An Outspoken Adivasi Leader's Testimony

A new edition of Mundari leader Jaipal Singh's memoir brings together a compelling story of brilliance and bravado

- Somak Ghoshal

On 19 December 1946, Jaipal Singh, who was one of the six Adivasi members of the Constituent Assembly (out of a total strength of 389), rose to address his colleagues on the "Objective Resolution". The latter had been introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru five days earlier and dealt with the soon-to-be-independent India's status as a sovereign democratic republic.

"This Resolution is not going to teach Adivasis (sic) democracy. You cannot teach democracy to the tribal people; you have to learn democratic ways from them. They are the most democratic people on earth," he said to B.R. Ambedkar, chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution, and the others gathered.

"What my people require...is not adequate safeguards as Pandit Jawaharlal (sic) Nehru has put it. They require protection from Ministers. We do not ask for any special protection. We want to be treated like every other Indian." The foresight, as well as prescience, in his statement induces goosebumps 80-odd years later.

This incident appears in Lo Bir Sendra: A Hunter in the Burning Forest, a memoir of sorts that Singh wrote in 1969, a year before his sudden death. The handwritten manuscript—which remained in the custody of an Italian anthropologist for several decades—was discovered and published in 2004 by the late Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist, Stan Swamy.