The afternoon azan (call for prayer) rings out as the thick brown sludge of the Ganga winds south towards its final stretch near Rajmahal town in Jharkhand’s Sahebganj district. Silently, it drags along shrubbery in its way. Across the long stretches of unmanned muddy water is the narrow strip of the southern tip of Malda district, which forms part of West Bengal’s neck. Beyond this is Bangladesh.
“How difficult is it to cross over?” asks Pradeep Bhagat, 44, born and brought up in Barharwa, on the outskirts of Rajmahal town. “Nothing else explains the rise in the Muslim population in our area. They are coming,” he says, of the Muslims from Bangladesh. He sits in his convenience store, rain battering the tin shed above him. His worry is that cow slaughter will soon take place “in the open”.
Jharkhand is two months away from assembly elections. The anxiety in Bhagat and many like him in the State’s Adivasi-dominated Santhal Pargana region has now become the centrepiece of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) strategy to unseat the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), led by Chief Minister (CM) Hemant Soren.
Political profits
On August 27, Champai Soren, a key mobiliser in the fight for the creation of Jharkhand in the 1990s, once close to JMM founder Shibu Soren, announced he was joining the BJP. It was the only party that recognised “Bangladeshi infiltration” into the Adivasi-dominated Santhal Pargana region, he said. The ‘infiltration’ was leading to ‘them’ occupying tribal lands, threatening the “dignity of our mothers, sisters, and daughters”, and “causing economic and social harm to Adivasis”, he posted on X (formerly Twitter), days ahead of formally joining the BJP. His message was amplified in the preceding weeks by BJP’s Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, who officially announced his induction.
In its initial years, the JMM built itself up on a territorial Jharkhandi identity, resting on the foundation of a Santhal-Kudmi Mahato alliance. It consolidated the region’s population across castes, tribes, and religions, aiming at carving out Jharkhand from Bihar. Local Muslims and Christians were a part of its vision, under the ‘exploited groups of this area’ definition. This included “original settlers” of people who had converted to Islam and Christianity during the Mughal period and the British occupation, respectively, according to historian Abha Xalxo’s 2003 paper in the ‘Proceedings of the Indian History Congress’.
According to the 1991 Census, the population of the region that became Jharkhand was 27.67% Scheduled Tribes. The religious break-up was 77.15% Hindu, 12.18% Muslim, and 5.72% Christian. Adivasi people (ST) had counted themselves among those practising all these religions.
For at least a month before Champai joined the BJP, the party’s leadership had been laying the foundation for the political rhetoric that he ultimately used to jump ship. On July 20, Home Minister Amit Shah said at a rally in Jharkhand that his party would bring out a White Paper on demography, claiming “infiltrators” were taking away “jobs and reservation” of Adivasis, while CM Hemant Soren had “turned a blind eye to ‘land jihad’ and ‘love jihad’.
The BJP’s Nishikant Dubey, an MP from Godda district in the Santhal Pargana region, linked the decline in the area’s Adivasi population to “Bangladeshi infiltrators” during Parliament’s Zero Hour on July 25. He claimed the ST population in Santhal Pargana had decreased from “36% in 2000 to 26% now”, alleging 100 Adivasi elected leaders here were married to Muslim men.
Three days later, former mayor of Ranchi, Jharkhand’s State capital, and National Commission for Scheduled Tribes member Asha Lakra told reporters that at least 10 Adivasi women elected representatives in Sahibganj district had married “Bangladeshi infiltrators, Rohingya Muslims”, going on to name the panchayat areas.
By August 16, BJP worker Danyaal Danish had sworn an affidavit to the Jharkhand High Court, including eight of these 10 panchayats as “samples where Bangladeshi Muslims have married tribal women Mukhiyas (heads)”. This helped them get Indian documentation, leading to ‘land jihad’, the affidavit claimed. It also named 41 villages across Rajmahal, Barhait, Udhwa, and Barharwa blocks where Bengali Muslim men were ‘infiltrating’. Danish attached reams of voter lists claiming a percentage increase in Muslim voters. The affidavit was clipped to a 2022 public interest litigation that Danish had filed.
Until Shah raked up Santhal Pargana’s changing demography, the BJP’s plan of attack against the ruling JMM-Congress-RJD alliance had been corruption. Hemant had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on January 1 in a money-laundering case. Champai had kept his seat warm for five months.
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The ED had also arrested Congress MLA and Jharkhand’s Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam on May 16, in a money-laundering case. Hemant represents the Barhait Assembly constituency and Alam the Pakur Assembly seat, both key in the Santhal Pargana region.
However, the Jharkhand High Court had granted Hemant bail and he had walked out of jail, projecting vindication and resilience. At packed public meetings he held across Jharkhand, he once again invoked the “Jharkhandi” identity.
