Jharkhand: The Tribal Voice

OFF THE HIGHWAY, a 12km narrow winding road through thick forests of mahua, mango, and bamboo leads to Gaibathan village of Pakur district in Jharkhand’s Santhal Pargana region. As the sun filters through the trees, a couple of women are seen buying vegetables from a man on a motorcycle. The women only speak Santhali. The quietude of the village was disrupted once this summer. The pradhan Ganesh Murmu nar­rates the July incident, in which a Muslim and tribal family had a scuffle over an old land dispute after a Santhal filed a case that a man was building a house on his land. “The police came and gave the land to the Santhal. Some Muslims are in jail. It’s otherwise peaceful here. The Muslims have been here since before I was born, from the time of their great-grandfathers,” says Murmu, who is in his thirties.

The tribal-dominated village falls in Maheshpur Assembly seat, a reserved Scheduled Tribe (ST) constituency, where tribals consti­tute nearly 55 per cent of voters and Muslims around 27 per cent, as per the 2011 Census. Ganesh Murmu knows only one name in the fray for the November 20 election—Stephen Marandi, who won from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in 2019. He tries hard to re­call the name of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate. His wife Mary Hembrom is happy she got `1,000 per month for two months, under the Hemant Soren government’s Mukhyamantri Maiya Samman Yojana. She has not heard of BJP’s “roti, beti, maati” (bread, daughter, soil) slogan, promising to drive out Bangladeshi infiltra­tors, to save tribal identity. All Mary wants is a pucca house. “Our house is made of mud and has a tiled roof,” she says.

The last time BJP won the Maheshpur seat was in 2000 when Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, after which the JMM has held the seat. This time, BJP has fielded Navneet Anthony Hembrom. On the highway, at Litipara in Pakur district, Santosh Tudre, a trib­al farmer, says there has been no trou­ble between tribals and Muslims, bar­ring stray incidents like in Gaibathan. “Infiltration is not an issue here.” More tribals and Muslims gather around him, saying that the state does not share a border with Bangladesh. The ST reserved seat, a JMM stronghold, has nearly 67 per cent tribal voters, as per the 2011 Census.

Pakur and Sahibganj districts in the northeast of Jharkhand, along the West Bengal border, are in the eye of the infiltration storm with BJP leaders saying that the influx is causing a demographic shift by increasing the Muslim population in the region and threat­ening tribals. The Santhal Pargana, which derives its name from Santhal, the largest tribe in Jharkhand, where the overall tribal population across the state is estimated to be around 27 per cent, also comprises the districts of Dumka, Jamtara, Godda, and Deoghar, all of which are estimated to have a Muslim population of over 20 per cent. In the bustling Pakur town, the Muslim domination is palpable. According to Chanakyya political consultancy’s voter list analysis, Muslims account for 59.1 per cent of voters in Pakur. While it is to be seen if the BJP’s narrative that infiltrators were en­dangering the “roti, beti, maati” of the tribals, has traction in the community, it has resonance among the party’s core Hindu voters. A group of OBC youths says Pakur has become a “mini Pakistan”.

Standing outside his house in a Muslim-dominated area of Pakur, Ansar Hussain says his ancestors came to Jharkhand in the early 1900s. “This side of Pakur is Muslim dominated. On the other side the Hindus live,” he says, pointing to a colony around half a kilome­tre away. The Congress, an ally of JMM, Sudesh Mahato’s AJSU, an ally of BJP, and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP), which broke off from the I.N.D.I.A. bloc in the state, have all put up Muslim can­didates for the seat, which has been held by Congress’ Alamgir Alam since 2000, barring in 2009 when Aquil Akhtar of JMM won. In May this year, Alam, a minister in the Soren government, was arrested by the Directorate of Enforce­ment in a money-laundering case. Congress has fielded his wife Nishant Alam this time, giving BJP more ammunition to accuse the Soren government of Muslim appeasement.

Assam Chief Minister and BJP’s election co-in charge in Jharkhand, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is at the forefront of the party’s Bangladeshi infiltration narrative, has sharpened his diatribe saying JMM was a government of Alamgir Alam and Irfan Ansari, who should be removed like “Babur from Ayodhya”. Ansari, also from Congress and a minister in the Jharkhand gov­ernment and two-time MLA from Jamtara, is taking on BJP’s Sita Soren, the rebel elder daughter-in-law of JMM chief Shibu Soren, who is still revered by tribals in the state.

