RANJAN Tiwari owns more than 40 bighas of land in Bihar’s Bhojpur district but works as a securityman in Patna for Rs 1,800 a month. ‘‘We are Brahmins. Working on the land doesn’t earn us respect and there is a scarcity of labour for the land,’’ Tiwari explains why he chose the hardships of a poorly paid job over a better living in his own village. ‘‘I am respected as an employed youth when I go to the village every month, to give my family the Rs 1,000 that I save.’’ Leaving the village is a priority for the majority in Bihar, not only among the upper caste—such as Tiwari—but also among Dalits and lower castes, who seek security in the anonymity of big cities. And the easiest employment for an unskilled jobseeker to land is that of a securityman. At least 100,000 Biharis are said to be employed as such in Delhi and Mumbai. ‘‘Bihar has contributed the largest contingent to security agencies, but of late the trend is on the downslide,’’ says Vishal Verma, proprietor of Property Gaurds, which employees several thousand people across the country. ‘‘The negative image the state has acquired has affected employment opportunities. Agencies now prefer to recruit their staff from UP and Rajasthan,’’ says Verma, who set up his Patna-based agency in 1976. Both the push and the pull factors work for aspiring securitymen from Bihar. Tiwari, a graduate who thought it below his dignity to work on the land, is very happy with his 12-hour-a-day job. Most people do not even have that option in Bihar, where the pressure on land is high and industrialisation stunted. In Mumbai and Delhi, salaries average around Rs 4,000 per month and with a bit of skimping, allows upto Rs 40,000 to be remitted home annually. ‘‘It is a good amount by village standards. And what they buy gets them respect and honour,’’ says Dilip Kumar, a social activist in Champaran. In the last three years, Tiwari has brought in three more people into this profession from his village and the chain expands with each passing day. In one village in Muzaffarpur, almost the entire male population in their prime—around 400—is employed in security agencies in metros.
