New Delhi: Who are the real inhabitants of Jharkhand? It’s been an issue since the days of Jharkhand’s birth and has the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tied in knots again. Twice, the BJP has burnt its fingers over this sensitive matter in the eastern state which was carved out of Bihar in 2000 during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule.
Now, the Hemant Soren government has promised to implement the 1932 Khatiyan (land survey) to determine domicile of inhabitants in order to polarise adivasis (tribals) and mulnivasis (early settlers from non-tribal communities).
Among the seven poll guarantees of the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress alliance are the promise to implement the 1932 based Khatiyan policy and the Sarna Dharam Code as well as fixing the reservations for Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities at 27 percent, 12 percent, and 28 percent, respectively.
In the opposition camp, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been scalded during the rule of Babulal Marandi and Raghubar Das, is cautious as seen in its ambiguity on the issue to avoid polarisation of tribals as well as to keep its base of non-tribal voters intact.
The BJP’s cautiousness was noticed when Union Home Minister Amit Shah evaded a media query on employment for locals saying that a panel was constituted to look into the demands.
While the BJP is trying every trick in the book, right from fielding tribal candidates in Kolhan region to announcing exclusion of tribals from the ambit of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Jharkhand, its cautions stand on domicile policy is as strategic as the Catch 22 situation confronting the party.
“Hemant Soren came into power in 2019 by promising to implement the 1932 Khatiyan bill for domicile and employment purposes. During campaigning, he said in the first cabinet, he would implement it. The JMM should answer why it has not implemented the Khatiyan of 1932? Who stopped them? ‘Kaath ki handi baar-baar nahi chadhti’ (falsehood do not work again). He did not give employment in the last five years and again he is trying to confuse people by pitch-forking the Khatiyan issue,“ BJP Jharkhand general secretary Aditya Sahu told ThePrint.
The BJP’s concern about securing the support of tribal voters is understandable as they voted against the party in 2019. The party lost five Lok Sabha seats reserved for scheduled tribes in the 2024 general elections.
“The BJP should clearly tell the people whether it wants to protect the rights of indigenous people or not. The migration and decline of indigenous population is happening because the previous BJP governments did not give firmness to the bill and did not place it in the Ninth Schedule (of the Constitution). They should give these answers first,” JMM leader Supriyo Bhattacharya told ThePrint.
Jharkhand will vote in two phases on 13 and 20 November. The results will be announced on 23 November.
Also Read: Why BJP has pitted Gamliyel Hembrom, who lost deposit in 2019, against Hemant Soren again
Why Khatiyan haunts BJP
A domicile policy based on 1932 as the cut-off year using land records has always been doing the rounds in Jharkhand ever since its formation in 2000. According to the proposal, only those people will be considered permanent residents of Jharkhand whose ancestors’ names are in the Khatian of the year 1932 or earlier.
In 2002, Jharkhand’s first chief minister Babulal Marandi had to step down from the post after at least six people were killed in violence that broke out following his announcement of a domicile policy. Even Marandi’s own cabinet ministers were against his proposal to consider the survey settlement of 1932 as the basis of granting land rights to the people.
Later, the Jharkhand High Court struck down the state government’s policy and also set aside the move to grant 73 percent quota to tribals and other backward communities. The BJP replaced Marandi with another tribal leader Arjun Munda in 2003. The new chief minister tactfully formed a committee on the matter and maintained ambiguity.
The Raghubar Das-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government ran into trouble in 2016 after the then chief minister declared a domicile policy considering 1985 as the cut-off date. Protests followed after adivasi outfits protested the policy with a relaxed cutoff proposed by the then state government.
“Das thought that the BJP got maximum seats from urban pockets, and those from upper castes and OBCs. To consolidate this constituency, he tried to dilute the land policy of Chota Nagpur and Santhal Pargana tenancy acts and tweak the domicile policy to bring out employment for the non-indigenous people. But it boomeranged and the BJP was saddled with an anti-tribal image. The BJP lost base among the tribals and ended with only two ST seats,” a BJP Jharkhand leader told ThePrint.
After coming to power, Hemant Soren passed the Khatiyan bill in the Jharkhand assembly in 2021 and again in 2022 and 2023, making the provision to reserve grade 3 and 4 government jobs for locals. The JMM leader, however, put the ball in the Centre’s court for the bill’s inclusion in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution for shielding it from judicial review.
Last year, the Raj Bhavan returned the bill to the Soren government for reconsideration on the grounds that it was violative of Article 16 (fundamental right guaranteeing equal opportunity in public employment to all Indian citizens) of the Constitution and various court rulings.
Although the BJP supported the passage of the Khatiyan bill in 2023, it has always called for a comprehensive employment policy that doesn’t exclude non-indigenous settlers given its support base among urban centres and non-indigenous population.
This is apparent from its election manifesto where it came with a brief statement regarding employment: the party promised to generate 5 lakh jobs in Jharkhand.
“In 2023, we supported passage of the Khatiyan bill, but we did not use the word ‘mulnivasi’. We always ensure to not annoy our support base, who can be affected by the implementation of the 1932 domicile policy… Even half of Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Jamshedpur will be affected. We also don’t want to attract animosity of tribals and original inhabitants but we got support from other sections. So, we have to protect their interest, too,” a senior Jharkhand BJP leader told ThePrint.
The party is treading carefully as the JMM is playing the domicile card to reclaim support of a section of tribal, OBC and settlers, he added.
“There are many districts where surveys happened after 1932, some in 1960. There are many people who don’t have land records; 30-40 percent people will be out of preview if this domicile policy is brought. The JMM only wants to polarise tribals and local inhabitants to use it. We are talking about the use of digital land surveys and giving employment to every unemployed person,” BJP’s Daltonganj MP Vishnu Dayal Ram, a former state police chief, told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
