Patna: At a crucial juncture when Bihar is going to polls to elect its Lower House, the emergence of Palayan as a powerful poll-factor has turned as a frightening ghostly specter for the ruling NDA in this politically sensitive state.
Palayan, exodus in English, denotes migration of the student population of Bihar for educational purposes to almost all other Indian states primary among them being Karnataka, New Delhi Capital Region, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan.
Globally famous in yesteryears of history as being the best place of higher studies in such ancient universities like Nalanda, Vikramshila, and Odantapuri, Bihar under Nitish Raj has become nationally infamous for downfall in education.
According to the Census 2011, Bihar together with Uttar Pradesh has the lowest median ages or young population in layman’s term. India’s median age rose from 22.51 years in 2001 to 24 years in 2011. This directly means they can influence the outcome of voting results, to a great extent.
It is here where Nitish Kumar needs to worry. This young population is rebellious, adventurous, and looks for results more than claptraps of politicians in the forms of poll-addresses. Despite tall talks, Bihari politicians failed abysmally to improve the educational scenario. In 2011, the literacy rate of Bihar stood at 63.82%.
It is here where the danger signal of prospective voting-preference of this young population for Nitish Kumar can be seen. This segment is leaving Bihar as the academic standard and structure here is extremely bad with scant scope for acquiring good professional knowledge in multiple job-oriented courses.
Nitish Kumar has antagonized this young population who are likely to play very dominant roles in the comings polls, thus becoming a key decision making political factor.
Though there were reasons abound for this antagonism, the recent one happened to be the step-fatherly attitude of Nitish Kumar during the pendency of COVID-19 when he became nationally known for not taking any step to bring the migrated student population to bring back to Bihar. He even suggested they should stay where they are.
Importance of the voting-age young population in the coming polls can be gauged from the following official figure given by the Census 2001:
| Age Group | Total Population | Male | Female |
| 15-19 | 71,90,188 | 40,28,643 | 31,61,545 |
| 20-24 | 63,23,193 | 31,80,063 | 31,43,130 |
Before we take up the poll-factor of why students are migrating to other states, let us have a peep into the official figures of state of education in 2001 Census:
| Level | Persons | Male | Female |
| Literate without educational | 17,15,049 | 11,09,731 | 6,05,318 |
| Below Primary | 78,90,329 | 47,54,137 | 31,36,192 |
| Primary | 83,34,709 | 51,30,917 | 32,03,792 |
| Middle | 43,90,226 | 30,12,151 | 13,78,075 |
| Secondary | 47,51,560 | 34,39,918 | 13,11,642 |
| Higher Secondary | 18,26,093 | 13,85,282 | 4,40,811 |
| Technical Diploma | 24,989 | 20,088 | 4,901 |
| Non-technical Diploma | 48,532 | 40,458 | 8,074 |
| Graduate & above | 21,09,415 | 17,37,651 | 3,71,764 |
| Unclassified | 18,675 | 14,043 | 4,632 |
This chart reveals why cart-loads of Bihari students are resorting to Palayan to other states, a trend beginning in 1997 continues unabated. It mainly began during the rule RJD when education became a backbencher consideration for the government and also when the kidnapping industry touched its greatest height in the state.
The kidnapping phobia was one of the reasons why parents sent their children to other states for safety-factor.
The latest figure divulged by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (under the Ministry of Human Resource Development) shows none of the state universities or colleges figure in the overall list of top 100 institutions of India except IIT, Patna.
No medical college from Bihar is in India’s list of top 40 colleges.
Every year, nearly 15,000 students below Class X move to other states for studies. Even the businessmen who earlier avoided sending their children outside Bihar, now are not doing so.
None of the political parties took this Palayan syndrome earlier but now have to pay with compound political interests for their folly in the coming Legislative Assembly polls slated for October-November, 2020 facing the wrath of the younger population who this year would be a decisive factor at the polling booths.
