Post Conflict Face of Poverty and Society: Understanding a Gandhian Initiative against Pauperization and Violence in Mushahari (Muzaffarpur, Bihar)

This is an analytical narrative about post-conflict dynamics of poverty in a block of villages in north Bihar known as ‘the Mushahari Project’. It is related with the socio-economic and political consequences of violent class conflict initiated by an underground group of Maoists, also known as the Naxalites, in Mushahari Block of Muzaffarpur district which led to a ‘face to face’ engagement between the Gandhian social workers and the Maoists. The paper also addresses the successes and failures of the Gandhian or Sarvodaya engagement about rural poverty and social conflict.