The state of Bihar, cut in half by the Ganges, has a population of 80 million people--that is, a population larger than most nations of the world! That population size is itself evidence that a once-great civilization was present here in ancient times, which has existed with some degree of continuity since. Indeed, the capital of Bihar, Patna, formerly called Pataliputra, was the great capital of the ancient Maurya empire of 300 B.C., and later of the Gupta renaissance empire of 500 A.D. And, as Mr. Paswan pointed out in the rallies that we addressed in towns in east-central Bihar, just over the hills in Gaya, Gautuma Buddha had founded the Buddhist religion, now the religion of millions of people.
Patalipura, at the confluence of the Ganges and Sona rivers, was the "greatest city'' in India in 500 B.C. Nine miles in length and a mile and a half wide, the city was ringed by a wall with 64 gates crowned with 570 towers.
Today, the ruins of Patna's past empires and a yoga school are the key attractions for foreigners. But these landmarks bear no relation to the lives of the state's millions. Today, the city of Patna has been degraded into a rubbled city of 7 million people living in extreme poverty.
My friend Mr. Maitra and I had been invited to Bihar by Mr. Paswan, who has built a grassroots organization throughout the eastern part of the state. A member himself of the scheduled caste (that is, "untouchable'' or "harijan'': ``children of God'' as these lower castes were renamed by Mahatma Gandhi), Paswan has worked throughout the region to increase industrial employment and to bring young men from the most deprived parts of the state to Jamalpur to work in the 10,000-man railway workshop there. With him and 20 of his men, we traveled nearly 900 miles through east-central Bihar, speaking at rallies, meeting with local press and organizers.
Although the southern half of the state is dominated demographically by lower-caste Hindus, Paswan's organization encompasses all castes. Nearly everyone, no matter what caste, is desperately poor. The focal point of the organizing was the necessity to mobilize Biharis around an economic program for development. Upon Mr. Paswan's request, Ramtanu Maitra had outlined a preliminary program for Bihar.
Bihar was economically devasted by 190 years of British rule. When the British took over the state, which was then appended to the states of West Bengal and Orissa, Bihar was a rice-growing region with its population heavily dependent upon spinning, weaving, and other handicrafts. The British changed all this. First, the British tore down Bihar's home industries--not to be revived again until Mahatma Gandhi organized the khadi movement for homespun during the Congress Party campaign for independence. Second, as the International Monetary Fund did with Sudan in the 1970s and 1980s, the British forced the farmers to stop growing rice, and to grow "cash crops,'' in Bihar's case opium and indigo.
Famine-stricken Champaran, across
the Ganges River from Patna, was the
site of Mahatma Gandhi's first campaign
and first arrest in India upon his
return from South Africa, as documented
in the popular film
But even today, after Indian
independence, Bihar remains in a
semi-colonialized condition. The state
is rich in iron ore, coal, and other
metals, and the southern section of the
state is a national industrial center.
However, the owning and operating
companies are all based outside of the
state, in Calcutta, Delhi, or Bombay,
with the result that Biharis are robbed
of the wealth they produce. In the
industrial cities, such as Deoghar,
despite the concentration of industry,
the wages to industrial laborers remain
so low that it appears that industry
has no real impact on the population.
Politically and economically, power is
in the grip of local mafias and
landlords.
The key to Bihar's economic
development is infrastructure. The
first task is water management:
training the Ganges and its
tributaries. This involves flood
control, and in particular utilizing
the Ganges water and the monsoon
precipitation to recharge the shallow
groundwater aquifers. This recharged
groundwater, and trapped rainwater in
reservoirs, can be pumped out during
the dry season. Today, almost all of
Bihar's agriculture is totally
dependent upon rainfall.
The pumped-out water can also be
used to keep the vegetative cover on
the land intact, reducing dry season
erosion and slowing down the heavy
monsoon rainwater. In the central basin
we toured south of Ganges, millions of
acres lay fallow, as erosion had carved
out a kind of moonscape of craters and
hills.
While Bihar is dry and dusty
through most of the year, every monsoon
season there is tremendous flooding,
causing millions of dollars worth of
damage. Last year, there were 144
breaks of the embankments along the
Ganges during the monsoon rains. The
reason for this is the increasing
siltation of the rivers. The Ganges has
to be narrowed and dredged--forcing a
flushing out of the silt. Yet, this
method of stopping the flooding,
although known, has not been used, as
the state government relies upon
embankments--which each year break.
Second is electric power. With an
average of five persons per family,
there are approximately 16 million
families in Bihar, requiring 36,000
megawatts of power. Much of Bihar's
power requirement can be met with the
state's large coal deposits.
Agroindustrial centers away from the
mines will require nuclear power plants
to supply electricity and steam to the
entire complex. In this way, Bihar can
eliminate transmission costs and line
loss, which presently amounts to 23% in
Bihar.
Third is transportation. Although
the Ganges cuts right through the
state, there are only two bridges
across the river, and one of them was
just completed. Making the Ganges
tributaries navigable through dredging
would also greatly benefit the state's
economy.
