A S the Indian Airlines aircraft descended on Patna on a rainy day last fortnight, I could identify almost all the landmarks of the city - the meandering Ganga, the sprawling Gandhi Maidan, Hotel Maurya, Patna Museum, Raj Bhavan and the Vidhan Sabha, to name just a few. Nothing surprising as it was in this city that I lived for over a decade, chronicling the events that made or marred the city. The little walk from the plane to the `Jaiprakash Narayan International Airport' was a pleasant experience. A cool breeze lashed at us as we avoided rolling our suitcases through the puddles of water on the runway.

The arrival hall was overcrowded with people who had come to receive the passengers. I often wonder why so many people come to receive so few people? Among them I could spot a young man holding a placard with my name on it. Suddenly I remembered author Sankarshan Thakur's comment, "The city is acquiring a new international airport - there are flights out to Kathmandu - but the lavatory in the arrival terminal remains padlocked year after year. The reason for the inconvenience is duly apologized for in bold print: ganda hai, it stinks. Just as well it is locked. But there is always the open space outside, the airport staff helpfully point out, you can go there. You can go anywhere, all of Bihar is a loo, go where you please and relieve yourself." (The Making of Laloo Yadav: The Unmaking of Bihar, HarperCollins)

Is Patna airport like Motia Khan in Delhi, I wondered. For the benefit of those who have not heard of Motia Khan, let me mention that it is a DDA colony, a little over five kms from Connaught Place, the hub of New Delhi. About 10 years ago, a real estate agent offered me a two-bedroom flat at a very low price. I was tempted by the price and decided to see the flat. It was barely evening when I went to Motia Khan. From the main road to the colony, one had to walk for about 10 minutes. On both sides of the road were men, women and children easing themselves in the open. None of them was embarrassed while I was. To escape the nauseating stink, I literally ran. I did not even look at the flat. I lived in Patna for 10 years but this kind of experience I never had there. How fair is it to call the whole of Bihar a loo just because a lavatory at the airport was closed the day Sankarshan Thakur arrived there by air.

I decided to check the veracity of his comment even as my colleague who came for the same programme waited for his luggage. The lavatory was as clean or unclean as the ones at the New Delhi airport were and I realized how facts can be twisted to portray Bihar as a dark continent. In his enthusiasm to do so, Thakur mentions that the cement plaster on Gandhi Setu, the bridge across the Ganga at Patna, had begun peeling off. This was another verifiable comment I wanted to check. The bridge was in a far better condition than the overbridge that links Cariappa Marg with Jail Road near Janakpuri in New Delhi. Though the overbridge was less than two decades old, it nearly collapsed two years ago. A huge amount, far more than the money spent on its construction, was necessary to repair it. Again, it was not long ago that a huge water tank constructed in East Delhi collapsed when it was filled with water for the first time. The BJP was ruling Delhi at that time. Does anybody mention the collapse of the water tank to berate the BJP? Or put the blame for the near collapse of the overbridge on the late Indira Gandhi, during whose tenure the Asian Games were held and the overbridge was constructed. Nobody does that. I have not seen such references even in Thakur's own writings. So why this special treatment for Bihar?

But when it comes to Bihar and Laloo Yadav, writers like Thakur find any stick convenient to beat them with. He keeps on mentioning Yadav scratching his groins but what else is a person supposed to do if he gets the itching there. Would Thakur have mentioned it in a book on India if Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee happened to scratch his groins while talking to the learned writer? But did Laloo Yadav turn a finger against Thakur for his writing? Remember what Dr Mishra did when a news weekly from Calcutta carried a report that he had organized a special puja and had drunk the blood of a goat? He sought to muzzle the Press by bringing forward the draconian Bihar Press Bill, against which the entire Press community in India had to rise up. Of course, there are issues on which Yadav can be criticized and criticized harshly but his manner of speech or dress is not what a commentator of Thakur's eminence should have harped on.

