My gratitude and regards to Mr. T. V. Sinha for educating me about the origin of Bihar.

I am sure this would initiate a process of inward exploration in some readers. - Ajay Kapoor - Aug. 31, 2006

Thanks to Mr. Ajay Kapoor for writing this article. I’d like to make a point here that caste is more an issue in that part of Bihar which is known as Bihar now. I was born in Ranchi, and till the age of 10 I was not aware of the significance of my last name. Then, my father was transferred to Darbhanga for the next four years. The first thing that I learnt in the school there was the meaning of my last name. Later as I grew old, I heard of the fights between different caste groups in the medical/engineering colleges of Bihar (including BIT, Sindri which is now in Jharkhand). However, such incidents were less heard to be taking place in the Jharkhand part. In the schools and colleges of the Jharkhand part where I studied, we never bothered to know each other’s caste. Lately, we’ve heard of the tribal and non-tribal clashes in Jharkhand.

The point I am trying to make here is that the division in our society is obvious and the politics is making it deeper. We are allowing ourselves to become puppets in the hands of the politicians. These politicians lead mobs with some hired goons to riots and clashes. Later, such issues are sensationalized with the help of media to create a vote bank for themselves. We feel insecure and start looking towards these leaders as our saviors. Politicians’ interests are against the interest of the society. They don’t want social equity. In the Jharkhand part, caste politics will not work out because of the social statistics, so they came with the tribal vs. non-tribal politics. So, an oppressed in Bihar becomes an oppressor in Jharkhand. With social equity missing already, we have compromised on the social harmony as well.

About learning from Japanese workers, first we need to study the labour management and the social culture of Japan. In Japan, there is not so huge a difference between the salaries paid to a CEO and a common worker. When other parameters match with Japan, probably we can talk of similar kind of protests in India too.

It’s unfortunate that the Gandhian way of politics is out of fashion these days. Hence, the Gandhian principles are not considered relevant in the current order. - Kumod Jha - Sept. 1, 2006

Thanks T. V. Sinha and Ajay Kapoor for your interesting insights. The issue here in my view is about the quest of an identity. Bihar as an entity may be few years or few centuries old. But what constitutes Bihar is not just that but encompasses all the layers of civilization that that land has seen over several millennia. That is very deep and does not need any emphasis. Somehow, in the current times we have messed up our identity as a state. This unfortunately has a bad rub off on the reputation of all of us, rightly or wrongly. A friend of mine here in Chennai says why do Biharis get upset when called as Biharis. The fact is, we do not want to be seen associating ourselves with all that is Bihar now. This must change. This probably will change too, but will need conscious efforts of all people. I am delighted to see some wonderful thoughts and debates that emerge on PatnaDaily, and I guess we need more of them. In my view, by our fractured caste based thinking and actions, we have killed any possibility of cohesiveness in our state, due to which things such as creativity and new thought, for which Bihar was once known for, has become and unfortunate deadlock victim. We need to think as Biharis, and not as person from Bihar from so and so caste etc. Till then we will be uncomfortable with our identity, and till then perhaps, the quest for identity will not reach anywhere.

My humble thoughts. - Rajesh Kumar, Chennai - Sept. 1, 2006

Thanks to the article, I was left wondering about being a Bihari. What does it mean to be Bihari ? What are the attributes that define being a Bihari ? Does it mean that if one is born in the perimeters of Bihar, he/she is a Bihari or is it something else ? If two persons are born, then are both of them a Bihari youth in equal measures or is one of them more Bihari than others for some reasons. Does this definition of Bihari and the pride of being a Bihari is subject to change given the current status of collective image of Bihar ? Just some academic questions but I would like to hear the opinion of some of the fellow readers here. - Ravindra Kumar - Sept. 1, 2006

I'm delighted to read such wonderful thoughts being presented here. Thanks to all of you. This shows that all is not lost for Bihar. We may be down at the moment, but we are not out yet, not yet!

I want to urge all us Biharis to be proud about ourselves wherever we are. I'm saying this because I often meet people who say that they are from Delhi, UP or some part of India, only to reveal later on that they are actually from Bihar, after realising that I'm from Bihar too. When it happens, it hurts me. How can one be not proud of one's native? Whether we like it or not, we are part of that image that Bihar has today. We cannot hide from it, we cannot run away from it.

It is very easy to blame our politicians (or administration) and we can have strong (and may be valid) reasons to do so. However, we must realise that they are also a part of us. They are also one of us. We, as a society, have allowed such people (or ideologies) to survive and thrive. And somehow we need to stop that. May be the educated Biharis and the Biharis who are living outside the state ( both in India and abroad) should begin to look towards Bihar and try to make some difference in our families/communities in whatever small way we can, so that things like 'casteism' and the huge socio-economic divide in the society gradually get eradicated.

Let us all do our bit to make Bihar better! - Ravi Yadav (currently in the UK) - Sept. 2, 2006

I too want to thank Mr Ajay Kapoor for stirring discussion on this root issue. I see this from an existential point of view, and the crisis seems to be coming from the ignorance of "who am i?". Without knowing self identity if someone tells me that I am "blah blah", and that "blah blah" is supposed to be really "BAD" then I have no way to prove him wrong, because I really don't know who I am! I will be even more shocked of being called "blah blah" by others, because others seem to be knowing more about me that myself!! The bottom-line is that we need to know our being, and once we have even preliminary idea of who we are then we can laugh when someone accuses us of being a "blah blah".

