HOW BIHAR EARNED THE LABEL 'JUNGLE RAJ'

Bihar’s politics rarely lacks drama, but few phrases have proved as potent as “jungle raj”.

- TDG NETWORK

As Bihar heads into the first phase of its 2025 Assembly elections, nine candidates linked to strongman politics — from Anant Singh in Mokama to Hulash Pandey in Brahmapur — dominate the contest across JDU, RJD, and LJP-R tickets, reflecting the continuing influence of muscle power in state politics.

The term evokes images of lawlessness, kidnappings and a collapse of state authority. Prime Minister NarendraModiand Home Minister Amit Shah routinely invoke it on the campaign trail, and even twenty years after the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) lost power in Patna, the party’s chief ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav must still reassure voters that the metaphor will not return. Yet jungle raj did not spring fully formed from partisan minds. Its origins lie in a combination of caste politics, institutional decay and the criminalisation of politics that reached a nadir in the 1990s and early 2000s. Understanding how Bihar came to be labelled thus requires tracing decades of history—from the social upheaval of the Mandal era to the Supreme Court's recent attempts to force transparency upon parties.

To understand why lawlessness became normalised, one must first look at Bihar's socioeconomic trajectory. Once part of the prosperous Magadha region, Bihar lagged behind after independence. Land reforms were timid, leaving feudal structures intact. The decline of traditional industries like jute and indigo and the lack of new investment meant that by the 1970s Bihar had among the lowest per-capita incomes in India. Caste hierarchies remained strong; upper-caste landlords controlled large estates while Dalits and other backward castes served as sharecroppers or labourers. Political power rotated among Congress factions, but governance was weak and corruption endemic.