Rajeet Sinha
In my first visit, that I remember, outside my state Bihar, I was welcomed and pampered. After all, I was visiting Kolkata as one of the prize winners, representing my state in Eastern India Science Camp. I was in Class 8 then and approaching teenage. On that trip, my father also took me to people from my village, who were engaged in grocery business in Howrah and Kolkata. I liked the fact that they were living in ‘Kolkata’, but felt very uncomfortable about their living conditions.
Years later when I landed in Pune to study communication and asked the conductor to guide me to the University, my fellow passenger in the city bus asked where I was from. When I replied that I was from Bihar, he said “Oh, Lalu’s state” and smiled. He wasn’t being contemptuous, yet something had made him smile.
As the only Bihari student in my batch I felt the need to put forth the case of my state in Pune, and presented a paper about ‘Bihar: Media Image vs. Reality’ .While doing this paper, a contributor commented, "Bihar is painted more black than it actually is.” Another retorted, "Bihar is already so black than it cannot be painted more black than it is." Both were Biharis, successful and settled outside Bihar.
After completing my education in Pune, I started working in Mumbai, and now live and work in the national capital. The disturbing news about attack on North Indians in Maharashtra, makes me think rather than worry me. Biharis have become persona-non-grata. Why are we Biharis or North Indians subjected to this treatment? Why?
Biharis are top bureaucrats, technocrats, academicians; yet they are also the ones killed in Assam, thrashed in Mumbai and questioned in Delhi! Where should the Bihari go? Kahan Jayein Bihari?
Why is it that even after 60 years of Independence, intra-national migration continues? Why do we not have industries and businesses that can accommodate people locally? Why do Biharis have to move out? Why do Biharis have to go so far from their homes in search of livelihood? Why are there no jobs in Bihar for Biharis, of the type that are in Mumbai or Delhi?
The crux of the problem
India is growing, but not developing. It is growing in regional pockets and not as a nation. The leaders and planners, who have been mandated to this job, have failed miserably. The current state of affairs reflects their individual, collective and continued failures of many years.
Someone is failing. Either the elected leaders or the people, who have elected them. Someone is definitely failing in his or her duties. They are either failing in upholding the Constitution or in protecting the rights enshrined in it. The political parties, the leaders and the administration that are mum on the issue are also guilty of aiding and abetting this divide. They too are failing in their duty of upholding the Constitution of India.
When I was interviewing Dr. Ashok Kumar – the British MP of Indian origin – in London sometime back, he said he could not sit back and do nothing after hearing about the plight of Hindus in Kazakhastan. He raised the issue in the British Parliament and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair promised help.
Now, even so many days after violence erupted in Maharashtra, Indian leaders are still sitting back. They are sitting back and waiting for their vote banks to grow. No matter at what or whose cost. After all it is not the leaders, who face the wrath on the streets. It is the ordinary citizen, helpless and hapless!
Skewed priorities
Indian leaders air their concerns when UK amends its immigration provisions. They also raise their voices about Mittal Steel's interests. They talk about the plight of Indians in Malaysia and of their safety in Kenya. They boast about Indira Nooyi and Bobby Jindal, they toast Sunita Williams and Vikram Pandit. But labourers of Bihar are no Indira Nooyi or Vikram Pandit. They are born to be humiliated and destined to be killed. Their humiliation is not even worth a reaction, forget any action.
People who threaten to stop trains coming from North India to Maharashtra, forget that people from everywhere have contributed to Mumbai's development. You welcome investment from outside, accept technology and minerals from outside, but will not allow people from outside? Several states of India owe their industrial success to the mineral resources of Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.
Bihar's exploitation has been systematic and sustained. If the Indian sub-continent was plundered during the British Raj, Bihar’s (and Orissa’s for that matter) exploitation has continued even after that. Mumbai is Bollywood because of Hindi films. And it is not something created overnight in Mumbai. What would Mumbai be minus Bollywood, nationally and internationally, either in art and culture or economy?
The Doodhwalas, and Taxiwalas of Mumbai, or Amitabh Bachchan – whether they are from Bihar or UP – have equal rights. They have all made Mumbai what it is. They ought to have a share in its opportunities equally. They must have an equal right to earn their living in Mumbai. Better still would be if opportunities are created locally in Bihar and UP too, so that migration can be a matter of choice and not compulsion.
Migration of the poor is not always a happy event. They pay a great price emotionally and socially. But when the choice between moving and staying is a choice between life and death, they have to move. The Bihari and UPites are the girmitia (indentured labourer) of today.
The CM of Delhi talks about the increasing pressure on Delhi's infrastructure because of ‘outsiders’, the Lt Gov of Delhi maligns North Indians as lawbreakers. The slang 'Bihari' as a word of contempt is not unheard of in Delhi. Maharashtra has problems of its own. Not everything is fine there. Farmers are still ending their lives, while their Chief Minister gives them sermons on working hard like the farmers of Gujarat.
Six years back in Itanagar, I met this room servant from rural Assam in my hotel. He told me that he would be able to see his mother only after a year because he was not allowed to go out of the hotel building. His employer had threatened him that he would be sent back to Assam by the police. But these are untold stories; of people whose voices are not loud enough to be heard in the corridors of power.
The problem goes deeper. All over the world people have been migrating in search of greener pastures since time immemorial. We have to think, create and provide for the need of all citizens, the migrants as well as the locals. Neither can be left to die while the other enjoys all the benefits.
The solution
But the issue of Bihar’s development is of essence. It should be given a serious thought, beyond political buck-passing, beyond the Lalus and votebank hungry political parties. Why do we not have in Bihar, once home to the Nalanda University, educational institutions that can rival those of Delhi or Maharastra? Why does the fertile land of the Ganges belt fail in holding back its sons, so that they have to sweat it out as labourers in the farms of Punjab?. We have grown up reading 'Vashudhaiv Kutumbkam'. Can we make Bihar home for Biharis also?
First Published: Thursday, February 14, 2008, 00:00