BJP’s Godda MP Nishikant Dubey has said the Muslim population in the Santhal Pargana region has increased by 15 per cent since 1951, of which 11 per cent comprised Bangladeshi infiltrators. He had said in Lok Sabha that the in­filtrators were marrying tribal women, hence threatening the community’s population.

Of the 81 seats in the state, 18 are in the Santhal Pargana region. Of these, there are seven reserved ST seats in the region, which constitute 25 per cent of the 28 ST seats in Jharkhand. In 2014, the BJP had won seven of these seats, one more than the JMM, while Congress got three. In 2019, the JMM-led alliance swept the region winning 13 of the 18 seats, while the BJP’s tally came down to five. Of the 28 ST seats in the state, the BJP won just two. In the Lok Sabha elections, when Hemant Soren was in jail on charges of money laundering, the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, which had won all five reserved ST seats, led in ten of the Assembly segments of Santhal Pargana, while BJP led in eight.

BJP leaders are leaving no stone unturned to regain hold of the region. Both Sarma and Union agriculture minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the party’s election in-charge for the state, are reeling out statistics to corroborate the demographic shift. Accusing the Soren government of patronising infiltrators from Bangladesh, Chouhan, at a rally in Ranchi said ‘infiltrators’ were marrying tribal women, and that the tribal population in Santhal Pargana region has come down from 44 per cent to 28 per cent. The issue has rever­berated in speeches of the BJP’s top leadership, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking it up in his first rally in the state after polls were announced. At a rally in Jharkhand’s Garhwa, he dubbed the JMM-led coalition as an “infiltrators alliance”, saying appeasement politics was a threat to the tribal population and the country.

“BJP is talking about Hindu-Muslim issues. The Hemant Soren government is giving money to women. But he has not fulfilled the promise of filling job vacancies. If BJP wins, it will start taking tribal land for other purposes,” says Ranjan Marandi, a farmer in Murgabani village of Litipara. Marandi, who shares three bighas of land with his two brothers, has worked as a labourer in Gujarat and Mizoram. The only income for him and his family is from the produce on the land.

The serenity of the landscape along the forested hilly terrain juxtaposes the angst within. Living in the backwoods, struggling to make ends meet, the tribals fiercely cling to their ‘jal, jungle, zameen’ shibboleth

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The serenity of the landscape along the forested hilly terrain juxtaposes the angst within. Living in the backwoods, struggling to make ends meet, the tribals fiercely cling to their “jal, jungle, zameen” shibboleth. Fearing they would lose their land, the tribals had protested against the decision of BJP’s Raghubar Das gov­ernment to amend the 1949 Santhal Pargana Tenancy (SPT) Act, which bars non-tribals from buying tribal land in the division, and the 1908 Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act (CNT), which applies to the Chotanagpur plateau. The amend­ments allowed tribal land to be used for development purposes, though with­out a change in ownership. The tribals launched a “Pathaalgadi” movement, erecting engraved stones to mark a vil­lage as sovereign territory, as a fight for “jal, jungle, zameen”. The amendments did not see the light of day, but BJP lost the election, and one of the first steps Soren took after becoming chief minis­ter was to order the withdrawal of cases registered against those involved in the Pathaalgadi movement. For the JMM-led alliance, which had peaked in its performance in tribal seats in 2019, the challenge this time would be to retain the support of the community.

With Champai Soren, the former JMM veteran from Kolhan who was chief minister when Hemant Soren was under arrest, on its side, BJP is hoping to temper the tribals’ mistrust towards it, particularly in the Kolhan region, where it had lost all 14 seats, including Das’ constituency, Jamshedpur East, in 2019. After join­ing BJP, Champai Soren echoed the party’s line on “saving” tribal identity from Bangladeshi infiltrators in the Santhal Pargana re­gion. In September, the Jharkhand High Court ordered an inde­pendent fact-finding committee to probe the issue, following the “conflicting” stands of the Centre and the state. In November, the Supreme Court allowed the Jharkhand government not to appoint expert members to the panel till December 3. The second phase of polling in Jharkhand will take place on November 20 with the first phase having been conducted on November 13.

