Vignette: Birsa Munda and His Memory

‘Ek photo le lijiye; agle baar photo laeyega. Diwaal par lagaenge Birsa baba ko.’ During a sultry and dry summer in Ranchi, Jharkhand, Bijo, an Adivasi who works for less than 5,000 rupees (70 dollars) a month in the Ranchi bazaar, finds inspiration from the memorial of Birsa Munda. His skin was undulating from his cracked feet, a witness to Adivasi labour often erased from the register of the ‘India Shining’ story. The fragrance of hadia (rice beer) took hold of us as Bijo insisted on narrating Birsa's legendary past to me. In the rapidly urbanizing landscape of Ranchi, it is common to encounter a set of aluminium pots spread out at the edge of a busy road under a tree with someone (usually a woman) handing out hadia on sal leaves to the working class. Most who find themselves here, in fellowship with each other after a rough day of work as rejas (casual labourers), quaff bowls of hadia, sometimes to cherish their culture, other times to quell their melancholy. For most city dwellers, hadia remains a displeasing sight that reflects the ‘uncultured’ traits of Adivasis, while others, more militant, such as the Maoists, see it is an aberration in ‘becoming cadres’. Bijo's description of Birsa's memory in this memorial, a place now controlled by the Municipal Corporation of Ranchi, radiated immensely his heritage and gleaming pride. In post-colonial Jharkhand, where 28 per cent of people are Adivasis (officially recognized as a Scheduled Tribe), memory-making has emerged as the new politics (Figure 1.1).

Birsa Munda is perhaps the most venerated figure—at least symbolically, as an anti-colonial icon. Although the political landscape is fraught with his memory, its colossal presence has not gained serious traction in the nationalist, subaltern historiography or popular literature. Born into a poor peasant family in 1875, he was soon personified as the figure of abua disum (father of the land) for his

political acumen, millenarian characteristics and exceptional capacity to mobilize the root cause of exploitation. He consolidated Adivasis located at the margins of the British Raj and reposed his faith in the cause of securing his land. He was an ordinary Adivasi who came to occupy a historical prominence in the Chota Nagpur region—reinforcing his pride in fellow Adivasis’ past and their struggle for its protection.