In the heart of Bihar’s Samastipur, a father walked with his dead child slung over his shoulder—not as a protest, not as a spectacle, but because there was no one else to carry the burden. Not a doctor. Not a nurse. Not an ambulance. No state machinery stirred. No elected leader paused. And thus, the death of a five-year-old boy became not just a personal loss, but a national indictment.
The image now circulates widely—a heartbroken man holding his son’s limp body, whispering “Beta-Beta” like a dying echo in a state that claims to be on the march towards development. Yet behind every headline screaming progress, a question lingers: what is the worth of a poor child’s life in Bihar?
A Death Foretold in Broken Systems
The child, a daily wager’s son, died for want of treatment. An ambulance was not provided. No emergency response team came. The nearest medical facility was either defunct, dismissive, or simply indifferent. A child gasped for breath, and a father’s scream became the only siren.
Let us not pretend this is an aberration. In Bihar, this is the norm disguised as misfortune. Samastipur is not the only district with hospitals in ruin, with staff missing and basic care absent. But it is today’s headline because a grieving father chose not to bury his pain in silence.
The healthcare infrastructure of Bihar is not merely underfunded—it is unattended. Budget allocations may exist on paper, but they do not trickle down to the hospital bed or the emergency hotline. In government records, ambulances exist. On ground, the poor carry the dead.
The Cost of Cosmetic Governance
Bihar’s ruling regime, especially in the countdown to elections, has turned into a circus of promises. New schemes bloom like monsoon mushrooms—free electricity, rooftop solar panels, skill-training bonanzas, and cash transfers. But in a village where a child dies untreated, these announcements are salt in an open wound.
Governance, unfortunately, is no longer measured by lives saved or systems strengthened. It is instead packaged and sold like a soap commercial—clean, smiling, and utterly removed from ground reality.
A poster does not cure illness. A scheme does not substitute for service. And an image, no matter how polished, cannot act as governance. It is merely governance’s costume—worn for the voter, discarded after the vote.
Empathy Has No Electoral Value
What failed the Samastipur child was not medicine—it was political memory. In election season, the poor are remembered as voters, not as citizens. Their deaths are footnotes; their lives, a statistic. The party in power showcases infrastructure and investment summits, while failing to offer a single stretcher to a dying child.
One cannot help but compare. In the urban core of Patna, politicians’ convoys cruise with sirens blazing, security cordons in place, traffic paused for passage. But in Bihar’s hinterlands, a father must walk barefoot with his son’s corpse because an ambulance never came.
Beyond the Headlines, A Moral Collapse
The death in Samastipur is not simply a health tragedy—it is a collapse of moral accountability. It raises an uncomfortable but essential question: If the poor cannot rely on the state to help them live, what does the state exist for?
The father’s cry, “Beta-Beta,” now haunts Bihar’s conscience. It is a dirge, a judgement, and a question that cannot be silenced by another press conference or party rally.
Let this not be another moment we forget. Let this be a reminder that the true measure of governance is not how many promises are made, but how many lives are protected.
Because the next body carried through Bihar’s dust may not be a stranger’s child—it may be ours.