India, Nov. 16 -- Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar were already drifting apart by the time spring arrived in 1994. The two university politics comrades were still in the same party - the famously unwieldy Janata Dal - but had stopped talking or meeting each other. "It is not possible to speak to you any longer because you are not, to my mind, earnest about discussing serious or important issues," a frustrated Kumar wrote to the then chief minister (CM) in 1992. At the zenith of his power, Prasad brushed aside the critique of a man he considered too timid for the rough and tumble of electoral politics. "You'll teach me politics?" he asked brusquely, according to journalist Sankarshan Thakur's biography of Kumar, A Single Man. Spurned, Kumar curdled for months. Around him, the air was electric. The Supreme Court had just endorsed the government's decision to introduce reservations for other backward classes. The gambit - driven more by electoral compulsions than social justice considerations - unleashed a firestorm of protest from upper-caste communities. Across the heartland, a new wind was blowing - large chunks of the dominant backward castes were breaking away from national parties even as Hindutva was gaining in strength. Bihar was an early site for this churn. Prasad had stormed to power in 1990. But smaller backward groups were anxious - would the dominant Yadavs corner a lion's share of reservations? Would the spoils of the "garibon ki sarkar" (government of the poor) flow only to Prasad's (Yadav) acolytes? Could the 100-odd small castes, collectively called extremely backward classes (EBC), gain a toehold? That dewy February morning at the Kurmi Chetna Rally, Gandhi Maidan was rife with speculation about whether the most influential Kurmi in the state - Nitish Kumar - would show up. But the engineer prevaricated. Prasad had a stranglehold on the Janata Dal in Bihar, and his coalition of backwards-Dalits-Muslims seemed invincible. Kumar had none of the crackling chemistry with the public, no thundering demeanour, no rustic charm. He had little to match Prasad's national aura or secular credentials, courtesy of the latter's arrest of LK Advani in 1990. Morning spilled into noon and then afternoon. Finally, shortly after 3 pm, there was a stirring. Kumar was climbing up on stage. Waves of applause rolled through the crowd. "Bheekh nahin hissedari chahiye (we seek our share, not charity)," he roared, finally breaking out of his shell. Bihar's politics would never be the same again. Three decades have passed since. India has transformed. The coalition years have been eclipsed by the Narendra Modi regime. Fifteen years of Lalu Raj have given way to 20 years of Nitish rule. Yet, the future of one of India's most politically crucial states continues to be shaped by the same two men - both students of firebrand socialists Jayaprakash Narayan and Rammanohar Lohia, both faces of the backward assertion that simultaneously challenged upper-caste feudalism and betrayed Dalit aspirations. If Prasad hadn't asserted himself in the pandemonium of the late 80s, there would have been no Kumar. If the yoke of upper-caste dominance had not been broken by three decades of campaign, there would be no social justice. And if Prasad hadn't surrounded himself with cronies and indulged in relentless corruption, misgovernance and nepotism, Kumar couldn't have emerged as an alternative. The 2025 Bihar elections were historic for three reasons. One, with his stupendous victory spanning regions, castes and gender, the five-term CM is now far taller in stature than his once-senior colleague. In an election where his legacy was on the ballot and speculation about his health was relentless, Kumar stood peerless in appeal and goodwill, his name becoming the biggest calling card for the NDA. He can now claim to be the true inheritor of Karpoori Thakur's legacy of social justice. Two, save some miracle, this is almost certainly the last election for the two friends-turned-foes-turned-friends-turned-foes-turned friends-turned-foes - unimaginable since the mid-1980s. They showed both the promise and limits of social justice driven by electoral caprice and not moral force. Kumar's success may have decisively closed the debate between dignity and governance in favour of the latter but it is Prasad who invented the false dichotomy. Like most political transitions in India, the future looks hazy. Will the BJP capture the JD(U) after Kumar? Will Tejashwi Yadav falter in inventing a new model that goes beyond grassroots dominance? Will Muslims be safer, or will Bihar follow the path of its neighbour in a more communal direction? Will the historic backwardness of the state - the blame for which cannot be laid solely at the RJD's door - be overcome by central largesse? And three, Bihar's centrality in heartland politics comes from the belief that it is the cradle of Mandal politics. What is often ignored is the decades of struggle it took for backward assertion to make an electoral dent, and the constant sharpening and refining of the reservation formula - after all, Thakur's biggest legacy is the subcategorisation of OBC quotas - in the face of upper-caste hostility (spanning all political parties) towards any social justice effort. This struggle cannot be encapsulated in a simplistic Mandal vs Kamandal (a reference to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement) binary. That coinage was an accident of the 1990s. Mandal's electoral effectiveness comes from its ideological flexibility - from JP to Mulayam Singh Yadav to Kanshi Ram - where social justice and Hindu faith-based assertion are not parallel streams. Narendra Modi wasn't the first to align faith-based politics with caste realities. Mandal endures because caste continues to be a material concern for millions of Indians, not because it's an ideological project. Finally, since 2014, the BJP has looked beyond its upper-caste base and built a multi-caste coalition bound by Hindutva and welfare. In fits and bursts, the Opposition has tried to do so as well. But election after election has shown that such coalitions are inherently unstable given contradictory social realities (say, of lower-caste people and their oppressors voting for the same candidate) and contrasting socioeconomic aspirations. The BJP attempts to smooth this over by constant political work, managing tickets, doles, welfare, faith-based bombast and the appeal of the prime minister. And even then, there is churn, as the 2024 elections showed. What about the Opposition? Tejashwi might genuinely feel aggrieved that the tag of "Jungle Raj" has proven sticky - after all, overall crime during his father's tenure was at par or lower than the national average, though critics argue this was a result of chronic under-reporting. But he has to ask why communities weaker than the Yadavs abandoned the party, or why Muslims appear somewhat indifferent. As for Rahul Gandhi, he is right in pointing out that his opponent is far better resourced with structural and institutional advantages. This column doesn't have a comment on vote theft allegations but only some questions - if he exhorts every citizen to save democracy, why should his own party squabble for a handful of seats and sacrifice alliance unity? Can democracy simultaneously be in grave danger and yet not be important enough to deserve a full-throated campaign? Democratic shifts are glacial. It takes time and effort to build a movement. Communities hold long memories. Just because a party (both ruling and Opposition) is wooing Dalits doesn't mean they have forgotten how every ideological dispensation insulted Dr BR Ambedkar in both life and death. Holding these contradictions together needs full-time political dedication and years of mass mobilisation. Holding a caste survey with no groundswell and no mobilisation is not an alternative silver bullet, as Bihar 2025 has shown. Does the Opposition have the stamina for this? The answers wafting in the Patna breeze aren't soothing....