Jitan Ram Manjhi’s elevation as Bihar CM, a hope for Musahars

Before he stepped down as chief minister last week, Nitish Kumar had given up his chair once earlier. It was for Dasrath Manjhi, Bihar’s ‘mountain man’ who is believed to have dug through Gaya Hills almost single-handedly for 22 years to carve out a road between Atri and Wazirganj, cutting the distance from 40 km to 8. Dasrath, who died in 2007, had come to visit Nitish and a respectful CM offered the 75-year-old his chair for 5 minutes. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

Jitan Ram Manjhi is in his third stint as minister. However, for his community of Musahars, Jitan Ram’s ascension to the CM’s chair — even if symbolic — is no less than the parting of a mountain. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

The lowest of the low in India’s inflexible caste hierarchy, the Musahars make up around 5.5 per cent of Bihar’s population, of which less than 10 per cent are literate. In new CM Jitan Ram Manjhi’s village and around, there are only a handful of Musahars who are graduates. Electricity is rare and a handpump that was installed the day after Jitan Ram was sworn in a major source of excitement. There are eight Musahar MLAs (including Jitan Ram) in Bihar’s Assembly of 243, and Jitan Ram is the first Musahar in the country to occupy a position as senior as his. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

Mostly, the community is used to being identifed only by the image its name conjures up — ‘Musahars’ meaning the rat eaters, though at least in Gaya, it is rare to find someone fitting that description. Helped largely by the JD(U) government’s Mahadalit schemes, the Musahars of Gaya, like Jitan Ram, have taken some steps up the economic, if not social, ladder. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

On the road to Jitan Ram’s paternal village Mahakar in the Khizarsarai block of Gaya, there is still disbelief over Nitish naming him CM after resigning over the JD(U)’s rout in the Lok Sabha elections. More than Jitan Ram, Nitish is the hero here. “Nitish might have lost the elections but he has became a very big leader by making a Mahadalit the CM. Nitish has reserved a place for himself in history,” says Sonu Kumar, Jitan Ram’s neighbour and an undergraduate student at a Biharsharif college. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

The Musahars make up around one-tenth of Mahakar’s 100 households. The village also has Yadavs, Kahars (an extremely backward class) and upper caste Bhumihars and Brahmins. Jitan Ram’s long stint as an MLA since 1980 has brought Mahakar a middle school, an additional public health care centre, a sub-health centre and, most importantly, an electricity connection. Jitan Ram was deputy minister for land reforms and revenue in the Chandrashekhar Singh-led Congress government in the early 1980s, served as a minister of state for education in the RJD government in the mid-1990s, and was the SC/ST Welfare Minister in the Nitish government till he became CM. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

At Mahakar’s middle school (Classes I to VIII), walls are covered with slogans encouraging voting and warning against smoking in public. Of the more than 300 students on the school’s rolls, only 14 are Manjhi. Just behind the school is the six-bed additional primary health care centre that came up in 1980. The centre gets around 100 patients daily in its out-patient department. Serious patients are referred to hospitals in Khizarsarai and Gaya. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

The only fully pucca house in the village belongs to Jitan Ram. Located near the school, it stands out for its size — it has 18 rooms — and its fluorescent green colour. Jitan Ram and younger brother Govind, a police inspector, now deceased, built the house in the mid-1980s. Jitan Ram’s elder son Santosh Kumar Suman says he chose the colour for its brightness and distinct look. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

The family’s fortunes, villagers say, are tied to the fact that Jitan Ram’s father Ramjeet Manjhi, a labourer, encouraged his sons to study. Jitan Ram is a graduate and he himself ensured that all his seven children, including five daughters, did at least their graduation. Santosh is a Ph.D. Jitan Ram’s wife Shanti Devi never attended school. (Source: Express photo by Prashant Ravi)

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