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| Jharkhand: The Tribal Paradox |
| Sunday December 6, 2009 |
| Does Madhu Koda represent the failure of tribal leadership in Jharkhand? A new government by Christmas could be 'historic' for Jharkhand where governments are short lived but government formation is long drawn. History could also be made in another crucial way. In a state where all the four chief ministers so far have been tribal - a record in itself - this time a non-tribal could get the job. Courtesy Madhu Koda, political parties are feeling emboldened to drop the holy cow. Politicians from both the BJP and Congress have gone on record asking for a non Adivasi chief minister. Others too find it easier to say the unspeakable. A university professor not wanting to be quoted says: Bureaucracy is like a horse. It throws a weak jockey. And surrenders to a strong jockey. Weak, ineffective, inexperienced, greedy, corrupt. The terms used for the Adivasi leaders of Jharkhand could have been borrowed from Uttar Pradesh's vocabulary for Mayawati and the Dalit leadership. In Ranchi, the eminent newspaper editor Hariwansh finds the whole business odious. 'Why see Madhu Koda as a corrupt Adivasi neta? How is his Adivasi identity relevant? We have equal number of non Adivasi ministers who have been found to be corrupt. If Enos Ekka is in jail for corruption, so is Harinarayan Rai.' ( In case the names were not enough : Ekka is tribal, Rai is non tribal. Both are co-ministers behind bars for corruption). The anti tribal tirade can be put down to prejudice, but what explains the deeper paradox of Jharkhand : a state where tribal leaders are powerful and popular enough to win from unreserved seats - Babulal Marandi being an apt case, he won from Koderma, a general seat - but where tribal areas remain in deep unrest, alienated, or worse still seething with violence and vulnerable to extremist ideologies. 'In Ramayana, when Ram is sent to exile, Kubadi says what do I have to do with the King?' The reference is missed till Devendra Champiya clarifies, 'Like the maid in Dashrath's palace, who says Ram's exile makes little difference to her existence, Dalits and Tribals have historically remained indifferent to political upheaval. But the difference is that even though Dalits lived on the margins, at least they were in physical and social proximity to mainstream society. Tribals instead stayed in relative isolation, away from the Aryans. When democracy came, the Dalits were better placed to respond to political change, while Tribals first had to come to terms with the end of isolation.' Champiya is an old world politician who could both win an election and a legal argument. Three times MLA, minister, speaker in Bihar assembly, member of Tribal Advisory Council, he does not find the labels used to describe tribal politicians derogatory - despite being tribal himself. In fact he says he would prefer a non tribal to head the government, since he is tired with tribal chief ministers who do not care to read or understand their own history. And the history requires careful reading. The Adivasis of Jharkhand - the Mundas, Santhals, Hos, Oraons - each have their separate and combined histories of taking on the British in the nineteenth century. The British in turn responded by conceding tribals relative political autonomy and giving tribal lands a distinct protected status. The Indian constitution stayed with the idea. Much before the rest of the world had discovered the rights of indigenous people, India recognized the special nature of tribal lands and people, and its constitution reflected that. Nehru took it one step further. Inspired by the anthropologist Verrier Elwin, he laid down five principles, or Panchsheel, that added philosophy, even poetry to India's stance on respecting tribal land rights and allowing tribal society to develop along the lines of its own genius. But the same Nehru also embarked on a massive industrialization push, taking the modern industrial world deeper into tribal land. Today the two opposing tendencies of the Indian state are on collision course. Nowhere more than in Jharkhand, a state ostensibly created to give political space to tribals, but which in the shortest possible time signed up close to a hundred MoUs. If a tribal Chief Minister Arjun Munda legally invited industry to take over tribal land, another tribal Chief Minister Madhu Koda illegally bartered away some more. Maybe it is more pertinent to ask - do leaders like Madhu Koda represent the failure of leadership for tribals? NEXT IN THE SERIES : The Mining Maze EARLIER IN THE SERIES - Jharkhand : A State of Misery |
Supriya Sharma is a roving reporter.
