The Narendra Modi Government, by organising Birsa Munda Jayanti, tried to woo the Adivasi community ahead of the 2024 elections. Modi is more concerned about Adivasi votes than touching the core issues of their lives.

The Adivasi community is unhappy as the Narendra-Modi Government observed the day as a pride day for the scheduled tribes (Janjatiya Gaurav Divas). Moreover, theAdivasi people are disappointed to see that the real issues of the community such as water, forest, land, resources, culture and religion, have been ignored in the din of “the celebration”.

The Adivasi community has even raised a core objection to the naming of the official function. Adivasis, particularly those from central India, are not comfortable to be identified as Janjatiya (tribe). Nor do they like to be called Vanvasi (the forest dwellers). Remember that the RSS has been working for decades in Adivasi areas. The saffron organisation with a clearly supremacist agenda, has been accused of trying to create a division among Adivasis on religious lines, pitting Sarna Adivasi against Christian and Muslim Adivasis.

However, Adivasi scholars and activists have expressed their opposition to the category of “tribe” as it originated from the writings of colonial anthropologists. Similarly, the term Vanvasi, according to them, is an RSS invention, which is being used to forcefully assimilate the Adivasi community into the Hindu fold. Instead of the terms “tribe” or Vanvasi, the Adivasi community wants to be called nothing else than Adivasi.

The real reason why the ruling classes are not comfortable with the term “Adivasi” is the fact that they do not want to call any community as the indigenous peoples. In their appropriationist (and communal) understanding, all Hindus are “indigenous” and it is the Muslim and Christian minorities are “foreigners”. By doing so, they want to forge a constructed, communal majority, an agenda which is opposed by the Adivasi community.

The ruling elites fear that if the scheduled tribes are officially identified as “Adivasi”, their claim for protection and autonomy from the state’s intervention for being an indigenous community will get a boost.

However, the right to self-determination has been one of the core agendas of the Adivasi community, which they have inherited from the legacy of Birsa Munda. To dilute this, the state intellectuals have often reduced the Adivasi question to the debate around the extent to which they have been assimilated within the Hindu society.

Unlike the ruling elites and the state intellectuals, the Indian Constitution has made several provisions related to autonomy of the Adivasi community. The Constitution also gives Adivasis the protection from any encroachment on their lands, resources and culture. But these constitutional provisions have barely been implemented by the executives. Post-independence governments have so far followed the top-down approach, leading to alienation of the Adivasi community. This is why it took Indian Parliament, 56 years after Independence and the enactment of the Vth and VIth Schedules of the Constitution. The Modi Government has further alienated the Adivasi community by enacting laws that deny absolute access of Adivasis and other forest dwellers to land and resources nurtured by them for centuries.

But unlike the top-down approach, the struggles of Birsa Munda were primarily aimed at achieving self-determination and autonomy for the Adivasi community. He was aware of the fact that the British colonial rule, which was facilitated by the native elites including landlords and money lenders, was depriving the Adivasi community of its lands and forests.

Eminent historian professor Sumit Sarkar (Modern India) has argued that tension arose in the Adivasi areas soon after British rule introduced commercialization and brought in laws to promote landlordism. From the late nineteenth century, the colonial state began to take over the forest zone, causing further anger among Adivasis. As a result, there were several violent outbursts against the exploiters. Birsa Munda-led Ulgulan (great tumult) in 1899-1900 was one of them.

The Adivasi community was outraged to see the colonial policies, which increased taxes on timber and grazing. Moreover, there were increased instances of police exactions. Moreover, colonial policies restricted the domestic production of toddy. There was a restriction on shifting cultivation, which was resisted by Birsa Munda.

Birsa Munda was the son of a sharecropper. He got some education from a Christian missionary. He later took part in movements against the taking over of the wasteland by the forest departments. Later colonial rule crushed Birsa’smovement as he was jailed where he died. there Almost one century after his death, Birsa’s fighting spirit continued to inspire the Adivasi community.

According to the 2011 Census, the Adivasi community constitutes around 8.6 per cent of the total population. The Adivasi population is indeed found both scattered in some regions as well as concentrated in other regions. But the largest chunk of the population, which is estimated to be over 85 per cent, live in central India. It is this region which is rich in all mineral resources and forest products. The largest concentration of the poor people are found in these natural resource-rich regions. For the exploitation of the Adivasi community, the development paradigm of the country is much to blame.

