Bihar

/bee hahr"/, n.

1. a state in NE India. 62,700,000; 67,164 sq. mi. (173,955 sq. km). Cap.: Patna.

2. a city in the central part of this state. 100,052.

Also, Behar.

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State (pop., 2001 prelim.: 82,878,796), northeastern India.

Bordered by Nepal and West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh states, it occupies 38,301 sq mi (99,200 sq km); its capital is Patna. Its limits are nearly the same as those of the ancient kingdoms of Videha and Magadha, for which records date back to с 600 BC. In AD 320 the area came under the Gupta empire, whose capital was at Pataliputra (Patna). Overcome by the Muslims с 1200, Bihar was annexed to Delhi с 1497. Taken by the British in 1765, it was made part of Bengal. The area was the scene of revolts against the British in the mid-19th century and of Mohandas K. Gandhi's nonviolent movement in 1917. Bihar was made a province of British India in 1936; it became a state after India's independence in 1947. It is one of India's least urbanized states, and most of its population engages in agriculture. In 2000 the new state of Jharkhand was created from Bihar's southern provinces.

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▪ state, India

Introduction

 state of eastern India. It is bounded by Nepal to the north and by the Indian states of West Bengal to the northeast and Uttar Pradesh to the west. In November 2000 the new state of Jharkhand was created from Bihar's southern provinces and now forms the state's southern and southeastern borders. The capital of Bihar is Patna.

      Bihar occupied an important position in the early history of India; for centuries it was the principal seat of imperial powers and the main focus of Indian culture and civilization. The derivation of the name Bihar from the Sanskrit vihara (Buddhist monastery) reflects the prominence of such communities in the region in ancient times. Area 38,301 square miles (99,200 square km). Pop. (2004 est.) 88,268,000.

Land

Relief, drainage, and soils

      The state is naturally divided by the Ganges (Ganga) River (Ganges River) into two regions—the North Bihar Plains and the South Bihar Plains, which together form part of the middle Gangetic Plain (Indo-Gangetic Plain). Except for the foothills of the Himalayas in the extreme northwest, the North Bihar Plain is a flat alluvial region, less than 250 feet (75 metres) above sea level and prone to flooding. The Ghaghara (Ghāghara River), the Gandak (Gandak River), the Baghmati (Baghmati River), the Kosi (Kosi River), the Mahananda (Mahananda River), and other rivers flow down from the Himalayas of Nepal and make their way to the Ganges in frequently changing channels. Depressions and lakes mark the abandoned courses of streams. The Kosi River, long known as the “Sorrow of Bihar” for its tendency to cause destructive floods, has been confined within artificial embankments. The soil of the northern plain consists mostly of new alluvium—chalky and light-textured (mostly sandy loam) west of the Burhi (Old) Gandak River and nonchalky and heavy-textured (clay and clay loam) to the east. Another natural hazard—seismic activity—also affects this area, which lies within the Himalayan earthquake zone. The earthquakes of 1934 and 1988 were especially severe and caused widespread devastation and loss of life.

      The land of the South Bihar Plain (South Bihar Plains) is more varied than that of its northern counterpart, with many hills rising from the level alluvium. The southern rivers, with the exception of the Son (Son River), are all small; their water is diverted into irrigation channels. The soil consists mainly of older alluvium, composed of a darkish clay or yellowish loam, with poor, sandy soils predominating toward the south of this region. In the southwest, beyond the Son River valley, lies the Kaimur Plateau, with horizontal sandstone strata over a limestone base.

Climate

      There are three well-defined seasons: the hot-weather season, lasting from March to mid-June; the season of southwest monsoon rains, from mid-June to October; and the cold-weather season, from November to February. May is the hottest month, with temperatures regularly exceeding 90 °F (32 °C), except in the extreme north. The coolest month is January, with temperatures typically rising into the low 70s F (about 22 °C). The normal annual rainfall varies from about 40 inches (1,000 mm) in the west-central part of the state to more than 60 inches (1,500 mm) in the extreme north. Nearly all the rain falls between June and October, with July and August being the wettest months. The cold-weather season is the most pleasant part of the year.

Plant and animal life

      The natural vegetation of Bihar is deciduous forest, but only a small portion of the total area is forested. Most forests occur in the Himalayan foothills; those on the plain have largely been removed in order to cultivate the land. Valuable resin-yielding sal trees (Shorea robusta) are found in the Himalayan foothills, along with an abundance of bamboo, reeds, and grasses. Common trees of the plain include banyans (banyan) (Ficus benghalensis or F. indica), Bo trees (Bo tree) (F. religiosa), and palmyra palms.

