Nitish Kumar at best might be a good joke between bad serials

My initial reaction to Mr. SHREESH CHAUDHARY’s article is that of despair and disappointment.
While it is true that Bihar has consistently been at the bottom of affairs in more than one ways but branding it as a hopeless case can do no good to any of us in Bihar or India. Why not look at this change as the beginning of the end of fall of Bihar ? It is perception such as these, floated around the nation,, by the leading newspapers and channels that the theory of Bihar has become a dirty word….that when an earthquake occurs in a rich state..the whole nations cries its heart out and donations pour in from all corners….that a literate and rich state…soaks in 5 days of rain water ..and people around the nation sit up and take notice of the plight of the people suffering in that state …but when scores of people die every day …due to floods ..droughts or major earthquakes in Bihar…the same helpful and otherwise proud nation loving ..Indians ….switch channels ..rubbish the news as being perennial …and shrug their shoulders as yet another problem from the third world …..that when an Indian ..gets ill treated in Canada or UK on racist grounds ..the whole country feels offended …but when a rogue politician ..demands ..to oust Bihari workers from his ‘adopted’ state…not a word is heard from the same enlightened and helpful souls ….have we ..the people of Bihar ..ever wondered ..why ??

Why is that the outside world knows Biharis as only porters, rickshaw pullers or anyone else who would not think twice before doing for money ? Why does the same outside world not think of Dr. Rajendra Prasad but immediately knows everything about Lalu Prasad ? Why is it that the other states who have leaders worse than Lalu – Rabri duo …still manage to generate a laugh at us but not on their own state leaders ???

I am no scholar on the subject but I feel that unless the Biharis take pride in their mother land and culture , no outsider will. It is true that Bihar has slipped into the gut of medieval times where it will take enormous efforts to pull itself out of the rut and take to the fore front but then somebody ..somewhere will have to take the first step…even the great ROME was not built in a day !

This comment is not meant to offend anyone but to appeal all the cool net savvy Biharis out there who are reading this piece now to do something …in some way to contribute for the development of our state. It’s easy to scoff and leave things ..but then we are the descendants of greats like Ashok and Chankya..lets help Bihar regain its lost glory !
I sincerely hope I am not alone in my thoughts.

I am a non resident PROUD BIHARI and hope to contribute my bit in my own way as soon as I am done with my studies.

@ Siddhartha: Dude, you gotta be the funniest person ever! Your comment at least is the funniest I’ve read! You call Mr. Chaudhary cynical and all sorts of bad names in print, while you are actually saying precisely what he is saying. Don’t quite get it, do ye? Allow me to demonstrate.

You say in your comment that “if ur hand has gotten a disease.. the rest of the body doesnt start makin fun of it.. you start doing something bout it.” Mr. Chaudhary isn’t saying anything different; he is actually going a few steps ahead and is telling us what we need to do if we are to improve. Go re-read the article carefully. What does it say? Going point by point, he offers the following Do’s and Don’ts (Please correct me if I am wrong!):

• Do your eight hours of work decently. Every day.
• Don’t let caste determine your desire to help someone.
• Use your time productively.
• Confront crime, regardless of place, time and consequences;
• Buy your train tickets.
• Buy your bus tickets.
• Do your job first; look into your private practice later. He gives the example of doctors, and later, of teachers who take tuitions in the evenings.
• Focus on your core task and do it religiously.
• Award marks based on ability, not by recommendation.
• Do your job before demanding better pay.
• Stop double-timing your offices. Stop creating and hoarding black money.
• Invest in your daughter’s education.
• Stop encroaching on public property.
• Take your loans seriously; pay the bank back.
• Go back to your villages when you retire and use your unique skills and abilities to reduce the difficulties of life there.

You say in your comment: “stand up and do something, bit by bit , inch by inch.” Do what? Climb trees? Play gully cricket? Heh heh!! Something is something too vague, no? There IS a list of somethings in the article you are ranting about by the man you are spewing venom at. Isn’t that something to start off with?? Who are you mocking? And who are you to mock? What do you have to offer that is anywhere near as substantial as the article? “Something??” Ridiculous foul-mouthed oaf!

And what is he saying anyway? He says right at the outset: “Bihar will not change until in Bihar ….” And he actually gives us a list. I am a Bihari, and I see his point. For every official you know who does do his / her job, how many can you think of who don’t? How many times have you / your friends not got a job because someone has a letter of recommendation from some big shot somewhere? How many houses do you know which have encroached on the roads and have jammed the gutters? And so on ….

There is no superman in the real world. There are only people like you and me. There’s going to be no bright flash of light that shall turn Bihar into a glittering example of the perfect world. This has to happen slowly, gradually. And it has to happen from within. History has shown us that while bad leadership can ruin the best of states within a few years, good governance needs the support and active participation of the common people to succeed.

Destroying a system is easy. Get your uncles, brother, friends the best jobs, and systematically start syphoning off cash and assets. The people don’t even get to know of this until it is too late. But if the government is to succeed in (for example) its drive to clear all the gutters in the city, people will have to allow the municipality to destroy those parts of their houses that encroach on the road and obstruct the gutter. If people were to rebuild the area within a month, it would be back to square one.

But yes, things can change, but only if the common man is willing to pitch in. And change of this sort doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to get the government to realize that things have changed in the state. People are not paying bribes any more; pick-pockets are being caught within the marketplace itself, etc. But these things have to happen if there is to be change. As Mr. Chaudhary says, “Because all those things I listed above are not going to happen in the foreseeable future I am sure Bihar is not going to change for the next few decades at least.”

I think this is the line that kicked you the most, no? How can he say that?!! How DARE he say that??!! Well, maybe he hasn’t seen that happening yet. Apparently you have, Siddharth, which is why you are so upset. Maybe … I don’t know …

• Maybe Biharis no longer spit on the walls;
• Maybe libraries in Bihar are staffed 9-5 with employees waiting to help you find the information you need;
• Maybe students in Bihari schools and colleges have begun thronging to libraries to educate themselves;
• Maybe Bihari teachers have started teaching in classrooms and stopped offering tuitions to the same students at home;
• Maybe officials have stopped accepting bribes;
• Maybe doctors can be found more in the hospital wards than in their private clinics.
• Maybe patients have stopped dying due to spurious medicines in these hospitals
• Maybe Bihar has already changed …

If you have such data, please do share them with us. Start a simple blog where you can post news items related to such change. Trust me, you will have more readers than you can count. Until we have such consistent intel, we can only assume that things haven’t changed. In which case, we have no real reason to suppose that all of a suddent people shall start behaving differently, no?

All Mr. Chaudhary is saying is that if Bihar is to change, these things shall have to happen. He says he does not see them happening. Which is why he sees no great hope for us in the coming few decades. That pisses you off? Go prove him wrong no!! That’s exactly what the article is trying to accomplish. Go prove him wrong. Change the way people around you behave; write about it; get blogs going about these things. If you need any help on this, just say so, and there’ll be loads of people, self included, who’d do all they can to get things going!! But if all you did after writing this scurrilous defamatory piece of junk is get back to your work and feel proud of having shouted at someone who dared to speak against Bihar / Biharis, you just got that much funnier man!!

Jingoistic pride is fine, Sid, but you really need to learn to understand what is being said in a piece before you start blazing all over the place. Read first; criticize afterwards!!

@Sharique: I think Siddharth’s comment is ill informed, and the language he uses is in very bad taste. I strongly suggest this comment should be deleted if possible.