The Truth About Bihar

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 05, Dated February 06, 2010

CURRENT AFFAIRS cover story

BIHAR
Try Me Now Society
EVERYONE IS CALLING NITISH KUMAR THE DECADE’S BIGGEST
TRANSFORMER. VIJAY SIMHA AND PHOTOGRAPHER VIJAY PANDEY MOTOR
ACROSS THE RUGGED STATE TO SNIFF AT THE WINDS OF CHANGE

BY THE time Omer Hejazeen

walked into the secretariat at
Patna, he was already cursing
the day he agreed to return to
Bihar. Months ago, he met
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar, who was by then
searching for people of Bihari
origin to help him save Bihar.
As Omer recalled, Nitish Kumar
was kind during the meeting
and asked him to have a look at
Bihar. Deputy Chief Minister
Sushil Modi too was in the
room. Something about the Style guru Nitish Kumar held a
manner in which they spoke Cabinet meeting on this launch on the
and looked at him made Omer Ganga
agree to the trip. From Dubai he
THE FIRST SIGHT OF PATNA CAN
took his 122nd flight for the year, and reached Patna.
HIT HARD. THERE IS A MUSTY
SMELL. THERE IS A SENSE THAT
The first sight of Patna can hit hard. The city is about THE CITY IS STRAINING
2,500 years old and had nurtured human thought and
progress for several centuries. It was called Pataliputra then. Now, there are far too many people on
the roads, and too much jostling and yelling. There are cycle-rickshaws everywhere, with people
bent low as they pull the load in a mighty effort. There is a musty smell. There’s a sense that the city
is straining. Too much has been taken from them. Too little given back. Good lord, thought Omer,
nothing has changed. He had left Patna 22 years ago and it was still the same.
He stepped into the secretariat in deep blue trousers and jacket, shining black shoes, white shirt and
red tie. He was surprised when he was stopped and asked for the purpose of his visit. “Wow, I
thought. They were controlling the crowds. It was the first sign of professionalism for me. I looked
around and saw no white or khadi,” says Omer. He walked into the chief minister’s chambers. “I told
him I didn’t find any change in Bihar. Nitish Kumar looked at me and said he had not told the people
of Bihar anything. But, he said, he had made a commitment to himself. He would change Bihar. It
was the second time Nitish Kumar impressed me. I thought the man had guts,” says Omer.
NITISH KUMAR asked Omer what he could do for Bihar. The chief minister said there were
thousands of Bihari workers in the Gulf. “He asked me to think about what I could offer. He told me
to pick a sector and invest,” recalls Omer. A day later, Omer had a plan. There are about 10,000
Biharis who work as unskilled labour in the Gulf region
after having completed school education. Omer thought
LALU WAS A MAN OF THE PEOPLE, A
he could provide vocational training to such people;
PR DREAM. HE RULED BY INSTINCT.
offer degrees in technical courses, so they could earn
NITISH IS A BUREAUCRAT’S DREAM.
more and live better.
HE RULES BY REASON
Having a plan in Bihar may mean little. For it to be acted upon, you need land. And land in Bihar is a
tale. In 1786, Lord Cornwallis was appointed the Governor-General of India and Commander- in-
Chief of Bengal. He set about changing the judicial and revenue systems in India. Bihar, as part of
eastern India, was among the first areas Cornwallis looked at. He introduced the Permanent
Settlement system, essentially retaining the then existing ownership of land. He gave the owners, or
zamindars, the right to collect tax from the tenants on the land and pass it on to the East India
Company.

The amount of tax was fixed.