Somehow people in other states are less chided of being "blah blah", and hence they don't need to know their own address; they can merrifully be ignorant of the most important point, however, we cannot afford that. I see this as positive that we are forced to find our address, which may not be "1 Anne Marg", but may be far more benevolent. - Ranjit Kumar - Sept. 4, 2006

Having had the privilege to live in several parts of the country and outside of India, I don't think caste is the main reason for the backwardness of Bihar. Quite unlike Kumodji, I belong to that tiny minority whose native place was in Jharkhand (Palamau), but was born and brought up in Patna - till I. Sc. that is. Subsequently, having spent considerable time in several other parts of India and abroad, I would not say Biharis are anymore caste oriented than others.


I am reminded of a TV program on NDTV on the eve of the assembly election of last Nov when a correspondent was interviewing the children of a Navodaya school and kept on asking caste related questions. After sometime, the exasperated children felt so bad that one of them ended asking the interviewer if he was asking a question or was trying to fit the interview into a stereotype that he already had. I could not resist a chuckle.

My father tells me when he was studying at Patna Science College in the fifties, they had no consciousness of their castes. Most of his favourite teachers were not only not from his caste, he became conscious of their castes much much later after he himself had been in a job for several years. I did my I. Sc. from B. N. College and this was just after the reservation introduced by Karpoori Thakur. Even at the height of the bitterness, I was not aware of the caste of the people of my class, and nor were others including the teachers.

This is not to say that caste is not present in the consciousness of the people. The caste killings and the divide based on castes have to be fought on a very firm footing. But caste system in Bihar is not too dissimilar to other states of the Indian Union. Karnataka has the Lingayat and the Vokkaligas, Kerala the Nairs not to speak of the various religious groups which act like castes. To our east is West Bengal where no prominent leader has ever emerged outside the three "forward" castes of Brahmin, Baidyas and Bengali Kayasthas. Till date, all the prominent leaders from Orissa are either Brahmins or Karnas. Haryana has been dominated by Jats like no others. The most glaring example is of Goa where you have, believe it or not, Brahmin Catholics. Even after some three hundred years or more of their conversion, they still marry within the community!!! In fact, Brahmin Christian phenomenon is not limited to Goa only. They are in Bengal and Tamil Nadu too. Michael Madhusudan Dutt was a prominent Brahmin Christian from Bengal. I have met at least two from the group - a certain Mr P Bonnerjee who traced his ancestry to WC Bonnerjee of the Indian National Congress fame and a certain Anindya Nath Mukerjee. A certain Mr Ayer who had Tamil ancestry and was a prominent advertising professional - I presently forget the name of his organisation of whose chairman he was - was a Christian Brahmin from TN. If you notice the spelling of their surnames carefully, you can discern the difference.

To give primacy to casteism as the reason for every ill that plagues Bihar is rather unfair. Let us not forget, JP exhorted the youth from the same Bihar to give up their surnames which pronounced their caste identity. It is one of those historic ironies that one person who took his advise was none other than Dr Jagannath who gave up his surname Mishra but who otherwise I would imagine would have been a prominent opposer to JP's movement. Unfortunately, while caste has become less pronounced in other parts of the country because of the opportunities that get opened up due to development, in the case of Bihar, this has not happened.

The ills of Bihar are by far economic. Let us look at the total investments made in Bihar, or rather the lack of it, particularly since independence. You would see a vast gulf between Bihar and other states. We are already aware of the ill fated Freight Equalization Scheme which broke the back of the industry in Bihar even before it took off. Let me give a few more : No temple of modern learning as envisaged by Nehru got a home in Bihar - I mean IITs. IIMs, CSIR Lab or DRDO Lab. I don't know how many are aware, there was an actual rule which prevented the setting up of a nuclear plant in Bihar and Bengal, though not in UP or Kerala. So it can't be that they were trying to keep the plant away from a densely populated area!! In agriculture, the largest irrigation system is the British built Son Command Canal system. Readers may like to read the analysis of the economist Mohan Guruswamy of Centre for Policy Alternatives, Delhi, to have a fuller understanding of the issues that I am raising.

This lack of investment has led to a lack of development. Thus there are limited opportunities in Bihar which then leads to mass migration from Bihar. We have hence acquired the image of an indigent looser who can be chastised by anybody. This is today forcing the weak among us who have become successful and live outside Bihar to deny their Bihari identity.

The situation of the Bihari today has unfortunately got reduced to that of a street dog whom everybody wants to stone without rhyme or reason. But then, as the legendary storyteller Premchand says in one of his short stories - Sadak ke kutte ko aap jitna chahen dutkaar den, phakar maar den. Magar ek baar woh palat ke gurra de to dekhen aapki himmat kahan jaati hai?

In the big bad world, some of us are precisely trying to do that. - T. V. Sinha - Sept. 4, 2006

Discussion on this topic is now closed.