 Hello and let's talk about the Bihar elections. The first phase of polling concluded yesterday with nearly 54% turnout and the second and third phases are set to take place on November 3rd and November 7th. The first phase saw 71 constituencies in the fray while the next two rounds will see contests for 94 and 78 seats respectively for a total of 243 seats. The two main fronts are the NDA which comprises the BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JDU in addition to some smaller parties and the Mahagat Bandhan comprising the RJD, the Congress and the three communist parties, the CPI, the CPIM and the CPIM and Liberation. Now there is a wild card in the form of LJP of Chirag Paswan which is opposing the JDU but not the BJP candidates. The election is one of the most important in recent times not only for the state but also for the country. What will become of Nitish Kumar and his party? Will the BJP emerge as a powerful force due to its polarizing campaign and the spoiled sport impact of the LJP? Will the Mahagat Bandhan's promise of jobs and struggles of the left be able to defeat the status quo arguments of the BJP and Nitish? We talked to News Clicks Pranjal to find out. Thank you Pranjal for joining us. So a very heated contest is on in Bihar and an important election for the whole country not just for the state itself. So maybe quickly take us through what are the key issues that are being talked about on the ground. News Clicks reporters have been on the ground for many days. What are the key issues that are being discussed and are likely to influence voters behaviors during the election? See it's really difficult to comment on what is going to influence voters behavior in elections. But if you look just at the campaign and what two camps are doing on the ground you can get a sense of the issues. The Mahagat Bandhan which includes RGD Congress and the left parties, the issue is clearly unemployment. Unemployment has been one of the biggest issues in Bihar for the last many years. There's a massive number of exodus that happens from Bihar, people go out looking for work and all kinds of work. But with a large number of migrant workers coming back to Bihar, this has come to forefront. Corruption has been one of the issues. There has been a massive rise in crime in Bihar and even in terms of caste-based atrocities. You keep getting reports about these incidents every day. So crime is one of the issues. When you see a campaign of the BJP in Bihar, they have been talking about Article 370, Ram Temple, Galwan Valley and all those things. Somehow these issues are missing when it comes to campaigning by the JDU and the BJP in the state. The other key issue also in Bihar would be the mismanagement in case of COVID-19. Bihar in between had seen a massive surge in COVID cases. Now the numbers have come down but the hospitals are less. The health infrastructure in the state had completely collapsed. So these are, for me, I think the key issues which are affecting, which are being projected by different camps. For RJD, it's more of people's issues for Mahabalipantan, BJP and JDU are trying to bank on the so-called good work they have done for the nation. Absolutely. And in this context, an interesting thing is that say a while ago, it did see that the NDA was in a fairly strong position. That was the common consensus among a lot of the media. But even this media has, over the last few weeks, begin to acknowledge that the Mahagat Bandar is actually likely to perform much better than expected. And the crowds in the election rallies often bear witness to that also. So could we maybe talk about what the signs on the grounds are on that in the sense that how, what has been that underlying current that has been boosting the Mahagat Bandar? See, I mean, I would like to look at it from basically two, three points of view. One, yes, the opposition that is the Mahagat Bandar right now is drawing massive crowds when it comes to public meetings and election campaigns. People were not expecting it to be so big. So obviously, I mean, if you just look at the number of people participating in the election campaign, you can say that the Mahagat Bandar is in a strong position. But who is going to benefit in long term? Difficult to say because there's just now only the first phase of voting has concluded. One thing for sure is very clear that the biggest loser in that terms would be the GDU because there's clearly a massive anti-incumbensity against the Nateshkumar government. Is BJP also facing that? Not too sure. But definitely, but since the phase of the entire alliance is also Nateshkumar. So that way, the BJP-JDU combined is in a tough spot. If you look at Narendra Modi's campaign rally yesterday, he even didn't care to mention Nateshkumar even once in his election speech that he was making. I mean, passing remarks have been made, but there has been no talk about what Nateshkumar government has done. The entire projection by the BJP has been about what the center government or the BJP government has done. And also then the other issues with BJP alliances have been trying to push for a long time. So that's obviously one part of it. So definitely Nateshkumar is going to suffer and with the LJP card that has been played, LJP fighting separately on all seats against the GDU, but not the BJP that is definitely going to have some kind of impact on GDU's performance. What is the game plan behind it? Is there any understanding between BJP, LJP and all? Is it a deliberate move? Difficult to say. But the scene, but it's going to be a closely