Daughter's Day... What's that?

Footloose & Fancy Free: the uncensored version

This weekend the ‘jolly pages’ of a local English daily tried to tell us that the hep and happening creatures were busy planning mega splurges for Daughters’ Day.

And when’s that? This Sunday, of course. Some people dreamed up this idea around the year 2011, to celebrate a new ‘daughters’ day’ in India on the fourth Sunday of September, and of late, the sellers of soaps, shampoos, baubles and Barbie dolls have yet another excuse to pick parents’ pockets.

So what’s this ‘daughters day’ tamasha all about? Who should know better than the women in the NGO sector? So one phoned Bihar’s most prominent women’s organization, the Bihar Mahika Samakhya Society. “Daughters Day on Sunday? You’re not serious? We already have a women’s day, a day for the girl child, the One Billion Rising Campaign, and we initiated the Celebrate your daughter days all over the state. Whose idea was this one? Not the government of India, otherwise there would have been a circular to that effect!” That was their answer.


Thinking that UNICEF would probably be the best place to get an answer, one diligently rang up Nipurnh Gupta, the rights and media point person. If anyone should know about daughters days in the offing, it had to be Nipurnh. Anyway in the past week, she was behind a workshop for kids and cinema, and a two day regional conference that stressed the duty of the media to inform everyone about prompt and regular immunization of babies, especially daughters. Ms Gupta, hemmed and hawed a bit, and then said that if anyone came up with the idea of having a daughter’s day it was a good thing. “The more the idea that one should cherish daughters is brought into the discourse, somewhere it will impact the adverse sex ratio. Let’s ask parents whether they have really made sure that their baby daughters have received all the immunization? Has the child received DPT three times before she reaches 7 years of age? Has she received two doses of immunization for Japanese encephalitis before she reaches two years? What about Hepatitis B vaccine before her first birthday celebration?”



So, I decided to do a quick pop survey. Out popped my phone and I did a bit of screen tapping, and waited for the results.


Professor Muniba Sami what’sapped: “Daughter’s Day- this Sunday? For us every day is our daughter’s day.” Media professional Ann Mary John messaged, “Till date haven’t celebrated it, heard it was on the 28th, and I’m not sure that many of us are aware of this day. Marketing ploy?” Mehraz Haque, currently doing a PHD from Banaras Hindu University messaged: ‘Had no idea about this. Great. Wonderful opportunity to demand something from Daddy dear.”


So now, what's Daughter’s Day about? For the few with expendable incomes, it’s another reason to splurge and party; for those in the social work sector, it is another opportunity to drive home the point that daughters are not expendable, and to combat what they perceive as patriarchy and misogynist traditions; for the businessmen it’s a potential market to be exploited. For the harried middle class urban parents living in boxes called apartments, it’s a beautiful opportunity to stop for a moment and tell their little girls aged 5 to 50… that they are truly special.


Come on ye Fairy Godmothers! Celebrate that hardworking Cinderella. Pull her out of the pantry, wipe her face and give her a pair of glass slippers, take her on a ride to the Mall, waltz her into the food court. Treat her like a princess. Never Mind, she’ll be back among the pots and pans come Monday morning!


Author: Frank Krishner

The beat on the street goes on

Footloose and Fancy Free/ Frank Krishner

He stands with arms held aloft, his face dripping with sweat.  Strewn around him are bodies, still and silent. He cries out in a loud voice, “Main Nahin Chahta Yeh Nafrat Ka Dangal ,Yeh Jalta Shaher, Yeh Maut Ka Mangal… I don’t want this dance of hatred, this burning city, this festival of death…” It’s a pleasant day in February, just following a week of uncertain and inclement weather. The man is a performer, plying his art in the pleasant warmth of a pre-spring afternoon, in front of a cluster of people of all ages on the historic Gandhi Maidan of Patna.

