The villagers point at the laptop in excitement as Sudhanshu Kumar shows them their village on Google Earth. The mukhiya of Nayanagar in Bihar’s Samastipur district has shown them not just their village on the Internet, but also new ways to till their land and much more. He has taught them to give up some of their old ways, notably their obsession with caste divides.
Change has come to Nayanagar in the nine years that Kumar has been mukhiya. The son of a wealthy farmer, Kumar studied at St Paul’s in Darjeeling before getting his BA (Hons) in History from Hansraj College in Delhi University. After college, he got a lucrative job offer from a Tata Tea garden at Munnar in Kerala but instead, he chose to return home to Nayanagar in 1987.
Back in the village, he began looking after his family-owned farm and orchards. Kumar is the eldest among three brothers—his youngest brother is an orthopaedic surgeon while his younger brother helps him out in the village. Kumar’s wife is a lecturer at the Samastipur Women’s College.
A few years after his return, Kumar decided to take an active part in the village administration and contested the panchayat elections in 2001 and was elected mukhiya—six villages fall under his panchayat. Three years later, Kumar surprised the Hasanpur Block Development Officer when he presented him with a CD of the list of BPL families in his panchayat—the CD was not compatible with the government system.