contested election. That is what one can say right now. Absolutely. And finally, as far as the Mahagrabantan is concerned, we see that, of course, Tejasri otherwise emerged as a leader in his own right, which people were not expecting, but also the fact that the RJD and the Congress are making an understanding with the left has definitely contributed to this performance, at least in the election rallies as well, because the left brings a strong candidate as well as a series of issues with others don't talk about. So there has been a renewed emphasis on issues of social justice and people's issues is what I would think. I mean, so that's where we started from. If you look at the RJD's campaign, they're talking about unemployment. They're talking about COVID mismanagement. They're talking about crime. These are the issues that the left parties have been known for raising over a period of time everywhere in the country, and especially in Bihar. Definitely. See, you have to understand why did the left come into this entire alliance. Left has had a massive presence on the ground in Bihar. They had a good number of seats a couple of years ago. Obviously, literally, their performance has declined in the past few years. But when it comes, as you rightly pointed out, when it comes to the Kada base, they are still there. They have cautiously raised issues of the people on the ground even during the lockdown. They've organized protests, done relief camps for the migrant workers. All those things have been done. You also need to see that another reason for bringing what my understanding is, bringing left into the alliances. They bring a different set of voters to the Mahagat Bandhan. RJD is known for a solid, say, minority, yeah, the vote ban. But they also need others, especially other smaller, other backward cast parties have also aligned with the BJP that way. The Vikashil Insan Party, Sani's Party. Manji is with BJP. LJP is fighting, not fighting against BJP. So you need a section of the vote, which is primarily the marginalised section of the state to vote for Mahagat Bandhan if they have to project a strong chance of winning. That is the vote which the left brings in for Mahagat Bandhan. And even within the left, the CPIML liberation has had a good presence in Bihar last election. They won three seats despite fighting alone the entire election. And the left consolidated is fighting 29 seats, CPIML 4, CPI 6, 19 for ML Liberation. And all seats that are left is contesting. They have a strong presence on the ground there. How many are they going to win? Difficult to say. But obviously, if you just look at the voting pattern last election also, some of these seats, the CPIM, CPI, Liberation, lost by a very marginal difference. So even if they get that vote to the Mahagat Bandhan, Mahagat Bandhan seems to be in a very strong position. So for me, if I give my final concluding remark, it would be, I personally think this is going to be a fight between the BJP and the Mahagat Bandhan and somewhat the JDU would be left out of this. Thank you so much, Rajat, for talking to us. In our next segment, we bring you part of a conversation between writer Vijay Prasad and Jayalswara Pakhan, a Thai intellectual and writer, on the protests that have been raging in the country for the past few weeks. Tens and thousands of people have taken to the streets demanding reform of the monarchy and proper democracy. Thailand is some of the strictest laws against criticizing the monarchy and is ruled by a military-backed government run by former general Prajuchan Ocha. Jayals talks about the history of the monarchy military complex in the country and the kind of resistance that is building up. Jayals, welcome to people's dispatch and news click. Thank you for inviting me. Well, Jayals, we're in the middle of this major uprising in Thailand. Thailand, of course, has a history of coups that goes back to the Palace Revolt 1912, the 2014 coup and so on. Give us a brief sense of the role of the military and the monarchy in Thailand. I think this is a useful introduction for people who don't follow Thailand closely. Give us a sense of the role of the military and monarchy in Thailand. And of course, in all this, where is the United States of America? Well, before I talk about the history of the monarchy and the military, you said that Thailand has the history of many coups. But at the same time, Thailand has a history of mass uprisings against military dictatorship. And those mass uprisings were successful on two separate occasions, despite the violence used by the military against unarmed protesters. So really, we should see the long-term picture as a struggle between the people at the top, the military, the royalists, the conservatives, and the people at the bottom, the ordinary working people, farmers and so on. So I would put it in that context. Now, the monarchy is actually... If we start with, for example, nation-building in Thailand, King Tula Longkong or Rama V, staged a revolution against the feudal system. It's basically a bourgeois revolution from above. This kind of thing happened in countries where the revolutions had occurred late. For example, a very similar thing happened in Japan with the Meiji Restoration. So the king abolished the Thai feudal system in the 1870s in response to the incrosion of colonialism, the incrosion of British imperialism and French imperialism, and created the nation-state of Thailand. But at the same time, he made himself into an absolute monarchy. But this situation was unstable and only lasted about 60 years, because in 1932, in