Bihar has become antonymous to sanctum of residence as indicated by the meaning of the word "Bihar" or vihar. It seems chief minister Nitish Kumar is going out of his way to prove that he's a changed man! He is no longer the man who believed in public security and equal rights.
Rapes, kidnapping, murders and burglaries have become the norm in today's Bihar. The land known for Bodhgaya and the Buddhist ideals of comportment has shown the world the worst face of religious men.
Bihar is one of those few places where a Buddhist monk has been booked for sexual exploitation.
Bhante Sanghpriya, the monk, allegedly sexually abused children in his meditation centre in Bodhgaya. This incident uncovers the poor condition of the state's police system. There have been 15 police complaints from minor boys hailing from Assam. The Muzaffarpur shelter home incidents, along with this tragic news are an indication of the high sexual frustration index the public in Bihar is ridden with. Sex crimes have become the order of the day and the government refuses to do anything about it.
While deputy chief minister Sushil Modi is busy defending those who beat up Professor Sanjay Kumar in Motihari, the CM has decided to stay mum about everything that is going wrong in the state.
Sanjay Kumar's friends and colleagues have said that he was beaten up because he expressed his opinions about former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was gross negligence of the law of the day by Sanjay; he forgot that Bihar is now under dictatorial, quasi-fascist rule. The constitutional right to freedom of speech is being stomped upon on a daily basis and those suffering the most are activists, academics and common citizens who question this system. Sushil Modi is sure that Sanjay Kumar is faking his injuries, although he has not said that Sanjay Kumar was not attacked. So, according to the deputy CM, attacking a citizen for exercising freedom of speech is alright as long as the injuries are tolerable.
This comes as no surprise from a party that basks in the glory of lynch mobs and cow "protection" terrorists. The most unfortunate aspect of all this lynch mob praise is Nitish Kumar is totally silent. His antaraatma has gone mute and now, he is all ears for the members of his ally party, BJP.
The public frustration against Nitish is palpable on the streets of Bihar. It would be very difficult for the current ruling alliance to secure even 10 out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general election. The proverbial " bahaar" which Nitish had promised in the run-up to the state elections in 2015 has been a distant dream. The word "bahaar" can be replaced by " narsanhaar" (murder) in the election slogan "Bihar mein bahaar ho, Nitishe Kumar ho!"
Another gem from a non-resident Bihari is the recent attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi by Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Union minister in the Narendra Modi government.
We all knew that BJP turns to crass language for getting cheap publicity, but this time it reached a new low. Choubey had nothing to say about the tragic incident in Bihiya, a town adjacent to his Lok Sabha constituency. After all, forcing a woman to parade naked on the streets is an everyday incident in Bihar now. What is important for people like Choubey is to please his party bosses by hurling abuses at the Opposition leaders. Another upper caste politician, Choubey is only saying what PM Modi couldn't say himself. Abusing the Opposition leaders is anyway a more entertaining activity than addressing the runaway prices of petrol. The dramatic fall in the linguistic standard of political debate is easily comparable to the tragic fall in the value of rupee. Well, if "fall" is the trend to reckon with, one eagerly awaits the "fall" of the Modi governments - one in Bihar, the other in Delhi - in keeping with the trend.
The writer is lecturer, Delhi University, and author of Voter Mata Ki Jai
