UP IN ARMS: The pro-domicile tribal groups gear up for an agitation

Assam witnessed it in the 1960s and '70s against the Marwaris and the Bengalis. Orissa went through it in the early '80s. Now it is Jharkhand's turn. More than five men were killed on July 24 in rioting between Adivasis and Biharis in the state. While the militant Adivasi youth have called it a "final war" against Bihar's attempt to further colonise their homeland, Bihari leaders claim it is a question of their survival in a state which their forefathers have made prosperous.

At the core of the divide is the Babulal Marandi dispensation's controversial domicile policy that has made it mandatory for all government job applicants to prove their ancestral roots in the state on the basis of the 1932 khatian or land records. It comes in the wake of the introduction of an equally debatable policy that provides 73 per cent reservation for tribals, backward classes and the Dalits in jobs and technical institutions. And as if these two decisions were not enough, the Government has also reserved the gram panchayat mukhiyas' posts for the Scheduled Tribes. "Where do we go now?" asks Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, convener of the Jharkhand Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Morcha, a federation of non-tribal youth.

RULE OF THUMB: Babulal Marandi

With the Government failing to provide any satisfactory answers to the problem, forces opposed to the sons-of-the-soil policy hit the streets of major cities like Ranchi, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Jamshedpur and Chakradharpur. They called for bandhs, took out processions and burnt effigies of the chief minister. Not to be outdone, activists of the Adivasi Chhatra Sangh, an umbrella organisation of youth bodies, the Adivasi Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch and the Moolvasi Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch marched into the residence of Urban Development Minister Bachcha Singh in Ranchi and destroyed his nameplate for rubbishing the anti-domicile policy movement. They harrassed Human Resources Minister Chandra Mohan Prasad for the same reason.

States

SPARRING SLOGANS ADIVASIS: Jharkhand is the homeland for tribals, and policemen and officials of Bihari origin should go back to Bihar. BIHARIS: They too belong to the state, which was made prosperous by their forefathers. ADIVASIS: Sixty per cent of the government and technical posts should be reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. BIHARIS: The Scheduled Tribes constitute only 28 per cent of the population and more reservation for them is not warranted. "NDA will lose in the next polls if the policy is not reversed." Bachcha Singh, Urban Development Minister

That is not all. In a move that could have far-reaching implications to the security of the region's industrial belt, both the sides have gone in for an arms build-up. As Adivasi Jharkhand Jana-dhikar Manch Vice-President Bandhu Tirkey points out, over 5,000 Adivasi youths with arms have been mobilised in various parts of Jharkhand. To counter them, the upper-caste landlords of Bihar, backed by the dreaded political mafia, which controls the contract and transport business in the area, have also jumped into the fray with ample ammunition.

Pointing to the ironical situation, Faisal Anurag, a pro-tribal social researcher, talks about how a move intended to protect the tribals has degenerated into a civil war-like situation.

Opposition leaders like Furquan Ansari of the Congress, however, say it was inevitable. Ansari accuses Marandi of using the domicile policy as a game plan to divide society. He claims that the chief minister wants to create a coalition of the Adivasis and the Moolvasis and emerge as their sole spokesperson just as Laloo Prasad Yadav had done with the Muslims and the Yadavs in

Bihar. In the process, says Bachcha Singh, Marandi has annoyed the non-tribals, Biharis and the business classes, the traditional BJP vote bank that ensured the party got 33 seats in the Assembly and 12 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in 1999 polls. "Come elections and the NDA in the state will bite the dust if these divisive policies are not reversed," he warns.

While the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) support the domicile policy, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has come out against it. However the BJP, the Samata Party and the Congress are divided. And if the Sangharsh Morcha is to be believed 10 ministers support the agitation against the domicile policy.

Marandi, however, is adamant. He says the domicile policy is "a carbon copy" of the Bihar notification of 1982 and it is only for Class III and IV employees-other grades will be open to all. In Bihar, however, there is no domicile policy. (There is only a rule that requires one to submit "residence" certificates for all-India services, in which some seats are reserved for the state.) Besides, the 1982 notification was issued by the Labour Department to give preference to local people in factories at the district level.

The social polarisation in Jhar-khand, if it can be called that, crystallised in September last year when the Government "under duress" from the Adivasi Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch announced the 73 per cent reservation for the Adivasis, SCs and OBCs. Expectedly, it led to a chain of protests, first from the non-tribals and then the tribals. The Adivasis vandalised the state capital for days; they wanted the reservation quota for STs alone to be raised from the existing 32 per cent to 60 per cent. They also demanded that all policemen and officials of Bihari origin be sent back to Bihar. Their claim is that Jharkhand is essentially a tribal homeland. The non-tribals, however, argued that the tribals constituted hardly 28 per cent of the population and as such were getting more than their due share.

The matter came to the fore again in June when the Government announced recruitments for the posts of constables in the state military police. A candidate's application in Dhanbad was turned down as it was not accompanied by the 1932 land record. This sparked off violent protests. Some Adivasi youth even severed the hand of an official demanding strict implementation of the domicile policy.

As far as the Adivasis are concerned, things have reached a point of no return. They have always been an exploited lot whether it was in the hands of the Mughal rulers, the British or the high-caste Hindus. Many of the tribals have over the years moved out of the state compelled by circumstances. During the British rule, their labour was found to be efficient and cheap, so they were sent to tea estates in neighbouring Assam and Bengal.

After Independence, a large number of them became refugees of development in that their land was taken over to set up major private and public-sector units or to erect dams. While the lathi-wielding Biharis from the ABC triangle of Ara-Ballia-Chapra in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh dominated these urban, industrial pockets, the tribals were forced to move out in search of a livelihood.

In the rural areas too, the landlords, moneylenders and businessmen controlled the economy. As the tribals were terrorised and forced to give up their land, more and more Biharis moved in. By 1961, according to census reports, there were one million migrants, half of them in Dhanbad and Singbhum, the majority of them from the ABC region.

The separation of Jharkhand from Bihar in 2000 has obviously empowered—and emboldened—the tribals.