For instance, a zamindar may
have paid Rs 1 lakh for an
agreed number of villages or
districts, for decades. This
resulted in a permanent
settlement between the
zamindars and the East India
Company. Over time, the land a
zamindar owned was divided
between his children and so it
carried on for generations. The
state barely intervened.
Phoenix rises Once a pariah for
Nitish Kumar tends to stay off business, Patna is now awash with
land as well. So, the state of construction
Bihar does not acquire land for
private investors. If Omer had
to set up a technical education
hub, he needed to buy land.
“Nitish Kumar had suggested I
take over an ITI (Industrial
Training Institute) and run it
profitably. We went to
Darbhanga (north-central Bihar)
and found that the teachers DIPANKAR
were not paid for months. The BHATTACHARYA,CPI
machines were expensive and -ML General Secretary
unused. It looked like there LALU’S 15 YEARS
would be plenty of hiccups in WERE SYNONYMOUS
running an ITI. So we thought, WITH STAGNATION.
why don’t we set up something NOW THERE IS A
on our own? We registered a DECLINE IN BIG CRIME’
family trust and began to buy
land in Darbhanga,” says Omer.
Land holdings are not huge in
this part of Bihar. Thus, an
entrepreneur may need to
engage with several owners. It
is a tiresome process and can
easily go wrong. “One of the
farmers wanted Rs 3 lakh more.
He said he had to pay his
daughter’s dowry. This came
after we paid him the agreed
amount for his land. It was
holding us up. Finally, we gave
him the money,” says Omer.
Eventually, Omer says, his trust
bought 32 acres at Rs 15 lakh
an acre. This, in turn, created
complications.
“Things are exaggerated in small towns. There were two immediate effects of our buying the land.
First, people thought I have a money tree. My parents warned that I was now a prime kidnapping
target. At first, we hired local security guards. But this caused me discomfort. I hated the culture of
walking around with gun-toting guards. I have seen people do this in Africa and Sri Lanka. I never
liked it. I also had no privacy. The guards heard everything I discussed. I got rid of them and applied
for a licence to carry a gun. The second effect was an increase in land price. Soon after we bought
land, the price went up to Rs 18 lakh an acre,” says Omer.
Darbhanga is a desperately poor town. The lanes are filthy, the drains overflow, the roads are
rickety, the universities are the size of small government offices and the jobs are few. To reach his
proposed college of technical education, Omer needed roads. It is one thing to make people enrol in
a college. To make them get there is another thing altogether. Omer has used his 22 years outside
India well. He does production
in films, television and radio. He
does public relations. He deals
in arms. In Darbhanga, he got
into construction.

“If I have to come here, I have

to feel comfortable. The roads
in Darbhanga are very bad. So
we registered a company again
and started working on roads
and buildings.” Okpet
Construction & Services Pvt.
Ltd., the new company, is
laying 21 km of road in a part of Abandoned Kunwa Devi gets two
Darbhanga with extremely poor kilos of coarse rice as daily wage,
which she feeds her children. Her
access. It will cost Omer Rs 12 husband died of hunger last year
crore. He hopes to make a
profit of Rs 2 crore from this
road.
Portions of Darbhanga are
buzzing with activity, of which
Omer’s company is only a part.
The State is building bridges
and laying roads inside
Darbhanga, the Centre is laying
national highways, and the poor
have something to do. Finally, it
appears, at least a portion of
Bihar is awake. Omer has got
so much at ease that he is also
getting into food processing. He New & old A spanking new police
is even comfortable with having station built with private money
to pay what are variously called
bribes or office expenses. “It
works out to 1.25 per cent of
my expenses. If it facilitates my
billing and my work, I don’t
mind. In the UAE, I have to pay
a huge testing fee for the roads.
Here, an engineer comes even
at night and does the testing. It
is only fair that he gets
something,” says Omer. In all,
he says he has invested Rs 32
crore over three years. In time,
he hopes to get it all back and
some. while policemen continue to live in
hovels in old police stations
This is new Bihar, where the chief minister talks to a businessman and things get started. Clearing
proposals faster is one part of Nitish Kumar’s reform. The other big impact is on law and order. The
roads in Patna are noisy and crowded till at least 8.30pm most days. Many ignore the traffic
policeman or policewoman. Men tend to drink at roadside shops and kiosks, at times even during the
day. People gather in groups to gossip and discuss. The roads have become a place to just be. This
enrages drivers who have to squeeze through narrower
paths, honking their way through. For the moment M
though, they are not complaining. They are just happy CHOONEE,Mauritian
to be there. The locals say the roads used to empty at High Commissioner
sunset in the past. Anyone out after that was fair game MAURITIUS IS AN
for looting, snatching and kidnapping. They say people EXTENDED LEG OF
returning to Patna by train or bus would spend the night BIHAR. PEOPLE
at the railway station or bus station if they arrived after FROM BIHAR AND
10pm and reach home the next morning. UTTAR PRADESH ARE RUNNING
MAURITIUS’
NOW, THERE is a sense of relief. Some families even
catch the 9pm movie show. Mona Cinema, considered the best theatre in Bihar at the moment,
draws about a hundred people for the late night show even on some weekdays. Some of them are
families. The film world is, therefore, happy. Prakash Jha, filmmaker and entrepreneur, is making big
moves. Jha has established his credentials with films like Damul, Gangaajal and Apaharan. He is
putting together what he says is Bihar’s first multiplex mall, the P&M Mall, in the heart of Patna’s
Pataliputra industrial estate. The mall is coming up where sick units lay earlier. It is expected to be
ready by March this year, well in time the premiere of Jha’s new film Rajneeti.
THE MALL has five floors with 59 shops. It will have four cinemas, each seating about a thousand.
When operational, the multiplex mall could have 1,200 people going home from the movies every
midnight. It should be quite a sight on the roads of Patna. At the moment, 250 labourers work here a
day. When ready, the mall could employ many more and trigger a buzz in Patna. In size, the P&M
Mall is roughly the same as the parking lot in south Delhi’s Select Citywalk Mall. But for Patna, it is
big.
Says Jha: “It has taken four and a half years to reverse the regression of several years. Now, we are
getting a better environment for investment. But, private industry will not happen overnight when you
have better opportunities in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat or Tamil Nadu.
“The mindset must change. If Biharis don’t buy back into Bihar, why will others? My idea of politics is
linked strongly with the economy. Wealth generation is the only thing that can iron out caste and
class. I am doing my bit. Apart from the mall, I am starting Bihar’s first fully indigenous television
channel, Maurya TV, with production entirely in Patna.”
The filmmaker comes from Bettiah, the headquarters of West Champaran district near the border
with Nepal. Bettiah was notorious as the kidnapping capital of Bihar. “Now,” he says, “kidnapping is
gone; finished. The law is getting after the big culprits. Nitish has done a great clean-up job.”