The audience, some sitting on the ground, others standing, are engrossed in the performance. It is a street play about violence fanned by religious bigots, reflecting harsh realities of life. The show is part of a three day festival of street theatre, being held in memory of Jacob Srampickal, a Jesuit who devoted a lot of energy to studying and revival of the ‘theatre of the people’ in Bihar. Twenty five years ago, Srampickal held the first ‘All Bihar Nukkad Natak Festival’ at Ravi Bharati near Sadaquat Ashram.  The festival, an annual event, continues to this day.

“Street theatre is people-friendly. The dynamic and mobile nature of street theatre makes it possible to go to people where theatre is not accessible:  like streets, markets, slums, villages, schools, office complexes, parks, residential areas. It is a free show for everyone:  paan wallah, officer,  labourer, housewife or  student. Therefore, it never has a limited or ‘repeat’ audience. With actors moving at the same level as the audience, there’s no hierarchy . The simple and direct performance gives it power to reach people. There are no tickets as the aim is not to make profits. Rather, the audience is asked for contributions,” explains Prabha, a social activist from Buxar who has used the humble ‘nukkad natak’ (street corner play) to raise awareness among women on issues of income generation.

How has street theatre changed over the years? Birendra Kumar, a trainer with Ravi Bharati points out that television and reality shows have had an impact on the form and content. The format has evolved. Today some street theatre groups use costumes and basic make-up, he says. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because street theatre reflects the situation of the people, and today, the common man is highly influenced by the idiot box. Street Theatre reflects the idiom of the people, and raises contemporary issues.

Some trace the history of street theatre  to the 19th century when labourers and party workers wrote and did plays during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Women  produced plays like "how the vote was won" during the suffragette movement in London in the 1900’s. The Soviet  Revolution spawned its own kind of street theatre to reach the unwashed masses. During World War II, street theatre played a role in fanning anti-war sentiments.

The history of ‘modern’ street theatre in India can be traced to Indian People's Theatre association (IPTA), formed in 1943, the first organised body to adapt the form to a more political end raising issues of imperialism and inequality. IPTA is regarded as the pioneer of the people's theatre movement in India.

HOW DEEP IS YOUR COMMITTMENT TO REFLECTING LIFE... OR ARE WE JUST PAWNS OF ESTABLISHMENT?

Shamsul Islam, a prominent theatre activist and writer notes that he first of the street theatre troupes came into being around 1967 in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi. Many of these troupes are still alive and active. He says that street theatre came into being at a time when India was beset with decline and degeneration in political, economic, social and cultural institutions. Street theatre appeared and  questioned the rot.

Hassan Imam, who needs no introduction to theatre enthusiasts in Bihar once told me that  street theatre as a genre was a reaction to the established theatre of the time. This new theatre emerged as a platform for the anti-establishment forces, providing opportunities to experiment and to express their dissent.  The nukkad is more than mere alternative theatre. It has a political message; to change the world, to encourage plurality, to promote an egalitarian society.

The establishment struck back. Shamsul Islam maintains that in Kerala, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh street theatre was banned; performers like Prabir Dutta, Rajan and Safdar killed while performing.  In the mid ‘80s at Basti in Uttar Pradesh, a woman street theatre activist was picked up by the police from the midst of a performance and raped in order to teach her a lesson. In most of the cases, state repression was let loose in the name of combating Naxalism, he says.

Today, street theatre is a recognised art form and has gained legitimacy. Groups like Asmita and Bihar Art Theatre regularly attract youngsters who enthusiastically take to street theatre as a stepping stone to careers on stage or on television. Some old timers complain that the multinationals and the government have turned this form of protest into a new form of propaganda, but that is a topic for another day.

