I must thank Prabhat Kumar Sinha, based in Montreal Canada for bringing out such positive sparks for Bihar. I am currently based in New York and there has not been a single day when I have not browsed PatnaDaily.Com and hindustandainik.com to get a feel of Swades (Bihar in this case).

The reality is in India, Bihari Indians are being discriminated and are being snatched away from the very right of Indian Constitution. But the question is who cares.

The politicians of Bihar do not as they do not have the required education to be able to think for the large picture.

The living mass of Bihar is not financially sound to be able to demand for their right.

I cannot agree less to the idea of what "Bihar is to India", "India is to the world". So it's high time Biharis take pride in whatever they do, as I am very positive about this new generation.

Regards and kudos to PatnaDaily team for such a brilliant effort. - Atul Vatsyayan - May 1, 2005

Excellent Mr. Prabhat.

It's all a branding issue. When a Bihari says 'Subhas' instead of 'Subhash', or 'Burma' instead of 'Verma' he is made fun of. But check on these, from top of my mind

Gujrati pronunciations:
1. 'Cope' stands for COP
2. 'Coel' stands for COIL
3. 'Hole' stands for HALL
4. 'Strend' stands for STRAND
5. 'Cedaaar' stands for 'CEDAR'

Keralite pronunciations:
1. 'Aundy' stands for Aunty
2. 'Ungle' stands for Uncle
3. 'Onn' stands for One
4. 'Eightttt' stands for Eight

Bengali pronunciations:
1. 'Kolbor' stand for 'Culver'
2. The funniest one "Hum giregi" means "I would like to get off.'

It's all about branding. I am a proud Bihari. I am proud that in the next 10 years all 900 + districts in India will either have a Bihari DM or SP. - Raj Verma, PA, USA - May 1, 2005

Congratulation to Prabhat Sinha and PatnaDaily to tell us the truth about Bihar and Biharis. Relentless campaign by media against Biharis have started fetching them results. Anti-Bihar sentiments are now all time high in India. Bihar has, successfully, been colonized once again, but this time, internally.

Many thought, it will happen to only supporters of Laloo Prasad, many thought it will happen only to subjeewala in Delhi, many thought it will happen to only poor students in Bombay, but no, it has started happening everywhere and with everybody. From Parliament to Airport and to Yadav Ji and to Sinha Ji.

There are cases that Biharis who are carrying passport issued in Patna are strip searched separately in Bombay and Bangalore, who knows if they belong to Bangladesh posing as Hindus. List has increased; earlier it were Muslims, now Biharis have been added.

But who cares for Bihar? Laloo Prasad is too busy attacking Narendra Modi and Sushil Modi is too busy protecting Narendra Modi. Bihar is not an issue for them, but I once again congratulate PatnaDaily for raising issue relevant to Bihar. - Raghu Yadav, London, UK - May 2, 2005

A lot of my fellow Biharis are curious why we are discriminated across India. Why is Bihar the poorest state in one of the poorest countries in the world namely India. If we think from the global perspective we are at the bottom of the bottom!

The solutions to Bihar's problems are well known and are not impossible implement. Build character, morals, ethics, empathy and civic sense in the citizens of Bihar. Fix these problem and it wouldn't matter what the others say about Biharis.

The easiest way to start doing this is teaching these social values to children. This should be done mostly in school because it is impossible to monitor and teach each and every family to provide these values to their children. On the other hand schools can do it more effectively.

All the people who are over 30 years old cannot be changed so children are our only hope. Do not spend too much time in trying to change the grown ups. Build strong law and order and legal system to make the grown ups follow the concept of 'community living'.

In case a child daily spends say 8 hours in school teach them about 'social values' for 4 hours. Remember that each of these children will be the future citizens/members of the society and we will have to interact with them as fellow members of the society almost every hour. Don't you want them to be nice people?

Secondly, in case some kid is extremely bright in say engineering, science or medicine, the schools should identify them early, give them special coaching and make them topnotch engineers, science and doctors. Don't waste the time of rest of the students in science and engineering teach them social values instead. This is more important.

Also, make every child attend school. This should be more important than religion or politics and every parent who decides to have children need to make sure that they go to school. In case the parents are unable to do so the government and NGOs need to help them to the maximum extent. In case the parents do not want to do this even though they have the means then arrest them for being anti-national and let the government take the children away from these parents and bring them up as responsible adults. This system is not as difficult as it
sounds. It works out great in USA and China. Let the Army, NGOs, respected citizens take care of these children. Give businesses big tax break in case they help out with this effort.

