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In
last one year, with the change of government in
Bihar, a lot of hope and aspiration has come to
surface in the life of Bihar and Biharis. Apart
from the efforts of the government, a select
group of passionate Bihari intelligentsia
scattered around the globe is making the concept
of a flat world a reality and working toward
bringing back the past glory of Bihar as a land
of wisdom, wealth, opportunity, abundance,
governance, and cultural heritage. And it has
already started making some small but meaningful
impact.
But with the hope there is a concern too. From
the interaction I had had with numerous Biharis
at various stages of their life and career, it
seems that a large number of them, particularly
young and well educated, are either not
interested in Bihar or show utter pessimism
about Bihar's future. Some typical responses are
'There is nothing in Bihar', 'it’s too late',
'development in Bihar is next to impossible',
etc. This reasoning is devoid of logic. It
smacks of ignorance, stereotyping, and a lack of
will and conviction.
These young people educated in top colleges of
India often attribute 'criminalization of
politics and serious law and order problem' as
the root cause of all problems of Bihar. Nothing
can be more wrong and preposterous. These
children of economically liberated India, devoid
of knowledge of the post-independence
developmental economic policies of Indian
government, believe an effect to be a cause.
They believe that fortunes of Bihar tumbled in
the last 20 years when the truth is that the
script of this tragedy was written by the
learned economic planners of India in 50s, 60s,
and 70s through unjust allocation of
developmental resources. Take an example: In
1955, the total national outlay for irrigation
was Rs.29106 lakhs. Of this, Punjab got 38%
while Bihar got just 4.5% even though Bihar was
3.5 times larger than Punjab. The result: Almost
76% of Punjab’s land is under irrigation while
just 41% of Bihar’s land is irrigated. Or, take
the Freight Equalization Scheme that applied to
Steel and Coal and remained in vogue till 1991.
This policy of consumers paying the same freight
whether the coal was transported from Jharia to
Dhanbad or Jharia to Vishakhapatnam broke the
back of industry development in Bihar. Many of
us are blissfully ignorant of numerous
historical injustices of this kind meted out to
Bihar by the economic planners.
They talk of lack of opportunities in Bihar and
assert that opportunities should first be
created before they can exploit them. This is
passive mentality. If Bihar has to progress then
opportunities will have to be created and tapped
by Biharis themselves. If one can't help
oneself, no body can. Others can help, they can
support, but they cannot set your house in
order. This is something all Biharis need to
understand. I am reminded of the old story of
two shoe salesmen who went to a place where
aboriginals existed. The first sales man saw
that no one wore shoes and reasoned that there
was no market for shoes while the second one saw
a huge market because no one wore shoes! We have
to create our own opportunities. Whining and
complaining will not help but action orientation
will and this is what is expected from the
younger generation of well educated, smart, and
suave Biharis. They should feel proud of their
Bihari roots and act with courage and
conviction.
Another issue is entrepreneurship development.
In Bihar, people view entrepreneurship as
something that smart, educated people don’t do.
This has to change and entrepreneurship has to
be accorded its due status. With the pool of
well educated and technically qualified young
Biharis, there is no reason why entrepreneurship
development can't take place in Bihar. The
opportunities are immense though they might not
be so obvious. An entrepreneurial wave can turn
Bihar into the vegetable capital of India.
Similar big opportunities are in agriculture,
horticulture, fisheries, fruits, agro-processing
sectors. The need of the hour is not large scale
entrepreneurial ventures but small grassroots
level ventures that ensure wealth generation
along with economic and social development of
the local community. We don’t need 10
investments of Rs.100 crores each; but 100
investments of Rs.10 crores each. Spread of
investment is key not the quantum.
Ultimately, what Bihar and Biharis need is the
Nike philosophy – Just Do It! And may I modify
it a bit – JUST DO IT WITH PRIDE AND CONVICTION!
(The author is a management professional based
out of Mumbai.)
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Comments: |
I like Mayank's article. It is very
well balanced and thought out. There
was a tendency to blame Lalu Yadav
for all the wrongs of Bihar while
the problem had started much before
before Independence and which
continued post independence.
At this point of time if at all any
state is changing rapidly it is
Bihar. Take examples
1. RTI - call center opened last
week.
2. PDS through coupon system started
this week.
3. 50% reservation to women
implemented in Panchayat election
3-4 months back.
4. Five day working schedule in
government office eighth extended
hours on the working days started
from Jan,1,2007.
5. Special thrust for Nalanda
University Revival.
6. Speedy trial and no
criminalisation of politics
7. SAP for improvement in policing
8. Teachers recruitment
9. Chief Minister purchasing the
book Gauravshali Bihar even though
publishers were presenting them.
10. The only chief minister in India
which has four qualities 'together'
- Intelligence (Engineer from NIT
Patna), Hardworking (14-16 hour long
working day), Commitment for Bihar,
and Highest Integrity.
This is a unique opportunity which
Biharis should not let go. This is
the time to go with 1-2 crore or
even 10-25 lakhs investment. -
Naveen Kumar Sharma - Feb. 2, 2007
I corroborate with Maynak's views.
It is easy to continue playing the
blame game or sit back and remain
passive about the state of affairs
while enjoying the personal wealth
that one has created for one's own
self. But, it is difficult to get up
and take to an untrodden path that
might have roadblocks, yet full of
promises as it is aimed towards
greater good, that is, in this case,
distribution of wealth among more
number of people by investing and
generating cash through enterprising
entrepreneurship. At the outset, it
needs us to muster courage and have
immense positive attitude with
oodles of optimism thrown in, along
with a great sense of commitment to
rise up like the phoenix from the
rubbles.
