Shashi Tharoor on Bihar and the crisis beneath the roads
Ranjan Solomon
WHEN Shashi Tharoor publicly applauds the Nitish Kumar government’s “infrastructure work,” it is not a harmless compliment. It is a political act—and a deeply careless one. Praise from a senior Congress MP, delivered to a state government that is formally allied with the BJP, cannot be brushed aside as a personal opinion. It demands one blunt question: has Tharoor actually visited Bihar, studied its socio-economic realities, or engaged with its people beyond official briefings and glossy dashboards?
Because if he had, this applause would be difficult—if not impossible—to justify.
Infrastructure, when torn away from outcomes, is the easiest myth to manufacture. Roads can be built without jobs. Flyovers can rise over stagnant economies. Railway stations can be modernised while young people continue to flee. Bihar today is the clearest illustration of this hollow development model.
Let us talk facts, not sentiment.
Bihar has the lowest per capita income of all Indian states, hovering at roughly one-third of the national average. Despite nearly two decades of Nitish Kumar’s rule, the gap between Bihar and the rest of India has not narrowed in any meaningful way. If infrastructure spending were genuinely transformative, this divergence should have reduced. Instead, it has hardened.
Employment data tells an even harsher story. According to Periodic Labour Force Survey figures, Bihar consistently records one of the highest rates of unemployment and underemployment, particularly among youth. More than half the working population remains trapped in informal, low-productivity work—casual labour, subsistence agriculture, or precarious services. Manufacturing employment is negligible. Large-scale industry is virtually absent. “Ease of doing business” rankings have not translated into ease of living for ordinary Biharis.
And so Biharis migrate—in staggering numbers.
Census and NSS data identify Bihar as India’s largest exporter of migrant labour. Conservative estimates suggest over one crore people from Bihar are working outside the state at any given time. They lay bricks in Delhi, harvest crops in Punjab, staff factories in Gujarat, clean homes in Mumbai, and toil on construction sites across the south. This is not migration driven by opportunity; it is migration driven by desperation.
If Bihar’s infrastructure story were a success, why does this exodus continue unabated?
Migration is not a cultural habit. It is an economic verdict. People leave home in millions only when policy has failed them. Roads that mainly facilitate exit from the state are not symbols of development—they are escape routes.
Health and education, the real foundations of human infrastructure, remain fragile. Bihar’s public health spending is among the lowest in the country. Government hospitals are overcrowded, understaffed, and under-resourced. Infant and maternal mortality rates remain significantly worse than the national average. In education, enrolment has improved, but learning outcomes remain among the poorest. Buildings exist; quality does not.
Agriculture, still the backbone of Bihar’s rural economy, continues to stagnate. Fragmented landholdings, recurring floods, weak irrigation planning, and poor market access depress farm incomes year after year. North Bihar floods with grim predictability, displacing thousands annually, yet long-term mitigation remains cosmetic. Infrastructure that cannot protect people from foreseeable disasters is infrastructure without purpose.
This is the reality beneath the roads. Which is why Tharoor’s praise feels not merely premature, but insulting to lived experience.
The political context makes it worse. Nitish Kumar’s government is not an independent technocratic experiment. It is sustained by the BJP—the very party Congress claims to oppose nationally for undermining constitutional values, federalism, and democratic institutions. When a senior Congress leader publicly applauds a BJP-allied regime without qualification, it sends a disastrous signal. It weakens opposition credibility, demoralises cadres, and reinforces the public belief that elite politics is a closed club where principles dissolve conveniently.
Opposition politics cannot survive on selective generosity. Not at a time when institutions are under strain and economic distress is widespread. Praise without scrutiny is not nuance; it is abdication.
Yes, Bihar under Nitish Kumar improved administrative order compared to the anarchy of the 1990s. But governance cannot be judged by nostalgia. Two decades is not a transition phase; it is a full political era. If after 20 years a state still survives on remittances sent by migrant labourers struggling in other states, something is fundamentally broken.
Development without employment is deception. Infrastructure without industrialisation is spectacle. Stability without dignity is stagnation. When intellectuals confuse surface order with structural progress, they do not merely misread reality—they help normalise failure.
Shashi Tharoor is known for erudition and evidence-based argument. Then the burden of evidence is his. Let him explain how Bihar’s infrastructure has reduced migration, raised incomes, generated dignified employment, strengthened health systems, or transformed education. Let him cite independent data, not government press releases. Let him speak to migrants sleeping on Delhi pavements and call that success.
Until then, his praise does not read as serious analysis. It reads as applause without inquiry—polished, articulate, but politically corrosive.
Opposition leaders are not meant to certify power; they are meant to challenge it. Bihar does not need certificates from Delhi drawing rooms. It needs honesty, accountability, and transformation.
So, the unavoidable question, Mr Tharoor, remains: “Have you walked through Bihar’s villages, spoken to its migrants, studied its employment data—and if you have, how do you still call this a development success? Or was this applause offered without inquiry, without ground truth, and without consequence?”
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years of age. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