Bhojpuri filmstars Ravi Kishan

and Manoj Tiwari are happy as
well. Kishan, who has acted in
114 films, many in Hindi, is
working on the cult
classic Devdas in Bhojpuri, set
in Patna. He is also lobbying for
a film city close to Patna. “We
couldn’t travel for shooting at
night in the past in Bihar. It
used to scare people. Now, the
state is breathing. It was Night out Once deserted after
choked for a long time. You can sundown, Patna now has crowds at
see couples at the movies after late night movie shows
8pm. There is a positive energy
now. Earlier, Biharis were seen as criminals and duffers. Now, it is our turn. The investors are
coming. Local actors from Patna and elsewhere are booked with me in Bhojpuri films every year. We
used to operate from Mumbai but now I can assure the state of business if they give us a film city. A
hundred Bhojpuri films will be made a year,” says OMER
Kishan. HEJAZEEN,Non-
Resident Bihari
IF I HAVE TO COME
Tiwari, who also sings, says the Bihar government did TO BIHAR, I HAVE
not respect artistes in the past. “I used to get calls from TO FEEL
ministers in the previous government to perform. They COMFORTABLE.
would terrorise us. Criminals associated with political SO, I STARTED A COMPANY TO
parties and the government also used to call. I was BUILD ROADS’
afraid of getting hurt. So, I used to perform for them.
Now, if the secretariat calls, they ask us for our fee and requirements. Also, location is now granted
on priority for shooting and the police provide security,” says Tiwari.
Nitish Kumar is too canny to miss the signs. He senses that the mood could be in his favour and it is
beginning to show in his walk and talk. He is Mr Bihar now and he loves it. He calls a cabinet
meeting on board a ship in the Ganga, and the local media laps it up. He holds camps in various
parts of the state, during which time he also chairs a cabinet meeting on site, and the people
applaud. He believes he is heading the biggest reconstruction story in India. He also believes he is
right. He is beginning to acquire the same self-righteousness that Lalu Prasad Yadav once had. It
led Lalu into a world of his own where he did no wrong. Bihar went into the dark ages but Lalu saw
the reverse in his mind.
Everyone in Bihar has an opinion on everything. They are assertive and difficult to dislodge from the
positions they hold. It is a curious trait of Bihar, possibly India’s most politically conscious state. Yet,
when it comes to governance, Bihar tends to idolise a man at the top and make him think he is
above the crowd. Lalu was king once. Nitish is now. Lalu was a man of the people, a PR man’s
dream. He could connect. He ruled by instinct. He knew the value of gesture. Nitish is a bureaucrat’s
dream. He can perform. He rules by reason. He knows the value of delivery.
IT IS not all hunky dory, however. Most of the buzz is being generated from a 30km belt around
Patna. Beyond that, life can be cruel. Niranjan Paswan is the Gaya district secretary of the CPI-ML
(Liberation), a Left party that once operated as a guerrilla unit. Gaya is Bihar’s second biggest town
after Patna. It also has an airport, which largely caters to the tourists who flock to Bodh Gaya, where
the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment. Paswan sits in an office covered by asbestos
sheets. A television set sits on bricks. Wooden poles support the entire structure. Paswan’s wife and
son also work in the same office for the party. He deals mostly with the rural poor, arguably the worst
off in Bihar. Working among the deprived, Paswan sees little change in Bihar. “It is a routine with us.
We hear of people dying of hunger, we visit them, we make a noise, and the administration says
they died of disease. Please tell me where the change is,” he says.
Gajichak village in Gaya’s Dobhi block seems to be a century behind Patna. It is about noon on a
Sunday and a boy is stuffing what appears to be the hind portion of a dead goat. Only the skin
remains, with the hind legs dangling. There is no flesh. The boy carefully stuffs the carcass with hay.
He then gets a fire going. He is joined by a few other children. “He will cook it now,” says Paswan.
Apparently, the fire will burn the hair on the goat skin
and roast it from the outside. The hay inside, used for IT IS NOON IN GAYA. A BOY STUFFS
the stuffing, will catch fire and cook the skin from the A DEAD GOAT WITH HAY AND
inside. This will be the Sunday meal. Anywhere else, BURNS IT. THERE IS ONLY SKIN, NO
the skin would be chucked as waste. Here, it is a FLESH. YET FOR HIM, IT’S A
delicacy. DELICACY

