Integration Of Tribals

Given the various conditions under which tribal people live in different parts of the country, as well as their different languages and distinct cultures, the task of integrating them into the mainstream was extremely difficult. Over 400 tribal communities, totaling nearly 38 million people and accounting for nearly 6.9% of the Indian population, were counted in the 1971 census. Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, north-eastern India, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Rajasthan have the highest concentration of them. They are minorities in their home states, with the exception of the North-East. They lived in relative isolation in colonial India, mostly in the hills and forests, and their traditions, habits, cultures, and ways of life were markedly different from those of their non-tribal neighbors. Nonetheless, with the exception of the North-East, the two had interacted culturally, socially, economically, and politically for centuries.

•    In most parts of the country, colonialism forced tribals to undergo radical transformations as their relative isolation was eroded by market forces and they were integrated with British and princely administrations. 

 

•    The tribal areas were invaded by a large number of moneylenders, traders, revenue farmers, and other middlemen and petty officials, disrupting the tribals' traditional way of life. They became increasingly enslaved by debt and lost their land to outsiders, relegating them to the status of agricultural laborers, sharecroppers, and rack-rented tenants. 

 

•    Many people were forced to flee deeper into the hills. Legislation enacted late to prevent tribal land alienation failed to halt the process. 

 

•    At the same time, ‘missionaries were destroying their art, dances, weaving, and entire culture.' The tribals' relationship with the forest was also altered by colonialism. Food, fuel, cattle feed, and raw materials for their handicrafts all came from the forest. In many parts of India, immigrant peasants from the plains' desire for land resulted in the destruction of forests, depriving tribals of their traditional means of subsistence. 

 

•    To protect forests and facilitate their commercial exploitation, colonial authorities enacted forest laws that prohibited shifting cultivation and placed severe restrictions on tribals' use of the forest and their access to forest products. 

 

•    Land loss, indebtedness, middleman exploitation, denial of access to forests and forest products, and oppression and extortion by police, forest officials, and other government officials led to a series of tribal uprisings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the Santhal uprising and the Munda rebellion led by Birsa Munda, as well as the participation of tribal people.

 

1.    Isolationist approach, 

2.    Assimilation approach, and 

3.    Integration approach.

 

•    The British adopted it after the Tribes revolted against the British because of their policies. It took the form of the British designating tribal areas as "excluded areas" based on the non-interference principle. 

 

•    The extension of a centralized administration over areas that were previously outside the effective control of princely rulers robbed many aboriginal tribes of their autonomy under British rule. 

 

•    Despite the fact that British administrators had no intention of interfering with tribesmen's rights or traditional way of life, the process of establishing law and order in outlying areas exposed the tribes to the pressures of more advanced populations. 

 

•    Whereas previously unadministered areas were dangerous for outsiders who lacked the tribal inhabitants' trust and goodwill, traders and moneylenders could now establish themselves under the protection of the British administration, and in many cases were followed by settlers who succeeded in acquiring large swaths of tribal land. 

 

•    Administrative officers who did not understand the tribal land tenure system imposed uniform revenue collection methods. However, these had the unintended consequence of making tribal land more alienable to members of advanced populations. 

 

•    Some tribes, on the other hand, rebelled against an administration that allowed outsiders to take their land.

 

•    Throughout the nineteenth century, desperate tribesmen rose up in the Chota Nagpur and Santhal Parganas, and there were minor uprisings in the Madras Agency tracts and some of the Bhil-populated districts of Bombay. 

 

•    The Santhals are thought to have lost 10,000 men in their 1855 rebellion. None of these uprisings were primarily directed against the British administration; rather, they were a response to Hindu landlords and moneylenders' exploitation and oppression. 

 

•    In some cases, these uprisings prompted official investigations and legislation to protect tribes' right to their land. When viewed in historical context, land alienation laws appear to have had only a palliative effect. Even in the face of protective legislation, encroachment on tribal lands continued in most areas.

 

•    This belief in mainstream tribal and their culture has had the effect of completely eroding their culture by forcing them to accept mainstream culture.

