Network Past Issues

Doing Fieldwork during a Flood in Bihar
Chandan Kumar, PRM 28

To complete the fieldwork segment of the course of study at IRMA, I went to Rasidpur village, located in the Begusarai district of Bihar.
The decision was an easy one as my home state is Bihar. I lived in the state from the time of my birth to the time I enrolled at IRMA and went to Gujarat. Nevertheless, I have not had much contact with village life. So when I got Bihar as my fieldwork state, I welcomed the opportunity to live the rural life for fifty days. I looked forward to visiting Bihar so that I could experience first-hand the rural life for which this state is known.
I also chose Bihar because of its glorious past and rich cultural heritage. It was once home to world-famous universities like Nalanda and Vikramshila. Students from all over the world came to these great centres of learning to study a variety of subjects. Bihar is also the place where two great world religions were founded. Mahavir, the twenty-fourth Thirthankar of the Jain religion, was born in Bihar. Bodh Gaya in Bihar is the place where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment and preached Buddhism. Unfortunately, in recent times, Bihar has become infamous for many anti-social activities because of certain people. Perhaps this was the reason that most of my batch mates did not want to go to Bihar for their fieldwork. But these reasons did not bother me. I was happy to go to Bihar for my fieldwork segment.
I think God was also very supportive of my decision because he did everything to enrich my experience during my stay in Rasidpur. The day after I arrived, floodwaters reached the village because an embankment on the river Noon in a nearby village had broken. Within four days, about 90 per cent of the village area was submerged under the floodwaters. This obviously affected the life and activities of all the people in the village, including our study and our work on our theme paper research and the rural action component. In the initial days, we couldn’t do the many things that we had planned. It was only during the last twenty days that we managed to complete our work on different things.
Despite this setback, the experience proved to be quite helpful and valuable for me. I couldn’t have gained a better understanding of rural life in Bihar than the understanding I gained during the flood in Rasidpur village.
To escape the floodwaters, most of the people were forced to live on the national highway (NH 28) that passes through the village since this was the only high area that was not submerged. They slept on NH 28 by spreading out a khat or coat. It was not only the poor people who were compelled to do this but also many people from the more prosperous families. Even the house of the mukhiya of Rasidpur village was submerged, and he too was forced to live on NH 28 along with the other villagers. We saw villagers doing everything on the road—cooking, eating, sleeping, talking, praying—simply because there was no other dry land available.
Although the flood posed a great hardship for the villagers, it was also a great learning opportunity for me. It was heartbreaking to see the villagers struggle to survive during the flood. Bihar’s location makes it highly susceptible to frequent and devastating floods. Even I who belong to Bihar had never experienced or seen such floods nor observed the people’s misery from such close quarters. What my batch mates and I saw and experienced during this difficult time made us realise how lucky we were to be living in big cities where we could enjoy certain amenities and other luxuries, which we took for granted.
A particular incident in the village during this flood affected me deeply. Since the villagers were living on NH 28, the traffic passing on the highway was seriously disrupted. There was a long queue of hundreds of buses and trucks on the road. Meanwhile, one of the families living on the highway lost its breadwinner. He died as the result of being hit by a truck. A family that was already rendered homeless by the flood, that was forced to live out in the open on the road with hundreds of others similarly rendered homeless, that was compelled to survive under the most harrowing and difficult circumstances, had now lost its breadwinner. One can easily imagine how pathetic and tragic the situation was. Even performing the last rites of the dead man proved to be a huge problem for the family because of the floods and the traffic jam on NH 28, which was backed up for more than 50 km. I had never imagined that I would ever see life and its cruelty from such a close range.
During the floods, I started interacting with the villagers but I had to be very patient while talking to them. Seeing them grapple bravely with the many problems they faced was a great education, for it taught me not only patience and empathy but also deepened my understanding of the harsh circumstances of their life and their daily struggle for survival.
After living in Rasidpur for fifty days and observing rural life, I concluded that most villagers are wiser than most city-dwellers. We urban people sit in our big, comfortable offices making decisions and framing policies for them, but we do not bother to learn how these policies and programmes will affect the villagers. Above all, we do not bother to discover what happens after the policies have been framed and supposedly been implemented.
After returning to IRMA from Rasidpur and resuming my earlier urban-based life, I realised that what we had seen and learnt in rural Bihar was really the opportunity of a lifetime. This experience will always be with me and my batch mates and will help me at least to be a wiser, more mature, more empathetic, more understanding person and a better human being.
Chandan Kumar can be reached at p28061@irma.ac.in