Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: Afternoon Despatch
& Courier
Date: February 12, 2004
Introduction: If only Laloo Yadav
had the sensibility to understand how much Bihar has lost, things would
be very different now
There are many things about Bihar
that alarm the politically-conscious visitor but perhaps the most frightening
is that the state is visibly moving backwards. More visibly now than ever
because the rest of the country, including chronically troubled Uttar Pradesh,
is moving forwards faster and faster. Whether you buy into the India Shining
idea or not you would have to be blind or ideologically disabled not to
notice this. But, Bihar has so clearly taken another direction that every
time I go back I notice more degradation, more decay.
Last week I returned to Buxur and
Dumraon after nearly 15 years. I was last here during the 1989 election
in the company of Shatrughan Sinha who was campaigning for the BJP. The
former Maharajah of Dumraon was contesting and we stayed in his guest house
which is where I stayed this time as well. It is a lovely old red brick
house with wide verandahs and unending gardens but years of disuse - few
guests come any more - have filled its once lovely rooms with Bihar's crushing
sense of defeat. It's as if the house has given up trying to be elegant
and beautiful. Razzak Khan, the ancient retainer who has worked here since
Raj days explains why with sadness in his eyes, "Hardly anyone comes here
any more now that the Maharajah's textile mill has closed down."
Changing for the worse
It closed because the absence of
infrastructure made it impossible to function. Infrastructure acquires
a whole new meaning in Bihar. Its obvious insignificance in Laloo's worldview
hit me the moment I descended at Buxur's filthy, decrepit railway station
and realised that it had not improved even slightly in 15 years. At least
it's still the same - the road to Dumraon has worsened dramatically and
although I travelled in a Tata Sumo this time instead of the Ambassador
we traveled in last time, I felt the road every moment of the journey because
we rattled and shook rather than drove. I have driven down some seriously
bad roads in my time but have to say that the road from Buxur to Dumraon
is in its own special category. There is not the tiniest stretch that is
a flat surface any more so the 20 kilometers we should have covered in
15 minutes took us nearly an hour.
As for that other essential ingredient
of industry and development - electricity - in the three days that I spent
in Dumraon, electricity was such a rare commodity that a cheer went up
every time the lights came on. For the most part I spent my time reading
and writing by the light of a gas lamp and discovered that shops in Dumraon
functioned on electricity supplied by privately-owned generators that charged
five rupees a light bulb. "Selling electricity privately by using generators
has become the main business for the educated unemployed," said a local
journalist who was a clever, ambitious young man but seemed oblivious to
the decay that lay all around us.
When I pointed out roadside tea
shops and vegetable sellers who were selling their wares on the edge of
open drains clogged with solidified slime and plastic bags he seemed to
notice for the first time. Dumraon, as I remember it from 15 years ago,
was a charming little town full of political enthusiasm at the possibility
of Rajiv Gandhi being defeated. It even came up with its own funny, little
slogan. Swarg sey nana ki aayi pukaar, ab key natin tu jaibey haar. (From
heaven came the sound of grandfather's voice saying this time grandson
you are going to lose.)
Now the enthusiasm I saw then has
been replaced by a bitter cynicism. Everyone told me that Laloo and his
Chief Minister wife have destroyed the state and that there will be no
development or hope or anything good unless he is defeated in the next
election but everyone also said he could not possibly lose. He has worked
out caste equations perfectly, they said, he knows how to play the caste
game so well that he cannot ever lose. I heard this not just from urban
folk but in villages where the caste equations come into full play. I did
not meet anyone who thought Laloo had any chance of losing and one of the
reasons for this was the absence of any figure on the political landscape
who seemed capable of being even a worthy opponent.
I spent the days wandering around
talking to people, gauging the political mood, and in the evenings would
retire to the Maharajah's guest house and sit in the garden filled with
flowering mustard plants and droopy roses. And, one evening the Maharajah
himself wandered by for some chai and chat. It broke his heart, he said,
to see what was happening to Bihar and because he was no longer in public
life he tried to help by writing letters to the powers that be. He had
written to the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice and other high officials
and pointed out ways in which he thought solutions could be found to Bihar's
grim problems but he had never had a reply.
"Did you know that when the British
left Bihar was considered the best administered state in India?" I said
I did know and wondered if he could pinpoint when the decline began. He
started off by saying 15 years ago and then corrected himself and said
that things had been nearly as bad under the Congress Party's Jagannath
Misra as they were under Laloo.
Tales of Bihar
One evening he lent me a book called
'Bihar: The Heart Of India' by Sir John Houlton. It was a history of the
state published in 1949 and was clearly written as a labour of love. Tales
of Bihar's former glory were told and its importance as the cradle of Indian
civilisation emphasised. A description of Nalanda university is almost
heartbreaking in the way it contrasts with modern Bihar. This is what Hieuen
Tsiang saw more than 1,300 years ago when he visited one of the oldest
universities in the world. "One gate opens into the great college, from
which eight other halls are separated, in the middle of the monastery.
The richly adorned towers and the fairy-like turrets, like pointed hill-
tops, are congregated together. The observatories seem to be lost in the
mists of the morning, in which are the priests' chambers are of four stages.
"The stages have dragon projections
and coloured eaves, the pearl red pillars, carved and ornamented, the richly
adorned balustrades, and the roofs covered with tiles that reflect the
light in a thousand shades these things add to the beauty of the scene."
If only Laloo Yadav had the sensibility
to understand how much Bihar has lost. If only he cared enough to be worried
about a future in which the state could fall off the development map of
India. Alas, all he has is charisma and a trickster's ability to conjure
casteism out of any hat and this is enough to have kept him in power for
more than 10 years and possibly enough to bring him back for another five.
Poor, poor Bihar.