But then, "of late, there has been a sort of proliferation of writings on Bihar and Laloo Prasad Yadav. A perusal of this voluminous `literature' shows, however, that done mostly by the ones for whom black is white and yes is no and down is up and stop is go as far as Bihar and Laloo Prasad are concerned, it carries highly partial accounts and explanations of things." (The Laloo Phenomenon: Paradoxes of Changing India by K.C. Yadav, Hope India Publications, 85, Sector-23, Gurgaon, Haryana, Pages 183, Rs 350) I read this book a few months ago when I was visiting Bihar after a gap of over 10 years. An uppercaste journalist friend saw me reading this book, took it from me and began thumbing its pages. "Oh, it is a pro-Laloo book. After all it is written by a Yadav", he passed his judgement in a matter of a few minutes. The author can be accused of being soft towards his subject. But does he show his caste bias like Thakur? He only says, "If Laloo Prasad has done something wrong, let him be investigated as others are being investigated; let him be tried, as others are being tried; let him be hanged as others are being hanged. No special investigation, no special trial, no special hanging should be there for some persons when others who may be bigger culprits than them, are treated differently. That is called discrimination." The book is in essence a strong argument for treating Laloo Yadav for what he is and what he has done and not for what he is imagined to have done or what he is imagined to be. The Laloo Phenomenon is not a biography; "it is an assessment from the 'the other side' to comprehend the truth in its totality" as the writer explains in the jacket. The author has impeccable credentials to attempt such a book. A historian who retired as Dean of Academic Affairs of Kurukshetra University, Prof Yadav is now Director of the Indian Institute of Social Justice (ISJ). He edited the Autobiography of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, which I tried to procure with great difficulty (I succeeded at last with the help of a friend, who presented me his own copy). Another of his book which I read and profited immensely from is From Periphery to Centre Stage: Ambedkar, Ambedkarism and Dalit Future (Manohar).

Thus to dismiss him as a Yadav as my uppercaste journalist friend had done is to turn a blind eye to his scholarship, his commitment to social justice and the deprived sections of the people. Now back to the airport, I had to jostle a bit to get out of it. My host had sent a government car to fetch me. With so many VIPs having arrived by that flight, I had to wait for some time before our car could arrive at the portico. A few minutes after the car started moving, four or five people stopped it by jumping in front of it. What would have happened if the car brake had failed, I thought. They were collecting the parking fee. "This is a government car", protested the driver but it had no effect on them. They relented only when reluctantly, the driver paid them the fee.

The drive through the government area where the Laloo Yadavs lived reminded me of the segregated life that the British rulers had lived when Bihar was directly administered by them. There has been little change in the area except for the new coats of paint the buildings have over the years received. As the car raced towards the Gandhi Maidan via Bailey Road and the Dak Bungalow chowk, I noticed the new constructions that dot Patna's skyline. But for that Patna remained the same. The same slow traffic, the same cycle rickshaws, the same lazy cows that find their way through the maze of vehicles. That evening walking around the floodlit Gandhi Maidan, I realized one significant change that had happened in the city. I found a rickshawpuller arguing forcefully and angrily with a well-dressed man who refused to pay him the demanded fare. I stood there and watched the progress of the quarrel. The rickshawpuller finally had his way when he was given the demanded amount. The well-dressed man departed muttering some inaudible abuses. I remembered a similar incident. It happened nearly twenty years ago. It was soon after I reached Patna and started living in Rajendra Nagar. My neighbour, a rich Kurmi landlord got down from the rickshaw he had hired from the Patna Junction area and handed the rickshawpuller a coin or two without even asking him what the fare was. The man refused to accept the money as it was far below his expectation. When he protested, the landlord gave him a slap, threw the money at him and walked towards his home. Hearing the commotion, his teenaged sons came out of the house, threatened the rickshawpuller with dire consequences if he did not go away. Left with no other option, he muttered something, climbed on his rickshaw and pedalled away. Suddenly the boys saw the coins lying on the road and they picked them up.

