From the Buddha to Jayaprakash Narayan to Karpoori Thakur, Bihar has always been a land of enlightenment and revolution that laid the groundwork of social equality and justice. But today, the state finds itself marred with decades of darkness and deprivation. So much so that Bihar and Bihari have become a curse.
In the last 40-50 years, India’s industrial growth remained concentrated in western India, and people from the BIMARU states ended up as either labourers or consumers. This development divide became more pronounced by ecological disasters like the Koshi floods in North Bihar.
Geographically, North Bihar has been a victim of flooding, the flat plains of Central Bihar face water inundation, and South Bihar struggles with water shortage. Historically, people from the Koshi region would migrate to other parts of Bihar and (now) Jharkhand. But slowly, ‘palayan’ (desertion) became a part of the consciousness of Biharis. According to 2011 Census data, over 75 lakh Biharis live outside the state. The actual figure, of course, might be much higher.
2005 marked a shift in Bihar
By the 1990s, it seemed that Bihar had skipped the growth story of independent India. Decades of de-industrialisation and political apathy toward job creation were worsened by rising crime, corruption, and communalism. In Bhagalpur, Gaya, Shahabad, and Patna, communal violence was a common issue before and after Independence. Then came Lalu Prasad Yadav, ushering in socialism and social justice. During this time, however, crime and corruption took over communalism.
It was an altogether different chapter for Bihar’s villages, which were taken over by caste-based violence, with cases like the Bathani Tola incident of July 1996. Cities and urban centres were swept by a series of shootouts, kidnapping cases, and rapes. When I was growing up in Patna in the early ’90s and 2000s, murders in broad daylight were common. I still remember the horror that minivans invoked in me as a child.
The Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in 2005 was nothing short of independence for young women. In those years after 2005, we were finally able to skip sunset curfew. I remember vividly when I first went out after 7 pm with my friends, without the watchful eyes of my parents. Bihar became relatively peaceful, especially for women and the marginalised. Crime dipped and corruption subsided.
The Nitish Kumar government’s JEEViKA (Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotional Society), which was started in 2006, significantly changed the lives of women, especially those from the marginalised and the economically weaker sections. It not only created jobs but also incorporated an active role for women in the labour force. The initiative has become a textbook example of how to mainstream women’s economic participation in a village–centric population and economy. It is common for voters and the public to aspire for better lives and amenities, but that aspiration came to Biharis only after 2005.
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‘Palayan’ politics
The upcoming elections are quite interesting. There are new agendas and agents in town, and palayan is garnering crowds and mics the most. The issue has now found new takers, but in the politics of palayan, the economics has taken the back seat. Inter-state migration or even international immigration to earn a livelihood is an economic consideration. No state can operate in a silo and decades of policy favouring industrialisation in the western and southern parts of India can’t be undone in the span of an election cycle. In the colonial era, port cities like Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were industrialised for British convenience. And then came the financial convenience of a newly Independent India, which favoured states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, and a few southern states to take up mechanised factories and industrial development, as capital was concentrated there. States like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were left sending out industrial workers due to a lack of jobs there.
There were several socio-economic reasons that pushed youth from states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to other industrial centres. The primary cause for migration was the impoverished state of landless labourers, a large number of whom were from marginalised castes. Decades after Independence, not much had changed for these labourers, even during the much–touted era of social justice. Cities provided safe haven to Dalits, where they could live in comparatively better conditions than in their villages. Working a machine in a factory also came with relatively less physical hardship and well-defined, timely wages.
In today’s globalised world, the idea of a self-contained labour force, be it intellectual or physical, seems redundant. The Indian diaspora now runs global tech giants and Fortune 500, and also plays a significant role in the supply of workforce across economies—just as Bihari migrants are an indispensable part of the domestic workforce. It is trite to say that they are major constituents of IITs and bureaucratic cohorts.
Bihari migrants also bring much-needed domestic and international remittances. The state received the highest remittance from Gulf countries in 2015-16. It is true that even for basic amenities like medical and education, we have to look toward bigger cities of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Delhi. However, wheels of development move slower than the fire of anarchy.
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A three-way fight
Bihar faces a popular, political, and practical choice in the upcoming elections. Prashant Kishor’s popular Jan Suraaj Party is fighting to gain the place of the principal opposition force. Armed with a well-organised media campaign and grassroot engagement, the party is trying to make the elections a three-way fight. However, people are now wary of such a well-orchestrated blitzkrieg in the aftermath of the nationwide ‘India Against Corruption’ campaign. With PK touting his party as an agent of change with the agenda of palayan and terms like ‘CD ratio’, it brings back the memory of the Jan Lokpal Bill by the Aam Aadmi Party. It remains to be seen if the momentum of Jan Suraaj carries to the end of the elections.
The Tejashwi-led INDI Alliance is surely a political choice, as the Muslim-Yadav combination is a reliable vote bank, having yielded results in the state Assembly elections in 2020 and the last general elections in 2024. The combination also reaped surprising results in Uttar Pradesh for the Samajwadi Party, which defied predictions. It is to be seen how oblivious the public has become of the horrors of Lalu-Rabri raj.
The opposition’s constant bickering on Kumar’s health and the bitter tone used against him are creating apathy among voters. In all the noise, despite the strong anti-incumbency sentiment, Kumar still enjoys unparalleled goodwill among the masses, especially among women and Dalits. Due to its work on law and order as well as a corruption-free track record, the Nitish Kumar-led NDA has emerged as a practical choice for Bihar.
Aditi Narayani is an assistant professor of sociology at Lakshmibai College, Delhi University. She tweets @AditiNarayani. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)