Sahar, Bihar

Sahār (Hindi: सहार) is Gram Panchayat and community development block in Bhojpur district of Bihar, India.

In mid-March, increased wind and occasional dust storms mark the beginning of summer, and temperatures rise, reaching their peak in May.

In late June, the monsoon rains arrive, marking the end of summer and the beginning of the rainy season, which lasts through September.

Sahar, called "the model block of Bhojpur" by Kalyan Mukherjee and Rajendra Singh Yadav, benefited greatly from this development.

Corrupt upper-caste Bhumihar landlords would coerce lower-caste women who worked their lands into having sex with them; they also paid insufficient wages to their workers.

[3] On 6 May 1973, a violent clash broke out between police and local peasants at the village of Chauri, in Sahar block.

An armed police posse arrived during the morning to arrest people suspected of stealing grain from a visiting trader.

After encountering resistance from groups of farm workers, who declared that they would not allow any searches or arrests on their property, the police opened fire.

In Sahar, there were violent encounters at the villages of Dullamchak on 14 April, Bahuara on 2 July, and Bahubandh on 28 November.

[3] In late 1977 and early 1978, members of the Bhojpur chapter of the Sangharsh Vahini visited three villages (Dullamchak, Bansidehri, and Bargaon) in Sahar block.

The items included distribution of gairmazarua (common) land among landless peasants, distribution of surplus land according to the Ceilings Act, peaceful resolution of wage disputes, establishment of local industries to supplement incomes for agricultural labourers, lifting of restrictions preventing Harijans from entering temples, and the removal of thanas and police camps from the villages.

[3] Also in 1978, Karpoori Thakur, then Chief Minister of Bihar, assembled a four-man committee to investigate the Naxalite movement in Sahar.

The report noted a recalcitrant mood in the surveyed villages of Karbasin and Korandehri and concluded that the movement consisted of lower-caste members retaliating against upper-caste ones for years of exploitation and injustice.

[3] In November and December 1978, there were attacks on members of the Ahir community who were seen as collaborators with Bhumihar and Rajput landlords in the village of Newada, in Sahar block.

Indian intelligence personnel viewed this as an important indicator of the class-based nature of the unrest in Bhojpur at the time.

14 had medical facilities, 17 had post offices, 9 had telephone access, 18 had transport communications (bus, rail, or navigable waterways), 8 had banks, 21 had pucca roads, and 3 had electrical power.