Kunwa Devi, who lives in the same village, has four children: three girls and a boy. She says she is
35 years old. Her husband used to work in a nearby farm. In May 2009 he died, apparently of
hunger. Kunwa Devi says her husband developed a fever, which the local quack said was malaria.
There was no money for medicines, so some of the village folk pooled money for the medicines.
They ran out of the medicine eventually. Also, there was very little food in the house when her
husband couldn’t work because he was ill. She says her husband stopped eating so that the children
could eat. “We used to get grass from the jungle to feed him. It was not enough,” she says.
Paswan says Kunwa Devi’s
husband died of hunger. The
administration says he died of
illness. The family lives in a
hutment with three small rooms.
There are just the walls and a
few vessels. There is a small
bag of coarse rice, which she
says she gets as daily wages
when she works in a farm. She
gets no money, she says. She
has just fed the children with
the rice and the gruel that Selling roots Nitish Kumar also
formed while the rice was wants to boost religious tourism and
cooked. She cannot see with ethnic pride
her left eye. She says a branch
pierced her eye. No one in her family uses footwear. The children’s hair is matted. They haven’t had
a bath for days.
Paswan’s boss, Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of the CPIML (Liberation), is in his Patna
office. Most political parties in Bihar have their headquarters on the same road, Vir Chand Patel
Path, and the CPI-ML is a neighbour of the Bharatiya Janata Party. There is a maze of wires
hanging from a plug point, a laptop waits on the table and there is a bonfire going. There is a sudden
sharp drizzle before Bhattacharya comes. His wife and daughter are in London, and he spends his
life fighting for betterment in the lives of the rural poor and the most economically backward of Bihar.
He has been general secretary for 11 years. His party has five members in the legislative assembly.
“It will be wrong to say there has been no change in five years. Lalu’s 15-year reign was
synonymous with absolute stagnation. There is a decline in big crime. Some sort of a nationalisation
of crime has taken place. The big criminals are earning
as much through transport. If you have the state’s
coffers open to you, why would you loot and kidnap?
Also, the discourse has changed. It has moved from
social justice and dignity to good governance and IF GUJARAT HAD STARTED FROM
growth,” says Bhattacharya. THE SAME BASE AS BIHAR, IT
WOULD HAVE 40 PER CENT
GROWTH. BUT NOW, THERE IS
“But, there is a big problem. Feudal Bihar is a stubborn
OPTIMISM
survivor. The government will pretend to do land reform
but will sit on actual reform. Socially, there is very little
progress. Change is not free. You have to pay a big price. For a small change, there has to be a big
fight.”
SCHOLARS AND academics find the hype over Bihar’s growth baffling. NK Chaudhary, Professor in
Patna University’s Department of Economics, is grappling with a sudden teacher’s strike in the
university. “Can you imagine a strike anywhere whose sole demand is payment of salaries on time?”
he says. Like many in Bihar, Chaudhary is perplexed at the 11.3 per cent growth figure for Bihar
released by the Central Statistical Organisation in New Delhi early January. The figures made
people look at Bihar anew and generated a big buzz. People began to compare Bihar with Gujarat,
which Chaudhary says is ingenious.
“The growth may not be real because Bihar is not a miracle economy. The basis of the figures is
also weakened after Pronab Sen, Chief Statistician of India, said it was wrong to attribute the figures
to the CSO. Much of the hype created by Nitish then falls flat. It is too good to believe. All of a
sudden you tell a beggar you are a rich man. If your base is low, even a little forward movement will
be big,” says Chaudhary.
Chaudhary says Bihar may be shining for a few, but for the rest, Bihar is sinking. He lists the
improvements: in health, law and order, and roads. He lists the non-improvements: a bureaucracy
that has supreme power in a democracy, no rule of law, no land reform, no water resource
management, no proper faculty in higher education, increase in scale of corruption because of more
funds flow, no action against bureaucrats for graft, and distress migration.
 PRAKASH
BIHAR HAS not found panacea. If Gujarat were to start JHA,Filmmaker and
from the same base as Bihar, it would probably register entrepreneur
40 per cent growth. It is difficult to spot a functioning THE MINDSET MUST
state in Bihar over the past 60 years. Not a single new CHANGE. IF BIHARIS
area has been developed from the pre-Independence DON’T BUY BACK
period in Bihar. There is no history of entrepreneurship INTO BIHAR, WHY
for at least three generations. There is no renaissance WILL THE OTHERS?’
in Bihar, now or in the past. There is no Jnanpith Award
winner in Bihar. There is virtually no corporate presence. The extent of inequity is high. And yet,
there is a sense of optimism. It raises the possibility that Bihar may attempt the long haul honestly
this time.
Shaibal Gupta, Member-Secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute, a leading think-tank
in Patna, thinks there is significance in recent events. “Why is Nitish Kumar important? He is the first
chief minister of Bihar to take cognisance of the absence of the state in the state. He has succeeded
marginally in the mammoth task of building state structures. He was the first to set up an
Administrative Reforms Commission. He was the first to set up a Land Reforms Commission. He is
starting from scratch. He is creating an atmosphere where the Prakash Jhas can flourish,” says
Gupta. He says what happens in Bihar now is critical because in two years, “Each of the 600 districts
in India will have a Bihari District Magistrate or Superintendent of Police”. “Bihar has moved from a
‘touch-me-not’ society to a ‘try-me-now’ society. This is a benchmark for a resistant state.”
Brand Bihar is also getting noticed because of the Bihar Foundation. Operating under the state
government, the Foundation works on a simple brief of ‘bonding and branding’. It bonds by creating
chapters in various cities in India and outside. The newest chapter is in Bengaluru and there are
chapters in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, and
in Dubai, Doha and South Korea outside India. The
chapters think about what affects Biharis in their areas, BRAND BIHAR IS GETTING NOTICED
BECAUSE OF THE BIHAR
and helps non-resident Biharis trace their roots and do
FOUNDATION. IT BONDS THROUGH
something for where they came from.
CHAPTERS IN INDIA AND OUTSIDE

