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Mainstream, Vol XLVI No 1

Bihar’s Manmade Woes

Tuesday 25 December 2007, by Shree Shankar Sharan

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Bihar is a textbook case of stagnation, backwardness and poverty being thrust by political and bureaucratic mismanagement on an essentially good people.

That Biharis are a good people has been testified more than once by more than one leader of eminence. Mahatma Gandhi in 1917 called it a state after his heart. Dr Rajendra Prasad, the epitome of all that is good in Bihar, was made the first President of the Republic of India, Justice Tarkunde used to call Bihar the spearhead of Indian politics. JP’s 1974 movement drew youth from all over the country and leaders of almost all Opposition parties and made its niche in history.

The glory of ancient India is synonymous with glory of Bihar, then Magadh. The message of peace and coexistence of Emperor Asoka is unparalled in world history.

A period of decline set in after King Sasank’s attack on Buddist monasteries and Bakhtiar Khilji burning down the world famous Nalanda University. The seat of power shifted from Pataliputra to Delhi, then under the British to Calcutta and finally back to Delhi. Bihar came in the care of minor princes (Prince Murad), nabobs and rajas who had neither the vision nor the means nor the reach to develop all parts of Bihar. The British merged it with Bengal and turned it once again into Bengal’s backyard. The kings and zamindars followed an extortionist and oppressive policy towards farmers, reduced them to poverty and destroyed the incentive to grow.

Yet Bihar’s agriculture prospered by the ingenuity of its farmers. New varieties of rice were grown and Patna (the name was derived from Patanam or port) was an important trading post during the East India Company’s reign for exporting grains and primary products.

Bihar added to its woes by not taking to the Western style of life of the metropolitan cities. Its traditionalism gave it a backward image. Its lack of urbanisation caused a rural mindset and idiom of speech to penetrate its urban population. Most of Bihar’s elite had rural roots and subconsciously adopted rural biases such as casteism, a bane of Bihar polities.

There was a phase of industrial development in Bihar in steel by Tisco, copper, bauxite, auto manufacture (Telco) etc. These investments were localised; Bihar failed to take off as an industrial State and Biharis served these companies as employees but failed to become entrepreneurs. Bihar’s elite is basically job or zamindari (rentier)- oriented and lacks the skill both of a modern farmer or an industrial entrepreneur. The size of land- holdings of Bihar’s ex-zamindars, despite the ceiling Act, has been adequate to want them to continue to opt for the comforts of the rentier class or the security of a job with its own brand of rent of illegal gratification.

There is far more of political awareness in Bihar than in most States. Her leaders after independence were fired by the freedom struggle and bore the interest of farmers and the poor at heart. It had a strong socialist movement and a vibrant democracy. Heavy investment was made in the public sector in HEC, Bokaro etc. and new townships rose. Coal and mica attracted enterprising Biharis. All of them have now gone to Jharkhand.

But things started to change after the Nehru Shastri era. Bihar began to have handpicked Chief Ministers, more accountable to the Central leaders than to the people. The era of high-level corruption also dawned since the State leaders were expected to fund the Central party fund. On the agriculture front inadequate land reforms, absence of title as sub-tenants, skewed distribution of land, inadequate infrastructure and conservative credit policies have hampered rural development. Hand spinning and hand-weaving have been destroyed by large textile mills and rural crafts such as pottery, blacksmithy, hand-pounding and oil-crushing have been replaced by mills. Floods and drought annually keep the farmer in a state of crisis. Flood prevention, in need of Nepal’s cooperation, has not been forthcoming. Meanwhile the population has surged, lowering Bihar’s per capitate data in all fields unbelievably low. Bihar has been on the look out for a leader and a set of policies which will deliver the Biharis from poverty. They put their faith in the Congress, which won them freedom and gave them the right to vote, but as its moral and ideological character declined, they shifted their trust to the Janata Party, then back to the Congress, then back to the Janata Dal, the BJP, the RJD and the JD(U).

