Express View: Dishom Guru Shibu Soren

Indian Express

12 hours ago

On a winter day in 1957, a 15-year-old boy in Gola block in undivided Hazaribagh district in Jharkhand was waiting for his father, who never returned. School teacher Sobaran Manjhi was killed by moneylenders, and young Shivcharan's life changed forever. The teenager pledged to end the exploitation by moneylenders and to fight for his people, the Adivasis. In the coming decades, the young man who came to be known as Shibu Soren and later affectionately called Guruji became the fulcrum of Adivasi politics. Shibu Soren, 81, who died on Monday, leaves behind a legacy of inspiring political vision and indefatigable grit mixed with some persistent controversies.
After his father's death, Soren led a band of youth in Santhal Pargana and initiated a movement called Dhan Kati. The group encouraged Adivasis to harvest crops from lands that were illegally grabbed by moneylenders when they failed to pay off the debt. Soon, this movement became an organised struggle for the recognition of Adivasi rights over jal, jungle, zameen. In 1972, Soren, along with A K Roy, a Marxist leader, and Binod Bihari Mahato, founded the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and revived the movement for statehood. To bring the industrial workers, sadans, the non-tribal natives of Jharkhand, and Adivasis together was not an easy task. Soren realised that the dream of a separate Jharkhand would not be fulfilled without the participation of non-tribal communities. He sought to change the definition of Diku — for him, the term no longer only meant 'outsiders', but referred to those who exploited Jharkhand's resources. His dream of a separate state materialised only in 2000.
Political instability, allegations of corruption and violence didn't let any of the CMs complete their tenure in the new state until 2014, when the BJP made Raghubar Das the first non-Adivasi chief minister. Soren's own political life was also shadowed by controversies. In 2004, within two months of becoming Union minister of coal and mines, he had to resign due to an arrest warrant for his alleged role in the Chirudih massacre of 1975, in which 10 people were killed. In 2008, a fast-track court acquitted him, citing lack of evidence. He faced allegations of taking bribes to save the minority government of P V Narasimha Rao in 1993. The SC in 1998 ruled that legislators enjoy impunity from criminal prosecution in bribery cases related to their votes and speeches in Parliament — the judgment was overruled in 2024. However, controversies could not take away from Soren's achievements. After Marang Gomke Jaipal Singh Munda, Dishom Guru Shibu Soren was the leader who successfully reimagined Adivasi politics beyond the limits of identity, sub-nationalism and language.