Even after the end of colonialism, post-colonial Indian policy did not end the process of colonisation of the Adivasi areas. While the entry of the poor Adivasi into the forest areas to gather forest products for livelihood is seen as an “encroachment” in a democratic and socialist country, the massive exploitation of the natural resources by the corporate forces with the assistance of the state machinery and the police is seen as good for the development of the country. It is this exploitative policy which Birsa Munda opposed at the beginning of the twentieth century. But the official function to celebrate the legacy of Birsa Munda tries to appropriate him by projecting him as a “hero”, “god”, and “nationalist” leader against British rule, while hiding his core concerns.

But the historical fact is that Birsa Munda fought against dikus or the outsiders. It is this revolutionary politics of Birsa Munda that the current regime does not want to touch.

(Dr Abhay Kumar is an independent journalist. He has taught political science at NCWEB Centres of Delhi University. Email: debatingissues@gmail.com)

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On Sunday, over 1,000 Adivasis took to the streets of Bankura in West Bengal to protest the recent ‘insult’ to Adivasi warrior and freedom fighter Birsa Munda. On November 5, during his recent visit to West Bengal, Union Home Minister Amit Shah ended up offering ‘floral tributes’ to a picture of Birsa Munda that was placed at the foot of a generic statue of a tribal warrior.

What had happened was that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members had at first misidentified the statue itself as that of Birsa Munda, a man many Adivasis consider akin to god. But when they discovered their mistake, they just placed a picture of Munda at the foot of the statue and the ceremony just went on.

At the protest by Adivasis on Sunday, over 1,000 people belonging to different tribal communities participated in a rally from Lalbazaar to Machantala protesting how Shah’s actions had “undermined” Birsa Munda. The rally ended just before West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reached Bankura.

Sunil Kumar Mandi, the district president of the All-India Adivasi Bikash Parishad told The Telegraph, “We tried to get the attention of our chief minister through our protest rally as she reached the district today (Sunday). The protest is against the move to humiliate our hero, Birsa Munda, as Amit Shah paid tribute to a hunter’s statue and garlanded a photograph of Munda kept by the feet of the statue.”

The statue fiasco just shows how little Amit Shah or his party members know about the history and contributions of this legendary Adivasi leader who valiantly organised the first Adivasi rebellion against the British and was killed in June 1900, at the age of just 25!

Shah was visiting Bankura, an Adivasi dominated district as a part of preparations for the upcoming state assembly elections next year. The tribal vote is critical for the party, which is why a crash course in Adivasi history and some homework would have helped the BJP. But instead of expressing regret at his mistake, Shah tweeted the embarrassing photos of the event!

Paid floral tributes to legendary tribal leader Bhagwan Birsa Munda ji in Bankura, West Bengal today.

Birsa Munda ji’s life was dedicated towards the rights and upliftment of our tribal sisters & brothers. His courage, struggles and sacrifices continue to inspire all of us. pic.twitter.com/1PYgKiyDuY

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 5, 2020

This understandably rubbed the state’s significant Adivasi population the wrong way., and the Trinamool Congress wasted no time in pointing out how BJP will always be a party of ‘outsiders’.

‘Bohiragato’ are at it again!

Union Home Minister @AmitShah is so ignorant of Bengal’s culture that he insulted Bhagwan Birsa Munda by garlanding a wrong idol & placed his photo at someone else’s foot. Will he ever respect Bengal?#BengalAsksAmitShahhttps://t.co/045lw50TV2

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) November 6, 2020

The Telegraph reported that last week the TMC in Bankura had decided to flood Shah’s letterbox with 50,000 postcards written by tribal residents of Jungle Mahal districts, seeking his apology. A statue of Birsa Munda was also being planned in the area, for which land had already been identified.

This is the second time when the BJP has had an embarrassing encounter with the statue of a respected icon in West Bengal. It may be recalled that in May 2019, during a rally by Amit Shah in Kolkata, party workers of the BJP vandalised a statue of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, an intellectual and social reformer known best for his campaign for Hindu widow remarriage.   

Related:

Amit Shah’s epic faux pas in West Bengal!

Vidyasagar Statue Row: Kolkata tense as Videos emerge showing BJP cadres desecrating statue

Violent clashes in Kolkata at Amit Shah’s Roadshow

When a War against Oppression First Began: The Santhal Rebellion

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“Community” has always been at the core of Adivasi identity, said Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) Jharkhand coordinator Gurjeet Singh on November 15, 2020 the 145th birth anniversary of Adivasi freedom fighter Birsa Munda and the twentieth anniversary of the creation of the state of Jharkhand, at the Memorial Trust office in Putki area of Dhanbad district.

On Sunday, that was also celebrated as the Jharkhand foundation day, Singh said talked about tribal beliefs and sentiments that helped people retain their land and ownership rights.

