In Karpoori Thakur’s village, the Jan Nayak’s socialist legacy looms large as Bihar heads to elections next week

Karpuri Gram: After a three-hour drive from Patna via Hajipur towards Bihar’s Samastipur district, the road suddenly gleams with freshly laid tarmac. To your left, an archway bears the inscription — Bharat Ratna Jannayak Karpoori Thakur Smriti Dwar.

The gate leads you to an alley leading to Karpoori Gram — the ancestral village of former two-time chief minister and socialist icon – Karpoori Thakur.

As Bihar heads to assembly elections on 6 and 11 November, Karpoori Thakur and his legacy are being discussed in his home state once again, more than three decades after his death. Political parties across the spectrum have been claiming his legacy in a bid to bolster their chances in the polls.

On October 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his Bihar election campaign from Karpoori Gram, paying homage to the legacy of the socialist icon. Last year, PM Modi’s Union government posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna to Karpoori Thakur.

In his opening remarks at a public rally a few miles from Karpoori Gram after paying tribute to the ‘Jan Nayak’, PM Modi invoked Thakur, calling him a priceless gem of the country who brought social justice to independent India and connected the poor and disadvantaged with new opportunities.

“Our government considers Bharat Ratna Jannayak Karpoori Thakur Ji an inspiration. We have moved forward with this resolve of giving preference to the deprived, prioritising the backward, and serving the poor," the Prime Minister said during the address.

The ‘Model’ Village

The incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA), comprising the Janata Dal (United) and the BJP, is contesting the two-phase election, facing a challenge from the RJD-Congress-Left Mahagathbandhan.

Thakur’s ancestral village, Karpoori Gram, named after him following his death in 1988 by the then Congress government, is a few miles from the PM’s rally venue in Samatipur, 90 km from Patna. The village was earlier named Pitaunjhia.

At first glance, Karpoori Gram is not an ordinary village in Samastipur. This model village, home to 3,000 people, features a primary school, an inter-school institution, a high school, a degree college, a hospital, a railway station, and additional facilities, all of which were developed by successive governments in Bihar.

“PM visit is not linked to elections. He had promised us that he will come and visit when we met him last year in Delhi before the Bharat Ratna was announced,” Nityanand Thakur, Karpoori’s nephew, told this reporter in the village.

Karpoori's socialist legacy

The choice of Karpoori Gram to launch the Bihar campaign is widely seen as the NDA’s attempt to woo the Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs), the community Karpoori Thakur belonged to.

‘He is the foundation stone who is not visible but still holds the entire edifice,” journalist Santosh Singh and researcher Aditya Anmol argue in The Jannayak: Karpoori Thakur, Voice of the Voiceless.

Thakur was the son of a marginal farmer from the Nai (barber) community. He served as the chief minister of Bihar twice: first, from December 1970 to June 1971, as part of the Bharatiya Kranti Dal, and later, from December 1977 to April 1979, as part of the Janata Party.

The BJP-led NDA has long been attempting to co-opt Karpoori Thakur’s socialist legacy. The Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, to Thakur in 2024, is part of that attempt, analysts say.

The EBCs account for 36 per cent of Bihar’s population and are a sub-group within the Other Backwards Classes – the OBCs. The community is said to decide the winner in closely fought elections, and each party tries to woo its members.

PM Modi also launched an attack on the RJD and the Congress, part of the opposition Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, for attempting to claim the title of Jan Nayak (People’s leader) used for Thakur.

"Those who are out on bail are out on bail in theft cases. Now their habit of stealing is such that they are engaged in stealing the title of Karpoori Thakur. The people of Bihar will never tolerate this insult to the leader of the people, Karpoori Thakur. They will never tolerate it,” he said.

PM Modi was referring to some Congress leaders calling Rahul Gandhi the “Jan Nayak of Bihar", a move seen as an attempt to stir voter sentiment ahead of elections. The RJD too projected Tejashwi Yadav under the same title, stirring a political row.

The leader of the backwards

Karpoori Thakur’s legacy is deeply etched in Bihar’s politics. He mentored an entire generation of leaders — including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his long-time rival and ally Lalu Prasad Yadav, the RJD president.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, the former CM of Bihar, built his political career on a similar platform of social justice for backward castes, drawing heavily from Thakur's legacy, particularly his emphasis on OBC (Other Backward Classes) and Dalit upliftment.

Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the opposition party at present, emerged from this lineage. In the 1990s, Lalu expanded his traditional Muslim-Yadav (MY) base by bringing Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) into his social coalition. The RJD held power for 15 years and gradually many EBC groups felt marginalised as Yadavs came to dominate the party’s leadership and representation, according to experts.

This helped Nitish Kumar, who consolidated the EBC vote by introducing targeted welfare measures. His government reserved 18 per cent of seats in jobs and education for EBCs — later increasing it to 20 per cent in local bodies — and rolled out popular schemes such as free bicycles for schoolgirls and scholarships for Mahadalits.

The strategy paid off: the NDA, led by Nitish Kumar, swept 206 of Bihar’s 243 seats in the 2010 elections. Nitish has been the Chief Minister since.

‘Jhopdi Ka Laal’

Old timers in his village remember Thakur as ‘jhopdi ka laal.’ Thakur is also known for alcohol prohibition and championing social justice reforms.

The hut in which he lived was removed from his home to the museum by Lalu Prasad Yadav when he was the chief minister, according to Banarsi Thakur, 58, a local resident who says he had walked with Thakur during anti-government protests.

“When he was CM his daughter got married. And no body knew about it and there was no taam jhaam (arrangements). He always pitched for free education,” Thakur told LiveMint.

In 1967, when the Congress government was hit by casteism and corruption, Thakur and his revolutionary slogans filled Bihar’s air.

“Congressi raj mitana hai, Socialist raj banana hai (We have to end Congress rule and bring in Socialist rule), Angrezi me kaam na hoga, phir se desh gulam na hoga (We won’t work in English, the country won’t be a slave again), and Rashtrapati ka beta ya chaprasi ki santaan, Bhangi ya Brahman ho, sabki shiksha ek samman” (Whether it’s the son of the President or a lowly peon, whether it’s a sweeper or a Brahmin, let everyone have equal access to education) was one of the many popular slogans then.

The same year, Bihar got its first non-Congress government. Thakur, then the most popular socialist leader in Bihar, became the deputy chief minister, while Mahamaya Prasad Sinha, a Kayastha, became the chief minister.

Removed English

It was during Thakur’s tenure as deputy CM and education minister when he sought to remove English as a compulsory subject for matriculation. Three years later, Thakur became Chief Minister of Bihar. In his 162-day tenure as CM, Thakur implemented the Official Language Act and made it mandatory to use Hindi for all official communication.

In 1977, soon after the Emergency was lifted, Thakur became chief minister once again, serving for about one year and 300 days until 1979.

It was in this term that Thakur, the CM, implemented the recommendations of the Mungeri Lal Commission and announced 20 per cent reservations in addition to the existing 24 per cent reservation for SCs and STs. Of this, 12 per cent was to be for the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) and eight per cent quota for the remaining OBCs.

The reservation had triggered protests. And in April 1979, Thakur’s government fell.

Who won from here in the past?

The village falls under the Samastipur assembly seat. Karpoori Thakur won from here in the 1980s. His son Ramnath Thakur represented Samastipur from 2000 to 2010.

Ramnath Thakur, now an MP, also served as Minister in Nitish Kumar's government. However, since 2010, RJD leader Akhtarul Islam Shahin has won the Samastipur assembly seat in three consecutive elections: 2010, 2015, and 2020.

Samastipur district has ten assembly seats. Six went to the NDA in 2020, while four were won by Magathbandhan parties.

Incidentally, Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) has also bet on Karpoori’s legacy by fielding Jagriti Thakur, his granddaughter from the Morwa assembly seat in Samastipur. Jagriti, daughter of Karpoori Thakur’s younger son Virendra Nath Thakur, joined the JSP in 2024. The RJD's Ranvijay Singh won the Morwa seat in the 2020 election.

As we moved out of the village, a group of men gathered near the stone crusher to discuss the polls. “This time we will see a badlav,” said Amarjit Singh, a resident in the village, without specifying if he was suggesting a change in the JDU-BJP government or a change in the MLA of Samastipur.