She Knows Best: Women Will Have the Last Word in Bihar

WARS CHANGE MAPS. The war rag­ing in Bihar for the votes of women has been quietly mapping the change in their lived experiences for over a decade now, helmed by two men, Narendra Modi and his counterpart in the state, Nitish Kumar. It is a transformation that cannot be overstated, es­pecially in a society that is patriarchal, cutting across caste-defined identities. And it was evident when Modi, interacting with benefi­ciaries through video conference on September 26 while launching the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana (MMRY) in the state, listened to Rita detailing her personal triumphs. Fuelled by multiple schemes, tailored to economically empower women, boost their leverage within their families and their dignity in society, the Lakh­pati Didi described how she had bought a goat in 2015, graduated to running a poultry farm, and expanded to a business of selling eggs. She went on to narrate the milestones in her inspiring journey and that of the women of her village, supported by multiple schemes, including the PM Awas Yojana, Jal Jeevan Mission, Ujjwala gas connection and more, building a brighter future than they could have envisaged more than a decade ago.

Ordinarily, Rita’s story would have been just innocuous small print, an anecdotal aberration in the strenuously long and winding road to completing a radically transformed ‘She Story’. Here is the thing though: data tells a very different tale. Women in Bihar have begun to participate in the labour force more than ever, busting the popular myth of their being homebound beings. The work­force participation of women aged 15 and above in 2017-18 was 4.1 per cent, among the lowest across India, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). Five years later, that figure had grown exponentially to 22.4 per cent. In 2023–24, it stood at 30.5 per cent, an extraordinary hike.

According to a survey carried out in 2024, over 90 per cent of working Bihari women decide how to spend their own earnings and 79.5 per cent determine how to spend their spouse’s earnings, numbers that are much higher compared to less flattering statis­tics from select neighbouring states like Jharkhand and Odisha. The type of work women do has also changed. In 2017-18, Bihar’s female workers were split fairly evenly between self-employment, salaried jobs, and casual labour. By 2023-24, over 83 per cent women were self-employed while 4.8 per cent had regular wage jobs and 11.7 per cent were casual workers. Bihar now accounts for 7.25 per cent of all self-employed women in India, a trend that began dur­ing the reverse migration of Covid years and gained momentum during the post-Covid period, directly supported by state policy and programmes and rising from just 1 per cent in 2018-19.

Despite the striking progress in workforce participation, however, the path towards better earnings, compared with men, has not been easy. The gender gap in wages has narrowed notice­ably over the years. But it remains striking even today. Self-em­ployed rural women in the state earn just an average ₹4,434 per  month, while men in the same category earn over ₹10,000. Cities like capital Patna may have urbanised rapidly in recent years, boosting public infrastructure and facilities, but the wage gap between urban self-employed women and men stands at ₹8,342 per month, according to the Bihar Economic Survey 2023-24.

If there is one state where a large dose of resources is impera­tive to combat poverty, it is Bihar. This, even as the state has made tremendous progress in reducing poverty in recent years. The fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) (2015- 16) painted a dismal picture: Bihar had a headcount ratio of 51.89 per cent of its population in the grip of multidimensional pov­erty. By the next round (NFHS-5, 2019-21) this had come down to 33.76 per cent, a reduction of 18.13 percentage points, the highest reduc­tion in multidimensional poverty in any state of the country. The result of NFHS-6 is awaited but given the over­all reduction of poverty rate in India to single digits, going by World Bank data, Bihar is likely to have witnessed further progress on this front.

It was clear that unless sustained tailored policies and programmes were not put urgently in place to boost the female labour force participation rate (FLFPR), the gains made in recent years could dissipate rapidly over the next two decades. Bihar emerged as one of India’s fastest-growing states with a 10.6 per cent real state gross do­mestic product (SGDP) growth rate in 2022-23, but it continued to have the nation’s lowest FLFPR even though male LFPR remains high, widening the gender gap. Based on research findings through the 2005-25 period of Nitish Kumar’s chief ministership, largely with the Bharatiya Janata Par­ty (BJP) playing a key role, the state has prioritised policy to improve wom­en’s access to education, training, en­trepreneurship, childcare, eldercare, and flexible work arrangements. The Bihar government implemented sev­eral schemes to improve girls’ access to quality education, including the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojna (bicycle scheme), Mukhyamantri Balika Poshak Yojna (uniform scheme), Mukhyamantri Akshar Aanchal Yojna (lit­eracy initiative), and the Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana (cash incentive for higher education). Further initiatives like the Mukhyamantri Kanya Suraksha Yojna aimed to prevent female foeticide and child marriage by providing financial support to girls and their families. These efforts have resulted in a signifi­cant rise in FLFPR in recent years, narrowing the gender gap, according to the Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality (IWWAGE).

