In Mithilanchal, Nitish’s ‘Change’ Palpable While Lalu Spells Fear

In Mithilanchal, the Lalu years still spell fear but people have a soft corner for Nitish, writes Chandan Nandy.

Three sari-clad women stepped confidently into the Shilpasangh Madhubani painting complex in Raanti village on the outskirts of Madhubani town, in what is known as Mithilanchal in these parts of Bihar.

They expressed no surprise or anxiety at the presence of a visitor. They smiled in unison and greeted me before dumping their bags and settling down under the cool shade of the main structure, its walls the site of dazzling and breathtaking ritual art. Soon more women from Raanti walked in.

These are no ordinary women. Each is a painter in her own right. They have traveled far afield—Delhi Haat is their favourite—to display their exquisite creations for which Mithilanchal is globally known.

But beyond their passionate pursuit of the Madhubani folk art, the 52 women who are part of Shilpasangh, which is funded and support by a Patna-based NGO, Jeevika, possess incisive political minds.

Lalu’s Years Still Spell Fear

“We know the fifth phase of the election season in our state is due on November 5 but we are still weighing our options between the two coalitions,” chimed Baby Das, a mother of two, in her mellifluous voice distinctive of the people of Mithilanchal.

“Nitish Kumar has done so much for Bihar—be it development, law and order, or women’s security and empowerment, and yet we cringe at the very thought that his alliance partner is a man who destroyed the state in his 15-year rule,” Jayashree Devi said, referring to Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has been singled out by the BJP-led NDA for being the lord of Bihar’s so-called “jungle raj.”

“We voted for Nitishji in the 2010 assembly election when he was still part of the NDA,” said a bespectacled Narmada Devi, president of Shilpasangh, and an outspoken defender of women’s rights and empowerment.

The women of Shilpasangh, which was established in 2007 and subsequently blessed by Nitish during his second stint as chief minister, fear that Lalu Prasad might squirm his way back and that “will spell the doom of our hard-earned freedom.”

Political Inclinations

But while there is a sense of “freedom” and “independence” expressed through painting, the women of Shilpasangh are yoked to Bihar’s noxious caste politics. Like their menfolk, they identify themselves in caste terms.

While Baby Das, Narmada Devi and Poornima Devi belong to the Karn-Kayastha caste, which is considered to be “forward”, 27-year-old Mamta Devi, whose job is to sweep clean the complex everyday, for which she earns Rs 40 daily, is a Kurmi. Mamta Devi, who is in a minority, is less fussy about her political inclinations. With a demure smile she said: “Nitish ji ko vote denge.”

In adjoining Darbhanga, perhaps the most blighted district in the Mithilanchal region, which goes to the polls along with Seemanchal on November 5, Soni Kumari covers a distance of 18 kms (from her home in Akhraha-Utri village to her school in Laheriyasarai on the outskirts of Darbhanga town and back) on her bicycle that the Nitish government “gifted” thousands of underprivileged girls across Bihar in his second term.

“Yes, this year,” Soni responds in English when I ask her in Hindi when she was given the bicycle. “I go Class IX,” she replies in English again. And the third response, yet again in English, stumped me: “All subjects,” she said looking at me surprised that I didn’t know that any Class IX in India would study all subjects.

Pace of Change Slow but Evident

On education, especially women’s education and empowerment, Bihar is changing, albeit at a slower pace than many other states of India. In Gadhia village under Triveniganj (reserved) constituency in Supaul district, Chandan Kumar Ranjan is busy teaching five girls in a small thatched-roof hut. Today’s lesson is on establishment of the first factories the East Indian Company set up in India.

Ranjan, a college graduate who claims to be a “trained teacher”, lectures patiently to his motley students, including nursery-going Premlata, who feverishly take down notes in Hindi on their frayed notebooks.

Nisha Kumari, who attends Class VIII in Gadhia Middle School, couldn’t recollect where the East India Company set up its first factory in India, but her disarming smile and her wish to be a “teacher” when she grows up was enough to suggest that change is seeping in slowly but inexorably, regardless of political rhetoric.

The forces of development need not always be top-down.