Friends,
Recently, A number of mail has been posted on this group which
contained virus (basically all such mails are generated automatically
by the worm/virus on the computer of a member which then sends these
'messages' to all the addresses in the addressbook of the person. It
could happen with anyone.)
I have taken steps to prevent further mails of this kind. However, to
protect the group from virus/worm attacks in future, no member will
now be able to send attachment with mail. Kindly bear it in mind while
posting on the list.
Regards,
Moderator for Bihar Chintan
As you all know that today Bihar & Flood are synonyms of each other. Major part of northern Bihar comprising 17 districts with 4 crore population covering 54 million hectare of land situated in between the planes of Himalayan and rivers Ganges having 7-8 major rivers have to face devastating of flood creating same disaster every year almost like tsunami.Flood displaces people for 2 to 3 months. Causes of flood, flood relief and rehabilitation end with debate and discussion at state and national level followed by ritualistic mode of relief distribution of 3-4 weeks by Govt and non-Govt agencies. Human suffering and survival struggle of people get less concern for action.
The relevant debate considering different aspects of this disaster of every year is yet to be initiated.
According to the report produced by National flood commission the 20% of area and 22% of population of total flood affected area belongs to this part of Bihar of which 60-70% faces the flood and their consequences every year. This area of our country is densely populated, backward, uneducated and bearing the social evils born out of poverty.
Under the influence of malnutrition, starvation and lack of fundamental things required for livelihood this area is suffering from migration of population, violence and conflict.
The humanity has lost its voice in between the struggle for it survival and the ill effect of inefficient structure erected for flood protection and irrigation facility. Innocent voiceless children and women are the most vulnerable group, whose needs are neglected by the policy makers and planners in term of support of relief and rehabilitation. This is a severe
violation of citizen and human rights. Many questions related to women and childcare during the disaster is yet to be answered.
This area of northern Bihar is mingled between the debates, question of natural disaster and man–made disaster, and their parameters causes and restated political decision and their analysis every year.
This land looses billions of property, hundreds of lives and their livelihood along with displacement on dams and embankment for 3-4 months aggravates poverty, backwardness and hunger which forces poor to send their children as bonded labourers, this is the common story of this area.
According to one assumption approximately 50,000 bonded child laborers are found in Delhi alone.
Approximately 2500 children are migrated every year from this area who are forced to live in different cities and are forced to suffer inhuman livelihood in dangerousindustries. Due to the flood and displacement coming every year the children of the affected family under high deficiency suffer from physical and emotional trauma as well as their fundamental needs and services also badly influenced.
The migration of head of the family in search of job between displacement and replacement beings rigorous circumstances for women and children, in such case rights of influenced children and the responsibility of government and society for them is the issue beyond the imagination of their parents.
The
understanding for physiological & social reasons causes of the innocent children of flood-affected area is yet to be initiated. The proposal given by U.N.O. for survival of children their protection and development and rights co-operation at local context is not yet implemented.
Most of the child labor from are northern Bihar living in Khagaria, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi districts and its surrounding area joined their hands to sensitize the different stakeholder of civil society and to reaffirm the self respect and confidence among these children towards their problem, their rights and towards the childhood related
sentiments formed as Bal Panchayat has with the facilitation of local NGO’s in there area.
A full faith in the basic right of good and bright future for all children is the responsibility of all adults and human conversation. Expressions of these sentiments alones with their personal faiths on sorrow, pain and creativeness is going to be presented by children assisted with Bal Mahapanchayat as ‘Jan Sunwai’..
To provide space for expression of these sentiments along with their personal feeling and sorrow, happiness and pain a people hearing ‘JAN SUNWAEE’ has been organized by Ba, Mahapanchayat from 18 to 20 Feb. 2006, through which children from these flood detected region will try to as associate their consciousness with you.
It is requested to participate in this Jan Sunwaee to share their feelings, sentiments and to support the initiatives being
undertaken, your presence will certainly be helpful towards increasing their confidence.
Thanking you,
PRABHAT NARAYAN JEERAGHUPATI
KVTMGVPSGSS
Programme – 18 February 10 AM. To 5 PM.– Workshop and Rehalsal
19 February 10 AM. To 6 PM.
– Inauguration & CulturalProgramme.
20 February- Children Exposure visit in Patna
Venue: Vidyapati Bhawan, Beside Museum, Patna-1.
Bring words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with your Yahoo! Mail.
Recently a very bad worm( a kind of virus) has attacked the internet. Kindly dont open any mail which contains files with name like sex, offer, sex video, or any other unfamilier name. This virus automatically starts sending mails from your mail box to every one which is in your list and spread. Kindly be carefull
Hi All,
Nominations for the best Categories have announced
today by the jury of the awards committee as follows
for the first Bhojpuri Film Award 2005. The Award
function initiated by NGO Netaji Subhash Jankalyan
Seva Sangh is going to take place on 29th January,
2006 at 6.30 PM onwards at Goregaon Sports Club,
Mumbai.
This news can be viewed at
http://www.bhojpuria.com/samachar/news.php?a=289
You may read more at
http://www.bhojpuria.com/jump.php?page=samachar/award.htm
You may visit the Bhojpuri Awards Official website at
http://www.bhojpurifilmawards.com
Bhojpuria will look forward for your support all the
time.
Sudhir Kumar
http://www.bhojpuria.com
__________________________________________________
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The stock market is at an all time high and several consulting agencies and capitalists have predicted a rise in the number of IPOs in days to come. Inspired by the story, the Beggars Association of Bihar Ltd (BABL) has engaged a consulting firm, PWC, to make a report on its business prospects and floating an initial public offering (IPO). Pakya Pande, CEO, BABL, said in an exclusive interview with DNA, "We are very upbeat about offering shares to the public and our business prospects are very bright, given the fact that Indians are compassionate towards beggars and our begging staff are trained to do a better job." For starters, the issue is priced at Rs 20 per share — a premium of Rs 10 per share.
"This premium of 100 per cent is justified," industry analysts say, "as software and other companies are known to rake in premium much more than that." The volume of the issue is going to be 10 million shares and BABL is thinking of taking it to 20 million, considering the possibility of doubling revenues earnings. For one, BABL has brilliant prospects. It's revenues, currently at Rs 25.2 lakhs, is actually a profit figure for the company as there are not many overheads involved except for minimum maintenance provided to its begging staff. The BABL officials say that their costs are automatically low because if they spend more on their staff and provide them with good amenities, they will no longer look like beggars and as a result they may not attract sympathy and more importantly the money of people. Secondly, BABL is one of the few companies doing business in this sector. There are beggars no doubt, but they all operate at independent levels or in small groups at
the most. The proceeds from the IPO are expected to be used by BABL for expansion and posting their staff at more strategic points. Soon, it may start operations on a national scale and the company hopes to rename itself to BAIL — Beggars Association of India Ltd. International plans are also on the anvil. An excited official of BABL tells us, "Opportunities are great in neighboring countries as well as in Africa and South East Asia." While investors are amused at this new development, they are also very excited as this is one company that assures returns. A market analyst says that no matter what happens, whether it rains or shines, beggars are going to beg and their revenues will only increase as incomes of people rise. It's notable at this point that even other 'innovative' companies are planning to list their stocks and issue shares to investors. In fact, some companies that this reporter visited did not even know what an Initial Public Offer is or, for that matter,
what stock exchanges are. When explained, company officials were excited and said that even they wanted to get into this as it seemed like an easy money making proposition. One official was noted saying, "Wow, this is like good news. All our lives we have been formulating strategies on how to get more revenues through begging, but this seem to be the best begging of all. Just print some paper (shares) and sell them to people who will give you their money." Unbelievably, local paanwalas,vada-pav stall owners and many more are scrambling to convert their establishments into companies and issue shares. Liquor shopkeepers, roadside peddlers and even those who are doing nothing are jumping onto the bandwagon. So watch out for that IPO coming out to you. You are advised to inve
Beggars jump on to the IPO bandwagon
Harshal A
Shah Borivali
The stock market is at an all time high and several consulting agencies and capitalists have predicted a rise in the number of IPOs in days to come. Inspired by the story, the Beggars Association of Bihar Ltd (BABL) has engaged a consulting firm, PWC, to make a report on its business prospects and floating an initial public offering (IPO). Pakya Pande, CEO, BABL, said in an exclusive interview with DNA, "We are very upbeat about offering shares to the public and our business prospects are very bright, given the fact that Indians are compassionate towards beggars and our begging staff are trained to do a better job." For starters, the issue is priced at Rs 20 per share — a premium of Rs 10 per share. "This premium of 100 per cent is justified," industry analysts say, "as software and other companies are known to rake in premium much more than that." The volume of the issue is going
to be 10 million shares and BABL is thinking of taking it to 20 million, considering the possibility of doubling revenues earnings. For one, BABL has brilliant prospects. It's revenues, currently at Rs 25.2 lakhs, is actually a profit figure for the company as there are not many overheads involved except for minimum maintenance provided to its begging staff. The BABL officials say that their costs are automatically low because if they spend more on their staff and provide them with good amenities, they will no longer look like beggars and as a result they may not attract sympathy and more importantly the money of people. Secondly, BABL is one of the few companies doing business in this sector. There are beggars no doubt, but they all operate at independent levels or in small groups at the most. The proceeds from the IPO are expected to be used by BABL for expansion and posting their staff at more strategic points. Soon, it may start operations on a national scale and
the company hopes to rename itself to BAIL — Beggars Association of India Ltd. International plans are also on the anvil. An excited official of BABL tells us, "Opportunities are great in neighboring countries as well as in Africa and South East Asia." While investors are amused at this new development, they are also very excited as this is one company that assures returns. A market analyst says that no matter what happens, whether it rains or shines, beggars are going to beg and their revenues will only increase as incomes of people rise. It's notable at this point that even other 'innovative' companies are planning to list their stocks and issue shares to investors. In fact, some companies that this reporter visited did not even know what an Initial Public Offer is or, for that matter, what stock exchanges are. When explained, company officials were excited and said that even they wanted to get into this as it seemed like an easy money making proposition. One
official was noted saying, "Wow, this is like good news. All our lives we have been formulating strategies on how to get more revenues through begging, but this seem to be the best begging of all. Just print some paper (shares) and sell them to people who will give you their money." Unbelievably, local paanwalas,vada-pav stall owners and many more are scrambling to convert their establishments into companies and issue shares. Liquor shopkeepers, roadside peddlers and even those who are doing nothing are jumping onto the bandwagon. So watch out for that IPO coming out to you. You are advised to invest in them after a careful probe into the companies or else you may end up being part of the staff at Beggars Association of Bihar Ltd.
st in them after a careful probe into the companies or else you may end up being part of the staff at Beggars Association of Bihar Ltd.