Into that matrix was injected the hope of earning an addi­tional income of ₹10,000 and proactive state assistance for suc­cessful entrepreneurial ventures run by women. This meant the earnings of eligible women in rural areas (2021 figures) would rise significantly in Bihar. This was no mean development and it was monumental, a life-changing leap. On September 26, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is seeing a slight dip in his personal popularity of late in the face of generational transition and pref­erences for a younger leader, looked on from the launch site in Patna as Modi assured Lakhpati Didi Rita and other women who had congregated for the launch of the MMRY, “A brother is happy when his sister is healthy, happy, and her family is financially strong. Today, your brothers Narendra and Nitish are working for your seva, samriddhi and swabhiman (service, prosperity and self-respect).”

The emotional chord that was struck is likely to resonate deeply with the beneficiaries. In the initial phase, 75 lakh women will benefit from the scheme, costing the state around ₹7,500 crore. Some 12 per cent of women in Bihar, of an esti­mated 6.25 crore (up from 4.98 crore in 2011), are eligible, with others be­ing naturally weeded out based on the stringent criteria put in place.

The MMRY, hailed as a game-changer (and not merely for po­litical reasons) was blueprinted in Delhi, and dovetailed seamlessly with the existing portfolio built by Nitish Kumar since 2005 (through handing bicycles to girl students, financial assistance to high-school students, free power, liquor prohibi­tion, and reservation in government jobs) and based on women-focused policies and programmes. Part of the Union government’s ambitious Nari Shakti project, empowering women through myriad ways has been Modi’s trademark vision since 2014, something that remained untapped politically at the na­tional level until his arrival on the scene. Fuelled by the powerful engine of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of cash to eligible ben­eficiaries, it has remained an essential feature of BJP’s political campaigns since, paying rich electoral dividends in state after state, including in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Pioneered in Madhya Pradesh back in 2007, the scheme of helping women directly evolved into the Ladli Behna Yojana, a roaring success that in 2023 provided ₹1,250 per month to all eligible women. Later, in Maharashtra, a similar scheme, the Ma­jhi Ladki Bahin Yojana was launched in July 2024, allowing the BJP-led Mahayuti to sweep in 235 of 288 seats. In Haryana this September, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini launched the Deen­dayal Lado Lakshmi Yojana, a welfare scheme offering ₹2,100 per month to eligible women. Over time, the women-centric policies of BJP—tackling issues including gas connections, toilets, drink­ing water supply and free units of electricity to homes, access to higher education opportunities, even supplementing marriage spends, bumping up women’s representation in local self-gov­ernment, etc—have all unleashed a powerful dynamic of their own. They have proved not just to be political game-changers but transformational antidotes to a plethora of complex social, economic, educational, health, gender-related and other issues centred on the empowerment of women specifically and the over­all development of society. From viewing cash as the answer to the multi-dimensional poverty of women beneficiaries, Modi changed his government’s perspective to viewing DBT as an in­trinsic part of social justice that would elevate an entire society.

The MMRY, as with similar schemes launched in other states, aims at cutting through cleavages based on caste, religion and other identity tags exploited by opponents of BJP. It is expected to cost the exchequer around ₹922 crore annually. But its caste and community-neutral focus, in a state such as Bihar that has for decades been saturated by the aspirations of caste and other sub-national identity politics, is viewed by experts as laying the foundation for the next level of development. Given that women voters are seen as the key to the longevity in power of Nitish Kumar alongside BJP, the man who is his biggest chal­lenger, Tejashwi Yadav, is only too aware that his vote base has to urgently expand beyond the core Muslim-Yadav chunk for his political graph in Bihar to move northward in a sustained manner and that playing the dominant OBC and minorities card alone will no longer suffice in a gradually transforming state.

