THE BIHAR FAILURE SYNDROME

Myth and Reality

T. Vijayendra

ABSTRACT

Bihar is associated with failure. It appears that it has failed on every front -economic, political and cultural. This paper argues that the failure of Bihar is a failure of certain model of liberal democracy, including the potential left liberal democracy. The poor in Bihar are not significantly worse off than the poor elsewhere as compared to the middle and rich castes/classes. However they are waging a much bigger struggle in coping with their situation. The struggle of people of Bihar has thrown up issues of crisis of Marxism /Socialism in terms of caste, gender, migrants and environment. The struggle of people of Bihar is also throwing up alternative forms of struggle and cooperation, which can contribute to the development of a new model of socialism. The failure of Bihar is more a failure of scholars, media commentators and left wing politicians and activists in recognising this reality.

The May 2004 parliamentary election results have shown that the debacle that Mr. Naidu, Mr. S. M. Krishna and the NDA government faced was due to the failure of their development model.

Social activists have been criticising the development model, but they have no praise for a place like Bihar where the development model has already failed. It is like criticising the education system, but no one praises a child who has failed! “If I were to be punished for the sins I commit, then I should be rewarded for not giving in to the temptation!”

Much of my understanding about Bihar (including the present day Jharkhand) I owe to late Dr. Arvind Narayan Das. I take this opportunity to pay my humble tribute to his memory.

For the purpose of this article the word Bihar includes Jharkhand.

1. The Failure of Bihar

Bihar is normally associated with failure. It appears to have failed on every front - economic, political and cultural. All the traditional economic development indicators as well as the newer human development indices tend to show this failure. Articulate Biharis themselves talk about it, often contrasting with the past glory of Bihar.

Left wing commentators point out the tradition of protest and struggle. Bihar played a leading role in the formation of Kisan Sabha. After independence Bihar was the first state to have a land reforms act. In the Bhoodan movement again Bihar had a leading position. In the Naxalite movement only Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have significant presence. The Jharkhand movement is the biggest ethnic cum regional movement. Even in the offbeat left movement A.K.Roy's trade union movement in Dhanbad was quite unique. Yet, these comments are often coupled with a melancholy statement that it has all failed.

The poor in Bihar are not significantly worse off than the poor in M. P., U. P. and Rajasthan. Large areas of Orissa, Maharashtra and A. P. also have similar situation. Data about education, health care, atrocities on women, dalit and tribals are comparable. Yet it is Bihar that is singled out as a model of failure. Why?

One obvious answer is that the middle class and the rich in Bihar do not feel comfortable as they do in other states. It is their legitimacy to rule that is threatened. Hence the cry there is no government in Bihar. In short it is the legitimisation crisis of the ruling class. What has failed in Bihar is a certain kind of bourgeois development and a certain kind of government and state that has been held as a model. This includes the left democratic models too.

2. The Struggles of People of Bihar

The people of Bihar have not failed in participating in these development processes, or in protesting against it or even creating newer alternatives. In this century they have cleared jungle lands for agriculture and mining. Capitalist agriculture has developed in several large areas of Bihar. The working class in Bihar has worked in agriculture, mines and industries both in Bihar and outside Bihar including overseas plantation.

In their protest movements the people of Bihar have taken part in all forms of traditional left and ultra left movements at significant levels. That these have not led to 'successes' of the kind in West Bengal or in Kerala is a historical fact and has its historical reasons that have been well explored and argued by scholars.

What is not argued is that to look for this kind of success itself is wrong. Every latecomer social group in capitalist development has a different response and they give rise to a different kind of 'socialism'. So what are these different kinds of responses?

3. The 'Failures' of the Struggle

In the last few years there is a general talk of failure or crisis of Marxism. In India the issues generally raised are caste, gender, ethnicity, regionalism/federalism and ecology.

In Bihar the fat left or Naxalite movement is not just a breakaway group from the traditional left. There was hardly any CPI (M) presence in Bihar. And the CPI remained intact during the Naxalite upsurge. The Naxalite in Bihar inherited the socialist movement with its emphases on caste and oppressive social structure. Thus it has articulated the caste question in left wing politics both theoretically and in practice. We hear this articulation more strongly in Maharashtra due to Phule-Ambedkar Tradition. Bihar has no such bourgeois liberal advocate of the issue. Here the advocacy is more radical (and hence ignored?).

