What Biharis owe Lalu

From the loudspeakers, the names of gods blared through the night. I remember the frenzied "Jai Shri Ram", and from the roofs, we sometimes saw fire and smoke in the distance. It was a couple of years after Advani had been arrested in Samastipur after the "Rath Yatra" had passed through Patna and was on its way through the hinterlands of Bihar. Lalu Prasad Yadav had requested Advani to not lead his Rath Yatra into Bihar, but Advani had progressed, and was on his way to Uttar Pradesh via Gopalganj when he was arrested.

Overnight, telecommunication links were cut, and Samastipur in Bihar turned into a battleground of sorts with paramilitary forces securing the place Advani had been staying at. At the time, Lalu, who was observing a fast, said the decision was taken by him to maintain communal harmony in Bihar. A year before, in the days leading up to the Ayodhya campaign, the worst communal violence was witnessed in Bihar's Bhagalpur where many Muslims had been killed. Advani had gone ahead with his decision to hold a rath yatra despite warnings that such an action would incite riots.

And today, almost 15 years later, Lalu was once again part of the strategy to check the onward march of the BJP and its allies during the Legislative Assembly elections that were crucial for the BJP, and the country.

It was 1992 when I first encountered a curfew. In Patna, during the time, schools had been shut, and although we didn't understand what was going on, we heard the loudspeakers through the day and night blaring patriotic songs, and frenzied chanting. We lived in the old parts of the city, and our house was right at the threshold of the Muslim colonies. Those were the days when a few Muslims left the neighbourhood despite assurances given that nothing would happen to them. They had heard about the 1984 riots in Delhi where Sikhs had been slaughtered, and neighbours turned against neighbours. Some came to our house to stay for a few nights, and others camped together in a school, so that if things turned bad, they could at least be together.

Also read: Should I be worried for the Muslim family in my neighbourhood?

But they had been our neighbours. We played with them, and I remember my friends Rehana and Shaista who would send us delicacies during Eid, and how we would be invited to Iftaar dinners. Actually, one of my favourite memories of Patna is the taste of Makuti, a kind of sweet they served in earthen pots. I remember how happily I had brought a bagful of these one night from a wedding function at Yusuf uncle's place. My tuition teacher's name was Shahida, and she would take me to her house, and feed me lunch sometimes.

Nobody thought on Hindu-Muslim lines at that time. Not at least in our neighbourhood. But those frenzied slogans sowed the first seeds of distrust. The fear was palpable, and perhaps when I now look back, I can see why being in the minority is a difficult position. It was entrenched, I believe, in us that we were the majority and although we tried to empathise, it would always remain just that. I was born Hindu, but my family was hardly religious. At least not in the way religion is manifested today. My mother told me not to eat beef, and once, when I had tasted it long ago in the US, I didn't like the taste. But we didn't kill those who ate beef. They respected our choice. We honoured theirs.

On Muharram, we were excited about the Taziyas, and watched them through the day, and listened to the stories of the battle of Karbala, and grew up listening to Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and reading Saadat Hasan Manto, and Premchand.

Anyway, during the curfew days, I remember that our Muslim neighbours left one day and went to live in the school. We said nothing would happen, and they said they trusted us but needed to go. Nothing happened. The curfew was lifted. Things returned to what they were.

A few years ago, I was at a lunch at Lalu's residence, which of course officially was in the name of Rabri Devi, and a man told me stories of that curfew. He said the Muslims felt scared, and Lalu would sit in the police control room answering calls from people who were scared, and he would walk around the neighbourhoods, and ride on scooters trying to maintain peace. Bihar had witnessed the worst, and Patna was never a divided city. He needed to assure everyone that life would go on, and the city would remain as it had always been.

