Bihar: From Industrial Heartland to Political Crossroads

During the 1950s, the state of Bihar was known as the Industrial heartland of India, but not even half a century passed, and the Economist magazine branded the state as an “area of darkness”.

Illustration by The Geostrata

In the 20th century, the state saw dominance of power by the ‘upper-caste’ or ‘Zamindari’. These Zamindars were landowners who ruled the state with indirect governance and the power of money. This indirect governance model remains at the heart of Bihar's politics, even today. The state became impoverished and faced corrupt politicians, a chronic misrule that allowed law and order to deteriorate and the education and healthcare systems to crumble. Bihar today still suffers from a plethora of problems.

These problems include, but are not limited to, poor infrastructure, unresponsive and inefficient local bureaucracies, weak human capacity and social and human development issues like casteism, high unemployment rates and gender inequality. After years of noticeable struggle, Bihar seems to have reached an inflexion point in its governance and structure.

The state still faces significant challenges, but since the change of government in 2005, there has been slow but steady development. 

PRE-BIFURCATION 

During the early 1980s, Bihar’s economy was 60% of the national average. The Government of India’s Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) data shows that Bihar was the poorest state in terms of per capita income that year and has remained so since. In addition, the Planning Commission (2002) data shows that even in 1981, Bihar had the lowest HDI (Human Development Index) across all the 15 major states of India. By the year 1980, Bihar’s poor performance was established. When Lalu Prasad’s RJD came into power in 1990, the per-capita income was down to 35%.

The origins of the political transformations in the 1990s were rooted in the social movement that took place in the 1970s.

The rise of armed rebel groups was seen between 1972 and 1990, which created a crack in the dominance of the upper caste. The tensions in Bihar were seen as a result of two different yet inter-connected struggles. On one side, there was the political struggle, where the people in power were seen pitting the forward castes against the backwards. On the other side, there was a socio-economic struggle where the landless lower caste were against the land owners.

In March 1990, when Lalu Prasad Yadav (RJD) became the CM, without contesting in the state elections should have been a warning sign for the people of Bihar to raise their voice against the government. He tried to cultivate his image as ‘leader of the people’ in his early years of governance. He gathered his support by creating a delusion of working for the backwards castes in Bihar. He gave minorities and backwards castes a false sense of belonging and made them believe that he was the man for them, ruling on their behalf.

Lalu did not present a development plan and chose to depend on patronage politics that benefited him and his electoral support base (the Yadav community).

During his 7-year tenure, systemic dishonesty, uncontrolled corruption became normal, and misuse of power became normal, and political bankruptcy was very evident. His tenure is widely known as the ‘Jungle Raj’. In 1997, when Lalu was jailed because of an embezzlement scandal, he continued to influence policy from within the jail. His illiterate wife, Rabri Devi, succeeded him as the CM after his arrest. His influence continued to decrease the beauty of Bihar. The southern portion of Bihar became the state of Jharkhand after the state was divided in 2000.

With the loss of one-fifth of the population and most of the forest and mineral resources, the GSDP of the remaining State went down to 30%. Any kind of development funds were undermined and delayed due to a lack of governance. 

POST-BIFURCATION

Nitish Kumar returned to Bihar in 2005, after working in the Indian central government, and contested state elections through JDU. During the initial 6 months, the pause from within-state politics was seen due to the president’s rule. This time gave the government to re-evaluate multiple aspects of Bihar while a group of bureaucrats handled its workings.

In order to break the political impasse, Nitish rallied his supporters in the second elections of 2005 by enlisting Muslim minorities and by avoiding BJP rallies. Post elections, he reestablished his connection with the NDA and won the state elections in coalition. By 2005, Bihar was famous nationwide for kidnappings.

The new administration changed the dynamic of law and order and began to curtail the freedom of political thugs or ‘Bahubalis’.

To decrease the corruption and increase transparency, an immediate hiring of new qualified policemen was done, all of which was video recorded as a proof of their corruption free workings. To approach the rule of law as a system, high ranking officials in the union government, with Bihari descent, were called to return to Bihar for a smooth transition and better framework; many of whom accepted and returned. Previous cases were reopened against offenders who had escaped scrutiny.

As a result, during 2005-2006, the conviction rate rose by 100%. These efforts had a significant impact, and a reduction in violent crimes was seen by 2009. The government’s strong and largely corruption-free work made it easy for them to gain votes during the elections of 2010. In 2010, they won 115 seats, and in a coalition with the BJP, which won 91 seats, Nitish Kumar became the CM of Bihar.

Even though the state saw a decrease in crimes during 2005-2010, the crimes recorded in the year 2014 were much higher than those of 2012. The robbery cases increased by 26%, the kidnapping cases increased by 39%, the Rape cases increased by 22%, Theft cases increased by 35% (Bihar Police 2015). The riots in 2011 were noted at 9768, and there was a significant increase by the next year, reaching 13566 in 2014. In 2015, the state of Bihar saw a huge change in its political workings.