      The more inaccessible forest regions of Bihar are home to various species of large mammals, most notably Bengal tigers, leopards, elephants, and several types of deer. Crocodiles are most numerous along the Kosi River. In the early 21st century significant populations of the endangered adjutant stork (Leptoptilos dubius) were found in the Kosi and Ganges floodplains. Small mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish are common throughout the state.

People

Population composition

      For the most part, the peoples of Bihar are classified according to religion, social caste and lineage, and language, rather than by specific ethnic affiliation. Hindus constitute the majority of the population, and Muslims are the largest minority group. Most Muslims live in northern Bihar, particularly in and around the city of Purnia in the northeast. The Hindu population comprises the elite upper castes (Brahmans (Brahman), Bhumihars, Rajputs (Rājput), and Kayasthas); the officially designated Backward Classes (Yadavas (Yādava Dynasty), Kurmis, and Banias (Bania)), constituting the socially and economically disadvantaged; and the Scheduled Castes, formerly known as “untouchables (untouchable)” (Chamars or Mochis, Dusadhs, and Mushars). There also are smaller groups of distinct indigenous peoples, the Scheduled Tribes, that fall outside the caste hierarchy; most are Hindus, and a few are Christians.

       Indo-European languages—including Hindi, Urdu (primarily the language of Muslims), and the Bihari (Bihārī languages) languages of Bhojpuri, Maithili, and Magahi—are spoken by most of the population. Bhojpuri is spoken in the western districts of Bhojpur, Rohtas (also called Sasaram, after its administrative centre), Saran, and East and West Champaran; Maithili is spoken in Darbhanga and Saharsa; and Magahi is spoken in Patna, Gaya, and Munger. Austroasiatic (Austroasiatic languages) languages are spoken by the Munda, Santhal (Santhāl), and Ho indigenous minorities, while another Scheduled Tribe, the Oraon, speak a Dravidian language (Dravidian languages).

Settlement patterns and demographic trends

      Bihar is one of India's most densely populated states, with well over 850 people per square mile (more than 325 per square km). In the early 21st century the state also had one of the country's highest population growth rates. The state is primarily rural, with the vast majority of the population living in compact or clustered villages in the cultivated plains. The harnessing of the Kosi River has stabilized settlement in its valley, while a highly developed system of irrigation supports a large population on the South Bihar Plain (South Bihar Plains). The major cities in Bihar are Patna, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Munger, and Bihar Sharif.

Economy

      Agriculture engages nearly three-fourths of Bihar's population, and Bihar is one of India's top producers of vegetables and fruits. Despite significant gains in mining and manufacturing in the late 20th century, the state has continued to lag behind other Indian states in per capita income; by government standards, a large segment of the population remains below poverty level. At the turn of the 21st century the creation of the state of Jharkhand from Bihar's southern region further strained Bihar's struggling economy.

Agriculture

      About half of Bihar is under cultivation, but population pressure has pushed cultivation to the furthest limits, and little remains to be developed. The transitional nature of the climatic zone is reflected in the cropping pattern, which shows a mixture of wet and dry crops. Rice is everywhere the dominant crop, but wheat, corn (maize), barley, and pulses (legumes) are important supplementary crops. Sugarcane is grown in a fairly well-defined belt in the northwest. Jute, a crop of the hot, moist lowlands, is found only in the easternmost plain districts. There are three harvests in a year: bhadai, dominated by corn that is sown from May to June and gathered in August and September; aghani, consisting primarily of rice sown in mid-June and gathered in December; and rabi, made up largely of wheat that ripens in the plains in the spring (March to May).

      Fruits and vegetables are grown extensively. Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga are particularly noted for mangoes, bananas, and litchi fruits. Vegetables are important in the vicinity of large towns. The potato-growing area near Bihar Sharif, in Patna district, produces the best variety of seed potato in India. Chilies and tobacco are important cash crops on the banks of the Ganges (Ganges River).

Resources and power

      Bihar's mineral wealth was virtually depleted when the mineral-rich Chota Nagpur plateau became part of Jharkhand. Still, there are a few pockets in the state where minerals are found. Bauxite is found in Munger. The Rohtas district has dolomite, glass sand, cement mortar, and other minerals. Mica deposits are found in Gaya, Nawada, and Munger. Gaya and Munger also produce salt, as does Muzaffarpur.

      Bihar's energy is provided by a small number of thermal and hydroelectric power stations, but these do not meet the needs of the entire state. Several power stations were lost with the partitioning of Jharkhand. In the early 21st century less than half of the state's villages had regular electricity.

Manufacturing

      Bihar has been slow to develop industry. A number of agencies have been set up by the state government to boost the pace of development. Most workers in the manufacturing sector are employed in household industries; the rest are employed in steel and other metal-based and food-processing industries.