Regarding businesses, build a system that supports innovative and honest people rather than mean and manipulative people.

By nature Biharis are fearless and intelligent but when character is added to the mix they become divine.

Once these children with social values grow up, we will have a society that is even better than the Americans! People will not tolerate injustice in the society, they will be brave to take tough decisions, they will stand up for the weak and the truth. They will set high goals, build the biggest company, the biggest buildings, hospitals, bridges, universities, space shuttles et cetera.

It is not difficult to build a great nation, you don't need diamond, gold, IIT, IIM , Tata or Birla. You just need the most important ingredient namely the people. Working together man can build all the IIT , IIM, Tatas or Birlas, bring water to even the desert, make electricity and create prosperity, peace and enjoyment. Japan has no other natural resource but it's people and it builds the best electronics, Americans have converted deserts to 18 hole golf courses, the Western Europeans have overcome the challenge of living in a snow covered dead land and
built the best societies. I am sure Biharis can overcome their own problems and become great too!! - Som Vishwakarma, USA - May 2, 2005

I was highly moved by the article and I personally feel that it is very well-written. - Rohit Kishore - May 2, 2005

Dear Prabhat jee:

Most of the points raised by you are valid. But I have some points and reservations to few of them and I personally feel to highlight those points also.

Yes, we all know that Biharis name has gone bad among rest of the Indians. But the question is why? Your article only covers this. One thing is very much clear; getting a bad name is a slow and gradual process. Behind the curtain of pride, many facts show different pictures which not only look odd and gives negative impression about Biharis but are also against the humanity.

If you go to other states in India, people ask many questions once they know that you are from Bihar like how do people live in Bihar? Why people are so dangerous? Why do they believe in dirty politics? Why they are not educated? Why crime rates are high?

If people ask these types of question, they have a valid point. The answer is: because we are more actively involved in wrong things compared to any other state.

Our leaders act in a way as if we are only illiterates. It seems Bihar is without brains or educated people even though maximum IAS, Civil servants, bank P.Os, IIT’ians are from Bihar only. You know when I started organization called "Bihar Brains", people ask: Are there any brains in Bihar also?

My all logical statements and proofs become illogical because of the common man mentality and thinking about Bihar and Biharis. I am giving some examples in support of the wrongdoings by Biharis which have directly or indirectly created and creating bad image of Bihar:

1. Engineering/Medical students: Since we have less number of medical/engg colleges, most students are going out of state for studies. Most of them are performing well but some of them are actively involved in disruptive activities, party politics, and heinous crimes. I saw many cases when I was working in Pune. Many a times, I played role of guardian of the boys and once I even became a guardian of a Bihari girl also. I got the impression from their warden/college teachers that she was not attending the classes, roaming hither and thither and that’s why she was failing in the examinations conducted by college/university. During 4 years at Pune, I didn't see any untoward incident. Once, a Bihari student, the son of a bigwig, brutally killed a famous badminton champion in a hotel. CBI investigative team started an investigation; found that the killer was the son of famous politician from Bihar.

It means sons of bigwigs never think about their prestige, they know that their fathers are well and good, whatever they do; it will be corrected.

2. Train incidents/student mobs for examinee: Most of the job seekers in Bihar go out for taking exams and create problems for average people who have train reservations and rights to sit and sleep. They simply tell the passengers that from now on they will have to sit and not sleep. And "Bechara" passenger has to accept whatever the student mob says, otherwise many times we see the news that family members are misbehaved by these student mobs. The victims are not always people from other states but, in general, whoever is sitting on their own reserved seats.

3. Respect for foreigners: Once I was traveling in a second class from Delhi to Varanasi, a student mob, seeing foreign girls and boys in the train, started teasing them and laughing. When I asked about this, they told me that these foreigners do not know Hindi so they cannot understand what they were speaking. I told them that the language of crying and laughing was universal all over the world so if they laughed at others, they could certainly feel it and it would create bad impression on them. After that, they stopped teasing.

So many times we have heard that foreigners are misbehaved in trains.

These are just a few of the incidents but it happens regularly. Maharashtra incident was just one of the examples of student mob. People don’t want to cross Bihar by train.

We have maligned our reputation ourselves. By writing this article, I am just trying to highlight some more facts where we commit blunders.