The “Grand Alliance” or Mahagathbandhan was seen between two long-term rivals, RJD and JDU, after almost 25 years of rivalry.

This was a huge defeat for the BJP and the NDA after winning their position as the central government, and winning multiple state elections in the states of Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana, and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It was noted that the grand alliance would not have won this massive mandate through social mobilisation alone; it was Nitish Kumar’s positive performance in the last decade that helped them gather the huge win.

Less than a month later, Lalu made a comment that indirectly ignited a fire again between the Grand Alliance. He made a statement, stating, “Nitish fell at my feet. Should I have thrown him out?”. This resulted in Nitish warning Lalu against any controversial statements, which did not stop RJD or its supporters from attacking him. In January 2016, a close confidante of Lalu, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, publicly blamed Nitish for poor law and order in Bihar, also made a controversial statement regarding his ties with the home minister.

In a few months, when RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin came out of jail, he made a statement against Nitish, stating he was “Chief Minister of circumstances". The tensions between the grand alliance were very prominent by now. In September, Nitish Kumar came out and supported the BJP after the surgical strike by the Indian army against Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In November, Nitish Kumar showed his support with the central government in demonetisation. In 2017, during the presidential elections, Nitish was seen supporting the BJP’s candidate Ram Nath Kovind, who was later sworn in as the president of India.

Nitish faced backlash from RJD and Congress for showing his support. When Tejaswi Yadav, Son of Lalu Prasad Yadav, and then Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, was slapped with corruption charges. In order to restore his reputation, Nitish left the Grand Alliance and joined the NDA, which allowed him to regain power. In 2020, Nitish Kumar was sworn in for the seventh time as Bihar's chief minister.

During the Vidhan Sabha elections, NDA won 125 seats in total, that is 4 seats above the majority mark; whereas RJD secured 110 seats. It was a very close and slim victory margin between the two alliances.

After the elections, internal tensions grew within the party. Nitish argued that the BJP was creating dominance in the alliance, which decreased JDU’s influence and his control over decision-making. Nitish alleged that the BJP was trying to make his party weaker by pushing for people to leave the party and by political manoeuvring, which made his allies lose trust and caused problems between them. These issues resulted in him leaving the NDA alliance in 2022 and joining the grand alliance again.

Nitish formed a new government and was sworn in as the chief minister in August 2022 with the support and influence of the grand alliance. This alliance was renamed as “Mahagathbandhan 2.0”. Nitish soon made a statement, “Now I am back where I was before (in NDA) and now there is no question of going anywhere”, but this was soon proved wrong. Nitish changed his political alliance to NDA again just before the 2024 general elections.

Nitish Kumar was sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar for the ninth time. His move was considered a strategic shift happening because of political instability and disregard within the opposition bloc. 

CURRENT SCENARIO

In today’s Bihar, people are concerned about the political structure of the state. It is speculated by many scholars that, no matter which party wins the most votes, Nitish Kumar is going to stay as the CM. Amid the questions asked by Rahul Gandhi of the INC regarding vote theft (vote-chori) by the NDA alliance Mahadevapura assembly segment of Bengaluru. In citing, he alleged over 1 lakh fake voters.

His campaign of ‘Vote-Adhikar Yatra’ of Bihar concluded with him alleging these frauds with theft of fundamental rights such as reservation, employment, education, and democracy itself. He portrayed the exposure of electoral fraud as a battle to protect these rights. He portrayed these frauds to be an ‘atom bomb’ and seems confident about unleashing the ‘hydrogen bomb’ and exposing the truth nationwide.

His allegations include SIR, or Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, calling these thefts institutionalised. According to him, the Election Commission of India is colluding with certain political parties to gain votes.

SIR has a constitutional basis under Art. 324, which has given the power to the ECI to supervise and control the preparation of electoral rolls before elections. In Bihar, the SIR was last conducted in 2003 and has been long overdue. SIR helps remove ineligible voters, add newly eligible or previously missed voters, and correct errors in the electoral roll to ensure accuracy and prevent fraud. The allegations are made because of the sudden interest in SIR months before the Bihar assembly elections of 2025. 

CONCLUSION

As Bihar faces this crucial moment, its future depends on its ability to address long-standing issues such as caste-based discrimination, political crossroads, and weak governance. Since 2005, there has been slow but consistent progress, which gives some hope, yet problems like vote theft and disputes involving the SIR highlight the weak state of its democratic system.

Moving forward, Bihar's development depends on transparency, robust institutions, and inclusive growth. Through continuous reforms and responsible leadership, Bihar can overcome its past challenges and emerge as a model of progress in the country.

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BY SIDDHI KHURANA

CENTRE FOR POLITICS AND LAW

TEAM GEOSTRATA

info@thegeostrata.com