Things are destroyed in minutes, but
it takes great efforts and perhaps
years to re- build. For those
Biharis who keep singing this
tuneless number of "nothing is
possible for Bihar" are living in
the ivory tower made out of their
self contentment from personal
achievements or are too defeated to
take that one courageous step.
Yet, amidst this skepticism and
disinterest, it is heartening to
note that the chief minister of
Bihar has laid the foundation stone
for the New Bihar, by taking the
first step to make RTI effective by
setting up a call center, 50 percent
reservation for woman in the
Panchayat, speedy trial and de
linking of crime from politics among
others. Now, it is for the people to
take the cue and continue to move
on, converting these small steps
into a giant movement like the green
revolution of Punjab or the great E-Choupal
movement that started from Madhya
Pradesh and has enveloped at least
nine other states in India. The task
is humongous indeed but not
impossible… and we don't need the
entire population of well-educated
Biharis, but a few well meaning ones
to make the difference. - Archana
Sinha, freelance media professional
and journalist, Mumbai - Feb. 2,
2007
I was reading an article on Hindu
Business line and it really shocked
me how center is treating Bihar like
a Step-Child. The attitude is not
going to change overnight and we
can't expect a miracle from Central
Government anyway. But we Biharis
have had enough of being aliased as
Bimaru. This is the time The JUST DO
IT philosophy needs to be in place.
Each of us who are reading if start
contributing to Bihar's economy then
it will definitely take us a long
way. Want to know how we can
contribute to it?
1. Try to push as much work as you
can to Bihar. Recently our team
published book "Gauravshali Bihar"
book and the book was printed (with
world class quality though) in
Patna.
2. If you're a NRB and visiting
India and Bihar. Buy your regular
things (what you purchase from
Delhi, Mumbai etc) from Bihar. This
way the Sales Tax will go to Bihar
and the local shopkeeper gets the
business. It costs same whether you
buy in Bihar or Bangalore.
3. Mentor Students in Bihar. There
are many students in Bihar who needs
guidance. If each of us take on the
job of guiding one student this will
go a long way.
There are many such opportunities
and we need to find where we can
involve ourselves. There are
problems and there will be but that
does not mean we should stop our
work and wait for magic to happen.
When we hit a wall, there are couple
of options we have:
1. Stop all work and start praying
and wait for magic to happen. Which
95% of the people do in this world.
2. Dig, Jump or Break. But cross the
wall and continue moving forward.
This is the key to progress.
The choice is yours. The JUST DO IT
philosophy makes us choose second
option. So its the time and time to
do. So JUST DO IT or rather LETS DO
IT for our state our Bihar. -
Samir Kumar Mishra - Feb. 2, 2007
"Just Do It" article made for an
interesting reading. It's never too
late. I would like to add that many
successful Biharis, once they attend
success they feel ashamed in calling
themselves Biharis. They will call
themselves from Delhi or even
Orissa. I personally feel surprised
and can't see any logic to it. Many
people keep commenting on this forum
about Bihari dialect also without
explaining what's wrong in it. One
of my fellow Biharis on this forum
went to the extent of advising us to
change our dialect to get better
recognition and acceptance outside.
If a Tamilian or Gujarati can be
recognised by his dialect why not
Biharis?
I hate to use such strong words but
I do feel that a lot of we Biharis
are 'mentally sick'. Bihar will have
to really ignore a lot of such
Biharis if it needs to progress. -
Dr Pankaj Kumar Mishra, London,
UK - Feb. 3, 2007
I
went through one more article of
Mayank here and I find this one
again having same quality of punch.
He is writing excellent. His points
are valid as well as some
suggestions given by the readers in
the comment section were also very
good one.
Our pride, self-respect and strength
stays with our conduct. Those
Biharis who are pessimistic about
motherland Bihar, are in-fact the
people who must have been & be
treated rudely on the name of region
and they must have no self respect
to fight for her. You don't need to
count such people as soldier, but
instead scoundrels.
Today Bihar really does not need
them. Union government's policy
towards Bihar has been severely
wrong but irony is that always that
government was mainly constituted by
lots of Bihari union ministers, who
they never did much for motherland.
Today the gap has become so high
between mainstream and Bihar that
after visiting outside, our some
less visionary youths find it tough
to create shopping mall,
multiplexes, open culture,
McDonald's outlet etc in Patna or
Bihar a tough thing to happen. It is
peculiar time for Bihar because the
national mainstream is passing
through the capitalist approach of
2000's and while Bihar is still in
the stagnated 1970's socialists
requirements with extreme stagnancy
of it's own people in terms of
performance.
A chief minister can only give you
platform. It is up to you tot ake
step, because with this condition
one needs no less than a committed
action.
Today what Bihar needs is winning
the race of economy and transit into
capitalism. It needs it youths to
become enterpriser, open companies
and generate employment instead of
seeking it. The gap between village
and city youths should be minimized
and every well to do capable Bihari
should help them to realize this.
NRB's should invest. And yes, as
some one suggested above, Biharis
should always purchase goods from
Bihar. I come to USA, but my shoes
always come from SreeLeathers at
Patna, my suits are stitched by a
small tailor in Patna and now I am
planning to move back to India and
realize my dream to open a company
and give employment to my people
from Bihar very soon in coming
future. If you find it tough to open
companies in state due to poor
infrastructure and weak governance,
do it from outside! We need some
personal efforts like this to
restore the lost glory of our
motherland, Bihar. - Ravi
Shankar, Mountain View, CA, USA -
Feb. 5, 2007 |
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