the midst of the world economic crisis, there was a revolution which overthrew the absolute monarchy. And it was led by a coalition of left-wing politicians and anti-royal military men. The problem is that these two factions that overthrew the absolute monarchy weren't looking for similar outcomes. The left-nationalist politicians wanted a kind of socialist society. The military people wanted something to the right of this. And so it resulted in the number of them doing and throwing between the military and the civilian politicians. But it was the Cold War, really, that established the role of the military dictatorships in Thailand. And they were supported by the United States. And it was during this period that the military sort of brought back the monarchy. The monarchy hadn't been totally abolished, but they started to promote the monarchy as a symbol of conservatism, of a symbol of anti-communism, and so on. And ever since then, the Thai monarchy has been promoted like this, mainly by the military, but also by capitalist politicians, right-wing politicians, and so on. The current protesters, the majority of them, actually believe, well, I would say the leadership, actually believe that the present king, Wachia Longan, is trying to establish an absolute monarchy. I disagree with this. I think that the monarchy in Thailand has always been a tool of the military ever since the Cold War period. King Pungipon, the present king's father, who died recently, was weak and unable to actually... He was cowardly and just went with the flow, really. He enjoyed being made and promoted into some kind of god-like figure by the military, but he didn't really have any power in himself. And the present king, well, he has a history of failing exams, of being totally uninterested in social affairs. One could say he behaves a bit like a sociopath because of the way he treats women and so on. I mean, he's got a harem in Germany, where he spends most of his time. He treats his consorts who... He falls out with them in a barbaric way. Some of them are just put in prison and so on. But the monarchy itself can't actually control the military. It's the other way around. It's the military that used the monarchy. It's the conservative elites that used the monarchy. Now, in order to understand this, you can see pictures of top military generals, including the present military dictator in Thailand, despite the fact that he claims to have been elected, although the elections were for false elections. You can see pictures of them groveling on the ground in front of the present king. Almost as though they are servants of this king. Now, I think you have to always be a Marxist to actually understand what's going on. It's a play act. It's basically the military and the elites foster this view that the monarchy, the king, is some all-powerful god-like figure. And the reason they do that is to put the fear of this god-like figure in the minds of ordinary people. And they have been successful over the years in doing this. And of course, monarchies are very symbolic, not just in Thailand, but even in places like Britain and Sweden and other places. Because they represent the idea that it's natural, supposedly natural, for some people to be born low and some people to be born high, and you need to know your place in society. Now, it's taken to an extreme version in Thailand. But Marxists have talked about the idea of alienation. If you are weak, if we are weak, if we don't feel confident and powerful, we tend to believe all the crap that the ruling class put forward in society. And those beliefs can be shaken through struggle. And that's something like that a number of Marxists have talked about. And you're seeing this happening in Thailand as we speak. Because the view, the fear of royalty, the fear which is imposed also by less majesty laws and people being prosecuted. But also, it was a mainstream view in society in the heads of many, many millions of people. But this has been shaken by the struggles that have broken out of the last few months. It's also been shaken by the behavior, the reality of the present king. And so we've seen unprecedented criticism in public of the present king and the way he is trying to amass wealth through changing the constitution. And the way he spends his time in Germany with his harem and so on. And his total disregard for ordinary people. And that has meant that the present demonstrations have got, one of their key demands is for the reform of the monarchy. To allow people to criticize the monarchy openly. And to reduce the wealth of the monarchy and to control his behavior. Now, this is something that is unprecedented, as I've said. But it's also something that the military are not going to allow very easily. Unless there are strong powers within social powers within the demonstration to actually press the military or push the military out, overthrow the military. Because the military depend on this image of the royal family and so on. In order to legitimize their authoritarian rule. So in summary, I would say that if you're looking at the military and the monarchy, the military is the main power base. They have the weapons. They have the armed forces and so on. And the monarchy is a bit like the fairy on top of a Christmas tree. It's symbolic, but very strongly symbolic. So that, you know, it was symbolic enough to get people to actually feel fear or love or whatever or respect for the monarchy in the past. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from the country. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.