What are the most popular cars? Find out at Yahoo! Autos
Bonanza for Bihar teachers- Nitish govt to offer jobs to trained personnel
Telegraph, Jan.25,2006
Patna, Jan. 24: "Bring the certificates, get the job and go to teach." Chanting this slogan, Bihar education minister Bishun Patel yesterday announced that the government has decided to recruit all the trained teachers in the state to fill up vacancies in primary and middle schools.
Around 65,000 trained teachers will benefit from the decision, a major shift in stand from the previous RJD regime.
The minister said he hoped to distribute the appointment letters at Gandhi Maidan within two months, an act reminiscing that of then chief minister Karpoori Thakur in 1978.
The NDA government paved the way for the recruitment process by withdrawing the special leave petition filed by the Rabri Devi government in the Supreme Court against a high court order more than a year ago.
"The government has pledged in the apex court that it would abide strictly by the National Council for Teachers' Education (NCTE) and appoint the duly trained teachers," advocate K.M. Joseph of the Justice and Human Rights Forum said today on his return from Delhi after appearing in the court.
The forum had challenged the RJD government's move to recruit non-trained candidates through open competitive exams. The high court had quashed the Rabri Devi government's decision to open the recruitment for all applicants irrespective of the NCET approved teachers' training.
The government had brought out an advertisement to this effect and said it would select qualified candidates through open tests and train them later. Its logic was that most trained teachers are not well qualified, which was an indirect affirmation on the government's part of its failure to run teachers' training colleges.
Hearing a writ petition against this move on behalf of the trained candidates, the court had ruled that government has to first appoint trained teachers and only then can it recruit non-trained teachers, if needed.
The RJD government then appealed to the apex court.
In a significant reversal, the Nitish Kumar government withdrew the petition and cleared the deck for the recruitment of the trained teachers. Over a hundred thousand posts of teachers are vacant in the state and the government has no count of trained teachers, who number around 65,000.
"The process of new recruitment has been simplified. The qualified candidates will bring their certificates, verified by the respective district magistrates, choose their preferred districts for posting, and we will issue the appointment letter with immediate effect. We hope to complete the process within two months," minister Patel said.
Joseph said Bihar has just one private training college. "That too has no candidates after the government went in for open recruitment. About 25 years ago, there were 101 colleges in the state," he said.
The government has also promised that defunct colleges would be revived, he added.
PATNA: In a cabinet decision on Tuesday, the Nitish Kumar-led government decided to allocate Rs 106.54 crore for modernising the police force working in 14 militant-affected districts and four districts sharing the Indo-Nepal border.
Speaking to TOI, cabinet secretary A K Chauhan said, "This money will be used to purchase sophisticated arms, computers, mine-proof vehicles, mine detectors and other equipment needed to counter militancy."
Till now the police in these areas neither had the required arms nor the infrastructure to fight the militants. When Central forces were posted in these areas during the Assembly elections in October and November, they were surprised to see how little the Bihar forces possessed to carry out their job.
In another decision, an amount of Rs 8.70 crore was earmarked for purchasing and installing mobile phone jammers, metal detectors and close-circuit television to make jails more secure. With access to mobile phones, jailed criminals are known to keep in touch with their gangs and even "order"murders and other crimes through their associates.
Jammers, once installed, will not allow mobile phones to function. These machines disable network services in a limited area.
Chauhan said, "The cabinet allocated Rs 7 crore for constructing and repairing roads in urban areas of the city. All roads will be eventually repaired, but this amount has been released as the first installment.
To begin with, a few main roads and the proposed road between Bypass and Harminder Sahib Gurdwara will be constructed."He said land will be acquired for the new road and then construction would commence.
The cabinet also decided to transfer zamindari bunds to the irrigation department for maintenance and upkeep. Chauhan said, "These bunds were used for irrigation purposes and also as a flood prevention measure.
But these were crumbling as there was nobody to maintain them."
Govt-at-your-doorstep programme launched
Ambarish Dutta
Tribune News Service
Patna, January 22
As NDA is close to completing two months in office on
January 23, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar yesterday
officially launched his proposed
“government-at-your-doorstep” programme at
Sikaria village in Jehanabad to contain growing
threats from the Maoists.
Naxal infested Sikaria village is only 50 km away from
the state capital Patna, and is in close vicinity of
Jehanabad, where the Maoists had attacked on November
13 giving shape to their ‘operation
jailbreak’. Over 300 inmates of the jail,
including noted Maoist leader Ajay Kanu had fled.
Mr Nitish Kumar said henceforth the government would
implement the
“government-at-your-doorstep” programme in
all the 38 districts, phase by phase, to solve the
problems of common people.
Mr Kumar admitted that force alone could not sole the
Naxalite problem unless the government initiated
development measures and brings the ultras to the
mainstream by involving common people.
Mr Kumar asked the district administration to ensure
that fruits of development percolated down to the
grassroot level with no leakages.
The Chief Minister also focussed on the need to
initiate land reforms which he considered as one of
the main reasons of conflict in villages.
Mr Kumar inaugurated a number of developmental
projects in the village during the function which was
attended by over a thousand strong crowd.
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If Sabita Singh is walking tall, she has reasons to do so. Appointed as the US Attorney by the Department of Justice, she is one of the few Bihar-born girls who has brought laurels to her state.
Sabita's new job profile includes defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies — foreign as well as domestic.
Born in Mukrera village of Chapra, Sabita was showered encomiums while being administered the oath of office in US. Justice Richard G Steams spoke high about her past performance as the Boston Attorney and hoped that in her new assignment, she would work as US Attorney and special counsel for criminal civil rights.
Sabita had hit the headlines and earned international fame during a murder trial in 1998. Born to Shivendra Singh and Sita Singh, Sabita, along with her parents, left for US at the age of three, where she completed her graduation from Pennsylvania State University in 1987 and Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law in 1990.
Sabita will be adding another feather to her cap when she will be conferred with the Hindi Ratna Award by the NRI Welfare Society of India on January 24.
Midline approach to imaprt forward thrust to our indulgence in Bihar's true well being could be establishment of VKCs (Village Knowlede Centres) for acclerating implementation of RTI 2005.
You may use the web before conceptualizing the action plan for formimg teams who visit respective native villages and continue to be aasociated irrespective of the profession and vocation.
Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...> wrote:
Friends, It was indeed a good experience to be at the Sahyatri/NOBA/Bihar Chintan meeting at Rajendra Bhawan. On the draft proposal prepared by Sahyatri, I have a few comments:
1. In an interview recently, (posted on Bihar Chintan egroup), Nitish Kumar has said that the limit for sanction by the dept. head is to be increased to
10 crore. So, our demand is modest.
2. Govt. is planning to set up a Land Reform Commission. No body knows what would be the mandate of the commission. We can propose a set of issues or the agenda for the commission, hoping that it would be taken up by the govt. whenever the commission comes up.
3. The proposals look 'officer centric'-in the sense that the reforms only refer to the ways in which the working of the secretariat or officers can be improved or made hassle free. No doubt, these are needed. But with senior bureaucrats involved in the exercise, it would have been better if we included some proposals from the people's point of view. There are a huge number of bureaucratic hassles in bihar when one approaches an office for any work. Right to information is one way out which needs to be aggressively implemented but we should think of reforms which will make the people-bureaucracy interaction smoother, faster and more productive.
Rajesh
WHERE there is no bread, there is no law; where there is no law, there is no bread. The idea that a society's moral well-being depends on its economic well-being and vice versa is well settled. Unravelling this chicken and egg conundrum in the context of Bihar is the biggest challenge that the new Government headed by Mr Nitish Kumar faces in the wake of its resolve to make a difference.
The problems facing this State are well known and documented. Rank poverty, widespread unemployment, crippling caste and class conflict, low industrial base, failing agriculture, weak socio-economic infrastructure and, above all, an all-pervasive feeling of `powerlessness' or `voiceless-ness'.
It is quite clear that effective and sustained turnabout cannot be achieved merely by policies that spur economic growth. The agenda would have to be more broad-based, including something more than the amelioration of poverty in the narrow sense, that is, low income and wealth. At a conceptual level, the Government must address three basic issues:
Promoting opportunity: Expanding economic opportunity for the poor, by stimulating overall growth and building up their assets (such as land and education) and increasing the returns on these assets, through a combination of market and non-market actions.
Facilitating empowerment: Making State institutions more accountable and responsive to the needs of the poor, strengthening their participation in the political processes and local decision-making, and removing the social barriers that result from distinctions of caste, region, gender, religion and social status.
Enhancing security: Reducing vulnerability to social discrimination, ill health, economic shocks, crop failure, policy-induced dislocations, natural disasters and violence, as well as helping the poor cope with adverse shocks when they occur. A big part of this is ensuring that effective safety nets are in place to mitigate the impact of personal and natural calamities.
The solutions are as well known as the problems. On the economic front, the Government will have to remove bottlenecks to private enterprise, create an enabling climate for fresh investment in industry and directly address stagnant agricultural productivity.
Further, the Government would have to focus not only on increasing the quantum of development spending (that is, outlays) but closely monitor delivery of programmes (outcomes). There is enormous potential for doing this through the deployment of information and communication technology. The basic approach would have to be to improve the outreach (in terms of awareness) of these programmes among the masses so that they become interested in monitoring the outcomes. This can be done at low cost through these technologies. On the political front, the challenge would be to contain conflict and resolve it quickly.