Biharis bad name will certainly change into good name when we do some good things and set standard in that (like we have good name for Civil service results), do some developmental work, leave all the inequality we have in mind, help each other in co-operative manner. We must prove to ourselves first by doing good deeds. We don’t have good schools, colleges, R&D centers not only because govt. is not taking any interest in them but also that we have not done anything for Bihar. We have not taken any preventive measures to save Bihar and Biharis name and fame. Yes Biharis must be respected by taking names of Ashoka, Chandragupta, Chanakya, Buddha, Mahavir, Guru Govind Singh jee, Sher Shah Suri, Rajendra Prasad, Jaiprakash but certainly these name would be sustained if we follow their paths. Then we can feel a sense of pride about Bihar and Biharis. - Bibhuti Bikramaditya, Seoul, South Korea - May 2, 2005

I am sure this article will open eyes of many Biharis. I fully agree with the author. After reading few comments here I am tempted to comment back.

I read somewhere,

Lohe ka swad mat poochho lohar se,
poochho oos ghode (horse) se,
jiske mooh me lagam hai.

If you are still not at the receiving end, you will still not realize the pain or problem. Let me put mother of all logic on their behalf.

"A child is born today in Bihar. He deserves humiliation. He is responsible for this. He has maligned his reputation himself."

His mistakes,

Engineering/Medical students:
Train incidents/student mobs for examinee:
Respect for foreigners:

And I will add one from my side, he does not know anything about VLSI (8 Cr Biharis should know this stuff), am I right? I think so.

When we are not at the receiving end, we start comparing Bihar, which is just another state of India, with sovereign super powers like USA and talk about all those chicken and egg theory. - Shankar Paswan, Reading, England - May 2, 2005

The article smells more to be a collection of all the news from Bihar. The writer seems to be frustrated who instead of writing about contribution of people from Bihar to their country is more interested in criticising his own and other communities and respective states. - Mallika - May 4, 2005

I completely agree with Ms Mallika. The writer seems to be fully frustrated. It seems Mr. Prabhat has never had his education outside Bihar. I did my education from IIT, Delhi. Some of my best pals have been from Bihar. One never makes friends because they are from a state/territory. I never treated them differently because they are from Bihar. But the difference in thoughts does make us choose friends of our choice.

How does it make a difference if Punjabis are doing labour jobs? Is doing labour bad? All jobs demand labour - some mental and others physical. After having visited places like US, Canada and UK, the writer would have realised by now that the key to getting rich is working hard and not doing a white collar job.

The writer has tried to hurt the sentiments of certain communities. I think he should not forget about the contributions that Sabeer Bhatia, Kalpana Chawala, Dr Hargobind Khurana have made contributions in the technical areas. Some of the other rich and famous Punjabis are Kanwal Rekhi who has earned the title of sage of Silicon Valley, Jessie Singh, who is worth millions today from trading in computer peripherals in the US, Narinder Kapany the father of fiber optics, Sanjeev Sidhu the founder of i2 Technologies and Sant Singh Chatwal who owns the largest number of hotel rooms in Manhattan and runs the Bombay Palace chain of restaurants globally. The list is endless.

Let's rise above this narrow minded thinking that 'I am a Bihari, you are a Punjabi, You are a Gujrati' and think of an united India. Let's respect our fellow brethren for what they stand and not because from where they are. - Gurleen Canth - May 4, 2005

It's definitely a very good article on past, present and good future of Bihar. The article gives a hint of author's deep knowledge about many past and current social, economical, political ... issues. But one thing I have to say that in PD, this Bihari Diaspora often writes about the current plight of Bihar, injustice, anti-Bihari sentiment all around, English media, …it's not very late …Bihar's pride will be back one day …blah-blah-blah. But how many of this $ earning NRBs really do anything for Bihar at ground level? How many of you even have helped your next coming generation morally, financially or for their good education (either they are your nephew, niece/cousin, in some case, even own brother…) who is still growing up in the place of cynosure, Bihar with its long list of problems. If we really want some change then we need to act on it too! You will find lots of Gujaratis, Punjabis, South Indian communities abroad. These people do have strong bonding for their people and community. They help them to reach the place/status where they are today. If one Patel/Sardarji of the village reaches abroad, he just not gloats about his own success when he visits back home next time. He helps his people; it's no more a secret to us now. But we Biharis in general (not talking about the exceptions) have got so much jealousy inside that we always like to enjoy the status of being 'special or superior' to the people in and around. So most of us think that if this guy reaches the same height, how come I will remain superior to him anymore in our Bihari samaj? And we are so much fragmented on the caste line that makes things even worse in this case.