The theory of roots is a powerful concept. It can make strong men and women yearn for memories
as children. Often, this yearning can take the shape of catharsis. Mookhesswur Choonee is
Mauritius’ High Commissioner to India. He gets astonishingly sentimental when it comes to Bihar. He
describes Mauritius as an “extended leg of Bihar”. He says he is proud to see how Bihar has
progressed. “People often ask me are you the high commissioner of Bihar,” he says. Choonee says
the prime minister of Mauritius “belongs to Bihar” and that “people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are
running Mauritius”.
Anil Kumar Bachoo, Mauritius’ Minister of Public Infrastructure, Land Transport, and Shipping, can
get touchier about Bihar. “In the 1970s, I was a student in Delhi. My seniors told me not to interact
with anyone from Bihar because they are backward and cannot rise in life. Well, a few weeks ago,
my prime minister told me to go and get some Biharis to Mauritius. We have retained in Mauritius
what they have lost in Bihar. Mauritius is a little Bihar. When they catch cold in Bihar, we sneeze in
Mauritius. We are proud of our roots. Bihar was the fount of civilisation. It is the torchbearer of India
in future,” says Bachoo.
That may take some doing, but there are nuggets that suggest that respect for honesty and hard
work may yet save Bihar. Rakesh Sharma is a businessman who rents out a community centre in
downtown Patna for marriages and runs a cooking gas agency. The community centre can host a
maximum of a thousand guests in comfort. “In November- December 2009, we used 20 litres diesel
for the generator during power cuts. In 2008, we needed 200 litres.”
These are the parts of the whole that Nitish Kumar hopes to build of a new Bihar. For too long, the
state of Bihar has not delivered. This is rock bottom. It’s a good place to start.
WRITER’S EMAIL
vijsimha@gmail.com

