Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar on November 15, 2000, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, the revolutionary Adivasi leader who led the late 19th-century Ulgulan (“The Great Tumult”).The date of its formation is significant: the state was the product of a lengthy struggle to protect Adivasi identity and resources. Twenty-five years later, Jharkhand’s foundational promise has only partially been fulfilled. Here’s its story.Genesis of demand for JharkhandThe idea of a sovereign Adivasi territory could be traced to Birsa Munda’s popular slogan: “Abua dishum, abua raj” (Our land, our rule).Throughout the late-18th and 19th centuries, colonial forces upturned the Adivasi way of life in Chhotanagpur. These disruptions led to periodic rebellions, such as the Hul of 1855-56 and the Ulugulan of 1899, which saw Adivasis take up arms against imperial officers and their non-Adivasi collaborators.S Bosu Mullick, author of the book The Jharkhand Movement (2004), believes that the root cause of the Jharkhand movement lies in the historical conflict between the two mutually exclusive ways of life represented by the two categories of people — the ‘Adivasi’ and the ‘Diku’ (“outsider”).Sociologically, this is an overly simplistic binary. Yet, it has carried political currency in a region where Adivasi lives and resources have been repeatedly encroached upon, and the concerns have been ignored.Early articulations & Unnati SamajAfter decades of struggle against Diku moneylenders and zamindars, the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act was passed in 1908, restricting the transfer of Adivasi land to non-Adivasis. While significant, this was far from the “Abua raj” that Birsa Munda spoke about.Story continues below this adIn 1912, the province of Bihar was carved out from the erstwhile Bengal Presidency, comprising present-day Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. It was this division which gave birth to demands for a separate Jharkhand.The earliest articulations for Jharkhand were made by Theodore Surin, who argued that the region’s culture and way of life were distinct from that of the rest of Bihar. In 1912, J Bartholomen, a Christian from Chaibasa, took part in the Dacca Student Council. Inspired, he would return to his homeland and establish the ‘Catholic Students Organisation’.In 1915, this organisation was renamed Chhota Nagpur Unnati Samaj, a title suggested by Bishop Kennedy of the Anglican Mission. The Samaj’s primary objective was the socio-economic progress of Adivasis, and the preservation of their cultural identity — a vision that laid the intellectual foundation for the ‘idea of Jharkhand’.Importantly, the Unnati Samaj restricted its membership to Adivasis, excluding Dikus, signalling an early assertion of indigenous autonomy. Prominent early members of the Unnati Samaj included Juel Lakra, Bandiram Oraon, Theble Oraon, and Paul Dayal.Story continues below this adIn 1928, the Samaj formally submitted a memorandum to the Simon Commission, demanding the creation of a separate province in the Chhotanagpur region. This demand was rejected.Adivasi Mahasabha & Jaipal Singh MundaThe 1930s saw the emergence of a number of Adivasi organisations across Chhotanagpur. In 1930, the Chhotanagpur Kisan Sabha, which advocated for farmers’ rights, came up in response to the growing exploitation of ryots by zamindars. In 1933, the Chotanagpur Catholic Sabha and other tribe-specific associations, such as the Ho-Malto Marang Sabha and the Munda Sabha, took shape; each voiced the socio-political concerns of their respective communities.Eventually, these organisations united to form the Chotanagpur-Santhal Pargana Adivasi Sabha in 1938, bringing together Ho, Munda, Santhal, and Oraon leaders to one platform. This was a time when the Jharkhand movement transitioned from one calling for social reform to political mobilisation. The creation of Orissa (now Odisha) in 1936, and the lack of Adivasi representation in the Bihar Congress government of 1937 gave impetus to the movement.In 1939, the Sabha became the Adivasi Mahasabha. At this juncture emerged Jaipal Singh Munda, an Oxford-educated intellectual, former ICS officer, and captain of India’s gold-winning 1928 hockey team. Munda hailed from a village in Khunti district, some 25 km from Ranchi.Story continues below this adIn 1939, leaders of the Mahasabha had invited him to preside over their annual conference held on the banks of the Harmu river in Ranchi. He was given a grand welcome, and accorded the title of “Marang Gomke” (Great Leader).It was in this conference that the Mahasabha formally raised the demand for Jharkhand; of course, Bihar’s then Prime Minister (equivalent to chief minister today) Shri Krishna Sinha rejected this proposal.Munda then approached national leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, but was told to focus on first attaining Independence from colonial rule.Success of Jharkhand PartyOver time, Munda understood that the demand for a separate state would not be fulfilled without taking into account the electoral realities of Chhotanagpur. Put simply, Adivasis made up just about a third of the region’s population; for Jharkhand to become reality, the movement would have to appeal to a lot more people.Story continues below this adWith this in mind, the Adivasi Mahasabha was renamed as the Jharkhand Party on December 31, 1949. On January 1, 1950, Munda announced that this party would now be open to both tribals and non-tribals, emphasising unity across castes and communities for the cause of statehood.Also in Explained | Story of a sacred Jharkhand hill at the centre of old friction between Jains & SantalsWitnessing the horrors of the