The Burden of Bihar: A Mandate Wrapped In Unfinished Promises

While Bihar is set for a new government in an election fought on promise and record of development, the state still fares poorly on all indicators even after two decades of sushasan under Nitish Kumar. The next chief minister has a lot of promises to keep.

The mandate may have renewed the hopes. But in the state already dealing with burdens like jobs, migration, infrastructure and representation remain are heavier than ever.

Despite a fresh election fought on the language of growth and governance, Bihar continues to sit at the bottom of India’s development ladder.

The state still has one of the highest poverty levels, with over 33 per cent of its population classified as multi-dimensionally poor, more than double the national average.

Its per-capita income tells an equally stark story at ₹69,321 in fiscal year 2024-25, it is less than one-third of India’s average. Gross State Domestic Product of Bihar in the financial year 2023-24 is estimated at Rs 8,54,429 crore at current prices and Rs 4,64,540 crore at 2011-12 constant prices. Industrial revival has failed to materialise and private investment remains scarce.

With 67 per cent of the workforce trapped in casual or self-employed labour, economic precarity is not just widespread. It is generational. Migration, the backbone of Bihar’s survival, exposes the hollowness of its development model. More than 7 per cent of its population migrates out for work. It forms one of India’s largest pools of inter-state labour workforce.

Low female participation in the workforce with just 30.8 per cent, further narrows the state’s economic possibilities. Household spending levels reflect the depth of deprivation. Rural families survive on roughly ₹3,788 a month and urban households spend just ₹5,165, even after accounting for welfare support. With literacy gaps stubbornly persistent and the state’s

Human Development Index (HDI) is among the lowest in the country. Bihar’s long-promised transformation remains distant. The state ranked 18th out of 19 large states in the 2019-20 NITI Aayog State Health Index, and scored the lowest in the Social Progress Index (SPI) released by the government in 2022.

Even as the latest election outcome tells its own story of continuity and aspiration, the new government inherits a mandate heavy with expectations. Outlook’s December 1 issue brings these tensions into focus, revealing how politics, people, and power collide in ways that define who we are and where we go next.

Jawhar Sircar, in Scrutinising the Sweep, argues that Nitish Kumar’s victory stemmed not from dramatic reinvention but from a perception of credibility, even as Tejashwi Yadav’s promises felt overextended. Tanvir Aeijaz, in The Precarity of Muslims, examines how the results reveal an unsettling trend, the shrinking and ghettoised space for Muslim political representation in the state. Meanwhile, Umesh Kumar Ray, in Rise, Fall, Rise, traces Nitish’s unexpected resurgence despite long-standing rumours about declining health and political exhaustion.

Yet, the grand narrative of governance and growth eclipsed a crucial story. The historic and ongoing exploitation of Bihar’s labouring class. In Anatomy of Exploitation, Manish Maskara lays bare how the state continues to serve as a vast reservoir of migrant labour, trapped in extractive systems where contractors profit while workers remain disposable components of the development machine.

This issue of Outlook widens its canvas beyond electoral arithmetic. In our continuing coverage of the Red Fort blast, Fozia Yasin brings searing accounts of families navigating grief, uncertainty, and irreparable loss. Ishfaq Naseem traces the Nowgam blast’s links to Kashmir, unpacking the region’s shifting security landscape, while Seema Guha examines the turbulence roiling Bangladesh’s political scene.

We also turn to the enduring shadow of one of India’s most consequential legal battles. In The Afterlife of a Landmark, Mohammad Ali revisits Shah Bano’s quiet plea for ₹200, an act that condemned her and her family to a lifetime of public scrutiny. Lalita Iyer, in Surprisingly Liberals, dispels myths around Muslim divorce law, revealing its diverse and historically progressive options for women. Satish Padmanabhan reviews Haq in Shah Bano’s Ghost, tracing how the film reopens a case that remains central to India’s debates on gender, faith, and rights.

Together, these stories capture a state and a region in transition. Bihar stands at the edge of yet another political reconfiguration, weighed down by its old questions and haunted by its unfinished ones. Beyond it, the subcontinent continues to wrestle with violence, memory, and justice.