The conventional wisdom is that Bihar is a poor, hapless State. The conventional wisdom that Dalits are a lazy, unenterprising, illiterate lot, forever lunging at the loaves of freebies thrown at them by vote-hungry politicians. And the conventional wisdom is that the IITs and IIMs are such tough places that even the few Dalits who manage to sneak through the JEE drop out a year or so later.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. Respectively. CNN-IBN has this wonderful story from village Patwatoli in Lalu Prasad country, which boasts of not one but 48 IITians. There is no electricity in the village at night, but the seniors coach the aspirants. Of course, it's an exception not the rule, but why does not Arjun Singh seek to create the conditions that will allow exceptions to flower, instead of ramming in a rule?
ibnlive.com/news/a-dalit-village-with-48-iitians/12249-3.html
A wonderful story. As against ,in our city here in Mysore the Resident doctors were doing ‘Homa and Havana’ against Reservations! At this rate, with more ‘Homas’ from 12th to 15th , we will race towards the last position in SSLC,PUC AND CBSE Exams pretty soon! I don’t think Mysore can be called a city of Learning any more. Udupi, D.K. and Chamarajanagara have left Mysore far behind in this regard.
It is the bad state of their home towns and villages and hardships that they have witnessed, which motivates them to hundreds of miles far to tuition towns like Kota, subsist on unfamiliar food and and cram their way to IITs.
If their home towns were in any way like Mysore, they too would have only one or two entrants to IITs.
We Mysoreans are wise, why on the earth do you have to suffer so much to end up as a yet another code-coolie!
Bihar as a state is poor and hapless but Biharis themselves are very smart. Take Lalloo himself, you cannot get smarter than him.
Good article.
The point made by Vijay in a larger sense can be applied to India and Indians in general. The world over, Indians are known to be very smart but India itself is known to be a poor and mostly backward (in terms of development) country. I think if the government can be an enabler and just reduce interference not just in Bihar but all over we can see the exceptions to the rule become the norm.