The dearth of ideas is definitely not a problem that the Nitish Kumar Government would face. The challenge would lie in prioritising them in a sensible and realistic manner and not spreading the canvas too wide. A new idea means little — except risk — without follow-up and follow-through. So nothing can substitute concrete action. It is implementation that would pose the biggest challenge. Nothing less than a "paradigm shift" is needed. In fact, the Government must use the dictum of Lord Keynes to get the message clear: "Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking."
In terms of sequence, the first priority of the State should be to restore law and order and the common man's faith in the criminal justice system. And for that the police force should be strengthened and modernised. It has to be a professional, well-equipped and motivated force. It should be de-politicised and its focus must be to serve the common man. Unfortunately, at present, the average Bihar policeman is demoralised.
Next is to set up a value-based administration. Civil services have to be toned up and reward for performance and punishment for non-performance have to be made visible. In the past, civil services have been subverted. It should be stressed that the Weberian virtues of anonymity, objectivity, hierarchy of formal structure, and so on, inform all its actions.
It should also be sensitised to the power of competition, markets and transparency. In a market economy, there is a limited, but crucial, role for the government; working in the changing scenario of expanding interfaces that entail the roles of NGOs and other formations, hitherto beyond the realms of the Government's functioning. After all, one can hardly undermine the fact that in the ultimate analysis it is the common men around whom the entire system is woven and, hence, the bureaucracy has to remain responsive to the needs of the vast millions of poor in Bihar. The bureaucracy has to be aware about what works on ground. The spirit is there, only the spark is needed.
The common man must be empowered through education and information. The entrepreneurial spirit of the people should be ignited to bring more jobs and investment, as that is the only way to reduce poverty.
Economic growth is essential to reducing poverty and unemployment. Fifty years ago, W. Arthur Lewis, one of the most prominent development economist, wrote: "The advantage of economic growth is not that wealth increases happiness, but that it increases the range of human choice... The case for economic growth is that it gives man greater control over his environment, and thereby increases his freedom."
The idea of economic growth as a force for human freedom has gained renewed force. Prof. Amartya Sen, in his book Development As Freedom called for a more expansive conception of "development" to incorporate not only economic development, in the conventional sense of a raising standard of living brought about by the modernisation of economic activity, but also the expansion of human freedom. Because economic development, in itself, is not sufficient to bring forth human freedoms in all settings, Prof. Sen's call for explicit attention to those freedoms, and for conscious efforts directed toward establishing and sustaining them, is apt. Economic development fosters the freedoms that are integral to a broader conception of "development". The present Government should encompass this broader concept of development.
In The Politics, Aristotle wrote: "Where democracies have no middle class and the poor are greatly superior in number, trouble ensures and they are speedily ruined."
One of the main points of distinction between Bihar and its neighbour, West Bengal, is that the latter has a huge middle-class. By contrast, this base is narrow in Bihar. Over time, it must try to enhance this moderating segment of society. To the extent possible, this can be achieved by unleashing market forces for economic growth. But care has to be taken not to go overboard and render this process `exclusive'.
Knowledge is the key to prosperity in today's technology-driven world, and Bihar simply cannot afford to undermine science and technology and higher education. The leading universities of the State have to be re-vitalised and de-politicised to create a modern professional class. Science and technology has to be the institutional cornerstone for new society.
Land reform, infrastructure development, water management and irrigation, basic education, healthcare services, rural finance, agriculture research and extension, and management of natural resources are some of the areas which need urgent attention of the Government to promote rural growth and augment the rural voice.
The mindset and work-culture also have to change. There is no substitute for hard work. Succeeding in today's economic milieu requires the ability to communicate and collaborate across the globe. Coming up with innovative ideas, products and services means getting people across different spheres and different categories to work together, "More and more value is created through networks and team work".
Finally, communication, coordination and teamwork are essential for success. The leadership should have a dream and the vision to inspire.
For take off, Bihar has to break the vicious circle of poverty and illiteracy, and for that institutional and policy intervention should help. Nothing less than a "paradigm shift" is needed.
(The author is a member of the Indian Revenue Services. The views are personal. )
Posted online: Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 1633 hours IST Updated: Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 2032 hours IST
Indian Express
New Delhi, Januray 19: Bihar under the new regime of Nitish Kumar has done what even the pro-development and apparently women friendly government at the Center under Manmohan Singh could not do so far.
Nitish Kumar has been successful in getting the approval of his cabinet for the proposed fifty per cent reservations for women in the panchayats.
This may not be something revolutionary for a government, which has come to power riding on the heavenly horse of promises for changes, but going by the standards of Bihar the step taken is something which will help in consolidating the position of women at the grassroots level.
Let's not forget that the state falls in the notorious line of BIMARU states and is ranked one of the last in terms of female education.
Though it is too early to judge the government and that too based on a single decision, this decision will help in empowering women to the early positions of the state politics by electing them to the positions of Gram Panchayats, Zila Parishads and Panchayat Samiti levels.
After the change of guard in the state, changes were expected in all quarters. Today the societal system in Bihar is in shambles, with all the spheres thoroughly plagued by the maladies such as sectarianism, casteism and petty vested interests. And whatever change takes place, should come from within rather than outside.
Limitations of forces in the form of police or paramilitary have been evident across time. One reason for this was that half of the populations - in the form of women - were kept aloof from the very keys of establishment.
The reservation for women in panchayats holds significance in this state more than any one of its peers. This is because in the absence of manufacturing sector and a near absence of industries and enterprise in the state, the bulk of the population is still supported by agriculture. Hence this step strikes at the very root of the decaying system.
With the incorporation of woman in the polity of Bihar in proportion to their population, Nitish Kumar has hopefully tried to ensure equity participation at the basic levels of democracy. This is something, which could not be achieved by the combined armed forces of the state as well as hundreds of gun trotting troops from the Center.
By declaring fifty per cent reservation of women, Nitish has made his intentions clear. But he should ensure that his great designs see the light of day in their true spirits and are not victimised by the preset notions of the society.
Like it has happened in other BIMARU states such as Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, where the women elected to any political position of power surrender their authority to their male counterparts be their husband, brother or father.
The 'elite' sections of women should not be allowed to corner the cream of power but steps should be taken to let the flow of power percolate to all the weak crevices and holes of the deprived sections.
With more and more women entering into the political fray there is an opportunity in the hands of the otherwise deprived state, to practice democracy in its true terms. It should also be a wake up call for the Center, which on some pretext or the other is allaying the fifty per cent reservation of women for the national panchayat.
With the message coming from one of the most backward and laidback states it seems the change of seat in the state was not limited to the symbolic or statistical limits. The decision of the government with regard to women's role in panchayats is one glaring illustration.
Please find below an insightful article on Bihar. This deserves your consideration.
Vagish
EPW
Commentary January 7, 2006
Who Are the 'Community'?
The World Bank and Agrarian Power in Bihar
The
World Bank proposes "good governance" as the ultimate solution for
those third world countries that have not been able to reap the
benefits of globalisation. In its recent report on Bihar, the bank
emphasises governance reforms by proposing decentralisation, community
management of resources and micro-enterprises. However, in a classic
neo-liberal sense it does so without questioning the existing
structures of power and underlying relations of production.
Kalpana Wilson
It
is well over a decade since the World Bank, desperately seeking a
panacea for the devastation wreaked by the first 10 years of
neo-liberal reforms and structural adjustment policies in Africa, put
forward the agenda of "good governance", laying the blame for the
massive increases in poverty and the collapse of social services and
infrastructure firmly on the doorstep of "corrupt and inefficient"
third world governments who were seen as failing to implement
neo-liberal policies effectively. The state, having been reduced to a
skeleton by liberalisation, was now to be "reformed" with its main duty
being provision of the institutional framework for markets to flourish.
Ever since, "good
governance" has been the World Bank's answer for those regions of the
world which, despite the opening up of their economies, have been
largely shunned by global capital, with the significant exception of
those global trades which feed and in turn thrive upon a plethora of
armed conflicts. Given this, it is perhaps surprising that the World
Bank has taken so long to train its sights on Bihar, which at the state
level would appear to fulfil many of the Bank's criteria of
eligibility for "good governance" based reforms: rampant corruption in
the state's allocation of resources, the collapse of the state's
monopoly of violence and extremely low levels of private investment.
This June however, the World Bank launched a report, "Bihar: Towards a
Development Strategy" [World Bank 2005] which applies these same
principles and prescriptions to the state.
The report, of
course, cannot be seen in isolation from a whole body of work by
neo-classical economists, who have for some time sought the answer to
Bihar's agricultural stagnation in the "transformative power" of the
market. Implicit in this, has been an attempt to marginalise any
analysis of the underlying structures of agrarian power and to provide
an "alternative" to the fundamental redistribution of resources – land
in particular. This has however proved to be a difficult task,
particularly since effective land redistribution and tenancy reform as
well as a living wage for agricultural labourers have not only been
identified as crucial for Bihar's development by a succession of
scholars, but are clearly formulated demands being articulated by
powerful movements of the poor and dispossessed of the state.
This article
explores three key characteristics of the neo-liberal discourse as it
is currently being applied to rural Bihar: the assumption that it is
possible to "reform" the state without transforming the structures of
social and economic power and the relations of production which
underpin it; the focus on so-called "machine reforms" at the expense of
land reforms; and the exclusion of the class of agricultural labourers
from strategies for agrarian development.
The State, 'Machine Reforms' and Agrarian Power
Seven years after
Shah and Ballabh asserted in the context of Muzaffarpur district in
north Bihar that "groundwater markets can transform a stagnant
traditional agriculture into a modern, booming economy with powerful
beneficial productivity and equity impacts" [Shah and Ballabh 1997],
cereal yields in Bihar have continued to stagnate as they have since
the early 1990s, and there is now widespread acknowledgement that
growth potential has remained constrained with Bihar mired in an
"agrarian impasse" [Kishore 2004].