 

•    Acceptance or denial of the need for Hindu society assimilation is ultimately a matter of values. In the past, Hindu society was tolerant of groups that did not conform to the higher castes' standards. 

 

•    Those groups were denied equal ritual status, but no attempt was made to persuade them to abandon their chosen lifestyle. This attitude has shifted in recent years. 

 

•    The influence of Western belief in universal values has cultivated a spirit of intolerance toward cultural and social differences. 

 

•    India is a country that is multilingual, multiracial, and multicultural. And, as long as minorities are free to live their traditional lives, it seems only fair that tribes' cultures and social orders, however different from the majority community's, be respected as well. 

 

•    When small tribal groups are encircled by numerically larger Hindu populations, assimilation will occur automatically and inevitably. 

 

•    Vibrant tribal populations live along India's northern and north-eastern borders, resisting assimilation and integration into the Hindu caste system. 

 

•    The Indian government has adopted a policy of tribal integration into the mainstream, with the goal of developing a creative adjustment between tribes and non-tribes that leads to a responsible partnership. 

 

•    The government has laid the groundwork for the tribal' unhindered march toward equality, upward mobility, economic viability, and assured proximity to the national mainstream by adopting an integration or progressive acculturation policy. 

 

•    In the case of scheduled tribes, the constitution commits the nation to one of two courses of action:

A.    Assisting in the preservation of their distinct way of life.

 

B.    Protecting them from social injustice, exploitation, and discrimination, and bringing them up to speed with the rest of the country so that they can be fully integrated into society.

•    Thus, 255 tribes in 17 states were declared scheduled tribes by the Constitution Order 1950 issued by the President of India in exercise of powers conferred by Article 342 of the Indian Constitution.

 

•    The government's tribal integration policy prioritized the preservation of the tribal people's rich social and cultural heritage. ‘The first problem we have to face there (in the tribal areas) is to inspire them (the tribal people) with confidence and to make them feel at one with India, and to realize that they are part of India and have an honored place in it,' said Jawaharlal Nehru, the main influence in shaping the government's attitude toward the tribal. 

 

•    At the same time, ‘India should represent not only a defending but also a liberating force to them.' Nehru believed that Indian nationalism could accommodate the tribal people's diversity. 

 

a.    One strategy was to leave the tribal people alone, free of modern influences operating outside their world, and allow them to remain as they were. 

 

b.    The second strategy was to fully integrate them into Indian society as quickly as possible. The extinction of the tribal way of life was not to be lamented; rather, it was to be celebrated because it represented their ‘upliftment.'

 

•    Both of these approaches were rejected by Jawaharlal Nehru. The first approach, which he described as insulting, was to treat the tribal people "as museum specimens to be observed and written about." He wrote that the tribal people "could not be cut off from the world as they were." Isolation was already impossible at this point, because the outside world's penetration had progressed too far, and "it was neither possible nor desirable to isolate them." 

 

•    According to Nehru, the second approach of allowing them to be "engulfed by the masses of Indian humanity" or assimilation through normal outside forces was also incorrect. This would result in the tribals' social and cultural identity, as well as their many virtues, being lost. 

 

•    Rather than these two approaches, Nehru advocated for integrating tribal people into Indian society, making them an integral part of the Indian nation while still preserving their distinct identity and culture. The Nehruvian approach had two basic tenets: 

 

1.    ‘The tribal areas must progress' and ‘they must progress in their own way.' Progress did not imply a "mere attempt to duplicate what we already have in other parts of India." 

 

2.    What was good in the rest of India would gradually be adopted by them. Furthermore, any necessary changes would be ‘worked out by the tribals themselves.'

 

•    The issue was figuring out how to combine these two seemingly opposing approaches. Nehru advocated for the tribal people's economic and social development in a variety of ways, particularly in the fields of communication, modern medical facilities, agriculture, and education. In this regard, he established some broad policy guidelines for the government. 

 

1.    To begin, the tribals should develop in accordance with their own genius; there should be no outside imposition or compulsion. Non-tribal should not approach them with a sense of superiority. Rather, they should be seen as having made an equal contribution to the evolution of the country's common culture, social, and political life. 

