Every Indian is a Bihari

‘You don’t look like you are from Bihar’ was what an acquaintance once told me at a party. She rolled her eyes and said ‘I mean you sound intelligent’. For a man who can’t fall back on his looks- for the lack of it- to get girls to make a beeline for him at such parties, I am blessed that I was born and spent the first twenty years of my life in Bihar. It ensures pretty young things come to me and then with an all-knowing smirk on their faces ask me ‘What exactly is the problem with Bihar’. Since I like being invited to such parties once in a while, I shrug my shoulders and say ‘don’t get me started on that place. I mean what do I say’. This sort of a response allows me to stay part of their group, the city-sleekers, the Mumbaikars, the French and Yoga classes gang. It allows me to not be mistaken for a Bihari. Because in their world, Bihari is not a word to describe a person born and brought up in Bihar, it is a word that describes a mindset, a virus, an endless capacity to parasitically cling onto the progress of others, an unwanted entity, a burden on the face of the earth. Thanks to Raj Thackeray, Bihari and Bhaiyya have become words that describe several million things at the same time.

As an Indian and as a Bihari – and still maintain a third party view since at the end of the day I’m a Malu born there- I can prove that however much we smirk at Biharis, every Indian is a Bihari. Let me go about proving it.


All history, no future:
A Bihari really loves to boast about how almost all of pre-Mughal history that is taught in our school books has its roots in Bihar. When Hinduism was getting suffocating for the lower castes, two saviours appeared- Gautama Buddha and Mahavir. Where were they from or where did they attain this enlightenment- Bihar. When we talk of the greatest of our kings, who do we think of- Ashok, Chandragup? Bihar again. Which kingdom’s splendour and ferocity made Alexander the Great’s men say enough and no further? The Magadha Saamrajya under the Nandas. The only medieval Islamic king who defeated the Mughals and made public works his life mission? Sher Shah Suri from Rohtas. The same gentleman who made the Grand Trunk Road. So on and so forth. But don’t we see every Indian do this? We invented zero, Aryabhatta, astronomy, plastic surgery blah blah blah. End result- when we went gaga over Chandrayan finding water on the moon’s surface, the foreign papers and a NASA press conference only mentioned their equipment that found water, not a word of Chandarayan which took that equipment to the moon in the first place.

Cultural arrogance:
All the above-mentioned firsts inevitably gives the Bihari a streak of cultural arrogance that borders on nausea. As a Malayali living in Bihari, I was always reminded that we khattaas- the term for all south Indians because of the amount of tamarind we allegedly eat- married in our lungis and all our brides and the womenfolk without fail came to a marriage as widows. That was the Bihari take on the fact that white is the predominant colour in a Mallu marriage.
The Jharkhandis and other tribals were always haadi bootis roots, shoots and rice beer people, or chota jaat. Chota jaat also extended to Yadavs, Kurmis, etc if a Singh was talking. If it were a Mishra Jha or Tiwari speaking, then even a Singh would be a chota jaat. Doesn’t every Indian do this? In cosmopolitan Mumbai I hear colleagues say he is a Kobra, he is a CKP, he is a Deshasht, Maratha, Mahar, Jai Bhim. For us Indians, all south Indians are Madrasis, all Sardars are well dumb sardars, all east of Kolkata are chinkis or nepalis, all people from the mountains are pahadis. All Bengalis are machchees or dadus. Ghatis, Horo, Paandy, Gulti, cutpiece, topaless- mind you not topless. We Indians can give any nation a run for it money with our absolute mastery in cultural obnoxiousness.

Wide range:
Some of the most intelligent people I have met in my life are Biharis. At my school, Bihari students always stood first in almost all classes. These chaps then went on to gain entry into IITs and some went further into the IIMs. A Union HRD survey predicts that by 2025 all districts in India will either have an SP or a Collector or a Magistrate from Bihar. The civil services exam seems like it is made only for Biharis, looking at the numbers who clear it from that state. At the same time some of the biggest idiots I have seen are also Biharis. You will hear old men say that a particular candidate is a ‘full criminal’ but since he is Yadav – or substitute that for Thakur, Kurmi, Bhumihar, Moosahar, Brahmin, Baniya- I will vote for him. ‘Nahi to kya satta yeh haramzade uchche/ chote jaat ko dede?’ he will reason. Biharis vote for crooks who keep Pakistani made guns in their houses, crooks who buy mines in Liberia, crooks who have rape cases against them, murder dacoity, molestation, fraud, you name it and a Bihari will go and vote for that idiot. Are we Indians any different? Look at the recent Maharashtra assembly elections. Sons, fathers, crooks, scamsters, party-hoppers, sons of criminals, absconders, you name it and we have voted for them.

Low self-esteem:
Every Bihari when he moves out of his state feels it impossible to defend his place. I mean can you do anything more than just grin and bear it when every one starts laughing the moment you say Bihar and then follow it up by saying Lalu Prasad Yadav?
So the normal Bihari outside Bihar is a nervous wreck apologetic about the fact that when he came out of his mother’s womb, the mother happened to be within the geographical limits of Bihar. Think for a moment, my fellow Indians. We go abroad, shameful of the fact that we are Indians. We look at their cities in awe, badmouth our system back home, take the smiles and smirks when the average foreigner- only interested in India if he has read Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book or has heard that the Beatles were fairly impressed with some of our yogis- asks us about snake charmers, animal sacrifices, Hindu pagans, elephants, Pushkar, Kumbha and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

There are several more ways I can prove we are all Biharis. But I’m feeling too disgusted to go any further. All I know is Raj will continue to make capital out of the Biharis, Marathis will continue to vote for him and girls will continue to tell me ‘you are from Bihar?’ I will continue with the same response.