Reluctant, however,
to question either the policies of economic liberalisation which have
led to increased production costs in agriculture, or the underlying
structures of rural inequality, those operating within a neo-liberal
framework have turned their attention to the state in Bihar, arguing
that the absence of "adequate infrastructure" and "economic incentives"
are more important constraints to development than agrarian structure
[Kishore 2004]. But this is a false dichotomy: while rural
electrification and investment in rural roads and major and medium
irrigation systems are extremely urgent needs in Bihar, their absence
cannot be understood in isolation from the nature of social and
economic power in the state. Crime, corruption, political careerism and
the siphoning off of development funds have emerged as key sources of
accumulation for those rich peasants who were able to amass significant
agricultural surpluses in the relatively favourable production
conditions which prevailed in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The dire condition
of Bihar's infrastructure is therefore not only linked to the absence
of a rich peasant led farmers movement of the type which was seen in
Haryana, Punjab or UP to demand its improvement. It also derives from
the fact that successive groups of dominant landowners have found it
more profitable to extract rental surpluses from poor and
landlesscultivators (whether through moneylending, markets in
agricultural machinery or the appropriation and reselling of scarce
agricultural inputs) and – for those who have the connections – to
engage in different levels of organised crime which are inextricably
linked to political parties and the state than to invest in
cultivation.
These forms of what
Das (1992) called "primitive accumulation" are made possible by
pervasive social and economic inequality. As I found during fieldwork
in central Bihar, even in the absence of productive investment in
agriculture, a very high rate of exploitation of labour ensured that
rich peasants continued to extract some surpluses. These surpluses
formed the initial capital which provided access to networks which
linked administrators, criminal gangs and the dominant political
parties [Wilson 2002]. Thus agrarian power provides not only the social
but the economic basis for entry into other, more lucrative, avenues of
accumulation. And this power is reinforced by the ubiquitous threat of
violence against anyone who challenges it.1
In this context,
perhaps we should not be surprised that neo-liberal writers and
policy-makers have explicitly posited so-called "machine reforms" as a
more "acceptable" alternative to thoroughgoing land reforms, which
would undermine one of the cornerstones of agrarian power [see for
example Shah 1999]. Even small-scale movements for land redistribution
(targeting ceiling surplus land or illegally occupied government land
for example) have been seen to strike at the roots of social as well as
economic authority, and as such, have not only generated intense
resistance from the powerful, but have been accompanied by challenges
to a plethora of related manifestations of inequality, including
exploitative labour relations, and the sexual abuse of dalit women
legitimised by ideologies of caste and gender. The oft-cited objection
that the potential of land redistribution for economic development is
limited due to demographic pressure on land ignores the fact that such
movements rarely aim at the creation of a multitude of tiny peasant
farms, but incorporate a variety of collective and cooperative
approaches to cultivation and resource management.
By contrast,
"machine reforms" are the equivalent of micro-enterprise, the favoured
neo-liberal model for "empowerment" of the poor, in that they focus on
individual improvement rather than collective transformation, and
effectively attempt to bypass demands for redistribution of resources.
And in practice, without a challenge to existing structures of power
and patterns of accumulation, any measures aimed at facilitating access
to technology for small and marginal cultivators are likely to go the
same way as earlier attempts, which largely failed due to their
appropriation by more powerful groups with connections with the local
administration.2
The World Bank and the 'Community'
For the World Bank,
however, Bihar's crisis is located primarily within the state itself
and even public sector infrastructural investment is not highlighted as
a priority [World Bank 2005]. Rather, the Bank's focus is on "reforms"
which further limit and constrain the role of the state.
Along with
decentralised administration, the World Bank lays considerable emphasis
on "involving communities" in the delivery of services such as
irrigation. The shifting of responsibility for services and
infrastructure to NGOs and the "community" has been another element of
the good governance agenda and has a number of well-documented
implications. In particular, it has allowed neo-liberals to portray
privatisation and the dismantling of public services as "empowering"
the community, while simultaneously extending NGO control over "civil
society".
Another key aspect,
however, is the fact that in the context of existing power
relationships, "community management" of resources can actually
reinforce inequalities within the "community". Let us look at one
"example of excellence" cited by the World Bank, the Paliganj
participatory irrigation management experience [World Bank 2005:88].
According to the World Bank, this "experiment" in Patna district – in
which since 1997 the Paliganj distributary canal farmers' committee has
collected water charges, retaining 70 per cent for operation and
management of the system – has led to "substantial improvements". An
increase in irrigated area, a decrease in the number of breaches and
obstructions in the canal, and an increase in yields are among those
mentioned [World Bank 2005:74].
One rather obliquely
expressed "unanswered question", however, relates to the "factors
determining the extent of co-operation between village members,
especially those differentiated socially and spatially across the
distribution system" (op cit:74). What does this imply in Paliganj,
where "social differentiation" and class contradictions are acutely
visible, and sustained struggles over wages, land and resources have
been taking place between large landowners and the mainly dalit
labourers and marginal cultivators? Where the Ranvir Sena, the heavily
armed criminal gang which emerged in 1994 with the avowed aim of
terrorising into submission those who challenged the economic power of
the dominant groups in central Bihar, and is responsible for a series
of brutal massacres of dalit and Muslim women, children and men, still
has a strong base among the dominant upper caste Bhumihar landowners?
This is a question which certainly needs to be answered before the
"Paliganj experiment" slips into the World Bank's stock of neo-liberal
"success stories".
A recent survey of
the catchment area of the Paliganj distributary canal [Sharma and Anil
2005] found that whereas "there were various provisions for the
accountability, transparency and representative character of the
committee" the reality was very different. Out of an 11-member
executive, four members own more than 24 acres of land each, in a
region where a holding of even 10 acres makes one a large landowner. Of
the 56-member distributary canal committee, 31 members belong to the
upper castes, 24 to the intermediate Yadav and Kushwaha castes, and
just one member is a dalit – while there are no women at all.
Cultivators all
along the length of the canal testified that there have been no
elections to the committees at any level, no regular meetings, and no
regular tax collection or proper accounts of collection. As far as the
increase in irrigated area is concerned, it was found that "the water
does not reach the lower-level villages when it is actually needed – as
a result, the rice cannot be harvested and wheat cannot be sown on
time. Instead, water reaches in October-November… resulting in
waterlogging of the fields" [Sharma and Anil 2005]. Interestingly, many
cultivators highlighted the fact that earlier they had often succeeded,
through agitation, in pressurising state officials into ensuring that
water reached their villages at the time it was needed. Now that the
canal is supposedly in the hands of "water users", they find themselves
too intimidated by the strongmen who surround Balmiki Sharma, the
powerful Bhumihar landowner who has been secretary of the committee
since its inception, to protest (op cit).
The survey also
revealed large-scale corruption, with vast sums being allocated to
contractors for field channel construction which was then carried out
so badly and using such poor materials that the channels collapsed or
remain useless. In just one example: "at Bhimani Chowk, Rs 3,65,000
have been allocated for pucca construction, despite the fact that the
canal here has lain non-functional for the last 10 years; the
contractor happens to be a close relative of Balmiki Sharma!" (op cit).
Marginalising Agricultural Labourers
While the World Bank
itself acknowledges that 40 per cent of Bihar households are primarily
dependent on agricultural wage labour for survival and that the rural
poor "are far more likely to be agricultural wage workers or casual
non-farm labourers, rather than cultivators or employed in a regular
non-farm job" [World Bank 2005:14], this group is strikingly absent
from the strategies being put forward for Bihar's development. This
amounts to ignoring the direct producers of a large proportion of the
state's food and other crops. It also attempts to marginalise the
experiences of those who, with little or nothing to fall back on, have
been left most vulnerable to the shocks of the global market.
In fact,
agricultural labourers – and indeed working people in general – find a
place in neo-liberal development models only as the woefully inadequate
"human resources" who must "choose" to make themselves more marketable
if they are to survive. Significantly, they do not appear at all in the
Bank's definition of the "people of Bihar" – "civil society," (for
which read NGOs) "businessmen, government officials, farmers and
politicians" [World Bank 2005:1]. For the exponents of "machine
reforms", meanwhile, agricultural labour is simply an input for
cultivation whose increased cost has made production less profitable.
In reality, small cultivators, who have been the hardest hit by the
rise in the prices of inputs, do not generally hire in labour on a
significant scale in Bihar, particularly when this is measured in net
terms.3 In fact, a large proportion of small and marginal
cultivators essentially subsidise cultivation with wages earned through
hiring out family labour (particularly women's labour) for agricultural
operations, along with various poorly-remunerated off-farm activities.
Thus the distinct – and often undifferentiated – group identified in
the neo-liberal literature as cultivators or "farmers" (and assumed to
have shared interests) is in reality not only extremely diverse but
includes both wage labourers and their employers within it.
The marginalisation
of those who survive primarily as waged agricultural workers within
dominant approaches to tackling Bihar's "impasse" has significant
political as well as economic implications. Currently, the struggles of
this section for wages, land, social dignity and democratic rights are
forming the core of a broader movement for social and economic
transformation, in which the demands of small cultivators – for
affordable inputs, roads, electricity and water – are also being
raised. In fact this movement, led by the CPI(ML), which is today the
strongest left force in the state, has been the only one to
systematically press these demands, alongside those relating to crime
and corruption.
During the last two
decades, this movement has also challenged effective disenfranchisement
of large sections of the working people. Ironically, while in many
areas the largely dalit rural poor have successfully resisted armed
attempts by the dominant landowners and their allies in the police and
administration to forcibly prevent them from casting their votes,
in the current assembly elections it is in the name of World
Bank-inspired "good governance" and transparency that the rural poor
of Bihar once again find themselves denied the vote, as they have been
removed en masse from voters lists on the pretext of ID verification.
Yet such measures, however damaging in the short-term, seem unlikely to
prevent the process of polarisation which is underway in Bihar –
between different sections of its working people on the one hand and
complex networks of powerful landowners, politicians, administrators
and criminal gangs on the other.
Evidently, this
process involves a struggle between two different types of solidarity.
