The polity of Bihar is known for its astute political acumen and the last decade or so has been marked by its gradual but persistent move towards a more progressive brand of politics. Since 2005, the overarching vision for socio-economic progress has been key in influencing the voting pattern, overshadowing fringe aspects of caste, sect, dhanbal and bahubal.

The priorities for the Assembly elections of November 2005 and 2010 were defined by a broader societal consensus on change. After a long time, the hope and aspirations of constituents were crucial to assessing a candidate’s political merit. That is indeed a radical shift for a state mired in caste politics and general lawlessness. But, more importantly, Bihar’s politics was organically becoming more progressive and liberal in nature. Swasthya, shiksha, susashan and sadak were fast replacing bhurabaal, bahubal and bandook as buzz words.

Come 2014 and the state witnessed another watershed moment; this time for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — or rather Narendra Modi– after its coalition with the Janata Dal (United) broke. Again, the electoral prospects in Bihar were defined by the vision of progressiveness and hope for the state and nation.

However, the Jitan Ram Manjhi-Nitish Kumar break-up seems to have pushed all of the evolving political ideas into the bin and caste seems to be taking centre stage in Bihar’s politics again. The grand claims of safeguarding Dalit interests is likely to rekindle intense social manoeuvring in political circles – which, in essence, would bring seasoned fixers back into the mix. One of the biggest impacts of this changing political dynamic would be the minimal role and opportunity for young political aspirants and for those who aspire to pursue progressive and new-age politics.

This is unfortunate on two counts. First, it may further dent the prospect of electoral meritocracy in Bihar, where, now, ticket distribution and campaigning would be heavily based on sectarian and caste arithmetic. Second, the new-age, progressive political acumen generated in the past decade through a positive political churning would either be lost or contaminated or stalled. Both would be a serious loss to Bihar, which in the long run will witness a massive political vacuum with the likely absence of real leadership.

Keeping in mind that it takes at least a decade for a generational shift in politics and for new entrants to get acclimatised to the political game, Bihar in the immediate future would be deprived of potential genuine leaders and instead may have the benefactors of sycophancy and dynasty politics at the helm.

If we pick five of the biggest leaders in today’s politics of Bihar, we can trace almost everyone’s roots to the anti-Emergency movement of the mid-seventies. It is remarkable that a politically-astute state like Bihar has not produced a single big leader outside the purview of Jayaprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti movement in the past 40 years. Compare that with the evolution of political leadership in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Assam and Karnataka; the results would be glaring.

It underlines the issues of fear-mongering, backstabbing, and mistrust in Bihar politics and beyond a doubt the Manjhi-Nitish saga will see political trust reach an all-time low. Manjhi’sactions may have induced a greater level of insecurity among political leaders and would only jeopardise any prospect of leadership transition across party lines.