patna indirectly cm nitish kumar ought to get credit for launching multipronged bihar diwas celebrations in 2012 that included government support to publications of books having bearing on various aspects of bihar life and culture as the department of history of delhi university has this year put one such landmark book in the series in its syllabus for mphil course and research on regional studies the book is the making of a province select documents on the creation of modern bihar 18741917 which has as its chief editor ashok aounshuman associate professor of history at b r ambedkar bihar university muzaffarpur his two assisting editors are srikant and abhay kumar and the book has been brought out by bihar state archives bsa first bihar comprising present day odisha and jharkhand was carved out of the then bengal on march 22 2012 but the making of what is called modern bihar became a reality only after it got its patna high court in 1916 and patna university in 1917 setting the course for the future growth trajectory of the province yes the department of history of delhi university has included the book in its regional studies section for m phil syllabus moment should be seen as recognition to the meaningful efforts that went behind the book that is exhaustive in scope and also very comprehensive overall the credit for it should go to cm nitish kumar for initiating multidimensional celebration of bihar diwas in 2012 it made the book possible said aounshuman in his foreword to the book the cm noted the work in a thematic framework traces the evolution of movement for the separation of bihar from bengal and in the process it enters into some interesting bylanes of the movement as bsa director vijoy kumar puts it sources used are indeed extensive ranging from unpublished official records and sources to newspaper reports letters to editors articles comments extracts of books memoirs speeches and advertisements etc collected from various archives and libraries across the country asked about the reception of the book in the academic circles of bihar itself aounshuman said it is at the initial stage four senior college teachers of history have already given their remarks to bsa calling the book as most enduring work the bsa itself has to decide the mode of distribution to reach out to various universities and colleges overall the source materials used and collected throw light on emergence of hindi both as national and bihari regional marker apart from various aspirational demands like provision of facilities for economic educational and institutional growth and cultural revival of the people suited to a self contained state even at that point of time the general hindumuslim unity was the bedrock of the movement in fact the contemporary sources called it bihar model that could even be practised nationally aounshuman said