First is that based on caste linkages and relations of dependence, with
the goal of maintaining the status quo. It is this which forms the
basis of the "community" as envisioned by the World Bank and
embodied, as we have seen, in the operation of the Paliganj
participatory irrigation management project. On the other hand there is
solidarity between mainly dalit agricultural labourers, small
cultivators of diverse caste backgrounds, and those sections of the
middle classes who are also excluded from – and terrorised by –
processes of accumulation through corruption and crime, with shared
goals of social and economic change. The growing political
consolidation of this latter alliance was reflected in the election of
a CPI(ML) MLA in, among other constituencies, Paliganj itself – in the
earlier round of assembly elections this year. Clearly, it is also an
alliance which must shape any genuine "development strategy" in Bihar.
1 See Chakravarti (2001: 286-93) for a discussion on this.
2 One example is the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) which was similarly "designed as if redistributive land reform and security of tenure had nothing to do with poverty alleviation" (D Bandhyopadhyay, unpublished manuscript, cited in Jannuzi, 1996:194). In Nalanda district, bank managers and middlemen in the block administration frequently charged poor households "commissions" of up to 50 per cent on IRDP loans [Wilson 1999:215].
3 While small cultivators' adoption of the "new" technology has increased their labour requirements during peak seasons, many of them exchange labour, particularly women's labour, with other similar households, rather than hiring in casual labour.
References
Chakravarti, Anand (2001): Social Power and Everyday Class Relations: Agrarian Transformation in North Bihar, Sage, New Delhi.
Das, Arvind (1992): The Republic of Bihar, Penguin, New Delhi.
Kishore, Avinash (2004): 'Understanding Agrarian Impasse in Bihar', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 39, No 31, July 31.
Jannuzi, F Tomasson (1996): India's Persistent Dilemma: The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform, Orient Longman, New Delhi.
Shah, Tushaar and Vishwa Ballabh (1997): 'Water Markets in North Bihar: Six Village Studies in Muzaffarpur District', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 32, No 52, December 27.
Shah, Tushaar (1999): 'Pump Irrigation and Equity: Machine – Reform and Agrarian Transformation in Water Abundant Eastern India', Policy School Working Paper No 6, The Policy School, Anand.
Sharma, Kamlesh and Anil Kumar (2005): 'World Bank's "Participatory Model": Investigation into the Paliganj Distributary Canal Farmers' Committee', Liberation, Central Organ of CPI(ML), Vol 11, No 6, October.
Wilson, Kalpana (1999): Production Relations and Patterns of Accumulation in the Context of a Stalled Transition: Agrarian Change in Contemporary Central Bihar, Unpublished PhD Thesis, SOAS, University of London.
– (2002): 'Small Cultivators in Bihar and "New" Technology – Choice or Compulsion', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 37, No 13, March 30-April 5.
World Bank (2005): Bihar: Towards a Development Strategy: A World Bank Report, World Bank.
Nitish Kumar convenes conference to understand
Muslims' problems
Patna | January 18, 2006 9:48:41 PM IST
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=223788&cat=India
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would inaugurate a
JD (U) sponsored ''Muslim Conference'' here tomorrow
with a view to 'understanding' problems of the
minority community and also find their solutions
through the government`s efforts. Mr Kumar is trying
to woo the Extermely Backward Castes (EBCs) and
Muslims since he assumed office as Chief Minister, and
had been holding discussions with the Muslim
intellectuals at regular intervals.
His intentions to touch the right chord with the EBCs
was clearly evident when he extended reservation
facilities to them in the elections to Panchayati
Institutions due in May next. Muslims who were also
extermely backward and at par with the EBC Hindu
castes in terms of social, educational, economic and
other parameters would also get the benefit of the
reservation facility.
Mr Kumar also actively participated in the Muslim
festivals and was seen closetted with the prominent
leaders of the community.
The Chief Minister`s gestures were not just confined
to rituals only but his government also decided to
issue a white paper on the Bhagalpur riot of 1989
which claimed lives of hundreds of Muslims.
The NDA was successful in cornering a sizeable vote of
Muslims in the last Assembly election and the present
exercise is to consolidate the position of the
alliance among them.
Pasmanda Muslim Mahaj president Ali Anwar claimed that
nearly 25 per cent Muslims of Bihar voted for the NDA
in the last Assembly election. He said Muslims
exercised their franchise in favour of the NDA as they
were convinced of the secular credentials of Mr Kumar.
He said the Nitish Kumar governmet had started taking
steps for the welfare of Muslims but a lot had to be
done for assuaging the 'ruffled' feelings of members
of the minority community, adding that perpetrators of
violence in the Bhagalpur riot had not been punished
so far while the victims, who mainly comprised
weavers, were also not rehabilitated by the previous
governments.
Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz was the single Muslim
organisation which associated itself with the NDA
while other organisations sided with either with the
RJD of Lalu Prasad or LJP of Ram Vilas Paswan in the
last assembly election.
UNI DH-BNG/KK VD HS1911
__________________________________________________
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Friends, It was indeed a good experience to be at the Sahyatri/NOBA/Bihar Chintan meeting at Rajendra Bhawan. On the draft proposal prepared by Sahyatri, I have a few comments:
1. In an interview recently, (posted on Bihar Chintan egroup), Nitish Kumar has said that the limit for sanction by the dept. head is to be increased to 10 crore. So, our demand is modest.
2. Govt. is planning to set up a Land Reform Commission. No body knows what would be the mandate of the commission. We can propose a set of issues or the agenda for the commission, hoping that it would be taken up by the govt. whenever the commission comes up.
3. The proposals look 'officer centric'-in the sense that the reforms only refer to the ways in which the working of the secretariat or officers can be improved or made hassle free. No doubt, these are needed. But with senior bureaucrats involved in the exercise, it would have been better if we included some proposals from the people's point of view. There are a huge number of bureaucratic hassles in bihar when one approaches an office for any work. Right to information is one way out which needs to be aggressively implemented but we should think of reforms which will make the people-bureaucracy interaction smoother, faster and more productive.
Rajesh
I personally appreciate your unstinted endeavour being made in reporting consequent upon the meeting dated jan 14, 2006.
Since NOBA is on an introductory note to Bihar Chintan & Sahyatri, it will take us some time to get acclimatized to the associates and members who are truly interested in well being of Bihar. It may be suggested that English to begin and then proceeding to getiing versed with Hindi fonts would be preferable.
For the present may it be mentionred that we focuss on "Mission 2007", details of which are available on the following web link taken through Google Search. If OK, you may invite attention of bring out to the notice of all friends.
Mission 2007- Every Village a Knowledge Centre... This is why we should make 'Mission
2007: Every Village Knowledge Centre' a success.” ... www.mission2007.org/ - 39k - Cached - Similar pages
vagish Jha <vagishkj@...> wrote:
I resent the report( which was in Hindi), draft proposal for administrative and financial reforms prepared by Sahyatri and the font (mfdev) to read the Hindi. Font can be added by going to control panel-Font and paste the mfdev font. Please let me know if you could see the report in Hindi or
not. Regards, Vagish K Jha
Thanks for your keeping me posted with the information. Some of the contents seem to be in hindi. Since i have not the particular hindi font, i am not able to read that portion. Kindly let me know the Name of Hindi Font so that i can download it and be able to read the hindi portion.
i am very shortly sending my views
Indiatimes Email now powered by APIC Advantage. Help!
Rebranding of Bihar Nitish must do this by forging coalition of extremes, building institutions
SHAIBAL GUPTA
Indian Express, Jan. 18,2006
On the face of it, Bihar continues to make news for the same reasons — another schoolboy was abducted even as an abducted businessman was reportedly freed on Tuesday. But take another look, and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already created a different wave within a short span of barely six weeks both in the provincial and national media. He is possibly the first chief minister of the state since Independence who is trying to build a 'brand' for Bihar.
It is interesting that not only the president of India, but even the country's prime minister belonging to a rival political formation, are showing keen interest in the development of Bihar. The national middle classes that make and break public opinion have also found an icon who could change Bihar. Nitish Kumar has become a national icon in spite of being engaged with a provincial agenda, that too of a state that is not a front rank sunrise state. All other national political icons have operated on the national spectrum with an all-India agenda. The achievement of Nitish Kumar is, thus, a spectacular one. Adulation for him reached its pinnacle in the recent Pravasi Bhartiya Sammelan in Hyderabad.
Now that 'brand Nitish' is trying to build 'brand Bihar', one wonders about the extent to which these two brands are independent, or synonymous. Brand Nitish was built over years, as he journeyed from being a socialist activist to a JP acolyte to an architect of the social justice renaissance, and finally an able administrator. Now, this substantive brand Nitish is in the business of building brand Bihar, as yet unsubstantive.
In fact, over the years, Bihar has emerged as a counter brand. Bihar is not only at the lowest level of development, it is also the crucible of all plebeian ideologies. It is not only the home of a million mutinies, but it is here that the most subaltern class, unrecognisable nationally, was in the seat of political power, albeit without the road map of governance. Nitish Kumar's task of converting this counter brand into a mainstream one is an extremely challenging one.
Even an established brand cannot hope to become permanent unless it continuously reinvents itself. A brand cannot be built entirely through propaganda; it also demands substantive content. In history, many brands have once shone, to be thrown away soon, unlamented. The political family brands like the Nehru-Gandhis have a more enduring image. Starting in the 1920s, brand Nehru has traversed a long journey from the folklore of privilege and opulence to Sonia Gandhi's grand refusal of primeministership. In between, its focus changed from state to market, on the one hand, and from unflinching commitment to democracy and secularism to benevolent autocracy and soft communalism on the other. Brand building and its constant updating is high on the agenda in an increasingly market centric economy.
The brand building of the state by Nitish Kumar, however, must keep to a provincial path. The core strength of the state has to be identified and promoted with full vigour. The Gujarat model cannot be replicated here. The hallmark of a state brand is now determined by the number of SEZs (Special Economic Zone) that have been created which act as the fulcrum of investment, both national and international.