In the meanwhile, at the Gandhi Maidan, some 150 street theatre artistes and trainees have converged from several districts to raise contemporary issues: rising prices, intolerance, domestic violence, patriarchy, the unequal distribution of wealth, and so on.  The beat of the street goes on and on…

 

Author: Frank Krishner

In Search of Gandhi

FRANK OPINIONS/ FRANK KRISHNER

In Search of Gandhi

The famous Ajanta caves in Maharashtra are worth a visit, but a few kilometres away, there’s a fascinating quiet place called Jalgaon. Here, located in a property called the Jain Hills, is a phenomenon that has already found echoes in distant north Bihar. But first, a story:

It was 1985. A farsighted industrialist wanted to set up a factory to manufacture resin, the raw material for PVC pipes. It was the ‘license raj’. So he needed a licence. The file arrived in New Delhi. The project was  accepted. All it needed was one crucial signature, that of the minister. The minister called the businessman to Delhi to discuss the deal. The ‘cost’ of the signature was 5 crore rupees. The man said that all his life he had accomplished everything on merit, and he had never paid a single rupee as bribe. He told the minister that if there was merit in the proposal , then there was no reason to pay the bribe. The signature never went on the file. Fifteen days later, a license was granted to a competitor. The man who refused to pay a bribe was Bhavarlal H. Jain, whose group became the undisputed king of PVC pipes a decade later.

This Gandhian industrialist, now chairperson of the largest irrigation systems manufacturing group in India, that has gifted the world one of the most amazing tributes to the Mahatma, the first ever dedicated multimedia Museum named ‘Gandhi Teerth’.

A walk through the museum takes about three hours. On entry, the visitor is handed an electronic gadget with a set of headphones. The guest can choose to receive the narration in Hindi or English. In the first gallery, ‘Wants and Needs’, the guest is confronted with a touch screen  and asked to make an ‘avatar’ of himself- to choose the house, clothes, and lifestyle he wants from a set of visuals. The next exhibit shows his face (recorded by the camera) and along with it his lifestyle and the how ‘cost-effective’ it is for Mother Earth. This is the first of eleven stages of the ‘Gandhi Pilgrimage’:  the childhood, influences, student life, journey to England, then India, then South Africa, then the return to India and Champaran and so on. Each gallery has surprises, experiences and new learning opportunities. Mahatma Gandhi’s school leaving results, for instance, is an eye opener. He didn’t even make it to forty percent! Paintings, sculptures, replicas of lifestyle items, actual artefacts used by Gandhi, and audio-visual magic that transports you to the sights and sounds of the late 19^th and early 20^th century: it’s an experience to remember and cherish.

But that’s not all. Before you leave, witness the work being done across India by different ‘Gandhians in action’, people using their skills and knowledge to make India’s villages work.

GANDHI 'EXAMINATION' FOR PRISONERS BY GRF

Gandhi Research Foundation, founded by Padmashree Bhavarlal Jain, (the industrialist in the story) is an international academic and research organisation that doesn’t limit itself to armchair philosophy. It is actively involved in helping surrounding villages grow organic crops, adopt water harvesting, improve the condition of their schools, and aspire to a better economic status through small income generation measures that will be linked to viable marketing strategies.

In Bihar, Bhavarlal Jain, through the Gandhi Research Foundation, has offered technical support to the Gandhi Shodh Sansthan in a sleepy undiscovered corner of West Champaran. Every week, scores of school kids from neighbouring schools go to this ordinary looking building to experience Gandhiji and admire replicas and material made possible by the GRF. They also learn to spin thread on a charkha. This is not all.

Several young people between the ages of 21 and 32 are already making their way to Bhitiharwa. They are educated, articulate achievers from across India, with one vision: to develop an environment friendly, humane, responsible and Gandhian approach to rural development in one of Bihar’s most backward districts.

Mahatma Gandhi, on 20 November 1917, had established his second basic school at Bhitiharwa. His development work was based on education, sanitation, and health. In his autobiography, he expressed his regret that his work in Champaran was left unfinished, because of the lack of committed local volunteers. It is just possible, that 95 years on, the youngsters of Bihar will rise to the occasion and by 2017, Champaran will show signs of a vibrant ‘gram swaraj’.

 

Author: Frank Krishner

Glory Days: Patna as education hub?

