Tarabari: The Bihar village that is bad publicity for Brand Nitish's claim of development

Tarabari/Purnea (Bihar): Tarabari, a village tucked away a few hundred kilometres from Bihar’s capital Patna, has a problem. People living outside the village are reluctant to give their daughters in marriage to men from the Tarabari. The reason? Poor road connectivity.

It’s difficult not to be disillusioned with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s claims of development once you try to reach this village in Purnea district. Located between two rivers, Kankai and Mahananda, Tarabari has no roads and bridges connecting it to the world outside. As the two rivers swell every year between March and July, the entire area gets submerged. The flood waters erode the soil, and at its worst, forces people to shift their houses. Floods have made villagers relocate four times in the past 46 years. But the floods aren’t the principal concern of people here .

The village with a population of 15,000 has no road to connect it with the nearest towns of Baisa, Amour, Baisi, Banmankhi, Barhara and Bhawanipur. They have to walk approximately 7-8 km, cross the Kankai river, and a tributary of the Kosi river with the help of a boat that doesn’t have a motor. But that isn’t enough. They then face the challenge of crossing a muddy stretch.

“In case of a medical emergency, we have three options: depend on jhola chaap doctors (quacks), take the patient to a hospital in a town on a charpai (a traditional woven bed). This is done with the help of at least four people who will carry it on their shoulders and cover the distance till the rivers bank on foot and then cross the rivers through boats, which is extremely difficult. The third option is to let the person suffer, or even die,” Masood Alam, a 36-year-old local, told Firstpost.

The health facilities available to the village only lays bare the sorry state of affairs. There is no government hospital, not even a primary health centre, in the Baisa Tehsil under which Tarabari and other neighbouring villages fall. There is one primary health centre in far away Amour.

Asked how people gather the courage to live in this village, Alam said there was no other option.

“Most of the people here depend on farming which is also a tough task because the flood water washes away everything they sow in their fields. Because of poverty, they cannot shift to towns. We have become used to it. We do everything for survival,” he said.

Interestingly, the village panchayat is considered a comparatively literate one as compared to others in the region. It has 15-20 government employees (mostly teachers), 25-30 graduates and 4-5 peers (religious scholars). Some youth of the village have moved to Delhi, Kota and Madhya Pradesh for technical education. Tarabari panchayat has two middle schools and four primary schools, but no high school or college. There are two colleges in the entire Purnea district for a population of around 18 lakh.

“We cannot send our daughters to colleges because of the long distance and absence of any means of communication. One can reach here from September to March or maximum till May. After that, the entire panchayat gets cut off from rest of the district because of floods. People do not want to marry their daughters with boys in our village because of the connectivity problem,” said Monazir Ahmad, sarpanch (village head) of the panchayat.

According to him, the devastating floods in Kosi, Mahananda and their tributaries every year have are causing the inhabitants to descend further into social, economical and educational backwardness. People are forced to migrate.

“There is no other way but to migrate. Even those who have land are not able to produce because of floods,” Ahmad said.

Tarabari is part of Kishanganj Lok Sabha constituency, which is represented by Maulana Asrarul Haque Qasmi. The fact that despite not spending even a single penny, along with 26 other MPs, from the allocated MPLADS (Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) funds, Qasmi has repeatedly been winning the seat and perhaps is a sign that development has still not become a parameter used to assess performance in Muslim politics.

Four Muslims are in the fray for Baisi assembly seat, of which Tarabari is a part. They are Haji Subhan from the RJD, Azizur Rahman from Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) – an ally of the NDA, Rukmuddin from Pappu Yadav’s Jan Adhikar Manch and Ghulam Sarwar from Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Muslim Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). Muslims constitute over 40 percent of the total voters here. The rest include Yadavs and Mahadalits.

The village is presently represented by Haji Subhan of Lalu’s Rashtriya Jannata Dal (RJD) in the Bihar assembly.

Speaking to Firstpost, the MLA accepted the fact that nothing has been done for the village, but defended himself. “I did that whatever I could do in the time I got. There was no road in the village panchayat. I extended two PCC roads being built by the mukhiya by 500 and 550 feet. But I want to assure people of solving the problems if Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance struck between JD(U), RJD and Congress) forms the next government in the state,” he said.

Asked why they vote in favour of leaders who do not do anything for their welfare, the village head said, “Sometimes, we plan to boycott elections. What’s the point of it when our elected representatives do nothing for us and never turn up after winning the polls?”

“We voted for NDA’s Santosh Kushwaha and he won the 2010 assembly polls. But never showed up. He later joined the JD(U) and successfully contested Lok Sabha elections. In the by-poll, we supported RJD’s Haji Subhan but he also did nothing. We tried all parties but it has been of no use. Now, we are clueless,” he said.