Assembly Elections 2023: Which Way Will The Adivasi Vote Swing?

In the 2019 General Elections and the regional elections held subsequently, the BJP managed to put up a strong performance in the Adivasi-reserved seats and influence the Adivasi voters. With voting underway in five states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Mizoram and Chhattisgarh—it would be interesting to see if the 2019 trend will continue or Adivasis will look at the newly-formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. 

Ever since the Opposition coalition was formed, BJP leaders and ministers have repeatedly said that now it is a fight between INDIA— the Congress-led alliance of 26 regional parties—and Bharat, seemingly represented by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which includes the BJP and 38 other parties. The outcome of these elections is likely to have a major impact on the 2024 General Elections. 

Gladson Dungdung, an Adivasi activist and writer, believes that the ongoing INDIA Vs Bharat debate will not distract Adivasis and they will continue to pursue their demands pertaining to water, forest, and land. In the past five years, the government has dealt a major blow to the Adivasi community by weakening the Forest Rights Act through the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act 2023, says Dungdung.

“Such issues may prompt the community to give the INDIA alliance a chance. For them, the issue of rights over natural resources would be a much bigger debate than the India vs Bharat one,” he adds. 

According to him, Jharkhand is an apt case study. When the Raghubar Das-led BJP government tried to amend laws like the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act (CNT Act) and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act (SPT Act)—which grant protections to Adivasi lands—the community opted for a regime change. 

“Today, efforts are underway to amend the Constitution of India. The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is an attempt to take away the constitutional, legal and traditional rights of the Adivasis. Therefore, the community will ensure a change of guard at the Centre, too,” says Dungdung.

In Jharkhand, in the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP could only win two of the 28 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes in the 81-member Assembly. This benefitted the alliance formed by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Out of the remaining 26 seats, 19 were won by the JMM, while Congress bagged six. However, just six months earlier, the BJP had won 12 out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the General Elections, including three out of the five reserved for STs. Jharkhand has around 87 lakh Adivasis, out of a population of 3.29 crore, according to the latest data available. 

As per the 2011 census, Adivasis form around 8.6 per cent of the national population, taking the number of members of the 705 tribes to over 10 crore. Most of this population lives in Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The rest of the population is concentrated in the North-East and the Southern states. Across states, 558 Assembly seats are reserved for the STs, while this number stands at 47 in the Lok Sabha. Fifteen states have significant Adivasi population, and have special provisions for the STs in place as per the Fifth and the Sixth Schedule. Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana are included in the Fifth schedule, while Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Mizoram are part of the Sixth schedule. Adivasis have sizable populations in some other states too. 

Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are presently voting in the Assembly elections. Do the Adivasis in these states think along the same lines as Dungdung? Adivasi thinker and the founder of Tribal Army, Hansraj Meena, agrees with the Jharkhandi intellectual to a large extent. He says: “The result of Assembly polls in three states will also set the mood for Adivasis in other states. If you assess the last five years, Adivasis faced widespread repression. Laws in their favour have been weakened. MP and Manipur have witnessed the highest number of atrocities against the community.” 

He adds: “Based on my experience spanning 15 years, I can say that even Rajasthan may deviate from its historic trend of handing power to Congress and the BJP alternatively and Congress may form the government again.”

MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have Adivasi populations of 1.53 crore, 92.39 lakh and 78.23 lakh, respectively. The total of 520 Assembly seats includes 101 reserved for the STs, while 13 of the corresponding 65 Lok Sabha seats are reserved for the Adivasi community. 

In the 2018 Assembly polls, the BJP’s tally in the Adivasi seats went down in all three states. The Congress won 30 of MP’s 47 ST seats, while BJP’s count dropped to 16, compared to a tally of 31 in 2013. Similarly, in Chhattisgarh, the Congress swept 28 of the 29 ST seats. In Rajasthan, 11 of the 25 seats went to the Congress, while the BJP won nine. 

An analysis of the Assembly election results shows that the Adivasis in these states voted for the Congress in the state polls, but backed Narendra Modi as the prime minister in the Lok Sabha. However, Meena believes that this year, Adivasis in these regions are likely to back the same party or alliance in both the state and the Centre. 

