Bihar and Mithila

The struggling states of Bihar and Mithila serve as extreme examples of India's problems. Development here has been thwarted by a hereditary landed aristocracy supported by religion, casteism, custom, social stratification, tradition, and patterns of behaviour that can be traced back millennia. In turn, all these have been masterfully manipulated by co-opted politicians, who have turned politics into a veritable art form as this volume comprehensively demonstrates.
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John A. Rorabacher has taught at the Universities of Texas (Austin); Wisconsin (Green Bay); Minnesota (Minneapolis) and South Dakota State University, as well as working in the private sector as a consultant. He is now retired, residing in Barrie, Ontario, Canada with his wife, Hava, and continues to write on the topics of hunger and development, flooding, land relations, and development in India.

1. Development and Backwardness: What are they; How do we Deal with them? 2. Bihar and Mithila: What Went Wrong? 3. The Environmental Roots of Backwardness in Bihar and Mithila, Part I: Floods 4. The Environmental Roots of Backwardness in Bihar and Mithila, Part II: Drought 5. Orientalism and India's Gordian Knot: Religion, Secularism and Caste 6. The Darbhanga Raj: The Heart of Mithila 7. Pulling the Threads Together 8. Some Final Thoughts and Observations 9. Postscript: The 2014 Lok Sabha Elections in Bihar: What Happened and What it Means?