This program means putting people
to work. The construction of
infrastructure will give productive
employment not only to the landless
laborers in the rural areas, but also
to those now hustling in low-level
crime on the streets of Patna. Aside
from increasing agricultural
productivity, the real bulk of
employment has to be generated in
developing a highly productive
small-scale industrial sector, with a
few people in each enterprise and
advanced machine tools.
This is the potential of Bihar,
but such development is not occurring
there today. For three days, we
traveled through the eastern-central
area of Bihar. In total, we probably
laid our eyes directly on at least 1
million people. Many were Hindu, many
of them lower-caste. We also traveled
to the eastern side of the state,
inhabited by the Santal tribe, who are
Baptist Christians.
We traveled a huge circle around a
large plateau, filled with mineral
wealth--silicon and coal. Mr. Paswan
pointed out that the region--especially
because the erosion of the soil made
agriculture possible--was perfect for
development of industrial parks. The
center of the plateau itself could be
the site of a new city.
It is the lack of such industry
and infrastructure that is the cause of
the first impression that hits the
American visitor: For the countryside,
Bihar's rural areas are very crowded.
We traveled a single-lane road from
Patna to Jamalpur 300 miles across the
state, but both sides of the "highway''
were lined with houses the entire way.
Cities, based on industries that
produce tools and goods to raise the
productivity of the farms, would easily
absorb this great underutilized rural
labor.
Meanwhile, the population lives in
conditions of extreme deprivation that
are hard for an American to fathom.
Midway between Patna and Jamalpur, for
example, we stopped at an enclave of
huts that provided shelter to a group
of harijans. This group of about 25
people had lived there for the last few
years, since they were driven off their
own land, they told us.
One older woman--that is, about
50 years old and under five feet
tall--showed us her hut, built of
twigs, dried palms, and plastic paper.
Outside her hut there were some tin
cooking utensils on the ground--her
kitchen. She beckoned us to look
inside--throwing out her arm and saying
to us in outrage: "Look, look, I have
nothing!'' Indeed, inside the hut,
there was absolutely nothing but two
dried palm leaves. This means, that
after fifty years, this woman had
accumulated no possessions, save her
one sari, which she wore, and a couple
of tin bowls. She had no bed, no
bedding, no clothes, no pictures, no
toilet articles, no tools, no utensils,
no cloth, or blanket. All her energies
every day had been devoted to simply
finding enough to eat to stay alive.
Despite the fact that this woman--like
millions of others in India--has been
forced to live in animal-like
conditions, she demonstrated in her
rage that she had not lost her
humanity.
Similar levels of deprivation
exist in the Santal tribe region. In
this remote region in the mountains
lying right above the Gangetic plain
that goes into Calcutta and Bangladesh,
the Santal tribesmen and their families
subsist on the basis of poaching timber
and coal. Other than that, they are
employed as low-paid laborers in
landlord plantations.
All along the roads on this area,
there is only one mode of travel--feet.
No cars, no bicycles, no animal-drawn
carts, or horses. Two types of walkers
predominate. First, were lines of men
walking bicycles. Strapped onto the
bicycles were huge bags of pilfered
coal. Each bag represented the work of
a group of families, organized to mine
the coal and transport it to the
nearest landlord-run market. Each bag
of coal--taking about two days to
accumulate--will sell in the market for
about 200 rupees. But already 50 rupees
has been given to the local coal
supervisor as a bribe. The remaining
150 rupees is hardly enough to feed one
family, let alone several. Throughout
the night, hundreds of such men
carrying coal line the roads like
ghosts, their faces blackened with coal
dust. The landlord in turn will sell
the bag of coal for three times the
amount they paid the tribal miners.
The second are lines of women,
walking with loads of timber balanced
on their heads. This illegally cut
timber will be used as firewood in the
cities. The men stay in the jungle to
cut the wood and shape it. The women
carry it. The expressions on their
faces and the distorted way in which
they are forced to walk from the weight
of their load, indicate that this is a
painful activity.
The walk from the jungle to the
market is between 7 and 10 kilometers.
At the market, the timber will not be
sold, until dusk when the landlord's
man will come to buy the load at the
bargain-basement rate of 5 rupees. The
woman will take the price, because she
does not want to walk all the way back
home with the load. The timber will
piled unto the landlord's truck; he
will sell it in the next city, at a
price four to six times higher than he
paid.
Nevertheless, it was a relief to
see that with very few exceptions, it
appeared that the Indian government had
been able to ensure a level of
agricultural production that had staved
off starvation and extreme
malnutrition.
But what of the future? What does
a harijan man say to his son of his
hopes for that child's future? The
Baptist minister at the Santal town of
Grindhaban informed us that although he
had established a school, he constantly
was fighting with parents to permit
their children to go. Without a hope in
the future, what is the point of
education?, parents say.
In our departing press conference,
I was asked what was my message to
Biharis after what I had seen. I
replied "Educate your children.'' We
are not yet able to build the roads and
industries that will ensure the
productive future of Bihar and
alleviate Bihar's dire poverty. I
brought no cure with me for the old man
that I talked to who has tuberculosis.
Yet, if we are not committed to the
future, then there can be no hope. And
if there is no hope for the children of
Bihar, then I know deep in my heart
there is no hope of a future for our
own.
- Key to Economic Development -
- The Organizing Tour -
Conditions of Extreme Deprivation