Partition, Nehru was wary of giving space to regional movements and statehood demands, fearing the balkanisation of the still-nascent Indian republic. Nonetheless, in the Bihar Assembly elections of 1951-52, the first after Independence, the Jharkhand Party won 33 seats and secured 10% of the vote, coming second to only the Congress. This gave weight to the demand for Jharkhand. The Jharkhand Party sat as the main opposition, with Sushil Kumar Bage, the MLA from Kolebira, becoming the Leader of the Opposition. This performance would be repeated in 1957, when the party won 31 seats.Yet, the goal of statehood was nowhere close to being realised. Even as a number of other states were carved out, the States Reorganisation Commission in its 1955 report rejected the proposal for Jharkhand, stating that Adivasis were a minority in the region whose coalfields, mineral wealth, and industries provided a much-needed “balance” to northern Bihar’s predominantly agrarian economy.Movement gets (temporarily) stalledThe Jharkhand Party witnessed a setback in 1962, with its vote share dropping to less than 5% and the number of seats dropping to a measly 20. A year later, Munda decided to merge his party with the Congress, setting the statehood movement back by years.Some believe that this decision was influenced by his second wife Jahanara, who would later become Deputy Minister for Transport and Aviation in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet. Others credit then Bihar Chief Minister Binodanand Jha for orchestrating the merger.Story continues below this adNonetheless, Munda became Bihar’s Minister for Community Development. But he resigned soon after, realising the innate contradiction between his dream of a separate Jharkhand and his role in the Bihar government. He would revive the Jharkhand Party in 1969, but passed away a year later. His death created a vacuum in Jharkhandi politics and the movement for statehood which had, by this time, fragmented and run out of steam.While several smaller groups, such as the Birsa Seva Dal, the All India Jharkhand Party and the Hul Jharkhand Party emerged in the late 1960s, none had the pull of Munda’s original party. Thus, entering the 1970s, the Jharkhand movement needed a new leader.JMM & rise of Shibu SorenIt was in this political vacuum that the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) was born in 1972. It was the product of the merger of three organisations: the Shivaji Samaj of Kurmi-Mahato leader Binod Bihari Mahato, the Marxist Coordination Committee of trade unionist A K Roy, and the Sonot Santhal Samaj of Santal leader Shibu Soren.Unlike Jaipal Munda’s urban-centric Jharkhand Party, the JMM was conceptualised as a mass organisation, uniting various backward castes, Adivasis, and peasants and workers under a “red-green” banner.Story continues below this ad“The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was born with a green and red flag, and with the concrete practice of the alliance that this symbolised — Dhanbad mine workers, lower caste peasants, adivasis. ‘Lalkhand-Jharkhand’ was the slogan of early marches,” sociologist Gail Omvedt wrote in ‘Ecology and Social Movements’ (1984).The JMM, with Soren emerging as its most popular leader, led multiple grassroots movements in Jharkhand, from the dhan katao andolan against the exploitation of moneylenders to the jungle katao andolan against unjust state forestry practices.His challenge to the status quo was often violent: political scientist Louise Tillin wrote in Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins (2023) wrote that “the JMM, and Shibu Soren in particular, became known for delivering summary justice against landlords and moneylenders, even holding their own courts”. But amid the daily injustices of the status quo, his charisma and candour made Soren a cult figure among the marginalised.At this time, the demand for Jharkhand was more of a means to mobilise support for the social justice fight than an end in and of itself. “Our first concern is to chase away the bloodsuckers and help the people lead a respectable, quiet and fraternal life,” Soren had famously said in 1979.Story continues below this adSoren’s decision to enter electoral politics in 1980, however, significantly tempered his politics. And from a tool to galvanise support for larger social aims, statehood became the raison d’être of JMM’s existence. Over the next two decades, Soren championed the cause of Jharkhand in Parliament, along with a number of other key political actors who entered the fray in the 1980s.New players push for JharkhandAs the JMM became more mainstream, more radical organisations emerged to take its place. In 1986, inspired by the success of the All Assam Students’ Union, former JMM members Suraj Singh Besra and Nirmal Mahto formed the All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU); a year later, the Jharkhand Coordination Committee (JCC) came up, uniting 53 groups who, in the words of Tillin, launched a “revivalist movement” that mixed “economics with identity”.The JCC, for instance, revived an older demand for Greater Jharkhand, a pre-Independence idea that incorporated 21 districts from the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal with a significant Adivasi population. Along with the AJSU, the JCC pushed for statehood more aggressively, utilising direct-action methods like mass rallies, economic blockades, and general strikes.Meanwhile, the idea of Jharkhand received support from a rising national party — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Beginning in the late 1980s, the BJP proposed that the districts of southern Bihar become the state of ‘Vananchal’; the party’s appeal among upper caste Hindu voters