 

2.    Second, tribal land and forest rights should be respected, and no outsider should be able to seize tribal lands. The market economy's expansion into tribal areas had to be carefully monitored and regulated. 

 

3.    Third, tribal languages needed to be encouraged, as they "must be given all possible support and the conditions in which they can thrive must be safeguarded."

 

4.    Fourth, for administration, the tribal people should be entrusted with the task, and administrators should be recruited and trained from among them. Outsiders should be introduced as few as possible as administrators in tribal areas, and they should be carefully chosen. 

 

•    Nehru's approach was based on a nationalist policy toward tribal that had been in place since the 1920s, when Gandhiji established ashrams in tribal areas and encouraged constructive work. 

 

•    Rajendra Prasad, India's first President, and other major political leaders supported this policy after independence. To give shape to the government's policy, the state was directed under Article 46 of the Constitution to promote with special care the educational and economic interests of tribal peoples, as well as to protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation, through special legislation. 

 

•    Governors of states with tribal areas were given special powers to protect tribal interests, including the ability to amend federal and state laws as they applied to tribal areas, and to draught regulations to protect tribal' right to land as well as their protection from moneylenders. For this reason, the application of fundamental rights was changed. The tribal people were also granted full political rights under the Constitution. In addition, as with the Scheduled Castes, it provided for the reservation of seats in legislatures and administrative positions for the Scheduled Tribes. 

 

•    In addition, the Constitution mandated the formation of Tribal Advisory Councils in all states with tribal areas to provide advice on tribal welfare issues. The President appointed a Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to investigate whether the safeguards provided for them were being followed.

 

•    State governments took legislative and executive action to prevent the loss of tribal lands to non-tribal people and the exploitation of tribals by moneylenders. The federal and state governments established special facilities and implemented special programmers for the welfare and development of tribal areas and people, including the promotion of cottage and village industries and the creation of jobs for tribal people. Large sums of money were spent, and large sums were set aside in the plans for this purpose. 

 

•    After 1971, funding for tribal welfare increased dramatically. Despite constitutional safeguards and efforts on the part of the federal and state governments, tribal progress and welfare has been slow, if not nonexistent. 

 

•    Except in the North-East, tribal remain impoverished, indebted, landless, and often jobless. The issue is frequently poor execution of even well-intentioned measures. There is frequently a misalignment of policies between the federal and state governments, with the latter being less sensitive to tribal concerns. 

 

•    State governments, in particular, have been relatively ineffective in implementing positive policies and laws enacted by the central government or by state governments themselves, as the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the Planning Commission have repeatedly demonstrated. Frequently, funds set aside for tribal welfare are not spent, or are spent ineffectively, or are even misappropriated. Tribal Advisory Councils, one of the watchdogs for tribal interests, have not been effective.

 

•    Frequently, administrative staff are untrained or even prejudiced against tribal people. Under the pressure of traders, moneylenders, forest contractors, and land-grabbers, sympathetic officials have been known to be quickly transferred out of tribal areas. 

 

•    Denial of justice is a major handicap that tribals face, often as a result of their lack of familiarity with the laws and legal system. Laws prohibiting the transfer of land to outsiders have continued to be flouted, resulting in land alienation and tribal eviction. 

 

•    In many areas, the rapid expansion of mines and industries has exacerbated the situation. While deforestation continues unabated thanks to the collaboration of corrupt officials and politicians with forest contractors, tribals' traditional right of access to the forest and its products is being progressively curtailed. Forest laws and regulations are also used to harass and exploit tribal people by unsympathetic and often corrupt forest officials. 

 

•    Tribal people have been facing rising unemployment as a result of land loss, deforestation, and restrictions on access to the forest, and have been increasingly driven into more inaccessible stretches of hills and jungles.

 

•    The tribal people's educational progress has been disappointingly slow. Primary education in tribal languages has taken place in many areas, but state governments have tended to overlook tribal languages and education in their medium in others. 

 

•    Almost everywhere, tribal society has gradually developed class differences and a class structure, with the upper crust frequently joining forces with the upper crust of outsiders. Furthermore, the major beneficiaries of any development in the fields of education, administration, economy, and political patronage are a small segment of the tribal elites who have gradually emerged and grown.

