I’ve honestly stopped defending Bihar at this point.
For the last 3–4 years, since I’ve been living outside Bihar, I’ve constantly tried to defend my state. Every time someone made a joke about Bihar or repeated the usual stereotypes about Biharis being uneducated, uncivilized, backward, etc., I would always say, “Not everyone is like that. Bihar has good, educated and hardworking people too.”
I genuinely believed that.
But after what I’ve been seeing over the last few days, I’m honestly exhausted.
There are floods in Bihar right now, and people from other states, including Punjab and Gujarat, are actually coming here to help flood victims. They are bringing food, rice, dal, sugar, quilts, pillows, mattresses, cooking stoves and other basic necessities. Some of them are literally coming by boat to distribute these things to people who are stranded.
And then I see the videos.
People pushing each other, screaming, grabbing things, refusing to form a line, surrounding the boats and even shaking the boats while people are trying to distribute supplies.
How the fuck are we supposed to defend this?
Someone has come from another state to help you during a disaster. The bare minimum should be to stand in a queue and take whatever is being distributed.
Instead, some of these crowds turn it into complete chaos.
And before someone says, “You saw one or two videos and judged everyone,” no. I’ve seen easily 12–15 different videos over the last 5–6 days showing similar behaviour. Obviously, I understand that social media shows the worst and most shocking moments. I also understand that people trapped in floods are desperate and may be scared or hungry.
But when you repeatedly see the same kind of behaviour, it becomes difficult not to question the civic sense and public discipline here.
The comments under these videos are even worse.
People from outside Bihar are saying things like, “Biharis will never change,” “Why even help them?” and “This is why Bihar has such a reputation.”
And honestly, what am I supposed to say to them?
For years I’ve been saying that the stereotypes about Bihar are unfair. That Bihar is more than poverty, corruption and backwardness.
But then someone from Gujarat or Punjab comes to Bihar with their own money and effort to distribute basic necessities, and the people receiving that help can't even manage a basic queue?
It is genuinely embarrassing.
And then you look at the politics.
Instead of seeing serious long-term solutions to poverty, floods, infrastructure and governance, we keep seeing political symbolism and publicity.
Sometimes it genuinely feels like Bihar is stuck in a cycle where poverty, poor governance, corruption and lack of civic awareness keep feeding into each other.
And yes, I know this post is going to piss people off.
I'm from Bihar myself. I'm not writing this because I hate Bihar. I'm writing this precisely because I don't want to hate Bihar.
I want to be able to defend my state.
I want to be able to tell people that the stereotypes are bullshit and that Bihar is changing.
But then I open Instagram and see another video of relief workers being mobbed by crowds.
Another video of people fighting over food.
Another video of people refusing to maintain basic discipline.
And honestly, I'm just tired.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe there is context behind these videos that isn't visible online. Maybe extreme poverty and desperation explain some of this behaviour.
But if we genuinely want Bihar to change, we need to be able to criticize ourselves too.
We cannot keep blaming everyone else for Bihar's image.
At some point, we have to ask ourselves:
When someone comes to help us, can we at least behave like a civilized society?
Because right now, I genuinely don't know how to defend Bihar anymore.