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 05, Dated February 06, 2010
 From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 05, Dated February 06, 2010

CURRENT AFFAIRS cover story

‘I Don’t Have A Switch That I Can Press And Make

Things Happen’
It is election year for Bihar and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is feeling comfortable. The big pitch for
him is the work ethic he brings to Bihar and its effect. Here, he explains how Bihar is going about the
big three – investment, education and hunger – and why he thinks the Centre may not be too
helpful.
Hunger in Bihar is too basic an issue to be kept aside. We saw a family
cooking and eating the skin of a goat. How long will you take to reach
this Bihar?
There is great poverty in Bihar. More people live below the poverty line here
than what the Central government claims. We have made our assessment
and it shows 1.4 crore destitute in Bihar. The Centre says there are 65 lakh
people below the poverty line in Bihar. If we have to reach the hungry, the
biggest thing is to have clarity on poverty.
So, how long before the starving get food?
Let me explain how it works. Our teams go by names in the list of families
below the poverty line. We say 1.4 crore names must be on the list. The
Centre says there are 65 lakh people. How can I reach these people when
we cannot agree on how many destitute there are? The states don’t run the
PDS. It all depends on the Central government. If the poor are to get
subsidised food so they don’t eat animal skin, we must agree on who to
reach. We are the sufferers. I wrote to the Centre on a food security law.
I told them to identify the BPL families if they are not satisfied with our surveys. But, it cannot be that
the Centre takes the credit for a food security law and we get the abuses because people say their
names are not on the list of BPL families.
Fresh investment can infuse life into an underdeveloped economy. Bihar is making a serious
pitch but the big investors don’t seem to be coming. Why is this so?
Big investors are interested in two areas in Bihar: thermal power and ethanol. Thermal power plants
cannot come up without coal. Coal needs water and water is a state issue. But now, they have
started a new system of seeking clearance from the central water resources ministry. This ministry
has said that the Ganga basin water will not be available for coal. In Bihar, there is only the Ganga
basin. What else is there?
If they object to water for thermal plants, how can investments come? Likewise, the proposal to
make ethanol from sugarcane is pending with the Centre since 2007. Things are not moving
because of the Centre.
Investors say land is a problem in Bihar. They also say you are too cautious a chief minister
to help.
Why should I acquire land for them? We are acquiring land for roads, railways and bridges. We are
offering heavy compensation for that. We are acquiring far more land now than in the past for public
purposes. As far as private investors are concerned, we ask them to negotiate on their own. If we
get into the picture, there will be two issues. One, the land cost will be more because we acquire
after paying a hefty compensation. Therefore, our land will include the charges we pay for acquiring
and the development cost. Secondly, we can only offer land on lease. If the private investors
negotiate on their own, they can get the land title on their name. Besides, [West] Bengal is next door.
Haven’t Nandigram and Singur happened there? You may have met the window shoppers, who are
not really interested. They look for alibis. No real investor has asked us to acquire land. Only the
non-serious investors are complaining.
Education is another primary issue. You grew up as a child in Bihar. How is it different for
children now?
The biggest change is that we are sending children to school. There were 25 lakh children out of
school when we came to power. Now, that figure has come down to less than eight lakh. The second
change is that we are trying to offer them quality education once they are in school so that
attendance improves. We must have good midday meals and good teachers to improve attendance.
So, we are focusing on teacher training and management of midday meals. We have just begun
training 40,000 teachers with the help of IGNOU. You must remember that I don’t have a switch that
I can press and make things happen. We can only tackle things one by one.
Things are better than in the past, but we have to do far more. We have been successful in getting
girls into schools by giving them school dresses and money. We began giving bicycles to high
school students, boys and girls. All students between Classes 3 and 5 are given Rs 500 a year,
whichever community they come from, for school uniform.
Once in school, the intelligence levels of children become a factor. There appears to be a lack
of intellectual capacity in Bihar today.
This is not a Bihar-centric problem. You will find it elsewhere also. The whole country lacks
intellectual depth. But, the children of Bihar are ahead of others in learning languages and math. I’d
like to remind you that we have only now begun to work in Bihar. People had lost the habit of
working. Now, they are starting to work again. So, don’t look for solutions everywhere. You can’t do
third and fourth stage evaluation now.
Our priority was to see that no children stay out of school. We have opened 15,000 new schools and
recruited two lakh teachers. Yet, there are eight lakh children still out of school. We found that five
lakh are either from Maha Dalit families or from the Muslim community. They need special care.
We have opened centres where we keep these children and prepare them for school. All this
requires constant effort. There was no effort all these years. It has only begun now.
The branding of Bihar appears to be getting stronger outside India. Are you opening up Bihar
to Mauritius? Is this a new trend for Bihar, tying up with a foreign country?
We are doing a lot with Mauritius. They will have a consulate here. We are willing to provide land
and they are willing to open an office. Close to half the people in Mauritius are of Bihari origin. I have
told the central government all this. The External Affairs Ministry now has to take the initiative with
protocol.
How will it play out?
People from Mauritius want to trace their roots. We are ready to help them. The Mauritius Prime
Minister came here and opened schools and hospitals.
Family plays a disproportionate role in Indian politics. The way you deal with family is
different from many other politicians. How does it work with you?
Everyone has their way of looking at family and politics. I am also a perfect family man but what has
that got to do with anything? When you get into politics, you must treat everyone as a family
member. There isn’t a human being on earth without a family. But how does that matter? We have to
be faithful to the duty and the opportunity we have got. I think many people have a sense of
insecurity. They feel they will be secure only if their family gets empowered. I have no insecurity. I
know death is imminent in everybody’s life. Why get insecure?