 

•    The tribes of north-eastern India, which comprised over a hundred groups speaking a wide range of languages and living in Assam's hill tracts, shared many of the same characteristics and problems as the rest of the country's tribal people. 

 

•    However, their situation was unique in several ways. For one thing, they made up the vast majority of the population in most of the areas where they lived. Non-tribals had not penetrated these areas to any significant extent at the time, despite the fact that economic ties between tribal and nontribal areas had been growing over time. This occurred as a result of British policy in the late 1800s.

 

•    The British-occupied tribal areas became part of the Assam province, but with a separate administrative status. Their sociopolitical structure remained intact, and they maintained a deliberate policy of excluding outsiders from the plains. In particular, no non-tribal plainsmen were allowed to acquire land in tribal areas, resulting in minimal land loss for the tribal.

 

•    Simultaneously, the British government allowed and even encouraged Christian missionaries to move in and establish schools, hospitals, and churches, as well as proselytise, bringing change and modern ideas to some tribal youth. The missionaries, for their part, worked with the colonial authorities to keep nationalist influence out of the tribal areas while also encouraging their isolation from the rest of Assam and India. In fact, shortly after independence, some missionaries and other foreigners in north-eastern India promoted sentiment in favour of separate and independent states.

 

•    A notable difference was the tribals in the North-East lacks political or cultural contact with the rest of India's political life. The common bonds forged during the anti-imperialist struggle, as we saw in an earlier chapter, were a powerful factor in the unification of the Indian people as a nation. 

 

•    However, among the tribals of the North-East, this struggle had little impact. ‘The essence of our struggle for freedom was the unleashing of a liberating force in India,' said Jawaharlal Nehru. This force had no effect on the people living on the outskirts of one of the most important tribal areas.' ‘As a result, they never had the sensation of being in a country called India, and they were hardly influenced by India's freedom struggle or other movements.' Their main encounters with outsiders were with British officers and Christian missionaries, who attempted to convert them to Christianity and make them anti-Indian.'

 

•    As a result, the Government of India's tribal policy, inspired by Jawaharlal Nehru, was even more relevant to the tribal people of the North-East. ‘Not only have the governments, but the people of India, deserved our special attention in this North-East border area,' Nehru said in October 1952. 

 

•    Our interactions with them will benefit both us and them. They contribute to India's strength, diversity, and cultural richness.' The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which only applied to Assam's tribal areas, reflected this policy. 

 

•    The Sixth Schedule provided tribal people with a measure of self-government by establishing autonomous districts and establishing district and regional councils to carry out some legislative and judicial functions within the overall jurisdiction of the Assam legislature and parliament. 

 

•    The Sixth Schedule's goal was to give tribal people the freedom to live their lives as they saw fit. The Indian government also expressed its willingness to amend the constitutional provisions relating to tribal people if it was determined that doing so was necessary in order to promote greater autonomy. But, as Nehru clarified, this did not imply that the government would accept secession from India or independence for any area or region, or that violence would be tolerated in the pursuit of any demands.

 

•    The policies of Nehru and Verrier Elwin were best implemented in the North-East Frontier Agency, or NEFA, which was founded in 1948 out of Assam's border areas. NEFA was established as a Union Territory outside of Assam's jurisdiction, with its own administration.

 

•    In 1987, NEFA was given the name Arunachal Pradesh and was given the status of a separate state. While NEFA prospered in peace and harmony with the rest of the country, problems arose in the other tribal areas that were administratively part of Assam. The issues arose because Assam's hill tribes had no cultural ties to the plains' Assamese and Bengali residents. 

 

•    The tribals were afraid of losing their identities and being assimilated by what was widely perceived as an assimilation policy. The attitude of superiority and even contempt often adopted by non-tribals working among them as teachers, doctors, government officials, traders, and so on was especially repulsive to them. They also had the impression that the Assamese government didn't understand them and tended to ignore their concerns. 

 

•    This sensation reflected not so much reality as the failure of Assam's political leadership to address tribal grievances in a timely and caring manner. 

