By Anand Mishra
When Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Hemant Soren took the oath of office for the fourth time as Chief Minister of Jharkhand on November 28, 2024, there was a view that communal clashes, whose frequency had risen in the State over the previous couple of years, would come to a halt. After all, this was the second Assembly election in a row that Soren had won, defeating the BJP.
Five months into Soren’s fresh term as Chief Minister, recurring communal clashes have cast serious doubts on the strength of Jharkhand’s secular fabric deeply rooted in the State’s history of long-standing coexistence among tribals, Sadans, Muslims, and Hindi-speaking settlers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, whose shared cultural traditions and mutual respect have sustained communal harmony for decades. This has also raised troubling questions about the government’s ability to maintain law and order.
Talking to Frontline, the Ranchi-based social activist Sudhir Pal acknowledged that Jharkhand had seen a disturbing surge in communal clashes across urban areas in recent months. “Tensions and violence involving Hindus, Muslims, and even tribal Muslims have become alarmingly frequent. These incidents cannot be viewed in isolation; they reflect a deeper societal polarisation fuelled by political narratives, misinformation on social media, and the erosion of traditional communal harmony. Particularly troubling is the growing divide between tribal Muslims—a group that once shared a peaceful coexistence with tribal Hindus—and other communities. The rise of identity-based politics and assertive religious posturing has disrupted long-standing social equations. Increasingly, local disputes are being given a communal colour, escalating minor issues into major confrontations,” Pal said.
Unlike Uttar Pradesh, which has seen polarisation over Ayodhya, Mathura, and Kashi, Jharkhand has no disputed temple towns. The deepening communal chasm in this State, which in 2000 was carved out of Bihar (where there has been no major communal conflagration in decades), is hard to understand.
2024 mandate favoured INDIA bloc
The mandate in 2024 clearly favoured the INDIA bloc led by Soren in Jharkhand. It won 56 of the 81 Assembly seats: the JMM got 34; the Congress, 16; the Rashtriya Janata Dal, 4; and Left parties, 2. For the first time since Jharkhand became a separate State, the JMM won power for a second straight term on the support of tribal voters, Muslims, and Christians. The election result seemed to be a resounding rebuff to the BJP’s acrimonious campaign, which harped on “Bangladeshi Muslim infiltration undermining tribal interests”. In particular, the Congress’ Irfan Ansari’s defeat of Shibu Soren’s eldest daughter-in-law, Sita Soren, who contested as a BJP candidate from Jamtara, by over 43,000 votes seemed to indicate that the politics of polarisation had fallen flat.
The back-to-back incidents of communal violence in Hazaribagh, Palamu, Garhwa, Ranchi, and some other places after the election, however, do not seem to tally with that reading. Undeniably, communal polarisation has been happening in the State over the past few years, and people on both sides have suffered.
This story was originally published in frontline.thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