Bihar is the only state, which has hosted the All India Women's Conference for the second time. In the Patna conference the issue of class/caste within the women's movement figured very strongly, particularly on the issue of right to property. The Ranchi conference threw up the ethnic issue within the women's movement and feminist issues within the ethnic struggle. In many women’s conferences women from Bihar felt that the condition of women in other states is much worse than their own. This includes Kerala. The official statistics of crime against women also shows that Bihar is way down, 18 in ranking, that is, almost all the major Indian states are worse if. Only North East India is better.

The Jharkhand movement is a composite of several movements. Like other regional movement it combines ethnic issues with the issues of internal colony. However the ethnic issue is alive and separate as can be seen from the leadership as well as the kind of ethnic energy the movement has. In addition the issue of tribals as peasant and tribals as proletariat has also figured very strongly in Dhanbad and Singhbum district. Finally the environment issue, the relation of people and control of natural resources and the issue of big dams has also figured.

This brings us to the issues of ecology. Bihar is the only place where an anti dam movement succeeded in stopping the Koel-Karo project. When tribals from Koel Karo visited Bargi dam, the first dam on Narmada, they were aghast. “How did you let this happen?” they asked the NBA activists. ‘How could they build with your protests?’ The struggle against Subernrekha dam and the struggle of dam ousters have also been partially successful. The north Bihar region perennially suffers from floods and ill-conceived embankment and others flood control programmes. Every year about 4 lakh people migrate due to floods. The struggle against these policies has been going on for decades. It also represents one of the best-researched struggles by activists.

What emerges from the above is that their struggles have 'failed' in not allowing the hegemony of bourgeois liberal issues and leadership of the movement. Instead it has articulated and sharpened the differentiation within the movement.

4. Alternative forms

Everywhere there is a cry that there is no government in Bihar and some even say that the state has ceased to exist. There is anarchy! What is surprising is that anarchy has not been considered in a positive way. It reminds me of Brecht’s poem about government in crisis, in which he wonders how will the farmers plough the land and mothers feed the babies since the government is in crisis.

We fail to see that the people of Bihar are alive, eating, working and participating in full human cultural life. They are also protesting, struggling and migrating. As Laloo Prasad Yadav said “I want to ask Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu, ‘OK, you have video conferences and in Patna even telephones don’t work. But why is it that peasants are committing suicide in Andhra Pradesh, whereas in Bihar no peasant has committed suicide.’” One may also add that in Bihar no encounter murders are committed by the police. But more importantly, they have devised strategies to cope with the present difficult times with a genius of their own. Thus public and state transport is running without salaries for more than 18 months. How? It is co-operation between the people and the union of transport workers that is making it possible. Schools are running with teachers collecting their salaries from their pupils in the form of tuition fees. Post offices, railways and telephones are actually functioning. But more to the point is that the migrant workers are able to send moneys home. The informal sector of the economy is taking care of the needs of the people.

So what is being argued is that people of Bihar are coping with the situation in a viable fashion. Secondly they are throwing up new forms of organisation and methods in doing so. Struggle and co-operation are the key words.

5 Whose Failure?

So why is it that we do not see this or see a positive future? I would not dwell too much on the class bias of the observers. It is there. But surely we can try to go beyond that.

We are talking of a failure of a certain kind of socialist model. Not only it is failing where it appeared successful until recently. It is also not allowing us to see the possible newer models of socialism.

The 20th Century has been dominated by the theories of Marx, Darwin and Freud. It has also been dominated by the revolution of Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Vietnam. Their ‘successes’ have blinded us from looking at their weaknesses. It has not allowed us to look at the possible ‘truths’ on the side of those who have been defeated within the movement.

An important aspect of this is that we have looked more at the struggle aspect (within human psyche, in society and with nature) and neglected to look at co-operation. For arriving at a concept of socialism we will have to correct this balance. This socialism will be more like ‘an egalitarian, decentralised human society living in harmony with nature’. However we cannot be revivalists and think of the noble savage. Any vision of future society must combine the idea of sovereignty of the individual within a co-operative society.

