justice to the throngs of the undead , Bihari formed Mritak Sangh, the Association of the Dead. Many were worse off than he, suffering beatings and threats from the family members who had defrauded them. Many of them were even in danger of losing their real lives at the hands of those who had profited from their “demise.” No land owner was completely safe from the treachery, including a a man named Maha Prasad who worked as a police constable for six years while legally dead. Over time, Mritak Sangh’s membership grew over 10,000⁠— with some estimates as high as 20,000⁠— though no official tally has ever been made. Apparently the culture of fraud and theft is fertilized by a mixture of scarce farmland, high crime rate, andfierce family rivalries.

For eighteen years Bihari battled the bureaucracy and corruption in an effort to once again be listed among the living. Finding that all official channels led to dead ends, Bihari resorted to more dramatic measures. He arranged his own funeral, applied for a widow’s pension for his wife, kidnapped the son of the uncle who stole his land, threatened murder, threw leaflets at lawmakers, publicly insulted judges, and even tried running for Prime Minister. He went so far as to add the word “Mritak”⁠— meaning “dead”⁠— to the end of his name. “The Late Lal Bihari” created these public scenes in hopes of being arrested and thereby forcing the government to acknowledge his existence, but each time he was merely beaten by police or rebuked for