The early 1900’s brought students from other states and neighbouring countries to Patna for education, will the 21st century see the resurgence of Patna as a destination or quality education? The jury’s out on that one, writes Frank Krishner

Every June, outbound trains and planes carry significant numbers of freshly graduated high school students towards colleges in other cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and even to towns such as Indore and Gangtok. These youngsters leave home and wing their way to mainstream and vocational courses, battling it out in competitive examinations, braving inhospitality and swallowing their pride because they believe that colleges, institutions and universities outside the state will give them a better deal.

Observers say that times are changing and that this tide may soon be stemmed. They point to the many ‘franchisee’ schools: the ‘big brands’ of private education that have set up shop in the State capital. Vocational courses that lead to better paying pay-packets are no longer exclusively available in the Metros. Bihar can boast of several players of national and international repute that promise world-class education right in the heart of Patna. Be it media studies, animation, radio and television, foreign language courses, business management or fashion designing, there are institutes that offer these courses right here.

TRYST
“Patna’s tryst with modern education started way back in the 19th century. Schools like St. Joseph’s Convent and St. Michael’s have traditions that span over 150 years,” says Anne D’Costa, who taught at the latter school for over 25 years and who now lives with her equally famous footballer and teacher husband Rocque D’Costa in Mumbai.

Patna College dates back to 1912. Patna Medical College and Bihar National College gave India and the world some of its brightest luminaries. The American Jesuits started St. Xavier’s, and the American Bishop Sullivan started Patna Women’s College in the tempestuous years of 1939-40. They read the signs of India struggling to break free from British colonialism and encouraged their students to prepare themselves to take on great responsibilities in the New India. Students travelled from Bengal, Orissa and neighbouring countries to schools and colleges in Patna.

PASS WITHOUT ENGLISHIn the seventies and eighties, Patna saw several upheavals, not the least in the field of education. There emerged a new category on the Matriculation certificate, “Pass without English”. The venerable Catholic / Protestant aristocratic English medium school ethos: stolid and elitist, underwent a drastic change as the Jesuits shifted gears and opened the floodgates to Dalits in their new-found ‘option for the poor’. Upper class Patna watched aghast as trusted traditions were thrown to the winds and first St. Xavier’s, and then St. Michael’s reversed gears and became Hindi medium schools. This resulted in the opening of several privately run English Medium Schools run by Anglo-Indians, the most famous of which was set up by a certain Alfred De Rozario.

ASPIRATIONAL LANGUAGE

“Let’s face it. English is the aspirational language of Bihar. In spite of all attempts to portray Bihar as a rustic place which has no place for English, several private English Medium schools opened in Patna,” observes journalist and educator Allen Johannes. “Schools such as Rose Bud, St. Karen’s, St. Dominic Savio’s were started and flourished. Soon other schools such as DAV and Krishna Niketan opened: all of them teaching with English as a medium of instruction.”

Post-modern, technology-driven, globalised India has an entirely different set of aspirations and values, and the shift is evident in the choices made by the prospering middle classes of twenty-first century Bihar. The air-conditioned designer schools have made a mark in Patna. If money is no consideration, one needn’t pack their kids off to strange boarding schools when brands such as DPS, Radiant, and Zee have arrived and unpacked their wares.

Gyan Niketan School Director Anita Kunal attributes the success of the institution to the dedication and devotion of faculty and students to their respective duties. “Team work, utmost sincerity and honesty towards been our USP. We just don’t rest on our laurels and allow complacency to sneak in. We are constantly challenging ourselves to set new but realistic standards,” she says. She denounces too much attention being given to academics alone. “The general tendency is to stress too much on academics once the students reach the 10+2 level. The extra curricular activities and personality development aspect of education which are an integral part of the process are given a backseat. This should be avoided. The idea is to attain equilibrium between studies and all round development, without which education loses its essence.”

Coomar Anunodaya, who runs the Krishna Niketan chain of schools says that the imparting of cultural values and sanskar are the basis of education. “In our schools, we do not stress only on grades, life skills are an integral part of education. The girls are taught how to be good daughters, mothers and daughters-in-law as well. Family values are important.” A similar line of thought is also held by the Premalok school, which has sessions with spiritual leaders as part of the curriculum.