To arrive at this we will have to look into the ‘failure’ within the movement, both in theory and practice.

Thus in the historical experience of the theory, we have to look at the possible truths on the side of those who ‘lost’ or failed in the past. These will be anarchist traditions, Rosa Luxembourg's Critique, Trotsky and various opposition groups in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba.

Nearer at home we have a range of left wing experience outside the ‘Stalinist’ Tradition of CPI, M, & ML. There are also socialist and militant Gandhian traditions.

This should enable us to look more closely at the current movements where people’s energies are - both in Bihar and outside Bihar. In Bihar there are issues thrown up within the struggle, such as caste, gender and environment. There are also movements of dam oustees, migrant labour, ethnic and regional movement. Then there are emerging movements of struggle and co-operation. All these ‘failures’ of Bihar will contribute to the development of a new model of socialism for the 21st Century. Therein lies the importance of the failure of Bihar. 

Jai Bihar! Jai Ashoka!

Solution to Bihar's Problems

Bihar is a rich state where poor people live. Very few regions in the world are as endowed with the bounties of nature as Bihar is - there is the river Ganga with its long stretch, large patches of fertile land, varieties of fruit orchards - lichees and mangoes being the prime ones, mega tonnes of coal, iron, copper, manganese etc. and a plenty of human resources. Then why is that our Bihar today is considered an anachronism in our modern society and has come to be known as a perfect antithesis of development , good governance and a thriving and peaceful community of people.

The plight of Bihar is such that the name now only evokes sarcasm and everything boorish and obnoxious. The word Bihar has become a national and may be an international joke so much so that when Rajat Sharma questioned Atal Bihari Vajpayee in a Zee TV programme "Aap Ki Adalat" a few years ago that his name carried an intrinsic contradiction of being both Atal (steadfast) and Bihari, our respected PM, too, did not hesitate in joining the fun which the house seemed to regale into.

In my opinion, two factors immensely add to Bihar's current social and economic backwardness - disunity among its people and the continued indifference by the successive governments at the center in the last 2-3 decades. Both these factors abet each other. The masses are divided on caste lines and obviously cannot contribute to the development of the state. The peculiar pattern of caste politics and vote banks has given rise to a situation that politics does not attract persons of the highest intellect and morality. The result is that the persons who constitute the assembly are either incapable to serve their constituencies or are frustrated by the rival elements whose only business is to create roadblocks for their opponents.

If Bihar has to surge ahead and improve its per capita income, it must first educate its people to rise above the considerations of caste, creed and religion. It is the duty of the Government, the NGOs, the social activists, the non-resident Biharis and the right thinking citizens to declare a war against casteism, nepotism and corruption. We must also do something concrete to wipe out the menace of dowry which encourages people to earn unethically and which , in my opinion, is a chief cause of our regression. And I fully agree with Mr. Jha's valuable remarks that we must ask center to open reputed institutions like IITs and IIMs in north Bihar which has been systematically allowed to plunge into an area of darkness. One does not recall one single major public sector unit or a national institution coming up in north Bihar in the last few decades. The center has also miserably failed to implement any major project to curb the menace of floods which makes Bihar poorer by every passing year. It amazes me no end to think that why in the last 40-50 years, no planner has ever thought of simple things like setting up a mega industry based on fruit canning considering the vast amount of lychees and mangoes that is grown in north Bihar. This industry, by itself, which has a very good export potential, can usher a sort of green revolution in Bihar.

Center's policy of freight equalization was a death-knell for mineral based industries in south Bihar and center must own up the responsibility and make concerted efforts to undo the damages. It is also said that the royalties on coal, iron ore etc. have not been increased significantly in the past decades and Bihar has thus lost valuable revenues, which could have been used for the developmental work in the poor regions. These are examples of gross injustice to the poor people of Bihar who are now considered a national shame .

