'Just treat all castes and religions as the same'

Purnea's young men reveal an entrepreneurial spirit, pleasantly surprising for one observing Bihar from afar

Young Mohd. Imtiaz Alam Kamar, who is still in college studying economics, runs a start-up business of his own, along with three friends, retailing mobile accessories online. You can look up his wide range of stuff, accessed from China, on sale on his site www.globegrab.com. We did, and were suitably impressed.

While this exhibits as extraordinarily an entrepreneurial a spirit for a mere 20-year-old anywhere in metropolitan India (Delhi, Bengalaru, Mumbai), that Kamar and his friends operate from Purnea, a small-town in north-east Bihar, might seem deeply surprising to some who have either traditionally associated the young in the state with hankering for government jobs (preparing for "campateesan"), or migrating to bigger cities seeking better opportunities, since none exist within.

In fact, only one, Rahul Dev Ranjan, 18, of the seven handsomely turned-out dudes of Purnea that we took out for evening coffee, planned to study for UPSC. Mohd. Aamir, 19, did once consider government employment. But observing how his brothers and cousins had found it hard to land any job at all, he altogether dropped the idea of working for a firm, never mind the state. He wishes to run/expand his father's clothing store instead.

Majority wants to stay back

Also, majority (4/7) in the group did not wish to leave Purnea. One of them, Deepak, 21, wants to start a personality development school, especially aimed at improving proficiency in the English language for the local young. It's born out of insults he once had to face in Delhi, mainly because his spoken English was poor.

Even from among those who plan to settle outside Purnea, besides Ranjan - the Civil Services aspirant - only one, Mohd. Tufail, 20, aims for a corporate gig "in Chennai or Mumbai" after graduating in civil engineering.

The other, Rahul Kumar Rana, 25 - the feisty, fast-talking ring-lead of this group - has a blueprint for an agro-business in place. And for which he would need to attract expertise, and therefore eventually step out. He says, "If Biharis can crack IAS-IPS exams, clearly they are dimaag se tez (sharp-brained). They've just been conditioned to believe they can't do business."

While Rana has graduated, the other students belong to local Aryabhatt or Purnea University. Unless we've accidentally chanced upon statistical outliers for a random sample set, Purnea's students seem exceedingly bright that, let alone the town's older folk, even the rest of India could benefit much from.

The 'sameekaran'

Purnea goes to polls today, with the sitting MP, Santosh Kumar Kushwah from Nitish Kumar's JDU, aligned with the BJP, up against Pappu Singh, formerly with the BJP, who recently joined the Congress, in alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD. This is a bipartisan round-robin, given that Khuswah had defeated BJP in 2014, but is invoking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name - pushing for a second term. Unsurprisingly our conversations with the older folk in Purnea centred on community "sameekaran" (equations), Muslims and Yadavs that vote as a block, and if the Rajputs will/won't join in, etc.

This shows up in the quality of campaigns as well that the young men with us seem quite tired with. "Prejudices that people vocalised in private are being blared in election rallies - openly name-calling," laments Aamir. "Forget corruption, it's all about communities. We just want all castes, religions to be treated the same," says Kamar. This is refreshing, coming from a state that has conventionally voted caste, rather than cast votes.

Led by Rana, the inevitable Modi fan, conversations predictably veer towards buzzwords like 'Digital India', and how the PM, with Mukesh Ambani, heralded a "4G and Facebook revolution, heading towards 5G."

Kamar pipes in with public sector BSNL getting destroyed in the process, and that the government could take no credit for introducing social media, which these guys are evidently round-the-clock consumers of.

And that primarily informs their partisan politics as well while we discuss Rahul Gandhi who the majority here (4/7) feel loses out to Modi, because of poor oratory. Modi-Rahul-Ambani, this could be a casual chat with the politically aware during elections anywhere in India.

Thumbs up for Nitish Kumar

Except being Bihar, there is much on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The group appears to like him, because he's delivered on "bijli, sadak," in villages, and worked on women's empowerment through efficient schemes. These young ones also love Nitish, because he introduced "sharaab-bandi" (Prohibition, in 2015) and in fact want him to plug holes so bootlegging doesn't entirely take over. Well. That's another crucial difference, with perhaps much of India, and the reason we've met for coffee in the evening!

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