A Bihari Story Of The Haar

The BJP has paid the price for its inability to understand Bihar and its remarkable people.

- Uttam Sengupta

The late Arvind Narain Das, whose 1992 book Republic of Bihar con­tinues to be quoted in any authoritative discu­ssion on the state, would often quip that the chat­tering classes of India knew more about Chechnya than Bihar. Almost a quarter century later, the lack of understand­ ing is still striking and came through in many reports from the ground and one could not help but wonder that if the prime minister and the BJP national president had read or known about the book, whether the two powerful Guja­ratis (dubbed 2G in Bihar) would still have gone around the state telling Biha­ ris how miserable they are.

For the record, Bihar occupies half the area of Gujarat but has almost double the population. Unlike Gujarat, which has a coastline and is industrialised, Bihar is land-locked, primarily agrarian and rural. Every now and then, Bihar’s northern plains are flooded so badly that thousands are forced to take shelter on highways or embankments. And unlike Gujarat, with its maritime trade history, it’s with Nepal that Bihar has a long and open border.

The state was bifurcated in 2000 and Bihar had to give up the mineral-rich and industrialised plateau with urban centres like Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Ranchi and Dhanbad to Jharkhand, a state created by the first NDA government at the centre. The pangs are still being felt in both states. But the two BJP leaders were clearly oblivious to the fact that Bihar has fared much better since than the smaller and richer state of Jharkhand, which has been ruled by the BJP for 11 of the 15 years.