After the Bihar elections 2015 results were out, the whole nation started trolling Biharis for choosing the wrong government. And we, used to being trolled kept quiet. Many of my Facebook friends also did the same calling Biharis “idiots”, “fools” and so on, and to be honest I unfriended one of them. Many people in my college who don’t even know the position of Bihar on the map of India gave their so called expert opinions on the political scenario of Bihar. Everyone predicted “gundaraaj” or “jungleraaj” in Bihar. They were happy to find themselves right when soon after election results houses of Dalits were burnt and destructed by goons.
Recently some events have ignited discussions on “Gundaraaj” in Bihar. The two events are:
- A senior journalist was shot dead on Friday evening at Siwan town in Bihar. Police said the incident took place around 8 pm when Hindi daily Hindustan’s Siwan bureau chief Rajdev Ranjan (42) was shot dead at Phal Mandi near Siwan station, barely half a km away from Town police station. Two bullets hit Ranjan— one on his forehead and the other, his neck (indianexpess).
- An 18-year old was shot dead allegedly by the son of a Janata Dal (United) legislator on Saturday. The motive for the murder? Aditya Sachdeva overtook the car of Rakesh Ranjan Yadav, which resulted in a row. Yadav, in a fit of rage, allegedly shot Sachdev dead. While Yadav’s mother is a JD (U) legislator, his father, Bindi Yadav is a Bahubali, strongman (source). The accused Rocky Yadav got arrested and was sent to 14-day judicial custody.
The murder of the journalist is linked to some RJD leader and it is said that he was killed because he wrote about RJD leader Shahabuddin (source).
Yes I agree that these two incidences clearly show the fate of our nation where politicians and their families are licensed to commit any crime. This is not unusual that a journalist gets killed because he wrote against a politician, nor is an incident of road rages an unusual thing. The coverage this news get are also not unusual as involvement of big names increases the TRP of the channel and increases hits to the website covering these. What is unusual here is that in any news related to these incidents has BIHAR written in the title in unusually bold fonts. People should understand that all this did not happen because it was in Bihar, but it happened because of the loopholes in our judicial system which fails to evoke any fear of punishment in criminals.
I really don’t understand that is the whole nation really shocked or is acting to be shocked at these incidences as this is what everybody expected after the election results. Right?
How many times people will try to prove that Biharis are “fools” as they voted for RJD who had a very bad reputation. What about AAP in Delhi which too didn’t have a very good reputation. After AAP won in Delhi nothing much changed other than increase in the jokes on Kejriwal. It is not that we chose the wrong people. It is just that we didn’t choose them as majority of the young population of Bihar is staying in some other state, some for the sake of education and others for a job but certainly not because of “jungleraaj”. We face all sorts of presumptions people have about us and still live happily in any part of our country.
If the incident is being targeted rather than the state, more fruitful results can be expected. And this does not apply only to Bihar, but to every other state of the country. It hurts me as a citizen of India, not Bihar, where in spite of having the so called progressive mind set, we don’t hesitate twice before tagging castes, genders, communities, states, language, etc to weird atrocities.
What I want to say here is that please stop stereotyping place or a caste or a community as India is well known for “Unity in Diversity”. The diversity is the beauty of the nation, not a scar. Learn to treat everyone equal and see the change in the world around you.
