4 min readAug 7, 2025 03:31 PM IST
First published on: Aug 7, 2025 at 03:30 PM IST
The Bihar government has announced a domicile policy for recruiting school teachers under the Teachers’ Recruitment Exam 4 (TRE4). It has come after a long-drawn-out student agitation demanding reservation in government jobs based on domicile. In 2020, when the Nitish Kumar government brought in the domicile policy for the recruitment of school teachers, it was part of his election promises. However, it was scrapped in 2023 and led to massive protests.
In its defence, the government argued that there was a shortage of competent and qualified candidates to teach some subjects, and it was also not legally tenable. Interestingly, the RJD was then the alliance partner. But later, Tejashwi Yadav cornered Kumar over the issue and promised that if his government gets elected, he would revive the domicile policy. It was, nevertheless, the newly born Jan Suraaj party that has highlighted the issue amidst slogans like: “Vote de Bihari aur naukri le Bahri”.
It is yet unclear whether the domicile policy would stand judicial scrutiny. As per reports, 85 per cent of the teachers recruited through TRE4 would be residents of Bihar. According to the amended rules, the students from Bihar state boards would be prioritised. Earlier, the government announced that only the “permanent residents” of the state would be eligible to get the benefit of the women’s reservations in government jobs.
Reservations have always been a contentious issue across India. But politics over domicile policy is recently getting traction in the competitive populist discourse. The “son of the soil” movement is not new to Indian politics. It is like freebies, masquerading as welfare measures and social justice that parties dole out on the eve of the elections. The domicile policy often works as a measure to cover for their failures in ensuring economic development and imparting quality education to the younger population, enabling them to enter the job market.
Apart from the domicile policy, Nitish Kumar in recent months has announced a slew of populist schemes like 125 units of free electricity per month, a hike in honorarium of support staff in government schools, incentives for ASHA workers, a rise in social security pension, and the establishment of separate commissions for the youth and sanitation workers.
The ageing and beleaguered CM is facing the most difficult election of his political career, with 20 years of anti-incumbency heavily stacked against him. His position in the NDA also looks shaky, as there is no firm commitment from the BJP on his future leadership. Chirag Paswan’s LJP, despite being a part of the NDA, hardly misses any chance to snipe at him.
The main opposition party, the RJD – the ghost of “jungle raj” still haunting it and with no significant increase in its social base – has made unemployment a major poll issue. Tejashwi Yadav’s continuous push for jobs, despite the inglorious track record of his own party, may offer it a ground to corner the NDA. In the 2020 Assembly election, he had come very close to victory with the poll slogan, “Kamai-Dabai-Sichai”. This time, there is also a Prashant Kishore factor, which has made education, development and employment, along with mass migration of workers, key agendas of his electoral campaign.
In the polarised social context of Bihar, unemployment, lack of industrialisation, and quality education seem to have turned a sizeable section of the youth into caste agnostics. The rhetoric of social justice has run its full course. It is unlikely that populist tactics, like domicile policy, reservation or freebies, would impact the electoral verdict in any significant way. The rest depends on the twists and turns of the coming election.
The writer is professor, Political Science at Aryabhatta College, University of Delhi
As per the reports, 85 per cent of the teachers recruited through TRE4 would be residents of Bihar. 
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