Author: Kumar Divashankar, Social Media Convenor, RJD

Besides being a capable leader and someone ahead of his time, Lalu Prasad Yadav's achievements were not just about dipping the thumbs of Dalits and other marginalized communities in the ink of democracy. He was also responsible for bringing a new dimension to Bihar's economic front.

It was from the 70s to the 90s that the story of Bihar's underdevelopment was written. In the 90s, the media made an entry, and since then this media class has created such a narrative that Lalu Yadav and the various other chief ministers from Dalit and other marginalized communities continue to be blamed for Bihar's underdevelopment.

Why is Lalu Yadav a people's leader? Because every decision he made was for the people. He did not go about taking advantage of his position to talk about delusional revolution and falsify knowledge.

He knew about the condition of Dalits and other marginalized communities, which is why he did not tell them to stop grazing their cattle and then give them false hopes by blowing the trumpet for all to become educated and learn to read so that they could become IAS [officers in the Indian Administrative Service]. He knew that if that person in front of him would not graze their cattle, there would be no milk in their home in the evening, there would be no food to cook and the family would have to sleep hungry. At the same time, he also knew that grazing cattle was not like sewing or embroidery, where the eyes are glued to the piece being worked on. Bearing this in mind, he established a school for shepherds, where besides education for shepherds, arrangements were made for grazing of the cattle.

With this arrangement, the son of the poor man could easily graze the cattle and also study. This was the same revolutionary concept of a school for shepherds that was ridiculed by the Indian media but widely appreciated abroad. In terms of the statistics, from independence until the 70s, Bihar was quite prosperous. Even in a mofussil town like Marhaura, there were sugar and iron factories and factories for the railways, etc., there was electricity, and there was a road system. Bihar's decline started in the 70s and lasted until the 90s. Today, you will find many intellectuals laying the blame for the decline of Bihar at Lalu Yadav's door, because in the 1990s, along with the radical upliftment of Dalit and oppressed communities, the media arrived in Bihar.

This media started blaming the decline of Bihar until the 70s-90s on Lalu Yadav. It was said that Lalu Yadav ruined the education system, whereas the truth is that in the 1991-2001 census, in which the national average literacy rate increased by about 23%, the average literacy rate in left-behind Bihar roundly increased by 27%. Lalu Prasad Yadav was the only chief minister of Bihar who had five universities built in his tenure. And he had already implemented menstrual leave for women in Bihar in 1992, well was long before2022, the year when countries that call themselves developed countries are deciding to do so. Instead of spending crores on just beating the drum of making the country eco-friendly, he introduced the concept of kulhad tea [tea sold in terracotta cups] on the railways, which gave employment to many people. This scheme was also adopted by the Government of India in 2020. And there is hardly any need to recount the work that Lalu Prasad did when he was the Minister for Railways.

According to the state-level data from the CSO Central Statistics Office, Bihar's growth rate in the decade from 1980 to 1991 was 4.66%, whereas it was 4.89% between 1993-94 and 2004-2005.

Rajeev Ranjan, a resident of Bihar, says, "To give you a rough idea about Bihar — when my parents were born in 1962 and 1968, respectively, my mother's house was in Mathura. Here, in her childhood itself, there was a sugar factory, an iron workshop, a chocolate factory, a liquor factory, and a railway workshop. There was a primary school and a secondary school within 3 km of my father's house. There was electricity. There were roads. But when I was born in 1985, all there was in the name of electricity was dilapidated poles and burnt transformers, the roads had disappeared. My maternal grandfather's home was in ruins. The same story was repeated in other industrial areas of Bihar, like Dalmianagar, Raxaul, Bihta, Barauni, Begusarai, etc.

But pushing all the facts aside, intellectuals and people from the media of certain classes keep cursing the governments of the past 30 years with all their might for the plight of Bihar, because in these 30 years there was a Dalit and a marginalized community chief minister. They do not, even by mistake, talk in terms of 35 years or 40 years.

Alongside his contribution to social justice, Lalu Yadav also contributed immensely to economic justice. But he gave priority to social justice. He often used to say that development has now also reached even tribal people, the need was for social equality, for social justice. Our priority is to provide social justice. Taking advantage of his forthrightness, the media portrayed him as a casteist and unsuccessful chief minister. The stamp of casteism they put on him was such that all his exemplary work got buried under it. The media even spread the rumor that "Lalu says to clear out the Bhurabal".Here Bhurabal[Bhu-Ra-Ba-L] refers to the Bhumihar-Rajput-Brahmin-Lala[Kayastha] caste groups. Rejecting this outright, Laluji said that "A statement made by a journalist in an essay was attributed to me. I challenge you to show such a video [of me]. Rather, I say that no peace-loving chief minister of a state can talk in terms of cleaning up any society. All should live in peace and harmony. This is also the aim of RJD.

The casteist institutions have together tried to break him in every way. But Lalu is still not breaking down. A case slapped on the whole family, he himself in jail, health deteriorating day by day, but he is not ready to bow out. These lines penned by the author Ravi Yadav portray Lalu's Yadav'scharacter very well:

"Jaakar Hawa Jara tu Kahna dilli ke darbaron se,

Nhi dara hai, Nahi darega, Lalu in sarkaron se"

[Story Translated By Lotika Singha]

यहां हिन्दी में भी पढ़ें: OPINION: लालू यादव की बेबाकी का सहारा ले मीडिया उनकी छवि एक जातिवादी और असफल मुख्यमंत्री के तौर पर दिखाती रही

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