Bihar and Jharkhand Community in Singapore

For more details log on to: http://www.bijhar.org


BIJHAR is a result of the dreams envisioned since late 90s by its founders who have made Singapore their karmabhoomi. Over the years it has evolved as an informal cultural group of people who in some way or the other have been associated with the Indian states of Bihar (BI) and Jharkhand (JHAR) and for the majority of them they happen to be their janmbhoomis.

although BIJHAR is inextricably woven around Bihar and Jharkhand, it does not in any way limit its scope and spectrum. BIJHAR is for everyone and BIJHARIs are great believers in the concept of vasudhaiva kutumubkam (the whole world is one
great family).
An entity like BIJHAR was in the mind of the founders for sometime who upto a point remained contented by bumping into an odd Bihari or Jharkhandi in a restaurant or a bus. They were struggling to get hold of a critical mass which happened on an evening at the home of Shri Sanjay Singh. The list of Biharis in Singapore available at Bihar Times came handy and soon an enthusiastic bunch of people started to look for a more organized forum. The first Bihari get-together was held in mid 2000 at Boat Quay Tandoor incity centre. The occasion was the birthday celebration of one of the members Manoj Bhandari ( who later relocated to USA). This get-together was attended by about 25 people and was quite successful considering the fact it was the first such meeting of Biharis in Singapore to our knowledge.

The 2nd get-together followed soon at the residence of Abhayjit Sinha and Satyasheel Kumar near AlJuneid MRTand was attended by an equal number. About 20 of us met again at Ganga restaurant in Little India with plans to spread the Bihari network and rope in more. However, little progress could be made in the next two years. Though no get-togethers were held in 2001
and 2002, some of us in a smaller group started meeting alongwith our families. Many such meetings took place at the house of Serbjeet and Nisha Prasad in Choa Chu Kang and in one such meeting in mid April 2003 BIJHAR was conceived. The IT savvy Sanjeev Roy and the current President of BIJHAR set up a yahoogroup and BIJHAR membership started growing.

At present, there are about 150 persons in BIJHAR list - majority of the members are working in the industries such as IT, finance, banking, oil and gas etc.
Since 2003, the BIJHARIS have collectively celebrated the major annual functions such as Makar Sankranti, Holi and Deepavali and have also
participated in a number of indoor and outdoor get-togethers.


As one of the co-founders, it is gratifying to see BIJHAR's impressive growth since 2002 when three of us Sanjeev Roy, Serbjeet Prasad and I mooted the idea of having a platform for a Bihari and Jharkhandi community in Singapore.This Deepavali, we are all set to launch a BIJHAR website and also complete the registration process with Registrar of Societies, Singapore. From a time in 1997 when my only Bihari acquaintance in Singapore was a Patna native waiter working in a Little India restaurant, I think we have come a long way in creating a group which now has an enrolment of about 150 families with roots in Jharkhand and Bihar.
This in my opinion is a sizable achievement given the fact that we Biharis are not quite known for networking. Personally, it has been a very interesting experience for an introverted person like me to know and interact with so many people on so many occasions.