There primary reason why the demand for higher education and traditional courses in the state suffer and students migrate to outside institutions is that little placement assistance is provided by Patna colleges, says College of Commerce (Magadh University) Principal Suresh Prasad. “This deters them from opting for courses from Patna institutions which don’t provide them with access to employment opportunities.”

There is evidence that the benefits of education to individuals and society are enhanced when its quality is high. For example, better learning outcomes – as represented by pupils’ achievement test scores – are closely related to higher earnings in the labour market; thus, differences in quality are likely to indicate differences in individual worker productivity. Empirical research has also demonstrated that good schooling improves national economic potential. The quality of the labour force, again as measured by test scores, appears to be an important determinant of economic growth.
[Photo by FK: Boys in a government shool in Madhepura, Bihar March 2009. This article was published in the Times of India in April 2008]

Author: Frank Krishner

Another Brick in the Wall

Education is fast becoming a fad-ridden industry, and nowhere is this more evident than in small town India.
Ride through the streets of Patna and you cannot fail to see a plethora of posters, wall writing, and billboards merrily advertising everything from ‘Dharapravah Angrezi in 30 days’ to ‘Cracking the Chemistry paper by Xyz Sir’.
Children are robbed of their childhood and enslaved to textbooks by first generation ‘urban parents’, whose daily chant is ‘get up, brush, study and go for tuitions’.

Teaching Shops
The employees of the so-called ‘English Medium’ teaching shops that masquerade as schools – they do not deserve to be called teachers – actually discourage children from reading books beyond the prescribed texts. I have heard in shocked disbelief that parents in Patna [and I daresay elsewhere] discourage their kids from reading storybooks!
School libraries that are supposed to be storehouses of knowledge of all kinds are reduced to textbook godowns that stock books on chemistry, physics and mathematics and nowadays, computers. General Knowledge is a ‘subject’ to be mugged up and not to be gleaned through leisurely forays into magazines, books, or life experiences. The so-called ‘teacher’ of a teaching factory thinks it is enough for a kid to ‘know’ that Dickens wrote a book called ‘Oliver Twist’, it is not necessary for the child to actually read it and experience it for himself.
If you are a schoolteacher who discourages your student from reading children’s literature, you are responsible for producing a half-baked human being. Worse, if you are a schoolteacher who does not read children’s literature, you are a half-baked teacher. If you are a teacher of English and have not read Harry Potter, or the books of Roald Dahl, or at least Enid Blyton and Amar Chitra Katha, your knowledge is severely limited.

Woefully Limited
Every year, I face a class of ‘English Medium’ students – products from ‘English Medium’ Patna schools. I happen to teach Journalism and Media studies in a Communicative English Curriculum at the undergraduate level. Most of these ‘plus two’ students who aspire to become communicators have very poor communication skills, or social skills for that matter. Their reading, by and large, is woefully limited to the English textbooks. Their comprehension is usually appalling. I have discovered that more than half the students no idea about Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, or even Cinderella. They do not read modern authors, not even the Barbara Cartland, Denise Robbins or Mills & Boon! Forget about the ‘more serious’ reading material. They don’t read. Period.

To teats their English comprehension skills, I play a common song like “Country Roads”, and more than half the students cannot make out the words. In a class of 35, there will be about five students who can tell me the names of five English singer/ songwriters or pop groups. These are English medium students who have been studying for 12 years in English medium schools and they cannot comprehend the first fifteen minutes of ‘The Sound of Music’ or ‘My fair lady’. Worse still, more than half the class have never watched an English film!

These students ‘read’ newspapers, but if you ask them what they think of Jug Suraiya, or Karan Thapar or Bagchi Karkariya (or any other regular columnist with the exception of Bejan Daruwalla) and they stare at you open-mouthed. Most of these young people do not have the ability to think for themselves, to engage in discourse. They spout generalities. They are shaky and diffident when the discourse leads beyond the textbook.

