Ajodhya vs Ayodhya: Modi's stance heightens tribal ire in Bengal’s Jangalmahal

There was an urgency in Ganesh Chandra Murmu’s stride as he scurried back home, oblivious to the cacophony of canvassing fairly audible from a nearby street corner. The head of the Adivasi Sengel Abhiyan (ASA)’s Jangalmahal unit in West Bengal had to reach home by 8 pm for a video meeting.

Attending the two-hour-long evening video meeting is a ritual Murmu has been religiously following for the last couple of years. Every evening, all zonal heads and other important office bearers of the influential tribal organisation huddle together to appraise the progress of their mass mobilisation movement in the Adivasi areas of the five eastern states of Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Bihar.

“These meetings are very crucial for our mission. During these, we monitor and plan our progress. Around 150 to 200 members from all our zones spread across five states meet every day without fail,” Murmu told The Federal.

Reversing Hindutva influence

The ASA is an apolitical sociocultural organisation. But the poll outcome in the four parliamentary seats in Bengal’s Jangalmahal area largely hinges on the progress report Murmu presents in the video meeting every evening.

His organisation is trying to reverse in the state’s tribal belt the influence of Hindutva forces such as Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Vanabandhu Parishad, and the Hindu Jagaran Mancha, all overtly or covertly linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The RSS-affiliated saffron groups, or the Sangh Parivar, of which the BJP is also a part, has turned the erstwhile Maoist hotbed into their fertile breeding ground in the post-insurgency period.

Jangalmahal witnessed a violent uprising from 2005 to 2011 — the last leg of the CPI(M)-led Left Front regime. To crush the insurgency, many Left Front cadres and supporters became armed vigilantes to help the state and central forces in their anti-Maoist operation. The state, with 425 casualties, recorded the highest number of Maoist-related fatalities in the country in 2010.

The number dropped to zero within three years of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress capturing power from the Left Front in 2011. The turnaround was largely because the TMC either absorbed in its fold or neutralised Maoist rebels through the Mamata government’s carrot-and-stick policy.

Chhatradhar Mahato, the former convener of the Maoist-backed People Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), became a local TMC leader. Maoist leader Mallojula Koteswara Rao, better known as Kishenji, was killed in a controversial encounter with the police in 2011. He had publicly backed the TMC, saying in many interviews before 2011 that he wanted Mamata to become the chief minister.

From red to green to saffron

The TMC could make political forays into the then Maoist stronghold because the red rebels trained their guns on the CPI(M), forcing many of its leaders and cadres to flee the area.

The TMC had a virtually free run in Jangalmahal from 2011 to 2016 because both the Left Front and the Maoists had been marginalised by then. But its domination was short-lived as the saffron brigade, which was lying low during the conflict period, soon emerged to fill the vacuum in the opposition space by becoming a rallying point for the anti-TMC and anti-Maoist forces.

The presence of former insurgent elements into its fold made the TMC non grata for those who had faced Maoist atrocities. As a result, a large number of Left Front cadres and supporters shifted their allegiance to the saffron brigade.

BJP’s entry

The BJP’s electoral rise in the area started from the 2018 panchayat elections when it stunned many by winning 33 per cent of the seats in the Adivasi-dominated Purulia and about 40 per cent in Jhargram area braving widespread violence by the ruling TMC. It swept the tribal belt a year later, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, winning all but one constituency.

The TMC, however, managed to recover some of the lost ground in the Assembly elections of 2021. That was primarily because of its extensive tribal-outreach campaign and resentment against the BJP among the Adivasi Kurmi community for not granting it Scheduled Tribe status. The BJP could still win 14 of the region’s 40 Assembly seats.

Tribals or Hindus?

Jangalmahal area comprises the state’s Purulia and Jhargram districts and parts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Birbhum districts. Kurmis constitute around 42 per cent of the population and tribals around 28 per cent in the area.

The BJP and Hindutva forces’ rise in the region led to an aggressive attempt to integrate the tribals into the larger Hindu fold though events like “ghar wapsi”, Ram Navami, and Shivratri celebrations and regular recitals of Hanuman Chalisa, Ramayana, and other Hindu texts.

“The Hindutva forces are distorting our culture and tradition by concocting fictitious mythological stories to link us with Hinduism,” said Sanat Besra, president of the Purulia district unit of ASA.

Ajodhya vs Ayodhya

One such alleged distortion, now at the centre of a political controversy, relates to two important religious sites of the Adivasis at Baghmundi Block of Purulia district. Hindus have been relating the Ajodhya hills and Sita Kund waterfall at Baghmundi with Rama.

At an election rally in Purulia last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the Hindu narrative in a bid to take political mileage from the recent inauguration of the Ram temple by him at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

The Hindutva push drew the ire of a section of tribal people. In protest against the Prime Minister’s statement, the ASA has given a call for “No Vote to BJP”. Another influential tribal organisation, Bharat Jakat Majhi Pargana Mahal, also gave the same call.

What Ajodhya means

“Ajodhya hills have no connection with Ayodhya (the perceived birthplace of Hindu deity Rama) or Rama. You will not find the reference of this place even in Hindu epic Ramayana. What is referred to as Sita Kund is called Sateeyaandari by us,” said Besra.

“‘Ayoo’ is mother in Santhali language and ‘dhya’ means a pilgrimage site. We tribals treat the Earth as our mother — that is ‘ayoo’. Over time, ‘Ayoodhya’ has been mispronounced as ‘Ajodhya’. The origin of the name means a pilgrimage centre dedicated to Mother Earth,” he explained.

The West Bengal Tourism Department also associates the sites with Ramayana. Some Hindu devotees even built a Ram temple in the area some 20 years ago.

Sarna Dharma revivalism

Ganesh Murmu said Adivasis initially were not averse to Hinduisation of names, as they did not realise it could lead to the appropriation of their faith, culture, and tradition. “Even my parents named me Ganesh after a Hindu god though they never believed in Hindu faith,” he said.

Ganesh Murmu and many tribals under the banner of the ASA are now putting up a resistance against this “Hindu aggression” through Sarna Dharma revivalism. On the other hand, their Sarna Dharma is an animistic religious faith that centres around nature. The ASA is demanding the inclusion of Sarna code in the census form so that tribals can tick it in the religious column.

“The tribal faith will be extinct in another 20 years if we are not granted the Sarna code. In the absence of the code, we are now forced to identify ourselves either as Hindu or Others,” he said.

This is mainly because many Adivasi communities are getting integrated into Hinduism. “Very few Adivasi communities identify their faith as Sarna,” said Hamlet Baskey, a schoolteacher in Jhargram’s Belpahari.

Blame on Manjhis

The ASA blames village chiefs, locally called Manjhis, for the erosion of tribal faith and culture. Its mass mobilisation programme includes a campaign to change village chiefs. Leaflets and posters proclaiming Manjhi bo badal kowa, atu bo banchowa (change the chief to safeguard the village) can be seen across Jangalmhal.

Murmu said they are getting good response from the people. The validation of the claim will come when Santals, the largest tribal community of Bengal, will congregate at Ajodhya hills for their annual religious festival.

There are about 17,400 Manjhis in Jangalmahal. But only 10 to 15 per cent of them attend the festival reposing faith in tribal rituals. An increase in their attendance will be an ominous sign for the saffron camp ahead of the elections on May 25, when Jangalmahal areas will go to poll. More so as the BJP is already facing a Kurmi backlash for not fulfilling its earlier poll promise of granting ST status to the community.

Disillusioned Kurmis

The Kurmis of Bengal are an Adivasi community and should not be confused with the Kurmis of Bihar. They were removed from the ST list in 1950. The Adivasi communities that enjoy ST status, however, claim that Kurmis have nothing in common with them with respect to religion, tradition, and lifestyle.

But the Adivasi Kurmi Samaj is determined to push for their demand. To raise their “voice in parliament”, it has fielded independent candidates “disillusioned with fake promises of both the state and the central governments,” said Ajit Prasad Mahato, who is leading the community’s fight for the ST status. He is contesting the elections as an independent candidate from Purulia, a seat the BJP won last time.

Its decision to field candidates proved costly for the BJP in last year’s panchayat elections as the TMC swept the rural polls.