As I write this inaugural newsletter, at the behest of BIJHAR website editorial team, which has been extremely generous to let me write these articles, the recent issue of India Today is in my hands. The cover story about the state of states as usual shows Bihar at the bottom of all the development tables. Statements such as "an average Goan is 11 times richer than an average Bihari" and "about 84% of the households in Bihar have no electricity making the state an area of darkness literally" do dampen my spirits. First I tend to question the validity of such comparisons and the rationale of comparing Bihar with states like Goa which is so very different. It is like comparing India with Singapore which are two completely different entities. Gujarat and Maharashtra who have had the tremendous locational advantages but I back off thinking if I did that they will immediately point out about the advantages Bihar had in mineral resources and so on and so forth. I would rather submit to the aphorism " Nindak niyare rakhiye aangan kuti chhabaye, bin paani sabun bina nirmal kare suhaye" and double our resolve in contributing our tiny little seva to Bihar and Jharkhand which would not only help this benighted region but help India and in a way the whole world.
For inexplicable reasons media has consistently shown Bihar in a very bad light and never missed to call a spade a shovel when calling a spade a spade would have sufficed. I have rarely come across a report in India Today which also looks at the wrongs done to Bihar. I seldom read about the imposition of the freight equalization policy which killed the mineral based industries in Bihar or the gross injustice of paying a paltry amount of cess on coal and iron and continuing on the basis of tonnage and not ad valorem or the erstwhile BJP government's eminently amnesiac act in conveniently missing the payment of 174000 crores which they promised to Bihar on the eve of the state's bifurcation in 2000.
The irony is most of us Biharis would not even want to discuss these issues and would rather reserve our diatribe for finding fault with our own state governments or the systems or the people and in the process thus fail to play our part where we could have. My personal experience in mobilizing support for one or two simple Bihar related issues showed this trend very clearly. During one such effort many just mocked at the idea with the usual refrain that "aap kya hawa mein baat kar rahe hain jaante nahin ki jab tak Bihar mein aisi sarkar hai tabtak kuchch bhi nahin hone wala hai". In my humble opinion, no matter how bad the Chief Minister is or how chaotic the situation may be, the people who genuinely care must come forward and do their bit . After all, don't we act when a similar situation arises in our own homes? We just don't sit up and watch.
We need to unite and say to the world that along with the ills that we Biharis are plagued with, there are also definite reasons attributable to the successive central governments which could have stemmed the rot which has now set in the land which was once considered a respectable centre of culture, education and governance. But in reality the fault lies with us and the sooner we realized the better it is. You can be exploited only when you are weak and that you are weak is nobody else's fault. Remember the
colonization by the British. I am told at the point when a handful of foreigners took a vast country like ours, India was totally fragmented with hundreds of kingdoms of which many, misruled by megalomaniac rulers. Bihar’s story is similar. It is true that Bihar has been mocked, laughed at and ridiculed by all and sundry but is there a point blaming anyone else when we Biharis have failed to remain united and cared two hoots in preserving our culture, dialects and traditions. I am convinced that a modicum of sub-nationalistic feelings without being parochial is absolutely necessary to maintain the health of a region and that the total absence of it has caused Bihar immense hardships.

Although, the India Today story depresses me and while eating my dinner in the
restaurant and looking at the tables showing Bihar at the bottom, I dread the thought of someone walking over to me and telling "shame on you Biharis". I try hard to compose myself by accepting the dictums that change is the only constant or today's losers may be tomorrow's winners or the silver linings invariably appear after the darkest clouds etc. etc. I decide to continue to do whatever little we could to help Bihar and possibly make India Today eat its words in the near future. My optimism is not totally bereft of reasons. There are clear indicators that Bihar will change - the growing success of Non Resident Biharis (NRB) and some signs of the non-native Biharis beginning to show a sense of unity. The creation of BIJHAR and similar associations in many parts of the world will definitely contribute in the appearance of some light at the end of the tunnel. I am reading success stories about Biharis at regular intervals and I can also see the awareness about Bihar and Biharis taking some interesting turns. For example, recently I had a guest at home who is a native of Tamilnadu and has been working in Surat, Gujarat for last 15 years. He is in construction field and what he told me and if that is true was very good to hear. He had
very high regards for Bihari workers engaged in mega construction projects in and around Surat who he has known for 20 years. He had tons of appreciation for the hard work and honesty of Bihari workers and went on to say that the entire construction industry can come to standstill if Bihari workers were to go out. It is a pity that a reputed news magazine of the stature of India Today has no room for such sentiments.

Deepavali preparations are on and this time BIJHAR ladies are taking the lead in arranging the programmes. We have quite a bit to do and each one of us in the core committee is committed to make our Deepavali celebration a grand event. BIJHAR is still in its formative years but going by what we have achieved so far should keep us motivated and enthusiastic about its future.