Since 2000, when Jharkhand was formed, the demography of the State has changed. In 2001, according to the Census, the State’s ST population was 26.30%. This fell to 26.20%, in the 2011 Census. In terms of religion, the percentage of Hindus here dipped from 68.56% in 2001 to 67.83% in 2011, that of Muslims went up from 13.84% to 14.53%, and that of Christians also rose from 4.05% to 4.30%.
The religious preferences of Jharkhand’s ST population were also changing. In 2001, up to 39.76% of ST persons had been marked as Hindu, 0.38% as Muslim, and 14.46% as Christian, with 45.12% of them marking themselves as belonging to “other religion”, which included Sarna, the tribal practice. In the 2011 Census, 37.54% ST people were marked as Hindu, the population of ST Muslims reduced to 0.20%, the population of Christian STs rose to 15.47% along with a rise in the number of Adivasis who ticked the “other” column, which was 46.41% of the ST population.
In the Santhal Pargana division, where Dubey claimed the demographic changes were being felt acutely, the 2001 Census showed the population of STs was 29.91% of the total population, and that of Muslims was 20.59%. The 2011 Census figures for the same division showed the STs stood at 28.11% of the total population and Muslims comprised 22.73%. No Census has been conducted since 2011.
Looking for the ‘outsider’
The day after he walked out of jail, on June 30, Hemant made his first public appearance at an event in Bhognadih village of Barhait block, to commemorate “Hul Diwas” marking the 1855 Santhal rebellion against the British. Addressing the crowds, Hemant declared, “Like the Santhal uprising against the British, we declare the ‘Hul rebellion’ to drive out feudal forces not only from Jharkhand but from across the country.”
As Hemant delivered his comeback remarks, Champai’s programmes as CM were being “unceremoniously cancelled”, he later revealed on social media. In two months, on August 30, Champai joined the BJP, driving home the “Bangladeshi inltrators” pitch that had been laid out for him.
Now, the JMM is questioning the Centre’s intent in delaying the 2021 Census, putting the onus of checking alleged ‘foreign infiltration’ on them. At public rallies, Hemant is attacking the BJP for trying to “destabilise” the State through communal hatred spread by “outsider” politicians.
Deep inside the lush green compound of the Police Lines in Sahibganj town, Kumar Gaurav, Superintendent of Police has his hands full. “The claims made by the petitioner (Danish) are serious,” Gaurav says. “We are looking into the husbands of the panchayat heads. We can only register a case in case of wrongdoing, which we have not yet found,” he says.
Based on Danish’s PIL plea, a Bench of the Jharkhand High Court rung an alarm over the “concerning” demographic changes in the Santhal Pargana region. It called for detailed responses from Central agencies, including the Border Security Force (BSF), the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the Election Commission, the Intelligence Bureau, and the National Investigation Agency. It also asked the administrations of six districts in Santhal Pargana (Dumka, Pakur, Sahibganj, Godda, Jamtara, Deoghar) and the Jharkhand government to identify “infiltrators/illegal immigrants”.
Except for Sahibganj, no other district has reported complaints of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In Sahibganj, police records revealed that from 2016 to 2024 four cases had been registered under the Foreigners Act, 1946, with one leading to a conviction. The police here say their investigations so far have not found anything to establish “organised efforts to deliberately alter the demography”.
One officer in the Santhal Pargana region says, “There is no international border here. It is a State border.” This makes it almost impossible for them to check every person entering from West Bengal that has the border with Bangladesh.
India’s Constitution guarantees the right to move freely within the country, to reside and settle in any part of the country under Article 19. However, it allows for “reasonable restrictions” on this right. Four of the six districts in Jharkhand’s Santhal Pargana region are fully protected under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, which makes special provisions for administering notified areas in the interest of Scheduled Tribes.
The police in all six districts have submitted to the High Court that the Supreme Court’s observations in a July ruling prevented them from knocking on every resident’s door to probe their citizenship without specific complaints. The ruling cited was one where the top court had come down heavily on the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led Assam government in a Foreigners’ Tribunal case involving the wrongful declaration of an Indian as a foreigner. One district official in Sahibganj said that the demography of some villages might have undergone changes in the last decade or so, likely because of in-migration from neighbouring States of Bihar and West Bengal.
While the district administration has set up a committee with representatives of political parties to investigate the voter lists, senior police officers are in a bind over how exactly they can “investigate demographic changes”.
In the cupboard-sized chambers of his lawyer at the Jharkhand High Court premises, Danish pores over his affidavit. Flipping through the stack of files before him, he stops at the list of 41 villages where “infiltration” had taken place. “Do you see the Muslim population growing in these villages?” he says, turning to the annexures with voter lists. “It is a conspiracy.” He stops again, this time at the list of eight panchayats where Adivasi women had been elected chiefs.
