Bihar Bashing
Dear Sir,
I read your blog with great expectations.
http://www.deeshaa.org/2007/06/01/bihar-part-2/
I am from Bihar and am always on lookout for ideas through which we can impact the growth of Bihar in a positive manner.
Its nice to write "everything" is wrong with Bihar but sir most humbly "do you have a way out?"
To my dismay you also chose to continue Bihar bashing and highlighting the poor governance from the local leaders.
However, what one expects from analysts today is to make an impact on the ground and not on text books.
Bihar still being an agrarian society needs a strong infrastructure of roads to move from food crops to cash crops. We are forced to grow food crops as transporting cash crops to mandis is not feasible. The sugar mills are not working.
Talking of the abundance of water in North Bihar, I would suggest you take a trip to Bihar in the monsoon season and would realise why abundance is not necessarily advantageous. There are no dams to harness the water and we lose huge crops in flood every year.
Now coming to the columnists favorite Laloo bashing. Although, not a Laloo fan myself, I would like to draw your attention towards the per capita investment of center in Bihar. It has historically been the lowest. So isn't the central leadership equally responsible for the plight. And not to mention the political compulsion of the central government, they have always chosen to take Laloo's help. If the central leaders have their compulsion cannot Laloo have one.
I also choose to differ from your analysis of the education system in Bihar. Having seen so many states and their rural education system, I can confidently say Bihar is no worse. On papers one can calculate the ratios of population/teacher and population/school, but let not forget the quality of education. Bihar still produces the finest of Human Resources and here I would like to mention the often quoted presence of a Bihari administrative officers in the various districts of India. Similar are figures for engineers and doctors.And the best factor in the favor of Bihar education system is the willingness of people to educate their children and the importance they give to education. There are numerous examples of people selling their lands, doubling their shifts of work, just to afford sending children to schools and colleges.
If you have visited Bihar in last few months you could not have missed the road construction taken up on war scale. The very districts you have visited are on the forefront of a revolution.
Crime rate has come down drastically. The leadership is trying to project a positive image of Bihar to woo investors.
Its the time when I request economists like you to highlight the positive aspects of Bihar, help us grow and help get what we deserve.
Biharis had enough of Bihar bashing. Hasn't helped us ever.
