Demand for Mithilanchal (GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Why in news?
- While a mahapanchayat at JantarMantar by farmers over the issue of unemployment drew media attention, hundreds of men, women and children from Bihar were also at Delhi’s famed protest street under the banner of the Mithila Students’ Union.
Carrying yellow flags and wearing attires of the same colour, they demanded the creation of a separate state of Mithilanchal from Bihar. But this demand is not new. Its origins can be traced back to as early as 1881.
- Mithilanchal is a geographical and cultural region bounded by the Mahananda river in the east, the Ganga in the south, the Gandakiriver in the west and by the foothills of the Himalayas in the north. Mithilanchal comprises large parts of Bihar and Jharkhand and adjoining districts of the eastern Terai of Nepal.
- The native language in Mithila is Maithili, and its speakers are referred to as Maithils.
- According to the Ramayana, Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, broke Shiva’s celestial bow to marry Mithila’s king Janaka’s daughter Sita — who is believed to have been born in the Sitamarhi district while her father ruled from Janakpur in Nepal.
In modern-day Bihar:
- In Bihar, Mithilanchal roughly comprises 20 of the 38 districts, including Darbhanga, Madhubani, Saharsa, Madhepura, Supaul, Begusarai, Katihar, Araria, Samastipur, Muzaffarpur, and Purnea.
- Maithili is spoken by about 40 million people or one-third of Bihar’s population.
- The region is known for its Mithila painting, also known as the Madhubani art, besides distinct festivals, attires like paag (a unique headdress) and cuisines, especially maachh (fish), paan (betel) and makhan (fox nuts or lotus seeds).
Demand for Mithilanchal:
- Local people, rulers, organisations and leaders have asked for a separate Mithilanchal state for decades. They have said that without Mithila's social, cultural, economic, political and linguistic independence, the entire region's development is impossible.
- During British rule, Bihar was part of the Bengal presidency before being carved out a separate administrative unit that included Jharkhand until November 2000.
- While Bihar was bifurcated to create Jharkhand, the demand for Mithilanchal remained, well, a demand.
Timeline:
- In 1881, the word Mithila was added to the dictionary of the British India government.
- In 1902, British official Sir George Grierson conducted a language-based survey and prepared a map of Mithila state.
- The demand for Mithilanchal was first made by local people in 1912, based on Sir George Grierson’s survey, when Bihar was leaving the Bengal presidency to become a separate state. The British rejected the demand.
- In 1921, Maharaja Rameshwar Singh of Darbhanga Raj raised the demand.
- In 1936, Orissa (now Odisha) became a separate state but the demand for Mithilanchal remained ignored.
- In 1947, India became independent and, in the coming years, many new states came into being but not Mithilanchal, leading to movements in the 1950s.
- DrLaxmanJha launched a movement, while Janaki Nandan Singh met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for a separate Mithila state.
- In 1986, Janata MP Vijay Kumar Mishra revived the demand through a three-day rail roko agitation.
- In 1996, Mithila RajyaSangharshSamiti initiated a mass-contact campaign and MithilanchalVikas Congress demanded an Autonomous Development Council for the region.
- In 2000, Jharkhand was separated from Bihar, but the demand for a separate Mithila state again remained ignored.
- In the early 2000s, Maithili was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution that lists India’s official languages. So far, the count is 22.
- In 2004, BJP leader Pt TarakantJha briefly launched a movement for Mithilanchal.
- In 2008, the JD(U), ruling Bihar since 2005, said it favoured a Mithila state as the only solution to develop the backward region.
- In 2015, cricketer-turned-BJP MP KirtiJha Azad demanded in Parliament a separate Mithila state.
- In 2018, RJD leader and former chief minister Rabri Devi favoured a Mithila state.
- In 2019, Bihar BJP leaders raised the demand for a separate Mithila state.
- In August 2022, the Mithila Students’ Union protested at Delhi’s JantarMantar for a separate state.
Why a Separate State?
- Local people, rulers, organisations and leaders have said for years that the successive central and state governments have neglected the Mithila region, almost leaving it to fend for itself in the perennial double whammy of floods and drought.
- There was a time when Mithila’s Tirhut belt accounted for India’s 40 per cent of sugar production. The share has reduced to 4 per cent now. The region had more than 30 sugar mills. Today, there are hardly any functional mills.
How will a separate Mithilanchal state help the local people?
- The protester’s claim appears to be higher on the scale of aspiration than ground reality. Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the states named by the protesters, are rich in natural mineral resources. Uttarakhand has traditionally been a tourist destination since the British times and before. The Mithilanchal region is rich in culture but lacks an industry-driving natural pull.
- Mithilanchal is one of the several Bihar regions, including Magadh (comprising Gaya, Nawada, Aurangabad, Jehanabad and Arwal districts) and Patna (including Patna, Nalanda, Bhojpur, Rohtas, Kaimur and Buxar districts). Those protesting feel policies customised for other regions are thrust upon Mithilanchal, which deepens its backwardness.
Government Approach:
- Forget a separate state, the Bihar government is not even in favour of creating a development council for Mithilanchal. Recently, some members raised in the Legislative Assembly their demand for a Mithilanchal development council which was rejected by the state government.
- The central government informed the Lok Sabha that there was no proposal under consideration of the Centre regarding the creation of a new state in the country.
Factors responsible for crisis in Mithilanchal:
- Being a poor region, large tracts of which get submerged every year during the rains and when Nepal releases water in rivers to ease the pressure on its side. Almost all flooding rivers of Mithilanchal originate from the Himalayas in Nepal.
- Exponential population growth across the river valleys of Mithilanchal has seen residential colonies being built on the natural floodplains leading to greater devastation during floods and reduction in available land for cultivation.
- High population growth has also slowed down the pace of poverty alleviation. This explains why Mithilanchal leads Bihar in pushing out migrant workers for manual labour across India.
- A large part of the cultivable land remains submerged during the sowing season, the high-quality paddy or wheat that other alluvial states such as Punjab and Uttar Pradesh grow is not cultivated in Mithilanchal. Most agriculture in Mithilanchal is still of sustenance nature, with limited mechanised farming.
Feasibility:
- If all demands for separate states are agreed to by Parliament, India may have 40 or more states.
- A new state requires a sustainable revenue model. Even the relatively rich regions such as Jharkhand and Telangana have found it difficult to build a new capital, a new secretariat, to cover the cost of running ministries and district administration. Uttarakhand is still functioning out of a temporary capital Dehradun. It does not have money.
- India particularly does not have too many successful examples of new states achieving fast growth and speedy prosperity. Haryana and to some extent Himachal Pradesh shine as exceptions in contrast to Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh or even Telangana.
Conclusion:
- The economic success of Mithila painting is largely attributed to the Japanese travellers, and a railway ministry decision to decorate JayantiJanta Express (now Vaishali Express) with these paintings during the 1980s.
- In recent years, Makhana farming is attaining commercial scale. A region knitted with rivers and ponds meets its fish demand with supplies coming from as far as Andhra Pradesh.
A separate Mithilanhal state, if the wish is granted by Parliament, may suit some political masters but might have a trying time in having a stable or self-sufficient economy in the political setup when “double engine” is emerging as the only model to receive a favourable fund flow.
