Rabri Devi: How A Housewife Became Chief Minister Of Bihar For 7 Years

Until that Friday afternoon in July 1997, when Lalu Prasad Yadav, the sitting Chief Minister of Bihar, told her that she would be replacing him, Rabri Devi hadn't known much about politics. Nothing exemplified that more than her first-ever speech, barely a minute long, on the floor of the Bihar Assembly.

There wasn't much of a choice, either, political observers said at the time. A soft-spoken housewife, who had spent much of her time bringing up nine children thus far, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight in one of the most politically significant states of the country.

The real power, of course, lay with her husband, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had been forced to resign after being arrested in the multi-crore fodder scam.

The Accidental Chief Minister

Married at 14, Rabri Devi had little schooling and no exposure beyond her duties as a homemaker. Lalu had to hire a teacher to make her learn to sign her name.

Her world was limited to her Patna home, not the corridors of Bihar's Secretariat. Those who met her as CM recall her unease: she struggled to answer questions on governance, often repeating what aides whispered in her ear. "Hum wohi karenge jo hamare saheb hamey batayange" ("I will do what my husband instructs"), she would often say, calling Lalu her saheb. But there was also a time she assured the people, saying, "I will do whatever my husband says but will not follow his wrong advice."

Critics ridiculed her as a "rubber stamp," a puppet of her husband. At elite gatherings, she was out of place. Yet, to millions of backward and rural women, Rabri Devi's ascent showed that even one of them could walk into Bihar's highest office.

Despite the naysayers, Rabri Devi prevailed. She was the state's first woman CM, also the only woman so far.

Who Is Rabri Devi

Born in 1955 in Salarkalan village of Gopalganj, Rabri Devi had a modest upbringing. She was married off to Lalu Prasad in 1973. By the time she was installed in the CM's chair, she was a mother of nine, still more comfortable in her Magahi dialect than in formal Hindi.

Still, to reduce her to a "rubber stamp" would be a gross injustice, for surviving that brutal, cut-throat era of Bihar politics wasn't for everyone.

As Chief Minister, she learned to wade through the state's choppy political waters and outlasted sceptics who dismissed her as an "illiterate housewife."