Why Bihar is still considered as a backward state of India?

Let’s go on a journey to Bihar. And, on this journey, being a Bihari, I'll be sharing stuffs as much as I have known and understood about the state ‘Bihar’. I will not be going that deep into the historical aspects of it because, my main focus would be mostly on its economic aspects and to make you understand, why is that, a state which had a very rich history is now seems to have a poor present.

Well, the word 'Bihar' has been derived from the Sanskrit and Pali word “Vihara” meaning “Abode”. During the ancient and medival times, Buddhist monks inhabitat most of the regions surrounding the states. Hence, the name of the state was used to denote the home or the abode of the Buddhist monks residing here.

Bihar is situated in the northern India. It is the 12^th  largest state in terms of geographical size at 94,163 km sq.  and 3^rd largest in terms of population size. It is bounded by Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, Northern part of West Bengal to the east and by Jharkhand to the south.

Hindi and Urdu are the official languages of the state while, the majority of the people speak Angika, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Maithili and Bajjika.

In 2000, Bihar was subdivided, the southern part becoming the state of Jharkhand. Do you want to know why? In a nutshell, Bihar was divided into two states for the development of the “Adhivasi”. During the 1980’s the adivasis were demanding for the separate state. As most of the people residing in the Jharkhand region were tribes and they had been different in terms of culture, living, language etc. They wanted to be identified as a separate community. They had also been victim of political parties' oppression and were also facing discrimination in the society. The tribals groups requested for free from Bihar and became aggressive in their demand. Under the 'Bihar Reorganisation Act', in 2000, Jharkhand became one of the newest state.

Let’s understand some of the quick facts about Bihar.

·       The concept of Non-violence originated from Bihar. It was Lord Mahavira and Lord Buddha who raised the idea about 2600 years ago.

·        It has been a birthplace of two of the prominent religions i,e. Buddhism and Jainism.

·       The world famous Nalanda University is located in the state of Bihar. It is one of the oldest universities in the world and was known as the 'storehouse of knowledge' during the ancient days. It was said that the university was set on fire by the army of 'Bakhtiyarkhilzi'.

·       'Aryabhatta' who gave zero number to the world, the Nine planets theory and trigonometric rules, was from Bihar.

·       'Vatsayana' a great philosopher and author of the famous book ‘kamasutra’ was also from Bihar.

·       Bihar is the birthplace of tenth guru that is 'Guru Govind Singh Ji' and, the holy place of Sikhs is Harimandir Takht, situated in Patna.

·       India’s first president 'Dr. Rajendra Prasad' also belonged to Bihar.

·      ' Vaishali', district of Bihar is considered as the first 'Republic' of the world.

·       'Chhathh Puja' is an important festival of Bihar.

·       'Litti-Chokha' is a famous dish of Bihar.

·       The state Bihar has given India a lot of IAS officers.

Having known some of the amazing facts about Bihar and its rich history, one question comes in our mind, what really happened with this state that, it is still in a struggling phase and considered as a backward state of india? Well, most of the people judge Bihar only by looking at its present condition. They have got a perception about this state is that, most of the people in Bihar are happen to be illiterate. (if we go by literacy rate then this fact will be found to be true. In fact, once a state has been a centre of excellence is now comes in a category of lower literacy rate.) and, They have been made fun of for their way of speaking and living.

But no one ever bothered, why it is so?

Why the condition of this state has not been improved much as comparsion to the other states of India and even it went on worsening?

Why a state which used to have a strong history has now been struggling to mark its presence around the country?

Well, there is a deep rooted history behind the current situation of Bihar that most of the people are still unaware of.

So, I would like to deal those key points which have been responsible for its stagnant growth till date.

1. Unequal distribution of land :

One of the major reason behind the lack of development in Bihar was the ‘Permanent Settlement Act’,  which was introduced by Lord Cornwallis in 1793. In Bihar, there was prevailing ‘Zameendari system’, under which the tax wax collected by the ‘Zameendars’. During that time, the farming production in Bihar was not up to mark and therefore, the Britishers were unable to see increment in their tax collection so that, they fixed the tax to a certain value. It meant, wheather flood occurs or drought, they would get the same amount of money. And, as a result, it often happened, most of the farmers failed to pay taxes and in return, the zameendars used to take over their land.

