In 1948, in a mud house in Phulwaria, Gopalganj, a boy was born to a family of cattle-rearers. He carried books while grazing buffaloes and wore clean clothes in a village where such habits drew mockery. Neighbours called him “ganvār barrister.” His name was Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Four decades later, the same boy would become Chief Minister of Bihar, hailed as a symbol of backward caste assertion, a politician who promised not vikas (development) but izzat (respect). Yet history will remember him less for the dignity he claimed to restore and more for the colossal theft he presided over-the fodder scam.
The absurdities of this scandal are almost folkloric. One bill claimed ₹15 lakh worth of mustard oil to polish buffalo horns. Another listed human medicines as veterinary supplies. A cold-drink stall became a supplier of surgical equipment. Truck numbers on delivery receipts turned out to belong to scooters. It would be comic if it were not tragic.
Behind the jokes lay a sophisticated racket. The Animal Husbandry Department inflated demands for fodder and medicines, raised fake allotment letters, and paid non-existent vendors, companies floated in the names of relatives and associates. To avoid scrutiny, bills were kept under ₹10 lakh. The vendors kept 20 per cent; the remaining 80 per cent travelled upward-clerks, directors, and politicians, allegedly including the Chief Minister himself.
Whispers of this fraud surfaced as early as 1985, when the Comptroller and Auditor General flagged irregularities. Legislators raised concerns again in 1987. Both times, the warnings were buried. By the early 1990s, the scam had grown into a parallel economy. Money meant for cattle feed was instead feeding Bihar’s political machine.
The breaking point came in 1996, when Bihar’s treasury literally ran dry. Teachers, doctors, and clerks went unpaid. Salaries stopped. Yet, in the Animal Husbandry Department, cash withdrawals ballooned. When DC Amit Khare raided its offices that January, he found officials burning files in panic. Stamps, receipts, and bills revealed a fraud of staggering scale. For the first time, evidence was undeniable.
The Patna High Court transferred the case to the CBI, stripping the state of control. Investigators filed 60 cases. Lalu Prasad Yadav was named in six. The drama that followed was pure political theatre. Under pressure, he resigned, but not before ensuring his wife, Rabri Devi, a political novice, was installed as Chief Minister. Power never left his hands, only changed faces.
When the CBI moved to arrest him, the Rapid Action Force surrounded his residence. Supporters thronged outside. Lalu surrendered, but even in detention, he ensured comfort. He spent more time in hospital wards than in prison cells, running politics from behind a doctor’s curtain.
The numbers told the story starkly: nearly ₹940 crore siphoned from the state exchequer. Money meant for fodder, medicines, and equipment for livestock had been converted into political war chests and personal fortunes. For Bihar, it meant schools without chalk, hospitals without drugs, and employees without wages. The poor, promised izzat, were denied even their basic entitlements.
In September 2013, 17 years after the scandal broke, justice finally arrived. Lalu was sentenced to five years in prison, fined ₹25 lakh, and disqualified from Parliament for 11 years. Many celebrated the verdict as proof that the law could reach even the powerful. But the scale of the crime and the length of the delay left a bitter aftertaste.
Was it enough? A thousand-crore scam, decades of denial, and the systematic hollowing out of a state and yet the punishment amounted to a handful of years and a fine small enough to be paid from a single day’s graft.
The fodder scam was more than financial fraud. It was a betrayal of trust. It weaponised caste identity as armour for corruption, turned governance into a bazaar of favours, and reduced respect, the very slogan on which Lalu rose, to a shield for impunity.
Today, Lalu Prasad Yadav remains barred from contesting elections, but the political culture he embodied has not vanished. Bihar, and India at large, must still ask a hard question: when the cost of corruption is borne by the poor and the punishment is light enough to be shrugged off, do we really have justice, or only theatre?
If buffalo horns can shine for ₹15 lakh on paper, justice cannot shine with 5 years in prison. Bihar deserved more, Bharat deserved better.
