Chapter 360: Difficult to hold
For a moment, Ron even wanted to laugh.
Sure enough, as soon as the bad things are compared, even Uttar Pradesh becomes pretty.
He was about to say something when suddenly a quarrel was heard.
There was an old woman who spoke so angrily that her veil kept slipping off her face.
She became so agitated because someone had called in an official, probably responsible for handling the dispute here.
He had a typical Indian beard and gray hair. Surprisingly, this official seemed to be very trusted by the people.
Poor people holding yellow poverty cards gathered around him and complained to him.
Especially the old woman wearing a veil, she gesticulated while speaking and looked extremely aggrieved.
It took the officer a while to calm her down and figure out what had made her so furious.
She showed everyone her food ration booklet and told them that the manager of the discount store had torn off four coupons and given her only one coupon's worth of food.
The official nodded continuously and took notes.
"While they're worrying about silly formalities," the old woman cried, "what am I going to do with my stomach?"
After the officials understood the situation, they immediately called the manager of the discount store.
At first, the grain merchant under investigation denied stealing the coupons, even though he did it in full view of the public.
But when he realized that the official would not give up, he changed his attitude and handed the old woman another three coupons of flour with a smile.
As the woman had shown earlier, the quality of the flour was so poor that Ron suspected even the local camels would hesitate before eating it.
The good flour was sold on the black market and replaced with this inedible chaff.
Officials alerted the Bargain Store manager, who cheerfully admitted to the practice, dismissing it as a problem.
Because he was fully aware that no one present had the right to revoke his license.
Just kidding, discount stores also have a staff.
Indian civil servants are beyond the reach of anyone except the Administrative Commission.
Eventually, the old woman left with four portions of bad flour.
It's a typical day for a poor person in the capital of Bihar.
Satya spoke to the official, whose name was Nikhil.
It is true that Bihar is poor and corrupt, but it also has officials who stick to the bottom line.
He was simply using his limited authority to protect the limited rights of the poor.
“This is life for poor people in India,” Nikhil said. “The government doesn’t treat them well.”
After leaving the discount store, Satya continued the previous topic.
"I know it's difficult to change things, but the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh is doing better than in Bihar, better than Mayawati."
"What happened to Mayawati?"
"You'll know when you go back and see that under her leadership, the affordable stores in Uttar Pradesh are no longer in existence."
"Why?"
"Of course it was her brilliant Rural Employment Guarantee Act. All the grain was used to hire farmers for hard labor. The poor outside her constituency got nothing. Just a few years ago, rural villages in the eastern countryside were receiving relief grain."
Well, Ron couldn't help but think of his third Bernie Love.
When he was the village chief, he sold all the welfare food distributed by the government on the black market and replaced it with coarse grains for cattle.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the elder brother should not laugh at the younger brother, they are birds of a feather.
Of course, Ron didn't have the nerve to use such facts to refute Satya. This was a brilliant "political achievement" in the eyes of the Socialist Party.
The Sur family also promoted the Rural Employment Guarantee Act. They used grain as compensation to hire farmers to build roads and irrigation canals.
However, the Suer family did not know that the grain transferred by the government was actually welfare grain from affordable stores.
What can he say? Uttar Pradesh is no less corrupt.
They also talked about India's civil service system. Satya said that the most respectable career in Bihar is civil service, which is unmatched by any private enterprise.
Apart from producing juicy mangoes and lychees that are shipped to other parts of India, Bihar has virtually no other industry.
In other words, Bihar only has agriculture, which is why it is no wonder that civil service is considered the highest-paid and most respectable profession.
"There used to be a joke in the North that you pretend to work and we pretend to pay you. In India, it's become, you pretend to work and we pay you well."
Satya said that no matter how bad your work is, you can still get thousands of rupees in salary, as well as many additional benefits, including free housing, telephone, electricity, first-class travel services, etc.
He also said that 85% of India's development funds flowed into the pockets of officials and corruption had become rampant.
If the civil service and bureaucracy do not change, India will never have a chance to develop.
Ron was surprised that for a politician he could be so outspoken.
Many people use civil servants as election bargaining chips, such as Uttar Pradesh's current Chief Minister Mayawati.
She directly received saintly treatment from the Dalit community by promising to open 1,000 civil service quotas for Dalits.
The reason why Satya said this was to express her determination to Ron.
If the Socialist Party comes to power, it will definitely focus on welfare policies for the poor.
This sounds a bit funny. When did Indian officials and businessmen care so much about the lives of the poor?
That being said, Satya did this only after careful research.
There's no other reason. Ron's aura of being a good guy is so strong that it has become known to everyone.