We Biharis are equally responsible for the mess. We, too, have failed in our duty to contribute to our motherland. For example, there are many successful people from Bihar living elsewhere in India and abroad but rarely one hears about anyone participating in Bihar's development by making concerted efforts for a positive change. I am sure there are individuals who could make a sizeable business investment in Bihar or support the NGOs working there. Such groups of people should constantly interact with the government on matters of business investments and general orderliness of the state. If NRIs can make a difference to the country, I am sure, the NRBs(non-resident Biharis), too, can contribute in some ways or the other. I agree, the road to this is fraught with problems but a beginning, nevertheless, needs to be made. People living in Bihar, too, need to stop being silent spectators of injustice being meted out to them and change their attitude.

It is amazing that the land which gave the lofty principles of Buddhism and Jainism to the world is mired in a rut of caste killings, kidnapping, broad-day light murders and dacoities and so on . Industrialists have shunned Bihar and it draws a blank in the foreign direct investments for the simple reasons that nobody wants to come to a place where they fear kidnapping, ransom and threats to life. The other essentials of business i.e the good roads, power availability and an efficient administrative machinery are woefully inadequate.

The responsibilty of bringing Bihar to such a pass must be shared by the center as well as the past and present leaders of Bihar, Centre for neglecting Bihar and using Bihar only as the vote-bank and the past and present leaders from Bihar for their failure to fight the insidious menace of casteism, nepotism and corruption.

Bihar seems to produce leaders who are either the most idealistic or the completely corrupt. There were likes of Dr.Rajendra Prasad whose idealistic fervour prevented them to do anything for the region they belonged to for being considered impartial. 10 years of Presidency perhaps was a long period to see some real lasting developmental projects mushrooming in those areas but nothing seemed to take place considering the kind of poverty and anarchy that prevails in the area today.

However, I would like to end with a note of optimism.

Though, Bihar today is synonymous with acute poverty, lawlessness, a defunct administration, general disorder and social and economic backwardness, I do not believe that it will always remain so. Of course, the challenge is to bring in the changes as early as possible. History tells us that a region of Bihar's size will not remain stagnant. We should learn from the example of our country, which was considered among the richest in the world about 250 years back. India must really hasve been very prosperous for the Britishers to call it a jewel in their crown. Dominique Lappierre's book "Freedom at Midnight" describes the enormous wealth that its provincial rulers had. But India fell down from that high pedestal and now ranks below 100 in terms of per capita income. One of the main reasons for this fall was the disunity among various provinces. The lack of patriotism and the hedonistic lifestyle of some of these rulers was another factor that contributed to India becoming a prey to the British imperialists.

Bihar in a way is like India. It had the most glorious ancient past and even at the time of independence, it had an important place in the nation. To quote the famous Appleby report, it was the best administered state in the country at the time of independence. But, today, Bihar is considered a national nightmare and the elite economists describe Bihar as a basket case, a class, which endlessly poohpoos everything that is there about Bihar but does not seem to have one clue about solving its problems. Bihar's per capita, today, is probably the lowest amongst various states.

However, despite the overwhelming dislike for Bihar, its people are progressing. We have a finance minister who is at the forefront of shaping India's economy with panache. There are also many talented men and women who left Bihar as Bihar could not provide a decent living to them and many of them are excelling in their careers. I feel, they are the real hope for Bihar. With their collective wisdom and love for this state with a glorious past, is should not be too late to remove the poverty from the face of Bihar.

Sachin and Maharashtra!

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Now our beloved poor Sachin has been attacked by one of the most theatrical hatred politician Bal Thackeray for a laughable reason again. Just because he chose to be Indian first than Maharashtrian and of course Sachin since it amounts to treason for being so openly Indian first. I think, now its time for Sachin to ask for forgiveness from the senior Thackeray. Our north indian politicians are hailing Sachin's remark while Shiv Sena stays adamant that he has hurt Marathi Manoos.
       So without any doubt all this is leading to just one conclusion, that in Mumbai even Marathis will be marginalized if they dare to speak for the Nation first no matter even if he is Sachin Tendulkar. The whole concept of India as Nation seems to have lost its meaning and language and culture has become thing of prime importance even if that means dividing the nation into pieces. A very important aspect of all this situation is, no body seems to have any clue what to do legally with these stunt pulling Thackerays. Since laws of the land protect them to break the nation, there is no reason why any non marathi should feel secure in the land of Maharashtra. May be now Bal Thackeray has joined the race of becoming Hitler No. 1.