 

•    In the mid-fifties, resentment of the Assam government grew, and a demand for a separate hill state arose among some sections of the tribal people. However, this demand was not vigorously pursued, and the Indian government did not encourage it because it believed that the future of the hill tribes was inextricably linked to Assam, even though further steps toward greater autonomy could be envisaged.

 

•    However, the demand grew stronger when Assamese leaders decided to make Assamese the state's sole official language in 1960. The All Party Hill Leaders Conference (APHLC) was formed in 1960 when various hill political parties merged to demand a separate state within the Indian union. The passage of the Assam Official Language Act, making Assamese the state's official language and thus rejecting the demand for the use of tribal languages in administration, sparked an outpouring of anger in the tribal districts. 

 

•    There were hartals and protests, and a major uprising erupted. The advocates of a separate state won the overwhelming majority of Assembly seats from the tribal areas in the 1962 elections, despite their decision to boycott the State Assembly. There were lengthy discussions and negotiations that followed. 

 

•    The issue was investigated by a number of commissions and committees. 

•    Finally, Meghalaya was carved out of Assam in 1969 through a constitutional amendment as a "state within a state" with complete autonomy except for law and order, which was retained by the Assam government. Assam's High Court, Public Service Commission, and Governor were also shared by Meghalaya. 

 

•    Finally, in 1972, Meghalaya became a separate state, incorporating the Garo, Khasi, and Jaintia tribes as part of the North-East reorganisation. Manipur and Tripura, both Union Territories, were granted statehood at the same time.

 

•    Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh all had a relatively smooth transition to statehood. In the cases of Nagaland and Mizoram, where secessionist and insurgent movements arose, trouble arose.

 

•    The Nagas were the people who lived in the Naga Hills along the Assam-Burma border in the north-east. In 1961, they numbered nearly 500,000 people, made up less than 0.1 percent of India's population, and were made up of many different tribes who spoke different languages. 

 

•    The British had isolated the Nagas from the rest of the country and left them relatively unaffected, allowing Christian missionary activity, which had resulted in the development of a small educated stratum. 

 

•    The Indian government immediately after independence pursued a policy of integrating Naga areas with the state of Assam and India as a whole. A section of the Naga leadership, on the other hand, was opposed to integration and rose up in rebellion under the leadership of A.Z. Phizo, demanding complete independence from India. 

 

•    Some British officials and missionaries supported them in their decision. These separatist Nagas announced the formation of an independent government and the start of a violent insurgency in 1955.

 

•    In line with Jawaharlal Nehru's broader approach to tribal people discussed earlier in this chapter, the Indian government responded with a two-track policy. On the one hand, the Indian government made it clear that it would vehemently oppose secessionist demands for Naga independence and would not tolerate violence. It would firmly follow a policy of suppression and non-negotiation in the face of a violent secessionist movement.

 

•    Nehru, on the other hand, realised that, while strong and swift military action would clearly demonstrate that the rebels were in a no-win situation, total physical suppression was neither possible nor desirable, because the goal had to be Naga people reconciliation and conversion. 

 

•    Nehru was a firm believer in a "friendly approach." He supported the Nagas' right to maintain their cultural and other autonomy while encouraging them to integrate with the rest of the country "in mind and spirit." As a result, he was willing to go to great lengths to win over the Nagas by granting them a great deal of autonomy. 

 

•    He carried on lengthy negotiations with the more moderate, nonviolent, and non-secessionist Naga leaders, who realised that they could not hope for a greater degree of autonomy or a more sympathetic leader to settle with than Nehru, refusing to negotiate with Phizo or his supporters as long as they did not give up their demand for independence or the armed rebellion.

 

•    In fact, by the middle of 1957, the more moderate Naga leaders, led by Dr Imkongliba Ao, had broken the back of the armed rebellion. They negotiated for the state of Nagaland to be created within the Indian union. After a series of intermediary steps, the Indian government agreed to their demand, and Nagaland became a state in 1963. 

