Land, Governance, Hemant Soren: Why Jharkhand's Mundas Decided Against Boycotting the Elections

Khunti (Jharkhand): It was sometime in 2018 when the 70-year-old Thakura Munda switched his loyalty from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to the Congress. Thakura, a former mukhiya or chief, remains an influential figurehead in Omto village, deep inside the jungles of Khunti, around 60 kilometres from Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi.

“I have come to realise that (Narendra) Modi’s regime is all about ‘jiyo aur jaane do (live and let leave)’, while the Congress believes in ‘jiyo aur jeene do (live and let live)’,” Thakura said. 

“Modi has thought only about himself, his friends, his associates in industries, and has ignored our problems of jal, jangal, and zameen (water, forests, and land). Congress, too, doesn’t have a great track record but at least respected our ownership of forest land,” Thakura added. 

For decades, Thakura had worked among the Munda Adivasis of the region for the RSS, enrolled many of the Adivasi children in RSS-run schools like Saraswati Shishu Mandir and Ekal Vidyalayas, liaised with BJP leaders to find jobs for Adivasi youth and lobbied with the district administration for solutions to day-to-day problems of the village communities in Khunti. 

But the attempts made by the Raghubar Das-led BJP government in the state to abolish the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act 1908 (CNT) and Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act 1876 (SPT), that guaranteed for the Adivasis rights to their land and forests, led to a substantial uproar among a large section of tribal population of the state. 

Thakura Munda was one of the many among Mundas who began to doubt BJP’s intentions around this time. “Land is our mother. But the BJP created a land bank for industries in our traditional fields. Suddenly, we found that the land that we used for cattle herding, worship, village fairs and festivals, and even those patches where our schools and community centres stood could become a part of the land bank that could be given away for setting up industries,” Thakura said. 

“Our community felt anxious and uncertain about their future,” he said, “and that is when I decided to come out of the RSS’s fold and join our resistance movement.” Thakura spent a few months in prison for allegedly “disrupting peace” in the region after he took up the cause of “saving Adivasi land”. 

Polling in Khunti Lok Sabha is on May 13, 2024. The proposed land bank animates most election discussions among the Mundas of Omto and neighbouring Tilma village. 

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s arrest months ahead of the general elections have only added salt to the festering wound. “Hemant Soren became the chief minister because of our votes. We wanted to drive out the BJP from the state. His tenure is more receptive to our concerns. That is why he was arrested in a false case,” said Nandram Munda, who is currently employed with a pharmaceutical company.

A large number of residents of Omto and Tilma firmly believed that Hemant Soren’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a case related to illegal purchase of 8 acres of bhuihari land (traditionally-owned tribal land that can’t be sold or bought) is fabricated, and aimed to prevent him from campaigning against the BJP. 

The sympathy for Soren has only cemented the anti-BJP sentiment among the Munda residents in these Khunti villages, so much so that a BJP worker in Khunti town who spoke with The Wire believed that Soren’s arrest was poorly-timed. “Soren’s arrest has made things difficult for us. Mundas, who constitute almost 70% of Khunti’s electorate, have become suspicious of the BJP,” the 30-year-old BJP worker, who did not want to be named, said.

Thakura Munda felt that Soren was arrested “only because he is an Adivasi”. “So many of us were arrested for asserting our right to our own land, for no fault of ours. Our movement was entirely peaceful. The police disrupted the peace but we were arrested. Now when Soren is flagging some of these concerns, he has been silenced.”

Thakura agreed that the Prime Minister’s free ration and increased pensions for vulnerable groups have helped the community, but he also felt that “they are losing much more than what they have gained.”

“Everything is much more expensive. The schemes introduced by the Modi government haven’t really taken off,” pointed out Nandram, as he went on to show a water-less tank standing tall right at the centre of Omto. “The tank was built around two years ago under the Prime Minister’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission but it hasn’t had a drop of water until today,” Nandram said, adding that the villagers are still dependent on a well around a kilometre away for potable water. 

“The tank was supposed to be a replacement for two tubewells in the village. Now, neither the tubewells nor the tank are working. Officials say that they have no funds for repairing the tubewells, nor for installing a boring motor pump for the tank,” another resident of Omto, Sita Devi, said. 