It is erroneous to believe that brand Gujarat has been created by the personal predilections of the present chief minister. In fact, Gujarat was on the threshold of the industrial revolution even before the advent of the British. After the British came, while Gujarat escaped the plunder and extermination of artisans and traders, Bihar was subjected to a systematic de-industrialisation. Later, an open sea front, resources from its non-residents and, above all, Gujarati sub-nationalism created a unique industrial revolution. A similar process for Bihar did not materialise for several reasons, like the absence of authentic indigenous entrepreneurs or due to its landlocked location.
Even in the realm of institution building, another prerequisite of brand building, there has not been any significant effort, other than the contribution of Sir Ganesh Dutt. The first chief minister of the state, Srikrishna Sinha, contrary to the general impression, could not set the agenda of building a modern Bihar. Even if the fiction of Appelby is to be believed, the state was considered to be 'well governed' merely because it could keep in check the rising popular aspirations in the realm of policing. Benchmarking in the realm of development had not yet begun.
But when the development agenda was initiated, the chink in the armoury of good governance was revealed. By 1971, Bihar had sunk to the bottom of Indian states. This position remains unchanged though it has been governed by three sets of elites — traditional, vernacular or cockney — since Independence.
Where others have failed, Nitish Kumar must succeed. He must build the brand of Bihar not only for those who are above the threshold, but also for the rest who are outside the market structure. This would demand that he forge a 'coalition of extremes', a difficult task indeed.
At the national level, this was achieved by the Gandhi and Nehru during the struggle for independence. In Bihar, this agenda will also require the building of new institutions, strengthening of existing ones, and also crafting of sub-national cohesion. The strengthening as well as simultaneous dismantling of some part of the state has to be done with a vengeance. Only then can the market expand which in turn will ultimately link the state with the national and international industrial grid.
For this, brand Nitish will need further reinvention. He has to be the 'Nehru' of Bihar, not only by co-opting the marginal and the minorities but also by building provincial institutions which can give an authentic ring to brand Bihar. Nehru tried to build India through promoting industrialisation, quite often ignoring agriculture. Nitish cannot possibly do that; he must focus on agriculture. While brand Nehru was of immense help in building the nation immediately after Independence, brand Nitish can act as a catalytic agent for rebuilding the state.
The writer is member secretary, Asian Development Research Institute, Patna
The Centre has threatened to deduct the Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojna (SGRY) fund to Bihar during the current financial year due to failure of the state government to send utilisation certificates (UCs) and audited reports (ARs) against the fund released to it under the programme in the year 2003-04.
The deduction, amounting to over Rs 245 crore, is likely to be made at the time of the release of the second instalment for the current financial year.
Union joint secretary, rural development department, Amita Sharma, in a communication to state chief secretary G S Kang, had requested him to direct the district rural development authorities (DRDAs) concerned to submit requisite documents to the ministry along with their proposals for release of second instalment during 2005-06.
"We would consider them objectively so as to reduce the adverse impact on the state during the current financial year,"Sharma stated.
The Centre had released the second instalment for 2004-05 under the SGRY to Bihar as advance without considering the prerequisites like ARs and UCs.
According to Sharma's letter, deductions under the excess carryover head is likely to be to the tune of Rs 137.42 crore. However, Sharma said that the ministry might consider minimising the quantum of deductions under this head if the DRDAs concerned showed good performance in the implementation of the SGRY during the current financial year and spent at least 90 per cent of the funds available by the time proposal for the release of the second instalment was made.
Under the shortfall in the state's share head, the deductions are likely to be the tune of Rs 26.93 crore.
The Union rural development ministry has, however, suggested that the quantum of deductions under this head might be minimised to the extent the state government was able to restore and release the matching share to the DRDAs against the Central fund released during the financial year 2003-2004.
Under transport charges head, the deductions are likely to be to the tune of Rs 51.62 crore.
The quantum of deductions under this head might be minimised to the extent the state government meets transport costs and taxes to Food Corporation of India (FCI) paid from the Central releases made during the financial year 2003-2004 and thereby restoring the Central share.
Bihar paradox: worst schools, best kids National survey shows nearly 60% of kids can't read a paragraph
VARGHESE K GEORGE
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 17: At a time when top on the HRD Ministry's agenda is to stop IIM from going to Singapore comes a comprehensive national survey showing that nearly 60 per cent of the country's school children cannot read a paragraph with long sentences.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), prepared by Pratham, NGO, paints a dismal picture of educational infrastructure nationwide putting a huge question mark on the future of an entire generation.
The only silver lining is that students in Bihar and Chhattisgarh, which have the worst educational facilities, show better learning capabilities in reading and arithmetic compared to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat which have better infrastructure. Message: lack of infrastructure is crippling tomorrow's talent.
Covering 9,252 schools in 28 states and UTs, the survey has found that children of Bihar, more than 59 per cent in primary level, do not even have text books. Bihar is the worst on most parameters—only 51 per cent enrolled children attend schools and 13 per cent not enrolled at all.
And yet West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Bihar are among top five in reading and arithmetic categories. Still, it's one of the five states—with UP, Rajasthan, AP and Orissa—accounting for almost three-quarters of out-of-school children. In Bihar and UP, only 38 and 53 per cent schools are served mid-day meals compared to Chhattisgarh's 95 per cent and Kerala's 94 per cent. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, while releasing the report, said positive aspects must be capitalised on and better monitoring of government schemes was required to ensure betterment. Singh said that the high teacher presence in rural schools was positive. Contrary to popular perception, nearly 75 per cent teachers were present in the schools surveyed.
The most alarming scene was in reading and arithmetic skills of school children. Children were tested in reading paragraphs with short sentences and long sentences, subtraction and division. Of them, 34 per cent could not read even short sentences. Students in private schools were found to be relatively better than government school students. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, home to IT hubs, were among the bottom five in terms of arithmetic abilities: 76 per cent of Standard V students in Karnataka and 68 per cent in Tamil Nadu were unable to do simple division. "These states must seriously examine the way mathematics is taught in schools," the report suggested.
These IT hubs are in the company of Orissa (69%), UP (68%) and MP (62%). Kerala tops in terms of reading capability whereas West Bengal tops in arithmetic. Kerala finds place in only reading and Haryana in arithmetic.
I resent the report( which was in Hindi), draft proposal for administrative and financial reforms prepared by Sahyatri and the font (mfdev) to read the Hindi. Font can be added by going to control panel-Font and paste the mfdev font.
Please let me know if you could see the report in Hindi or not. Regards, Vagish K Jha
Thanks for your keeping me posted with the information. Some of the contents seem to be in hindi. Since i have not the particular hindi font, i am not able to read that portion. Kindly let me know the Name of Hindi Font so that i can download it and be able to read the hindi portion.
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Sending the full article for the group. It is not too long. Rajesh` I`ll set Bihar all right`
DINNER WITH BS: Nitish Kumar
Aditi Phadnis / New Delhi January 17, 2006
Nitish Kumar
The new chief minister on his plans for the state
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's New Year started on a dismal
note. On December 31, one of the star winners of the Janata Dal (U)-BJP
alliance in the Assembly elections, Navin Chandra Sinha, died of a
heart attack. In his 50s, Sinha had won from Patna and had the highest
margin among all the MLAs in the Assembly. As a sitting MLA, he was
entitled to a state funeral. Kumar ordered that all the arrangements be
made, including a five-gun salute.
Picture the scene. Sinha's relatives were sobbing. His
supporters stood grimly as the body lay in state, awaiting the salute.
Five guns were required to fire in the air. The first round went off
perfectly. But in the second round, three rifles jammed and merely
responded with an empty "click" when fired. Policemen scurried to get
rifles that would work. In the third and fourth round, only two rifles
fired. In the fifth round, all the rifles jammed so bystanders saw,
rather than heard, the rifles firing. "I felt so terrible. Many in the
crowd of mourners were laughing at the spectacle," said Kumar
recounting the event. This was only one of the stories we heard about
Bihar over dinner, writes Business Standard.
Dinner was at a common friend's home. Our host's wife, who
belongs to eastern UP, had insisted the cuisine would be Banarasi. So
accordingly, there was methi-aalu (fenugreek greens cooked with young
potato) bathue ki puri (tiny puris kneaded with a kind of green only
available a few months in the year), peas and potato curry, arhar daal
and a fiery coriander chatni redolent with garlic. Also on offer was
fragrant aged rice (new rice, as Kumar explained to us, is merely
starch. The older the rice, the more nutritive and fragrant it is).
Kumar was animated and keen to share his dreams for Bihar. His
first priority, he said was to smash the kidnapping industry. Just the
previous week, an industrialist had been hustled into an Ambassador car
and had vanished and despite extensive combing, the police had not
really got any clues. "They will find him," said Kumar, sounding more
reassuring, than I suspect, he felt. Police reforms top his to-do list.
Recruitment for police, frozen for years, is to begin.
But it is on economic reform that Kumar is most bullish. Very
quietly, work has already begun to straighten finances of the state
government. "The biggest problem in Bihar is: I find no one takes any
decision," he said. For instance, to spend anything above Rs 25 lakh, a
department has to get the decision passed by Cabinet. Kumar has raised
this to Rs 10 crore. He said his government would present a full budget
that would be passed before March 31. The government will introduce a
Fiscal Responsibility Act.
"I want money," he declared as the first batch of sizzling
puris was brought. "I am ready to give anyone any concession so long as
they fill my treasury." Transporters, for instance, had been getting
their vehicles registered in neighbouring Jharkhand because the levels
of taxation were much higher in Bihar. Kumar has announced a clutch of
incentives for them. Had some feasibility study or revenue assessments
been made to justify the incentives? "True, initially there will be a
revenue loss, but at least those who've gone out of Bihar will return
to do business here," he said, attacking his food with a gusto. Kumar
intends to raise the excise revenue from Rs 300 crore to Rs 1,000
crore, mostly by addressing pilferage.
We talked about the power sector. Just the previous day, state
electricity board employees had gone on strike protesting unbundling of
the power sector. "I haven't said anything to them but they should
understand. Transmission and distribution losses in Bihar are 60 per
cent. The state electricity board has 16,000 employees. If they want
to, they can return to work. Otherwise, frankly, Bihar can manage
without them," he said, with complete detachment. Plans are afoot to
augment power availability in the state by setting up a hydel power
project in Kaimur that will produce over 2,500 MW power. If that
happens, Bihar, currently a net buyer of power, will be in a position
to sell power to the eastern grid.
