New Delhi, Oct 24 : As Bihar heads toward elections, philosopher and author Acharya Prashant has urged citizens to treat the vote as an occasion for awakening rather than routine.

"The quality of any government is never higher than the quality of the people who elect it," he said. "When people vote unconsciously, by habit, caste, or anger, elections become nothing but a ritual. A sleeping mind elects a snoring system."

Acharya Prashant said Bihar's tragedy was not merely economic but spiritual. "Bihar's tragedy is not that it is poor; it is that it refuses to wake up. Poverty of money can be cured, but poverty of clarity cannot."

He linked the state's persistent challenges, such as migration, unemployment, weak governance, and poor education, to an inward lack of awareness among voters. "Each number in every report is a mirror held to our collective mind. Bihar's wounds are not of governance alone; they are wounds of vision," he remarked.

Citing official figures, he pointed out that Bihar's per-capita income, at about Rs 54,000 a year, remains the lowest in India, while over 25 lakh people migrate annually in search of work. The literacy rate is around 71 per cent (female literacy roughly 61 per cent), and the female labour-force participation rate is barely 25 per cent.

"A land that once gave the world the Buddha now struggles to give its children even a decent classroom," he said. "To rebuild Bihar is to rebuild the classroom. The gravest injustice to a human being is to keep him uneducated, for then he cannot even know that he is in chains."

He noted that neglect in one area infects all others. "Education ignored breeds unemployment; unemployment breeds lawlessness; lawlessness finally kills aspiration. When the voter remains inwardly unaware, every sector reflects the same disorder in a different disguise."

He highlighted continuing challenges in law and order, infrastructure, and healthcare. Bihar still records among the highest pendency of court cases in India, and power consumption per capita remains barely a third of the national average. "Progress that does not reach the last home is only decoration," he said. "Without inner order, even outer infrastructure crumbles into misuse."

On unchecked population growth, Acharya Prashant warned that no economy can outpace the womb forever. Bihar's population density, at over 1,200 persons per sq km, is triple the national average. "When the population multiplies without proportionate education, employment, or healthcare, every reform becomes futile," he said. "Women's education and family planning are not charity; they are survival."

He emphasised that the position of women remains the most accurate test of social maturity. "The freedom of the woman is not a social issue; it is the barometer of a civilisation's core. In the same home that worships goddesses, daughters are confined for safety."

Turning to electoral behaviour, Acharya Prashant said the gravest corruption in Bihar lay not in offices but in minds. "Caste, freebies, anger, and emotion still guide the hand at the ballot. The mind votes every day for comfort over clarity, for greed over gratitude; the EVM is only the final act of that inner disorder."

He urged voters not to disengage but to exercise discrimination. "If no candidate appears worthy, the right approach is not to hunt for the perfect but to eliminate the worst, as one does in an exam. Remove those clearly unfit, the corrupt, the violent, the divisive. From what remains, choose the one least harmful, the one still capable of conscience."

He added a caution against flattery. "Do not vote for those who only tell you what you want to hear. The leader who dares to speak the uncomfortable truth, even at the cost of votes, is the one who truly deserves them. The one who flatters you prepares to exploit you."

Reflecting on Bihar's cultural inheritance, Acharya Prashant said legacy must be lived, not worshipped.

"Bihar's heritage is luminous: Buddha, Mahavira, Nalanda. But luminous memory is not lived understanding. Knowledge lives only when it cuts the false inside us. The moment it turns into an inheritance, a slogan, a custom, or a cultural tradition, it stops liberating and starts protecting our weaknesses."

A living heritage, he said, must show itself in conduct, honesty in public life, safety for women, schools that teach real enquiry, and courts that deliver justice. "Otherwise, what we call heritage is merely an alibi," he remarked.

Acharya Prashant concluded that Bihar's transformation must begin within. "Every external change begins with an internal one. If you do not first reform the voter within, the system outside will keep repeating its old patterns."

He called upon citizens to see the coming election as a responsibility of awareness. "Bihar will rise the day its citizens stop voting to be pleased and start voting to be awakened. The real election is not between parties; it is between clarity and confusion, between light and darkness, between awakening and apathy."

/IANS