The truth around the BJP’s bogey of ‘Bangladeshi infiltration’ in Jharkhand

BJP leaders from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Amit Shah, Himanta Biswa Sarma to Rajnath Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan to Nishikant Dubey have raised the spectre of Bangladeshi infiltrators in Jharkhand.

Their focus has been Santhal Pargana, where they allege the population of both Adivasis and Hindus have declined in successive census reports.

Curiously, no tribal organisation has raised any alarm. On the contrary, independent fact-finding teams have found no on-ground evidence to support the BJP’s claim. In any case, as chief minister Hemant Soren pointed out, it was the responsibility of the Union government and home minister Amit Shah to stop the infiltration of 'foreigners' in case this was happening.

In a telling interview to The Hindu this week, former chief minister Champai Soren, who switched to the BJP from the JMM (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) a few months ago, claims he became aware of the ‘infiltration’ only in recent years. He admitted that he had never raised the issue with Hemant Soren or in the cabinet because the chief minister was himself from Santhal Pargana and would have been familiar with the issue.

BJP leaders have cited figures from the census to point out that the tribal population in Santhal Pargana declined from over 44 per cent in 1951 to 28 per cent in 2011.

In terms of percentage, the Adivasi population in Jharkhand itself declined from 26.3 in the 2001 census to 26.2 in the 2011 census. In absolute terms, however, the Adivasi population increased from 71 lakh in 2001 to 86 lakh in 2011.

Similarly, in absolute terms, the number of Adivasis in Santhal Parganas went up from around 10 lakh (44 per cent of 23 lakh) in 1951 to around 19 lakh (28 per cent of 69 lakh) in 2011.

How alarming is the situation really?

In an affidavit filed before the high court in September 2024, the Union of India conceded that the decline could be because of migration, high infant mortality, or conversion to Christianity. The issue was still being examined, the affidavit stated.

What it failed to mention is that an increasing number of tribals have been insisting that they are not Hindus and that their faith should be described as ‘Sarna Dharma’. The practice of clubbing all non-Christian Adivasis as ‘Hindu’ is no longer valid, resulting in the skew.

The Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha sent a fact-finding team to Santhal Pargana to inquire into the allegations and found them to be baseless. In a statement, it claimed that the percentage of tribals has declined largely because of high mortality and outward migration.

It explains the decline in the percentage of Hindus by pointing out that a large number of tribals have moved away from declaring themselves as Hindu. Instead, the increasing trend is for non-Christian Adivasis to declare their religion as ‘Sarna’.

Since Sarna is yet to be recognised as a separate religion, they are being clubbed with ‘others’ in the census. The influx of non-Adivasis (from the neighbouring districts of Bihar and West Bengal) who have settled in Santhal Pargana has also led to the decline in percentage terms of Adivasis in Santhal Pargana.

Non-Adivasis from outside the state have been settling in Jharkhand following ‘development projects’ like the Adani Power Plant in the special economic zone in Santhal Pargana, which exempts the plant from paying taxes for several years. Power generated by the plant was meant entirely for Bangladesh, which apparently did not need the power and that too at a high rate.

Now that Adani Power has been allowed to sell electricity to states and consumers within India, it remains to be seen how the corporate body negotiates the rates and expands its operations.

There is a lurking suspicion that the industrial group would like to negotiate with a more pliable government in Jharkhand, preferably the BJP, and acquire more land in the state. While there is apparently no link between the group’s industrial ambitions and expansion on the one hand and the bogey of infiltration on the other, conspiracy theorists are bending over backwards to find a connection.