RJD Needs To Wipe Off Memories Of 'Jungle Raj', These Songs Bring Them Back And How

Let's start with the results of the Haryana Assembly elections of 2024.

At the end of the day that left political participants and observers surprised and bewildered, one takeaway was evident. One of the reasons for the Congress' loss was that the party overplayed its hand on Jat consolidation. That seemingly spooked all other communities.

What made it worse for the Congress was that communities like the Jats in Haryana are more likely than others to trigger a counter-consolidation against them. They are dominant in the villages, vocal, politically organised, and materially ascendant.

Rural dominance, vocality, and political organisation are also qualities that can be used to describe the Yadav or Ahir community of Bihar. Like the Jats in Haryana, the Yadav voters of Bihar are also prone to triggering a counter-consolidation against them. Only that they are far more vulnerable to it than arguably any other dominant caste group in any other state.

All it needs is a definite signal that the state will return to the notorious state of jungle raj. The phrase was used to describe the Rashtriya Janata Dal administration of Bihar between 1990 and 2005 when kidnapping and abduction almost functioned as an industry. Law and order largely existed on paper, and heinous crimes against women provoked little to no response from the powers that were.

Conventional wisdom would state that RJD supporters or members of the Yadav community who want the RJD to return to power in Bihar would want to downplay the memories of that era. But neither convention nor wisdom can describe some of the songs that have come out of the state in apparent support of the RJD and its leader Tejashwi Yadav.

Top of the line is the song, Bhaiya ke aave de satta, sata ke katta, utha lebu ghara se re (Let Bhaiya’s regime come to power, I’ll abduct you from your home at gunpoint). If you are wondering who is being referred to as bhaiya (elder brother) here, here is a clue. Nitish Kumar is 74 years old and Tejashwi Yadav is 35. Between the two of them, who is most likely to be called an elder brother?

As per this writer’s limited research, this song was first released in an audio format on YouTube on 27 September 2025. Its video version came out only a couple of days ago.

The thumbnail of the audio version has a young man posing with a gun with a visibly gleeful young woman by his side. Going by the lyrics and image, she is presumably the subject that has to be abducted at gunpoint from her home once Bhaiya is in power. True to the spirit of its lyrics, the song begins with the sound of a gun being loaded and fired. Always a good omen.

The video version, made private while this piece was being written, has a man pointing the gun at another man but repeating the same threat. “Let Bhaiya come to power...”

The audio version of the song had received more than 50,000 views in a month. Not much, you might say. And the video version has already been pulled down.

But the views are not the point. Indeed, to the best of this writer’s knowledge, this song and others like it have not received any direct or indirect endorsement from the RJD. For all we know, in case Tejashwi Yadav does indeed become the chief minister, he will operate outside the shadows of jungle raj. That is not the point.

The point is that apparent RJD supporters (majorly belonging to the Yadav community) are making these points and saying such things, and that alone might be enough to spook other communities and trigger a counter-consolidation.

Here is one clip of a Bihar-based journalist describing the exact phenomenon in the Assembly election of 2020.

Paraphrased: “Last time when the RJD performed below par in Mithilanchal and Kosi regions, it was not because Tejashwi was not declared the CM candidate. The reason for RJD’s poor performance was that when the party performed well in the first phase of the election in southern Bihar, its core supporters started getting aggressive in public with the implicit message that Tejashwi Yadav is coming to power. This consolidated the vote banks against the RJD. I was out in the field and would see these people (RJD supporters) take out bike rallies with hundreds participating. There used to be a feeling of terror in the area. That damaged the RJD.”

The contrast here is with Nitish Kumar. Until the visible decline in health set in, the man was a symbol of understatement and civility in politics. With all the controversy around prohibition, he is still sticking with it in Bihar because it reportedly has the support of women in the state, as it has brought down domestic violence committed under the influence of alcohol.

The journalist quoted above concludes his point by stating that Tejashwi has to control the abrasive elements this time around.

Can Tejashwi indeed rein such elements in?

Here’s a clue. Five months ago, Bhojpuri singer Khesari Lal Yadav released a song titled, Ahira ke chala, Ahira ke chali (The Yadavs reigned supreme, Yadavs will reign supreme). He is the RJD candidate from Chhapra.