was particularly important for creating convergence of regional opinion in favour of statehood.For the BJP, supporting Jharkhand was a political gambit: it weakened the Lalu Prasad-led Janata Dal in undivided Bihar, gave the BJP a foothold in the region, and through that foothold, bolstered its national position.As political turmoil gripped India in the 1990s, Jharkhand became a political football for national and regional parties. In 1989, the Centre had formed the Jharkhand Subject Committee, which recommended the administrative division of Bihar; the Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council (JAAC) was established in 1995, despite opposition from Lalu.But this was dismissed as a “token” gesture by parties clamouring for Jharkhand. Meanwhile, in 1996, when Rabri Devi, Lalu’s wife, became Bihar Chief Minister, the Bihar Assembly backed Jharkhand’s creation. This was envisioned by Lalu to be a short-term tactical manoeuvre meant to strengthen his position in southern Bihar.But in 1998, Atal Bihar Vajpayee became Prime Minister, leading the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The NDA’s manifesto had included the creation of Jharkhand as well as the imposition of President’s Rule in Bihar, at the time witnessing the peak of the so-called “Jungle Raj”. Lalu rejected the Bihar Reorganization Bill, claiming a conspiracy to divide the state.But by now, even politicians in northern Bihar, especially those aligned with the BJP, supported reorganisation. They felt that this would help with northern Bihar’s development, while weakening Lalu’s grip over the state. When the NDA returned to power in 1999 with a more secure government, the Bihar Reorganization Bill sailed through Parliament, receiving Presidential assent on August 25, 2000.A promise unfulfilled: situation since 2000The bifurcation of Bihar was prima facie to Jharkhand’s benefit: the new state, having inherited the region’s mineral and industrial resources, had a significantly higher per capita income of roughly Rs 10,451 (per annum) compared to Bihar’s 6,554.That said, neither state was well to do; Jharkhand was 26th on the list of states based on per capita income, while Bihar was at the bottom. Since then, this situation has persisted. In 2023-24, Jharkhand reported a per capita income of Rs 1,15,960, higher than Bihar’s Rs 66,828 but much lower than the national average of Rs 2,15,935. Similar trends can be seen with regard to other indicators, from literacy rate to gender ratios.While Jharkhand was created based on the promise of protecting Adivasi identity and improving their economic outlook, the state failed to deliver on this promise: poverty, unemployment and poor health and educational infrastructure continue to hold the state back. This is despite Jharkhand boasting close to 40% of India’s mineral wealth.One reason for this paradox is the Freight Equalisation Policy, which was introduced by the Nehru government in 1952, and remained in place till 1993. With the stated aim of ensuring “balanced industrial growth” by equalising freight costs of minerals across India, in practice, the policy hurt mineral-rich regions in the hinterland, such as Jharkhand. Under the policy, it was more economical to set up industries in coastal states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat, which had better infrastructure and ports; Jharkhand’s resources fuelled growth elsewhere, leaving the state with not much else apart from environmental damage.The state’s economic situation is encapsulated by the risks that its residents take as migrant workers elsewhere. For instance, thousands of Adivasi and Kurmi workers migrate to the Gulf and African nations for construction and transmission-line work. In the past few months alone, five workers were kidnapped in Niger, one worker was killed in Saudi Arabia, and one in Niger, and several others stranded in many countries have reported wage denial and unsafe working conditions.One reason for this continuing impoverishment is the failure of governance. After the creation of the state, corruption and political instability have effectively crippled governance. To date, Jharkhand has seen 11 changes of government, three instances of President’s Rule, and only two CMs who have completed a full five-year term.According to an author-activist Sanjay Bosu Mullick, the Jharkhand movement has led to only two benefits: greater autonomy for Adivasis and the preservation of their identity. He said that ‘internal colonialism’ was the biggest culprit in Jharkhand’s continuing impoverishment.“The State Process, which is responsible for forming policies and laws, is heavily influenced by non-Jharkhandis. This, coupled with the fact that the State Mechanism (the bureaucracy responsible for implementation) is similarly dominated, means the state’s indigenous population lacks control over both law creation and enforcement,” he said.According to Jean Drèze, an economist who teaches at Ranchi University, Jharkhand was born out of a dream of freedom — freedom from exploitation by outsiders, and the freedom to grow in accordance with the culture and values of its own people. However, he noted that these aspirations have largely been undermined by poor utilisation of local resources, beginning with human resources.Drèze specifically points to the neglect of the schooling system, which he says has turned Jharkhand into a reserve army of cheap labour for other states. Meanwhile, he adds, natural resources have often been handed over to commercial interests rather than being developed for local benefit, while financial resources are squandered away.“Today, there is little to distinguish Jharkhand from the rest of India — except that it remains poorer,” Drèze said