Why Bihar Votes The Way It Does: Caste, Migration & 2025 Election Trends

Bihar’s 2025 election has been called a “historic mandate,” but the numbers tell only one part of the story. Beneath the headlines lie shifting caste equations, an unprecedented turnout of women voters, anger over unemployment, and a social landscape shaped by migration and aspiration.

Phanishwar Nath Renu’s 'Parti Parikatha' resonates why Bihar’s politics still turn on land, dignity, memory, and who gets counted.

Watch the video to understand why Bihar votes the way it does and why a 60-year-old novel still feels contemporary.

Reporter: Rani Jana
Camera: Vikram Sharma
Editor: Sudhanshu

#BiharElection2025 #BiharPolitics #GroundReport #IndianElections #PoliticalAnalysis

Transcript

00:00What does a 60-year-old Hindi novel have to do with the Bihar election 2025 more than you think?

00:07Because when you read Panishwarnath Renu's Parthi Prakatha today, it feels like it was

00:13written for this moment. The landmark Hindi novel by Panishwarnath Renu, one of India's greatest

00:20subaltern voices, a small indebted farmer who even added Renu, which means debtor, to his name

00:28as a quiet, permanent protest. Renu wrote about the Kosi belt, lush ones, then devastated when the

00:36river changed course. A land buried under silt, people left to rebuild. Parthi Prakatha isn't one

00:44story. It's many voices speaking at once. Farmers, labourers, singers, rebels. People abandoned by

00:53policy, but sustained by memory and hope. Renu's message was simple. Development isn't a scheme.

01:00It's people reclaiming their own stories. Now, jump to today's Bihar. The NDA sweeps 202 of 243 seats.

01:09TV debates call it a historic mandate. But on the ground, you hear a very different soundscape.

01:17Women fighting inside homes to go vote. Elderly voters dropped from the rolls by mistake.

01:24Migrant workers turning into on-camera analysts. And an undercurrent of unemployment anger in almost

01:32every interview. Meanwhile, the RJD wins the largest vote share, but ends up with very few seats.

01:40A classic Bihar paradox. More votes, less power. As Renu would say, numbers never tell the whole

01:48story. Even the Khatoni, the land record, is a kind of a lie. Women voters turned out in record numbers

01:57and are being credited with the NDA victory. But these women are also the daughters of Renu's

02:03labourers and midwives. They carry memory and aspiration at the same time.

02:09The 2025 election once again showed caste bending and reinforcing itself at the same time.

02:17Caste loyalties shape turnout and ticket distribution. And yet, mobile phones, migration and urban dreams

02:25stretch these loyalties in unexpected directions. This is not Renu's 1950s, but the anxieties are the

02:35same. Caste is neither slogan nor metaphor. It is the way people are arranged in spaces. It is what you

02:42can drink and whom you can marry. How you get beaten and who will or will not testify for you. It is

02:50whether you own land or only your own body. It is geography, economics and theology in one word.

02:58And the irony, the Kosi belt, Renu described as exhausted and flood-scarred, is one of India's most

03:06fertile regions. Multiple crops, big mandis, endless truck lines because the canals and barrages his

03:16characters dreamed of actually got built. Bihar has already lived one transformation. So, the real

03:23question is not just who won the election. The real question is Renu's. Can Bihar see itself as fallow,

03:30full of possibility and not as land or people to be wasted?

03:35You can read more on this in Ruchira Gupta's column in our latest issue.

Why Bihar Votes The Way It Does: Caste, Migration & 2025 Election Trends

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