Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Stealth Revolutionary

The Stealth Revolutionary


a piece on the remarkable turnaround of Bihar by Nitish Kumar. From The Stealth Revolutionary:

NITISH KUMAR’s success in beginning Bihar’s turnaround in the three-and-a-half years he has been in power is largely credited to three factors, the most important of which is the control of organised crime. For a state whose politicians had long embraced as comrades-in-arms pathological killers and mafia dons running extortion and kidnapping rackets, Nitish Kumar surprised everyone by going after organised crime, no matter how highly connected.

Thousands of criminals were arrested and prosecutions launched. Fast track courts were set up across the state to conduct speedy trials through daily hearings to deliver justice quickly. In just the two years of 2006-08, Bihar’s courts convicted as many as 30,000 criminals — an unprecedented statistic marveled at by even the most hardened cynic in the state. Astonishingly, nearly 6,000 criminals were given life sentences, mostly in cases of murder. Even more stunning is that the courts have ordered nearly 90 death sentences since 2006.

“The life of crime in Bihar is a thing of the past,” the Chief Minister grandly declares. “It is never going to come back.”

Read it in full here.