Bihar's economy works on subcontracting: a village teacher
"sells" the job to a substitute and they share the salary. The result
is, no one is obligated to actually teach. Kumar has a solution.
Through an act, he is going to create Vidyalaya Shiksha Samitis in
every Panchayat. These will have panchayat representatives and the
children's guardians, preferably their mother. "This hasn't been tried
anywhere, but I will do it in the Budget session. There is no better
social reformer than a mother. Let these committees be set up. Then let
me see how a teacher doesn't come to school...."
This reminded Kumar of his own mother. "She is such a guppie
[talkative] person," he said fondly. "My father was an ayurvedic
doctor. He went to jail in the 1942 movement. Our home was the centre
of Congress activism. That's where I learnt about life's values. But I
was influenced by Lohiaji so I became a socialist."
Land redistribution is central to the contradictions in Bihar.
"We are setting up a land reforms commission. There is no consolidation
and entire families have been ruined trying to pay bribes equivalent to
the value of the land to prevent losing it. Bhudan land has been
encroached upon. I am going to set it all right," he said with quiet
determination.
In the midst of all these projects is the absence of any
worthwhile chief minister's secretariat. "When I walked into my office,
all I found was some old Remington typewriters and moth-eaten paper.
There was no carbon paper so I wrote my first order by hand and copied
it out by hand. I have asked my office to be computerised. Then you
will see the results," he said.
By now it was midnight. Kumar showed no sign of getting up.
Some cups of steaming tea were brought to help us stay awake.
Reluctantly, we had call the dinner to a close, Kumar's words ringing
in my ear: "I will make policy. And everyone should remember: I will
never do anything under pressure."
quoted from the siad article, which may read through the above web link
Bihar's economy works on subcontracting: a village
teacher "sells" the job to a substitute and they share the salary. The result is, no one is obligated to actually teach. Kumar has a solution. Through an act, he is going to create Vidyalaya Shiksha Samitis in every Panchayat. These will have panchayat representatives and the children's guardians, preferably their mother. "This hasn't been tried anywhere, but I will do it in the Budget session. There is no better social reformer than a mother. Let these committees be set up. Then let me see how a teacher doesn't come to school...."
Thanks for your keeping me posted with the information. Some of the contents seem to be in hindi. Since i have not the particular hindi font, i am not able to read that portion. Kindly let me know the Name of Hindi Font so that i can download it and be able to read the hindi portion.
i am very shortly sending my views
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Hi,
To cope up with the Law and Order situation in Bihar,
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is said to be seriously
considering bringing in the nation's top cop Kiran
Bedi to replace Ashish Ranjan Sinha as state's new
Director General of Police (DGP), reports said.
You may read more at
http://www.bhojpuria.com/samachar/news.php?a=260
Even I feel like, the same Police Team made fair
elections, we just need a leader to boost up their
moral. Post your views on the news/at this group.
Sudhir Kumar
http://www.bhojpuria.com
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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quoted from the siad article, which may read through the above web link
Bihar’s economy works on subcontracting: a village
teacher “sells” the job to a substitute and they share the salary. The result is, no one is obligated to actually teach. Kumar has a solution. Through an act, he is going to create Vidyalaya Shiksha Samitis in every Panchayat. These will have panchayat representatives and the children’s guardians, preferably their mother. “This hasn’t been tried anywhere, but I will do it in the Budget session. There is no better social reformer than a mother. Let these committees be set up. Then let me see how a teacher doesn’t come to school....”
Rise in Bihar polio cases worrying health officials
Patna: Health officials in Bihar are worried over the state
recording
the highest number of polio cases in the country and have launched a
drive in 10 districts to give polio immunisation drops to children
under five years age.
National
Cadet Corps volunteers embarked on a cycle expedition Sunday that will
cover 600 km in a week covering 10 districts, including Vaishali,
Nawada, Gaya and Nalanda. Over 20 million children under five years
will be given the polio drops.
Of the 64 cases of polio in India in 2005, the highest - 29 - were from Bihar, followed by
Uttar Pradesh with 28 cases. Gujarat, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand recorded only a few cases.
On Sunday, millions of children under five years were given polio drops in a nationwide immunisation programme.
Senior health officials of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World
Health Organisation (WHO), which along with the central government launched the polio
vaccination programme in 1995 in the country, are worried at the rise in polio cases.
They
said that millions of rupees had been spent in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
in the vaccination, but eradication of the disease was far away due to
non- cooperation of a section of the people. They said regular reported
cases of polio in rural areas among children who had been administered
the drops was also worrying.
"Fresh cases of polio in the state
has become a stumbling block in polio eradication in India," a senior
UNICEF official said here.
According to state health department
sources, most of the polio cases were being detected in Araria,
Bhagalpur, Purnea, Siwan, East Champaran, Madhepura and Sitamarhi
districts.
Last year, Health and Family Welfare Minister
Anbumani Ramadoss had stated that India could save at least Rs.10
billion in health expenditure if Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were rid of
polio.
Over 40 pulse polio immunization rounds have been conducted in Bihar since December 1995.
A bunch of recent films explore the socio-political reality of Bihar, a
State by and large ignored by mainstream Hindi cinema.
From Prakash Jha's Mrityudand, featuring Ayub Khan and Madhuri
Dixit.
BIHAR is all too often associated with
lawlessness and corruption, and `badland' has become a cliche to
describe this State. The latest scam to hit the already bloodied
reputation of Bihar is the Comptroller and Auditor-General's report
indicting legislators of siphoning off public money in the name of
travel, for journeys that did not happen, to line their own pockets.
For many outside looking on with an air of
unjustified superiority, Bihar symbolises a state of mind that has no
use for the usual discreet veneer of democracy that hides the shocking
ugliness of corruption in other parts of the country. Bihar is equated
with a brazen betrayal of hope for a suffering population and
`Corruption Unlimited' is the brand name of its ruling class. It is no
wonder that Bollywood's glitzy cinema has ignored, if not completely
avoided, this benighted State as a setting for its stories and, now,
even as a viable market for its savvy products. The exceptions are so
few that we can count them on the fingers of one hand. Uttar Pradesh
has been the preferred terrain, be it for the rural melodramas, tales
of evil Thakurs exploiting poor peasants, or the nawabi ambience of silk-draped mansions, courtly wooing and the pathetic plight of the tawaif (dancing girl).
I will argue that Bimal Roy's neo-realistic classic Do Bigha Zameen
(Two Acres of Land) describes the tragedy of the peasant forced to
migrate to Kolkata from his patch of land in Bihar. Roy did not specify
the locale through dialect or dress in the age of black and white, but
logically, the farmer who becomes a Kolkata rickshaw-puller would be
from neighbouring Bihar. That film belongs to Hindi cinema's golden
age, before the derogatory term `Bollywood' was coined, with all that
it connotes. But now, the term and the associated state of mind, its
aesthetics and politics, has been accepted; it is now an entry in the
Oxford dictionary.
Contemporary Bihar is very much under public scrutiny. The recent elections, the end of Lalu Prasad's long rule and Apaharan,
Prakash Jha's hard-hitting finale to his intermittently made trilogy,
have all gone to bring Bihar into sharper focus. Lalu Prasad was not
just fodder for great journalistic copy and spicy sound bites. A
fascinated Bollywood flirted with his theatrics - Mahesh Bhatt and his
daughter Pooja Bhatt were his great fans - and Govinda has done
marvellous takeoffs of typical Lalu-isms. But all these were merely fun
and games, part of mutual back-scratching under media glare. The
so-called political films had an honest hero (either a cop or a
vigilante) taking on the unequal fight against the usual suspects -
corrupt politicians in cahoots with criminals and a dishonest police
force. Such films took care not to specify the place if they were set
in a generic small town, when they wearied of the
mafia-police-politician nexus of Bombay (now Mumbai). No big film-maker
was interested in exploring Bihar's notorious mix of criminalised
politics and caste-driven elections.
Two Hindi films, one fairly recent and the
other a few years old, had more than passing references to Bihar and
its history of violence. Sudhir Mishra's Hazaron Khwaishe Aisi
has a complex narrative that entwines the lives of its three
protagonists during the turbulent pre- and post-Emergency times. The
pragmatic wheeler-dealer stays put in Delhi cultivating his contacts,
while his two closest friends - the idealist in love with revolution
and his college mate who is in love with him - end up in Bihar's
killing fields, running from the cops. They have taken up the gun, to
fight alongside the Maoists, against the repressive state machinery and
private armies of threatened landlords.
Mishra's objective is to integrate political
convictions into the emotional lives of his characters and interpret
the battle of ideologies through the course their lives take. Bihar was
the initial laboratory of Jayaprakash Narayan's movement for people's
empowerment and the Bihar we see in the film is heir to this radical
aspiration taking the path of militant confrontation. Bihar is both
peripheral, in terms of filmic time and space afforded by the
narrative, and central to the ideological subtext. As Mishra said so
eloquently about his film, it is his homage to the generation of his
older brothers, to what political conviction meant to them - a legacy
devalued and discarded by the younger siblings of that heroically lost
generation.
Out of Ram Gopal Varma's factory came Shool,
a visceral shocker in 1999, nicely poised on the cusp of the coming
millennium to pierce awake the conscience of an apathetic society with
the sharpness of a well-aimed spear. Here was an acolyte who had learnt
his lessons well - both from his mentor Ram Gopal Varma and from the
other landmark films in his chosen genre. E. Nivas, all of 23 at that
time, brought the raw passion of a first-time film-maker without many
of the flaws of a first film - an achievement in cliche-ridden
commercial cinema. That does not mean the film did not suffer under the
long shadows cast by the seminal Ardh Satya and even the shock
tactics of other "political" films churned out by Bollywood. But Nivas
found a voice that was distinctly his. The script was tight, eminently
plausible - except for the climax - and localised with a particularity
rare for mainstream films.
