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Jharkhand has two
important communities, the tribals (primarily Santhals) and the Mahtaos, which
were the backbone of the movement for a separate state for Jharkhand. The
Mahtaos belong to the O.B.C. (Kurmis) and look at the tribals as inferior. But,
the Jharkhand Movement for a separate state brought these two sections of
society close.
It was the beginning
of the seventies. In the year 1970-71, when three powerful progressive movements
developed in this area.
The first was the
powerful trade union movement in the coal belt in Dhanbad lead by A.K.Roy. This
TU movement grew like a torrent against the coal mafia and the management. He
fought for workers’ rights and in the process violent clashes took place between
the workers and the mafia, in which many were killed from both sides. It was
A.K.Roy who was the chief ideologue of the incipient movement for a separate
Jharkhand State.
The other two
movements that developed were sweeping social reform movements within the Mahtao
and Santhal (Tribals) communities. These were lead by Vinod Bihari Mahtao (V.B.M.)
and Sibu Soren respectively.
V.B.M. was then the
member of the C.P.M. and was close to A.K.Roy. He formed the social reform
organization called Shivaji Samaj (they trace their routes to Maharashtra and
even use the surname Patil). One of the main agendas of this organization was
against dowry. The movement grew like wild fire and spread to vast parts of
Jharkhand, particularly Dhanbad, Girdhi, Hazaribagh, Bokaro, Singhbum and
Purulia. In the process, like A.K.Roy, he left the C.P.M.
Sibu Soren (from
Hazaribagh) was in the ninth standard when his father was murdered by local
landlords. Seeking revenge, he left his home and in the process came in touch
with V.B.M. He too began a social reform movement within the Santhals and called
it The Sanat (Good) Santhal Samaj. It was mostly directed against liquor
consumption, backward superstitious ideas, for simple non-expensive marriages,
against having more than one wife and against religious customs etc. This too
spread like wildfire.
At this time, the
M.C.C. had already begun movements against Mahajans (moneylenders) and landlords
in Hazaribagh district. The then District Collector of Dhanbad, one K.B.Saxena,
sought to promote Sibu Soren’s Movement to counter the incipient Naxalite
Movement in the area.
It is these three
movements that finally merged to form The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha at a huge rally
on February 4th 1973 in Dhanbad. These three leaders joined hands and it was
A.K.Roy that acted as the ideologue for it. It was A.K.Roy who coined the slogan
Lalkhand, and the JMM’s two main slogans were: Fasal Japt, Zamin Japt
Andolan (crop seizure, land seizure movement); and Maro Mahajan, Maro
Daroga (beat Moneylenders, beat Police). This movement spread like a torrent
and became a veritable upsurge.
The main edge of the
JMM struggle was against the Mahajans. In those days the interest charged was
over 100% per year by these moneylenders. In the initial phase of the movement
there was not much intervention by the police. Much of the lands seized by the
moneylender were restored to the peasants. The movement swept the districts of
Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Girdhi, and Jamtalla (of Santhal Parganas). The movement
also targeted the forest officials. The sweep of the movement became so intense
that they began targeting all exploiters. The movement went well beyond the
confines set by the Saxenna types. The Jharkhand flag was red and green and
A.K.Roy coined the slogan "vote se nahin, chot se lenge Lalkhand" (we
will not take Lalkhand by vote but by hitting)
By 1972 itself the
MCC had begun some land struggles in Hazaribagh and also against the forest
department. Some landlords had been annihilated and their weapons seized. While
this was in its nascent form the JMM movement grew militant. The masses would
beat and kill the moneylenders, dacoits and even the police in clashes. In
Dhanbad particularly many landlords were killed and in Dumka the Raja was
killed. Saxenna tried to pull the movement back. Even Roy was not able to ride
the militancy of the movement. Mahatao and Soren went underground. It was 1995
and the movement had peaked. The Emergency was declared in June.
