From: udcrusd@meaddata.com (Sylvia D'Cruz)
Subject: Qyanjhari in Bihar - India's Worst Case
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:11:02 GMT
Distribution: soc.culture.indian

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                  Copyright 1992 The New York Times Company
                               The New York Times

                  July 24, 1992, Friday, Late Edition - Final

Qyanjhari Journal; India's Worst Case: The War Between the Castes

By EDWARD A. GARGAN, Special to The New York Times

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   Paulus Ekka hitched the hand-hewn wooden plow on his shoulder, letting his
eyes wander down the muddy path that plunged past the pounded-earth huts of his
village and into the early-greening rice paddies. He shifted his weight from one
foot to another, saying nothing for a moment.

   "I think until now nothing has happened," he said finally, "nothing has ever
changed in this village. There is no school. There is no electricity."

    Qyanjhari huddles next to the broken macadam strip that dribbles south from
Ranchi, as if drawing comfort from the meager flow of commerce and life that
struggles along the road. But no paved surface runs into the village, no
electricity lines intrude. The single water pump broke some years ago.

This, Alas, Is Bihar

    There is, though, nothing special about Qyanjhari; it is typical of much of
Bihar,  India's  most impoverished state. More than 60 percent of Bihar's 86
million people are illiterate; 8 out of every 10 women cannot read. Of every
1,000  children  born, 75 die in infancy -- the sixth-highest infant mortality
rate in the country.

   This is a state riddled with corruption,  crime  cartels, caste wars and
caste politics.

   Shekar Gupta, a senior editor for  India  Today, the country's most important
news magazine, shakes his head at the mention of Bihar: "It is like not even
part of  India. "

   In February, in a village in central Bihar, 34 upper-caste men and women
called Bhumihars, largely small landowners, were slain in their sleep by a group
calling itself the Maoist Communist Center, which claims to act on behalf of the
harijans, the "untouchables" who are of no caste.

A Kind of Caste-ism

    In the months that followed, gangs of Bhumihar youths rampaged through
harijan villages, raping dozens of girls and women. Here in the south of the
state, the Savarna Liberation Front, made up of upper-caste thugs, and the
Indian People's Front, made up of their low-caste counterparts, kill one
another, pausing only to kill one another's supporters.

   More than in any other state in  India,  elections are accompanied by the
systematic killing of candidates, the intimidation of voters and the theft or
stuffing of ballot boxes. The Chief Minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav, has had
himself declared an avatar of Lord Krishna, one of the most prominent deities in
the Hindu pantheon. And politicians consort openly with leaders of powerful
 crime  groups.

   To many Indians, Bihar is a Dantean vision of the abyss into which the
country could descend. To Biharis mired in poverty and resignation, it is hard
to imagine a better future.

   For Mr. Yadav, a member of a low caste, the source of Bihar's discord lie in
decades-long oppression by Brahmins. "I am not against the upper castes at all,"
he said. "But I want the poor and suppressed to come up so that social tensions
and backwardness end. Otherwise there can never be social peace."

   Mr. Yadav, in two years in office, has worked tirelessly to drive Brahmins
and other upper-caste groups from political positions, from their grip on the
economy, even from the state capital's sole golf course.

He Who Controls Coal . . .

    Five hours east of here, in Dhanbad, deep in coal country, politicians,
local notables, the chief of police and even former Prime Minister Chandra
Shekar gathered last month to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of
Suryadeo Singh, known as "the mafia king." Those who listened to the panegyrics
to Mr. Singh and enjoyed the grand picnic put on by his family sang his praises.

   "He was a mass leader," said Sat- yadeo Pathak, a local Congress Party
official. "There was no labor leader in Dhanbad like Suryadeo Singh. He loved
the poor people. He was never a caste leader."

   But Hari Narainn Singh, the editor of The Morning News in Ranchi and a cousin
of Mr. Singh, said of the labor organizer: "He formed a gang, went into the coal
fields and started extorting coal truck drivers. He ran his own union of coal
workers. In some parts of Bihar, he controlled all the coal."

   The state of Bihar receives none of the benefits of Bihar's coal, or of its
vast reserves of iron, manganese and mica. Virtually all the coal, which is
controlled by New Delhi's central planners, is exported to steel mills in West
Bengal. Local industries, desperate for electricity, have shuddered to a stop as
power companies find it impossible to muster enough cash to pay for coal. And
the electric companies have no cash because the Government has stopped paying
for its electricity.

   "Of 165 industries in this city, only 10 are working," Mr. Singh said. "All
of them are small: shoes, rubber, ice cream. All the big industries, jute,
plastics, bakeries, all are closed because there is no electricity."

   For many villagers, though, the travails of towns and cities are little more
than distant thunder. "Yes," said Mr. Ekka, the farmer, "electricity would make
life better here. But nothing has happened."

   Jyaru Uraon ambled by and interrupted. "There's been no development here in
my time," he said, with a crooked smile punctuated by three teeth. "I don't know
how old I am, maybe 70, but nothing's happened. We used to have a hand pump, but
that broke. So we dug a new well. It's always been like this. It always will
be."

-- 
Sylvia D. D'Cruz                                
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian