Derek Mitchell

Tell people from among Delhi 's middle classes that you're considering a trip to Bihar and their response will likely sound something like, "why would you want to do a thing like that?" After looking at you in disbelief and then realizing you aren't joking, they may assume you're a politician in search of constituency or an activist in search of a cause. What other explanation could there be for a Delhite to visit the state that millions leave each year for the great metropolises like Delhi ? Bihar has come to be regarded by Indians everywhere as the most backward, corrupt, and savage place in the country. Of course, few of those who hold such opinions have ever visited Bihar . But they'll tell you that Biharis who lives in Delhi themselves would agree with them; "why else would they come here?" Sadly, it is true that the Bihari auto drivers I encounter in Delhi tend to be the least forthcoming about where they were born. I've noticed that shame and fear of ridicule have become a part of being a Bihari outside the state. But what of those in Bihar itself? What is real condition of this oft-maligned and exploited region of the country?

No one could honestly deny that Bihar is among the most impoverished and unstable regions in India . But to end there in understanding and characterizing this region is misleading. Bihar has been home to some of the greatest leaders, movements, and saints India has ever seen. In the past century alone, it was Bihar that first took up Gandhiji's call for satyagraha; it was Bihar where bhudan began and had its greatest successes; and it was Bihar where thousands joined in nonviolent resistance against the Emergency. Time and again the people of this state have risen up to become the heroes of the nation. There is certainly more to Bihar today than corruption, drought, and violence. One just has to go there to see it.

Since he was 20 years old, Rajiv Vora has seen first-hand the heroism and strength of the people of Bihar . He first came to the state to answer J.P.'s call for all able-bodied young people to aid in famine relief. Later he fought alongside J.P. in Bihar 's movement against the Emergency and served time in a historically known Hazaribagh jail. He made many strong ties with people all over Bihar and, after thirty five years traveling the length and breadth of the state, has come to proudly consider himself part-Bihari. Among politically and socially aware people of Bihar he is not a sranger. His faith in the power of patriotism of these people brings him back once more. Today he comes to Bihar with the message Gandhiji once brought there over eighty years ago by the Maahtma himself: the message of Hind Swaraj .

In January 2004 Rajiv Vora and I, his student Derek Mitchell, traveled to Bihar for a Hind Swaraj shivir in Karjain. From the moment we stepped off the train in Patna , we experienced a hospitality that I would come to discover is common in Bihar . A group of men from the Patna branch of Gandhi Smarak Nidhi was there on the platform to receive us and see to our needs before we boarded our connecting train to Khagariya. When we later reached a dark and misty Khagariya at four in the morning, once again there was a friendly face on the platform to accompany us until the end of our train journey in Raghopur. In the over crowded, cramped "third class" compartment of the meter gage train in this remote part of Bihar , someone from the bench in front of us politely asks if he was Sri Rajiv Vora! Then there was no dearth of space for us. Tea and 'paan' were offered as a mark of respect. From Raghopur we took a jeep to our final destination, the village of Karjain . We arrived at Karjain's primary school, after two nights and one day' tiring journey to a warm welcome from the over sixty men and women who had gathered there to learn about Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj .

Some faces at the gathering were familiar to Rajivji; some of them had attended his similar study-camp in Shimutala, 400 kilometers away and in the midst of jungle under the control of dreaded Moist militants. They were so inspired by what they heard at that shivir that they invited him to hold a shivir in their own village of Karjain .

Karjain lies 32 km. from the Nepal border and 10km. from the block town of Raghopur . It is a charming village of thatched roof houses, surrounded by vast green fields of wheat. Almost every home we saw had a spotlessly clean front yard where cows were tied up to eat and dung dried in the sun. As we walked through the village lanes we noticed that many of the houses have a red symbol painted near the front door to indicate that the men and women of that household are literate. In front of the primary school is a massive maidan where the village's children can play cricket and run in the open air. The village struck both of us as a stable, peaceful place.

Water-logging has been one of the major problem of this entire region . A dam on the Kosi river has raised the water level so high that much of the once fertile land owned by local farmers has become too flooded to farm. Moreover, nearby Naxalite and inter-caste violence is always threatening to encroach upon the region. Despite its stable atmosphere, Karjain has by no means been spared from the problems and concerns facing all of rural Bihar . Over the next three days Rajivji would take up these concerns and discuss how Hind Swaraj , Gandhiji's vision of true freedom, could reawaken Bihar 's dormant greatness.

The study camp began with introductions from everyone present. We learned about the participant's educational backgrounds, their occupations, and the organizations to which they belong. Many were members of local Gram Sabhas, village-level sarvodaya units, harijan upliftment movements, and women's literacy promotion groups. Others were involved in khadi production, communal harmony building, prohibition drives, and satyagrahas for greater sovereignty of village councils. Nearly everyone present, men and women, seemed to have received at least a basic literary education . A little girl of nine or ten sat next to me and effortlessly read Hind Swaraj to herself. Many of the participants had high school degrees and some had graduated from college. Their occupations were primarily in agriculture, village industries like pottery, and house work.

Over the next three days, Rajivji and the participants read Hind Swaraj together and spoke of how to bring true swaraj to India . Rajivji has been holding Hind Swaraj shivirs all over India because he believes that this text has the power to reorient the minds of the Indian people toward the wisdom, traditions and experiences of their own land. Centuries of colonial rule and fifty years of Indian leaders who remain colonized in their thought, have left the nation looking Westward to answer the questions of peace, development, and social justice. With the multiple breakages in the society violence has raized it hydra-head, as if only the language of violence is understood. Unless a reorientation of thought occurs, Rajivji believes it will be all but impossible for the moral and material development of the entire nation to move forward. Hind Swaraj brings the wisdom of India 's heritage into people's daily lives and reminds them that they each have the potential to realize swaraj through their own thoughts and actions. In Hind Swaraj , Gandhiji envisions an India that has found true freedom, an India peopled by sovereign individuals who think for themselves and regard service to their community and nation as sacred duties. Rajivji often observes that we do not have great leaders today who, like Gandhiji, can reawaken the desire for a moral life of true freedom in his people. We do not even have institutions that can keep such idealism and striving for it alive. We do, however, have the thought recorded in texts like Hind Swaraj which has the capacity to inspire . Such texts always possess the power to arouse a people's self-confidence and strength. "Read this book," Rajivji told the participants at the shivir in Karjain, "and if it touches you, keep it as a holy book, a book of swaraj dharma ."

Each day the shivir in Karjain grew in size. On the second day, the number of participants swelled to over eighty so we had to move the event onto the school's veranda. By the last day there were over a hundred and fifty people present, and Rajivji had to use a microphone to be heard. From the beginning until the end of the shivir , the participants were split roughly equally between men and women. At one point, the District panchayat chief came to pay his respects and welcome Rajivji to Karjain. Next came a political leader of the area to pay his respect. At that moment Rajivji was explaining political corruption In Bihar and what it meant for a people to be "spiritually' strong in political terms. Rajivji continued as if he was also one of the participants. All the national level political leaders from Bihar including the big-wigs of Bihar politics know Rajivji and his outspokenness very well.

Throughout the three days of the study camp, the sessions began with prayers of the major religions of India and ended with songs composed and sung by participants. A young girl sang beautifully of Gandhiji's struggle to free India and a middle-aged Muslim man composed a powerful song about Hindu-Muslim unity.

At one point during the shivir , Rajivji shared with the villagers how impressed he was by the cleanliness and order of their houses. The previous day we had wandered among the houses of the village and noted the artwork painted on some of the exteriors and the clean manner in which cows were kept in the front yards. He mentioned to the participants that we had taken pictures of some of their houses to show to the editors of the National Council of Educational Research and Training's textbooks; in one of their books they had published pictures of two, nearly identical, houses. One was termed a 'clean house' and the other a 'dirty' one; the only difference was that 'dirty' had a cow in the front yard and the 'clean' didn't. This, Rajivji observed, is how people in the cities have come to understand the Indian village. These are the kinds of criticisms coming from people who live with their kitchens right next to their toilets!

Look at what British education has done to us, he exclaimed! Our institutions, our ways of life, the ways that we have sustained ourselves for centuries, they are all ridiculed by people from the cities as backward and obsolete. But what have their answers for the development of India done for our country? What have they done for Biharis? Has the dam on the Kosi river near Karjain brought progress and development? Right here in their own district, Rajvji observed, the participants could see what Western education had done for India . Even in meeting our most basic needs, such as providing irrigation for our crops, we have come to ignore the wisdom and experience that has grown out of this land over centuries.

One of the participants stood up later in the session, pointed at me and said, here someone has come from abroad to learn about Gandhiji and take him back to the United States and in our own country Gandhiji has died. Voraji, he said, is telling us about the state of our society and how we can create swaraj. Today in India foreign companies are trying to steal the Ganga from us, and what are we doing to stop them? Another man then stood up to say that Gandhiji's dream for India was Gram Swaraj and we should all unite in achieving it. The participants throughout the event were nodding their heads in agreement with Gandhiji's observations in Hind Swaraj and Rajivji's interpretations. Their nods and sounds of agreement became most forceful when Rajivji asked whether it was true that we find the deepest sense of satisfaction when we act purely out of selflessness and a sense of sacrifice. The participants understood and agreed with Gandhiji's criticisms of modern civilization, its obsession with creature comforts, and its quest to rule over nature. Their responses to his descriptions of modern civilization could be summed up as, "why would anyone want to live like that?" The ways of life Gandhiji affirms in Hind Swaraj were clearly very close to the ways they have always tried to follow. When Rajivji was about to end one session for lunch, an elderly woman cried out to him, "the food you're already giving us is so beautiful, this is what I need."

During one afternoon session, the group read Gandhiji's claim in chapter five of Hind Swaraj that no religious person could be a member of Parliament. All of the participants wholeheartedly agreed. Throughout the shivir Rajivji sharply criticized the Parliamentary system. He warned people against believing that Parliamentary independence has meant independence for the common, poor, and toilling people of India . Parliaments are based on competitive strength, he explained, they are not guided by any moral principle nor do they unite the diverse segments of a society. They thrive on the creation of divisions.

Gandhiji called on us to view the world through an adhyatmik darshan ; this darsan sees through the many differences that seem to divide us and perceives the oneness of Brahman behind creation. Rajivji wondered how we could call ourselves Gandhians and still participate in a system of government that functions on the basis of division? Yet this is the very thing that some of the great sarvodaya leaders have recently been encouraging Gandhians to do. Rajviji's voice filled with fire as he decried participation in such a depraved system. In some of the most spirited moments of the entire shivir , he powerfully reminded the participants, and through them Gandhian leaders everywhere, that we must not ignore Gandhiji's harsh assessments of modern institutions like Parliaments. If we do so, we will be party to empowering the very forces that keep the nation impoverished, dependent and violently divided between the modern day exploiters and the exploited. Swaraj then is a distant dream.

As the shvivir in Karjain came to end, Rajivji told the participants about the Shanti Senas that he hoped to organize around India . The members of these peace forces would be called upon to nonviolently intervene in domestic situations of violence. He expressed to them how badly India needed such a force. When savage communal violence tore through the streets of Ahmedabad in 2002, who was there to stand up nonviolently to the brutalities? In Sri Lanka , Shanti Sainiks from Nonviolent Peaceforce are prepared to risk their lives for peace; in the Middle East , a young American woman was killed trying to protect a Palestinian family's home. This is the kind of courage we need here in India , Rajivji told the participants; others around the world are taking up Gandhiji and it is time we do the same. When he asked who among the participants would like to be a part of Shanti Sena, well over half of them, both men and women and nearly all of the young people, quickly shot up their hands. After the session closed, they rushed toward Rajivji with their addresses and asked him to contact them as soon as possible about what they could do. The participants were visibly saddened to see the event coming to end. Many of them touched Rajivji's feet to thank him for bringing Gandhiji's message in Hind Swaraj to their area. As we were about to leave, a lady ,---- Devi who had been dragged behind a moving truck carrying cattle to slaughterhouse, while she was offering Satyagraha for cow protection. She took Rajivji's hand and with gratitude in her eyes told him that he must come to visit them again. The elder man of the area, Mr Agrawal, whose house for past fifty years has been host to all Gandhian leaders including Jai Prakash Narayan , said he could not believe what he head received, never touched Hind Swaraj after freedom and never knew it was so powerful and meaningful for today's time . I am with you, I can not run around now, but atleast can sit on Satyagraha fasts."

We boarded our train for the long journey back to Delhi , Rajivji knew that he would be in Karjain, and in villages and towns all over Bihar , again. Biharis have welcomed the message of Hind Swaraj. In one of the earlier programme The movement to bring India closer to true swaraj may once again rise out of the nation's economically the poorest and most deprived land.

*Mr. Derek Michell, a Full Bright scholar from Columbia University , USA , did a year long research project under Shri Rajiv Vora, Chairman, Swarajpeeth on contemporary interpretations of Hind Swaraj and the legacy of Gandhiji's movement for true swaraj.