There is development in Bihar, but the various Government welfare doles appear to have sapped the enthusiasm of many sections of the population to engage in creative or productive work. The State must not let benefits become an obstacle to growth
A month-and-half at my native village in north Bihar recently has been a revealing experience in the working of democracy in rural India. On arrival, sleek roads and long lines of girls cycling to schools were reassuring. Subsequently, I heard of numerous official projects of public welfare. But by the time I left, I was puzzled and dismayed to face the realities.
Development paradox: Development is the official refrain about Bihar’s sushashan (good governance), probably no more. At the village level, schools are the sites of heightened activities. Funds are pouring in; cycles have been distributed among girls, so have been school uniforms. This has had a welcome result. However, it is the mid-day meal that draws attention, as a host of people other than students clamour for it.
The school staff is continuously busy keeping accounts, reporting it to the higher authorities, and dealing with the spoil-seekers. In the process, the prime work of the schools — to teach — has become secondary. Schools have turned into charity homes, providing food, clothing and money to society. Public involvement in the management of the schools in the name of democratic participation has added to their woes.
Thanks to films and television, the teens have graduated to all the antics of adults in Bollywood thrillers. Scores of them hang around the schools and make the latter’s working difficult. Many other welfare programmes run through Government agencies and the village panchayat. They are entrenched with vested interests, and public money is being pilfered in numerous ways. Of course, this has injected an unearned material growth in society, but the exclusion of upper castes from many of these facilities is a cause of grievance.
These State aids have created subsidised living, wherein people do not feel the need to work for a living. And the time and energy thus saved is spent on squandering, idling about and vices like gambling. After the otherwise socially welcome restrictions on alcohol, the addicts have taken to spurious liquor and ganja (cannabis). There is a marked increase in the number of vagrants, and mentally unstable people in the villages. Sitting at my residence, I counted at least six mentally deranged persons and scores of others with perceptible psychiatric conditions.
Money earned from the Gulf countries and the cities within India has created a curious scene of development. Well-built houses have sprung up in most villages. Many of those who were hand-to-mouth a few years ago, now possess cars (essentially as status symbol) and their children roar on motorcycles to the market places dotting most villages. Unconcerned with studies and career, they loaf around and indulge in harmful activities.
Thus, public or private, huge volumes of resources are being wasted on non-productive items, and traditional productive activities in the villages have almost ceased. The remnants of a self-sufficient village economy have vanished forever. Agriculture is in extremely bad shape and the major part of cultivable land is lying barren. The Gandak Canal, part of the ambitious Multipurpose River Valley Project launched after independence, is defunct. Various Government agencies are unmindful of these developments.
The deepening rot: The hardware of power politics, the election, is manoeuvred with many softwares at the village level — caste, communal sentiments, money, liquor, and prospects of lucrative assignments in or out of the government. The elections under Panchayati Raj are prized stakes for the corrupt. The society was never so divided on the caste and communal lines. These divisions have been sharpened by official legitimisation as Backward and Forward, Other Backward Classes (OBC), and Scheduled Castes, and minorities. The façades of Dalit and non-Dalit are variously pitted by the players of power game, whereas a sense of division and rivalry is also perceptible within the 'reserved' castes themselves.
The entire official policy is based on caste reckoning; even in the apparently secular official measures like bureaucratic appointments, caste counts. Political activists are aggressively pursuing caste politics. It has dented the sanctity of democracy and eroded the traditionally built communitarian feeling and harmony.
This has created a minority group of upper castes officially deprived of many Goverment aids and subsidies, even if many of them deserve it economically. Besides, they are victims of aggressive Dalit politics, often used as an imagined bogy to consolidate Dalit vote. As a result, upper castes are emerging like a religious minority. Bihar has already had upper caste militia like Ranveer Sena and Kunwar Sena; in the pursuit of survival, more such outfits may emerge to vitiate the situation.
Ironically, the privileged position of the reserved categories in education and employment is associating them, in public perception, with skill deficiency and incompetence. So, those really capable from among them desire to get out of this tag. The politics of vote and the politicised caste fraternity are the obstacles, however.
In such circumstances, vested interests do have freewheeling. A sizable class of intermediaries (dalals) has evolved from amongst the unemployed, social activists, and the bureaucracy. Dalali is a socially accepted career. In order to pilfer state resources, an elaborate system has evolved. It is well oiled and pervasive. The village dalal is at the bottom and others roost at various levels up. It is difficult for an upright person to break off it.
This does not mean that the honest and the sincere have gone dodo. A minuscule of them is there; but those ones are marginalised under stifling pressure. While there are still Kishore Kunals and CK Anils at the highest levels of bureaucracy in Bihar; at the lowest level, the local BDO, Shree Niwas, is trying his best to deliver good to the masses. likewise, a small hotelier in my village is selling a plate of boiled rice with a piece of chicken with curry at just Rs 15, a boon for the poor. Otherwise, people in general are indifferent to anything beyond their personal interests, and are afraid of speaking against wrongdoers.
Misuse of the newly created civic amenities is a serious problem. Well-built roads serve as fodder storage and home for domestic animals. I found a family using it as a drawing room, forcing the commuters take a bypass route! The response to my objection: “We would move away whenever needed.”
Democratic freedom and equality have been taken ingeniously: Pig keepers assert by walking their herd on the main roads. laden with mud and excreta, the animals spoil the roads and often stray into private homes. Angry sufferers do not retaliate, as the keepers belong to a reserved caste protected under law. likewise, every morning, I see half a dozen youngsters riding on motorcycles to defecate in the open fields. A dozen others are busy in the same pursuit around a fishpond, with the luxury of music plugged into their ears. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachch Bharat Abhiyan is yet to reach here!
Society is adrift in chaos and a deep cultural decay. A phony modernisation has played havoc. life made easier with unscrupulous money, state subsidies and better civic amenities, the average adult is given to non-productive life. The youth is more concerned about an easy life than a respectable career. The head of the Bihar School Examination Board has recently authenticated the abysmal condition of education in the State!
Need for cultural awakening: Instigation of communal and caste sentiments as decoy for vote and efforts at meaningful social progress cannot go together. The politics of divide and rule must end. The initiative can come not from the masses but from the political leadership. But there is hardly any who is worth taking up the role.
(The writer is former Associate Professor of History, University of Delhi)