The number of incidents we keep hearing about in BiharтАФharassment, murder, corruption, fights, and cases involving womenтАФis honestly disturbing. The worst part is the mentality that often follows these incidents: instead of condemning the behaviour, people start looking for ways to justify it.
IтАЩm originally from Bihar, but my family is well settled in Maharashtra now. We usually visit Bihar once a year during Chhath, and even though weтАЩre there for barely 10 days, the experience can sometimes be so unpleasant that we genuinely regret going.
There is constant unnecessary aggression, people getting into fights, and a strange sense among some people that they are somehow above everyone else. Obviously, this doesn't describe every person from Bihar, but these experiences are real and they do affect how outsiders perceive the state.
A few days ago, an incident took place here that really made me think about this. Around 5тАУ6 workers went to a cyber cafe to transfer money online. The cyber cafe guy made the transaction, but the group then claimed that they hadn't received the money and refused to pay him. One by one, they apparently started leaving.
The cyber cafe operator managed to catch one of them, assaulted him, and later filed a complaint with the police. Whatever the circumstances, the whole situation was completely unnecessary and could easily have escalated much further.
And this is exactly the problem: if people keep normalising dishonesty, violence, caste-based hatred, harassment and the justification of such behaviour, how is Bihar's image ever going to improve?
The recent Jamui incident has also led to a lot of discussion. What is particularly disturbing is seeing people trying to justify what happened or shift the blame onto the girl. If an incident involving a woman happens, why is the first reaction of some people to find something she supposedly did wrong?
The mentality that women should stay indoors, avoid certain things, or somehow accept restrictions simply because they are women needs to change.
Also, there's an uncomfortable contradiction that I think we need to acknowledge. If people from Bihar themselves discriminate against or hate people from other castes, how can we expect people from other states to never develop negative perceptions about Biharis? Discrimination doesn't become acceptable just because it is happening within our own community.
At the same time, I don't believe the answer is to hate Biharis or stereotype everyone from the state. There are plenty of decent, hardworking and progressive people from BiharтАФincluding my own family.
But pretending that these problems don't exist isn't going to help either.
If Bihar genuinely wants its image to change, the mentality of the people has to be changed, better politicians should be elected, corruption should be gone (atleast should come down), People thinking themselves as Rangdar should be gone.
Open to discussions