Impact of Bihar polls on Nepal

As elsewhere in the world, Nepal’s media is consumed by the US elections and its aftermath, including Donald Trump’s refusal to concede. That is understandable, since who governs America has such great impact on Planet Earth. 

What is more puzzling is the lack of interest in Kathmandu to another election happening right across our southern border in the Indian state of Bihar. 

What is remarkable about the Bihar state election is that unlike in the past when there used to be dozens of deaths and booth capturing, in a lot of ways it has been smoother than the American one.  

Bihar may be a state within India, but if it was a country it would be among the top ten most populous with 120 million people – and it would have been even bigger if Jharkhand had not been carved out twenty years ago.

More than 70 million Biharis are eligible to vote, and there was a 55% turnout in the three phases of the state assembly election despite the pandemic.

India has recorded 8.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, and there have been 126,000 deaths. Bihar alone has more than 220,000 cases, but the number of deaths so far is about the same as Nepal: 1,200. Although the daily caseload has decreased in Bihar, the election and the upcoming Diwali and Chhat festivals are expected to lead to a surge.

Bihar’s election is the first state polls in India being conducted during the Covid-19 crisis, and is seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose BJP swept to power in 2014, and won a second landslide last year. 

Voting began on 4 November and ballot counting for the 243 assembly seats starts Tuesday. Bihar’s politics is impacted by its entrenched caste and religious divisions, but with more than 20 parties these vote banks are beginning to fragment.

The reason Bihar is important for Prime Minister Modi is because it is the only one in north India’s Hindi-speaking ‘cow-belt’ that the BJP does not rule, although it is an ally of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU).

Nitish Kumar has been in power since 2005, and although he showed much promise then with development and service delivery in India’s poorest state, banning liquor and curbing crime, his popularity has been waning of late. 

Public opinion surveys favour Tejaswi Yadav of the opposition Rastriya Janata Dal (RJD), the son of Laloo Yadav, the once popular minister who is in jail for his involvement in the ‘fodder scam’. There is also the smaller Lok Janashakti Party led by the charismatic Chirag Paswan championing the cause of Bihar’s Dalits.

Only 15% of Bihar’s population are ‘forward’ castes like Brahmins, Bhumihars and Rajputs and Muslims make up a 17% vote bank which the RJD is trying to tap, while the BJP has pushed the Hindu-right agenda, including the Ayodhya issue.

Birganj-based journalist Chandra Kishore, a keen Bihar-watcher, says the caste and religious undercurrents there are already having an impact on the politics of Province 2, and this could be amplified in Nepal’s own 2022 federal elections.

Bihar gets a lot of bad press within India (even Nepal) for having poor development indicators. Kathmandu ignores the neighbouring Indian state even though its Jogbani and Raxaul checkpoints handle most of Nepal’s trade. 

Nepal is also important for Bihar: most of Nepal’s rivers empty into the Ganges in Bihar, and an estimated 200,000 Biharis work in Nepal’s construction industry, factories, the service industry, and as traders. 

Deep in the villages of Province 2, people cannot stop talking about Bihar elections and how it will impact on their lives. Bihar’s caste and Muslim vote will affect the Madhes, as will a rise in crime or political instability. But Bihar’s development in infrastructure, health and education also lifts living standards in the borderlands of Nepal. 

How Biharis vote will also be a gauge of whether Narendra Modi’s mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis and other pre-pandemic economic woes have affected the BJP’s support base nationally. After all, the BJP has lost six state elections in the past two years, and there are critical votes coming up in West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu next year. 

How well the BJP does in Bihar will indicate Modi’s strength on the national stage, and that has implications for all of India’s neighbours, including Nepal.