The importance of being a Bihari

PATNA: Year after year, anticipation precedes the publication of civil services examination results in Bihar. Not just groom hunters, even ordinary villagers get infected by the excitement. Reason, some local lad from their back of the beyond hamlet has crossed hurdles to face the interview. Examples abound of boys from such backgrounds making it to the civil services. In 10 years' time, in each of the 500-odd districts in the country, either the DM or the SP, if not both, would be a Bihari, member secretary of the Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) secretary Shaibal Gupta told Times News Network while analysing why Bihar produced more bureaucrats than entrepreneurs. "I have come across officers from Bihar wherever I've gone," said former Delhi police commissioner Nikhil Kumar. While Kumar, a former IPS officer himself, is now an MP, former IAS officer Anwarul Hoda is a member of the Planning Commission. N K Singh is another Bihari civil servant who scaled heights. Union energy secretary R V Shahi, too, is a Bihari like RAW chief C D Sahay

Other Biharis holding the key slots included foreign secretary Shyam Saran, secretary, petrochemicals, Pratyush Sinha, secretary, fertilisers, S N P N Sinha, and secretary, agriculture, Radha Singh. "From joint secretary level upwards hundreds of Biharis hold key positions in the government of India," a Bihari bureaucrat said. According to an estimate, of the 5,000 IAS officers about 15 to 20 per cent are Biharis. It is just not the civil services where Biharis are swamping key positions, they are also holding key positions in the public and corporate sectors - PowerGrid CMD R P Singh, MTNL CMD R S P Sinha, NHPC chief Yogendra Prasad being a few of them. Anil Sinha, Bihari faculty member at the National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad has recently designed, on RBI assignment, new currency coins of five, 10 and 20 rupee denominations. While figures for the current year were not available, Times News Network found out about 200 Biharis getting placements in the Delhi government between April and August 2003 alone.

At the same time 560 Biharis found government jobs in other states last year (from May to August). (These figures do not include Biharis who have passed CBSE or ICSE secondary board examinations. The figures are only of those having passed their matriculation from Bihar Secondary Examination Board.) However, when there is talk of excellence in civil administration and diplomacy, Biharis get passing reference in deference to contemporaries from Bengal or Tamil Nadu. "It is true that civil servants from both these states excelled earlier," Shaibal Gupta said. Putting the phenomenon into perspective, he said, "This is because Bengal was the first direct beneficiary of modern education while Tamil Nadu has offloaded brilliant skills onto the national stage by its backward classes Dravida movement." A similar churning process is now being witnessed in Bihar where boys and girls from not only upper caste middle classes but also from backward classes are marching into civil services.

"Biharis are everywhere," said writer Amitava Kumar, "So much of the working class jobs in Indian metropolises are done by Biharis. Since Bihar also has a sizeable middle-class intellectual class, you will find Bihari doctors, engineers or computer programmers in the US too." "I had once gone to Dartmouth College to do a book reading and I mentioned Patna and two girls in the audience cheered loudly," Amitava Kumar recalled, remembering that both the girls were Biharis. So, too, is the acclaimed writer himself. Where do you live? Noida, Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh, Kolkata? It could be any city. Can you do without Biharis? The newspaperwala, the cabbie or auto-wala, guys manning STD booths, grocery shops... the list is long. Go to government offices, hotels, hospitals, shopping malls: you can't miss them. The low-level babu in the municipal office, bank or government; car park attendants, janitors and security guards, they are all from the land of Emperor Ashok.