From Delhi to the Northeast

Swarajya's journey across India's towns and villages

Hello, Namaste, this is Banuchandar. I'm embarking on a two-week-long trip from Delhi all the way across UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, and into the Northeast. I'm going to bring you live updates, ground-level reports from parts of UP, Bihar, WB, and Assam that are usually not covered by the mainstream media (MSM).

I will be traveling in the northernmost districts of UP from Pilibhit, across to Maharajganj, then enter Bihar through Champaran and travel through Kishanganj, Alipurduar, and enter Assam and further. The publisher of Swarajya magazine, for whom I am doing this trip, has called this Hridayapath. It's looking at the aspirations of the people here - if you look at it, people from this part of India don't get much coverage. If you take UP, people talk about Lucknow, Varanasi, and Ayodhya. And now, if you take Bihar, we talk about Patna and Kolkata for WB, and so on.

So, we want to see what animates people here because they are among the poorest regions in India. Though multidimensional poverty has fallen in India, we want to see, we want to know why people still vote for BJP and what has changed on the ground, and that is what we are trying to find out in this. Right now, I'm in Hapur.

I started from Delhi this morning, we covered Ghaziabad, and now we're here. We are stopping in Moradabad and Pilibhit. I will provide updates, so it will be a mix of video and text, so I am really looking forward to the trip, and I will share updates as I go on.

The first report is here: https://swarajyamag.com/reports/hridayapath-dispatch-1-what-moradabad-pilibhit-and-rampur-think-about-modi-sarkar-and-2024-election

A message from Swarajya:

Hridayapath is part of Swarajya’s 50 ground reports project, aimed at bringing you India's shrugged off stories this election season. With a commitment to bring forth reports from the nooks and corners of India, this project is a journey into the heart of Bharat — a cross sectional and unvarnished glimpse into the towns and villages of the country.

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