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Naturally
the question must be coming to the mind of all
Indians many a times. Do the politicians
represent truly the people of Bihar? What
happened yesterday in parliament between the
elected members of JD (U) and RJD naturally is
something shameful for any one from Bihar? The
news relates to the members of RJD and JD (U) in
the Lok Sabha who came close to fisticuffs and
exchanged un-parliamentary invectives. JD (U)’s
Prabhunath Singh, the man at the centre of the
controversy, even resigned his membership and
challenged Lalu Yadav like a village wrestlers
to fight an election. Both Prabhunath and Lalu
were in their worst best on TV channels. The
whole episode was hot masala news for quite
sometime.
Will Prabhunath, Lalu or Ram Vilas agree to this
or not? Will Sharad Yadav or Nitish organize an
all-party meeting for a code of conduct for the
behaviours of their members at least in
parliament? But why should the people of Bihar
adore them? And why should the parliament become
safe haven for criminals if they are on warrant?
As per the media news Sadhu Yadav, the
brother-in-law (Sala) of Lalu Yadav, is escaping
an arrest from the police. He was the one who
was the main culprit or the hero of yesterday's
'Bihar Show' in parliament. Lalu Yadav claimed
Prabhunath is also in the wanted list of Bihar
police. Why should the speaker or chairman of
the houses not take care of this and stop these
people in name of democracy from coming to the
houses?
However, I feel it can be only the people of
Bihar and Bihar’s police that can bring a
change. Why can’t the students from Bihar in the
national and state capitals who constitute a
huge number show their displeasure against such
behaviours of the politicians? Why can’t the
eminent people of Bihar in academics show their
anger on such happenings in public that damages
the image of Bihar? Is it a little too much to
expect from these communities who must take the
mantle to change the things? But then I start
brooding. Are these entire things not because of
the lack of total urbanization in Bihar over the
years? They behave as if they are in their rural
settings and fighting as their forefathers used
to do for small little conflicts of selfish
interests?
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Comments: |
If Bihar politicians have been
guilty of bad behaviour, we the
middle class of Bihar have been
equally guilty of being over
critical. The result has been a more
than deserved negative publicity
which has been hurting us for the
last several decades. As the saying
goes, "bad se badnaam bura". As a
result, Bihar has been made to pay a
price even where it has been in the
right and where things have not been
so bad.
There are good people and bad people
everywhere. I have not yet seen
statistics to show that Biharis are
worse than any other community, be
it politicians or any others. HD
Devegowda and his bring Karnataka to
its knees, the Kannada actor
Rajkumar gets kidnapped and is kept
in captivity for days, Bangalore's
traffic gets choked, but we somehow
ignore all this, see the glitz and
glamour of STPL and call it the
silicon valley of the east. Jyoti
Basu brought the industry of Bengal
to a grinding halt, most of the
industrialists fled the state and
Chandan Basu flourished as a
businessman; but we don't see all
that and continue to associate
Bengal with the strong cultural
positives. Haryana politicians
started the culture of aya ram gaya
ram, of graft and strong arm
tactics; but we associate them with
the glamour of Gurgaon. I can
narrate many other such instances.
However, when it comes to Bihar, the
exact opposite is true. Students go
through back breaking effort to get
into IITs, management institutes and
so on. But one chap is caught
cheating and the all of us are
condemned. Bihar gives the largest
no and best quality civil servant to
the country. Till it was people from
Tamil Nadu and Bengal who were there
in large numbers, it was their
intelligence. Now when it is
Biharis, this success is somehow
portrayed as a sign of backwardness
and lack of entrepreneurship.
Central government shells out step
motherly treatment to Bihar in each
five year plan since independence by
giving the lowest per capita grant,
but the blame is on Bihar and
Biharis. There is not a single
central university, IIT or IIM in
the land of Nalanda and Vikramshila,
but not one journalist of the
national press sees the injustice of
it all.
To come back to the topic of
politicians, when Ramrao Adik as the
Dy CM of Maharashtra misbehaved with
the airhostess in an international
flight, it was just one individual.
But when Ram Lakhan Yadav's son was
caught in a red light area of Cal,
the whole class of politicians from
Bihar were condemned as if Rajendra
Prasad, JP, Srikrishna Sinha,
Jagjiwan Ram and others never
existed. Even more sinister is the
attack on the politicians when they
try to do something for Bihar.
Yashwant Sinha got some investment
to Hazaribagh by roping in Videocon
by offering some sops and the
national economic press had such
nasty coverage as if he had done
something for personal
aggrandizement. Somehow, when
Chidambaram offers sop after sop to
attract the auto component and
mobile manufacturing to TN (90%
mobile manufactured in India is in
TN), there is either silence or
worse, praise that the guy thinks
about his state. When Lalu starts a
Garib Rath between Delhi and Patna,
Aaj Tak thinks nothing of grilling
him for only thinking of Bihar. But
when Scindia gives highest
preference to Gwalior, he is hailed
as a hero.
Frankly, I would treat the incident
that Indraji has highlighted as a
storm in a tea cup and an
overreaction. I would rather
concentrate on the civility &
development orientation of Nitish
Kumar and the superior managerial
talent of Lalu which has instilled a
new life in the Indian Railways than
worry too much about one or two
Sadhu Yadavs here and there. They
are an aberration and the system is
well geared to tackle them.
Cancellation of Sadhu's bail and the
strict treatment meted to Anand
Mohan and Shahabuddin is enough
evidence that we are on the right
track and there is no need to be
overly critical or pessimistic. -
T. V. Sinha - Aug. 26, 2006
Thanks to Mr. T. V. Sinha. As a
Bihari I am in full agreement with
you but nothing should be done to
hide the other side. I have not
experienced such behaviour till
1960. Politicians of today are of
course product of our social
behaviour. - Khagendra Das - Aug.
29, 2006 |
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