My Bihari Friend, Pritchett and PTR
A Book recco, a Podcast recco, a Video recco and nothing else
I used to live in an old apartment in Teynampet. I lived there from my kindergarten till I finished school. And naturally, I had the same set of friends throughout my school years- other boys who lived in and around my old flat. I had one such friend who was from Bihar. Both of our fathers worked at the same place. So we practically grew up together.
This brief introduction about my Bihari friend is because of a conversation I remembered a few days back. This was probably back in the late 2000s or early 2010s. We were in high school and obviously didn’t know about anything let alone politics. But I somehow clearly remember him telling me- ‘now that Nitish Kumar has become the CM, Bihar is getting developed very quickly. There are many roads and houses being built in my village. Nitish Kumar is the best politician in India/world’. I’m paraphrasing it here, but this is essentially how I remember it.
I am a complete stranger to Bihar politics and I knew nothing of it except my friend’s statement- that there is a politician named Nitish Kumar and that he is the best politician.
I forgot about all this until last week when I started reading the book Last among equals: Power, Caste and Politics in Bihar’s villages by M.R. Sharan. The book talks about Bihar, its people, what power is and how it works in the lowest rungs of the government.
First and foremost, this is a great book for anyone who wants to know about India. It is emotional, it is witty and it reads like a gripping documentary. So blindly buy the book, you wouldn’t regret it.
Now, about the book itself- it is an account of the author’s ground experience in rural Bihar as part of his research. Although he touches upon, sometimes in great detail, the history of the state’s politics(that is how I came across Nitish Kumar, the best politician in the world, again), the general life of rural Bihar and his experiences in helping electoral campaigns, the book mainly focuses on mazdoors’ struggle and activism around MNREGA or Narega as the people in the book call it.
I’ll tell you a short story, bear with me. There was a poor electrician in Delhi. He was a migrant from rural Bihar. When he was back home, he kept hearing the words Narega but couldn’t figure much except that it was something to do with the government. Parallelly, when he was in Delhi, he would see people filling up cyber cafes, mind you, this was in the late 2000s.
One day, he mustered up the courage and went inside one of those cybercafes but had never used a computer till then. Mostly by looking at other people’s screens, he navigated the desktop and somehow clicked on the round ball- the browser; a new white screen opened with a bar asking him to type something. He wanted to type something official- like when people write their ishtadeivam’s name with a new special pen. He typed in ‘Bihar Narega’. Within a few clicks, he was surprised to see this village’s name, then his block’s name, his panchayat’s name and when he clicked it, he saw pages and pages of records of his fellow villagers. He immediately asked the cafe person, a sardarji, to print out everything even if it cost him more than half of his daily earnings.
It was the records of NREGA work and it had details of the worksite and the wages paid. When he went back home, he asked the people on the list if they had actually received the money that was being recorded. We’ve seen this specific movie many times- No, they weren’t paid. After some more phone calls and weeks nay months of following up with people, the migrant electrician from Delhi was able to arrange for an audit to his village.
The audit was a failure, people were beaten up but one thing was sure- the electrician had become a full-time activist. As the author put it, ‘[he] brought Patna to his village’. His name is Sanjay Sahni and his story is the main link that we follow in the book.
There are many such sub-stories of struggles and activism of Sanjay and his fellow mazdoors. It was inspiring to say the least.
Apart from activism, the author also talks about why decentralization should be done in such a way that it is representative of the constituents. And how different types of checks and balances are necessary for effective governance. He tells us the story of a citizen grievance redressal scheme that was used by local government ward members to raise a dispute between a member and the local government head- the mukhiya. Yes, you read that right. A citizen grievance redressal system was being used by people within the government to resolve a purely administrative task. This was because that was the only check-balance system that the ward members from disadvantaged areas could find. For example, even if Dalits are elected as ward members in Panchayats, they are significantly less respected and their needs are rarely met.
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While reading the book, one might think why they should focus so much on the government for their work-they could simply move out of the village and work hard where they are rewarded. After all, the market loves cheap labour and it eventually raises everybody’s standard of living.
It is a valid question but the society and power structures (caste system) are aligned in such a way that even a short step feels like an uphill trek. Even when they leave their villages to other states, they are still treated with prejudice and contempt. Even here, in our society, there are many who ridicule northerners and refer to them as ‘vadakkans’. Maybe I’m being a snowflake about it- it is just a word. But real prejudice for people from the ‘Hindi belt’ in our own society is quite evident.
There is usually no easy answer to any of the important questions that society grapples with.
Analysts say that no state is a backward state, there are only mismanaged ones. We have many such states in our country. We might not even like the politics they indulge in, but it shouldn’t discount the real struggles of people and their fight for survival. So, I don’t know if Nitish Kumar is the best politician in the world. Because it should not be how the question is raised. The more important question is how to develop structures with checks and balances that safeguard the interests of the disadvantaged.
If anything the book makes you do, it is to feel compassionate about the struggles of such unskilled labour stuck in the labyrinth of oppression and power.
You can get the book here
A short podcast recco before I go on to the next post of this week.
Superstar economist Lant Prichett talks about how today’s development economics, especially RCTs, loses itself in the details- details which can sometimes be useless.
The last thing I wanted to share was the recent interview that I watched on YouTube. It was Tamil Nadu’s Finance Minister PTR in India Today’s discussions on federalism or something like that.
This is the video
Why this is interesting is because it was delightful to listen to a Tamil Nadu minister acknowledging that Tamil Nadu wants the benefits of the ‘capitalist system’. However, he went on to explain how the state wants to be part of the system on its own terms of social justice and equality. The point is well taken. We want much more ‘models’ of running the economy so that the marketplace of state governments can compete to show which works best. After all, that is the point of a federal system.
It is not that Tamil Nadu has not adopted the ways of the market. One short drive in the OMR would be enough to realise that it is already the case. But in a state where almost all political parties are positioned on the economic left and are extremely suspicious of the market, it is nice to see some truthful clarity.
What else?
Let me know about the books that you read and share interesting stuff that you read or heard online.
Until next time.