From delivering summary justice against landlords to fighting for Jharkhand statehood: political journey of Shibu Soren

Indian Express

05-08-2025

Shibu Soren, who passed away on Monday, is widely recognised as the most influential leader of the Jharkhand movement. His radical politics in the 1970s reconceptualised the Jharkhandi identity, giving second wind to the faltering movement for statehood.
But in the decades that followed, Soren would choose the path of moderation and compromise, often in the face of criticism, to help make the state of Jharkhand a reality. Here's a brief history.
A new mobilisation
The early movement for Jharkhand, helmed in the post-Independence years by Jaipal Singh Munda and his Jharkhand Party, ran out of steam by the late 1950s. There were a few fundamental reasons for this.
The Jharkhand Party's support base was largely urban, and its leadership was drawn from a relatively small class of educated tribal elite. The conception of a Jharkhand state at this time was solely based on an assertion of adivasi identity and indigeneity that stood against the exploitative 'dikus' (outsiders).
British geographer Stuart Corbridge argued that economic differentiation among adivasis and the changing demography of Chhotanagpur following the industrial development of the 20th century (Scheduled Tribes were only 26.21% of the state's population in the 2011 Census) meant that such a narrow conception of Jharkhand was unmaintainable ('Industrialisation, internal colonialism and ethnoregionalism: the Jharkhand, India, 1880-1980, 1987).
It was in this context that Soren became an important player. Along with the Bengali Marxist trade unionist A K Roy and Kurmi-Mahato leader Binod Bihari Mahato, the Santal leader formed the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in late 1972. Its vision was to create a 'red-green movement' that would fundamentally reconceptualise Jharkhandi identity, sociologist Gail Omvedt wrote in 'Ecology and Social Movements'.
'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,' Omvedt wrote in 1984.
The question of land
The deliberate appeal to non-tribal workers would help the JMM introduce 'new forms of mobilisation around socio economic issues', political scientist Louise Tillin wrote in Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins (2023).
'Land was a major issue for the JMM,' Tillin wrote. 'The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act 1908 had made the sale of tribal lands to non-tribals illegal, but considerable tribal land had changed hands nonetheless.' This created an increasingly alienated peasantry, which was being squeezed further by exploitative moneylenders.
'We must eat all year round. So far, the Santhal has worked for twelve months and starved for twelve months, and the moneylender has reaped the harvest. This must change,' Soren said (quoted in the Economic and Political Weekly article 'Material Base of Santhal Movement', 1975).
Even before the JMM came into being, Soren would travel from village to village on his motorcycle, encouraging adivasis and other landless tillers to harvest standing crops on land that was illegally acquired by the 'outsiders'. The so-called dhan katao andolan would peak with the harvests of 1974-75.
In the late 1970s, the JMM took a leading role in protests against state forestry policies in Singhbhum, backing the so-called jungle katao andolan in which government-planted teak trees were cut down to reclaim land for cultivation.
Soren's challenge to the status quo was often 'violent'. 'The JMM, and Shibu Soren in particular, became known for delivering summary justice against landlords and moneylenders, even holding their own courts,' Tillin wrote.
But his charisma and candour made him a cult-like figure among the adivasis.
In mainstream politics
Till the early 1980s, the demand for statehood was simply a tool for Soren and the JMM to mobilise support for their primary fight. 'Even if Jharkhand does not come into being in my lifetime, why should I be bothered? Our first concern is to chase away the bloodsuckers and help the people lead a respectable, quiet and fraternal life,' he said (quoted in EPW, 'Containing the Jharkhand Movement', 1979).
But it was an important tool nonetheless. In a 2007 interview with Tillin, Soren described it as a 'bridging mechanism' between the Marxist social ideals of the JMM and the sphere of reference of the locals.
'I used to tell Roy-ji (A K Roy)… that the people in Jharkhand understand the language of Birsa Munda, Tilka Manjhi, Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu and Shekh Bhikhari (leaders of 18th and 19th century revolts). They don't understand the language of Lenin. People here have a right to land, forest and water,' he told Tillin (quoted in Remapping India).
After he was elected to Lok Sabha in 1980, however, Soren is said to have struck a deal with Indira Gandhi in exchange for immunity for his activities in the 1970s, which significantly tempered his politics. From a tool to galvanise support, statehood became the primary end of JMM's politics. In 1983, the JMM dropped the red from its flag.
For the next two decades, Soren championed the cause of a Jharkhand state in Parliament. Along with a number of other players who entered the political scene in the 1980s — most notably the BJP, which supported the creation of Jharkhand but for very different reasons — the JMM helped build mainstream political consensus on statehood by taking the path of moderation, often in the face of criticism from the ground.
Jharkhand officially became a state on November 15, 2000.