Following proper rituals and a warm welcome from Memorial Trust President Bagi, his wife Meena Bagi and Secretary Baleshwar Bauri, Singh remembered the Adivasi movement led by Birsa Munda that led to the creation of the Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act that prohibited the transfer of tribal land to non-tribal people.

“Adivasis bestow the title of ‘mother’ to their land and believe that no one can hold ownership over their Mother. As a result, they did not believe in documenting a proof of their land. This led to the movement inspired by their eviction from ancestral land that ultimately gave them land, water and forest rights,” he said.

Speaking about Adivasis’ community sentiment, Singh said that Adivasis assumed equal land ownership rights to humans, birds, animals alike. Further Adivasis have always considered the water, jungle and land of Birsa Munda, a part of their heritage just as they consider cleanliness a traditional heritage.

“This priority to sanitation is the reason that not a single Adivasi has suffered from the coronavirus pandemic,” he said.

Birsa Munda was affectionately remembered as “Dharti Aaba” (Father of Earth) for his dedication to a healthy Adivasi community. Singh stated that Jharkhand could not become a truly independent state until Birsa Munda’s hope to reform the Adivasi community free of the belief of witchcraft came to fruition.

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Birsa Munda died a martyr in the Ranchi jail on June 9, 1900 at the young age of 25. He had been arrested on March 3 that year by the British police while he slept with the tribal guerrilla army he had formed, in Jamkopai forest in Chakradharpur. Like Bhagat Singh the revolutionary who died so young, Birsa Munda’s fiery band of activism has inspired generations. He is the stuff of what folk legends are made omnipresent in popular and folk literature, academia, and mass media.
 
But today on his 142^nd birth anniversary let’s ask is the state that as formed on his 125^th birth anniversary actually protecting the dignity and rights of tribals?
 

Incarceration
Prabhat Khabar reported that 4,000 Adivasis of Jharkand falsely charged as ‘Naxals’ languish in the jails of Jharkand. 1307 Jharkhandis have been arrested and 88 of them are supposed to have surrendered. (Source: Prabhat Khabar, Ranchi ed., 1 Sept. 2017).   Some independent studies indicate that 27 persons [22 in 2016 and 5 in 2017) were killed in so-called ‘encounters’ by the police. (Bagaicha, Ranchi, documentation)
 

A quick look at a timeline of the state’s repression of agitations over the past years tells a grim story.

Malnutrition

In early November 2017, a rickshaw-puller reportedly died of hunger at his house in Jharia last Friday evening. His wife claimed that he had not eaten anything for the past two days. However the district administration rubbished the allegation arguing that 45-year-old Baijnath Ravidas, a resident of Bhalgora Tarabank in the coal mines rich district, was suffering from a disease.

Poor Disenfranchised

A month earlier, news of Jharkand’s poor been struck of the ration card and pensioners list made the news. 11,64,000 ration cards cancelled as ‘fake’: 2,71,000 old-age pensioners have been declared ‘fake’; pruning of MGNREGA applicants as ‘fake’. The Jharkhand government published  a full page advertisement on September 22, enumerating its achievements during the 1000 days it has been in power.  Among the ‘achievements’ there is one item in the list that details of how it has cancelled 11,64,000 ‘fake ration cards’ leading to saving Rs.225 crores. Similarly, the state government has also ‘cancelled; 2,71,000 old-age pension documents and saved Rs.86 crores. Again, the state government claimed that it has saved Rs.203 crores by pruning MGNREGA ‘fake applicants’.  This is peddled like and appears to be a huge achievement of the govt. What this has meant is that large numbers of poor have been disenfranchised and left out the meagre social welfare schemes.
 

State Leadership Contemptuous of Adivasis and Dalits

In September 2017, the state government put out a controversial advertisement describing Tribals and Dalits are described as “simple and mute as cows”. The Chief Minister, allowed an advertisement with his photo and that of “Bappu” reducing the Tribals and Dalits to the level of cows.

Social Welfare Schemes on Paper

Social welfare schemes for STs and SCs in Jharkand remain on paper: Perusing the long list of developmental and welfare schemes meant for SCs and STs in Jharkand is like stepping into a dream-world. There are 49 schemes jointly undertaken by the central & state governments. This is apart from about 40 other schemes meant for the general population under the banner of rural development. The state bureaucracy iself violates the PESA Act which says “Gram Sabha shall be responsible for the identification and selection of persons as beneficiaries under the poverty alleviation and other programmes” [PESA 4.e.(ii)]. So the whole selection process of those chosen as beneficiaries is both illegal and ultra vires.

The much The much spoken about SC Sub Plan [SCSP]and Tribal Sub Plan [TSP] are implemented half heartedly, the irony being big sums from these schemes are diverted for general schemes such as road construction, panchayat building, stadiums etc with the justification that SCs and STs also use these facilities!

