Tribal Anxiety

WHEN 200 tribal gram sabha heads from Chaibasa in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district met on September 13, their minds weighed heavy with concern.

- Md Asghar Khan

The occasion was a meeting of the Manki Munda Association at Chaibasa's Gurudwara road which was organised to discuss how the aggressive pursuit of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and One Nation One Election (ONOE) agendas by the Centre could place the future of tribals, their identity and their conservative self-government system guaranteed under the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule in peril. 

The growing buzz around the UCC and ONOE has made 51-year-old Kalicharan Birua, deputy chairman of the Association, anxious.

“Sometimes, it is one country, one legislation, sometimes one country, one election. There is no scope for diversity. Later, they may even maintain that our Manki, Munda, Pahra Raja or Gram Sabha too will be irrelevant. Only their system will function. Why should we follow the system of those who do not follow our system or custom? We are worried that in the name of law and legislation, they may put an end to our tribal area, our tradition, our freedom and conservative (traditional) system,” Birua said.

Munda, Manki, Tana Bhagat, Pahra Raja, Majhi Pargana are designations of indigenous leaders in the tribal landscape of Jharkhand, which is rooted in cultural tradition. Munda is a village-level official, inferior to the Manki, who looks after several villages. If Munda is unable to resolve any issue, it is bumped up to the Manki. In the same manner, a Pahra Raja heads a bunch of villages and several village gram sabhas report to him.