How the BJP is trying to exploit Adivasis’ anxieties in Jharkhand for electoral gain

Chunki Marandi is the mukhiya, or elected village chief, of Madhuapada village in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj district. But on a visit to the village in early August, when Scroll asked a group of local residents for directions to the mukhiya’s house, they pointed us to a large bungalow owned by a Muslim man.

Marandi was indeed the mukhiya, one of the residents said. But it was the resident of the bungalow, an influential person in Madhuapada, who led the village and managed its official work.

We were in the village to investigate the Bharatiya Janata Party’s claims that Muslim “infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women mukhiyas to grab Adivasi land and change the demography of the Santal Parganas, the eastern region of Jharkhand, which is traditionally home to the Santal Adivasi community. A party leader had identified nine panchayats in Sahibganj where this had happened. Madhuapada was one of them.

The claim turned out to be false. When we did meet Marandi, we learnt that she was married to an Adivasi man, Babu Soren. The couple lived in a half-constructed house with missing doors and red bricks for walls, and worked as labourers at construction sites. “So what if I’m a mukhiya? I am still poor and struggle to...

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