MAHATO AND THE TRIBAL VOTE
Agamchha tied around his head, Chhatradhar Mahato digs his heels into the slush while tending to the paddy. In his new avatar as a farmer, he’s trying to hard-sell a bhoomiputra (son of the soil) image. There’s a new slogan too— ‘A tribal for tribals’—which he hopes will help him and his party, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), recover lost ground in the Jangal Mahal region.
After 11 years behind bars for assorted crimes, including charges under the draconian UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act), Chhatradhar came out in February 2020 to find that his land had undergone a transformation—the red laterite soil, once soaked in the political colours of the Left, was sprouting saffron shoots. And the Mahatos, especially those who had rallied behind him and the Maoist outfit, the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), to overthrow the then Left Front government, are now calling the shots as panchayat and zilla parishad functionaries. They now live in pucca houses and move around in SUVs; they are the establishment. The divide is glaring and there is discontent among the locals, who feel the
Mahatos and their political mentors are fleecing the poor of their entitlements under various government schemes. Indeed, many now consider them worse than the zamindars the Left got rid of through the land reform movement in the late 1970s.
The Mahatos are OBCs and make up 32 per cent of the population in the Jangal Mahal area, which includes the 42 assembly seats of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura districts. The SCs/ STs cover another 28 per cent. Chhatradhar’s initiation into mainstream politics last week as a secretary of the TMC is largely seen as an attempt to win back the Mahatos, who seemed to have voted en bloc for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Chhatradhar now has the job of stalling the BJP in the Jangal Mahal area by uniting the Mahatos, the SCs and the STs under one umbrella. It won’t be easy, for the Bharat Jakat Majhi Pargana Mahal, the largest social platform of the Santhals (who comprise a majority of the 5.5 million ST population in Bengal), are also looking to unite the tribals.
The bhoomiputra admits as much. “It will be difficult, especially with the pandemic now. The spontaneity I had seen on the ground after my release has waned. It would have been better if I was released earlier,” he says. That must still rankle, for Chhatradhar’s release came almost nine years after Mamata Banerjee came to power, even though it was one of her poll promises as opposition leader before the 2011 election. She soon forgot about it, and between 2011 and 2018, nothing could move Mamata—not pleas nor bandhs and intimidation tactics, not even Chhatradhar’s hunger strike.
Things started happening after the TMC saw major reverses in the 2018 panchayat polls. A year later, the saffron party swept five of the six Lok Sabha seats in the Jangal Mahal area, which set alarm bells ringing. Mamata’s flip-flops on ST reservation for the Mahatos also contributed to the TMC debacle. Soon, files were moved and the state decided to not object to Chhatradhar’s parole. The TMC had already smoothed out matters by giving jobs to both his sons.
If voting patterns follow the Lok Sabha results, the BJP will take 35 of the 42 seats in the Jangal Mahal area. If anyone can save the situation for the TMC, it is Chhatradhar. His credentials are perfect—11 years in prison for fighting police atrocities against poor tribals during the Lalgarh movement in 2008-09. But the BJP is not a silent bystander to the TMC’s machinations: the anti-terror National Investigation Agency (NIA) has dug up two cases against him dating back to 2009. One of these relates to the death of a CPI(M) leader and another to an incident when a Delhi-bound Rajdhani express was held hostage in Jhargram. Chhatradhar was in jail at the time, and the charges seem motivated. But they could be enough to keep him tied up legally. A new game is on in Jangal Mahal. ■
Chhatradhar has to take on the BJP, and arrest the TMC slide in Jangal Mahal by uniting the Mahatos, the SCs and STs