Nivas set his hard-hitting story in a small
Bihar town. If Bihar is a byword for lawlessness, this total disregard
for law and its enforcers is represented at its worst in a small town
cowering under the heel of the local politician to whom murder and
mayhem are a routine part of life. Even the police, from the Deputy
Superintendent of Police down to the beat constable, are in the pay of
Bachu Yadav (Sayaji Shinde), who has been a Member of the Legislative
Assembly for 15 years. Into this den of iniquity walks the upright,
uptight, short-tempered Inspector Samar Pratap Singh (Manoj Bajpai in a
towering performance where rage and sensitivity are finely balanced)
with wife Manjari (a deglamourised Raveena Tandon) and little daughter
Sonu. The confrontation between the law upholder and the maniacal
law-breaker unfolds like a series of well-placed time bombs, taking the
lives of the innocent and the guilty alike. Inspector Singh has his
dark side, a pigheadedness that his family puts up with. That is why
his small rages are as full of impact as the big explosions. His
sincerity is transparent but so is his self-righteousness that makes
him a difficult person. This makes Inspector Samar Pratap Singh the
rightful heir to Velinkar of Ardh Satya.
Films of this genre need a larger-than-life
villain. Sayaji Shinde's Bachu Yadav is a fine blend of the eccentric
and the wicked, a totally believable small-time local politician who
will not be thwarted in his pursuit of big-time ambition. Bachu Yadav
is engaging in a strange fashion. The setting is enhanced by the Bihari
patois and idiom, best exemplified by the prodigiously talented Bajpai.
Shool
stabs and twists the knife which has pierced through our apathetic
skin, finely balanced between understatement and dramatic flourish.
Instead of the predictable climax when the hero - pushed beyond all
endurance - holds his nemesis by the gun and makes a speech to the
captive legislators in Patna, if Nivas had opted for a muted ending, Shool would be in a class of its own - at the top.
From Sudhir Mishra's Hazaron Khwaishe Aisi.
It is Prakash Jha who emerges as the critical
chronicler of Bihar, with an insider's intimate knowledge and the
despairing rage of a commentator who can see the terrible history of
his State with surprising objectivity. At the height of the parallel
cinema movement, Jha set out to depict the horror of bonded labour in
his native land with commendable commitment. Damul
went on to win prizes but was hardly seen by people. Jha plunged into
the class and caste he knows intimately: the powerful Brahmin landlord
Madho who thwarts the efforts of the local politician Bachcha Singh to
set up a Dalit candidate against him. With the help of his brother
Radho, Madho prevents the Dalits from voting, using one of them to
bring a cache of illegal arms from a neighbouring district. Fearing
betrayal, the rapacious duo kills the Dalit and pins down his son into
a never-ending cycle of repaying a fictitious loan. This hapless young
man is made to steal cattle, and a sum of Rs.50 is debited from the
loan for every head of cattle. He and another like him become bonded
labourers for life. Bachcha Singh, a backward caste leader, tries to
incite the Dalits to leave for Punjab in search of better jobs and
wages, playing his own electoral waiting game.
Into this murky picture returns Mahatmayee
(Dipti Naval), a youngish widow whose land is nominally looked after by
Madho. This Brahmin woman threatens to unmask her caste peers and
ultimately becomes a victim of rape and murder. The Dalit young man is
framed for the crime committed by Madho's men. The final horror is the
slaughter of fleeing Dalits by Madho's men. Now unfolds the enmeshed
labyrinth of new political alliances where, misled by Bachcha Singh,
Dalits give conflicting answers to the police. Jha opts for the
symbolic act of revenge by a pregnant, knife-wielding Dalit widow. This
pattern - a large cast of characters, their complex relationships,
caste rivalries and scheming alliances, all culminating in a cathartic
act of despairing violence - has been honed over the next three films,
to reach its apogee in Apaharan.
Mrityudand (Death Sentence), the first of his new trilogy, has a
strong feminist thrust, powered by Madhuri Dixit's star charisma and
Shabana Azmi's thespian brilliance that shines all the more luminously
for being so perfectly muted.
Film festivals like Britain's Bite the Mango, aimed at showcasing South Asian cinema, lauded Mrityudand
as "a virtual Molotov cocktail, exploding with the concerns of the 90s
India". Jha shifts the action into the shadowed inner chambers of a
landowning family and builds up the bonding between sisters-in-law
against male tyranny. Madhuri Dixit is the educated young bride who has
imbibed the values of fighting for justice and her own rights. Her
husband is the youngest son (Ayub Khan), nursing ambitions of entering
the lumber contract business with the help of the oily local politician
and the wily government contractor. She is wary of the personal agendas
of these new business associates because her husband turns from an
amiable wimp into a violently abusive man.
Shabana Azmi, the elder bahu, has been branded barren by her impotent husband Mohan Agashe. A combination of motives makes him turn a sanyasi.
He trades temporal power for spiritual power when he replaces the
mysteriously slain head of the local mutt. Jha exposes the mutually
beneficial alliance between Hindu priests, politicians and contractors.
All through the upheavals of fortune, Om Puri bails out this household,
lending them money. Jha has an acute ear for the nuances of social
hierarchy. Om Puri, a shrewd businessman, represents the rise of the
middle castes. The rejected `barren' wife is warmed into an affair by
this social "inferior" and she becomes pregnant, to the outrage of the
village. She comes into her own at last, with Madhuri's steadfast
support. With a quiet but emphatic assertion of self, Shabana claims
the baby in her womb as "hers". A couple of scenes are all that Azmi
requires to brand her presence on a narrative rather crowded with
cliches. To complete the triad of female power, there is a maid-servant
who turns to prostitution to pay off her husband's debts. When the
village pronounces death sentence on the adulterous lovers, Madhuri
leads the charge against the accusers. Mrityudand ends with a powerful replay of Mirch Masala's
iconic climax. Incidentally, this film is a favourite of Shabana Azmi
and she insisted on including it in a `retro' of her films a couple of
years ago in New York.
Gangajal confronts us with a moral dilemma. Jha has based the
film on the infamous Bhagalpur blindings case. An upright
Superintendent of Police, played by Ajay Devgun, is determined to end
the goonda raj of the local politico-cum-businessman Sadhu
Yadav. He knows that the entire department, from the DIG to the
constable, is controlled by Sadhu and his son Sundar Yadav. Jha has a
fine control over the elaborate screenplay with its huge cast of
characters. The dilemma of the honest cop who has been corrupted is
brought out with dramatic finesse when Devgun gives the errant
subordinate Mukesh Tiwari a second chance to redeem himself. The
convoluted plot is unravelled with dramatic vigour. Jha brings out the
frustration of a police force that is repeatedly thwarted by Sadhu
Yadav's terror tactics so that when the police blind the criminals in
their custody, the tone of the subtext is approving. The expected
lip-service to human rights violation is rather perfunctory. When
Devgun accepts moral responsibility for what his men have done, the
local population makes him their leader and yet insists that what the
police did is right. Devgun's final exhortation that taking the law
into your own hands can lead to fascism and the end of democracy is
delivered with conviction, it is true. The element of ambiguity when
depicting the "valid" reasons for police brutality is troubling because
it remains at a conveniently rhetorical level, pale compared to the
earlier passion and rage of the narrative.
There are no such troubling half measures in Apaharan,
the most accomplished film of this trilogy. Jha now examines the
prevalence of and the reasons and justification for another peculiarly
Bihari industry: kidnapping for ransom. With utmost skill, Jha shows
how Ajay Shastri, a jobless young man who is obsessed with entering the
police force, is gradually sucked into the kidnapping `business'. Ajay
has cleared his examination and his name initially appeared in the
first list; since he does not belong to the "right" caste and cannot
bribe, he carries out a botched kidnapping of a petty bureaucrat.
Ajay's father is a righteous and much-respected professor dedicated to
exposing the veniality and corruption of the administration with
Gandhian zeal. The most poignant part of Apaharan is the father-son relationship, with strong echoes of Shakti,
the vintage classic that best explores father-son conflict in popular
Hindi cinema. It is the threat of the moneylenders to kill his father
that makes Ajay take the kidnapping route - a one-time operation, he
and his friends innocently assume. But the father's obduracy in the
name of idealism, and rejection of any sort of compromise, questions
the ambiguous nature of fatherhood where a principled pursuit of a
larger cause takes place at the cost of the son's identity and
existence.
There is, therefore, an element of surrogate
fatherhood in Ajay's relationship with the man he chooses to serve.
Tabrez Alam (a restrained Nana Patekar) is the uncrowned king of the
area. His men have the monopoly over the abduction mafia and his
assistant - in-chief runs the operation while ensconced in luxury at
the local jail. Tabrez is a Member of the Legislative Assembly who
controls a bloc of legislators propping up the coalition in power. He
is adept at playing the minority card and wields lethal power but he
never rants or raves. Patekar oozes a soft menace that can turn brutal
in the wink of an eye. Jha makes no bones about the fact that this
character is based on the Rashtriya Janata Dal legislator Mohammad
Shahabuddin who was finally nabbed after defying the machinery of the
entire State. Jha, in fact, stood for election (he lost) and campaigned
for the comparatively clean image of Nitish Kumar. To allay the charge
of anti-Muslim bias, Jha creates the powerful character of Inspector
Anwar Khan (the searingly sincere Mukesh Tiwari), the only honest
officer in sight. He is passionate about proving his honesty and
incorruptibility, to overcome the unvoiced but persistent suspicion
that dogs a Muslim in modern India.
Unlike Gangajal, Apaharan's
denouement is emotionally stirring and dramatically convincing. The
political scenario is authentic. The bleak future of the educated
unemployed caught in this miasma of corruption and caste patronage is
the question Prakash Jha presents so purposefully. Jha's constituency
is the middle class, driven to despair by its own impotency in a State
controlled by the political mafia. There are no easy answers. It is
perhaps enough to pose the questions.
Friends, Since the attachment in the last mail did not open properly and did not reach some of the friends I am attaching it once again. The attachment contains the report of the meeting, proposal for Administrative and Financial reform in Bihar and the Hindi font to see the report.
Sorry for resending it. Vagish K Jha
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