Fraud146;s Own Country

KOILI and Khutaha are two neighbouring hamlets, 30 km from Bhagalpur in Bihar. Over the last decade, a feud between the two has left 22 peop...

KOILI and Khutaha are two neighbouring hamlets, 30 km from Bhagalpur in Bihar. Over the last decade, a feud between the two has left 22 people dead and they spend more than three lakhs every month on court cases. The original dispute is now forgotten8212;it was about the location of an electric pole in the village. Though no electricity has reached the village, the cycle of revenge is on, though both the sides are of the same caste.

These hamlets represent Bihar starkly as Bihar represents India starkly. If collective will is what drives progress, Bihar8217;s dismal pace is easy to understand.

What the headlines often miss is that besides kidnappers, booth looters and criminals, Bihar is home to eighty million people who are separated by India8217;s worst road network, flooding rivers and warring caste lords. They are constantly prompted to think low of themselves. 8216;8216;Bihari8217;8217; is almost a term of abuse now. A Bihari8217;s angst is to find his place. Headlines have not been of help.

Ranjit Don, kingpin of the CAT racket is a native of Nalanda, one of the world8217;s ancient centre of learning. Vaishali in Bihar is acclaimed as the cradle of democracy8212;more than two millenniums ago, people there had a representative form of government. Can irony be more stark any where else? And can8217;t there be more solace than history for the Bihari?

A Bihari earns less than a third of an average Indian; she consumes less than a seventh of the electricity consumed by an average Indian. Nearly 52.5 per cent of Biharis are illiterate compared to the national average of 34.6 per cent. Agriculture, animal husbandry, electricity are recording negative or marginal growth rates. Crime graph is up8212;in 1990, 212 people were kidnapped for ransom; in 2004, 904. In 1990, 4,338 were killed; in 2004, 6,790.

NOT merely its present, Bihar8217;s future too is besieged8212; about 66-69 per cent of its children do not attend school. And those who attend are not necessarily doing any better. Last year, Bihar witnessed a student strike demanding the right to cheat in exams. 8216;Chori se tum raj karoge; chori se ham pass karenge,8217; went one slogan. You rule by fraud; and we pass by fraud.

Crime happens in other places too so why does the headline writer single out Bihar every day? Because in other places, other things also happen8212;a new power plant is opened, sometimes a software tycoon comes visiting. In Bihar, there is no competition for Ranjit Don for the day8217;s headline. The news of the fleeing capitalist is not shadowed by the new investor. Invariably it is the kidnapper, the extortionist, the extremist and when the elections are on, the politician, who keeps Bihar in the news.

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The scope of improvement in Bihar is such that even a small measure will look like a turnaround. The new government can begin anywhere on the vicious circle that is Bihar today. They could perhaps, merely implement the midday meal scheme at schools; or give the farmers newer varieties of seeds; or just make those roads so that Bihar8217;s bananas reach the metropolitan market rather than rotting on the fields. Or they could think of letting the political power devolve another step down, to the Dalits. There is nothing that cannot be improved. Even by the man-bites-dog logic, these measures will still get Bihar the headline.

And light will then reach Koili and Khutaha.