The humble birthplace of iconic British novelist George Orwell in Bihar was saved from turning into an animal farm, but the earliest vestiges of the Englishman’s Indian origin are now locked in a quarrel between an English teacher claiming ownership and a shocked state government.
Despite efforts by the Nitish Kumar-led government to preserve this long-neglected tiled house in Motihari town in East Champaran district, the house and the land surrounding it have surreptitiously slipped into private hands in the revenue records. The property has been registered in the name of Brajnandan Rai, English teacher at the adjoining high school, allegedly fraudulently. Orwell, the author of such acclaimed novels as Animal Farm and 1984, was born as Eric Arthur Blair in this house in June 1903 and spent his life’s first year in it before leaving for England with his mother. The house, located on a 2.48-acre plot of land in Motihari’s Mascot area, is currently a heritage site protected under the Bihar Ancient Monument (Protection) Act, 1976.
The Bihar government recently built a fence around this house using part of the `29 lakh allocated for its preservation. But the authorities apparently did not ensure that the property was not legally registered in the name of a private person. Sources hinted at possibilities of the revenue records being tampered soon after the house attracted government funding.
“I have been living in this house for the past 15 years. Nobody, not even the state government officials visiting here so frequently, has ever asked me to vacate this place,” said Rai, a teacher at the Gopal Shah High School. The government had originally leased Orwell’s house and the land to this school for 100 years, on the expiry of which the property was turned over to the state public works department for a godown.
A rummaging of the revenue records has started in Motihari after the state government ordered an inquiry into the alleged fraud and said the guilty would be punished. But no matter what results, Orwell’s house may not become an animal farm again.