Jai Bihar! Jai Ashoka!

Bihar- the siege within!

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Dear Brothers and Sisters

I came across a nice article in Bihar Times by Manoje Nath. It indeed is and hits the nail on the head.

Migrants from Bihar have been served urgent notices from time to time, in many states of their own country, to pack up and go home. After Assam, Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Goa and Tripura which other state is going to discover that it is these Bihari migrants who carry the bacillus of dirt, filth, disease and crime and infect the host state and hence it is not safe to have them with in their borders?

The Biharis are subject to persecution which is both random and routine because the mere label of Bihari seems to have become a necessary and sufficient cause. Snide remarks if they are lucky, and savagery if they run out of luck, are constantly at their heels. They are the Jews without the redeeming and comforting assurance that they are God’s chosen people. George Steiner once said, “When he is pelted in Argentina or mocked in Kiev, the Jewish child knows that there is a corner of the earth where he is the master, the gun is his.” But Biharis know that they have severed their umbilical chords with their homes. They must rough it out and resist the strong emotional tug, especially in times of crisis, to go back home. Because for many of them their home is only a country of the mind, without the wherewithal to sustain all its inhabitants.

Migrants in search of livelihood or better opportunities are often viewed with suspicion, because they do not fit the cognitive, linguistic or the cultural map of the world they migrate to. They also compete for jobs, sometimes drive down wages and hence arouse hostilities of the local people. But in our times, the politically produced xenophobia by parties like the MNS is the most common threat. Mumbai has seen sporadic campaign against outsiders and currently the north Indians are at the receiving end. One does not know how real is the threat of cultural inundation but in view of the recent delimitation of parliamentary constituencies the concentration of migrants in urban areas does raise anxieties of the political kind. Levi Strauss who has spent a lifetime studying the strategies of various groups in coping with the threat by groups designated as the ‘other’ or ‘stranger’ suggests that alternative but complementary strategies of assimilation, exclusion or extermination have been resorted to in order to tackle the problem of aliens, and strangers. The Biharis have seen a mixture of all the three strategies resorted to against them.

In the cosmopolitan Mumbai, it is being decreed that the bhaiyas must now adapt themselves to the local ways, learn the local language, and adopt local customs. The topical bone of contention is the festival of chath, which is celebrated with great devotion and fervour by many Biharis. In short amnesty would come their way only on condition that they cultivate voluntary amnesia; abdicate their right to be themselves, slough off their Bihari identity and grow a new skin. So when a couple of hundreds of them are harassed, or dozens of their taxis are burnt, even a few of them are killed to feed the media beast, the mobs goaded by the upwardly mobile politician are only advancing the cause of cultural assimilation. If the bhaiyas do not deliberately court amnesia of the mental kind, the amnesia of the physical kind can be induced by obliterating and consigning to the memory hole the means of their meager sustenance, be it their taxi, their thela or small shop.

Those who are spearheading the campaign know it only too well that it is these migrants, who live cheek by jowl in the congested areas, who are so undemanding and are largely cut off from municipal services, keep the city going by their taxis, thelas, khatals, and dhobi ghats. But the political mind is also aware that the mob impulse of hatred is the surest glue to keep their flock together, as also the easiest method to enlist many more to their fold. So long has it occupied itself with the mathematics of fracturing society into viable total of fractions that the political mind has become obsolete and incapable of devising capacious and inclusive policies. On occasions like this a call to solidarity against the common enemy helps displace the awareness from intractable problems. The misfortune of the migrant Biharis serves to keep the political pot boiling for their reluctant hosts, as well as well as their champions back home. Ideally such occasions should compel deep and honest introspection in Bihar, and reinforce the determination to pull Bihar by the bootstraps. But all that it does is to unleash jingoism of the worst kind and we tend to overlook the fact that the poor cannot afford to have too much pride. The fragile political consensus witnessed in the aftermath of Rahul’s killing was but transient and spent itself in a mindless agitational violence. In the end all that it achieved was the destruction and vandalisation of its own meager resources instead of some constructive activism.

