Can Hemant Soren Come Through For Jharkhand's Muslim Population?

Like many of his ilk, Raza, a Muslim in Jharkhand, has high hopes for Soren's government. But after five years, he feels the Muslims of the state got played by a party that canvassed their votes by appealing to their sense of fear. 

For this 36-year-old mobile shop owner from Ranchi, Soren's five-year performance on Muslim-related issues could be better. He admits, "BJP was better".  

"The Muslim Board and Commission in Jharkhand have remained defunct. The Madrasa Board and the Urdu Academy were not even formed. During the Ranchi violence in June 2022, the police fired upon innocent children. The cops responsible for this faced no disciplinary or legal action, but innocent Muslim boys continued to be arrested. Muslim candidates are not given tickets to contest elections. Hemant Soren even took away Gande, which was a traditional seat of Muslims, and gave it to his wife instead.

As Muslims, we are only expected to make sacrifices and cast our votes in their favour. That is what they term secularism. Even the BJP government was better than this, ’’ he says.  

However, despite expressing such deep resentment, Raza continues to support the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which comprises the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).  

When asked the reason, Raza says, "He does not see any alternative to the BJP other than the INDIA.” His disillusionment, however, comes to the fore again when he adds that the INDI alliance has also picked up on the fact that the “Miyans” (Muslims) have nowhere else to go. 

The State Of Constitutional Bodies

During the 2019 Jharkhand Assembly elections, the JMM, the Congress and the RJD—members of the Grand Alliance—promised to work for the betterment of Muslims in the state and to strengthen the statutory bodies or organisations that represent the interests of Muslims.   

In its manifesto, Soren's JMM promised to constitute a Madrasa Board and an Urdu Academy in the state on the lines of similar bodies in Bihar and to reorganise the existing boards and commissions as soon as they came to power.  

The party has been criticised for failing to follow through. Far from seeing the process through, Muslims in the state feel let down by Soren, as his government failed to initiate the first steps toward establishing a Madrasa Board and an Urdu Academy. 

The Jharkhand Sunni Waqf Board has remained inactive for most of its 16 years of existence, ignored by each successive government. Muslim organisations say the Board should have been constituted right after the formation of Jharkhand, but it was eight years later, in 2008, and again in 2014. The reconstitution was again delayed for five years until October 2024. The Board also remained without a chairman until that time. 

The Waqf Board is responsible for maintaining the Waqf properties in the state and sanctioning their development, administering the Waqf Fund, its income and expenditure, and managing encroached Waqf properties.  

"The stakeholders have claimed these tasks have remained suspended in Jharkhand. They claim that even the annual revenue drawn from 152 registered Waqf properties in the state amounted to about Rs 4 Crore over 16 years. This amount has remained unreleased. Had the Board been active, many properties too would have been freed from encroachment," said the CEO of Waqf Board, Mohammad Zainul Ansari. 

The Muslims of Jharkhand pinned their hopes for a speedy resolution of the matter on the Grand Alliance when it came to power. Still, this government could only be bothered to attend to it a month before the next round of elections. 

The Minority Commission in the state faces a plight like that of the Waqf Board. It has yet to be reconstituted at an interval of every three years, as required by the rules. Its last term ended on April 18, 2020, and it should have been reconstituted in the same month, but this only happened in September 2023, after more than three years. Due to this long delay, hundreds of applications for resolving problems relating to minorities remained pending. 

According to the All Muslim Youth Association (AMYA), an organisation committed to raising issues of Muslims in the state, the Soren government has not only neglected Muslim-related issues but also executed anti-Muslim measures. The outfit says that 543 of the primary and middle schools notified at the time of united Bihar saw their Urdu status abolished in August 2022. Additionally, their weekly Friday holidays have been replaced by Sunday holidays. 

Similarly, of the 4,401 assistant Urdu teacher posts lying vacant, only 689 were filled in 2015-16. According to AMYA President S Ali, the JMM had promised in its 2019 election campaign to fill the remaining 3,712 posts as well. However, in January 2024, the government went against the law to abolish these posts altogether. 

