When I Call You a Behari...

The nationwide famous tag of “Bihari”. Is it used in the sense of appreciation or like some sort of disapprobation? We all know the answer. What is the reason behind this sentiment’s origin? On what reasons is it based on? Are those reasons just? Where does the origin of those reasons lie? Are we sure that we aren’t hiding our incapability behind the tag?

I will try to address these questions according to my views and research. I may or may not satisfy everyone, but, I request you to ponder on the issue and fathom the depth of this threat, a threat not only to our nation, if we look at the bigger picture we should see that such tags are a shame to the word ‘humanity’.

What I found was that somewhere around 1990s the economic health of Bihar was extremely detrimental and folks around there had to migrate to other states as a result of that. Their basic motive – a piece of bread and a roof over their heads. If we try to look at the reasons behind this economic crisis we are encountered by the following three points –

1.      Flooding by river Kosi (Sorrow of Bihar)

2.      Poor governance

3.      Rise in criminalization (especially in politics)

If we talk of the flooding caused by river Kosi, it is a problem that can be solved easily compared to the latter two problems. Why?

The answer is that when it comes to poor governance and criminalization, such trashes comes from the depth of the human nature and is not that easy to eliminate. As a matter of fact, we all realize within ourselves that these two hurdles are those which if solved could make the entire humanity to travel an entirely different and obviously peaceful course.

I am not going to go into the details of various criminal acts of the political parties in Bihar and of other places which have a direct influence on Bihar because they are a topic of huge and controversial debates of which we all know the answer deep within ourselves.

I will rather choose discussing about those points which matters in our day to day lives. Matters on which if we focus we can change a lot of things inside and outside us.

Here is a screen shot that I took from one of the links of ‘Quora’:

 

What this guy has shared is undeniably true, something that we have seen from our own eyes. We make the rules ourselves and then break them just for the sake of our convenience and fun. Two very common examples, over-taking from the left side and throwing the wrappers on the road or along if side even if the dustbin is just 10 ft away, the attitude says ‘who cares’.

When I was going through some links I found a compelling point put forward by the other party. According to them, Beharis have a tendency to dominate the local traditions and sometimes trying to overwrite them. Well, this is really a serious problem? What is its solution? I am not sure right now if I can answer about this correctly or not. The voices that I am hearing within me have the following words to say:

 If someone really believes in one’s own culture and teachings, I believe that it is really difficult to distract such person no matter how hard others try as Lord Krishna says “even if a person chooses to shut their eye lids, he/she can see the light in front of them. In a similar way even if a person chooses to do something wrong, deep inside he/she always know what the right thing to do is”. My point, we have fallen so low that we do the wrong thing consciously even when we know what the right thing to do is.

This Bihari sentiment and many similar ones have led to widespread violence. The following facts are picked straight from ‘Wikipedia':

1. In 2003, the Shiv Sena alleged that of the 500 Maharashtrian candidates, only ten of them successful in the Railways exams. 90 per cent of the successful candidates were alleged to be from Bihar. Activists from the Shiv Sena ransacked a railway recruitment office in protest against non-Marathi's being among the 650,000 candidates set to compete for 2,200 railway jobs in the state. Eventually, after attacks on Biharis heading towards Mumbai for exams, the central government delayed the exams.   
2. In 2000 and 2003, anti-Bihari violence led to the deaths of up to 200 people, and created 10,000 internal refugees.

Revenge makes us so blind that we end up harming countless other for something that they had to part in and then this cycle continues. This attracts the hyenas who seek their benefit amidst this confusion and adds more fuel to the fire.  I understand that sometimes situation arises where it is very difficult to curb the problem right at that moment. In times such as those the last thing we want is to act on a barbarous animal instinct. Patience, calmness and intelligence are the words that should guide our further actions.  

We tag others with the term ‘behari’ and filling this term with our own meanings. When we move on to some serious topics like nationalism, socialism and some other catchy words like that we completely skip the part where we have to look within ourselves before debating, lecturing and talking on them. We completely deny to see the fact that we are sometimes a part of the same rubbish that we despise so much. We all may have different culture, teaching and religion. As you all know, the common thing among them is the teaching to love others and unfortunately this one is the most misunderstood one. 

My point: when we indulge in acts that we know realize are wrong but still go with it, that is where the main evil lies. Solve it and we win over so many evils like dowry, bribery, corruption, terrorism and one can go on like this forever.