Bihar Elections 2025: Silent Social Shifts and Street Stories
Bihar DBT for girl students notice at a shop (Image credit TRH)
With Bihar heading for polls within a few weeks, a silent social revolution seeks attention from political pundits.
By MANISH ANAND
Banka, October 15, 2025 — As dawn broke and the sky turned crimson, the phone rang at the house. The elderly owner picked it up and said softly, “Ranjeeta, you took the overnight train.”
With key in the hand, the owner of the house leisurely unlocked the main gate. Ranjeeta in a high-heel sandal, with lips shined, stood with a bag in the hand. “Aunty, the Gaya train came on time, as usual,” she said, as the girl in her early 20s climbed stairs to reach her third-floor rented room.
Ranjeeta is pursuing a law course from a local college. She aspires to become a lawyer. She had undertaken a seven-hour overnight train journey.
From Patna to Purnea, from Muzaffarpur to Madhubani, and from Darbhanga to Danapur, Bihar rings a tale of girls migrating from rural parts of the state to stay in rented premises to pursue professional courses. While the boys seek pastures in Delhi and other metropolitan cities, the girls are filling the houses in Bihar towns to bring additional incomes to the people from renting out rooms.
“In the 1990s, when Bihar slipped into the grip of Jungle Raj, the better-off families sent their sons to Delhi to study. Now, it’s the middle and upper-middle classes sending their daughters to Delhi for higher education. This new wave of migration has become the Bihar story — even families from rural and lower-income backgrounds are sending their daughters to study in larger Bihar towns,” said Muhammed Danish, who runs a photostat and printout shop.
Jungle Raj is a broader term in Bihar to describe lawlessness in the state during the 1990s, which coincided with the rule of former Chief Ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi. Tales of Jungle Raj are legends in the street, with the people recalling them with special relish, while also making their creative additions in scales and scopes to make them sound competing with foul-mouthed and violence spewing web series.
Danish prominently displayed a notice of the Bihar government and Azim Premji Trust. “There is a massive demand for printouts from girls for the scholarship offered by Azim Premji Trust. Bihar government’s automatic direct benefit transfers to girl students are also hugely popular,” added Danish. A lot of girl students get the benefits, he added.
He also claimed that the girls use the money for buying laptops and pursue professional courses. Bihar’s towns now boast of a few training institutes for women, which impart skills of specific sectors. Varsities have added professional courses in a large number.
Bihar’s incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar sought to make the aspirational women constituency more ambitious by rolling out a scheme under which the state government is transferring ₹10,000 to one crore women. The government claims that Bihar has one crore Ajeevika (self-help group) women.
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