Was industrialist Anand Mahindra taken in by a false claim from Bihar ?  

Anews report earlier this month about a poor villager in Bihar spending 30 years of his life to dig a canal from a hillside to the village pond moved many readers. The chairman of the Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra, tweeted, “Many glorious monuments have been built which have involved sweat & toil over decades. But those were usually the visions of absolute monarchs using the labour of their subjects. To me, this humble canal is no less glorious than the pyramids or the Taj.”

Responding to a tweet days later that the villager wanted nothing but a tractor for his labour of love, Mahindra offered to gift him one. And within days a Mahindra dealer delivered a tractor to Laungi Bhuiyan. Offers of help and rewards poured in from others and the villager has been busy giving interviews and receiving political leaders in the last fortnight.

Almost simultaneously, sceptics began questioning the claim. Sources within and outside the Government first claimed that the canal had actually existed a century ago but had fallen into disuse. Villagers helped in desilting the canal and the claim that it took a solitary man 30 years to do it was a gross exaggeration. Quipped Sanjay Sahay, a Gaya resident and editor of Hindi literary magazine ‘Hans’, “It looks like Anand Mahindra was taken for a ride.”

The fact that villagers, the panchayat or the Block did not use MGNREGA funds for desilting, if not dig, the canal, also came up for scrutiny. Hem Chand Sirohi, former Divisional Commissioner of Magadh Range and a former Principal Home Secretary, said he had not heard of the endeavour. Sirohi not only served in the region in various capacities, he also was closely linked with a large number of NGOs working in the district.

Two more retired bureaucrats, former Special Secretary Rai Madan Kishore, who served in the district as CO, SDO and DDC, and former DDC Vijay Kumar also admitted that they had never come across the ‘story’ during their tenure.

A retired IG (Police) MA Kazmi provides another perspective. “Under the Chowkidari system, the village chowkidar every week reports to the local SHO about the smallest developments taking place in the village. There is no way chowkidars would have failed to report it,” he says. Others point out that language newspapers and regional TV channels have now reporters at the Block level. The story could not have escaped media attention, they hold. Older residents claim that what is being called a canal is an old water channel locally called ‘Pyein’. They do not contest the claim that villagers offered ‘Shram Daan’ to desilt the channel. Such collective efforts and minor interventions were possible and quite common. What they contest is the solo effort credited to the solitary villager. In the midst of a media frenzy around Laungi Bhuiyan, the state government has been strangely silent, refusing to confirm or deny the claim. The grapevine however is abuzz with speculation that Bhuiyan, a ‘Maha Dalit’, will be honoured ahead of the assembly election.

Scepticism over the ‘Jumla Canal’ is partly because of the similar claims made about a road carved through a hill by Dasrath Manjhi in the district. A film was also made about Manjhi’s feat but the claim was later found to have too many gaping holes.

Laungi Bhuiyan’s story could be a reflection on the media, on the bureaucracy or even on the people of the state. But for the moment, Bhuiyan is basking in the media attention.