An Unconquerable State

Why has the Bharatiya Janata Party not been able to come to power in Bihar on its own?

- Subir Sinha

THE Congress Party’s recent social media advertisement related to the Bihar elections shows a buffalo getting on a motorcycle and driving off, with the caption, “A buffalo can ride off on a motorbike, but the BJP cannot come to power in Bihar on its own.

” Many non-Biharis seem to think that Bihar is a ‘Bharatiya Janata Party state’, lumping it together with the Hindi-speaking so-called ‘cow belt’ states. But in fact, the BJP has never formed a government in Bihar on its own, and has not even been the party with the largest share of seats in the legislative assembly, even though it has elected high numbers of BJP candidates in the parliamentary elections. So, why does Bihar persist in remaining an unconquered frontier for the BJP?

Communal conflict has been the driving force of Indian politics for the past decade, and Bihar has not been immune to it. The last ten years have been punctuated by episodes of mob lynching as recently as in Chhapra. Like elsewhere in India, Bihar has seen the sorry spectacle of Hindutva crowds attacking Muslim homes and mosques in Sitamarhi in 2023. Earlier in July, it was reported by far-right Hindutva social media accounts that a Mahavir Mandir in Katihar was attacked by ‘Islamist mobs’. Unlike in many other parts of the country, where the police has confirmed Hindutva narratives and joined in assaulting Muslims and filing weak cases against them, such stories rarely come out of Bihar. In fact, state officials are quick to say that in many such cases, “there is no communal angle” to the violence, which may or may not be true, but serves to scotch the communal narrative to Hindutva groups and thus the often lethal consequences such narratives lead to.