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Journalism of Courage
It was an unobtrusive report on Saturday, amid the bad news that wells up every day after the tsunami receded. On January 1, 2005, unidentified gunmen kidnapped an orthopaedic surgeon from Bihar8217;s Purnea district. U.K. Raja is the latest citizen to pay the price of living in a state where it is routinely dangerous to be successful, and to be marginalised. Entrepreneurs of the flourishing kidnapping industry will come for you in the first instance, rampaging caste armies will get you in the second and the state will vacantly blink at both kinds of criminals. Raja8217;s abduction in Bihar on the first day of the new year is poignant reminder of the conceits of new beginnings. It is also a timely alert. When the nation jots down its new year resolutions, once it has dealt with the crisis at hand, the list of things not-to-be-done is long.
In the new year, Bihar must not be allowed to remain a cliche, a naturalised state of underdevelopment and failure. The abduction of U.K. Raja must provoke horror and outrage and lead to demands that urgent action be taken by the state. To restore to him, and others like him, their freedom and the unfussy sense of security that comes from living in a place where there is the rule of law. This year, public debate in the run-up to election must not dissipate all its energies in tedious calculations of caste/community arithmetic. It must keep the focus on issues that matter to the people, and shine the light on the gaps that are created where the state fails to be accountable for its unkept promises. Public debate must also stop bunking Parliament. In the new year, it must assert its presence in the House. Parliament must not shrink into a venerable symbol. It must revive itself as a lively institution and process.
The list of things not-to-be-done in the new year will go on. What we need, most of all, is to summon again the sense of collective purpose and will that alone can rescue the idea of Bihar from those who have carried it away to an airless, ill-lit place.
