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Twenty
years ago, when I was a teenager in Patna, being
a Patna'ite or a Bihari was never a stigma. Not
that I had a lot of opportunity to meet people
of other states till that time. Yes, on visits
to cousin’s in Calcutta or Varanasi I would meet
their friends and never did I feel my being a
Bihari was in any way any different to their
being a Bengali or a UP'ite. Maybe we were
innocent…
Later, I went away to do my graduation. During
those days, Mr. L P Yadav had gained national
notoriety as a politician who said and did funny
things. But it was easy to defend him in the
early nineties. Slowly, however, his comic
antics grew more than it actually were. Most
newspapers and magazines would look to Mr. Yadav
for a ‘different’ view point. And Mr. Yadav was
also becoming a very powerful political figure.
Most of the people around the country could not
digest this. A rustic, uncouth politician from
the backwaters of Bihar increasing his political
clout in the country?
Within my circle of friend and colleagues Mr.
Yadav’s antics were recited whenever I was
around. To make matters worse, the Hindi film
industry created a stupid caricature of Biharis
with their strange accents. Again a target of
ridicule. All this combined to create an
atmosphere where it was easy to ridicule
Biharis. And also fashionable. Biharis – who had
already migrated to other states an cities were
repeatedly ridiculed. Even if you were not a
Bihari and the Bihari term would be associated
with you if you objected or did not conform to
the majority pint of view.
Soon this ridicule changed to contempt.
Primarily because the kind of work the most
visible Biharis did was mostly manual labour.
And – as I had mentioned in an earlier article –
you can ridicule someone who is economically
poor or weak numerically. All this combined with
the misrule by Mr. Yadav and his spouse Mrs.
Devi. Bihar was in the news for all the wrong
reasons. It was called the most lawless state,
not only in National press but international
news articles also started calling Bihar a
notorious state. Local economy dried out due to
lack of growth and Bihar turned into a
money-order economy.
The amount of ridicule, the contempt, the
feeling of superiority by others, immature state
leadership shown by the then rulers, the state
of law and order - all led to the general demise
of respect for Biharis living as immigrants in
other states. This was a time bomb waiting to
blow.
And it did blow in Feb 2008. A month and a half
later, we have had no closure of the issues. Two
days of questions in the parliament, a few
slogan shouting rallies and it is back to
business. Both by the great leaders of Bihar and
the great leaders in Maharashtra and Punjab. The
chaps who did all the effigy burning in Patna,
what have they done after that. Nothing. And
they call themselves leaders. The bought further
ridicule by their slogan shouting and not
following it up with any concrete action.
Ridicule of these leaders will result in more
ridicule to the people. And the cycle starts
again.
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