April 13 is observed as Baisakhi day in a large part of north India, particularly Punjab. It is also celebrated as New Year’s day by Sikhs as well as Hindus.The harvest season of the winter crops such as wheat, gram, pulses, maize etc starts from this day. However, in the modern age of fast yielding varieties of seeds some crops are harvested even earlier.

Though Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar attended a function organized by Punjabi Bradari in Patna on Baisakhi evening yet this year the situation is totally different. Farmers are not rejoicing due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm after a prolonged winter. Even a day before Baisakhi heavy rain lashed a part of north Bihar, especially in Madhepura district. Inclement weather destroyed standing crop in vast areas of the state. The tragedy is that the bad weather condition was not confined to one or two days, but were spread from February to April.

It is true the situation in Bihar is not as bad as in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand etc. But the story of Bihar is somewhat different. The farmers are mostly marginal. The population is very dense and apart from farming and earning as migrant labourers there is not much economic activities in the rural areas.

Not only that Bihar is going to witness Assembly election in next few months. In spite of this the media coverage about the nature’s fury is not so widespread as in other states. True the state government has announced some measures, but it remains to be seen how much it succeeds at the implementation
level. The opposition BJP too is not making it a big issue, perhaps for obvious reason––it is in power in New Delhi.

Though the media focus is concentrated on mega-merger, Amit Shah’s rally, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s visit to New Delhi and Nagpur on the eve of his April 20 show, etc the truth is that in the hinterland of the state people are not too much enthusiastic about politics. They are still busy assessing their damage. The loss of crops is also likely to hit the marriage season which starts late next month.

Sensing the dejected mood of the masses RJD chief Lalu Prasad, while addressing a public meeting in Aurangabad district a few days back, tried to exploit the old belief about the inauspicious timing to initiate something.He said since Narendra Modi took oath a few minutes before sunset on May 26 last the timing was not propitious. Amidst laughter he cited the example of the Gorakhnath Express mishap in UP which took place on the same day and in which many people lost their lives.

Lalu further said as to how a series of natural tragedies occurred in the last about 11 months. He even quoted ancient Hindu scriptures to buttress his points.However, there is no dearth of educated people who may rubbish this linking of recent hailstorm to the timing of oath-taking.

Whether one believes in the concept of bad omen or not is a totally different debate, the truth is that there is utter fruitlessness in the agrarian Bihar. All this is happening when farmers are feeling let down by the land acquisition bill and just three per cent increase in the Minimum Support Price.

But political parties have their own compulsions. A ‘rally-race’ is on in Bihar. Ironically, the BJP, which during the heydays of Mandal years used to flay the pro-Mandal parties for organizing caste rallies is busy in the same business. In between the Karpoori Jyanti show of Amit Shah (Jan 23) and the Ambedkar’s birthday (April 14) rally of the BJP national chief, the state leaders of the saffron party addressed several other caste meetings.

The Sangh Parivar wishes to cancel out the claimed social (read caste) advantage of the Janata Parivar.On his part Nitish attended one such function a day before on April 13 and went on to announce increase in honorarium for Vikas Mitras by Rs 1,000 and raised their retirement age from 50 to 60. All these to woo Dalits.As it is difficult to gauge the mood of the people for now, it is too early to say how much would the parties succeed in politically harvesting all these efforts for their own end.