For most residents of Pakistan Tola in Bihar, the village name is an embarrassment

Pakistan Tola, a village in Bihar, faces challenges due to its name, sparking a movement for change.

It is like any other village in deep rural India. Heaps of maize are let out to dry under the sun on either side of NH 31 that links Patna to Purnia. Women walk by with sacks of paddy on the head.

The harvest season is in full bloom. Most of the villagers are farmers, depending on paddy, wheat and maize for livelihood. The village is nothing but a dot in the map of Bihar, 350 km from the State capital Patna with a population of 250, but it stands out for its peculiar name — Pakistan Tola. Quirky to some, funny to many and embarrassment for most of the residents.

The village is along the 1.9-kilometre-long Kosi mahasetu (mega bridge) that connects Mithila and Kosi regions. About 10 km from Pakistan Tola, at Srinagar Chowk, Birendra Kumar, a shopkeeper, shoots off directions, “Oh, you want to go to Pakistan. Go straight, take the first right, and you will reach Singhia Hatt (market). There, ask anyone; they will guide.” Then he adds, “Every day we are embarrassed when anyone asks us the address of Pakistan.”

The village is flood-prone, has no roads, schools, or even a primary health centre. There are no concrete houses; most homes are built from wood and hay.

The elderly in the village say that during the partition in 1947, most of the Muslims who lived here shifted to what was then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Later, the Santhal tribes came from the forests and occupied the village. As the village was almost empty and its inhabitants had left for then Pakistan, the name sprung and stood for decades

For all the ills that had afflicted the region — poverty and lack of development — people have one thing to blame: it’s name. And they want to change it.

Villagers are agitating more than ever for the name to be changed to Birsa Nagar after the tribal leader Birsa Munda, who challenged oppression of different kinds. The movement has been raging on for several years.