At a haat (market) in Kukurtopa village of Dumka, headquarters of the Santhal Pargana division, Uttam Kumar, a young professional who belongs to an OBC community, agrees that the population of Muslims is increasing, though he is not sure if they are Bangladeshi infiltrators. A BJP supporter, he refuses to dis­close who he will vote for this time. In his Gadi Koraiya village in Dumka, it was JMM MLA Basant Soren, the chief minister’s brother and party candidate this time, who helped them get a transformer. “But, a lot of work was done in the time of the Das government, like a road in the village,” he says. As it gets dark, business is brisk at the haat. Sriphool Baski, a tribal woman selling vegetables, says she has got `1,000 under the Soren government’s scheme like the wom­en selling mahua, a local liquor made with fer­mented flowers. It is Dumka, from where BJP’s Babulal Marandi, the state’s first chief minister belonged, and what has been Shibu Soren’s political turf. “Takkar hai (there is a fight). The Soren government has not announced the promised job vacancies,” says Antlal Shah, a baniya who runs a shop in Kathilhund village in the district.

In Deoghar’s Sarath seat, Anand Soren, a tribal farmer, says BJP’s two-time MLA Randhir Singh connects with the locals and attends football matches between villages. Mamleshwar Rai, a Bhumihar, agrees saying, “He’s there when we need him.” Neither mentions the infiltration debate. When asked if Muslim infiltrators were marrying tribal girls, a tribal youth in Gwalpipla village of Jamtara retorts, “Why will we allow it?”

In the Muslim-dominated Titmoh village of the district, Abdul Hakeem Ansari, a 66-year-old farmer, says his grandfather was born in Jharkhand. “I have the 1932 khatiyaan of land records. I am an Indian. I have rights here. I will fight for the country.”

Analysts in the state say it is difficult to distinguish infiltrators from local Muslims and those from West Bengal. “They speak the same language. It is a fact that the Muslim population has risen in Santhal Pargana region. The issue can invoke Hindu-Muslim sen­timents, but not so much the sentiments of the tribals, for whom all outsiders, whether from UP or Bihar, are of concern,” says Surendra Soren, a Ranchi-based tribal scholar and journalist. He, however, adds that he will not be surprised if the BJP wins.

Santosh Kiro, who teaches at Ranchi’s St Xavier’s College and has authored several books on various tribes, says BJP is try­ing to make the issue a tool to divide the Muslims and tribals, both of whom are JMM and Congress supporters. But it has not had the desired impact. “In a tribal versus non-tribal fight, BJP has an advantage as the tribal population is around 27 per cent. Hemant Soren wants to make it Jharkhandi politics. For him, Congress seats are a weak link,” says Kiro.

BJP sources say the party is fighting the election seat-by-seat, focusing on local issues. It is hoping to win at least ten of the 28 ST seats, while it strives to consolidate votes of the OBCs, upper castes, and Scheduled Castes. This time, it has revived its alliance with Sudesh Mahto’s All Jharkhand Students Union, which is targeting Kurmi votes, accounting for around 10 percent of the population. But, Jairam Mahato’s Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JKLM) has also entered the fray, galvanised by the votes he got fighting as an in­dependent in the Lok Sabha elections from Giridih, which AJSU’s one candidate Chandra Prakash Choudhary won. The JKLM could cut votes on both sides. As both JMM and BJP contend for the tribal vote, Hemant Soren has asked the Centre to grant the community its long-pending demand for a separate Sarna code, saying it would give a distinct religious identity to Sarnaism, which revolves around worship of nature. Months before the 2019 Assembly polls, Das had recommended to the Centre a separate religious code for Sarnas.

Through the smoke from the coal-fired stove, Sumitra Rai can be seen selling some of the last potato “chaap” (a local cutlet) to a couple of women, at her eatery in Jamtara’s Santhal Pipra village. There are just four left which she puts into a paper cone and hands over, along with some other snacks, all for `40. The small dhaba she has been running for the past four months is the only means of livelihood for her family, after the farm stopped yielding crops— rice and wheat— because of a lack of water in the village. “If Hemant Soren assures to include us in the ST category, I would vote for JMM. We want some facilities.” Sumitra says she has always voted for the lotus. She might again, or she may not. She has filled out a form to get the `1,000 under the Soren government’s scheme. “Dekhte hain [let’s see],” she says, flashing a wide smile, her eyes teary from the smoke.

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Amita Shah