Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Will it be back to the glorious days of Nalanda again???

Certainly not. One should be a downright moron or the quintessential novice in Indian politics to expect Bihar to do a phoenix. Even the most die hard Nitish Kumar fan wouldnt expect that to happen. But with the man
. who said "my people have been under-developed for millenia and hence they dont care about development"
. who said "IT is totally not needed in India today"
. who broke the will of some of the most committed IAS officers in India and brought them to his side
. who took decency in public life hitherto to unknown depths
. who made a women who knew nothing but to reproduce and cook the CM of a state
out of the way, one can certainly expect a semblance of a functioning government in Bihar.

As things stand today, at best, the Bihar government rubs shoulders with the governments in some of the banana republics across the globe. With kidnappings, rapes and murder the order of the day, with the most wanted criminal becoming an MP from the state, with the state consistenly obtaining the last spot in almost all development indices, things certainly cant get any worse. All this, with Bihar being one amongst those states that contain a plethora of natural wealth. There is a difference between a badly managed government and an intentionally pathetically run government. Bihar certainly comes under the second category, probably even worse.

Remember Nalanda. One of the greatest of all ancient universities. Heres were the best of the worlds intelligentia used to come to learn. But today, Bihar is the butt of all jokes. To insult someone, all you need to do was to call him a Bihari. This despite the fact that a disproportionately large number of students in the IITs are from Bihar. Can Bihar undo the damage done to it by Laloo? Can Nitish Kumar do something about it?

My opinion is that most politicians are goons and all political parites have a large number of criminals in them. So to expect Ram Rajya to blossom under Nitish Kumar would be stupid. But with the bar for governance set at such an abysmally low level by Laloo, even if Nitish does not do anything constructive, his government would fair better than that of Laloos. If by gods grace Nitish does do something good, Bihar is certainly in for some good times. I do hope Nitish does something to pull Bihar out of this mess that it finds itself today. It is certainly very difficult. But with some of the most intelligent and extremely hard working people in India, it might just be possible.

At this moment I really want to salute two people. These are people who had the guts to take on Laloo in his den.
1.) C.K.Anil, district Magistrate of Siwan. This man had the guts to take on Shahabuddin, the biggest of all goons reporting to Laloo and an MP from Bihar.
2.) ***. I dont remember his name right now. This is the guy who was responsible for making the current elections in Bihar peaceful and honest.
India needs more such people.

Lastly, I do hope that Dr.Manomhan Singh does not fall prey to any tricks from Laloo and thereby prevent the formation of a better government in Bihar.