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Manika Gaji village, located heavy inside Muzaffarpur, is a labyrinth of weathered ceramic structures thatched with thenar leaves and bordered by world and puddles. Manisha gingerly navigates the messy slush to get into her ‘study’: an enclosure of woven bamboo sheets, sectioned disconnected from the main quarters.
It is successful this enclosure that her father Rajkishor Paswan killed himself connected a cold, damp greeting connected the past time of 2024, incapable to repay the indebtedness helium had procured from a microfinance company. When Geeta Devi, Ms. Manisha’s mother, saw her husband’s corpse hanging from a bamboo rod supporting the room’s tin roof, she disentangled it and utilized the aforesaid enactment to bent herself connected a nearby lichi tree.
In election-bound Bihar, this is not an isolated lawsuit of harassment by microfinance companies (MFCs) driving 1 mates to suicide. A study by microfinance self-regulatory assemblage Sa-Dhan said Bihar had ₹57,712 crore worthy of microfinance loans outstanding arsenic of March 2025. MFCs’ coercive repayment practices have forced families in distant hamlets to flee homes or extremity lives, yet this deepening debt-crisis is not an predetermination talking point, for either the ruling oregon Opposition coalitions. Bihar’s 2nd and last signifier of polling volition instrumentality place on November 11.
‘Where is the outrage?’
In adjacent Sakra Wajid village, Biswanath Das presumption MFC loans a “debt trap”. He asks: “Why are loans being disbursed without immoderate scrutiny?” His younger brother Shivnath and his wife Bhukti Devi died by termination successful March 2024, aft they defaulted connected their monthly indebtedness repayments. Neighbours furnished a grim relationship of the couple’s past days: “Somedays, they [MFC agents] dragged their cattle, somedays, they smashed their utensils.” Their lad has since ‘disappeared’.
“The authorities indispensable measure one’s repaying capableness oregon beryllium consenting to constitute loans off,” says Mr. Das, the bereaved brother. “Why isn’t determination immoderate nationalist oregon media outrage implicit this institutionalised harassment even arsenic electioneering is successful afloat swing?” he asks.
The outgo of ambition
Ms. Manisha, who now lives with her elder member and sister-in-law, wants to get a occupation with the constabulary oregon the Railways. She is pursuing her B.A. at Shyamnandan Sahay College successful Muzaffarpur and has besides enrolled astatine a coaching institute successful the nearby Musahri sub-division.
It is hard to ideate idiosyncratic devotedly pursuing a vocation in her squalid surroundings, but Ms. Manisha says she volition not beryllium “another slogging pistillate of her hamlet, lacking bureau and exposed to home violence”. She isn’t an exception. Her friend Asha Kumari gives tuitions to schoolchildren to rise wealth for her education, while resisting peer pressure to marry.
But financing their studies is inactive a challenge. “It takes a mates of thousands each month,” Ms. Manisha sighs, her eyes connected the bamboo rod wherever her begetter ended his life.
‘No assistance arrived’
Activists Vimlesh and Rani Prasad facilitated Ms. Manisha’s gathering with Priyanka Gandhi erstwhile the Congress person held a mahila samvad in Patna connected September 26. “She was very amiable. She asked her subordinate to look into my matter,” recalled Ms. Manisha. “But nary assistance arrived.”
It was successful 2023 that Ms. Geeta Devi archetypal took a indebtedness from an MFC. Her younger son’s wedding was approaching, and Ms. Manisha needed books and accessories. Her husband was a operation labourer, moving for a measly ₹450 a day. It was hard to find much than 10 oregon 12 days of work, capping his monthly income astatine astir ₹5,000.
The Bihar caste survey conducted successful 2023 recovered that 94 lakh families successful the State past connected ₹6,000 oregon little a month. India’s microfinance strategy started with networks of self-help groups focused connected fiscal inclusion, aboriginal evolving into Grameen Bank-inspired models for women, which person present turned into non-banking fiscal companies.
Debt cycle
Unable to repay a indebtedness taken from 1 MFC, women thin to get from another, trapping themselves further. Ms. Manisha’s sister-in-law Veena Devi gives a measurement of their poverty: “We marque ₹170 a time moving successful the fields.” Factory enactment is seldom available. A savoury shaper erstwhile acceptable up a portion successful the Bela concern area, “but proscription was a challenge. He paid ₹5,000 a month, of which ₹1,500 were spent connected reserving an autorickshaw,” she says.
Without jobs, adjacent generous handouts tin get swallowed up by the endless indebtedness cycle. Villagers accidental that erstwhile Chief Minister Nitish Kumar disbursed ₹10,000 past period to members of the Jeevika women’s self-help groups successful a strategy launched conscionable earlier the Assembly election, MFC agents pressured them to repay their EMIs with it. “The police is not doing thing to halt MFC personnel’s bratty behaviour,” alleges Mr. Prasad.
Despite this situation, it is not uncommon to find voters who kick of failed crops and soaring nutrient prices, stuck successful indebtedness traps, but inactive voicing their staunch enactment for “Modi ji and Nitish ji”. Government doles and the heavy penetration of Hindu nationalist sentiment successful Bihar’s hinterland whitethorn person insulated Mr. Kumar’s 20-year-old government from its epitaph.
Anando Bhakto is simply a writer covering authorities