 

•    The Indian nation has taken another step forward in its integration. Furthermore, politics in Nagaland has followed the pattern of politics in the other states of the union since then, for better or worse. The back of the rebellion was broken with the formation of Nagaland as a state, as the rebels lost much of their popular support. Despite the fact that the insurgency has been suppressed, sporadic guerilla activity by Naga rebels trained in China, Pakistan, and Burma, as well as periodic terrorist attacks, continue to this day.

 

•    We can also mention another aspect of the Naga situation. Even though the Indian army's record in Nagaland has been mostly clean, especially when considering the difficult conditions under which they operate, it is not without flaws. Its behavior has been inconsistent at times, and in rare cases, brutal. Innocent people have been hurt far too often. However, it has paid a high price for this by losing soldiers and officers in guerilla attacks.

 

•    A situation similar to that in Nagaland arose a few years later in the North-autonomous East's Mizo district. In 1947, secessionist demands backed by some British officials grew there, but the young Mizo leadership ignored them, focusing instead on issues such as democratization of Mizo society, economic development, and adequate representation of Mizos in the Assam legislature. 

 

•    However, dissatisfaction with the Assam government's relief measures during the 1959 famine, as well as the passage of the Act in 1961 making Assamese the state's official language, led to the formation of the Mizo National Front (MNF), which was led by Laldenga. 

 

•    While engaging in electoral politics, the MNF established a military wing that received arms and ammunition from East Pakistan and military training from China. The MNF declared independence from India in March 1966, declared a military uprising, and launched attacks on military and civilian targets. The Indian government retaliated immediately with massive counter-insurgency measures by the army. 

 

•    The insurgency was crushed and government control was restored within a few weeks, though sporadic guerilla activity continued. The majority of hardline Mizo leaders fled to East Pakistan.

 

•    The Mizo district of Assam was separated from Assam and given the status of a Union Territory in 1973, after the less extremist Mizo leaders scaled-down their demand to that of a separate state of Mizoram within the Indian union. In the late 1970s, the Mizo insurgency regained strength, but Indian forces were able to put it down once more. 

 

•    After decimating the separatist insurgents' ranks, the Indian government, following Nehru's tribal policy, was now willing to show consideration, offer liberal terms of amnesty to the remaining rebel forces, and engage in peace negotiations. In 1986, a settlement was finally reached. 

 

•    Laldenga and the MNF agreed to end their underground violent activities, surrender their arms to Indian authorities, and rejoin the constitutional political stream. The Indian government agreed to grant Mizoram full statehood, ensuring complete autonomy in terms of culture, tradition, and land laws, among other things. In February 1987, a government led by Laldenga was formed in the new state of Mizoram as part of the agreement.

 

•    Jharkhand, Bihar's tribal region comprised of the Chota Nagpur and Santhal Parganas, has spawned state autonomy movements for decades. Several major Indian tribes, including the Santhal, Ho, Oraon, and Munda, are concentrated in this area. Unlike traditional tribes, nearly all of them rely on family farms to practise settled plough agriculture. 

 

•    Economic division has emerged, with a large number of agricultural workers and a growing number of mining and industrial workers. 

 

•    The pattern of land ownership among tribals is just as unequal and skewed as it is among non-tribals. They've also developed a large class of moneylenders. Jharkhand's tribal society is increasingly becoming a class-divided society. The majority of tribals follow one of two formal religions: Hinduism or Christianity. 

 

•    The Jharkhand tribes, on the other hand, have some characteristics in common with other Indian tribes. They have lost most of their land to outsiders, and they are in debt, have lost jobs, and have low agricultural productivity. 

 

•    Several major rebellions were organized by them during the nineteenth century, and many of them were active participants in the national movement after 1919. In 1951, the Scheduled Tribes made up 31.15 percent of Chota Nagpur's population (30.94 percent in 1971) and 44.67 percent of the Santhal Parganas' population (36.22 in 1971). 

 

•    As a result, non-tribals made up nearly two-thirds of Jharkhand's population in 1971. Poor peasants, agricultural labourers, and mining and industrial workers made up the vast majority of tribal and non-tribal workers. Inequality in land ownership and the threat of moneylenders were both present, as was the commercialization of agriculture and commercial activity.

