Why Bihar needs its very own Pied Piper

India Today

21-05-2025

In Bihar, whenever anything goes wrong, rats seem to be, if not the culprit, at least the usual suspect. Be it the 2017 Bihar floods, the disappearance of nine lakh litres of alcohol the same year, or even dam damage, rats have strangely been cast as the culprit. More recently, rats were accused by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav of nibbling the toes of a disabled patient in a Patna hospital.advertisementAt this rate, Bihar may soon need its very own Pied Piper to lead the menacing rats away.The 13th-century German legend might just have to take a flight from the comforts of his town, Hamelin, to Patna. He might have to repeat his century-old gig.
Playing his magical flute, the piper lured all the rats out of the town and into the Weser river.When the townspeople, according to legend, refused to pay him for his service, he returned and led their children away.The story is often seen as a warning about broken promises, but in Bihar's case, it's the rat-catching part that seems relevant.BEFORE NIBBLING A PATIENT'S TOES, RATS GNAWED A PATIENT'S EYE IN PATNA HOSPITALLeader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly and RJD's Tejashwi Yadav claimed that rats nibbled the toes of a disabled patient at Patna's Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) while he was asleep. What Yadav cited wasn't an isolated instance.advertisementIn November 2024, at the same NMCH, rats are said to have gnawed at and taken away an eye from a body.An eye of Fantush Kumar, who had succumbed to bullet injuries, was found missing just hours after his death. Doctors attributed it to rats gnawing at the body."A group of doctors suspect that rats might have gnawed the eye. All aspects pertaining to the incident are being probed," an NMCH official told news agency PTI.The NMCH is the second-largest state government-run hospital in Bihar's capital, next only to the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH).SALINE BOTTLES RUINED BY RATS IN BIHAR HOSPITALBack in 2020, hundreds of kilometres east of Patna, at Katihar Sadar Hospital, a bunch of rats was said to have drunk bottled saline water meant for patients. The saline bottles were intended to be supplied to primary healthcare centres across the district.'I have been told by the hospital employees that the saline bottles were damaged by rats. I immediately visited the storeroom where medicines and saline bottles were stored to be provided to patients. I found the bottles badly damaged and some of them not fit for use," the acting superintendent of Katihar Sadar Hospital, Dr Arvind Prasad Shah, told The Times of India.BIHAR PROHIBITION FAILED TO STOP RATS FROM DRINKINGadvertisementIn Bihar, where prohibition exists but enforcement doesn't, it's only natural that the ban didn't apply to the rats. Bizarre as it may sound, a few police officers in 2017 told Patna SSP Manu Maharaj that rats had consumed around 9 lakh-litres of confiscated alcohol, both desi (country liquor) and angrezi (IMFL).The alcohol had been confiscated from across the state after Bihar went dry a year earlier.Then, random breath analyser tests revealed several officers with elevated blood alcohol levels, confirming suspicions that the rats walked on two legs and wore uniforms.RATS BLAMED FOR 2017 FLOODS IN BIHARThe blame on rats doesn't stop there. During the 2017 floods, a perennial headache for Bihar, rats were once again fingered. And honestly, who else could it be?Then Bihar's Water Resources Minister, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, held rats responsible for the 2017 floods which submerged at least 20 districts of north Bihar."Rats are the main reason behind the seepage, especially in the Kamla Balan river embankment. Since the river is far away from the embankment, people living near the embankment store their grains on a machan (a raised, makeshift bamboo platform) on the embankment. This attracts rodents, which make holes in these embankments to access the grains, and this eventually causes seepage and floods," Singh was quoted as saying by The Hindu.advertisement"Can anyone claim to chase away rats from a place forever? Mosquitoes and rats have been a perennial problem... Even after fumigation the mosquitoes come back in a few hours," Bihar's Minister for Minor Irrigation and Disaster Management, Dinesh Chandra Yadav, said.Over the years, rats have become the unlikely scapegoats for a host of problems in Bihar.However, it is a case of concern if rats are attacking patients in hospitals. Perhaps it's time that Bihar truly needs a Pied Piper to lead the rats away because the government seems helpless.