for a RSS-mukt Bharat, he wishes to generate heat by challenging India's currently dominant politico-ideological force. This is an interesting move but still at a very early stage.
Two, to position himself as a social reformer he has sought to make Bihar a dry state, jumping on to the bandwagon of prohibition — an idea of dubious effectiveness that still retains immense currency.
In itself, the political incentive for prohibition is clear. Like 'development' and 'good governance', prohibition is not an idea limited by geography. It is one of the very few planks that cuts across state boundaries, affects the poorest and most politically sensitive sections of the society and touches an immediate chord with roughly half of active Indian voters — women.
However, creating a nanny state to solve a deep-rooted social evil rarely works, as history and data have proved several times. It merely drives it underground, criminalises the activity and creates a different set of problems. But the Bihar chief minister sees in prohibition a calling card to extend the political presence of the Janata Dal (United) beyond Bihar and a possible Prime Ministerial bid in 2019.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. PTI Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. PTI
But Kumar has a problem.
Because prohibition is seemingly the easiest and quickest way out of issues related to alcohol consumption — alcoholism, indebtedness and domestic violence — it is popular with politicians. Gujarat remains a dry state while Kerala, Tamil Nadu are moving towards this form of competitive populism. Haryana and undivided Andhra Pradesh flirted with and abandoned it, having failed in implementation.
So in order to differentiate himself from the crowd, Kumar must do something different with prohibition to create a unique identity. For instance, bringing a law so draconian that it infringes on the fundamental rights of citizens, gives sweeping powers to law-enforcing authorities, proposes ridiculously tough penalties and has provisions that could be easily misused to harass innocents.
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