PHULWARIA (GOPALGANJ), July 3: When you enter Phulwaria, their eyebrows go up. If it's an outsider, they think, he must be a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) agent. The people in Laloo Prasad Yadav's village have learned to look at unfamiliar faces with suspicion.

Not without reason. Perhaps, the last time they saw a lot of unfamiliar faces was when the CBI team came to Selar, three kms from Phulwaria, to raid the premises of Laloo's in-laws.

If you keep asking the villagers about the Chief Minister or his relatives, chances are you may not get a reply. As in other parts of Bihar, so strong are caste identities in Phulwaria and adjoining villages of Maripur, Bhagwat-Parsa and Churmanchak that reactions to the mess Laloo, the most famous son of the soil, finds himself in are guided by the caste-relations.

Thus, if a person belongs to an upper caste family, or any caste other than the Yadavs, he is more likely to come out openly against Laloo. But if the person concerned is Yadav, the caste to which the CM belongs, or a Muslim, he is sure to defend Laloo most aggressively and deride all his opponents.A village of some 1,800 inhabitants, Phulwaria is dominated by the Yadavs.

There are few houses of upper castes, Bhumihars and Brahmins, but in the village politics, they don't count much. In the face of the growing assertiveness of the Yadavs, they mouth platitudes about the CM, but, as a villager put it, they are the ones who have benefited from Laloo's largesse: or have simply decided to toe the line to avoid any controversy.

``Lalooji has done a lot of work for the area,'' said Babban Thakur, mukhiya of panchayat Bhagwat-Parsa, under which Phulwaria falls. A Bhumihar, Thakur has remained the mukhiya of the panchayat since 1970.

Unlike Phulwaria, the adjoining villages of Bhagwat-Parsa and Maripur are dominated by the upper castes. The younger lot among them are more aggressive and, hence, more forthcoming. ``Mukhiyaji is telling a lie,'' remarked a young man, a Kayastha, ``Laloo has not done anything for the area's development. Whatever little work that has been done is localised in Phulwaria.''

Blaming Laloo for unleashing a caste war in the state, another young man, a Bhumihar, felt that Laloo had received his comeuppance in the form of the fodder scam chargesheet. ``As a conscientious citizen of the country, it is my duty to ensure that he is thrown out for looting the peoples money,'' he said. But none of this supposedly looted wealth seems to have found its way to Phulwaria and other nearby villages. Located some 30 kms from the district headquarters, the area seems to have fallen into a time-warp. Its only links to civilisation are the road which connects Phulwaria to Miganj, a sub-division falling midway between Gopalganj and Siwan. The scores of labourers who have migrated from these villages to other states in search of livelihood too help the villagers keep in touch with the outside world.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.