She then pointed out at a dilapidated, unused structure near her house. “This was supposed to be our new Anganwadi Kendra [centre]. They raised the building but did not finish it, rendering it completely unusable. There are no doors, no washrooms, no electricity in there. Now, the villagers use it to store grains,” she said, adding that the Anganwadi functions now from the school building. 

Sita Devi said that the schools here function more as mid-day meal centres than teaching centres. “Children go to schools to eat. There is mostly khichdi in the meals although the government has prescribed a wholesome meal. There is only a single teacher but he is mostly absent. Even an eighth standard child can’t read a sentence properly.”

Nandram pointed out that there are “leakages” in almost every welfare scheme. “No one in the village uses the toilets constructed by the government as there is no water, nor sewage disposal systems in place. Many were eligible to avail themselves of the PM Awas Yojana but only a few got funds. Those who received funds, too, did not get the full amount because of corrupt officials. Even the free ration scheme is not properly implemented. We should get 5 kilograms of rice per person but we get only 4 kilograms. We don’t know where that one kilo goes.”   

The combination of factors like insecurity around land ownership, Soren’s arrest, and a corrupt nexus between officials and contractors have led to huge resentment among the Mundas. 

“Last year, we were thinking of boycotting elections as a mark of protest. But we changed our mind after Hemant Soren was arrested. Our vote will be to save democracy in India,” Nandram said.

Khunti, a reserved seat for Scheduled Tribes, has traditionally seen a neck-and-neck contest. Former BJP chief minister Arjun Munda, who is now a Union minister, is seeking his second term, while Congress’s Kalicharan Munda, who lost to Arjun Munda by a narrow margin of 1,445 votes in 2019, is contesting again. 

The Union minister, according to many with whom The Wire spoke with in Khunti, is being seen as an absentee MP. “He is battling some resentment on the ground for his absence but should still win because of Modi and almost 100% support from the Sadaan people (non-Adivasi communities),” the BJP worker said. 

On March 10, Union home minister Amit Shah kicked off his Jharkhand campaign from Khunti. Around 5,000 people attended the rally where he emphasised that “infiltrators” are the biggest threat to Adivasis and their rights. His speech indicated that the BJP is aware of the feeling of insecurity around land ownership in the region. He spoke about Modi’s welfare promises, Ram Mandir, the reading down of Article 370 in Kashmir, while adding that the Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s alleged “appeasement politics” is “anti-national” and “anti-development”, thus sticking to the party’s tactic of pitting Adivasis against Muslims.

However, Thakura Munda recalls how the anti-conversion bill that the Raghubar Das government has passed in the assembly is still a sore wound for many of them. “The anti-conversion bill divided the Adivasi community. Many of us who practice the Sarna faith, may have voted for the BJP earlier but we had no differences with our Christian brothers who, too, are Mundas. We ate together, celebrated our festivals together, and lived together without any feeling of prejudice. The anti-conversion bill tried to divide us, just like the way the Britishers tried to divide us through their laws.”

Speaking with The Wire, Congress candidate Kalicharan Munda said that he is canvassing around local issues and Rahul Gandhi’s “five guarantees”. “The biggest problem here is lack of irrigation because of which people have to heavily depend on rain for agriculture,” he said.

“We are also determined to reclaim Adivasi land from the proposed land bank. Many patches of land where Adivasis used to worship, or cattle rearing, or village fairs have been included in the lank bank. We will resist it,” he said.

Kalicharan Munda said that Arjun Munda has nothing to show of his own. “For how long will you dupe people. You have been getting votes in the name of Modi. But for how long? You should also have something to show, something that you did on your own,” he said, while expressing confidence that Arjun Munda’s poor performance will also draw non-Adivasi communities towards the Congress this time around.

The contest in Khunti is all geared up to be fierce. Many had initially believed that the fight would be bi-polar but not anymore. Two prominent candidates – Aparna Hans of the Jharkhand Party and Babita Kashyap, of the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), who was also one of the top leaders of Pathalgadi movement – are in the electoral fray. While Kashyap enjoys individual popularity, Jharkhand Party has traditionally had a strong base in Khunti. 

The BJP is hoping that the two candidates cut into Congress’s votes, while it secures its traditional non-Adivasi votes and create a winning combination with a section of non-Munda Adivasis. Yet, it won’t be easy for union minister Arjun Munda who is, perhaps, facing his toughest election.