The civil society in Bihar appears to have abdicated all responsibility towards it self by delegating power in the hands of politicians. The more there is a perceived need for concerted action in the realm of civil society, the more socially disengaged we seem to become. To take just one issue which has become a trite and timeworn cliché –the creation of a Bihari identity- would indicate our commitment to our state. It has been in wide currency for quite some time now and yet how many strides have we taken towards extinguishing all other loyalities to forge this identity?
The Bihari fleeing from his persecutors is reduced to his casteist identity no sooner than he enters his own home state. It seems that the landscape of Bihar itself, the cultural environment educes a different but deeply internalized sense of identity and belonging. It is the caste, which is the whetstone upon which he sharpens his sense of himself. Neither distance, nor cultural separation could obliterate it. Even in distant lands and foreign countries the Biharis are reported to have separate caste associations. For in the view of a large part of Bihari society, the existential question is defined solely and squarely in casteist terms: who are you and what is your justification for being? To answer this question means that you recognize not only your privileges and obligations, entitlements and opportunities but also position yourself in, however subtle a manner, on the chessboard of caste alignments. There are no exemptions from this fate, whether you are a career politician, academician, doctor, or a civil servant. It must be reiterated that in Bihar the ‘political” necessarily means a no holds barred competitive casteist struggle. In its wake it has brought the political way of doing every thing. So it is no surprise that universities and colleges turn out to be casteist outposts and the struggle to wrest them out of the control of rival groups witnesses the whole hearted involvement of every appurtenance of the polity. (The author had an occasion to investigate, under the orders of the Patna High Court the award of a fraudulent and bogus degree to the wife of a senior IPS officer. His report running in more than 70 pages, which deals with the rot in universities, is available in the Patna High court library. Brief references can be had in the following http://www.indiatoday.com/itoday/20010806/education.shtml
http://www.liberalsindia.com/freedomfirst/ff457-03.html

Recruitments to public services often carry vague insinuations of casteist preferences. If the various reports that appear, from time to time, in the local news papers were to be believed, the caste composition of officers is also delicately factored into their transfers and postings and requirements of professionalism sometimes take a back seat to maintaining the caste balance. There is a popular perception that the administration in Bihar during particular regimes has been characterized by a colossal waste, because in these dispensations there are always some elements that have to be suffered but kept out of action .A deliberate retrenchment of the available human resources is by now an accepted method of personnel management. So at any given time there is a significant body of public servants, - sulking, alienated and withdrawn- because they think they do not belong to the winning combination, therefore, are either indifferent to the prospects of project Bihar, or are secretly longing for its failure. When the administration becomes so polarized, public policy problems get bogged down in a mental swamp, and a severe governance deficit is the nevitable outcome. The traditional merit based methods of governance faced with a problem like this, finds itself stumped, because these have not been dealt with in the standard literature on public administration. To break this impasse a new public sphere needs to be created where non-partisan, apolitical body of people could engage in critical debate, build mutual trust and a sense of commonality to counter this pre modern mindset. The point needs considerable elaboration and shall be taken up some time later.

But should these proposals appear to be too optimistic or too impractical to carry out, it would be well worth referring to the original provocation to the MNS- the celebration of Chath by the Biharis in Mumbai. Those who have observed the Chhath celebrations in Bihar would agree that it appears as if human nature had changed on those three days. The mutual goodwill, fellow feeling, spirit of volunteerism and the culture of compliance shown by the people, transports Bihar into idylls of an existence where police, municipal services, and even the government seem to have become dispensable. Only if the Biharis could learn the formula for this magical transformation, and make these three days last three months or even thirty days! They would then have people queuing up to come to Bihar and not otherwise.

Jai Bihar! Jai Ashoka!

Raj Thakeray and the irreparable damage!

Dear Fellow Bihari Brothers and Sisters!

