Guest post by IBNE ALI

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton is said to have said in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” After 124 years it is being felt that Lord Acton could have added one more thing; Power gives you the exclusive right to define and redefine things according to your convenience. The ‘all-possible-awards-winner’ chief minister of Bihar Mr. Nitish Kumar could have prompted Lord Acton to enrich this famous quotation for a couple of reasons.

Before the advent of ‘Sushasan’ everybody knew crime as simple crime. Now it has two sons (no ill intention towards daughters) :’organized’ and ‘unorganized’.

Similarly before the dawn of ‘Sushasan’ Bihar knew that there was kidnapping. Now it has a sibling; honeymoon kidnapping.

The organised and uroganised crimes debate could easily be understood by two recent incidents of Patna.

One girl was molested and when his father dared to resist he was beaten up by two goons in broad daylight at the busy Income Tax Roundabout on Thursday. Prominent (if somebody disagrees, I have no problem) newspapers found it fit to be covered only in the inner pages.

The police seized two motorbikes from the ‘on’ wine shop where this case happened, one bearing police colour registration number plate. In a land of ‘speedy trials’ police ‘could not’ ascertain the owner of the motorbike bearing police colour even after 24 hours while the district transport office is ‘fully computerised’ in Patna.

On Friday, a contractor was murdered in a busy place of Patna’s CPWD office. For details kindly ask any of your friends/relatives residing there.

The newspapers offered comments, which could easily be quoted as the ruling party’s spokesperson’s statement; ‘these are not organized crimes’. Mind it; the newspersons’ minds in Bihar are programmed to the liking of the king. So, in Bihar it is not the government, but the administration which is allowed to be written as failed.

Last month a girl was pulled out of her friend’s car and molested by two youths in the Boring Road area under SK Puri police station. ‘Itne bare shahar mein kabhi kabhi aisa ho jata hai.’

If one loves to ignore the number of cases of eve teasing, molestation, murders and bank loots, crime in Bihar is indeed on the decline if you judge the page number these are covered on. For your convenience you would have only to start reading non-urdu newspapers from right to left to access those incidents.

It is a thing of common knowledge that when Nitish Kumar is reminded of these incidents he reminds the ‘news salespersons’ of the ‘Demon Days’ of his predecessor.

In fact once he used to ask to get his/her eyed checked because instead of seeing ‘development’ how could one ask such ‘silly’ questions.

In Pre-Nitish era newcomers to the business of news selling was trained to think of ‘umbrella headline’. This meant to combine three crime news from three corners of the state and put a headline like ‘sube mein apradhiyon ka bolbala’ which started like ‘police ko khuli chunatuti dete hue…’.

Now the criminals don’t pose any challenge to police as crime has been redefined. After all, only the foes pose challenge, friends don’t. Or do they?

If it happens in your era, there is no need to worry. Just call it ‘unorganised crime’.

Similarly when one IG rank officer was asked about the increasing number of kidnapping cases some months back, he simply dismissed those as ‘honeymoon kidnappings’.It is intriguing to note why this genius officer could not come up with such explanation earlier in his service.

This power to redefine things is not limited to ‘crime’.

A few months back a very senior ‘journalist’ declared that Nitish Kumar is the biggest crusader against ‘Bhai Bhatijawad’ after Sardar Ballabh Bhai Patel. In the recently held by election for Daraunda Assembly seat in Siwan district the accused in many crimes, son of the late MLA Jagmato Devi was asked to get married so that his newly wed wife could be given the party ticket. Nobody dared to ask Nitish about this. Nitish himself offered the reason to give the ticket to her because she was the bahu of Jagmato. Remember in Nitish Kumar press confrence the answeres get the questions and not the vice versa.

For the convenience of readers here is a quick list of other Nitish-defined unorganized crimes of Sushasn era of Bihar:

• Black marketing of fertilizers among other things is not an organized crime. Don’t go by the daily road blockades in protest of high rates of fertilizers. After all, it is the central government fault not to supply enough amount of fertilizers. It is quite natural to sell it at hight price. Marketing follows the supply and demand rule, there is nothing black in it.

• Appointment of teachers on fake certificates in primary schools is not an orgainsed crime. Just remember how empty schools were in the Pre Nitish era!

• Taking bribe for Indira Awas to Birth and Death certificates is not an organized crime. (After all, this malady was inherited by the Sushasan era from the Jungle Raj of the eralier days. So, how can you expect things to get in order in a few months i.e., around 84 months now. )

• Land and property grabbing by JDU MLAs is not an organized crime. Anant Singh is a saint until proved otherwise.

• Distributing land of Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) by twisting the rules to the benefit of the near and dear ones of ministers and officers is not an organized crime.

• Distributing tickets to musclemen, criminals and their relatives is not an organized crime.

• Opening liquor shops at every nook and corner of the land where you can sit and enjoy liquor is not an organized crime.Such shops are called “ON” shops.(To be to fair to the government it has now asked to close such shops near schools and religious places.)

• Forcing the editors to put a picture of the King on front page every single day is not an organized crime. (Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may envy this.)

• Ignoring thousands of flood affected people in Kosi and other reason is not an organized crime.

• The case of pending bills of crores of rupees is not an organized crime.