Where such tax system was fixed in states like Bihar & Uttar Pradesh as per the Permanent settlement act, it was flexible in states like Madras and Bombay where ‘Ryotwari system’ was followed where in, the payment of tax was depended upon their productivity. Therefore, when output was more, collection of tax was more and vice versa.

The zameendari system was removed after independence. But, it had created a great impact in the progress of states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Recently, the nobel prize winner Indian-American economists  ‘Abhijeet Banerjee’ and ‘Lakshmi Iyer’ compared the states where zameendari system was introduced to where it wasn’t.  And, what they found that, wherever the zameendari system was prevailing during 1870-80’s, agriculture performance of those states was low in 1960’s , literacy rate was low in 1980’s, infant mortality rate was higher in 1990’s including crimes like murder , kidnapping, rape etc. were on it’s peak.

2. Lack of investment in agriculture  :

                     

There has been a stong relationship between poverty and land in India. In 2002-03, 33% of people in 

Bihar had no land in their names and 15% of households had less than 400m square of land. 

This means that, most of the land in india is occupied by the Zameendars.

Peasants had no enough money to invest in agriculture and to buy new machineries and tools. On the other side, Zameendars were not interested in investing in agriculture too because, it was not their main occupation. They were more interested in collecting taxes from the peasants or to take over their land otherwise. And, this had been the main reason why, there were no improvement in the field of agriculture. And, this has also been the reason there are only 50% of land in Bihar is irrigated and 60% in Uttar Pradesh where as, in Punjab its 90% and in Gujrat 87% of land is irrigated. 

In states like Gujrat, Maharashtra and Karnataka farmers were also given subsidies , the government of Bihar and UP didn’t have enough money to allocate subsidies amongst the farmers. As land size of farmers of Bihar and UP happens to be small, harvest was also small and therefore, they were unable to sell their harvest in government’s 'Mandis' because, it needed huge transportation and storage cost that they were unable to afford.

3. Freight equalization policy 

This policy was a huge set back for Bihar. As it saw no improvement in the agricultural sector, it could have earned some from its minerals wealth. But due to the freight equalization policy in 1953, the freight rates of minerals like coal, iron, steel and cement were made equal all over india. It meant no any industry needs to set up their firms in Bihar as they could do so in 'Port City' states where the transportation would be much easier.

·       However, the policy was cancelled in 1991 but, it had created a long lasting impact on Bihar’s economy. Before this policy was introduced, some industries wanted to set up their plants in Bihar including 'Tata group' but, they too changed their mind after this policy was introduced and chose to set up, in port city states. we can also see from the data that, private investment were around 2.68% in 1995 where as, in other 14 states this average was 16.45%. From this we can make out, there were also no job opportunities for the people of Bihar and UP rather than being engaged in the agricultural sector.

      Due to this, there was a huge burden on agricultural sector. From 1971 to 2001, the percentage of people working in the agricultural sector in most of the states had decreased while, it had increased in the state like Bihar and UP. And, this is the main reason why states like Bihar and UP has the highest migration rate as, people from these states migrate to other states in the search of work.

    4. Caste politics of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh      

     The groups of elite class have often been dominating and in power in states like Bihar and UP, after independence. They had both economical and political power and they used such power for building their own empire and were less interested in working for the welfare of the poor people. As they were unable to fulfill the basic needs of the lower class of the people, that is what created, the emergence of political parties like ‘Janta Dal’, ‘Bahujan Samaj Party’ and ‘Samajwadi Party’.

·       Even after forming such parties and coming into power they didn’t add much to the economy rather, they too became part of the corruption and started to misleading  people on the basis of caste and religion and to gain vote share in their favour. 

      After 2014, it has been seen that, the influence of caste politics has reduced to some extent as people have become aware. But it’s a harsh reality that, due to caste politics, these two states had to suffer a lot and had to go through political instability. 

           As we can also see from the data that, from 1991 to 2002 , Uttar Pradesh had witnessed eight(8) governments and three(3) times presidential rule. On the other hand, during 1991 to 1990, Bihar saw twenty(20) governments, none of which completed their terms. By this we can say that, the governments in these two states were more busy in saving their chair rather than working for the state’s welfare.

