After standing on the peak of the summit of past achievements and progress, the current Bihar seems to be spiraling downward and has touched the bottom of stagnation in all types of positive growth, compared to the rest of India and loosing as well as the true Bihari image - brave but simple, tough but humble. We better start taking pride in this Bihari image from Gautam for awakening the masses also to discard evils of casteism to Gandhi to make Bihar his Karmbhumi; from Chanakya for his political wisdom to Lalu as well for his refusal to compromise with the communal force.

Caste and sectarian politics is eating up Bihar like a termite infested home. But how can we get rid of this menace from our society? Let us face the facts: Casteism is deeply rooted in our Indian culture, in particular Bihar and Jharkhand. It is an axis of evil in all respect from politics to day to day life style and touching almost every Bihari. We would not be able to get this addictive casteism disease out that easily as it has infected our mind and behavior. The politicians will keep on exploiting the status quo to their advantage. One has to understand that caste, like any race will remain the way it is. It has a permanent value - nobody can alter a particular race by washing or polishing the colour of skin or changing the physical features. Similarly, if we consider caste on same level as any race, and as long as they are not harming our society, the issue will be irrelevant. The caste or race itself is not the problem. The problem is in the discrimination based on caste system and the bigotry. It is something like a famous slogan in Mrs. Indira Gandhi's days when she said: "Garibi Hatao" and her party led by Sanjay Gandhi started to move the Garib population from the slums of Delhi. In the same way, if people start to remove the caste itself rather than casteism, the vicious cycle of exploitation based on caste and creed will be not stopped.

One may ask how should we discard this habit? Rather than attacking caste, one has to find the root cause of people taking "advantage of caste" which has become the tool of the trade being used widely by the political parties and the decision makers. Why is there any discrimination? Is it not possible to find a simple solution? Look around, from top to bottom. All politicians talk against caste based politics and bash each other for discriminating their vote banks. The politicians, intellectuals, academics and the media included, openly discussing the caste equations and giving a kind of its fixed value to the caste politics. Can anyone imagine if murder or bribery equations are also discussed in a same form as caste based vote bank equation as deciding factors in any election? Sadly, this caste issue dominates in any intellectual or media discussion.

To find a solution, for sure we need an electoral reform. If caste is a stepping stool to corruptly achieve anything, whether political power house or a simple thing such as getting a job or business, it must be pulled out. If it provides a sense of security to any community, this sense of security must be given in some other way than caste-based political shelter. The need of dependency on caste based expectations itself will be irrelevant if the reason for caste based voting bank is eliminated. If the election commission of India can decide to move the criminal politicians from one jail to another because they might influence the local voters from their nearby located jails, sure they can also stop caste based issues being discussed and manipulated to lure the voters. The electoral reform must take care of loopholes so that any need of securing a particular interest by any caste-based politician does not arise. Any issues related to casteism will become like a toothless tiger.

Any idea starts with simple question and this issue is no different than any other problems faced before. We are all guilty in making and holding this monster's hand in a false sense of security. One has to realize, how to beat this source of monstrous degradation and help each other escape from this senseless and dark prison to find freedom. If you have seen any fishermen catching sea crabs, you will notice that, they dump all these dumbest creatures in a bucket, and they do not have to put a lid on the bucket as when one of the crab tries to get out, the others will pull it back in. It offers a valuable lesson to us, as some of us are not much smarter than these crabs. When some of us try to work hard to achieve our dreams by escaping from this prison of caste politics, some of our fellow Bihari will pull us back in as if to make fun of us for just trying. To get to this fresh air of freedom, everybody has to work and help each other otherwise we will remain in the bucket as those backward crabs.