This is the transformation that I found in Patna and I credit it to the advent of Laloo Yadav. The forces that Thakur represents can't reconcile themselves to this change. "It is, as rightly observed by Martin Luther King, Jr, an historical fact that the privileged groups do not relinquish their privileges voluntarily." It is they who perpetuate the myth that Laloo Yadav is to blame for all the ills that afflict the state. Yes, he deserves to be blamed but the question is to what extent? The next day's Times of India (Patna edition) had "Garbage grips Patna 'like cancer, AIDS" as its first lead story. The report quoted a resident of Ambedkar Bhavan in the Nala Road area as saying, "Pahile kabhi bhi hamlogon ka suar aise nahin mara. Gandagi ke chalate mar raha hai. Do din mein do mar gaya" (Never in the past did our pigs die in such a way. They are losing their lives due to polluted atmosphere. Two pigs have died in the last two days.)

The newspaper had boxed an item headlined "Thakur fears epidemic" quoting the Union Health Minister, Dr C.P. Thakur, expressing apprehensions that the piling up of garbage would cause epidemics. There are people who blame Laloo Yadav for the garbage heaps. But those who go through the back files of the Patna editions of the Hindustan Times and the Times of India will realize that they had run several series of such stories in the past when the state was ruled by such worthies as Dr Jagannath Mishra, Mr Bindeshwari Dube, Mr Chandra Shekhar Singh, Mr Bhagwat Jha Azad and Mr Satyendra Narain Sinha, who were all seasoned administrators and upper caste men. What I looked for was the deterioration in Patna that I often hear in Delhi. Yet, says Thakur, "He (Laloo) inherited mess and contributed chaos to it, like a typhoon visiting the ravages of a quake and mangling the remains."

To paint Laloo Yadav in the darkest of hues, it is the pastime of those of Thakur's ilk to glorify the past. They invariably quote the Appleby report which described Bihar as the "best administered state". I have not been able to find out who this Appleby was and where his report appeared. Some of the leading academicians failed to help me in locating the report. Whether such a report exists or not, it has no relevance to modern-day Bihar. Prof Yadav quotes Walter Hauser, professor of Indian history at Viginia University, "You must remember that Appleby appreciated the working of an administrative system which was designed to control society - the system which had been put in place by the British." When Appleby praised the administrative system, the rickshaw puller and the landless labourer had no choice but to accept what was given as wages. Friction occurs only when there is resistance. Those days there was no resistance. Prof Yadav has figures to suggest that "in matters of human development, Bihar is in many ways, despite its abysmal poverty, ahead of many of its neighbouring states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal." Home Ministry figures show that Delhi records more incidents of crime than Bihar. It emboldens Walter Hauser to remark, "Does not gang wars take many lives in Washington DC? The Civil War in the USA claimed more lives than any war between two countries. But it also strengthened the foundations of democracy in the USA. I think Bihar will emerge as a stronger and freer state in the years to come." Prof Yadav narrates how the mighty in the country have joined hands to drive Laloo Yadav to a corner. Newer and newer cases are being cooked up to send him to jail. Even his close relations and friends have been raided by income tax and other authorities. He is reported to have amassed huge wealth but they have not been able to trace it so far. Yet, he is arrested under a Disproportionate Assets case. How many have been arrested under this section so far in this country? None, to my knowledge. Says Sankarshan Thakur, "Few senior politicians in this country would pass a Breathalyser on disproportionate assets, and set against the standards of the time, Laloo Yadav's disproportionate assets were peanuts - just about Rs 46 lakh. Politicians in Delhi can spend more on a single evening's entertaining." An officer who is busy filing cases against him has been given extension in wanton disregard of the principle that it is the government which is the prosecutor and not any particular officer. All this shows how biased those calling the shots at the Centre are when it comes to Laloo Yadav. Prof Yadav has done a commendable job in giving the other side of the story.

The writer's e-mail:

bharataputra@hotmail.com

Courtesy: Indiancurrents.com