Frogs in wells
And to think that parents spend so much of money on an ‘English Medium’ education! English is supposed to broaden your worldview, but what are the end products of these teaching shops? Loud-mouthed brats with the perspective of a frog in a well!

Now ask any parent why education is important. Why do they strive hard to send their kids to a particular school? The answer will invariably be: to give them social graces, to instil a sense of discipline, to make my child a good citizen, so that my child learns values such as honesty, to make my child a well rounded human being. This is why they would pay through their noses, so that their children become world citizens, but with their feet firmly rooted in reality.
But does our school education system value the disciplined, the polite, the well-rounded human child? A child may be polite, honest, excel at dramatics and debates, do well on the sports field, but is he valued if he just brings home average grades in science and maths? Certainly not! Because punctuality, good leadership qualities, and honesty do not fetch ‘marks’. As a matter of fact, in the senior classes, the teachers themselves cast aside all value systems and honesty and allow (or may I dare say ‘encourage’) the students to cheat on project work and practical assignments. To ensure that the students pass, they award the highest possible marks to all students during internal evaluation, regardless of whether the student is a hardworking one or a shirker.

Teacher as salesman

In this mass-produced, throwaway consumer culture, it is not the durability or the reliability of the product that counts, as long as the package is fine, the goods will pass muster. So, it does not matter whether your student actually has an education, it is the marks on the report card that matter. No wonder then, that teachers have lost all respect, after all, they are just over-the-counter salespersons.
If you have the good fortune to have a teacher who believes that her profession is a vocation and not a career, you are blessed indeed.

The Master teacher is knowledgeable. She reads a lot. She has a worldview and knows that there is no such thing as a ‘superior’ or an ‘inferior’ culture. She challenges her students to explore, to experience life, to test the boundaries. She knows her subject thoroughly and strives to ensure that the weakest students are enthused by her teaching. She is impartial with a sense of fair dealing and fair play, and she is not impressed by how ‘famous’ or what a ‘big person’ a child’s parents are.

In the seventies, the rock band Pink Floyd, wrote an anthem, “Another Brick in the Wall.” The lyrics are telling indeed. “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. Dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher, leave that kid alone. Teacher! Leave that kid alone!”

When teachers themselves have forgotten what the true purpose if education is, when they themselves bend the value system for narrow pecuniary and political gains, then all that is achieved by this education are bricks for a wall, not human beings. The products of this ‘marks oriented’ mass produced education are faceless, square entities, devoid of humanity with facts and figures loosely rattling round inside their heads.

Has the teaching shop killed the traditional school yet? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind…



Author: Frank Krishner

Dudhwala Number One

He’s rushing back to his office from inspecting the quality of cattle-feed at a Sudha Dairy plant, and calls for the latest sales figures on ‘Mattha’ or sour buttermilk.

You ask him about the award.
“Huh,” says Patna Dairy Project Managing Director SB Sinha, “which award?”
“Didn’t you get an award at Delhi, recently?” we ask.
“Oh, the Best National Productivity Award. Yes, we came first in the Dairy Development and Production Sector. It’s a great honour. Now, where are those sales figures?”

Make no mistake, the National Award for 2005-06 is no mean achievement, with the Vaishal Patliputra Dugdh Utpadak Sahakari Sangh [Patna Dairy Project is its popular short-form] becoming the number one milk production cooperative in the country in terms of procurement, production, and profits.
And this is possible in Bihar, the butt of bad publicity!
“Awards are very important milestones, and it’s a tremendous honour”, says Sinha, “but we’ve got to scale new heights. I’m monitoring the progress of the latest addition to our product range, Sudha Mattha.”

The National Productivity Awards were instituted in 1982 with the objective of recognising and encouraging organisations that excel in their respective fields.
This is the third time that the Patna Dairy Project received the award.

