State on Steroids

Before going through this post, kindly have a look at these two links.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/Bihar-grew-by-1103-next-only-to-Gujarat/articleshow/5405973.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/New-Delhi-Patna-best-cities-to-start-business-World-Bank/articleshow/4720294.cms

For a person belonging to Bihar, the news comes as a huge sigh of relief. Finally the state is on a growth path and the state goverment is actually taking measures to bring about a major turnaround in the state. For people who have not been to the place, Bihar projects an image of poverty, lawlessness, corruption and anarchy. We should not blame them because we ourselves are to blame. It is a very common thing to see people from our state trying to hide the "Stigma" of being called a Bihari. Once people migrate to other places they try to put a fake accent and make fun of their own language. Bhojpuri and other regional languages have become a topic of mockery beacause of the way it is being projected in the media and the cheap and offensive music videos.

Let me serve you some facts about your motherland: (Taken from http://www.gov.bih.nic.in/)

• Earliest myths and legends of hinduism the Sanatana (Eternal) Dharma - are associated with Bihar.
• Sita was the princess from Bihar. Sitamarhi was the place where she was born.
• Sita was born to Janaka who ruled Videha, which comprised of a major part of Bihar.
• Original author of the Hindu epic - The Ramayana - Maharishi Valmiki - lived in Ancient Bihar. Valmikinagar is a small town and a railroad station in the district of West Champaran, close to the railhead of Narkatiyaganj in northwest Bihar.
• It was here that Prince Gautam attained enlightenment, became the Buddha- at the present Bodh Gaya- a town in central Bihar; and the great religion of buddhism was born.
• It is here also that Lord Mahavira, the founder of another great religion, Jainism, was born and attained nirvana (death). That site is located at the present town of Pawapuri
• It is here that the tenth and last Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh was born and attained the sainthood of sikhism, that is became a Guru. A lovely and majestic Gurudwara wa built to commemorate his memory - the harmandir- and is located in eastern Patna. Known reverentially as the Patna Sahib, it is one of the five holiest places of worhip (Takhat) for Sikhs.
• The advent of statecraft, administration and economics can be related to the kingdom of Magadh.
• Kautilya, the author of Arthashastra, the first treatise of the modern science of Economics, lived here. Also known as Chanakya, he was the wily and canny adviser to the Magadh king, Chandragupta Maurya.
• Chankya brought about amicable co-existence between the Greeks and the Mauryan Empire, at a time when the greeks had razed a major part of India. Megasthenes, an emissary of Alexander's General, Seleucus Necator, lived in Pataliputra (ancient name of Patna, the Mauryan capital) around 302 B.C. He left behind a chronicle of life in and around Patliputra. This is the first recorded account by a foreign traveler in India. It describes in vivid terms the grandeur of life in Patliputra, a city established by King Ajatshatru, around 5th Century B.C., at the confluence of the rivers Sone and Ganga.
• Another Mauryan king, Ashok, (also known as Priyadarshi or Priyadassi), around 270 B.C., was the first to formulate firm tenets for the governance of the people.
• Also, Ashok's dharma chakra was incorporated into the national flag of India, the Indian tricolor.
• Ashok was responsible also for the widespread proselytization of people into Buddhism.
• Ancient Bihar also saw the glorification of women in matters of state affairs. It was here that Amrapali, a courtesan of Vaishali (the present district of the same name) in the kingdom of the Lichhavis, attained and wielded enormous power.
• It was here that Budha announced chose to announced to his disciples the news of his impending niravana .
• At Nalanda, the world's first seat of higher learning, an university, was established during the Gupta period. It continued as a seat of learning till the middle ages, when the muslim invaders burned it down. The ruins are a protected monument and a popular tourist spot.
• Nearby, Rajgir, was capital of the Muaryan Empire during the reign of Bimbisara. It was frequently visited by Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira. There are many Buddhist ruins here. It is also well-known for its many hot-springs which, like similar hot-springs elsewhere in the world, are reputed to have medicinal property.
• In medieval times Bihar lost its prestige as the political and cultural center of India. The Mughal period was a period of unremarkable provincial administration from Delhi. The only remarkable person of these times in Bihar was Sher Shah, or Sher Khan Suri, an Afghan. Based at Sasaram which is now a town in the district of the same name in central-western Bihar, this jagirdar of the Mughal King Babur was successful in defeating Humayun, the son of Babur, twice - once at Chausa and then, again, at Kannauj (in the present state of Uttar Pradesh or U.P.) Through his conquest Sher Shah became the ruler of a territory that, again, extended all the way to the Punjab.
• During most of British India, Bihar was a part of the Presidency of Bengal, and was governed from Calcutta.
• Rajendra Prasad, native of Ziradei, in the district of Saran, bihar became the first President of the Republic of India.
• It was from Bihar that Mahatma Gandhi launched his civil-disobedience movement, which ultimately led to India's independence. At the persistent request of a farmer, Raj Kumar Shukla, from the district of Champaran, in 1917 Gandhiji took a train ride to Motihari, the district headquarters of Champaran. Here he learned, first hand, the sad plight of the indigo farmers suffering under the oppressive rule of the British. Alarmed at the tumultuous reception Gandhiji received in Champaran, the British authorities s
• Some of the prominent leaders and freedom fighters belong to the state.
• It was Jayprakash Narayan (JP) who who steadfastly and staunchly opposed the autocratic rule of Indira Gandhi and her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi. Fearing people's reaction to his opposition, Indira Gandhi had him arrested on the eve of declaring National Emergency beginning June 26, 1975. He was put in the Tihar Jail, located near Delhi, where notorious criminals are jailed. Thus, in Free India, this septuagenarian, who had fought for India's freedom alongside Indira Gandhi's father, Jawahar Lal Nehru, received a treatment that was worse than what the British had meted out to Gandhiji in Champaran in 1917, for his speaking out against oppression.
• The history of Hindi literature can not be complete without mentioning the names of Raja Radhika Raman Singh, Shiva Pujan Sahay, Divakar Prasad Vidyarthy, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Ram Briksha Benipuri. They are some of the luminaries who contributed to the flowering of Hindi literature, which did not have much of a long history.