Roy, Saxenna and one
Thakur tried their best to make the two surrender and rein in the movement. But
when Mahatao was caught the movement intensified against the arrest and the
whole town of Girdhi was taken over by the masses. There were road blockades,
rail blockades everywhere. Soren was underground in the hills of Parasnath. The
military was then called in and massive repression unleashed. In the areas that
Soren moved it was virtually turned into a liberated zone, with a functioning
parallel government. They began cooperative agriculture, night schools, people’s
courts at night, and from every house grains were collected to fund the
movement. Soren’s volunteers wore green dresses and roamed with him in batches
of 300 to 400.
At that time A.K.Roy
wrote a book saying that revolutionaries only dream about a Lalkhand, Soren has
actually formed a socialist society. Soon after this Soren was arrested and
Indira Gandhi herself went and met him in jail. And from the jail itself he
withdrew the struggle, saying that it was wrong and to support Indira Gandhi’s
20-point programme. He changed the slogan to: "Chot se nahin, vote se lena
Jharkhand" (achieve Jharkhand not through Beatngs but through the vote). He
also began to say that the Mahajans are also Jharkhandis. Much of the land
seized was taken back by the Mahajans. Saxena played a big role in this
capitulation process. Indira Gandhi lavished money on his offices (called
ashrams), gave him tractors and money, and 100 lanterns and books for the night
schools. All his activists signed bonds and were released from jail.
When Sibu Soren came
out of jail the opportunist politics of all the leaders led to a split amongst
them. JMM went into stagnation. A.K.Roy came out of the JMM, while the other two
leaders also began to fall out. All the gains of the movement were usurped by
the leaders and the sincere cadres suffered. All became deeply immersed in
election politics. Soren’s faction particularly became most corrupt and its
organization lumpenised. But people turned against Soren and he lost the
elections from the main heart of the movement in Tundi, Dhanbad (later became MP
from Dumka area).
Meanwhile the MCC
kept patient relations with the Jharkhandis, even with some of their top
leaders. In fact one of MCC’s earliest activists was one comrade Ragunath Mahtao
(a panchayat mukhiya of the Topchachi area) and a close school friend of VBM.
Another well respected activist was comrade Ravan Murmu who wielded a lot of
influence amongst the Santhal community. All these three were friends and about
the same age. All three had taken ration shops. Around that time there was a
famine in the area and VBM had made a lot of money through fraud. Later he
became a lawyer and did the cases of the dispossessed who lost their land in the
newly built Bokaro Steel Plant. The case went on for over 10 years. He won those
cases and in the process made huge amounts of money and amassed a lot of
property. But he also gained much popularity because of these cases. Both
Raghnath Mahtao and Murmu wielded much influence with the Jahrkhandis, including
their leaders. When the latter betrayed the movement it was the MCC that took up
the old slogans of the JMM, including the Lalkhand slogan. Throughout the
process RM and Murmu secretly spread the influence of the MCC. Both belonged to
one of the earliest recruits of the MCC in 1971/72. RM had a big influence in
the Mahto community and Murmu amongst Santhals.
Through this entire
period the MCC maintained contacts and had discussions with large numbers of JMM
activists at all levels of leadership. In the late 1970s they took out a special
issue on this question of Lalkhand in their organ Lal Pataka (No. 14). Their
leader, com. Kanai Chatterjee, was there through this entire period. With the
betrayal of the leaders, large numbers of activists from the JMM began to flock
to the MCC.
With the weakening of
the JMM, the Mahajans, once the main enemy, began to become the leaders of the
movement. Soren set the practice of holding weekly general meeting in his
sprawling head office (ashram). In these weekly events many questions were
raised by cadre for which he had no answer. Finally, the JMM began to be used as
an important weapon with which to crush the MCC.
By the early 1980s
the struggle between the JMM and the MCC began to intensify. In 1983 the JMM
hatched a conspiracy kill many MCC activists. They badly beat up 18 and took
away three leading comrades to be killed. But, because of the people’s reaction
they had to free the three. Even the JMM’s other leader, VBM, did not support
this action and publicly chided Soren and his followers. For the first time the
MCC took out a procession against the black deeds of the Soren’s JMM and
demanded a public debate.
