Bihar’s maternal welfare state can inspire a new kind of feminist democracy in South Asia

In the shifting landscape of India’s welfare politics, Bihar seems to stand out as a laboratory of gendered transformation. Over the past two decades, the state has evolved into what can be called a “maternal welfare state.” From the famous Balika Cycle Yojana and Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana to the newly launched Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana (MMRY), Bihar’s welfare architecture recasts women not as passive beneficiaries but as entrepreneurs, civic actors, and autonomous political constituencies. One of the unintended outcomes of this maternal welfare state is the marked improvement in law and order, an indispensable component for women’s mobility and active participation in social development.

Unlike the Danish sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen’s acclaimed notion of welfare re