BUT HE WAS forced to change tack midstream in the face of the upsurge of the new MY (Mahila-Yuva) combina­tion threatening to bring the BJP and Janata Dal (United) back to power beyond two decades. It has not gone unnoticed that his public rallies are poorly represented by women and his narrative devoid of their concerns. In December last year, while Nitish Kumar prepared for his Mahila Samvad, Tejashwi Yadav quickly announced a ₹2,500 per month handout to all deserving and economically backward women in the state. He declared that this move would empower women and thus empower the whole society. His sudden concern may not have many takers.

The echoes were faint and appear to remain so up to now despite a 25-point, 32-page manifesto which promised a government job to one member of every family and the Mahagathbandhan’s ‘Mai- Bahin Maan Yojana’ under which women will receive ₹2,500 per month for five years, as well as the BETI and MAI schemes to pro­vide education, training, and income support for “daughters”, and housing, food, and livelihood support for “mothers”. A women’s college will be established in every sub-division and new degree colleges in 136 blocks that currently lack one, it said. It also promised to make all Jeevika community mobilisers permanent government employees with a monthly salary of ₹30,000, waive the interest on their existing loans, and offer them interest-free loans for two years. They would also receive ₹2,000 monthly allowance for additional work, while Jeevika cadre presidents and treasurers would be paid honoraria. One Jeevika Didi from Muzaffarpur, where Yadav Jr ad­dressed his rally in February, scoffed, “They make promises but do not deliver. Jeevika Didis also have families as do others; all our job­less youth need jobs. Either way, he can only deliver if he forms the government. We have tested and trusted Modiji all these years for helping women and we will vote for him.”

Puncturing Tejashwi Yadav’s youth pitch, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, echoing her scepticism, asserted, “There are 2.8 crore families in Bihar and around 20 lakh people have government jobs... Now, Tejashwi Yadav promised he will give government jobs to 2.6 crore families. But to provide so many jobs, ₹12 lakh crore is needed, which is four times the budget of Bihar. This is a completely baseless and misleading promise to get votes.”

The irony is that the statistics on women voters were glaring enough over the years for any serious politician worth his salt to see and act upon, instead of milking dry the same old Yadav and minorities formula now fraying at the edges. Over the past decade, female voter turnout has consistently exceeded male turnout in Bihar. In the 2020 Assembly elections, 59.7 per cent women voters turned out to vote while only 54.6 per cent men did. This was the third consecutive election where women led the numbers. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, 59.9 per cent of female voters cast their bal­lot compared to only 55.3 per cent male vot­ers. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 59.45 per cent of women voters cast their votes compared to only 53 per cent men. The Election Commission of India’s (EC) Spe­cial Intensive Revision (SIR) drive shows that of the 7.43 crore voters, around 3.5 crore were women voters and 3.92 crore men voters. This works out to 892 women for every 1,000 men. Compare that with the period between 2015 and 2020 when the number of women voters rose by 39.62 lakh as opposed to male voters whose fig­ure rose by 34.42 lakh.

What is worrying is that despite the high-pitched poll-timed announcement of goodies and gifts to women by parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) that have not focused in a sustained or convincing manner on key issues concerning women voters, they remain grossly under-repre­sented when it comes to ticket distribution. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has fielded 35 women candidates (14.40 per cent) for the 243-member Assembly while the I.N.D.I.A. bloc has fielded only 32 (13.16 per cent).

Observers maintain, though, that with the woman voter increasingly taking cen­trestage in Bihar, it is just a matter of time before political parties across the board feel compelled to achieve the 33 per cent quota for women candidates. Not only is ‘she’ flex­ing her political muscles more at the hustings but she is also far­ing much better, starting from birth. According to a NITI Aayog report titled ‘Macro and Fiscal Landscape of the State of Bihar’, the sex ratio at birth in Bihar was 933 females per 1,000 males as per Census 2011, notably higher than the national average of 914. For now, it seems clear that all things considered, the woman voter will have a decisive say in who forms the government in Patna this time and why. Parties and leaders who have demonstrated a trustworthy first mover advantage on this are likely to reap rich electoral dividends.