“This is their modus operandi. Marry Adivasi women for their land, make inroads into the villages, and gain influence by having their wives elected. This is how they are managing to get their people settled in Santhal Pargana from Bangladesh,” Danish said, agitated now.
“Of course they are Bangladeshi. I have visited the villages. I know the way they talk and dress,” says Danish, who had filed the PIL in 2022.
That year, Hindi dailies in Jharkhand had published stories about over 40 State-run schools in Jamtara district with a Muslim majority, which had allowed Fridays to be the weekly off after parents pressed for it. Under pressure from the opposition BJP, the JMM-led government ordered an investigation and restored Sundays off.
In the heat of Lok Sabha campaigning in May 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had revived the controversy at a rally in Dumka, accusing the ruling dispensation in Jharkhand of trying to pick a “fight” with Christians “as well”.
The worry of change
In Barhait block, 37-year-old Elijence Hansda is the second on Danish’s list and is the Mukhiya of Kadma village. “Yes, I married a Muslim. The law of the land gives me the right to choose my partner. I have inherited no land,” she says.
Elijence Handsa with her husband Jaimul Ansari. | Photo Credit: Abhinay Lakshman
In all the eight panchayats listed by Danish, The Hindu found that the Adivasi women Mukhiyas had not inherited land. The customary laws of the Santhal community do not allow for paternal property to be inherited by daughters.
Danish’s affidavit lists the names of Mukhiyas in three villages incorrectly, and in five cases the names of their husbands were also incorrectly stated. Two of the eight Mukhiyas are married to other Adivasi men from the Santhal community, and one to a Hindu man. The other five are married to Muslim men, all out of choice, they said.
Danish and his lawyers are not willing to buy this. “They are scared, and their consent has mostly been coerced,” he insists.
“What in the world should I be afraid of?” asks Eligence, laughing.
A few kilometres south-east of Kadma village, in Mayurkola village, Mukhiya Kapra Tudu sits in the courtyard of her home, with her mother-in-law, keeping a watchful eye on her three children. “I don’t understand why anyone would say my husband is a Bangladeshi Muslim. He is Mitan Saha, a Hindu man,” she says, perplexed.
Kapru Tudu, Mukhiya of Mayurkola, with her children and family members in Jharkhand’s Santhal Pargana region. | Photo Credit: Abhinay Lakshman
Tudu’s 22-year-old nephew, Sintu Saha, a student of political science at a Pakur district college, chips in, “It is disgusting when politicians spread lies like this. Firstly, there are hardly any Muslim homes in the village. Secondly, nearby villages like Palasbona have had local Muslim populations dating back generations, and we have always lived in harmony with them.”
In Barhait Santhali village, Selina Hansda is the Mukhiya, married to Mohammad Azad for about a decade now. A JMM loyalist, Azad says, “Why bring these issues up, if not for the upcoming elections. This has always been their [the BJP’s] game.” A social worker by profession, Azad continues, “My forefathers have been on these lands for centuries and their names are etched in land records dating back to 1932 and beyond. We have donated our lands to the public here, for schools and public amenities. How am I a Bangladeshi?”
In villages across Rajmahal, Udhwa, Barhait, and Pakur blocks, any inquiry about “outsiders” yields a common reply: “Where are the Bangladeshis? No one new has come into our village.”
Locals and officials say that the population of Muslims in these parts has gone up in the last decade or so, but this may be due to natural factors.
The Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a conglomerate of Adivasi rights bodies has asserted that the sizeable decline in ST population of the Jharkhand region took place between 1951 and 1991, and it had three major reasons: inward migration to cities and areas of mining, the outward migration of Adivasis in search of jobs, and endemic issues leading to lower population growth rate and higher death rate among Adivasis relative to other communities in the region.
Bani Israel, 52, from Dompara, a Muslim-dominated village about 7-8 km from Mayurkola, says, “Of course, the Muslim population is increasing, because they have more children.” A Bengali-speaking Muslim himself, he asks, “Why say the population is growing because of Bangladeshis?”
Sintu says, “Look, the rise in population does worry me sometimes, but not because Muslims are increasing in number. Any rise in population would mean a tougher fight over resources. Where are the jobs going to come from?”
But about 50 km north, in the Santhal-dominated village of Chandna, in the Pakur Assembly constituency, Dubey’s Lok Sabha speech has resonated with Ramesh Tudu, 34, albeit in a different way. “Yes, the BJP was wrong in saying our village Mukhiya is married to a Muslim; she is not. Everybody here is Adivasi. But Dubey is right in questioning why so many Muslim men are marrying our women. Also, why are so many Hindu men marrying Adivasi women?” says Tudu. He asks how the women are claiming ST status after marrying ‘outsiders’.
Published - September 06, 2024 12:32 am IST