Also read: How Patna taught me the true meaning of despair

A lot of people talk about the fodder scam, and I still remember the dark days of anarchy and corruption, and how women felt unsafe. I know I was not free. I remember how we were horrified when the Shilpi Jain rape and murder case happened, and how we were in a hurry to leave the city. We were occupied too. By fear, and by chaos. There was a complete breakdown of law and order, and I am not condoning any of that. I lived in Patna during those days. I know how fear felt like. It made us return to our homes by 4pm. We missed out on so many things.

But I also know that my memory of the city is not tainted by communalism. As an upper caste Hindu, we were made to feel marginalised, and hunted for being born in what he tagged as “oppressive caste” and I have every right to be against Lalu, but beyond the anarchy and the chaos, and the corruption, there are other things that matter too. Like secularism. I know that I grew up in a secular place, and now, when men are being killed for eating beef, I am grateful that I belong from Bihar, a state that resisted the onward march of the BJP.

I know we fear the return to chaos, and I am no apologist for the regime that took away from us our freedom, and turned us into “forever migrants”.

We were rebuked, and stereotyped. We were called buffoons, and we were labelled as lacking social skills. Our poverty, which was our bane, was used against us. We were forced to go to anywhere where we could find work, and many times I heard people saying how well they were treating the Bihari workers. One Kashmiri, in particular, had said they gave their Bihari workers tea twice. The patronising attitude hurt. People called me provincial, and spoke of Bihar as if it was a strange place inhabited by idiots and poor people. We took it all. But we also carried our home within us. Those who come from Bihar know this. There's no other place that ever felt like home.

We have kept returning. Sometimes only to breathe in the October air that has a unique fragrance to it. Of wood and fire, of cold, and of home. The scent is what we yearn for. We get poetic about nostalgia. We may not have the mountains, the lakes, or the spectacular scenery. But we can write verses that typically belong to our memories of Bihar, and our fondness for what we have always called home.

And today, after the people of Bihar defeated the BJP and its allies, there were congratulatory notes. And we only smile. Everyone is proud of Biharis today.

But I will narrate one incident. I was in Srinagar to cover the floods, and met a few migrant labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh as they were leaving. They had foregone their earnings because they said their owners had suffered. It would be a long journey home. They had lost everything. Not that they had much to begin with. And they looked like migrants. For long, I have held a view that the poor look poor. They were famished men who were trying to find a way to get to Jammu so they could then work there for a few days, and make some money to return home. They weren't blaming anyone. Not the Army, and not the locals. A local overheard them telling me how the Army had rescued a few of them during the floods and started beating them up saying they were traitors, and they should not be praising the Army. I intervened to say they were not praising but only telling me the facts. But the man said they were lying, and asked them to say they were rescued by the locals. Else, he said, you are the betrayer.

During the floods, everyone helped to rescue. There were locals who tirelessly rowed boats and helped in the rescue efforts. There were also rumours about the Army dropping expired food packages. The flood there was political. But I had felt sad for the migrants. They had only said what they had experienced. And they were beaten up, and abused for that. At the Army headquarters, I saw them crouching, and waiting to be taken anywhere. At the airport, one of them had asked for the fare to Delhi, and when it was too much for him to afford, he had bought a ticket to Jammu. Many had attempted a return following the train tracks. That made me sad. We didn't leave our state because we wanted to. We had to. That's the truth of migrants.

And now, those migrants are being hailed by all. And call me provincial, but we voted against the rise of fascist forces, and for development. We voted for secularism, and we voted for the future.

And for this, I forgive Lalu the many years of anarchy. I don't say it was right. But there's a point when we must move on. And I hope Lalu knows this. Such are the times that we live in that we must choose our fears, and wisely so. The fear of getting killed for voicing one's opinion is the greatest fear. I am a proud Bihari today for choosing to be secular. Everyone has their own list of priorities. For me, it has always been the freedom to be.

And of course, I never witnessed any more curfews in my city. Biharis like their chai at the tea stalls. They aren't used to curfews, or the idea of a curfewed nation. Even metaphorically so.