Soren now gave the
slogans like: Lalkhandi logo ko suvar jese tir se mar dalo (Kill
Lalkhandis like pigs with arrows), Throw them off the Parasnath Hill,
etc. They started a massive anti-MCC campaign. MCC intensified its anti-Soren
campaign. In 1983 Sibu Soren formed his separate CC, and in 1984 VBM formed his
separate CC. The latter was close to the MCC. All reactionaries began to heavily
back Soren against the MCC.
In the 1983-86 period
the Soren JMM intensified its attacks on the MCC and killed a number of their
activists, like the famous cultural artist, Sagar Soren. (He was to become the
representative to the AILRC before his murder). It was on Feb.4th 1984 which was
being celebrated by both factions as JMM foundation day. After performing at
VBM’s programme he went to the other programme. He also happened to be a
relative of Sibu Soren (SS). They then took him to the Ashram and fed him well.
He never expected that they would kill him. Till today his body has not even
been traced.
From Sept.1983 to
Dec.1984 the SS JMM launched massive attacks on all MCC supported villages. They
destroyed crops and houses, seized money and valuables, harassed the women and
demanded surrender to the JMM. Many even were forced to surrender in the face of
their brutalities. Till then the MCC did not take any action against them, only
conducted a political campaign. The VBM faction of the JMM also supported the
MCC in this campaign against the SS storm troopers. By 1986 it had gone beyond
limits and by then the SS JMM had killed over 10 of the MCC activists including
one sub-zonal member (com. Ratilal Murmu) and two area committee members (Coms.
Valli Mia and Nangal Murmu). At all their public meetings they would declare
publicly that they would give thousands of rupees for killing MCC people.
Before starting a
counter attack the MCC first re-built the land seizure movement against the
landlords and moneylenders which had been given up by the JMM. Now, many of
these happened to be activists or sympathizers of SS’s JMM. Particularly notable
were the big movements against the landlord Inder Singh and JMM member who was
killed and his land seized. Then there were the actions against a very big and
powerful Bumihar and also a moneylender (Tularam Marwari) — both were tried in
people’s courts, beaten severely and their lands confiscated. These too were
members of the JMM. After this, in retaliation, the JMM unleashed a further
reign of terror. It was then that the two right hands of the SS mafia were
killed …….. one Jiten Besra and Samlal Murmu, both of the Dhanbad area. After
this the Sibu Soren gangs got paralysed and the people enmass threw away the
green flag and replaced it with the Lalkhandi red flag.
Since then Sibu
Soren’s weekly meetings have stopped. Since 1987 his main ‘Ashram’ is a
veritable police camp. All his huge farms have closed down and his mafia forces
have shifted their operations of money-making to the cities where they have to
some extent replaced the old-time mafia in the coal and other trade union belt.
With the masses turning to the MCC, SS was panic stricken not knowing who was
really his member and not an MCC secret operative. This panic particularly grew
after a planned attack on a Sibu Soren meeting in 1985. Over 15,000 attended
this meeting. Most were MCC supporters. Present also was a squad with bombs and
small weapons. As he began speaking bombs exploded from all sides. He panicked.
Taking cover from women he changed his clothes and fled in a car with police
protection. 5kms down the road another squad again fired on his car, not with an
intention to kill, but to warn. His panic then knew no bounds. Since then no
meeting is held by him except under massive police protection, which is only
allowed near police stations. He has also given up his public anti-MCC slogans.
The other faction of
the JMM always supported the Lalkhandis though VBM became an MP himself. But he
died after winning the 12th Lok Sabha elections. The current Chief Minister,
Arjun Munda also came from the JMM, but has a notorious criminal background. He
won on a ticket given by Sibu Soren and then switched to the BJP. Sibu Soren’s
marriage with the Congress dates back to that jail meeting with Indira Gandhi.
In the recent elections at last five seats were lost because of his attitude
towards his deputy, Stephan Marandi. Just like the JMM mafia that operates at
the local level SS sought the entire cake of CM for himself and his immediate
family. This backfired miserably, and while the MCC grows from strength to
strength, Sibu Soren can only sustain his existence as a tool of the ruling
classes who seek to use tribals, etc as vote-banks of the ruling classes and to
prevent them from turning to the revolutionaries.
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