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Anbumani
Ramdoss is the Union Health Minister. As a union
minister, he is supposed to look after the whole
country's interest. However, this regionalist
has nothing but contempt for Bihar. He had no
compunction in uttering from his loud mouth that
Biharis are cause behind Indian medical degrees
not being recognised in UK and USA. A Bihari
doctor had apparently wrongly pointed to the
right side of the anatomy when asked where the
spleen is.
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&login=default&Enter\=true&Skin=TOI&GZ=T&AW=1193683456359
(The e-paper of times of india is a bit
complicated rather a regular website. One has to
go to the e-paper webiste at http://epaper.timesofindia.com//
? then select the Mumbai edition of Times of
India and go to date Oct 29. The said article is
on the upper let corner of page 4. Headline is
Junk Food for Thought under City Lights.)
Click on the article "Junk Food for Thought" on
page 4, top left corner, for reading this
yourself. One does not know whether the story is
true or a result of the Health Minister's
fertile imagination, but this leaves none in
doubt about the deep seated bias of this
disgusting sample of a homo sapien.
This chap has no sense of guilt to invoke a
stray and unsubstantiated story from the 70's to
demonise Bihar while ignoring the huge success
that Bihari students in several fields. Has he
never heard of Makhania Kuan at Patna which has
such a large concentration of members of the
royal college, both of surgeons and physicians?
Is he blind to the success of Bihari students in
Central services and in IIMs, IIT, RECs and
myriad other places?
Can we view his utterance as anything but a case
of extreme contempt for Biharis? Can any Bihari
expect any sense of fairness from such
hopelessly opinionated people? Should he be
allowed to hold high public office at the Centre
if he suffers from such a malaise? Can we expect
the erudite PM to rein him in? Can RJD leaders
see to it that he is suitably chastised?
Let we, the civil society of Bihar, at least
raise our voice in protest against such blatant
example of bias; for otherwise it is going to
cost us dear.
Let me recall the extremely blatant bias of a so
called unbiased bureaucrat PS Appu in this
context. Appu was the Director of LBS academy at
Mussorie when a young probationer from Bihar was
getting trained after having been selected for
IAS by UPSC. On a mere complain of misconduct,
Appu deemed it fit to dismiss this promising
young lad. When the ministry from Delhi wanted
to ensure that a proper inquiry to be conducted
before as stern an action as dismissal is taken,
Appu raised a hue and cry alleging this is
interference in his work and chose to resign
very very publicly (He was anyway very close to
retirement). The newspaper of the day had a
field day demonising Bihar and its culture. Some
even hinted that a powerful central minister who
belonged to the same caste as probationer was
trying to pull strings. In the event, the poor
probationer was dismissed without proper inquiry
and public impression was created of a deviant
Bihari culture, which mostly works on caste
lines.
The unfortunate probationer took his case to the
courts and the highest court of the land, the
Supreme Court, reinstated him. It took several
years to get justice. One can imagine the plight
of the unfortunate fellow and his family who
would have died a thousand death in that period.
Fortunately, justice did finally prevail.
Unfortunately, the "national press", which had
created such a fuss when Appu had resigned,
relegated the news of his reinstatement to the
inside pages. The public perception of the
English speaking elite in our republic continues
to be that of caste based deviant culture of
Bihar rather than that of biased bureaucrats
from whichever culture Appu belongs to.
I would urge that we protest such bias properly
but strongly so that no bureaucrat or
politician, howsoever mighty they maybe, gets
away with such inexcusable show of rampant
regional bias.
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Comments: |
We the
Biharis have to blame ourselves for
the negative image of Bihar. Appu
was right in maintaining discipline
in the institute. Court decision
does not mean that the candidate was
not guilty. Any clever lawyer can
manipulate facts and get judgment in
favor of his/her client. Jessica Lal,
murder case is an example. Our mass
leader, Lalu Yadav, involved in the
fodder scam has become a management
guru despite the fact that he ruined
Bihar during fifteen years of his
rule. He has allowed "launda natch"
during the "Chetawani rally." Media
shake us and remind us of the
reality of the situation. Don't
condemn the media, commend it. -
Satya - Nov. 2, 2007
When one thinks about the reasons of
the backwardness of Bihar, the
favourite with the press are :
casteism, criminalisation of
politics, and corruption. Of late,
some of us have added lack of a
regional Bihari identity unlike say
a Bengali or a Punjabi identity.
I am now convinced self flagellation
as the reason no 1 even ahead of the
economic neglect in five year plans
and the misaligning of the NHAI
expressways which I earlier thought
were the main culprit.
I do not know if the story that
Anbumani narrated and as published
in TOI Mumbai is true or false (and
I am blaming Anbumani and not TOI in
this instance), but I do know that
Bihar trained doctors form the
backbone of the NHS of UK. I have
personally met many of them as also
several MRCP and FRCS at Patna. But
we ignore all that. This third rate
politician Anbumani with his
oversized ego who has ruined AIIMS,
comes out with the most obnoxious of
comments about Biharis but there is
nary a protest. All I get to hear
that we Biharis are ourselves to
blame!!
A high court judge in AP calls a
case land grabbing as Bihar like. He
is followed by another Judge at
Karnataka in saying that incident of
the escape of a Mukhiya from police
custody is Bihar like when those
incidents had absolutely nothing to
do with Bihar and Biharis. I guess I
should not be surprised if one of us
says the judges are right as they
are also human and have only gone by
popular perception. On the other
hand, when Supreme court overturns a
case of bias, we quote possibly the
worst case of marriage of justice
(at least in the perception of the
popular Metro middle class
sensibilities) to inflict another
self wound and put the blame back on
ourselves.
Well we can blame Nitish Kumar as
much as we want, and for that matter
Lalu or any other person in power at
Patna, but if we are not able to see
this tendency to perpetrate self
inflicted wounds in perspective, I
for one do not foresee a bright
future. - Thakur Vikas Sinha -
Nov. 6, 2007 |
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