Hope this educated (!) Diaspora of Bihar works on some ground realities with their best available resources for improving the things around, than just writing articles and comment in PD. Bon Chance! - Kaushik Kumar, Graduate Engineering student,
Montreal, Canada - May 4, 2005

The young man Kaushik hits the nail on the head. It is refreshing to hear from young people who have clarity of thought. The monsoon frog chorus about the pros and cons of Bihar & Biharis is meaningless. The fact that a person left Bihar for greener pastures does not automatically make him / her a consultant who can give the best remedies for Bihar's ills.

If you mean good do good. Actions speak louder than words. I suspect many NRBs who have had to make cultural compromises console themselves by reminding themselves and others about the ills of Bihar. They do nothing for Bihar and the criticism they spew out is more of a back patting for having fled from a messy home without cleaning it. They are happy to sit in the neighbour's palatial bungalow and congratulate themselves as they watch their kin line up at the street tap across the road. If they have no problems with their own conscience so be it.

Bihar needs affection and help from them, not just reminders of its poor state and uncalled for advice. Remember Bihar may be hell on earth but they were nurtured here when they were vulnerable small children. The people who held their hand still live here. It is thanks to the education Bihar gave them that today they are where they are. The culture they are proud of came from Bihar.

Without Bihar, NRBs will be rootless - flying leaves in a cultural blizzard. The realization would dawn when their next generation takes charge.

While your head sways in the skies do not forget to water your roots. - Rajesh Chaubey - May 5, 2005

It was great to read an eye-opening article on PatnaDaily after long time. Hearty congratulations to Mr. Prabhat. This article is full of true facts. Mr. Rajesh Chaubey and Mr. Kaushik have said that the NRBs don’t do any thing about Bihar. It is wrong. As per news on PatnaDaily about IIT in Bihar, I am sure Mr. Rajesh Chaubey and Mr. Kaushik will find their apprehensions unfounded.

Every body has the right to advise on issues related to Bihar. If NRBs will not talk about Bihar then who will talk about Bihar? People should stop enjoying nail on head!

Sardar Harbhajan Singh, Patna, Bihar (India) - May 6, 2005

First off, regards to Mr. Prabhat Jee for opening eyes of thousands of educated Biharis. Special thanks for bringing crime rate of all India in light. Personally speaking, I have never been to Jahanabad side but I do feel scared.

Now Whole Bihar got bad face just because of our educated brethren never defended Bihar from being given a bad name. I fully agree with Bibhuti Jee in coming out without hesitation that our student do misbehave with fellow passengers in train where number of passenger are from our neighboring states and hence often fellow passenger get scared while passing through Bihar. I admire Prabhat Jee the way he caught media as an ingredient to defame Bihar.

Whenever I travel I always defend our brethren for defaming the land of Great Ashoka.

Here I would like to put one point: From where an anti social element starts his “gundagardi”?

If you think, you will get the answer. Yes, when our and world’s one of the most prestigious institution NALANDA UNIVERSITY got destroyed.

I still remember L. S. College of Muzaffarpur got high position in academic institution after Patna Science College during '80s. The guys staying in hostels started accumulating guns. Now how did they succeed in managing weapons in hostels? There can be only two reasons: 1. Guardians are losing hold on students even days before matriculation. 2. Hostel wardens are busy making money.

Why people laugh at us?

Because there are no civic sense in our brethren. As a person I won't look into other states. But as a responsible citizen of India I will look into myself where I went wrong.

Let me tell you why we learn English twice.

Because during school days we speak what we learn there but when we take a chair with DPS guys they tell us you didn’t learn correct pronunciation.

My point is to come up with a plan which can uplift our education system.

I partially agree with Mr. Prabhat jee that Center plays step father with us. When I was in Delhi, I raised the term “DECENTRALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS”. The problem of North India is that every thing is in Delhi. Thanks to the Supreme Court order, industries are shifting to Ghaziabad and Noida. With no industries in Bihar, labour class of Bihar cannot feed its families in working in Zamindar’s field. As a result, labour flies to Delhi, Punjab. No good higher educational institution in Bihar, government school teachers and college professor are busy making money rather than doing their duty. Result- students fly to Delhi. We don’t have choice other than these places. Middle class of Bihar is very much aware of the education system so they send their sons and daughters to Delhi. Now Bihari crowd makes more than 30% of Delhi population. Hence if any misdeed happens; who gets noticed?