All the parties the voter trusted in the past let him down on the promise of deliverance from poverty by engaging in political gimmickry, spreading corruption and neglecting development A complint civil service has been of no help. An immensely popular leader said at one time that you did not need development to get votes. The voter outgrew his political magnetism and drove him out of power in Bihar. But his stock in the UPA Government is high, as if Bihar is anybody’s personal pasture.

A new government led by Nitish Kumar is in power now. He has concentrated his efforts an rebuilding the infrastructure, particularly roads and bridges and minor irrigation and tried to reform health and education. Law and order has visibly improved, though crime by no means has been eliminated. All these measures need time to bear fruit, before it can improve the quality of people’s lives. It would be dishonest to claim that development in Bihar is non- existent. The right seeds are being sown. The fruits will take their own time to appear.

On the crime fount, one of the problems has been the criminalisation of politics. There is hardly a party that has kept criminals at bay. Even some of the Naxalites have accepted criminal help to promote themselves. This trend has to be curbed by the Election Commission or the Courts, not the Central Government or State Government, which lean on criminals to gather votes. But Nitish Kumar has taken some courageous steps to rein in criminals.

Bihar is caught in a trap of poverty. It is poor because it was poor and therefore will continue to be poor for some time. Its savings rate cannot go up dramatically. There is lack of investment from other States or abroad in Bihar. The position seems to be easing under the new confidence generated by Nitish Kumar. But we need more investment from consumer industries which have a large market in Bihar, like chemicals, textiles and medicine and agro-industries.

We are also steeped in corruption. Corruption is no longer a dirty word. Social leaders impress with their lavish life-style rather than their integrity.

Bihar in the past led in political corruption and must take the lead in ending it. Corruption has a great deal to do with political funding for elections and the generation of black money. It has to be attacked at its source by more transparent governance, decentralisation of power, by use of the right to information and making tax laws more affordable. There needs to be greater public outcry against corruption, more sting operations by those who oppose it.
The Bihar Government has tried to address the problem by keeping the executive and legislative powers apart. The civil service has been given a free hand to implement programmes without yielding to political pressure. But the problem persists at the middle level and more needs to be done to check it. Even at the political level, a more vigilant eye needs to be kept.

Bihar has been a victim of wrong policies, for example, freight equalisation, wrong leadership, both at the State and the Centre which dropped the momentum of development and overpoliticised the polity and the society. It has also suffered heavily by the loss of integrity of most of Central and State leaders. The JD(U) Government is a backlash from the excesses of past politics. It will succeed to the extent it follows the rocky path of curbing corruption, and criminalisation, improves the investment climate by prompt responses and positive response from the country and protects its weaker sections like women and extremely backward classes and minorities which it has admirably initiated.

Some of her visionary policies have started to attract national and international attention like the proposed Nalanda University. A new IIT and IIM will make it an attractive destination for the country’s youth. The elite of Bihar, who have been the pushers or victims of its wrong policies, have also to cooperate by being more courageous and giving up their rustic habits of living with squabble and squalor. In civic matters they have to lead by example.

Bihar needs an equally visionary land reform policy to distribute land to the landless in a globalised world of fewer jobs in the industrial sector, to ease the problem of poverty and curb the drift towards Naxalism.

Bihar needs a political consensus on development both at the Centre and the State. Its honest efforts to grow should not be targeted in narrow political interest. Nor should the Centre be less than generous to pull her out of her financial drought, despite political deferences.

Nitish Kumar should not lose heart if investors fail to respond to build large industries in Bihar. There is a future waiting for Bihar in her agriculture with her fertile soil and abundance of water. The Centre should support Bihar to secure Bihar’s farms with flood protection and irrigation projects backed by medium and small agro-industries. Agriculture will have a huge employment potential and that is where her population’s skill lies. Not only will it bring prosperity, it will make Bihar the food granary of India.

The author is the President, Awami Ekta Manch, Patna/Delhi.

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