Worst Offender the Jharkand State Created in Name of Adivasis

Jharkand government has been accused of the ‘loot of adivasi land’, and it has taken place in the following manner: (i)  land alienation and consequent displacement. From the time of independenceup to now a staggering 24 lakh acres of land has been forcibly acquired all in the name of development. Consequently, 17 lakh adivasis have been displaced. The sad fact is not a single adivasi person or community has ever been rehabilitated because it involves not only resettlement in another place of their choice but also social and cultural bonds preserved intact. Only a minimal cash compensation was thrust upon them and after that they were neatly forgotten.

Repressive Laws in Jharkand
(ii) CNT/SPT Acts amendments being forcibly enforced in Jharkhand is yet another blow to the Adivasi people insofar as it aims to transfer agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. This implicitly means non-adivasis from within or without the country can acquire adivasi land for setting up commercial and business enterprises and govt can take agricultural land for infrastructural purposes. This is as good as finishing off this protective legislation. Happily there is wholesale resistance to this deceptive action of the govt and even the Governor has returned the bill asking the govt to re-consider this proposed legislation.

(iii) Land Bank is the most recent innovation to rob adivasi land from the back door. The govt proudly announced during the investors meeting in February this year that it has put together 21 lakh acres of land in Land Bank and therefore the investors will not have to face the problem of how to acquire land in Scheduled Areas.  It has now come to light the govt stealthily ear-marked the ‘Commons’, namely the common facilities of the village community such as ponds, cattle-grazing grounds, roads, places of religious worship, burial grounds, rivulets and even rivers as part of land bank! There is also private family land that is not cultivated but used for other needs that has also been included in land bank. And all this has been done without even informing and getting the consent of concerned families and communities. This action of the govt goes against constitutional and legal provisions.
 

Fake Land Deals

(iv) Fake land-deeds alienating thousands of acres of adivasi land are being reported in the print media recently. More than 1000 such fake deeds during the past 16 years have been unearthed.[Prabhat Khabar, 19 June 2017]. Those who are guilty of doing this are mostly non-adivasi-outsiders who are very adept in bribing govt functionaries and make out the needed fake documents. So there is a collusion of govt officials, politicians, contractors, land brokers, middle men most of whom are non-adivasi-outsiders have been working overtime to cheat the simple adivasi and deprive him of his cherished natural resources. Can there be a greater injustice than this cruel game?

Put briefly, the government’s developmental & welfare schemes have not made any difference in terms of betterment to most of SC / ST people. What is the use of decorating the tree’s branches with schemes that are either not responding to their real needs or they are not accessible to them?

Protests Against Amendments in Laws Repressively Put Down

Between July-October 2016,Jharkand erupted in conflict last year (July-November) as amendements in laws were pushed through to dilute the say of peoples and communities over what could or should be done with their lands.

 
Firing on NTPCs
In October 2016, in a gruesome incident, early morning on Saturday, the Jharkhand police is said to have left five persons dead and many injured as it opened fire on the villagers protesting “forcible land acquisition” for a thermal power plant being built by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in district Hazaribagh, Chirdudih area. 

The firing, according to independent sources, has left five people dead, 12 critically injured and nearly 50 injured. There is a curfew in the area, and outsiders can’t go, and many missing are yet to be traced, these sources added.

While protests against the NTPC plant have been going on since 2010, when the project was announced, critics says, till date far acquired 8,056 acres of land acquired, most it “forcibly and fraudulently.”

This has happened despite the fact that, it is suggested, many issues even on the acquired land remains to be resolved, including higher compensation, employment and so on. 
 
Post Script
Jharkand has also seen the brute attack on minorities apart from Adivasis. The A Muslim Dairy Owner Thrashed. Believed Dead, House Set on Fire on ‘Suspicion’ of Cow Slaughter in June 2017.
 
Jharkand has seen a spate of brutal killings, lynchings since March 2016 when Mazlum Ansari and his nephew Imtiyaz were lynched and hung to die. Thereafter too there have been a series of attacks, assaults and killings. The last one was last friday after the Alvida Namaz on the Friday before Eid, on June 23 when 24 year old Mohammad Salman was allegedly shot dead by a posse of policeman. One arms guard is even under arrest after confessing to the crime. The National Commission of Minorities (NCM) even brought out a report on the deep rooted communal polarisation in Jharkand, even within the police force after the Latehar hangings.

In early April 2017, a Maulvi was brutally assaulted at Kodarma and thereafter in May 2017 rumours of child lifting had left many Muslims and some Hindus dead.

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