The mainstream media is underplaying this fact, the blow the Bharatiya Janata Party suffered in Jharkhand is much more devastating than the one sustained by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance in Maharashtra.
If complacency and misplaced confidence are the causes behind the defeat of Congress and two breakaway factions of Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, in the tribal heartland the saffron party, by its sheer ineptness, gifted the state to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance.
Failure of RSS
While the media is highlighting the dedication with which the volunteers of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worked overtime in bringing about the big victory for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the Western state, in Jharkhand the citadel of Sangh Parivar appears to be crumbling though it was till recently one of its strongest bastions in the country. For this poor show in Jharkhand, none else but the RSS and BJP bigwigs are responsible. Why had the RSS workers not campaigned door-to-door (as in Maharashtra), or if they had done so, why it did not yield results?
The irony is that hardly any journalists—yes even the secularist lot–are asking this uncomfortable question from the BJP. In contrast, they are busy hailing the saffron brigade for their wonderful performance in Maharashtra. They have every right to blast Rahul Gandhi, Uddhav Thackeray, and Sharad Pawar, but in the same way, accountability should be fixed for the humiliating defeat of the BJP in Jharkhand.
There is no doubt that INDIA, also known as Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra lacked organizational capability and inherent cohesiveness to take on the resourceful war machine of the BJP. The three constituents of INDIA could not coordinate and there was no chief ministerial candidate. True, they rose to the occasion in the parliamentary election but the Assembly polls are a different ball-game.
The stark truth is that there was no shortage of rumblings within the NDA with Ajit Pawar of NCP, Ashok Chavan, and Pankaja Munde of BJP itself criticizing Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for “Baten Gay to Katen Gay” remarks. Upon this Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP strongly came into the defence of Yogi. The whole controversy sparked off the speculation that Ajit Pawar may ditch the NDA after the election.
If the NDA managed to still win despite all these odds it does not mean that everything was hunky-dory within it.
Jharkhand disaster
In contrast, in Jharkhand, the BJP has a very well-oiled election machinery. Yet the party suffered the worst defeat in the last three decades. It needs to be asked as to who are responsible for 26.2% Adivasis and almost the same number of Kurmi-Mahtos turning away from the saffron party? Kurmi Mahtos of Jharkhand are somewhat different from Kurmis of the rest of India. They were till the 1931 Census considered tribals and they are once again seeking this status. At present, they are on the OBC list.
The Adivasis in particular did not only desert the BJP and its allies All Jharkhand Students Union, Janata Dal (United), and Lok Janshakti Party candidates, but they turned hostile towards the saffron party. On the other hand, a section of Kurmi-Mahato has shown enough signs of drifting away from NDA. Of late AJSU came to be known as the party of Kurmi Mahtos as it is led by former deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahto. However, the emergence of a young leader from within the community, Jairam Mahto, who formed Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha just before the election, not only weakened the AJSU but also the BJP.
As Jairam too aggressively campaigned against the outsiders, one is reminded of the heydays of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. This time Jairam contested on his own, but one cannot deny the possibility of he is being wooed by the JMM. If this happens it would come as a big blow to the BJP as Adivasis and Kurmi-Mahtos together form more than half of the population. One cannot forget the fact that the JMM was formed in 1972 by Hemant Soren’s father, Shibu Soren, Binod Bihari Mahto, and A K Roy.
Early consolidation of Sangh
It needs to be mentioned that the Sangh Parivar had consolidated its position as early as the 1960s. With the help of branches of Vanvashi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS-backed organization, the then Bharatiya Jan Sangh fully exploited the situation created after the displacement of about 40 lakh tribals and even Kurmi-Mahtos following the early years of industrialization. Though the Sangh entered the jungles of Jharkhand to check the works of Christian missionaries, the truth is that these homeless Adivasis were used as cannon fodder in anti-Muslim communal riots, especially during Ram Navami, in cities like Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Hazaribagh, etc.
As the then Jharkhand Party (earlier known as Adivasi Mahasabha) of tribal icon Jaipal Singh Munda had merged with the Congress in 1963 and there was no other prominent platform for the tribals to voice their anger, the Sangh provided them with an alternative opportunity.
The JMM came into being in 1972, but by then the Sangh had entrenched itself deep in the Jharkhand region of the then Bihar.
Even during the height of the post-Mandal Assembly election of 1995, the BJP managed to do very well in this part of Bihar-Jharkhand and was hewed out from it on November 15, 2000. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Janata Dal swept the election in the rest of the state.
The JMM alone could not win more seats than the BJP even during its earlier days. That is why it had to often join hands with the Congress or Janata Dal, later Rashtriya Janata Dal. The then Atal Bihari
Vajpayee government accepted the demand of a separate state for Adivasis.
Turning point
The BJP ruled the new state for about 13 out of the first 19 years. But after the 2014 Assembly election victory, the party nominated Raghubar Das, a non-tribal as the chief minister. This was the turning point and revived the whole outsider-aboriginal debate.
Das, a Teli (the caste to which PM Narendra Modi belongs), had ancestral roots in neighbouring Chhattisgarh. In the state created in the name of Adivasis, this was something unthinkable. Not only that, the Das government adopted the land acquisition policy which suited the corporate lobby but was always opposed by the tribals as well as Kurmi-Mahtos.
The tribals launched the Pathalgadi movement in protest against the amendment to the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act of 1949. Apart from Adivasis, Kurmi-Mahtos, and Scheduled Castes were also affected by the Das government’s policies. This movement was brutally crushed and a large number of Adivasis were thrown into jail. It was only after the coming to power of the Hemant Soren government five years back that the cases were lifted from them.
The crude manner in which the BJP government tried to thrust its policies turned the Adivasis away from the saffron party, which lost the election. Raghubar Das lost from his own East Jamshedpur Assembly
seat.
As if that was not enough, Hemant Soren was arrested on January 31. This amounted to rubbing salt into the wounds of tribals.
The BJP bigwigs realized that the sail is not going to be smooth this time. So, out of panic, they cooked up the Bangladeshi infiltration theory, which backfired.
The Adivasis and even a sizeable section of Kurmi Mahtos felt that the BJP was playing up this unfounded story to distract the attention from the real issue. The battle was essentially between the outsiders and aboriginal population and there was no scope for Bangladeshi to become an election issue.
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