The Prime Minister's 15-point programme and the Minorities Development and Finance Corporation in the state have not appropriately functioned either. Whether it is the question of their representation or the resolution of their issues, Muslims, Ali says, have always been in for a letdown. 

He says further, "Muslims who played an important role in the formation of a separate Jharkhand are being politically exploited and sidelined. Even last time, the INDI Alliance’s allocation of tickets to Muslim candidates was not in keeping with their population. This time, the number has fallen further. It is evident that Muslims are being marginalised and deprived politically." 

The Question Of Muslim candidates 

Besides community-related issues, a pertinent question for Muslims has been the shrinking size of their political representation over the past two decades. There are 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state. From Jharkhand’s formation in November 2000, Furkan Ansari was the Grand Alliance’s sole Muslim candidate in the general elections. However, even this allocation of a solitary seat was scrapped in 2019; for the first time, the alliance did not put up any Muslim candidates during the elections that year. This was repeated in 2024 as well. The only difference between these years was in the name of the alliance, which changed from the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) earlier to the INDIA later. 

Similarly, the number of JMM, Congress and RJD Muslim candidates in the Assembly has also decreased. The Congress allotted Muslim leaders a few tickets in 2019 compared to all the previous Assembly elections. As a separate state, Jharkhand had its first elections in 2005, contested by the Congress and the JMM in partnership. The Congress fielded five Muslim candidates, and the JMM had four. The RJD also had five Muslim candidates in the fray. In 2009, the Congress allied with the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM), putting up eight and two Muslim candidates together, respectively. Also, the JMM and the RJD had four Muslim candidates each. 

The 2014 elections, contested separately by the above parties, saw seven Muslim candidates from the Congress, six from the JMM and the JVM, and one from the RJD. In 2019, there was an alliance between the JMM, the Congress, and the RJD, who fielded four, three, and one Muslim candidate, respectively. The BJP did not field any Muslim candidates in any elections for the Lok Sabha or the Assembly. 

Last time, the INDIA bloc put up eight Muslim candidates across the 81 Assembly constituencies of Jharkhand (four of them won). This time, these parties have reduced the number of Muslim candidates to five: three from the JMM and two from the Congress. 

Answering the question of the dwindling Muslim representation, Rakesh Sinha, media in-charge of Jharkhand Congress, says, “We have ensured proper representation to all the sections. We picked candidates who were in a position to defeat the BJP. Our aim is to save democracy and the Constitution. There has been some discrimination in this process. Still, for us, everyone is a flower in the garden of the country, and we will not let any flower wilt.” 

Muslims make up 15% of Jharkhand's 3.5 crore population, which is about 60 lakhs in number. The Muslim bodies have been demanding tickets based on their population ratio.  While Rahul Gandhi’s slogan – Jiski jitni aabaadi, uski utni hissedaari –resonates with the community's expectations, Muslims feel numbers should reflect the same.  

According to these figures, each party should field 12-14 Muslim candidates. According to a report, the percentage of Muslim votes in Pakur is 35.08, Rajmahal 34.06, Jamtara 38, Godda 27, Madhupur 25, Gande 23, Tundi 22, Rajdhanwar 17, Mahagama 17, and Hatia 16. The community feels that Muslim candidates fielded in these seats would have gotten the desired results. 

Madhukar, a senior journalist, believes that all parties view the Muslim vote as "free" and not as something that needs to be courted in a political give-and-take. He believes this is why the commissions and boards related to Muslims in Jharkhand are inactive. Regarding representation, he says that the electoral space is dominated by some middlemen from the Muslim community who function as contractors of Muslim votes.

"They do not want to cede political ground to competent and able youth from the community. When educated people come into politics, they will be able to raise the issues of their community themselves, obviating the need for such middlemen,’’ he added. 

(Translated by Kaushika Draavid)