ABSTRACT
Modern Bihar is a very different place from that which existed in early historic times or, for that matter, until shortly after Independence. e course of Bihar’s long illustrious history began to change and within little more than a decade, by the time of the 1961 Census of India, Bihar was rapidly becoming the economic backwater that everyone has come to know.1 Biharis, by the thousands, were seeking employment and educational opportunities outside their home state, from landless agricultural labourers to those of the professional classes. In 2005, Rakesh Ankit wrote: ‘e professional class in Patna is skeletal, with the best and the brightest having evacuated.’2 Only the landlords, politicians, aged, ill, and feeble seemed to remain behind. en, in the same year, Nitish Kumar became the chief minister and the history of Bihar began to change. It was not a dramatic change in the observable living conditions of the people, as much as it was a change in the people – a glimmer of hope.