Not to mention what happened in the past, just his actions in the Pufancha area made countless people sing his name when praying to the gods.
He not only solved the jobs of countless people, but also built roads, hospitals, and cracked down on gangs.
What is this? It’s definitely the Saint Baba.
What the Uttar Pradesh government could not do, the great Mr. Sur did.
In the filthy land, there is light!
It was precisely because of these incredible changes that Satya made a "misjudgment". He thought Ron was really a philanthropist with a global vision.
Well, that’s what he really thought, and everyone else thought so too.
Ron scratched his head secretly, wondering how the fake became real? No one would really think that.
"I understand what you mean. Now let's talk about Bihar politics." He changed the subject in time.
“The politics here are actually very similar to that of Uttar Pradesh, or to be precise, Uttar Pradesh a year ago.”
Bihar is still ruled by Yadavs, and they are also following the "pastoralists-Yadavs" alliance, namely the MY alliance.
The alliance contributed the crucial 30% of votes for Yadav's three consecutive terms.
To be honest, Yadav’s rule in Bihar is much stronger than that in Uttar Pradesh.
But their caste politics also disgust many wealthy classes because it comes at the expense of economic growth and law and order.
Ron and his friends bought a newspaper, and the headlines were almost all about reports of kidnapping cases at a certain high school. There were not just one, but five cases.
Bihar's kidnapping industry is closely tied to the state's politics, and it's no coincidence that kidnappings surge around the time of elections.
Elections cost money, but Bihar is very poor, with no industry, no big businessmen, and no one to give money to politicians.
So what to do? He could only kidnap rich kids from their schools and use the ransom money as campaign funds.
You haven't seen it before, politicians raise money by kidnapping people, this is Bihar.
This has even developed into an industrial chain. Everyone knows who to kidnap and will never kidnap the wrong child of a big shot.
80% of Bihar's politicians have been the masterminds of kidnapping cases, and the crime rate is extremely high.
Uttar Pradesh is inferior to China in this regard.
The state government's main sources of income are subsidies from New Delhi and remittances sent home by Bihari farmers who work in Delhi, Mumbai or Punjab.
Most of Bihar's middle class have already fled the place.
It's rotten and there's no hope.
To prove that what he said was right, Satya took Ron to visit a friend of his here.
Satya used to often come to Bihar with his brother to attend the All India Yadav League Conference, which was held either in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar.
Therefore, he was quite familiar with the place and made a few friends.
That friend was a doctor named Kulma, who had started out as a doctor in the UK's National Health Service and was enjoying a comfortable, elite life abroad.
He then returned to his hometown after being persuaded by the Bihar State Medical Council to take up the post of director of the council.
The first thing he said when he met Ron and the others was, "If I had known then what I know now, I would never have returned to Bihar."
He has resigned from his job with the Medical Board and chose to run his own medical clinic in Patna.
Because he couldn't do anything in the medical committee, the meager funds were all embezzled by internal officials.
His colleagues initially invited him to join them, but Kurma not only refused sternly but also harshly criticized them.
And then well, no one from the medical board ever spoke to him again.
The depressed Kurma simply quit his job and opened his own clinic as a doctor. At least this way he could help some people.
He wore a navy jacket with gold buttons, and he looked out of place in a town where it was best not to look different.
His surname represents the traditional Bihari landowning caste, and he is also a senior doctor. He belongs to both the upper caste and the middle class.
By the way, being a high caste in Bihar does not mean being rich, there are many poor Brahmins living in rural areas.
In the eyes of the lower castes, Kurma was a "feudal lord" and in the eyes of the kidnappers, he was a prime target.
“I sleep with a gun under my pillow,” he said, showing the two men the exquisite revolver.
"Is it dangerous in the capital, Patna?" Ron asked.
"I'm constantly threatened with kidnapping or extortion. It's hopeless here. Many of my colleagues have already left and they're never coming back."
When he said this, Ron and the others were sitting in Kulma's clinic, drinking tea and chatting, but he kept staring at the intersection outside the clinic with a vigilant look.
Kumar said kidnappers and police officers are often the same person. They simply swap clothes and their identities.
He also said that the police were like the personal attendants of their political leaders, running around all day serving those officials.
This also explains what Kulma said, that the police and the kidnappers are the same.
Politicians need to raise money through kidnapping, so who is responsible for the kidnapping?
Of course it’s the police under my command.
Ron thought he had seen all sorts of weird things in India, but Bihar still made him feel uneasy.
They did not continue their journey and went to visit the Chief Minister of Bihar, Yadav the next day.
(End of this chapter)
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