 

•    During the late 1930s and 1940s, a movement for the formation of a separate tribal state of Jharkhand, encompassing Chota Nagpur and the Santhal Parganas of South Bihar, as well as the contiguous tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and West Bengal, arose in response to the spread of education and modern activity in tribal areas. 

 

•    The Jharkhand party was founded in 1950 under the leadership of the Oxford-educated Jaipal Singh, who realised that having a state of their own within the Union of India would best promote tribal interests and end non-tribal dominance. In the 1952 elections, the party had a remarkable victory, winning 32 seats in Chota Nagpur and becoming the main opposition party in the Bihar Assembly. In 1957, it won 25 seats.

 

•    However, the Jharkhand party was confronted with a major problem. While it called for a state where tribal people would be the majority, the population of Jharkhand was such that they would still be a minority. To get around this problem, the party tried to give its demand a regional flavor by allowing non-tribals in the area to join and downplaying its anti-non-tribal rhetoric, even while talking about tribal empowerment and dominance of the new state. 

 

•    The States Reorganization Commission of 1955, on the other hand, rejected the demand for a separate Jharkhand state, citing the lack of a common language in the region. The central government also claimed that because tribals are a minority in Jharkhand, they cannot claim their own state. 

 

•    By the early 1960s, the party's rank and file had become discouraged and frustrated. In 1962, the Jharkhand party won only 20 seats in the Bihar Assembly. In 1963, a large portion of the party's leadership, including Jaipal Singh, joined Congress, claiming that by "working from within Congress," they would have a better chance of getting the government to accept their demand for a separate state.

 

•    After 1967, Jharkhand saw the emergence of several tribal parties and movements, the most prominent of which was the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), which was founded in late 1972. The JMM reignited demand for the state of Jharkhand, but it did so in two ways. It recognized the harsh reality that nearly two-thirds of Jharkhand's population was non-tribal, and that a movement that only appealed to tribal people could not gain the necessary political clout. 

 

•    As a result, the JMM began to claim that North Bihar and recent migrants exploited, discriminated against, and dominated all older residents of the Jharkhand region, whether tribal or non-tribal. As a result, it put forward the demand for a separate regional state on behalf of the region's peasants and workers.

 

•    Because it focused on economic issues, it gained support from non-tribal poor people; several non-tribal leaders and political activists joined it, though tribals still made up the majority of its supporters. Despite tribals' minority status in the proposed Jharkhand state, tribal leaders believed they would have far more representation and weight in the new state than they did in Bihar as a whole.

 

•    The JMM adopted a radical ideology and programed. It organized several militant agitations on issues such as recovery of alienated land, moneylenders' exploitation, employment of tribals in mines and industries and improved working conditions and higher wages in the latter, police excesses, high-handedness of forest officials, and increasing liquor consumption, with the help of other groups, particularly leftist groups such as the Marxist Coordination Centre. During the early 1970s, Shibu Soren emerged as the charismatic leader of the JMM.

 

•    Cooperation with leftists, as well as the tribal/non-tribal alliance, did not last long. Over the years, the Jharkhand state movement has seen many ups and downs, as well as splits, with new groups forming on a regular basis. The question of cooperation or alliance with the major all-India parties was a source of major disagreement among Jharkhand's leaders. 

 

•    Many of them believed that a small group of MPs or MLAs could not easily get their demands accepted in a parliamentary democracy on their own. Shibu Soren, his followers, and a few others recognised the futility of constantly confronting state power, as well as the movement's ultra-leftist fringe's inevitability of resorting to violence and armed struggle. Because the movement was founded on tribal identity and tribal demands, it found it difficult to shift completely from tribal to class-based regional politics. 

 

•    The policy of reservations for tribals, in particular, sowed the seeds of continuing differences between tribals and non-tribals. Tribal society was not homogeneous; there were landlords, wealthy peasants, traders, and moneylenders among them. 

 

•    Above all, the movement was only able to extract a promise of regional autonomy for the Jharkhand region within the Bihar state from the ruling parties in Bihar and the Centre. In fact, the various constituents of the Jharkhand movement have accepted the regional autonomy formula as of today, with only minor differences in terms of form and content.