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Kazuya Nakamizo is not a staunch Buddhist. Yet ‘poverty and violence’ in the land of Buddha’s enlightenment prompted him to study Bihar politics.
Once again in Bihar to have a pre-poll study of the state Nakamizo is at present Visiting Associate Professor in Centre For Study of Contemporary India, Graduate School of Asian And African Area Studies, Kyoto University, Japan.

He has been visiting Bihar for the last about 15 years. This time he is here again, not alone, but with his Japanese friend Minato Kazuki, who had done his Masters from Boston (USA) and is at present Research Fellow, South Asian Studies Group, Area Studies Centre, Institute of Developing Economies in Japan.

As in the past this time again they paid a visit to Murho in Madhepura district, the ancestral village of B P Mandal––the author of Mandal Commission Report. The first time Nakamizo toured this place was in 1999 to study the mother of all the electoral battles between the two Yadav overlords––Sharad and Lalu. The former won the election.

During the 1999 election campaign he accompanied a couple of journalists to travel on the Rath of Ram Vilas Paswan in Hajipur parliamentary constituency. He got down from the Rath near a weekly haat (local market) and did not hesitate in eating half-boiled and poorly-cooked food and Hajipuri banana.

Though not very good at Hindi yet he had the courage to visit various interiors of Bihar quite frequently––and sometimes alone. Once during an election campaign he had to travel back to Patna with Shambhu––a college teacher who works as his interpreter––on roof-top of a jeep. The place from where he was returning was Belaur in Bhojpur district. It was here that the outlawed Ranvir Sena, the private army of landed upper caste Bhumihars, was formed in September 1994.

He made an intensive study of Bhagalpur riots in August-September 2004. Nakamizo spent a fortnight time touring affected villages and localities of Bhagalpur and Banka districts––the two places rocked by the communal earthquake in 1989. This included Logain, where the infamous massacre took place, and the bodies were dumped in the agriculture field. He was ably assisted by Yaqub Ashrafi, a local youth of Bhagalpur, who teaches English in Patna.

He had been to Bihar in April-May 2009 to study the parliamentary election. And as always he did not miss to visit Madhepura.

“No, in this last over 12 years, I never faced any unusual situation anywhere in Bihar, though so much had been made out of it. I travelled till almost mid-night in places like Bhagalpur, Madhepura, Bhojpur, Bodh Gaya etc,” he told this correspondent. “Yes I remember the rickshawpuller, who took me to hotel from railway station in Bhagalpur at 11:30 PM. He was drunk. Yet nothing untoward happened though I was with my laptop.”
Nakamizo had done his PhD under Prof Kiichi Fujiwara of University of Tokyo. In India he got help from Prof Kamal Mitra Chenoy and Prof Imitiaz Ahmed of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Prof Achin Vanaik of Delhi University. In Bihar he got help from local scholars and journalists. He made it a point to meet Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav this time too.

He had many papers to his credit––the most recent being Can Democracy Overcome Violence? An Experiment of Bihar, India (August 2010). Now he is planning to write a book too.

Nakamizo’s friend, Kazuki, who had been to Bihar for the second time understands a little bit of Hindi. “Back in Japan I and my wife, who is a housewife, would learn Hindi, so that it could be of much help for me to study Indian and Bihar politics.”
They would be back in October to study the state assembly election.

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