Who Stole the Horses' Land?

The Bharatiya Janata Party plays the "illegal Bangladeshi" card in poll-bound Jharkhand

- Md Asghar Khan

A small patch of land around 30 km southwest of Martello Tower and Sidhu Kanu Park in Jharkhand’s Pakur district town became a battleground this July between adivasis and Muslims over ownership, four months ahead of assembly polls, with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma raising the allegation of “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants” grabbing land from indigenous people, carrying clear undertones of the familiar Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) narrative in the Northeastern state. The Muslims were accused of encroaching on tribal land and retaliating violently when opposed. The clashes stopped only after Section 144 was imposed in Gaibthan village of Maheshpur block in the Santhal Pargana region. When Sarma and BJP State President Babulal Marandi visited the area a few days after the clashes, both linked the Muslim residents of Gaibthan village to Bangladeshi infiltration.

“I don’t know where they came from, but they have been here since my grandfather’s time,” says 48-year-old Hopni Marandi, sitting on a cot outside the mud house of her son, Parmeshwar Hembram, on the edge of the disputed plot. “My grandfather gave them this land so they could keep their horses here. We did not object when they built a house here after my father-in-law died. But when we started building a house on our land adjacent to it, they began protesting. Hence the conflict.” Asked whether the Muslim families residing here are from Bangladesh, Marandi’s statements are clear—they took the land from her grandfather, and the family has lived here for at least generations.