A Scene of Muzaffarpur

Jitendra Choubey

This is a sketch of scenes of different settlements in Muzaffarpur flooded with water and plethora of problems. The author visited these places in a series of short tours of a citizens’ rescue group. (Tempus Sans ITC font)

SCENE ON THE ROAD

The people have taken refuge along the flank of N.H-77, which is still under construction and that is proving boon for their shelter. Roads were over crowded with the people, they were mainly in old, frayed and soiled clothes. They have kept one end of log of wood partly on the road and partly in front of their there tent houses so that the running vehicle slowed down as they passed through that part of the road.

There were people of all age groups from an infant tucked under women arm to bed stricken old men who have been waiting for last call from heaven .Women were sitting in a group in such a way that they can easily pick out louse from head of each others, some of them seem to be fighting against their hunger as they tried to cook their food.

Children seem to be waifs and stray of the society, wandering aimlessly in a shabby manner, untidy and scattered hair, unchained and un-buttoned pant tied with a bunch of thread called dara which they used to wear as sacred thread. They always looked in jovial mood, playing with goats, throwing toothy smile whenever they found themselves being photographed, and showing surprise over the photographer “Why are you taking photographs of goat, cow, buffalos and so on when the people are already around here?”

Traffic jam was another common scene on the road. Crowd from nearby villages blocked the road to show their protest for not getting relief properly. As the mob blocked the N.H.-77, about 10 kilometres from Ahiya Pur police station, numbers of trucks, loaded with grains and other relief material has been entrapped in a long awaited jam. The mob knew only one way to solve their present life’s riddle is to thrash government officials (B.D.O, C.O and the D.M), and then blocked the road to deliver their message to insensitive government officers.

Sudhanshu Kumar Choubey, C.O. of Gaighat block in Muzaffarpur district, was also trapped in the jam. He had to reach his office around 11 p.m. but he reached around 3 p.m. He said “The petty leaders are cashing in on the situation for their leadership ambition, arousing the misguided emotion of the crowd – turned violent. Sometimes crowd ransack the government offices.” Later he mentioned “Yesterday a B.D.O., in Samastipur was flailed black and blue and thrown in flood water.”

SCENE AT BLOCK OFFICE

A sea of humanity gathered for their turn to get relief. At first sight it was difficult to believe how vehicle of circle officer could make room for it but did successfully, people sighed in relief after seeing their C.O., for whom they were waiting since morning. People had a paper in their hand that was to be signed by the C.O. As the C.O. entered in his office, a deluge of application came and he signed it carelessly but dextrously.

In the hour of peril, a Mukhiya argued with him over fundamental rights and showed the protest by blocking the road, a man sat on a fast and protest against the indifferent behaviour of government officials regarding relief. Everyone was showing their helplessness and wanted their work to be done first. At one corner, crowd gathered for their turn to take their application first, elbowing, abusing and creating nuisance to each other. The fittest among the crowd managed to get an application form for them, where the old and the weak one were watching helplessly and considered them as looser.

The government machinery collapsed in managing the crowd .They were blaming oblivion higher officials and ministers, who worked out the plan to meet this crisis. One of the senior officials told-“The Chief Minister has announced for giving a quintal of wheat for every flood victim family. This announcement created chaos among victims and the rest, who were not affected or partially affected, tried to get their part first and necessity of victim now came at tenterhook. Public created nuisance as the grains did not reach on time for every one. They have to get the relief on serial wise but the people are thinking that they will get it on one time basis”.

The relief in the form of wheat was useless in this circumstance as it is to be transformed into flour for further use. Victims needed instant relief, therefore some people sold the wheat to the local shopkeepers and some exchanged it for other edible things as instant relief like sattu , chura and so on.

At some places, S.A.P. Jawans were preparing Khichadi and distributing among the affected people. That was a fine example of disseminating reliefs for the victims, as victims were directly getting their foods without any chaos.

A CASE OF JAYMALABAD

Jaymalabad is a large village, which is densely populated having around 10,000 people, situated at the outskirts of Muzaffarpur. It was badly affected by flood .A religious organisation, Anand Marg, organised a relief camp in the village under the leadership of Raj Deo Singh with the help of a local Daroga Prasad. They prepared khichadi and distributed it among the affected people. There was no chaos, as the affected people mainly belonged to weaker section, they regard Anand Margies as gentle persons, or may be as a God, and followed the order. Daroga Prasad, an influential person, helped this camp with his own resources like grains, fire-wood, and also provided space for the camp.

As water receded, a social group One Bihar was invited by them to distribute medicine. Then an International organisation Green Power India funded by IFAW visited and vaccinated the cattle and provided medicine for the cattle were the worst affected animal creature.

The camp accomplished their goal without any annoyance. People responded nicely. They thought somebody came from outside to help their cause but their reaction towards local government was not so well. They thought it is their fundamental right to loot the government relief as soon as possible. A woman said in delight “Nitish Kumar (the Chief Minister) made this announcement to loot the relief as much as possible, before the 17th of September”.