By: Dr. Mohammad Aleem, Chief News Editor-ICN Group
NEW DELHI: To be a part of any type of history really makes one feel special and glorified. But is it really so in real sense? This question came into my mind while poring over the facts related to the India’s first civil disobedience movement, famously known as the Champaran Satyagrah.
I come from this district which is now being recognized as the East Champaran and the West Champaran. But during the freedom struggle days, it was united.
This district borders with Nepal, and due to that, it has suffered and gained, both. It suffered due to the remotest part of the country in this area. No central and state government ever paid due and diligent attention to its overall development.
After seventy years of Independence, it is still struggling to gain some basic human needs like quality health centers, good schools and colleges and universities. Of late, the central government has passed a bill to establish a central university in the district town, Motihari, but the work is so slow that it looks that a full-fledged university will be operational not before than a decade. Such is the pace of the development and the seriousness of the state and the central government, both.
Schools are still struggling to get good teachers and a level of educational and intellectual achievement. This is the reason that a mass of young population is forced to leave their native place in search of a good education and jobs somewhere else in the country.
The health services are completely non-existent. For any major illness, people are still bound to travel to Patna or Delhi and any other places of their choice. Corruption is rampant and high as it has been written forever with their fate.
The only good thing which could be duly recognized is that the state government and central government have made good roads and reached the electricity to the villages, which has made the life somehow easy. But in lack of proper employment, people are still reeling under the yoke of poverty and migration.
But here, I have taken the pain to pay my homage to Mahatma Gandhi on the occasion of the centenary of Champaran Satyagrah, which was started at the behest of the deprived and poor farmers. They were forced to grow indigo in their fields just to benefit the British colonizer.
Gandhi, by that time, had not gained recognition as a mass leader and a Mahatma. It was 10th April 1917 when he came to the district town Motihari by train with Dr. Rajender Prasad and some other prominent lawyers of his time. Their only aim was to make the British government serious about the problems of the farmers who were living a very painful deprived life of penury and hardship even though they toiled their land dedicatedly and harshly. Their main problem was that they were not allowed to grow those crops which were linked directly as their source of livelihood like paddy, wheat or pulse. And the terms and conditions imposed by the landlords and the money lenders were also very difficult and harsh to meet.
Is it not the same case still throughout the country with the farmers? Of late, many such agitations took place just to draw attention of the governments towards their problems. Is it not that hundreds of farmers are forced to take their lives by adopting the painful way of suicide just because of poverty, debt and privation? Are not they living a distressed life due to the incoherent policies of the central government and the state governments?
This is the same place which has now given an agriculture minister and many other political stalwarts. But unfortunately, the situation remained the same.
Rahdha Mohan Singh represents this constituency in the Lok Sabha and he did nothing substantial till date to make life easy of the people of this historical place. Even this district has no any direct air connectivity. The rail services are also just minimal and people face a lot of difficulties while traveling.
Alas! A new Gandhi had emerged again and fought for ameliorating the plight of the farmers and general poor people and a new Satyagragh would have started to make the life better.
