दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

Nitish Kumar may be a nice man, perhaps gentleman unlike Laluji. However, my views are not based on any facts. It is through the media reports about Nitish that I liked. Recently, all his party men were after the blood of Raghubans Prasad Singh. Television channel showed footages of two boys (age 11 years) working in the field of Raghuraj Singh, the brother of Union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh near his Shahpur home under Mahnar in Vaishali (Hajiprur). However, it was established later that the two are “regulars in schools” and “had pulled the log across the field when promised a chance to appear on television and Rs 20 each.” Nitish behaved as a real mature person. He didn’t go with his men. And finally, the truth came out. Another news report related about his visiting his senior party man George Fernandes and requesting him to inaugurate some development projects in Muzaffarpur. George Fernandes have gone against Nitish with no malice and inhibition, as he didn’t back him for heading the party.

These acts are magnanimous. But then is it good enough for Bihar and its people?

But then good news came from Tokyo. NMG (Nalanda Mentor Group) had its second meeting, headed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, recently at Tokyo. By early next year, the blueprint for reviving the 1197 AD Nalanda University in Bihar – is expected to be ready. At Tokyo, the NMG decided that the university would have schools of Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative religions; historical studies; international relations & peace studies; business management and development studies; languages and literature; and ecology and environmental studies. I had some more ambitious dreams about this rebirth of Nalanda. It must have also included institutions of excellence of technology and sciences at par with MIT. NMG can invite western countries too to join in this unique endeavour, or IISc and IITs to pull together their resources to set up institutions in the premises. Alternatively, the IIT and IIM for Bihar, sanctioned by the HRD ministry should become part of the campus.

Another exciting news report related to sugar sector that may become the main industry for Bihar. Reliance Industries, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and India Glycols Ltd have bid for closed sugar mills in Bihar. The privatization must move on fast track and the government must encourage the private companies to include ethanol, cogeneration as well as some food-grain based manufacturing activities in the state on priority.

Even with all the troubles and mudslinging between the trio the people of Bihar have retained their innovative talent and entrepreneurships. And that is evident when I read the report: Kanishk and Lipika Sinha, a young couple from Patna have invented an energy-saving rather fuel-free engine, at a cost of Rs 35,000, which can run without petrol or diesel and can last for a 4.5-lakh kilometre run. Kanishk Sinha recently got the engine patented (1077/Del/2005) with BigPatents India, a body supported by the Ford Foundation.

But again I appeal to Nitish to concentrate on the law and order situation that might have improved by statistics but not in real term and in the perception of the investors. Kidnapping and abduction are still rampant. A recent report in Mail Today was agonizing how it is now a moneymaking business for small enough criminals. It requires ruthless handling and exemplary harsh punishment.

Another report about the central agencies dropping the rural road building projects due to Naxalite’s fear is shocking: “The Indian Railway Construction Company (IRCON) working on many road projects in Bihar is planning to abandon the work due to the threat by Naxals. Under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), Bihar has a target to connect 9,600 villages involving a road length of 27,000 km. Out of 38 districts, IRCON is taking care of eight districts, NHPC and NPCC will make six each, CPWD four while the remaining districts are managed by NBCC. Out of nearly 57 such road projects initiated in the four districts of Arval, Gaya, Aurangabad and Jehanabad, nearly 23 have been abandoned due to the Naxal menace.”

As much as I understand the Naxalites in Bihar are misguided unemployed youths from deprived class. Demands of extortion and ransom money by the so-called Naxalites and kidnappers are indications that the movement is not for the uplift of the deprived class, but it is for making easy money. It requires tough but humane handling. Let the state form a small and effective core group with some social scientists and religious gurus too to look into the solutions of the problem. Urgent land reforms, extensive skill building, massive adult education, and thrust on value building at school may be the basic necessity. I suggest that the politicians in their meetings including the Janata Durbars with so-called ‘aam adami’ insist on people present for sending their children to schools compulsorily.

Further, it pains to know that ‘Bihar’s committed expenditure towards interest payment, administrative and pension payments is almost twice the state’s own revenue resources.’ Bihar needs motivated and dedicated officers to make it move out from the rut. I wish they could have set some examples with some innovative approaches.

By now Nitish would have done much more than what has happened in last two years. Let us hope Nitish’s hard work pays back.

For almost a month, I have not written about Bihar. ‘Chetawani’ or ‘Sankalp’ rallies only made me morose. Why can’t Paswan and Lalu change their political strategies for the sake of the people of Bihar at least for some time? After all they had and will get ample opportunities to prove themselves. And they are still in position from where they can bring about a visible change in Bihar, if not in whole of it, at least in their constituencies. Laluji can see that all the factories that he has proposed to set up in Bihar start construction before he goes out of the present portfolio. Paswanji too can help Bihar having a hub of drug manufacturing. Bihar has all the inputs for pharma industry. Let their party legislatures concentrate in their constituencies at least utilizing the legislature funds that are in millions per year. They may also help in getting the central projects expedited wherever they are effective.

Whatever appears in media, particularly what we see on various news channels about Bihar is only disgusting. However, Aditi Phadnis has written ‘Well-begun but half done’ in Business Standard on December 1, 2007 about the changes in Bihar in last two years of Nitish rule. It was refreshingly nice to read except for the reference about caste dominance.

Here are some portions from the article:

The roads that the state has built are not spanking new four-lane state highways. They are small stretches between villages or between a state/national highway and a village. You have to live in a village to know what this access to the outside world means. Small rivulets that turn into vast swathes of still water un-navigable after the monsoons have been tamed because building or repairing small bridges has been decentralized.

Footfalls in state hospitals continue to grow. Classes in panchayat-run government schools are being held. Every girl child born in a family below the poverty line will be given Rs 2,000 that the UTI will manage until she comes of age.