 The way Raj Thackeray is humiliating hindi and its speakers in Mumbai does such an irreparable damage to the unity of country. The natives of specially Bihar have been left wondering what their fault is. Is it that they wanted to earn a livelihood because they had a right to feed themselves? Or now the new fatwa from Raj Thackeray to only have students from Maharashtra for SBI jobs and not Biharis is another attempt to leave Bihari's wondering if talent in India is up for independent evaluation? Whatever may be the case this again turns our focus to the single most important question "Is Bihar being targeted for petty politics or there is an evil design which these monsters have?"

The union government is tight lipped. The Maharashtra government is busy enjoying its recent victory in election. Biharis have been turned into Jews and the Modern Hitler is on rampage. The Bihari Pride has already been nonexistent for decades now. Had Raj been in absolute power may be he would have contemplated the option of sending Biharis to concentration camps in Maharashtra. In anycase Mumbai has been a kind of psychological Auschwitz to Biharis.


Even Israelis took offense when MNS praised Hitler. But this is current brand of politics which is being practiced across India for political gains. Even Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister mentioned that migrants will not be allowed in his state. This audacity continues in the almost every state these days. Is this the beginning of the unthinkable of India being fragmented into smaller countries?


Jai Bihar! Jai Ashoka!

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The Reality

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Dear Fellow Bihari Brothers and Sisters!

Indeed this is the time when we should think about our honor, our glorious past, our history, our blood and sweat which has been flowing since time eternal in shaping the glory of this country. Our laborers have worked hard in the fields of Punjab to bring the green revolution, our construction workers have built mega cities, our officers have supported the government machineries across India and if we talk of freedom movement or even the JP movement to stir up the country’s sleeping conscience, we have done enough to be entitled for some respect. But what we have got in return? We should really think about this seriously.

What we have got in Return is “Insult, Injustice and Ill treatment”. We are ridiculed and insulted across the country for we stay poor, ignorant and uneducated. But this is exactly the gift the Nation which we have served with our blood and sweat has given us. This is how a Delhi Chief Minister dares to have a devious plan to drive out the poor Biharis to make the city look beautiful. We are reduced to toilet paper status of “Use and Throw”. This is how the MNS/Shiv Sena decides to beat up the poor students on Mumbai Railway Stations for the fault that they wanted to use their intellect to make a future in this country which they call their own. This is how poor Bihari taxi drivers, pan shop walla, sabji walla was beaten up when Marathi and only Marathi became the words of honor for Raj Thackeray.

Not a single mega city, not a single Industry worth mentioning, not a single educational institution worth enrolling into. A dilapidated ruin of our glorious past asks you a simple question, is this all we deserved to be a part of this country? And if this is the treatment or the price of being a Bihari in India, can we ever overlook this horrible reality to claim Nationalistic sentiments or sing the praise of Mother India which is proving to be a step mother. How can we ignore the facts that in last 60 years of Independence we are standing at the same place with now even less freedom in this country. How can we ignore that it hurts us that we are not being treated equally what this constitution of this Nation promised? Akhanda Bharat was not a Maharashtrian dream. It was a Bihari dream with King Ashoka of Pataliputra being the dreamer. We have lived upto this dream with our integrity and faith in India the mother. But we must wake up to the reality as well. The reality is we are being cornered in our own so called country. We are facing the burden of misdeeds of the leaders we have elected in good faith and who have cheated us, we are facing the burden of the Prime Ministers who have forgotten us, we are facing the burden of our own dead conscience which allows us to be ridiculed and that is why although we have not forgotten the dream, we must also not forget the reality.

The solution:

1.       Elect only the regional party leaders who are good and can speak in a united voice when it comes to defending Bihar not by instinct but by knowledge. Lets elect those who are not just offering promises but also delivering. In the absence of it you should yourself come forward. Start a party, run independent but do your bit.

2.      Never ever elect national parties as they have different agendas in different part of states. The

Congress and BJP both got aligned with MNS and Shiv Sena respectively. How can you believe a party which speaks in different tones in different geographical area.

3.      Work for Bihar in your whatever little way.

May the glory of Bihar again come back with its able sons and daughters.

Jai Bihar! Jai Ashok.