Going the Bihar way - Nepali Times

Editorial
Going the Bihar way

FROM ISSUE #560 (01 JULY 2011 - 07 JULY 2011) | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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DIWAKAR CHHETRI

An article in this newspaper in 2000 (#4) bemoaned the fact that Nepal bordered India's poorest state and asked: 'Is Nepal going the Bihar way?'

Bihar used to be a pejorative word, a collective noun that encapsulated everything that was wrong with India: inequality, injustice, insurgency and indigence. It was synonymous with crime, corruption and caste. Nepal was in the same boat, but somewhere deep inside we felt superior because we thought there was a place worse off than us. This was proven by the numbers of beggars on Thamel sidewalks, the scavengers on our dumpsites, the barbers from Darbhanga, vegetable vendors from Motihari and plumbers from Muzaffarpur.

How tables have turned. Unbeknownst to most Nepalis, Bihar is being rapidly transformed after the election of reformer chief minister Nitish Kumar in 2005. One indication of this is that the barbers, traders and plumbers have gone back to Bihar, not just from Kathmandu but from other parts of India as well. Haryana farmers now line up at railway stations in the harvest season with sacks of cash to grab Bihari farmhands as they get off trains.

After hitting bottom, Bihar had nowhere to go but up. For the past five years, the state has posted an annual 11 per cent growth even though its mineral-rich south had broken away. Nitish Kumar, a chela of great Indian socialist Jaya Prakash Narayan, has taken a four-fold path to uplift his state: crime, education, healthcare and roads. Massive investment in infrastructure has created jobs, and also improved connectivity to remote villages so that farm produce now has access to markets.

Because the best rate of return on investment is in educating girls, he is heavily subsidising female enrollment. He has ensured basic health services even in remote areas and is now working on a state-wide health insurance scheme. And he has taken crime and impunity head-on with a carrot-and-stick approach of cleaning up the judiciary and police.

When our reporters Anurag Acharya and Navin Jha interviewed Nitish Kumar earlier this week in Patna, the chief minister had just returned from a visit to China to woo investors. He admits there are huge challenges ahead. Like in Nepal, there is a backlog of neglect and social injustice to be addressed. But, as he says in our interview, "The task was enormous, but one had to start somewhere, and I stuck to basics."

With India's huge corruption scandals, there are those here who call India's democracy dysfunctional and warn the drafters of our new constitution not to use its blueprint. Bihar is an example of how elections can throw up enlightened and accountable rulers. Nitish Kumar was re-elected last year on performance in elections that were the freest, completely peaceful and had the highest-ever turnout of women voters. Bihar is proof that democracy is necessary for development, to ensure service delivery. But, as Nitish Kumar has shown, you have to also simultaneously tackle crime and corruption which can undermine gains.

For all those who despair about Nepal ever turning around, we can only say: if Bihar can do it so can we. Our leaders should stop promising Nepalis that they will turn this country into Switzerland or Singapore.

Is Nepal becoming another Bihar? Let's hope so.

Read also:
Glimpses of Bihar, ANURAG ACHARYA
When there is so much to do to catch up, progress can be slow
"We want to see Nepal develop"
Winds of change, ANURAG ACHARYA and NAVIN JHA in BIHAR
Bihar is on the right track, but it still has a long way to go
What they don't tell you, PRAFFUL KUMAR SINGH
The Nitish Kumar government has indeed transformed Bihar in the last five years. But we have to de-construct this success story.

1. who cares
bihar has entered development politics from ethnic politics where as commies are trying hard in nepal to drag nepal into ethnic politics.

who are behind open loot, terror, destruction of development, opposing progress, threatening investors, injecting politics into everything- the answer is commies.

we have to get read of commies first.

after democracy in 47, many nepalese complained of 4 class fail becoming minister.. today all the low lives have become powerful leaders, even some khate is about to become the boss of one of the biggest corporations of nepal- nepal airlines as a gift from his master.

what next!

if we are to move forward, first of all we all should treat all commies just like idiot psychopaths treat mad dogs.

Posted on: 01 JULY 2011 | 4:20 PM NST

2. kamal.kishor
Thanks. Another comparison is Cambodia. It suffered the worst of the Maoists atrocities unknown in modern history which can be only compared with Hitler's war crimes. In 1990, it had nothing: no doctors, no graduates, no higher learning institutions, no banking system; all destroyed by the maoists. Economy was in tatters, was completely dependent on UN.

