There is confrontation between pro-Bihari dialect and anti-Bihari dialect speaking people, and this has assumed a political colour.
New Delhi: Parts of Jharkhand are witnessing social unrest which may turn into a law and order problem if not handled swiftly, after the state government in December last year granted a second state language status to Bhojpuri, Magahi and Angika to be used as a mode of examination for recruitment for government jobs in the state.
All these three languages are predominantly spoken by people from Bihar who are settled in large numbers in Dhanbad, Bokaro and Giridih district of the tribal state.
This has led to a confrontational situation between pro-Bihari dialect and anti-Bihari dialect speaking people which has assumed political overtones on the lines of “insider-outsider” after education minister Jagannath Mahto called Biharis as “intruders” in the state of Jharkhand.
Another former JMM MLA, who is among the founders of JMM, Amit Kumar has threatened to quit the party if the government fails to remove these three languages from the list of regional languages.
Out of the 24 total districts in the state, Magahi has been accorded the status of regional language in 5 districts, Bhojpuri in 4 and Angika (a variant of Maithili) in 6. Interestingly, the other regional languages that have been notified in the gazette released on 23 December include Bangla (11) and Odiya (3). However, the anger of the local leaders and tribal social groups is against the inclusion of the three languages from Bihar as the “Biharis” are more in number and compete for government jobs in large numbers in a state where the unemployment rate as per Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) is 17.78%.
On 30 January, locals and tribals formed a 50 km long human chain between Dhanbad and Bokaro, protesting the inclusion of Bihari language as a mode of giving examinations. On the same day, the cavalcade of former BJP state president and former Lok Sabha MP from Giridih, Ravindra Rana, was attacked by an anti-Bihari language group and he had to take shelter in a police station after the windshield of his car was broken by stone pelters. While the anti-Bihari language movement is being led by a student group “Adivasi Chhatra Sangh”, the said movement is being resisted by “Magahi, Bhojouri, Angika Manch” that is backed by RJD (Loktantrik), a political outfit that is led by Gautam Sagar Rana, who was the state president of RJD earlier before parting ways in March 2019. Rana was earlier the convenor of NDA. On 9 February, three Lok Sabha MPs—Chandra Prakash Choudhary (All Jharkhand Students Union) of Giridih, Bidyut Baran Mahato (BJP) of Jamshedpur and Jyotirmay Singh Mahato (BJP) of Purulia, West Bengal—submitted a memorandum to the President of India in New Delhi, asking him to instruct the Jharkhand state government to cancel the gazette notification granting second official language to Bhojouri, Angika and Magahi. In their memorandum they said that even in Bihar, neither of the three dialects have been granted second state language status as successive chief ministers in Bihar have made it clear that they were dialects and not languages.
The anti-Bihari movement leaders claim that with the three dialects from Bihar getting second language status, the rights of the local tribes and Santhalis would be affected adversely.
“We are not wearing bangles and we will resist this step with all our might. When we go to Bihar for a government job, we are discriminated against. Jharkhand belongs to Jharkhandi and to those who have been here since 1932 (when the last survey was done). In the present setup, right from the clerk to officer, all are Biharis and they will ensure that the competitive exam papers are set in a way that it helps the Biharis and makes it difficult for the local Jharkhandi and tribals,” said Anu Toppo who is a member of the Adivasi Chhatra Sangh.
It is pertinent to mention that a large number of people had migrated to Bokaro from other parts of Bihar when the steel plant was established. Similarly, Dhanbad saw a massive influx of “outsiders” after coal mining began.
Jharkhand, which was carved out of Bihar in 2000, still carries significant remnants of its parent state. There are 72 road junctions and squares identified as Balia Mor, Chapra Mor, Ara Mor on National Highway 2 (GT Road) in Jharkhand, all established by Bhojpuri speaking people from Bihar and eastern UP.
The state’s administrative, political and financial might is dominated by people whose origins are in Bihar and because of this money and muscle power, they dominate politics too. According to Vinod Kumar Singh, the CPI-ML MLA from Bagodar, the language issue has become a big emotive issue for the local youths. “The youth who were already suffering from unemployment and other related issues and lack of government recruitment have further been hit by this policy. The North Chotanagpur division is the center of this movement right now. While other political parties are battling internal differences on how to handle this, we are very clear that the policy should be based on domicile, something that is practised in all other states including Bihar,” Singh, who is considered to be among the few MLAs of the state who always has ground on the ears, told The Sunday Guardian.
North Chotanagpur division is one of the five divisions of Jharkhand and comprises the districts of Bokaro, Chatra, Dhanbad, Giridih, Hazaribagh, Koderma and Ramgarh.
The previous BJP government under Raghubar Das had announced that all those who are staying in Jharkhand for the last 30 years will be considered as domicile of the state which had caused a lot of resentment among the locals, Singh said. “JMM said we will change this policy. For two years they did not do anything and then they brought a new policy, which said domicile will be considered on the basis of those who have passed 10th and 12th class exam from Jharkhand and they also included another condition that the candidate will have to pass a language exam of local dialect in which these three language from Bihar were also included. This had led to a lot of resentment,” Singh added.