Until and unless Bihar gets good higher educational institution crime will not stop. Parents have to be aware enough about their children, right from the beginning. Guardian should be given parenting skills. Career-oriented camp should be organized in rural Bihar and most important thing: Crime prone areas should be on top priority. Even parenting-skill camp should be organized first in crime areas. - Prashant, Bangalore - May 6, 2005

I read the article & the comments of most of my friends. I am a student doing my PG from JNU Delhi. I belong to Patna. In JNU, people call me as 'Bihari'. I just ignore these words or take it as a matter of pride. I always think high about myself. Not for any other reason, but for my education, my values and my family. And so should all of us feel. I feel the writer has some kind of insecurity and low self esteem.

And if you really feel that you can do something, go to Bihar, adopt at least one child, raise him, educate him and bring him up. Give him the values that makes him a self confident person. I can guarantee that you'll feel less frustrated. - Mukesh K Jha, JNU, New Delhi - May 7, 2005

Your article touched my heart and brain. No doubt its cent percent correct as per our experience. When I joined BARC in Mumbai 2 years ago, someone called me "Bhaiya". I felt happy that they were showing regard to me but immediately I felt that they were mocking me. That time I felt how they were discriminating the Biharis.

Thanks, I really appreciate your attempt, I read your article a number of times, and hope those who are ashamed of being Bihari will feel proud of themselves after reading this article. - Ajay Mishra, VECC, Kolkata - May 10, 2005

Dear Prabhat and others who have commented for the article and who have shown slight irritation.

I hope that many of you might have read Maugham, he has given a very lucid and clear understanding of human beings in "Of Human Bondages" and I want to draw a parallel line with what he has said in his book and what we Indians think about each other.

At first to draw a conclusion and compare one state with the other in itself is a myopic idea because this does not serve any purpose at all, we must be concerned Indians and instead of highlighting problems and spending days over them must try to first make ourselves a conscious Indian and rise to occasions where we can show the world that we are the largest and best example of a closely knitted democracy.

This will come only when we forget that we are individuals from different states because state-wise discrimination must be first eliminated from the mind because we are already under the burden of casteism et el.

To draw examples and blame a person of a particular state amounts to racism and would we love to be called racist in our own country by pointing fingers at each other?

We all represent India may be we are from different strata of the society but we still share a common platform.

Whenever some goon is caught in Delhi and people discover that he is from Bihar they start commenting that all Biharis are alike and whenever a South Indian is in the same league, people say "arrey dekho sab Madrasi aise hi hote hain."

Now go to any state where Marwaris are considered as makkhichoos, and kanjoos, is this what we expect of each other.

It is very easy to place blame on others and it is also policy of many to create rift between two fraternities just to add joy to his soul which is derived out of such menial things.

My comments may sound wayward to many but I also know that many would like it because we are running away from creating our own identity in the eyes of the world, friends lets wake up now and embrace our brethren , from whichever state he is from, if we find he is uneducated then instead of making a comment, please take a moment and feed his mind with some positive and industrious thoughts.

We must be an industrious nation, we must build for others and reap the benefits of our hard work as working and making things will always be rewarded rather than just sitting idle and blaming each other.

Every state is an important part of our country and we must respect each other and appreciate good efforts and try to subdue the bad ideas not the people. - Sanjay Gupta - May 13, 2005

What Shri Prabhat has pointed out in his article entitled Why Biharis are discriminated is indeed praiseworthy and the attitude and mentality of the people towards Bihar and Biharis is vehemently condemnable. However, there are some points I, being a Bihari, want to add them to his.

Those with such an aversion for Bihar and Bihari should understand that Biharis are no less than anybody, as far as the talent is concerned. Though the literacy rate Bihar is poorer than that of other States, yet the fact remains that Bihari students have been proving their talent in different competitive exams. It is a fact well known to all that a large number of candidates passing the civil services exam belong to Bihar. Even this year Bihar has produced 158 IAS & IPS, UP being the first 201 in view of its larger area.

Biharis are possessed with countless qualities except a few shortcomings. They are hard working, struggling, audacious, adjusting, sociable, talented and very much competitive. They can get settled anywhere in the world; earn their livelihood in any way. They don’t look forward to others for any sort of support. These features can’t be found in any people of other states.

Corruption, murder, Kidnapping, rape, scam, looting, snatching...all these evils are rampant in almost all the States of India. But in case of Bihar it is much more highlighted by media, causing severe criticism of its people. All are blind to the fact that Mumbai is the haven of criminals, Dada and Bhai. Punjab shelters terrorism, Andhra Pradesh extremists, Kashmir insurgents, and West Bengal infiltrators. UP fosters casteism and Tamil Nadu jingoist crime. - Umesh Kumar - May 19, 2005

Discussion on this topic is now closed.