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I
sit at home to watch the 46th Republic Day
parade, I await patiently for the float from
Bihar. Somebody had told me the newly formed
government of Bihar so keen to showcase itself
would be putting up a Chhath float. As I wait in
vain for the elusive float, I am reminded of
Rajkumar Shukla – the forgotten hero of India’s
struggle for freedom. For those whom the name
does not ring a bell, he was the peasant leader
from Champaran who had requisitioned the help of
Mahatma Gandhi to launch the struggle against
the Indigo farmers. Even as the Mahatma emerged
from that movement as the great mass leader of
the subcontinent and Champaran became the very
symbol of India’s freedom struggle, we as a
nation chose to consign this fearless hero to
the dustbin of history. No text book talks of
him, there are no memorials for him; but for a
very small group, nobody knows the role
pioneering role he played in India’s freedom
struggle.
The neglect meted out to Rajkumar Shukla, alas,
symbolizes the neglect of Bihar since
Independence. Look at the list of the Padma
awardees and you would find Biharis rather
conspicuous – by their absence.
In his book “Integration of Indian States”, VP
Menon writing about the administrative
challenges of the new nation, narrates how the
robust Bihar administration was used for
training the bureaucrats from other parts of
India. In 1952, Prof Appleby had rated Bihar as
the best administered state of India. Prince of
Wales Medical College of Patna was among the
first to start the post graduate medical
education in India. Patna Science College was
the best the country had to offer in Science
education. Those early leads somehow appear to
have sowed the seeds of petty politics at the
central government level which has brought the
state on its knees.
It started in a small way when the Agricultural
University at PUSA near Samastipur was shifted
to Delhi. When the credulous Bihari in the newly
independent nation took this in his stride
thinking it is for the national cause and did
not protest, we soon we had the wily Dr Bidhan
Roy outwitting the scholarly Sri Krishna Singh
in snatching the IIT from Sindri to Kharagpur.
Arguably the biggest body blow to the state was
the ill conceived Freight Equalization Scheme.
Look at the priority of the central government
and you would find the attention of the foreign
ministry riveted with empathy for the pro
democracy movement in Nepal; but deafeningly
quiet about the plight of the Bihari peasants
who have to bear the brunt of the annual floods
as the Himalayan rivers thunder down to the
plains every monsoon. It is a matter of public
record that in each of the five year plans since
independence, Bihar’s per capita share has been
the lowest. What are not so well known are such
sordid incidents of petty mindedness. To narrate
just one incident, the late sixties was a period
of political turbulence when Congress was
loosing power to coalitions of socialists. In
this period, when Karpoori Thakur wanted to
start the Ganga Bridge project at Patna, the
planning commission rejected it saying it had no
economic justification!! It is another matter
that when Bihar Govt anyway went ahead with it
from its meager funds, it had the fastest
payback for any infrastructure project that I
know of. These shameless babus continue to draw
their ill earned pension. Maybe they are reaping
the reward for planning the backwardness of
Bihar so perfectly!
To come back to the present, the area of Bihar
had two of the three greatest seats of learning
in ancient India – Nalanda and Vikramshila (the
third being Taxila, now in Pakistan). Today it
has no IIT, IIMs. no IIITs, no RECs, no central
universities, no centre of higher learning for
medical education, no CSIR laboratory, and no
DRDO laboratory. Absolutely not even one centre
of higher learning which is funded by the
central government. And one thought it was the
job of the government to invest in the less
developed areas of the country.
Now there are reports that the central
government is going to start four “National
Institute of Science” in the country
http://www.ugc.ac.in/new_initiatives/newnis.html.
Inevitably, not one of them is planned to be in
Bihar.
Will it be too much to expect the central
government to allocate one of them to Bihar this
republic day so that Bihari sub-nationalism
continues to breathe in synch with the Indian
nationalism.
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Comments: |
Vikas
ji, thanks for remembering Raj Kumar
Shukla ji and for an enlightening
and well-articulated piece! -
Surendranath Tiwari - Jan. 27, 2006
This is a very well written article
which raises the truth which any
would have liked to keep under
covers. It was a conspiracy of sorts
that paid off bringing Bihar to it's
knees. Bihar was systematically
ignored and thrown into the dust bin
of national politics. Who is to be
blamed for it?
