Mr Thapar

I was going through the transcript of the interview of Shobaa De taken
by you.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/devils-advocate-shobhaa-de-on-mumbai-vs-
bombay/76806-3.html?from=search

In the interview, you ask Ms De "Mumbai ............is now more and
more like Patna ?"

Who has given you the right to denigrate a city like this? Have you
been to Patna recently? Have you looked at its crime statistics? Have
you had any reports of regional hate?

Do try to recall. Did Patna have a communal riot in decades? This
decade? In the nineties? In the eighties? Seventies? Let me tell you,
Patna has never had a communal riot. Regional feelings? Patna has a
fairly large Bengali population which competes fiercely for the few
jobs that are available. In fact, during the early British period,
they had a virtual monopoly on the government jobs. But have you ever
heard of a hate campaign against them? Marwaris control a large part
of the trade in the city. Punjabis are in large number. The second
holiest place of the Sikhs is at Patna: the birthplace of Guru Gobind
Singhji. South Indians are a thriving community here, numbering about
30,000. Anglo Indians are another thriving community at Patna and
nearby Danapur. Two seats in the Bihar assembly is reserved for the
Anglo Indian community. The author William Dalrymple has himself
written to me that his family has strong Bhagalpur connections. But
for a few minor incidents of Sikh owned shops looted in the aftermath
of Indira Gandhi's murder (mind you, no murders of Sikhs at Patna at
that time), can you give a single incident of hate crime or campaign
based on ethnicity? The closest you will come to a riotous situation
in Patna is during the 1942 Quit India movement and the JP movement of
1970's: both for a national cause.

Then how on earth does it occur to you to put Patna as the worst
example of provincialism? Is it media hype about Bihar and Biharis? Is
it because the elite of India like you have been trained to always
denigrate something to make you feel good? Is it plain ignorance? Or
is it that since Bihar is poor, hence elites feel that they can get
away by criticizing Bihar without a fear of reprisal or offending any
section of your audience which has very few Biharis in any case?

(It is another matter that the response of Shobaa De ( I could almost
feel her nose contracting in horror) is an even worse example of
'elitist' thinking, but then this letter is about you and the media,
not other categories of elites)

For god's sake, this type of typecasting has led to a very explosive
situation in the country. You people never tire of criticizing a Raj
Thackeray. Let me share a shocking statistic with you. Out of the new
migrants in Mumbai, the percent of Biharis is between 2.3 and 3.5%.
Yes I am talking of new migrants, not the percent of Biharis in the
total population, which has to be lower since the number has increased
from just 0.2% in the sixties to a 'High" 3.5%. This is based on
studies conducted by two Mumbai based organizations: TISS and IPSS. (I
would be happy to forward the publicly available extract of the study
and the link if you find this statistic too difficult to digest). Now
surely, you would also agree, this percent cannot be called excessive
by any stretch of imagination if there is any truth in Mumbai being
the commercial capital of India rather than just the administrative
capital of Maharashtra?

Then pray what makes Raj Thackeray demonize Bihar and Biharis? If you
think a little about it, you will perhaps agree with my theory that
this is so because of the "image" of Bihar, created by powerful
mediamen like you. Let me add, your colleague, another Raj from
Maharashtra, Rajdeep Sardesai, wrote an article on the ills of
Maharashtra last year where he had no compunction in using
'biharisation' as synonymous to criminalization. Not just in the body
of his article but in the headline itself. In fact, the whole article
was based on Rajdeep's view that Bihar is a living hell on earth. Is
it any surprise then that men like Raj Thackeray, desperate to carve a
political space for himself, think first of Bihar when they are
looking for a villain?

I am well aware of the bias of the Indian English press towards Bihar.
I don't expect it to remember the sacrifice of Bihar and Biharis for
the nation: the Champaran movement or the 1942 quit India movement or
the agitation against dictatorship in mid seventies. I don't expect
the media to highlight the extreme injustice done to Bihar due to
freight equalization or inequitable distribution of development funds
in each of the five years plans since independence. But this continued
bias is now striking at the very root of India. This anti Bihari
feeling is now creating a feeling of alienation in every town and
village of Bihar. Politicians of Bihar, though accused of playing
politics by the media, are trying their best to douse this flame which
they had no role to create. If you folks believe in the idea of India,
you have to play a role here.

Repeated biased coverage of Bihar in the Indian English press should
have convinced me by now that it is futile to expect any semblance of
evenness in the coverage. But what to do, I am a Bihari. I cant give
up on my Indianess. And giving up on hope is just not in my gene:
whether the centre gives me an ill treatment or the nature tests my
tenacity every year through floods, you would not hear a Bihari
committing suicide. Hence I still approach you with hope, that things
can change and will change.

Thanks

--
Thakur Vikas Sinha