Bihar’s elections and Nepal

Bihar shares a 600km open border with Nepal. Right along the Tarai, there are linguistic, cultural and family ties binding the two sides together. In some places the border cuts right through households and farmlands.

Unlike what happened in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP was soundly defeated in the 2024 elections by the INDIA alliance, in Bihar’s election this month the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that brought the BJP together with the Janata Dal (United) secured 200 of the 243 seats in the state assembly.

In Nepal, we make fun of politicians who want to become prime minister for the sixth time. But Nitish Kumar took his oath of office last week for the tenth time as chief minister in 20 years.

Also unlike Uttar Pradesh, the vote was not polarised along religious lines, signalling a deep transformation of Bihari society and the rising political consciousness of its voters.

The most important change must be the massive participation of women voters. Women did not merely make this election decisive, but altered its very character. A polyphonic social configuration emerged from this election that has broken away from entrenched caste-based vote banks of the past.

In 2006 during his previous tenure as chief minister, Nitish Kumar gave half the representation in local political units to women. Many people ridiculed it at first because there was a tendency for male politicians to bring in their wives to fill the quota.

Even if a woman won, in practice the husband called the shots. But over time competent women leaders emerged at the grassroots. 

Just before this election, the Chief Minister Women Employment Campaign provided INR10,000 as the first instalment to 12 million potential women entrepreneurs. Once they start their own enterprises they get INR210,000. 

Bicycles were distributed to girl students to improve their mobility, and sense of independence. Such schemes are helping to increase women’s leadership and self-reliance. Bihar’s youth and women are driving change.

Nitish Kumar also used federal investment to improve roads, bridges, electricity supply and irrigation across Bihar (“बिज्ली, सडक, पानी”). The transformation is dramatic for those of us who remember the time when roads on the Indian side of the border were much worse than the highways in Nepal.

CRONY POLITICS

Most of this change is in Patna and the main cities, but nearly 90% of Biharis live in villages. And despite these visible changes, Nitish Kumar has failed to bring about an improvement in the quality of education and healthcare. He has also used patronage with cronies to ensure his political longevity.

With 140 million people, Bihar makes up one-tenth of India’s population. But it is still the poorest state in India with an annual per capita income of $900 — one fourth of the country’s national average. Its main industry, just like in Nepal, is the export of manual labour to richer states in India and to the Gulf.

Bihar has had a chronic problem with kidnapping, and this affects Nepal because many criminals seek refuge on our side of the border.

There is a long tradition of rewarding not only corrupt politicians but also their criminal cronies. The criminalisation of politics and politicisation of crime has sustained Bihar’s economy. 

The direct impact of this has always been on the state’s development. As Shekhar Gupta of The Print wrote this month in his column National Interest, one in ten Indians is ‘living a sub-sub-Saharan Africa quality of life’.

A culture of looting has been institutionalised, and the word ‘dacoit’ has entered the English lexicon. Nitish Kumar did crack down on crime, but the kidnapping mafia simply moved to a safer and more lucrative business to become contractors. 

Large infrastructure projects are built with federal grants, but the budget is skimmed with politicians and their cronies dividing up the spoils. This must sound familiar to us in Nepal.

Bihar’s economy has grown, but it started out at a low base and the other states of India, especially in the south, have grown much faster — so the gap is widening. The very word ‘Bihar’ within India is synonymous with ‘poverty’ and ‘backwardness’.

This is ironic because Bihar is also where democracy was born, where Gandhi launched his satyagraha against the exploitation of indigo workers, where politicians like Jayaprakash Narayan made upliftment of the poorest his agenda. 

The Buddha may have been born in Lumbini, but he preached and attained enlightenment in Bihar. Maoist Naxalites rose up against oppression by zamindars in rural Bihar. 

Biharis are obsessed with politics, and the mediasphere is full of opinion and debate about various parties and candidates. But somehow politics has not delivered development.

Bihar’s economy has two special characteristics that are similar to Nepal. First, despite huge potential in terms of natural and human resources and the demographic dividend, development has lagged behind.

Second, Biharis, especially the youth, have lost hope that their state can rise up and catch up with the rest of India. The fact that a ten-time chief minister is back after being 20 years in politics provides even less prospect. 

Bihar’s railway network is still more or less what the British left in 1947, and the joke there is that trains stop even at non-scheduled stations if passengers demand. Such stations even have a name: रुक्तापुर.  

The train of Bihar’s development also keeps making unscheduled stops at रुक्तापुर.

Chandrakishore is a Birganj-based political commentator who writes this column BORDERLINES in Nepali Times. @kishore_chandra