Protests have toppled governments across South Asia. India has stayed immune. Will Bihar elections change that?

Protests have toppled governments across South Asia. India has stayed immune. Will Bihar elections change that?

Amid raids targeting Muslims, an electoral roll revision in India’s poorest state has become a political flashpoint.
![JDU leaders and workers carry out a cycle rally to raise voters' awareness ahead of the Bihar Assembly election, on July 8, 2025 in Patna, India [Santosh Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images]](/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GettyImages-2223549122-1752077414.jpg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Wave of incendiary music tracks fueling Islamophobic hate floods Indian social media after April 22 killings.

Many major farm belts turned against India’s ruling party in the election, contributing to the sharp fall in seats.

As climate change, low earnings and high debts batter them, young male farmers can’t find women willing to marry them.

Two-thirds of India’s unemployed youth are educated — a fraction which has doubled since 2000.
![Sidhant Mende has an engineering degree. But he works supervising the construction of a house that requires none of his training and offers a pittance in pay, in Ralegaon, India [Al Jazeera/Kunal Purohit]](/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Sidhant-Mende2-1715741449.jpg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Villages where Modi launched his farm outreach a decade ago have seen deaths and debt mount since then.
![Family members of Vithal Rathod, the farmer in Dabhadi village who took his own life, stand outside their home in Yavatmal. It was in Dabhadi that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his farm outreach in 2014. A decade later, crosses losses, debts and deaths are mounting [Kunal Purohit/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Photo2-The-family-of-Vithal-Rathod-the-farmer-who-took-his-own-life-stand-outside-their-home-in-Dabhadi-village-of-Yavatmal-1714101733.jpg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
In YouTube’s largest market, self-proclaimed news channels are booming, gaining millions of viewers peddling falsehoods.
![An NMF News video from April 4, 2024, with the subtitle claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sent Pakistan into shivers, and the opposition Congress party into a cold sweat [Screengrab/NMF News/YouTube]](/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-05-at-9.08.58-AM-1712288371.png?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
At least 10 releases before the election amplify Modi’s political agenda and vilify critics – sparing not even Gandhi.

India’s top court has declared them illegal. The decision could shape the world’s biggest election.