Look at them now. Mr. Hun Sen is not a saint in terms of the corruptions and brutality, but has transformed Cambodia into a glowing and growing power in East Asia.

Posted on: 04 JULY 2011 | 5:10 AM NST

3. jange
# 2

Don't worry. Our Maoists are getting us there too. They have only just started on the destruction phase.

Posted on: 04 JULY 2011 | 9:55 AM NST

4. Rajendra Uprety
Excellent editorial...if we have honesty and determination to achieve such development target, we can achieve such development within very short span of time. We have all possibility...but we don't have hnesty, determination and willingness for positive change.

Posted on: 05 JULY 2011 | 9:05 AM NST

5. Nirmal
God's desire and the unfortunate loop of nepali politics
It seems that God placed a desire in Nepali politicos' heart: Thailand, Switzerland, Singapore and now the competence profile has been narrowed down to once notoriously known Jungle State of India -Bihar-. And that we know our politicians every thought, need and desire to the point where we feel that we know them their whole life. But the dynamics of politics is at disadvantage. All you see is more and more politicians being famous as characters of gag shows, those inefficient but pompous actors, lost in a cyclic loop of the conflict.

The real ones are hard to gag on

For now, both in form and content, all what's been happening right after

2006 april movement, let's say the leverage, is the unfortunate

byproduct of this political class exclusively. The content wrongly dosed

and the form absolutely uncontrolled. The dimension of the glory remains

well below the requirements of the street today with contradictoric

impacts on people's day to day life, the freedoms and the rule of law has become the give-and-take tactic of so called political parties to

salvage goons' career. In absence of national institutions that could

guarantee civil liberties and rule of law, the Mafia culture with full

force is advancing infront of a political power, and that, in most cases

with its suspicious involvement. Actually, none of the political party has

problems to revive their own mode of aged and outdated governing style,

inside and outside, being in opposition or in govt, similar in

politicking, which can bear all names except participative and result

oriented Democracy. Actually, these bunch of political barons are trapped

in this loop, and hopelessly, might be forever.

Hollow optimism and young generation have no future in Nepal

What is the current politics like a nepali one worth? When the whole

concept of providing law and justice can be altered at the mercy of

someone? Who can assure that Nepal is not going to be on the list of most

corrupt and failed state in 5 years with rising impunity and deteriorating

law and order situation? In any drama If the acting doesn't convince, the actors and the script are belittle no matter how great they were previously.

Nepali Elites, paranoid like endangered species headed into extinction
What'll happen in case the very elites fail definately? But please, let's

stop worrying about the future(ï¿½their future!) that they tried to paint,

live for here and now. We can have any sort of constitution anytime in

future but once the social fabric is destroyed, it is hard to look into the

future. Are we enough capable to ask with strong and pacifist

insistence/resistance that now it's time for another episode of movement

to establish democratic efficiency of the country and her institutions in

favor of people's day to day life? This should be the main concern and not If the parties will be able to move forward despite of their growing internal miseries, let's say as it is popularly known: to loot the state coffer for nothing in return.

Posted on: 05 JULY 2011 | 6:38 PM NST

6. Laxman karki
When Nitish Kumar first elected as a chief minister of Bihar he had to tackle myriad of problems created by Lalu & Ravadi's decades long Jungle Raj. First & foremost was establishing rule of law in a failed poor state of India. By taking zero tolerance policy against crime he regained faith of people in Governmental Institutions as well as in democracy.His second priority was on infrastructure building in a fast paced manner & it is giving fruits to Bihari people they are going back to their homeland from Nepal & other parts of India to take advantages of growing jobs & opportunities created by big investment in their state in recent years. Now Bihar can be an example of a real functional democracy in our neighborhood. Nepal can take remarkable benefit from such a functional democracy of Bihar by establishing Rule of law & ending Jungle Raj in country.If it happens investment will be flooded & jobs will be created in Nepal as well. As a result Nepalese people from all around the world will be back to their motherland same as Biharies.

Posted on: 06 JULY 2011 | 8:13 PM NST