We all know that the recent election in Bihar was a mandate for RJD more than the JDU. RJD Supremo is of course notorious for making Bihar famous for all the wrong reasons. It is incomprehensible as to why Lalu’s party would get the mandate it did after the legacy he left during his 10 years of rule. I am less concerned with Lalu being involved in corruption (chara ghotala) than him being morally corrupt, arrogant and shrewd. One thing that I can say with some confidence and which could be the reason for the Bihar's debacle for BJP, was the lack of Bihari face during the election campaign. Even though I did not support Shatrughan 'shotgun' Sinha for Chief Minister's post but the bitter truth is that, he would have earned BJP a lot more seats had he been projected as the CM candidate. I am a native of Bihar and therefore understand to some extent the emotions and feelings that drive people of Bihar. Caste plays a huge role in the politics of Bihar and growth of religion based politics is a fact that cannot be altered from Bihari politicalscape. There is no denying that caste is a pivotal point in Bihar politics and caste animosity determines which way the votes go.   

As the popular adage goes - 'With great power comes great responsibility". The responsibility towards the people of Bihar was forgotten during the Jungle Raj under Lalu Prasad Yadav. He made sure that the people of Bihar remained poor, ignorant, uneducated, but carry themselves with a sense of false pride about the region they live in, the customs they perform, the culture they follow and the language they speak. The young generation is the most important demographics for a state to prosper. From my personal experience during visit to my village in the past, I could see that the government had made sure that this young generation would never prosper. There were just not enough schools. If there was a school, there were no teachers, if there were teachers, they were not eligible to teach, if there were eligible and knowledgeable teachers, there wasn't enough incentive for them to teach and neither was there any incentive for the students to attend the school. I am not even talking about the infrastructure, which was never there. I am just talking about the system and the intentions of the government during those times.

During the last decade or so, there has definitely been a marked improvement in some spheres of life, from infrastructure, schooling, law & order etc. There are many factors contributing to this improvement but let me be very clear that when I speak of the improvement, the absolute improvement itself is dismal; it is just the relative improvement over the previous decade that I am talking about. People from across the country can testify that they see Biharis everywhere, right from rickshaw-wala to paan-wala, from doodhwala to sabjiwala, involved in all sorts of businesses to meet their needs. If you happen to see their living standard, you would be appalled at the condition they live in, but then they chose to continue living like that because they do not have any options back in their native state. It was only when people of Bihar went out of their state in search of job, the rubber met the road. They saw the comfort, money, the standard of living and most importantly they saw a future for their children.

Even after a decade of better governance we still do not have a single city except Patna probably, which can boast of being a tier-2 city. With a population of about 100 million and having just one city and that too because it happens to be the capital city, in the list of tier-2 cities is itself a shame. Gujarat with just 60% of Bihar's population has probably around 7-8 cities if not more, categorized under tier-1 or 2. Even UP which is considered to have similar political ecology as that of Bihar does better on this count. There is hardly any industry that can boast of skilled labor in Bihar, so anyone not involved in farming has to search for a job outside the state. People employed in organized or private sector is abysmally low. Even a small state like Goa fares better in this sector. Coming to the education, the picture of Spider men climbing the wall to pass the answer chits to the students writing exams is still fresh in everyone's memory. This is a norm and no one should be surprised. There is not a single good university to actually be eligible for a real university. A degree from any of the Universities of Bihar would have to pass through a suspicion test during a job interview. I hardly know of any well educated person having a degree from Bihar, all the good students move outside of Bihar to complete their higher education. Isn't this a shame?

Bihar today is at least couple of decades behind developed states. To get close to other developed states, it not only has to grow at an unprecedented rate for next 20 odd years but also has to tackle problems of law and order. We were moving in the right direct until the election results of 2015.