Just like Dungdung and Meena describe the community’s anger against the BJP on issues such as UCC or Manipur, activist and Madhya Pradesh MLA Hiralal Alawa also expresses the discontent against the party among Adivasis. He says: “What happened to Adivasi women in Manipur, or the incident when an Adivasi man in MP was urinated upon, the bid to bring a UCC, these are all prominent issues among the Adivasis. The community is very angry with the BJP. Demonstrations have been held in each district of the state.”

Alawa is the founder member of the Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS). This community organisation had backed Congress in the last assembly election, and could do so again. 

Adivasis across the country are afraid that if the UCC is implemented, their states would lose their autonomy and their customs and culture would be under threat. The states under the Fifth and the Sixth schedules have enjoyed a degree of autonomy from colonial times. At the time, they were designated as “excluded areas.” 

The states under the Fifth Schedule were listed as partially excluded areas, while the Sixth Schedule provinces were fully excluded. In the latter, the Adivasi villages were ruled by systems of self-governance, which have been recognised in the constitution. 

However, Adivasis of MP and Chhattisgarh may not vote en-masse for the Congress-led alliance. Some local journalists have pointed out that conversion is a big issue among the community in these states, and divides it along religious lines. The Christian Adivasis could vote for Congress as a bloc, but among the non-Christian Adivasis, the percentage of support is difficult to gauge. The reporters point out that the RSS has been active among the Adivasis here for a long time, which has turned a sizable section of the non-Christian STs into sympathisers of the BJP. 

The Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an organisation linked to the RSS, works among Adivasis across the nation. Many of its branches are active in Adivasi-dominated areas of various states. 

Senior journalist and author Manimugdha Sharma says: “It is difficult to judge how the Bharat vs India debate would be reflected on the ground, but it is dominating the speeches. The BJP and RSS will try to convince the Adivasi that the name India is an elite invention, given by the British, while Bharat is your true nation.”

He adds: “For a long time, the RSS has defined and identified Adivasis as Hindus. This is why they call the community Vanvasi (forest dwellers). The day they use the term Adivasi—which means indigenous—and accept that they are the original inhabitants of the country, a question will arise: when did Hindus arrive here? This is why they insist on calling them forest-dwellers and denying them a separate identity.”  

Sunil Kumar, a senior journalist from Chhattisgarh, says that the state’s Adivasis are not happy with the Congress and that the INC may lose half of its currently-held ST seats in the Bastar and Surguja regions. For Kumar, the General Elections are not about India vs Bharat, but INDIA vs NDA. He says “The tribals in the Bastar and Surguja regions are divided. So far, the community had been very clear, no matter who they vote for in the state polls, they would vote for PM Modi in the national arena. Therefore, I do not believe that the tribal vote would go to any of the sides as a bloc in the general elections. I also feel that INDIA is not making a serious attempt to turn Adivasi issues into a national agenda, like they did for the OBCs.”

Kumar also stresses that Adivasi issues are different in each state, and adds that something which is a major concern for the communities in the Northeast may not be important for Adivasis in the Hindi belt or the South. 

Suraj Gogoi, who teaches sociology at RV University, Bengaluru, agrees that the Adivasis in the North-East are very different in their concerns from other states. He says: “Development and autonomy are the biggest issues for Adivasis in this region. In Arunachal Pradesh, the construction of 169 dams is underway, and people believe this is being done under the BJP regime, therefore they back the BJP. In Assam, the Adivasis who arrived as workers from Jharkhand’s Chotanagpur region have still not been granted the ST status. Their number stands at around 70 lakh. There are many BJP leaders among the community and they have been able to convince them that the party would secure tribal status for them. Tripura has a similar dynamic.” 

The BJP is already strong in Manipur because the Meitei voters are with it. In the North-East, there are many tribal communities and they do not come together under an ideology or in the name of Adivasi unity. In fact, Assam or other Northeastern states did not witness protests on the Manipur issue comparable to those held in the Hindi tribal belt states.”

Gogoi believes that the BJP may use issues such as the NRC in the region ahead of the general elections and may benefit from them. He says that according to the current mood in the Northeast, the tribal voter could back the BJP, or Bharat.

(Translated by Iqbal)