How Indian screens got Chhath right, but left Bihar behind

Bihar is currently enjoying an unprecedented renaissance on Indian screens. It is simultaneously enduring a structural crisis along its riverbanks.

This week, catastrophic floodwaters submerged 576 gram panchayats across 15 districts, directly displacing and devastating over 50.49 lakh people. The Kosi river is surging far above its danger mark at Baltara and Kursela, while the Ganga has spilled aggressively past its flood level at Kahalgaon. Yet, according to official data released by the state’s Disaster Management Department, Bihar has actually recorded seasonal rainfall that is 29 percent below normal. The deluge consuming the state’s northern belt is therefore not simply a story of excess rainfall or an unpredictable act of nature. It also points to the state’s longstanding vulnerabilities around drainage infrastructure, embankment maintenance and river management — failures that have accumulated over decades and repeatedly amplified the impact of flooding.

The flooding has received far less sustained national attention than the cultural spectacle unfolding on screen.

What did make headlines, however, was a series of sleek, synchronized Bollywood teasers celebrating Bihari culture. In the upcoming film The Vvaan, starring Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia, the ancient, grueling ritual of Chhath Puja is rendered in high-definition cinematic glory through the track Chhathi Maiya, complete with glowing ghats and colour-coordinated devotion. Days later, Sooraj Barjatya’s upcoming romantic drama Yeh Prem Mol Liya dropped promotional visuals featuring Ayushmann Khurrana and Sharvari standing waist-deep in water, holding a soop to perform arghya to the Sun God. Trade analysts and culture critics promptly declared Chhath Puja as 'Bollywood’s new Karwa Chauth' — an aestheticised, pan-Indian festive set-piece through which Mumbai filmmakers have now turned to the spiritual visual palette of eastern India.

The core paradox sits in the middle if it, mainstream Hindi cinema and algorithmic social feeds have perfected the art of commodifying Bihari devotion, yet when the actual ghats, homes, and citizens of Bihar submerge, the region receives far less sustained national attention. Bihar is endlessly extracted and consumed, but never genuinely covered.

The Optics of Apathy and the Influencer Relief Economy

On the ground, the gulf between political governance and human suffering is fast turning into raw public fury. In Katihar district’s Barari constituency — where thousands of families remain stranded on roadsides — furious flood victims recently gheraoed a visiting state minister, Pramod Kumar Chandrawanshi, alongside local MLA Bijay Kumar Singh. Residents and local Sarpanch Mohd Irshad alleged that official relief camps were operating largely on paper or were assigned to politically favoured wards, leaving flooded communities in Ward 17 without a single community kitchen or dry shelter. Reports from the spot said the visiting leaders conducted their review from the roadside before leaving the area as the protest intensified.

This institutional distance sits beside another form of political optics. In the same district, viral footage captured 74-year-old Congress MP Tariq Anwar being carried through floodwaters on the back of a local villager during his constituency tour. While his party cited age and public affection, the visual of an elected representative piggybacking on a wading, impoverished citizen distilled, in one striking frame, the distance between political representation and the people physically bearing the weight of the crisis.

In the absence of a visibly responsive state apparatus or sustained national media coverage, the burden of visibility and immediate survival has increasingly shifted towards social media personalities and digital creators. Educators like Faisal Khan (popularly known as Khan Sir), along with creators like Manisha Pandey and Carryminati — who previously raised over ₹6 lakh through live charity streams — have stepped into the breach to run independent crowdfunding campaigns and on-ground aid distribution drives.

When YouTubers, digital educators, and internet comedians become a state's primary emergency disaster response system, it exposes a bleak structural question: does the political system treat Biharis primarily as a reliable pool of migrant labour and a dependable vote bank, while sustained institutional attention recedes when an emergency strikes?

Justice Gated by Virality

This systemic neglect extends far beyond environmental disasters into the realm of public safety, law enforcement, and female survival. A recent incident in Jamui district starkly highlighted the precarious reality faced by vulnerable citizens.

On September 19, two Class 10 students — a 15-year-old girl and her male classmate — were returning from coaching classes when they were intercepted on a hillock by a group of men, forcibly stopped, physically assaulted, and subjected to severe harassment. Police and media reports say the incident was recorded and the footage later circulated widely on social media.

Crucially, the victims did not initially approach the police. The case came to light after the recording circulated on social media, following which the police registered an FIR under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT), and began identifying and arresting suspects. The National Commission for Women (NCW) also took suo motu cognisance and sought action in the case. Three suspects had been arrested by September 21, according to police reports.

The Jamui case illustrates a disturbing possibility: in this instance, institutional intervention followed the circulation of the crime rather than preceding it. A severe crime against minors became impossible to ignore once it acquired the voyeuristic currency of social media virality. The question it raises is whether visibility itself is becoming an increasingly important gateway to institutional attention.

From Mockery to Extraction: The Cinematic Shift

To understand how mainstream Indian culture views Bihar today, one must trace how the state's representation on screen has evolved across decades:

For decades, mainstream Hindi cinema relegated Biharis to low-status comedic relief — the clumsy Bhojpuri-accented sidekick, the dim-witted security guard, or the 'Bihari mazdoor' used as an unrefined trope.

Later came single-dimensional stories of extreme hardship — the impoverished UPSC topper or the gritty crime saga — where Bihar was depicted largely through lawlessness, deprivation or as a hurdle to be overcome and escaped.

Today, film production houses have moved to a more lucrative, palatable frame. They extract the sacred beauty of Chhath Puja — the earthen lamps, the devotion, the familial warmth — and package it as a glossy national product.

Yet, this cinematic reverence remains largely divorced from the material realities of the state. The film industry eagerly shoots colourful arghya scenes on pristine sets, while the structural failures and poverty that have contributed to the large-scale migration of Biharis across the country receive far less cultural attention. Cinema celebrates the emotional nostalgia of home, while remaining comparatively silent on the conditions that make staying home difficult for millions.

The issue, then, is not that Bihar is absent from Indian screens.

It is that different parts of Bihar are made visible for different purposes.

Its festivals can be aestheticised. Its migrants can be absorbed into the national labour economy. Its political identity can be mobilised during elections. Its disasters can become viral content. But the slower stories — of infrastructure, migration, governance, public safety and institutional accountability — require sustained attention long after the cameras move away.

Beyond the Performance

Bihar does not need to be aestheticised for an urban, pan-Indian cinema audience, nor does it need 'flood tourism' or performative sympathy when a crisis strikes.

What it urgently requires is sustained, unglamorous accountability journalism — coverage that treats the state not as a background set for a festive song, nor as a viral reel of disaster, but as a living, breathing region with a present tense, deserving of governance, safety, and basic human dignity.

Bihar is not absent from India’s screens. It is everywhere — in songs, festivals, migrant stories, election speeches and viral videos.

The harder question is what kind of Bihar gets to be seen, and what remains outside the frame.