      The larger industries are mainly in Dalmianagar (paper, cement, chemicals), Baruni (petrochemicals), and Patna (light manufacturing). Among the agriculturally based industries are sugar refining, tobacco processing, silk production, and jute milling. Traditional cottage industries are popular in Bihar; they most notably include sericulture (raising of silkworms and raw silk production), lac (resin used to produce shellac) and glasswork, handloom products, brassware, and pottery. Paintings of mythological stories produced on cloth in and around the town of Madhubani have become a foreign-exchange item.

Transportation

      The waterways, once important, are now of little significance. Although all-weather roads reach just over one-third of Bihar's villages, several national highways pass through the state, including the venerable Grand Trunk Road, which is one of India's oldest roadways. Road service is best around Patna, where Allied (Allied Powers) operations during World War II brought many improvements. The rail line between Kolkata (Calcutta) (Calcutta) and Delhi, which crosses Bihar, opened in 1864. Because of the dense population, the railways carry a heavy load of traffic. They generally run parallel to the rivers because of the difficulty of constructing bridges. Consequently, travel between important towns is often long and tedious. Regularly scheduled airlines serve Patna.

Government and society

Constitutional framework

      The structure of Bihar's government, as in most other Indian states, is defined by the national constitution of 1950. The state has a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper-house Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad) and the lower-house Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha). Appointed by the president of India, the governor is the head of the state and functions on the advice of the chief minister, who is the head of the Council of Ministers. The bureaucratic hierarchy, located in the Patna secretariat, is headed by a chief secretary.

      The state is parceled into several divisions, which are further divided into districts. Administration is the responsibility of a deputy commissioner at the district level. Below the district, each subdivision has its own administrative officer.

      The police force is headed by an inspector general, assisted by superintendents at the district level. There is a high court at Patna, with a chief justice and several other judges. Below the high court are district courts, subdivisional courts, munsifs' (subordinate judicial officers') courts, and village councils.

Health and welfare

      Medical facilities, though improving, are still inadequate outside the towns. Villages are served mainly by allopathic (traditional Western) and ancient Indian medical (Ayurvedic) dispensaries. Unanī (traditional Muslim) and homeopathic systems of medicine are also popular. Large and well-equipped hospitals and medical colleges are located at Patna, Darbhanga, and Bhagalpur. Respiratory diseases, dysentery, and diarrhea figure prominently among the causes of death. Cholera and malaria seldom occur, and smallpox and bubonic plague have been eradicated.

Education

      Although the literacy rate has nearly tripled in the second half of the 20th century to nearly half the state's population, Bihar still ranks low in literacy among Indian states. The rate for men is significantly higher than that for women. The state's general aim is to educate all children at least up to the age of 14. In the early 21st century most of those eligible were enrolled in the primary schools. However, only a small proportion were able to continue to the secondary level, as economic necessity forced them to work. Vocational and technical schools are sponsored by government departments.

      Prominent institutions of higher learning in Bihar include Patna University (1917), the oldest and most important, at Patna; Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University (formerly Bihar University; 1960), at Muzaffarpur; and Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University (formerly Bhagalpur University; 1960), at Bhagalpur. The latter two schools offer graduate programs and have a number of affiliated colleges.

Cultural life

      The cultural regions of Bihar show a close affinity with the linguistic regions. Maithili is the language of old Mithila (the area of ancient Videha, now Tirhut), which is dominated by orthodoxy and the Maithil Brahman way of life. Maithili is the only Bihari language (Bihārī languages) with a script of its own, called Tirhuta, and a strong literary history; one of the earliest and most celebrated writers in Maithili was Vidyapati (15th century), noted for his lyrics of love and devotion.

      The Bhojpuri language has hardly any written literature but does have a considerable oral narrative tradition. Magahi too has a rich tradition of oral literature. The North and South Bihar plains also have contributed significantly to contemporary Hindi (Hindi literature) and Urdu literature.

      Many villages of the Scheduled Tribes have a dancing floor, a sacred grove (sarna) where worship is offered by a village priest, and a bachelor's dormitory (dhumkuria). The weekly market, hat, plays an important part in the tribal economies. Tribal festivals such as Sarhul, which marks the flowering of the sal trees, and Soharai, celebrated after the rice harvest, are occasions of great festivity.

