Shashi Singh
New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) The pen is mightier than the sword might be a cliché, but something interesting that unfolded in the recent Bihar election discourse could not have offered a better illustration of the phrase.
For years, the phrase ‘Jungle Raj’ had been a familiar political refrain in Bihar. Yet during the 2020 Assembly campaign, it seemed like a dated concept that had lost much of its impact. Even when Nitish tried to bring up the horrific era of the ’90s, it seemed like people were not ready to indulge in it. He shouted angrily in some of his rallies when youth were shouting slogans against him. It looked like the RJD had been able to wash off the Jungle Raj stigma attached to it and people were ready to move ahead.
Fast forward to 2025, and the atmosphere could not have been more different. Long before the first campaign posters were up, Bihar seemed to be collectively revisiting the 1990s. YouTube channels were running mini-documentaries. Newsrooms dusted off old footage on law and order failures. Social media was rife with anecdotes that had lain dormant for decades. As though by some invisible trigger, the state was once again debating a bygone era as if it were unfolding afresh.
That trigger, many now agree, was a book.
Published in March 2024 by Westland, ‘Broken Promises: Caste, Crime and Politics in Bihar’ by Mrityunjay Sharma was initially positioned as a research-heavy account of the ’90s era, showing how aspirations of dignity and representation collided with weak institutions and spiralling crime. Sharma, who grew up in Ranchi when it was still part of undivided Bihar, wove together personal memories, historical context and political contradictions. The stories struck a chord. They resurrected the very anecdotes many Bihari families had whispered about for years.
The book might have stayed within academic and policy circles had it not found its second life online. Sharma’s long-form conversation on Raj Shamani’s podcast became the turning point. The episode, rich with stories and simple explanations, travelled widely. Clipped, subtitled, reposted and remixed, it became a digital phenomenon on Instagram, YouTube Shorts and X.
Media platforms took note, and soon Sharma appeared on over fifty prominent podcasts and interviews, from Aaj Tak and ABP to Hindustan Live, Jist, Real Hit and others. Reaction videos, explainers and discussion threads mushroomed across social media. Suddenly, stories like the Shilpi-Gautam murder case, the MBBS admission controversy involving Misa Bharti, the brazen looting during Rohini Acharya’s wedding, or Shahabuddin’s terror in Siwan were back in everyday conversation. Equally unsettling were reminders of the caste massacres that ravaged Magadh.
Younger digital-native audiences who had no lived memory of the period were drawn in. Older viewers felt their recollections finally articulated in a coherent narrative. From tea stalls to Telegram groups, the book infused new vocabulary into Bihar’s political chatter. Within weeks, Broken Promises had moved from shelves to the centre of public discussion.
By the time the 2025 campaign kicked off, the NDA found itself benefiting from a narrative already in circulation. Unlike 2020, they did not need to resurrect the Jungle Raj argument. The public imagination had revived it organically. All they had to do was tie this renewed historical consciousness to their pitch on stability, welfare and governance. Welfare programmes, especially those targeting women, had deepened roots, and the NDA projected rare internal unity. Meanwhile, the opposition was riddled with contradictions and struggled to counter this swelling narrative.
Voices beyond the book further amplified the trend. Prashant Kishor, in multiple interactions, revisited several incidents from the Lalu years, including the Shilpi-Gautam murders. His interventions gave fresh legitimacy to the conversation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too sensed the shifting mood. He recounted instances like the Champa Biswas rape case and the Golu kidnapping during his speeches. In a meeting with BJP booth workers, he urged youngsters to gather elders and listen to their memories of the 1990s.
Digital teams, from independent creators to the official handles of JD(U) and BJP, quickly recognised the moment. They curated clips, added commentary and pushed content across platforms. For many young voters, the podcasts offered a vivid and almost cinematic glimpse into Bihar’s chaotic 1990s. For older voters, it provided language for memories they had long struggled to articulate. What emerged was not merely a campaign theme but a cultural tide, something larger than any single party’s messaging.
The opposition could not keep pace. Its defence of the Mandal legacy collided directly with the book’s argument that while representation expanded, governance crumbled. Its Voter Adhikar Yatra failed to shift attention away from the revived debate. Late attempts to refocus the discourse on unemployment and migration faltered as social media remained dominated by Broken Promises fuelled narratives. The impact was so strong that Lalu Prasad Yadav’s brother-in-law, Sadhu Yadav, reportedly phoned the author demanding a retraction and later issued a Rs 5 crore defamation notice.
The return of the Jungle Raj discourse in 2025 was not an overnight twist. It was a slow, steady build-up of memory, research, storytelling and digital reach. The book rekindled Bihar’s forgotten anxieties. Podcasts carried them into the digital bloodstream. And the NDA did what political actors do best, turn a social conversation into electoral momentum.
In Bihar, politics has always been shaped by which story captures the public mind. This time, the story appeared months before the campaign did. And by the time votes were cast, Broken Promises had already written itself into the heart of Bihar’s 2025 political imagination.
(The book– Broken Promises: Caste, Crime, and Politics in Bihar, written by Mrityunjay Sharma, was published by Westland in March 2024)
UNI AAB