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 05, Dated February 06, 2010

‘Did I Eat Up Bihar Like Termite?’

Night falls early in Patna these days and there’s a biting wind as well. Lalu Prasad, the man who
said he would be prime minister one day, is wearing thermals and a pheran. This is the official
residence of the Leader of the Opposition of Bihar Assembly and the nameplate shows his wife,
Rabri Devi’s name. There’s a bonfire going in the courtyard and an attendant is busy giving Lalu a
pedicure. “The feet get hard,” he says.
Another attendant is busy rubbing tobacco on his palm for Lalu’s next fix. A third attendant is
clutching a handful of papers, photocopies of data to rubbish Nitish Kumar’s claims of growth. Lalu
is still a natural, transforming the moment he sees a crowd.
But, there’s a sense that this year’s Bihar election may be a huge test. There were about 300
people for his Makar Sankranti lunch of curd, flattened rice, potato curry and a sweet made of
sesame seeds and sugar. That is far fewer than when he lorded over Bihar. He answers a few
questions.
What’s your take on the growth of Bihar under Nitish Kumar?
The CSO (Central Statistical Organisation) has retracted the growth
figures that you refer to. How can you compare Bihar to Gujarat
when the agriculture sector, the principal activity in Bihar, has been
performing negatively for three of the past five years? Can you
grow overnight? I am not a child. I have been in power for 15 years.
Don’t I know how things are done?
Is it an illusion then?
Does Nitish Kumar have a magic wand that he can wave and
transform everything? It seems that Manmohan Singh and Barack
Obama should learn from Nitish Kumar. Nitish must be given the
Nobel Prize, it appears. The growth story is an illusion created by
media and government hype. It will take a long time in Bihar. We
are not dealing with fairytales.
What about you? You had 15 years.
Bihar is a complex state where you have to know how to take
everyone along. I tolerated humiliation. I went to prison. They said I had swallowed fodder. Did I eat
up Bihar like a termite? I gave dignity to the desperately poor. I did all that I could as railway
minister. Now, they want to run down everything I did. Let them...
Nitish appears to have learned from your experience.
Nitish Kumar is a toy in the hands of the upper castes. It takes a lot to run Bihar. Nitish will also
learn. I am the voice of the broken and the destitute. You have seen, at the lunch, the kind of
people who come to me. Who else will treat them with respect? Lalu is not done.
What now?
We will hit the streets. We will hold the government, both at the state and the Centre, accountable
for the price rise. You will see what Lalu is made of. You will see how hollow the claims of growth
are.

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 05, Dated February 06, 2010