  Places of religious and cultural interest abound in Bihar. Nalanda is the seat of the ancient and celebrated Nalanda Buddhist monastic centre (Nālanda); the nearby Rajgir Hills area, with its ancient and contemporary temples and shrines, is visited by people of many faiths; and Pawapuri is the place where Mahavira, the renowned teacher of Jainism, attained nirvana (enlightenment, or freedom from an endless cycle of reincarnation). Gaya is an important place of Hindu (Hinduism) pilgrimage, and nearby Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, is the holiest place of Buddhism; in 2002 the Mahabodhi temple complex at Bodh Gaya was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hariharkshetra, near Sonpur, north of Patna, is famous for one of the oldest and largest animal fairs in India, which is held every November. Among the numerous Hindu celebrations held in Bihar, Holi (a colourful spring fertility festival) and Chaat (a tribute to the Sun, primarily by women) are indigenous to the region.

History

      In the Early Vedic period (beginning with the entrance of the Vedic religion into South Asia about 1500 BCE), several kingdoms existed in the plains of Bihar. North of the Ganges was Videha, one of the kings of which was the father of Princess Sita, the wife of Lord Rama and the heroine of the Ramayana (Rāmāyaṇa), one of the two great Hindu (Hinduism) epic poems of India. During the same period, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Magadha was Rajagriha (now Rajgir), about 45 miles (70 km) southeast of Patna; to the east was the kingdom of Anga, with its capital at Campa (Champa) (near Bhagalpur). A new kingdom later arose in southern Videha, with its capital at Vaishali. By about 700 BCE, the kingdoms of Vaishali and Videha were replaced by a confederacy of the Vrijji (Vṛjji)—said to be the first republican state known in history. It was in Magadha, in the 6th century BCE, that the Buddha developed his religion and that Mahavira, who was born at Vaishali, promulgated and reformed the religion of Jainism.

      About 475 BCE the capital of the Magadha empire was located at Pataliputra (modern Patna), where it remained under Ashoka (emperor of India from about 273 to 232 BCE) and the Guptas (Gupta dynasty) (a dynasty of emperors who ruled India in the 4th and 5th centuries CE) until the onslaught of the Hephthalites (Hephthalite) from the north in the middle and late 5th century CE. In the 6th–7th centuries the city was devastated by the migration of the Son River; the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang recorded that in 637 the city had few inhabitants. It regained some of its glory, but it is doubtful that it ever served as the capital of the Pala (Pāla Dynasty) empire (which lasted from about 775 to 1200). During the ensuing Muslim period (about 1200 to 1765), Bihar had little independent history. It remained a provincial unit until 1765, when it came under British rule and—together with Chota Nagpur to the south—was merged with the state of Bengal.

      Originally, Chota Nagpur was mostly forest-clad and was ruled by chiefs of various aboriginal tribes. Though British authority was only gradually established in the plains to the north during the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, occasional revolts against the British took place in Chota Nagpur, the most important being the Ho revolt of 1820 to 1827 and the Munda uprising of 1831 to 1832. Later, Bihar was an important centre of the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58. Bihar formed a part of the Bengal Presidency under the British until 1912, when the province of Bihar and Orissa was formed; in 1936 the two became separate provinces of British-ruled India.

      Bihar played an active role in the successive phases of Indian nationalism. Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi (Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand), the nationalist leader who advocated nonviolent resistance, first launched the satyagraha (“devotion to truth”) movement against the tyranny of the European indigo planters in the Champaran region of northern Bihar. Rajendra Prasad (Prasad, Rajendra), who played a leading part in the freedom movement and was elected the first president of independent India, was born in the Saran district, northwest of Patna.

      Upon India's independence in 1947, Bihar became a constituent part (becoming a state in 1950), and in 1948 the small states with capitals at Saraikela and Kharsawan were merged with it. In 1956, when the Indian states were reorganized on a linguistic basis, a territory of some 3,140 square miles (8,130 square km) was transferred from Bihar to West Bengal. In 1990, for the first time since independence, a state government was elected from a party other than that controlling the national government, and in 2000 most of the Chota Nagpur plateau in Bihar's southern region became part of the new state of Jharkhand.

P. Dayal Ashok K. Dutt Allen G. Noble

Additional Reading

Enayat Ahmad, Bihar: A Physical, Economic, and Regional Geography (1965), contains sections on population and settlement. Other economic studies include Arvind N. Das, Agrarian Unrest and Socio-economic Change in Bihar, 1900–1980 (1983); and Alakh N. Sharma and Shaibal Gupta, Bihar: Stagnation or Growth (1987). R.R. Diwakar (ed.), Bihar Through the Ages (1959), provides an authoritative cultural and political history up to the postindependence period, with introductory chapters on geology and geography. See also Bindeshwari Prasad Sinha (ed.), Comprehensive History of Bihar (1974– ); and Jata Shankar Jha, Early Revolutionary Movement in Bihar (1977). Shree Govind Mishra, History of Bihar, 1740–1772 (1970), analyzes the period of British ascendancy.Ashok K. Dutt Allen G. Noble

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