5. Lack of funds provided by the centre :

        

      This has also been the main reason why Bihar has still been struggling for its economical stability as, it has been facing the ignorance from the central government till date. On the one hand. other states of our country have been getting funds from the centre directly or indirectly and, on the other hand, Bihar and UP have always not given that priority. 

·     From 1951- 2012, as per the reports on per capita, UP and Bihar had received the lowest development funds in India, on the other hand, states like Haryana , Gujrat and Maharashtra had got just double. Therefore, the state governments was unable to invest more on health, education, agriculture and the industrial sector due to lack of funds.

     This is also because of the weak administration in such states. Most of the times, the governments in these states remained unstable and were not that powerful enough to influence the central government and therefore, had been continuously facing the negligence from the central government.

6. Mentality of people:          

And, last but not the least, the mentality of the people of Bihar and UP has been changed drastically in last few decades. Corruption, crimes, rape, murders etc. have become the new identity of Bihar. As most of the people have become aware now but, still the smell of castism and the hunger for dowry can be found in this state.

As mentioned in the beginning that, Bihar has been a centre of excellence. The people of Bihar was highly intellectual during its golden era. The land of Bihar has produced many extraordinary personalities whose work and contributions have strongly influenced the course of events in the history of Bihar. 

Nationalists, writers, poets, artists, musicians etc. all have given their fair contribution to the land. Some of the famous personalities of Bihar includes Dr. Rajendra Prasad (He was the first president of the republic of India and also was the first President to have been in the office twice.), Jaya Prakash Narayan (He was populary referred to as JP or Lok Nayak, was an Indian independence activist , socialist and political leader.), MS Dhoni  (He has been a remarkable captain of our Indian cricket team and served almost a decade as an Indian captain, born in Jharkhand then a part of Bihar.), Famous artists like Satrughan Sinha, Pankaj Tripathi, Manoj Bajpayee, Ravi Kishan, Sushant Singh Rajput have been the phenomenal artists who haved marked their presence in the film industry and have also gained popularity worldwide.

Having produced so much talents from the beginning, the youth of Bihar have limited themselves to just government jobs and especially UPSC. Not only they wish to do so but, even their parents force them for the same. It’s a matter of pride to feel that, Bihar has produced comparatively larger number of IAS/IPS officers but, it should not be the only identity of any state in the 21^st century. 

Bihar has also been the centre of different skills too and, people of Bihar need to pursue their dreams and should try to mark their presence in different sectors so that, the Biharis can see the overall development by putting their skills in various sectors. Although, being a Bihari, I can feel that, how challenging it is for us to pursue our dreams but, from our past we can learn, how our people in the past were able to follow their dreams and became successful in whatever area they walked in.

As of now, we have talked enough about Bihar but trust me it’s not enough yet. There have been much more reasons for its current condition but, not everything can be spoken in one go. Though, I have tried my best to highlight some of the key reasons for its both economical and political struggle and, I wish next time, when people talk about Bihar, they show some commiseration and raise their voice for the betterment of it. So that, it can regain its lost identity.

So now, we have come towards the CONCLUSION.

Well, we must not ignore the fact that the Nitish Kumar’s government has been comparatively quite stable in this state. He has also been recognized as a capable person to run his government effectively. The condition of Bihar was more worse than it is at present, before him. There was a fear and rule of domineering. Loot, corruption, rape, ransom, kidnapping, murder etc. were on all time high. 

Although, such events are still pertaining in this state but not to that extent, it used to be there before. As a CM, Nitish Kumar has done enough to reduce crime in his state, not only this, construction of roads, schools, hospitals etc. have also been in his achievements list. But, still there has not been enough opportunities for the youth therefore, they have to migrate to other cities in search of work. 

Litracy rate of Bihar is still lowest. Health care system of Bihar is still not up to the mark. Agricultural sector of Bihar is still backward even when, it has got fertile lands, that is what shows the government’s not proper functioning towards this sector. The dabanggs and bahubali’s are still active in some parts of the state, who dominate poor people and harass them.The state has to deal with all of these challenges both effectively and efficiently in order to become one of the growing state of our country. 

-AAKASH SONI (MA ECONOMICS)

#Bihar #Biharstruggle #Economy #India

Source:- Hitorical articles on Bihar, Earlier debates, Economictimes.