The more you dig into the history of this place, the more it continues to amaze you and makes you proud. So next time when somebody calls you a Bihari, for heaven's sake don't consider it as a stigma. By doing so you are not only bringing shame to your state but also to the great souls who lived here. A state or a nation does not become great unless it's people help it become one. If you only abandon your motherland then how can you expect it to become developed.

The idea behind laying down the facts above is not to glorify the state but to make people be aware of their glorious past. Talk to people of our generation and these facts are only lost pages of our history books.  The pillars of modern India were formed in ancient Magadh kingdom. The greatest epics and the most widely followed religions found birth in this place. Long before you talked about megacities there stood a place called Patliputra which laid the foundations for the modern civilisations. With the passge of time and growing misrule lead to a gradual degradation of the place. Added to it poverty and caste war, we had a perfect situation of jungle rule. Right from my childhood, i have seen abject conditions in the state. Everytime we used to visit other states, i used to wonder that why can't we also be like this. Even the basic ammenities of life like good roads and electricity used to be a luxury for us. The state kept on churning wonder kids with a major share of seat in IIT's and civil services taken up by students from Bihar. But no one stayed back because of the dearth of opportunities here and moved to work in other places. The only thing in which the state flourished was poverty, lawlessness and the casteism. It is sometimes very funny to notice that how much importance is given to your caste here. The jungle rule and Lalu Raj lead to state spiralling towards further degradation. With the formation of Jharkhand, the state was left with very few cities and important centers of trade and commerce. Things started going from bad to worse and then came a change in the fortunes of the state when Nitish Kumar was voted in to power. Bihar’s GDP grew by an astounding 11.03% in the fiveyear period between 2004-05 and 2008-09, much more than the national average of 8.49%, and ranked second only to Gujarat, which recorded a growth rate of 11.05% during the corresponding period. This is a very good example of what good governance can do even in a god forsaken place.

It has been 7 years now since i left Patna, but everytime i go back it continues to amaze me. It seems that finally the place has started ressurecting and you can visibly see the changes. The infrastructure of Patna has seen a revamp in last three and the city is undergoing a major facelift. Same development should be carried to other towns and villages also. Things will only improve from here, and hopefully a day will come when we can go back proudly and work in our own native place.JAI BIHAR....