“You may say that the figures speak for themselves. We procure over 175 thousand litres of milk every day from a network of over 1285 village dairy societies spread over four districts. This is accomplished in spite of heat, water-logging, bad roads, erratic power supply, and many other challenges. We pass on more than 80 crores of rupees every year to these milk producers as the price of milk, thus improving the social and economic conditions of the households. Our excellent performance and good management practices have earned us international certification for quality and food safety management, ISO 9001:2000 and HACCP. We have achieved a commendable 21% growth in milk sales alone. All our milk products including table butter, ghee, peda, lassi, icecream, paneer enjoy a very high reputation among consumers and this is reflected in our rapidly growing sale trends.”


FRANK KRISHNER

Never a dull moment at FCI

The Food Corporation of India may not have a romantic-sounding name, but it’s a vital link in ensuring the continued health of our farmers, points out FCI General Manager A K Verma, who has engineered a visible growth in grain procurement in Bihar since he took over the reins in February 2003.

Juggling between 127 procurement centres and 48 granaries is no easy task. The FCI, being a Central agency, coordinates with the Bihar Government and PACs or Primary Agricultural Cooperatives. It procures wheat and rice at the Minimum Sale price fixed by the government every year.

It also ensures that the grains are moved to the public distribution system, as well as the various government schemes. It’s a tricky business, explains Verma, given that the godowns are limited.

The stock has to move from the warehouses to the people to make place for more procurement.

Getting procurement figures up from around 24 thousand tons to 1,64,000 in his first year was no sedate desk job. It was a challenge. Staff had to be motivated.

“Actually, there’s never a dull moment. Think of this. When our FCI personnel move into the field, they are upsetting the cart of some vested interest or the other. A powerful goonda may have the monopoly and the poor farmers have no option but to pay him at whatever low rate he offers. Now when we offer a better price, the fellow’s monopoly is threatened. So what does he do? He will obviously put some pressure on our man in the field. Who wants to go to a remote location to get killed or kidnapped?"

Ensuring continuing and consistent backup from the state law and order machinery for the man on the field is an important task. Today, with excellent coordination between FCI personnel and the District administration, vested interests by and large have been thwarted, says Verma. In times of crisis, such as a flood or an earthquake, FCI takes a direct role in ensuring that rice or wheat reaches the affected populations in tandem with the state government.

Farmers are the gainers when they sell to FCI, because the payment is immediate, and there is no red tape. “After all, we are working in the interest of the cultivators so that they get a stable price,” says Verma. When there is a glut of grains in the state and the prices fall so low that farmers find it impossible to recover even their invested capital, the FCI has to step in and do whatever it can within reasonable limits to give them a fair deal.

Bihar's Muslims: in an educational Ghetto?

According to a Planning Commission report, only one per cent Muslim women and 3.4 per cent men in urban areas are graduates. In rural areas only 0.7 per cent Muslim men graduate and women graduates are too few to even register on a survey. Across India, Muslim literacy rate is 59.1 per cent, while the national average is 64.8 per cent. And 90 per cent Muslim students drop out by the time they reach high school. FRANK KRISHNER examines the Bihar situation.

In terms of education, Muslims fare much worse than the scheduled castes and tribes across the country and the problem is more economic than cultural, say a broad spectrum of Muslim citizens.

“It just isn’t true that Indian Muslims are backward-looking and resistant to education. Poverty is the over-riding factor. There are few government schools in pockets where there is Muslim majority and that’s why the kids are sent to the Madrasa, not the other way around, “ says Hasan Nezani, Principal of Patna Muslim Science College. Nezami, who once taught at the Military school, Ajmer, returned to Patna as the Principal of the Patna Muslim High School. The school, established in 1938, was reeling under several problems, including low attendance. Nazrani turned it around, lobbied successfully for its affiliation to the CBSE board, and today it stands as a much sought after provider of secondary education among the community.

The contribution of the community to education in this state has been significant. In Bihar, there are several secular and forward-looking Secondary and Higher secondary schools run by this minority community. In Patna, Rose Bud School ranks among the best English medium schools affiliated to ICSE. Its name is a reference to Pandit Nehru’s favourite flower and symbolic of his love for children. Mrs Rizvi, its founder principal is well known for her unflinching commitment to secular and democratic values. Rose Bud, as also International School are co-educational institutions whose alumni come from all sections and communities.