We Biharis send in among the largest
contingent of MPs as compared to
other states. We produce a
disproportionately large percentage
of IAS and IPS officers. Look at the
statistics and you will be convinced
that, for some weird reasons,
Biharis lost their affection for
their state and simply stopped
caring. The rest of India simply
took advantage. Influential,
affluent Biharis turned their backs
while others slaughtered the
interests of their state.
I hold some opinion which I will not
discuss now, lest I bias the thought
process of others. It will be very
educative if some well informed
reader tries to dissect and research
the issue of Biharis abandoning the
interests of their own state. Why
did it happen? Biharis are not fools
who were simply out-witted by
others. Had we been simple bumpkins
we would not be sending in such a
large contingent of "intellectuals".
We have to get to the reasons soon
enough to prevent further damage to
our state. This irony has to be
ironed out. - Raj - Jan. 27, 2006
Good to read the topic. - Santosh
K. Prashant - Jan. 27, 2006
Don’t worry Vikas Sinha Ji, just
wait and watch, Bihar will become
biggest headache for India’s growth.
Nitish Ji though lightly had warned
to all those who have stake in
Modern India. Let me tell you one
simple thing, every single IIM, IIT
or Central University which will be
started in other Indian States,
Indians will feel guilty of ignoring
Bihar, the Bihar which actually they
can’t ignore for long time. Few days
back, Bal Thackeray said that among
Biharis there is a saying “Hum do,
humare do, teesra ho to Mumbai bhej
do”. Somebody should tell Bal
Thackeray, when your state is taking
what ever India has to offer, why
Bihari student will not go to
Mumbai? However such conflict will
increase all over India against
Biharis, then we will see how Laloo
Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas
Paswan or Sushil Modi show their
face to Biharis. Do you think if
today Laloo Ji threatens UPA of
taking his support back for an IIT
in Bihar, or an ordinance factory in
Nalanda, can Arjun Singh or Pranav
Mukharjee ignore Bihar’s demand?
No, it is not India but it is Bihari
leaders in Delhi from BJP or RJD who
are ignoring Bihar and the precedent
for these leaders were set by
previous Bihari Congress leaders.
For them Indira Gandhi was more
important than Bihar and for these
Atal not Bihari was more important
than Bihar and combined they made it
sure that Laloo Yadav should forget
about Bihar rather keep saving his
own collar. No wonder Pramod Mahajan
gets away freely after humiliating
Biharis.
Nitish Ji is free from all this and
hope he will restore the glory of
Bihar. - Vipin Singh, Patna - Jan. 27, 2006
It is one of the best written
article. Under the given fact, only
contribution Biharis can make is to
send students in elite institutes.
And at least our contribution is
good there.
Once we realised what our own
politicians and national leaders
have done, we can struggle. We are
good at that as well. Recently all
Bihari leaders got united for the
"Nalanda ordinance Factory", so the
process has already started.
Hope that the leaders also read
these articles and they do their
duty well to place Bihar where it
deserves. - Sanjeev Kumar - Jan. 27, 2006
Dear Mr Thakur Vikas,
We Bihari should be grateful to you
for thinking of your beloved roots.
The renaissance is on and people at
large have started realising that it
is the development alone which
matters and makes difference in life
of common man.
History cannot afford to forget Mr
Rajkumar Shukla as I have read this
instance in one of the books written
by Late Mr Shankar Dayal Sharma. -
Shalini Kumar, Secretary PARD -
Jan.30, 2006 [Edited]
Nice to read a fresh perspective
(known but forgotten by many) on
Bihar. It was an interesting and
gripping piece, and let me tell you,
the bleeding of your heart came out
in your words. We all share your
feelings.
Looking at the comments, I feel that
a movement is taking roots to
reestablish the long lost position
of primacy which Bihar once held. -
Shitanshu, Mumbai -
Jan.30, 2006 |
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