In Jehanabad, there is no mystery, as in Baghdad, about where Saddam Hussein might be hiding. Call out to him and the 11-year-old, a student of the Koran and theology at the town's madarsa, responds with a huge smile. Born when the US launched Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War in 1991, this boisterous boy lives with his 90-year-old maternal grandfather Maulana Ale Ahmad. The boy Saddam has at least one similarity to his namesake's personality: martial tendencies. His aim is to join the Indian Army. "That is the only way I can fight my country's enemies like Saddam Hussein is fighting his," he says confidently.

YOUNG NAMESAKE: Saddam and his grandfather in Jehanabad

His neighbour in his village of Nadaul in Patna district is another Saddam, son of Khurshid Alam who runs a ball-bearing shop. This 11-year-old is a student of the Anglo-Arabic madarsa in the village. Looking at the photograph of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in front of the mosque-cum-madarsa, he says, "I want to be a hafiz (one who commits the whole of the Koran to memory) to protect Islam, as Saddam Hussein is doing."

Yell out "Saddam" in any Muslim community in a village in Bihar and try not to be trampled by the crowd of 11-year olds who come running. In Saharsa, Gopalganj, Siwan and Gaya, the name is very popular. An ongoing survey on the socio-economic and educational status of Muslims in Bihar, being conducted by the Asian Development Research Institute, found that every village had children named Saddam. Mohammed Kamal of Bijalpur village in Saharsa named his two-year-old son Saddam because "Saddam Hussein is a hero of Islam". Another father of a Saddam predicts, "If you visit after a year, you will find plenty of newborn Saddams."

Many women named their sons Saddam after hearing stories about the Iraqi president. Like Ishrat Khatoon of Murghiachak village in Phulwarisharif. "Once a relative came and talked about a brave man living in a country called Iraq," she recalls. "I was impressed and when a son was born four years ago, I prevailed upon my husband to name him Saddam." Inspired by the exploits of the Iraqi leader, she and her husband encourage their son to learn martial arts near a madarsa in the village.

Khatoon's neighbour Rukhsana Begum said that five years ago she heard the name in the news and was so enchanted by it that she began to call her newborn son Saddam even though her husband had named him "Amir". Ask Rukhsana what she wants her son to be and she shoots back: "Poor people don't have dreams. My son's nickname alone will not make him as great as Saddam Hussein."

Clearly, the popular selection of the name Saddam among middle and lower middle-class Muslims, especially the Sunni Muslims of north India, is both intuitive and emotional. Ghulam Hussain, an embroidery worker in Nadaul, named his son Saddam Hussain simply because he admired the Iraqi leader who stood alone against the forces of the then US President George Bush in 1990-91. Naturally, he thought the name would shape the child's personality to enable him to face the world boldly.

Says psychoanalyst Narendra Pratap Singh: "The selection of grandiose names like Saddam Hussein reflects the parents' desire to give an identity to their child and is also an expression of their hidden hatred towards their hero's enemies." There are other indicators of the region's affinity with Iraq. In the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, a settlement near Lucknow was named Saddam Nagar. Bihar State Minorities Commission Chairman Sohail Ahmad says the affinity may be because Saddam Hussein is, perhaps, the only Islamic leader to have emerged as a hero after the great warrior Saladin Ayubi.

There are more practical reasons too. RJD President Laloo Prasad Yadav recently led a massive rally in Patna against the US-UK war against Iraq, shouting "Saddam ek bahana hai, Muslim samaj nishana hai (Saddam is an excuse, Muslims are the real target)". It was because of Saddam Hussein's popularity in Bihar that when the BJP had launched a campaign against the then chief minister Laloo in connection with the fodder scam, his supporters began to call him "the Saddam Hussein of Bihar". During Durga Puja, pandals depicted Laloo as Saddam, fighting against the "Great Satan". The RJD's advertisement in local dailies for the party's April 30 rally published its new slogan to win over the Muslims: "Bhajapa bhagao, desh bachao/Bush bhagao, duniya bachao (Drive out the BJP to save the country/ Drive out Bush to save the world). Saddam's defeat in Baghdad may do nothing to change his popularity here. In another 11 years, there might well be another crop of 11-year-olds answering to the vanquished dictator's name.