“It is not a fallacy to say that Bihar Muslims are in a ghetto in more ways than one,” says Meher, a Mass communications undergraduate. “The way to get them out of the ghetto is through modern education. A small number of families of Muslims are middle class or upper class, and these families usually form their own social group. Unless the boys get modern education, they will not get proper jobs, and the community will remain as it is.”
Interestingly, Meher is just one of over 24 Muslim girls studying mass communication in the two media related departments of Patna Women’s College. For the past three years, about twenty percent of the students of Communicative English come form the community.

However, the picture with reference to primary education isn’t as encouraging. Many Muslim parents do want to send children to government schools and learn English rather than send them to Madrasas. Surveys and complaints to Waqf boards show that government schools in Muslim-dominated areas are too few. The Sarva Shiksya Abhiyan, seems to have met roadblocks in Muslim areas, says Nezani. ‘The main reason why the children are being sent to the religious schools is because they are given ‘bhojan’. If only some financial help could be availed of, things would be different.
Recently, the spotlight has been on the Justice Sachar report on the condition of Muslims. The Sachar Committee, looking into the representation of Muslims in every sphere of national life, has not yet tabled its report. The Planning Commission already has an action plan for Muslim education. It’s proposing a scholarship of Rs 1,000 per month to every Muslim girl in the country and an incentive of Rs 10,000 to higher institutes for every Muslim graduate. No doubt, it is a radical plan that will involve an outlay of Rs 6,000 crore.
A working group on education for Muslims, appointed by the Planning Commission, has submitted a roadmap for making education more accessible for Muslim children, especially girls. It’s heartening to know that there are a some modern schools for girls being run by the community, which cater to all sections of the society in Bihar, however more needs to be done as large numbers of Muslim girls continue to be kept home.

There is a sense of urgency in these Planning Commission recommendations. It is imperative that all young people be empowered to access gainful employment. No section of society can be left behind, if India, and Bihar for that matter, is to move towards meaningful development. The roles of the members of the community who are actively promoting modern education are the key to the aspirations of the Indian Muslim.

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Will HIV impact local industry in Bihar?

Corporate Bihar and Jharkhand are yet to wake up to the rising HIV prevalence, and local industrialists have yet to realize the impact in can have on the workforce. HIV infections have already made its entry on the shop-floors of many small industries, as is evident from the increased numbers of positive workers, say observers. In the industrial belt of Noida, several concerns have already incorporated HIV and AIDS awareness, management and rights issues into their skill-building programmes for workers, thanks to nudging from the local administration. Bihar –Jharkhand are a far cry away, with most industry bosses unaware that HIV actually poses a threat to production.
According to official figures, 1,100 people among Bihar's over 83 million population are infected with the virus, but AIDS campaigners claim the figures are underreported. Unofficial figures put the HIV population of Bihar at 40,000. Bihar State AIDS figures are based on sentinel surveillance from about 61 sites. Based on date collected from these sites, BSACS claims a decrease in prevalence from 0.38 percent in 2005-6 to 0.36 percent in 2006-7.
BSACS Joint Director IEC Vishal Singh announced a 10 day “Mobile Awareness and Testing” campaign in 12 districts of Bihar : East and West Champaran, Samastipur, Gopalganj, Nalanda, Katihar, Sheikhpura, Jamui, Lakhisarai, Madhepura, Siwan and Patna, admitting that the sentinel data shows an upward trend in these districts.
While independent data has shown that the virus has long since moved from the so-called ‘high risk’ groups into the general population, particularly the young, able-bodied workforce, official statistics in India are largely determined on ‘sentinel’ sites. Of the 61 sites in Bihar, 14 are for ‘targeted interventions’ : intravenous drug users, sex workers, men having sex with men. Independent AIDS campaigners warn that small industries may feel the impact unless private –public partnership in HIV awareness and management becomes a reality.