One quintal of rice to every flood-hit family – regardless of economic status – will continue to be given two months until after the floods. This was earlier 25 kg, barely sufficient for a family of four and would result in large-scale migration every year to stave off hunger.

A scheme to provide a toilet to every home, no matter how small, will cost the state government Rs 1,300 crore but will at least begin to address the problem of sanitation in rural areas.

There was a time the MLA was everything and the DM, nothing. Now it is the other way round. This is causing tension, with party men otherwise loyal to the chief minister, turning against him for being so bureaucracy-led.

However, there are times when Nitish Kumar comes to a standstill while taking administrative decisions. The state has not acquired a single acre of land for industry wanting to invest in Bihar.

The result: an investor for the Rs 1,320 crore Appu Ghar amusement park project got an assurance from the Bihar government that state-owned land on the banks of the Ganga in Patna would be given to him. Then the chief minister got cold feet. The project has since relocated to Delhi. The state government has cleared proposals worth Rs 2,37,000 crore since coming to power. But only the bravest are actually putting money in the state.

With the best of intentions and working 18-hour days, Nitish Kumar needs to succeed, not just for Bihar but also for India. To do this, he needs to be resolute.

I am sure there are many more things happening. I heard the vigilance commission has effectively moved to take action against black seeps. As reported, “since January 2006, the bureau has laid 153 traps and caught more than 178 public servants including IAS and IPS officers, engineers, and senior officials of the forest department.” Many criminals are behind the bar. Crime is under check. But can’t Nitish move faster on the industrial development front too? Can’t he pick up someone who can do some miracles in taking the proposed investments on fast track? As the Chief Minister of Bihar, he can pick up any one he wishes who can make Bihar industrially developed. Perhaps, main obstacles to investment in Bihar relate to the perception about the crime and corruption in the state. Perhaps that will take time.

I personally feel that the trio of Nitish, Paswan, and Lalu can do that by shaking off their party affiliation. Let them stop criticizing each other in public. It would not make any difference if they don’t do that. Let them shift their personal priorities to uplift Bihar that still live with the lowest per capita productivity in agriculture at Rs 661 against the national average of Rs 2,370, and the lowest investment having a highly adverse credit-deposit ratio of 24.5% against the national average of 53.4%. 56.5% the population of the left-out Bihar still lives in flood-prone conditions. Bihar has the country’s second largest number of poor at 41.4% after Orissa (46.4%). Furthermore, more than half (55%) of the state’s urban population lives on just Rs 19 each day.

Are they listening?

In my active professional days when I used to travel very often, I remember seeing some books about the years Christ spent in India on the bookshops of airports. I never took it seriously. I considered them as a book that claims Taj Mahal as Hindu Temple. Many years ago, one of acquaintances talked of the discovery of US by Buddhists in ancient times. It is difficult to ascertain the truth and historicity, but it is interesting reading.

It was interesting to read that very soon a $20 million film, The Aquarius Gospel, will trace Christ’s “lost years” between the ages of 14-30, on which the Bible is silent. It will show he spent some of that time in Kashmir, was deeply influenced by Buddhist and Hindu teachings.

Outlook has a feature by Raghu Karnad on this that also provides some references to the books of some authors on the subject:

In 1887, a Russian historian, Nicolai Notovitch, returned from Ladakh and claimed that after falling from his horse and breaking his leg, he had been laid up in the Hemis monastery near Leh. While there, from conversation with the monks, he learned that they revered a prophet named Issa, an incarnation of the Buddha, who was born in far-off Israel and arrived in ‘the Sind’ in his 14th year. The deeds of Issa were recorded in lengthy documents, some of which were stored in Hemis and which Notovitch was allowed to view after much pleading. They further described how Issa went to Orissa to study the Vedas, but angered the Brahmins by trying to teach the Sudras. Notovitch claimed he wrote down as much as he was able to from the Hemis documents, which he later published as The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ.

Levi Dowling published ‘Aquarian Gospel’ on which the film is going to be based, in 1908. Another book, ‘Jesus Lived in India’ by German scholar Holger Kersten became a bestseller in India.

Fida Hassnain may be the most dedicated scholar and defender of the story of Jesus in Kashmir. As the former director of the State Archives, Archaeology Research and Museums in the J&K government, he has personally examined a number of documents-in Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, Pali and Persian-which he says point to the presence of Jesus in Kashmir. The most important piece of evidence, to him is the Bhavishya Mahapurana, one of the 18 Hindu Puranas. “It provides information that Jesus met the King of Kashmir,” Hassnain says. “He gives his name as Isa-Masih, he says ‘I am known as the Son of God, born of a Virgin’, and he also says he has suffered, meaning, on the cross. The manuscript was in the possession of Maharaja Partap Singh of Kashmir, who later gave it to the Bhandarkar Research Institute, Pune.”

Hassnain’s version of events is much more controversial than the one the filmmakers are using: he proposes that Jesus did not die on the cross, but recovered from the Crucifixion and returned to Kashmir to resume his preaching. The Ahmadiyya community of Muslims believes the same version of events, which is one of the reasons they are treated as heretics by mainstream Muslims. Like the Ahmadiyya communtiy, Hassnain believes the body of Jesus was interred at the Rozabal Shrine in Srinagar under the name of Yuzu Assef.

I don’t know if Christ traveled to India. But by the time of Christ, Arabs and even Europeans knew India. As it happens with young smart people such as those who migrated to US from Europe or the migrants from India who established their colonies in South East Asia, Christ might have come to India. After all, Guru Nanak had also traveled to Arab countries and visited the Islamic shrines.

Globalization thus started in ancient time itself.