New Delhi: ‘Tiger’ is an honorary title that the people of Jharkhand have awarded to politicians of different hues over the years. In a state with one of the largest forest covers in India, the honour is not merely titular but an earning that acknowledges the commitment of a politician for people’s causes and concerns. It combines traits like character, fearlessness and leadership into one single whole.
Former chief minister and a leader of the Adivasis, Champai Soren, for instance, earned the moniker ‘Kolhan Tiger’ (Kolhan is an Adivasi-dominated region in the southeastern part of the state) for his sustained leadership in the struggles for Adivasi rights through his political life.
There is, however, a new ‘Tiger’ on Jharkhand’s horizon – Jairam Mahato. He registered his decisive presence in the recently concluded assembly polls, in which the INDIA bloc led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) trounced the BJP-led NDA with a comprehensive majority, increasing its vote shares by a good margin from the Lok Sabha polls and also made decisive inroads in BJP strongholds.
‘Tiger Jairam’: birth of a new political icon
Twenty-nine-year-old Jairam shot into fame all of a sudden sometime in June 2022 when he gave a rousing speech at a public meeting in a tiny peri-urban settlement called Topchachi near the coal town of Dhanbad.
He and his friends opposed the Hemant Soren government’s decision to include languages like Bhojpuri, Magahi and Angika in state-level recruitment examinations. Instead, he demanded the Jharkhandi languages be included as official languages and that employment for “locals” be promoted.
Although the protests remained concentrated in the north Chotanagpur plateau, their message reached almost every nook and corner of the state, commanding wide attention from job aspirants and students. As the protests rocked the state, the Soren government was forced to withdraw the order in three districts, but not before the protestors were met with brute force.
Jairam’s protests weren’t isolated. The concerns around Jharkhandi identity remain politically relevant even 24 years after the state was carved out of Bihar. The north Chotanagpur plateau and Adivasi-dominated regions like Kolhan and Santhal Pargana together were the hotbeds for movements demanding a separate Jharkhand state since the 1970s.
Adivasi leader Shibu Soren, OBC leader Binod Bihari Mahato and Leftist leader A.K. Roy came together to lead one of the fiercest class and identity struggles to demand a separate state that also went on to create a Jharkhandi-Bihari binary. The resonance of the divide can be heard across the state even in current times.
The JMM itself was founded on the premise of Jharkhandi identity. However, its collective leadership fragmented after the creation of a separate state, scattering the Left and isolating the Kurmi or Mahato community, even as a strong Adivasi leadership emerged in the state.
Ever since Jairam shot to the limelight by successfully leading the language movement, he expanded his politics to the core concerns of Jharkhandi identity and took them up aggressively.
When he renewed the demand to implement the 1932 Khatiyan (which would recognise only those people as Jharkhand’s indigenous people whose family names were registered in land records from 1932) and demanded 90% reservation for Jharkhandis on the basis of the records, he re-energised a long-standing demand. The JMM and other Adivasi groups have been old supporters of the demand but had deprioritised it after they became prominent electoral players.
Jairam’s demands, along with his ability for straight-talking, courage to take on the police and a charisma that has energised young men and women across marginalised communities, have now made him a youth icon in the state. He has duly earned his title of ‘tiger’.
Freshly energised by his politics, Kurmis look to Jairam to lead their community
The issues that he has raised also reflect the way Jharkhand has matured over the years. In its initial years, Jharkhand struggled to put state systems in place and dealt with chaotic political situations. But after two stable governments in the last decade, the old concerns of Jharkhandis are back in business, with ‘Tiger Jairam’ at the forefront to lead the pack.
For Jairam to pick such issues was only natural. He was born in 1995 in the Maantand village of Dhanbad. He claims to have come from a family that had played an active role in the statehood movement.
The language movement catapulted him to the political mise en scène, following which he and some other student leaders formed the Jharkhandi Bhasha Sangharsh Khatian Samiti (JBSKS) in June 2023.
Jairam became the face of new-age politics. His bold speeches became viral on social media. The violent police action against his language movement earned him both sympathy and solidarity. His open challenges to the JMM and the BJP, and even the Sudesh Mahato-led All Jharkhand Students Union, on the common issues of Jharkhand transformed him into a celebrity among the youth.
