Patna, Feb. 18: The man inspiring chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's steadfast Mahadalit defiance is actually a man from the other end of the social spectrum, a Maithil Brahmin. A wily old master of the game himself, he has thrice been chief minister of Bihar and the name of this blast-from-the-past entity, if you still haven't guessed it, is Jagannath Mishra.

Mishra it is who has been reminding Manjhi he has become the "symbol of Dalit pride" and should assert it in a way that he "overtakes all previous Dalit leaders" of Bihar. "This was the only thing I told Jitan Ram when he came to seek my blessings after becoming chief minister," Mishra revealed to The Telegraph today. "I told him he should make a mark, and not fade away like Bhola Paswan Shastri and Ram Sundar Dass. I am happy Manjhi has proceeded in that direction, and has become the rallying point for Dalits across the state. I sympathise with Manjhi, he is a simple man, a poor man, that is why I support him."

Manjhi, in his late seventies, had first become MLA in 1980, when Jagannath Mishra was Congress chief minister of Bihar; Manjhi has often expressed gratitude to Mishra since he became chief minister.

Mishra's son, Nitish Mishra, is one of half a dozen ministers who chose to side with Manjhi in the revolt against Nitish Kumar. Among the many decisions the Manjhi cabinet took last week was to rename the Darbhanga Engineering College and call it the Jagannath Mishra Institute of Technology. The move has been questioned in political circles on the ground that Mishra, like Lalu Prasad, stands convicted of complicity in the fodder scandal.

Asked if he wielded direct or indirect influence over the Manjhi government, Mishra protested and said he was no longer interested in active politics. "Manjhi remembered me from 1980 and came to thank me, which very few people do now. That is why I gave him the advice I did, otherwise I have no connection with his government or active politics," he said.

We sat in the living room of his west Patna home, verily in earshot of the vociferous slugfest for power in Bihar. Mishra said he nursed no personal grouse against Nitish Kumar and was playing "no part" in the current tussle.

"I only want to say that I am extremely concerned about the Dalits, as I always have been, and I believe that they have had a raw deal throughout. That is why I advised Manjhi to do something that will foreground the Dalits, they have to be given their due share. In fact, I would say the government should implement the recommendations of the (Debabrata) Bandopadhyay Committee (which advises radical land reforms, including land to the tiller). Nitish ran away from it, but it is time the government picks up the courage and goes ahead, it is essential the poor get their rights."

He went on to blame the parties like the JDU and the RJD as mainly responsible for depriving Dalits. "Dalits were used as vote banks by the Congress too, but it is the Mandal-vadi parties and leaders who are mainly responsible for overshadowing them and hogging away their due share," Mishra said. "It is time somebody foregrounds the legitimate demands of Dalits and Manjhi is the right man at the right time. In fact, the new political equations might suggest a new social coalition of upper castes and Dalits, like it used to be in the Congress era. But I repeat I have no interest in active politics."

The suggestion that he had advised son Nitish Mishra to side with Manjhi - or that he would support a future decision to join the BJP - Jagannath Mishra flayed with a decisive wave of his arm and said, "No, not at all, I have nothing to do with my son's politics, it is for him to decide, I do not interfere nor have much interest."

As we prepared to take leave of Mishra, a red-beacon SUV rolled into the compound, and out jumped Nitish Mishra, minister for rural development in the Manjhi government, bearing a load of files. May have been just the coincidence of son visiting father minutes ahead of the last meeting of the Manjhi cabinet before Friday's trust vote. As Mishra had repeatedly impressed upon us, he doesn't dabble in active politics anymore.