Can Bihar be developed?

Bihar today is synonymous with crime. People fear traveling to this part of India because they have been continuously hearing about crimes. Laloo Prasad Yadav, Shadhu Yadav, Pappu Yadav to name a few have become a household name. These politicians represent Bihar today (am I talking about hell). So, I ask who will dare to travel or invest in this place where criminals rule. Was Bihar like this since it inception? No. Let me share some facts with my readers which will throw some lights on why Bihar is so backward. Can Bihar be developed again? Did I say developed again? Yes, Bihar was a developed state centuries ago. So, what happened which turned the table around.

Bihar was once the seat of the greatest university of the world. The university was at Nalanda where the proposed new university is being developed. This is the place where the concept of republic was conceptualized and concreted (Lichvi dynasty in Vaishali district adopted the world’s first republic government). Great people like Gautam Buddha, Mahavira Jain, Chanakya, Guru Govind Singh and the great emperor Ashoka belonged to this place. If we look at the modern times, the place was considered as the treasure of mineral reserves of the country. Yet, the country is known as one of the poorest state where there is no law and order. Development is at a meager pace. No new investments are taking place.

Fall of Bihar

There are various reasons that led to the fall of this great state. One was the zamindari system. According to Saibal Gupta who is a member secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna (capital city of Bihar), during the British rule Bihar was placed under the Permanent Settlement of 1973 by the British. According to this act, the land was not held by farmers but by the zamindars, who had the right to collect revenues and pay a percentage of that to the British. This resulted in the exploitation of the farmers as zamindars themselves did nothing to develop the land’s productivity. At the same time, the other parts of India had ryotwari system where the land belonged to the farmers, who used to pay the taxes directly to their respective states. Hence, the states were therefore interested in keeping the productivity high.

Bihar is part of the Gangetic belt. After the 1857 Independence war, people around the Gangetic belt (places like Varanasi, Patna, etc) started denouncing the Western culture. Hindi began to grow in opposition to English and in this opposition they failed to modernize and accept new ideas that were sweeping across the country. Thus, people from this part of India embraced the past and traditionalism and all odd ideas that kept Bihar backwards.

Bihar is an agrarian state. Therefore, the most important thing required to push development in this state was reforming the land act. But, land reforms failed in Bihar as politicians and bureaucrats who were to implement such reforms came from the landlord class and they ensured that such reforms should never be implemented. So, the present situation in Bihar is such that millions of farmers do not have their own land; they plough others land for their livelihood. Some have too much. Rests of the people of Bihar possess land in tiny pieces which makes it difficult to achieve good crops. Therefore, poverty continues.

The other thing that hurts Bihar is sub nationalism. When a Punjabi goes to any part of India he/she proudly says that he/she is a Punjabi. Same is true for Bengalis, Marathis, Gujaratis and rest of the Indian states. But, people in Bihar try to avoid such things. In fact, I remember how a man fought in New Delhi with a bus conductor who called him Bihari (tone was different); the word was used as a slang. Traditionally, in this part of India there have been two forms of nationalism. First is Indian and the second is his caste. A Bihari was always an Indian first and then of his caste. But, if we look at Maharashtra, a person was an Indian first, a Maharashtrian and then lastly of his caste. Does this imply something? Yes, this means there is no one to speak up for Bihar. When Bihar was partitioned during the British rule, there were hardly any voices that opposed the decision.

The most important thing that deprived Bihar from taking the path of development was the freight equalization policy. When the government of India announced the freight equalization policy, there were hardly any protests from Bihar. Even when Jharkhand was made a separate state, no compensation was demanded. Politicians in Bihar are more concerned about their developments rather than developing the state. Every politician is concerned about his caste only. The most striking part is that each caste people want their leaders to work for their caste only and not for the state. So, how can one expect this state to develop?

What does freight equalization mean? This policy implied that transport was not to be considered an input cost. This meant that a factory could be set up anywhere in India and the transportation of minerals would be subsidized by the central government. Thus, factories were set up all along the ports or around big cities except Bihar. The policy simply destroyed Bihar’s huge competitive advantage of holding minerals. Though, the policy has been removed now but, presently Bihar lacks the infrastructure to compete with other states.

As mentioned earlier, in Bihar politicians are synonymous with criminals. People fear the politicians there. How does on become a politician in Bihar? According to the Constitution of India, a person age of not less than 25 years can file his papers for fighting election to either become an MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) or an MP (Member of Parliament). This is in books. Just by filing papers will not make you win election. So, to win you adopt crime to induce people to vote for you. The connection between crime and politics can be traced back to the JP (Jayaprakash Narayan) Movement in the earlier decade of 70’s. He urged people to participate in politics without any ideology. Socialists were very strong in Bihar at that time. So, there was a wave such that people started joining politics even if they did not believe in the party’s ideology. The aim was to bring people for a common goal. But, this step destroyed the very structure of the party and therefore, after the end of JP Movement, the parties found hard to mobilize people to support them. This led them to turn to criminals who used their own organization and money and muscle power to mobilize support. From there onwards, criminal became a very part of Bihar politics. At present, politics has become a family affair.

