The entire Bihar administration is busy facilitating the longest human chain on next Sunday across the State which is being organised to involve public against child marriage and dowry. last year too on January 21, the Government had managed a human chain in support of the total prohibitionof liquor, which was attended by nearly four crore people, the event has been recorded by the limca Book of World Records.
However, in view of the “forcible” participation of the school children in 2017 human chain in which some children fainted and fell sick, the Patna High Court Bench headed by Chief Justice Rajendra Menon ordered that children should not be forced to participatate and the consent of their parents was must. The Government took a U-turn in the court and said the school children would not be forced nor it would be mandatory for the teachers. Only a week back the Education department, the nodal agency for the human chain event, had issued directive to all the Government schools making it mandatory for the participation of teachers and children of classes above 5.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is touring the State in the name of yatra to review the ongoing projects, is calling the people to join hands and break the record of the previous human chain and weed out the traditional ills plaguing the society.
Government school teachers and students were the soft target to be brought and form the human chain last year. But with the judicial instruction on participation of schoolchildren, the strength of the chain is likely to be low.
Furthermore, the Opposition RJD and Congress have refused to take part in this human chain which they allege is being arranged for the image building of Nitish. last time when human chain was formed, to support total prohibition, Nitish being in Mahagathbandhan, the then Opposition party BJP still participated in it. “We were than in Opposition still the leaders and workers of BJP took part in human chain since it was for a social cause,” said Modi.
Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi appealed to the RJD and Congress to join the human chain rising above party affiliation as it was against social ills. But the RJD declined to take part. Its vice president Shivanand Tiwary said, “Why should we be a part of campaign for image building of Nitish and his deputy Modi. Such exercises are big burden on human exchequer.”
He said the Government had not taken opposition parties in confidence before chalking out this programme. Congress, an ally of RJD, also refused to join the chain on Sunday.
In his campaign to fight out the social evils like boozing, child marriage and dowry, Nitish received moral support from Nobel laureate The Dalai lama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Emboldened on the success of the last year’s human chain Nitish has issued a general appeal to the common people exhorting them to take part in this event and become active participant in the rebuilding of Bihar. He appealed,“Sab mil manav shrankhla banyen; nasha, bal vivah aur dahej pratha ko door bhagayen.” He also thanked them for the positive social changes taking place in Bihar.
Child marriage and dowry and dowry related violence and murder is very common and deep rooted in Bihar and putting a brake on such age old practices might be a Herculean task. The number of dowry deaths in State was 859 in 2001 which shot up to 1154 in 2015. Altogether 17,257 dowry deaths were registered in Bihar between 2000 and 2015. As far as child marriage is concerned over 39 percent of girls under 14 were married as per National Family Health Survey.