The deluge in the North Eastern Bihar districts, no doubt a great human tragedy, posed an enormous challenge before the civil society as it has devastated that part of Bihar, where the Muslims, Yadavs and Dalits form overwhelming population. The affected districts are the most neglected part of the State. Yet the flood has at least provided us with a unique social opportunity too.
In no time the flood displaced millions. It proved a great leveller – the rich, the poor, the old, the young, Hindus, Muslims all found their fate crumbling before them. Thousands of them met their watery grave and lakhs of them had to undergo forced migration or live in the refugee camps.
About a million victims had to be evacuated, almost half of them by the Indian Railways – a rare feat achieved just because the Union Railway Minister was from Bihar and he took personal interest in it. There is no dearth of media persons reading too much political message in his extraordinary relief efforts. Yet the fact is that the railways have come as a big rescuer, and that too at the time when the state government machinery has completely collapsed.
It is interesting to note that while a sizeable majority of those affected in Araria, and even Supaul districts, are Muslims; Yadavs are the worst sufferers in Madhepura and Saharsa as they form about 40 per cent of the population of these two districts. Besides, Dalits have huge population in all the four worst affected districts. So the new course of Kosi now divides the Yadav dominated Madhepura and Saharsa and Muslim dominated Araria and Supaul into two halves. Rural areas of Katihar and Purnea districts, which too have good Muslim population, and Naugachia sub-division of Bhagalpur have also been swept by the rampaging water of Kosi.
Whether Lalu is taking interest for political reason or not, the fact is that many people of the worst affected districts – rightly or wrongly – see a great conspiracy of the Sangh Parivar in the Kosi flood. Some are of the view that the breach in the embankment was deliberately caused by the Sangh Parivar elements in the government to displace the concentration of Muslims in that part of the State. They may have no logic to substantiate these allegations, but there are some takers of this view. However, there is even much larger number of people, who sincerely believe that the breach may have been caused because of the sheer neglect on the part of the state government. But even this set of people sees a conspiracy. They openly allege that the relief and rehabilitation work was deliberately not taken up till the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad raised the issue because the region has Muslim and Yadav population. What is strange is that a sizeable section of Muslims and Yadavs voted for the NDA and not Lalu’s party in the 2005 assembly elections.
A brief demographic study would also reveal that while the Muslims and Dalits of the region are, in general extremely poor and there is rampant illiteracy in the region, Yadavs of Madhepura-Saharsa belt are for generation much different from their castemen elsewhere. They are better off than Yadavs of other parts of the state and the region was the nursery of the Socialist movement in the heydays. Late B N Mandal (himself a Yadav) of the Mandal Commission fame was from Madhepura.
Though just now it is difficult to accept the conspiracy theory, there is no denying the fact that the Kosi flood has rendered millions of people homeless. After independence we saw the biggest shifting of human population. In pre- and post-independence months as high as 89 lakh (8.9 millions) people from India and 82 lakh (8.2 millions) from Pakistan migrated across the border. Most of the migration took place with the help of trains, which witnessed many massacres too. Though the number of people who shifted to safer place was not of that scale, yet the duration too was much small.
The Kosi flood of 2008 may go down in the history as a great catastrophe. But then there are its positive sides too. A lot of study has been made on the migrant population and even refugees. They often emerge as more tenacious and at times even more enterprising. But as at the time of partition, today in North Bihar a large number of people were forced to migrate rather than do so by choice. They are totally different from the people who choose to migrate to America, Europe, etc. for job or higher study. However, even those who have been forced to migrate in the most difficult situation – Jews, Muhajirs from India or Punjabis and Sindhis from Pakistan – have managed to overcome the earlier obstacles and emerge much stronger.
The Kosi flood is different from the one mentioned above. The people will have to undergo internal migration. Some may move to Delhi, Mumbai, Patna or elsewhere to settle permanently but the rest of them may re-settle there in next few years. Having learnt bitter lessons – from nature as well as political parties – they may come out much stronger.
However, the bottom line is that it is by default that this Muslim dominated region has attracted the attention of the community leaders of the country. It is time for them to intervene in the region, take up the rehabilitation work, see to it that the last man of the community get educated and become aware of the evil designs. If they do so then they can convert the tragedy into opportunity. If not, the entire population may turn into beggars.