With the introduction of Mandal Commision, people of Bihar today are more interested in fighting for reservation. They don’t care whether developments take place in Bihar or not. This attitude had been there even after Independence. Bihar was ruled by Congress for about 30 to 40 year just like it ruled at the centre. But that did not help. They too were just interested in exploiting the natural resources of Bihar for the benefits of other states. The present situation is that Congress finds it very difficult to find its presence today in Bihar. They hardly manage to secure votes because of their attitude towards Bihar. Not a single central university or a centre for scientific research was established in Bihar even though every year thousands of students from Bihar make it to JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University), IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) or Delhi University. This step brotherly treatment by the central government forced Bihar more towards backwardness.


The future ahead

There are things that can be done to bring Bihar back to the development path. Almost every renowned person has spoken about ways to do this. Last year, when the former President of India, Abdul Kalam visited Bihar, he laid some visions for the development of Bihar. If Bihar government truly follow these goals apart from other goals, it can change the way people perceive Bihar to be. Nonetheless it will take time but it is possible.

Agriculture is the core competence of the state. The sector is performing badly despite having very good soil, abundant supply of irrigation water and hardworking population. Irrigation needs more focus. Government should try to facilitate water supply by providing better irrigation facilities (by digging more tube wells and linking villages so that they can use water from a common source in a particular area) and electricity. The aim should be to increase cereal production in the state; rice production from 5.5 million tonnes to about 10 to 15 million tonnes and wheat production from 4 million tonnes to about 8 to 12 million tonnes. Bihar is already a major producer of maize and there has been an announcement to set up a commodity exchange for this. Therefore, Bihar government should ensure that no hindrances are placed on their way. This market will boost not only agriculture but also employments in this area.

The Hajipur-Muzaffarpur-Samastipur belt in Bihar is known for varieties of fruits. Hajipur is known for bananas, guavas and vegetables, similarly Muzaffarpur is known for its lichi. Not long ago this area had an agro-processing unit that used to export their products. Today, the unit is shut down. It can be revived again with proper planning and execution. Dairy cooperatives should be spread to almost all the districts of Bihar. Milk is a secondary source of earning for the farmers. By boosting this sector the government can not only improve the conditions of farmers but will also generate employment.

It was not long ago when Bihar was one of the major producers of sugar in the country. The government has taken some steps to revive the old mills. The focus should be to create sugar cooperatives on the lines of Maharashtra. This will boost this sector and bring employment to large masses that had to suffer due to closure of mills a decade ago. Apart from this, the government should ensure that the central government comes out with an ethanol policy; this will be a major thrust for other companies to look for investment in Bihar.

Every year floods destroy the crops to a tune of crores of rupees. The Bihar government and the central government should discuss this with the Nepal government. Proper dams should be built to check floods. A scientific body should be formed for water management. A solution needs to be worked out.

Healthcare is very important for the state to develop. The President in his ten visions for the state had mentioned that the state government should equip all the health centers and hospitals with mobile clinics. He had also urged the government to come out with a scheme under which every citizen would contribute three rupees per month and the government would also make an equal contribution. This will lead to a consolidated fund of Rs.576 crore per annum for the people of Bihar.

There should be no compromise on the infrastructure front. Just like the Golden Quadrilateral, Bihar government can work with neighbour states to work on such projects joining their main cities. Bihar government has been demanding such corridor that would run through Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Haldiya/Paradweep Economic corridor. The government can also have talks with the Nepal government to build a secure corridor through Bihar to the nearest port. These can be achieved only if all the stakeholders work collectively through a joint forum. The above route passes through some of the richest iron ore, coal belts and other minerals. Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Nepal and the Central Government should together form an SPV to execute this project.

Electricity is a constraint for any company to invest in Bihar. So, the government should invest more in power projects. It can join hands with the Nepal government to execute a project where the power would be generated in Nepal and transferred to cities in Bihar. The government should also ask the central government to allot a nuclear project in the state for power generation. All state highways should be properly connected to the national highways. All roads should be expanded. Road construction in rural areas should be fastened.

Education changes a person perspective. Therefore, state government should focus more on this sector. Demanding a central institute or IIT is ok but why keep on fighting over this issue forever. If the central government refuses to grant any of Bihar’s university a central university status then, that does not put the university to disadvantage. Why not open more colleges especially in the engineering and medical field and work towards making that a world class institutes. Nobody is stopping the state government from doing it. Why just blame central government for everything! Central government may take time to make primary education a right to education. But the state government may on its behalf can pass a bill in its legislative to make primary education compulsory within the state.

There are various NGO’s working in Bihar, Many are frauds who cheat people and the funds that they receive. Government should take steps to stop this. Good NGO’s should be strengthened. Micro finance is yet make inroads in Bihar villages. Steps should be taken to educate people about such financial schemes. Everyone knows that the banks are not eager to help poor farmers. The Credit-Deposit ratio in Bihar is one of the worst. Deposits are good but the credit by the commercial banks are poor showing their attitudes towards the poor. The government should ensure that farmers get credit on time.

Most of the people in Bihar are dependent on agriculture. Supply chain management and logistics should be strengthened to help these farmers to be able to sell their produce at better rates. Developments should be taken on all fields. This will not only build infrastructure for the future but will also generate employment. All religious places like Bodh Gaya, Vaishali, Patna and other places should be made well connected either by road or rail or by air. This will boost tourism. Patna should be developed as an ideal state. Patna is situated on the banks of Ganga and it runs parallel to the river for about a few kilometers. There are various ghats along the river. These can be built by proper planning. Imagine marine drive in Mumbai.

Though, all these steps will look like a Herculean task but once implemented it will benefit not only the people of Bihar but also India to continue on its growth path. Therefore, not only the state government but also the people of Bihar should come forward to achieve this.