At the same time, the Kurmis, who claim to form over 15% of the state population, looked up to him as someone who could replace the much-weakened Sudesh as their community’s leader in the future. That Jairam openly ridiculed Sudesh for compromising his ideals for the sake of power only emboldened such a perception.
A large section of Kurmis believe that they were wrongfully relegated by JMM supremo Shibu Soren to a secondary position after the state was formed, despite the community having played a significant role in the statehood movement.
Kurmis like to refer to themselves as moolnivasi (indigenous) and assert their Jharkhandi identity over their OBC status. Over the years, they have also nursed a hope that the state may get a chief minister belonging to the Mahato community, and pinned their hopes on Sudesh for a long time.
But as Sudesh’s electoral prospects took a hit in the last few years, Jairam’s aggressive stances and ability to unite a large section of people has infused fresh energy into the community.
Jairam, his JLKM party experience electoral successes
That Jairam will be a force to reckon with was evident even in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In his maiden election as an independent candidate, he polled 3.47 lakh votes from the Giridih constituency and finished third by a margin of 20,000 votes. Two other JBSKS leaders also registered a strong presence in the Lok Sabha polls.
In August 2024, Jairam registered a new party with the Election Commission. It was named the Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM) and it almost immediately registered an impressive show in its very first elections.
The JLKM made it a point to drive its agenda – surrounding Jharkhandi identity and 90% reservations for Jharkhandi youth in jobs – home. The party also promised that if their leaders were elected, they would donate 75% of their salaries to public welfare, while also pledging to crack down on widespread corruption at the district and block levels.
The party also ensured that it remained secular in character. It cultivated Muslim and Adivasi leaders along the lines of Jharkhandi identity and took strong exception to the BJP’s Hindutva politics.
As the assembly polls drew closer, concerted attempts by both the BJP and the JMM to weaken the JLKM led to some of its prominent faces deserting Jairam. Some joined the BJP, while some went to the JMM. But the movement that Jairam and his friends started left its mark in the assembly polls.
Jairam won the Dumri seat, considered to be an impenetrable fortress of JMM leader Jagarnath Mahato. Jagarnath was a hugely popular leader in the region before he died in April 2023 owing to health complications. His wife Bebi Devi contested against Jairam but lost by a little over 10,000 votes.
Jairam could not win his second seat Bermo, but finished second with over 60,000 votes, pushing BJP candidate and former MP Ravindra Pandey to the third position.
Many of Jairam’s supporters in Jharkhand go on talking about how he dodged all bullets in the run-up to the elections. “He was offered a Rajya Sabha seat by the BJP; both the BJP and JMM even offered him some seats in their coalitions, but Jairam was clear that he would chart his own course for the sake of Jharkhand,” said Sudhanshu Mahato, a Hazaribagh-based JLKM worker.
The JLKM contested 71 of the 81 seats in the state but impacted the results in as many as 14 seats with a little over 6% of the votes in the polls, playing a decisive role at the end. Only Jairam could win from his party, but many of its candidates showed through the number of votes they garnered that the party is here to stay.
His elevation to the state’s political stage may have usurped Sudesh’s position as the most prominent OBC politician in the state. Despite being a part of the BJP-led coalition, Sudesh lost from his pocket-borough of Silli near Ranchi to Congress candidate Amit Kumar.
Jairam’s present and future can be gauged from a conversation that this correspondent had in Dumri with a group of young men who belonged to the Mandal community, which has largely preferred the BJP over other parties in the last few elections.
“Is chunaav mein hamara vote hamare bhavishya ke liye hoga [Our vote will be to secure our future in this election],” said Suresh Mandal, a 21-year-old student who also doubles up as a mechanic, about his preference for Jairam. “We have also convinced our mummies and daddies to vote for him,” he added.
Jairam represents a new hope in Jharkhand at the moment. He is also seen as an “extremist” and even an “anarchist” by established leaders. Yet, he has emerged as the new ‘Tiger’ on the block – even as his older counterparts like ‘Kolhan Tiger’ Champai Soren is being perceived to have lost his way after he joined the BJP, a ‘Diku party’ (party of outsiders) according to many Ho Adivasis in Kolhan.
