Students of Indian history know only too well that the most decisive battle marking the advent of British rule in India was the Battle of Plassey. The British ruled the country for nearly 200 years thereafter. That battle was not won by advanced weapons and ammunition alone. Bribery was the weapon that worked more powerfully than guns.
The English promised money and the throne of Bengal to Mir Jaffar, the military commander of Siraj-ud-Daulah. He betrayed his ruler. With this treachery, the fate of India was sealed for two centuries.
When Robert Clive returned to England after heading the East India Company’s operations in India, he was one of the richest men there. Those white men who made fortunes in India were derisively called “Nabobs”, derived from the Indian word Nawab.
History is full of such examples. In another famous war elsewhere, the king’s own brother was bribed with the promise of the throne. The intelligence he supplied ensured the king’s defeat. No wonder the old saying remains popular: “All is fair in love and war.” To that, we may now add: “and elections in India.”
There was a time when the entire world looked up to India, a newly independent nation where illiteracy and poverty were widespread, yet where people voted peacefully every five years to elect a new government. Elections were seen as a festival of democracy. That is no longer the case. The recently concluded elections in Bihar prove the point.
Soon after the Pahalgam terror killings in April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Bihar—not to meet the victims, but to address a rally. There, he proclaimed that the “best reply to Pakistan” would come from Bihar’s voters. “When the votes are counted in Bihar, let the terrorists get a fitting reply,” he thundered. Operation Sindoor, which avenged every attack planned across the border, made such rhetorical replies unnecessary.
Yet, one must ask: how did the ruling coalition of five parties led by the BJP get 202 out of 243 seats? Or more pertinently, how did they lose 41?
The staging of the election drama began early. It started with the Special Intensive Revision of the voter rolls. Instead of using the 2024 rolls as the base, the Election Commission reverted to the 2003 rolls. As many as seven million voters were removed. Then about four lakh new voters were added. The pattern raises uncomfortable questions.
The Election Commission waited until all new welfare schemes were announced before letting the Model Code of Conduct come into force. Then came the most dramatic move.
On 26 September, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s government launched the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana—the Chief Minister’s Women’s Employment Scheme—via video-conferencing by the Prime Minister from New Delhi.
Under this scheme, 1.1 crore women were identified as eligible to receive a minimum of ₹10,000 and up to ₹2 lakh to start a business or small enterprise.
Governments in India are notorious for red-tapism—rules, files and procedures that move so slowly that even urgent work feels stuck in a swamp. But in this case, the entire machinery functioned with the speed and force of the rebellious battleship in Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin, which symbolised unstoppable momentum and collective action. Before Modi could make his next foreign visit, ₹10,000 each had already reached the bank accounts of 21 lakh women. This was only the first instalment. More was promised.
By then, the election schedule had been announced and the Model Code of Conduct had kicked in. Yet the Election Commission saw nothing wrong with this massive, last-minute disbursement of money.
To understand its impact, one must remember this: ₹10,000 is not a small amount in one of India’s poorest states. Goa has the highest per capita income in India at ₹3.57 lakh. Bihar has the lowest at ₹32,227. These figures hide inequality. If two men earn ₹1 lakh and ₹5,000 per month, their per capita income becomes ₹6.3 lakh, but the poorer man earns only ₹60,000 a year.
For a majority of women in Bihar, ₹10,000—with the promise of more—was a windfall. It was natural for them to fear that if the government changed, this benefit might vanish.
Is it any wonder that they rushed to the polling booths in record numbers, producing one of the highest-ever turnouts—nearly 80 per cent?
The generosity did not end there. About two crore households were exempted from paying electricity bills if their consumption was below 125 units. Over 1.1 crore people benefited from an increase in social security pensions to ₹1,100 per month. All unemployed persons began receiving a monthly allowance of ₹1,000 for two years. In short, hardly anyone in Bihar was untouched by these last-minute announcements. They had a vested interest in keeping Nitish Kumar in power.
Modi and his party leaders claim this was a vote for development. But except for a brief interval, the NDA has governed Bihar for the past 20 years. During this period, Bihar has remained one of the most backward states in India. On literacy, women’s education, infant mortality, maternal mortality—on almost every index—Bihar stands at the bottom.
In July 2024, twelve bridges under construction collapsed in just 17 days—a shocking indicator of corruption. Yet the ruling alliance swept the polls, winning 202 seats. There is a Malayalam saying: “Even a kite will not fly over money.” In Bihar’s case, money did not merely attract attention—it directed the flight.
The Bihar election marks a new phenomenon in Indian democracy: the open purchase of votes through cash transfers. This raises another disturbing question. The Jan Suraaj Party, led by Prashant Kishor, has claimed that the Bihar government diverted ₹14,000 crore received from the World Bank to fund the payments made to women. If there is any truth in this allegation, then India has just witnessed the first election won with international money.
In literature, Shakespeare warned in Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Bihar’s election forces every Indian to reflect on what democracy is becoming. When voters are turned into beneficiaries and elections become auctions, the very soul of democracy is at stake.
In conclusion, Bihar’s 2025 election will be remembered not for its political message but for the dangerous precedent it has set. Cash-fuelled voting is not development. It is a slow erosion of democratic choice. If this trend continues, future elections in India may be won not by ideas or performance but by bank transfers—and that would be a tragedy beyond measure.