A Jharkhand movement rally at Brigade Parade Ground in Calcutta in 1989. File picture

Kaise leyenge Jharkhand? Lad ke leyenge Jharkhand! A popular war cry during the struggle for a Jharkhand during the ’80s and ’90s. The new millennium saw the much delayed birth of Jharkhand on November 15, 2000. The opponents of an independent state were now the proponents of the new state, an irony that was not lost on the gods.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, glad to be free of the Bihari colonial yoke of exploitation. The creation of a new state — which power to the people — gave birth to new dreams and aspirations, revived lost aspirations and hope as the sun rose to a new dawn on November 15, 2000.

Was it to be the dawn of a new era or a slow slide to the dark days of the Middle Ages? To answer this question is not simple, as every aspiration which was lit by the rays of a new dawn has been lost in the darkness of the mind set and corruption of the inheritors of the Jharkhand Dream.

Jharkhand as a nation state was first espoused in 1911. Though as a geographical entity, Jharkhand has been around since time immemorial and been left to itself due to its dense forest and inhospitable area. It was the British who were able to establish rule of law with the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act in 1908. By 1939 the vision for a Jharkhand state was translated into political reality by the All India Adivasi Mahasabha. By 1950, the vision encompassed all those living in Jharkhand — Adivasis and dikus, by the All India Jharkhand Party. In 1952, the All India Jharkhand Party was the opposition in the Bihar Assembly. The agitation and struggle for an independent state continued till its greatest opponent — the RSS, in the guise of the BJP-led NDA govt — carved Bihar out and left Jharkhand on its own. While the umbilical chains of suppression and exploitation were cut, the Colonial legacy remains (I still get aloo in my samosa, so why does Laloo interfere with my life?).

Corruption, a legacy of the Bih- ari, has become the mantra of the Jharkhandi.

Dear Reader, you may castigate me for painting ministers, bureaucrats and the aam aadmi with the same tar brush, but are we not responsible for the netas we elect and the system they have subverted to control?

We all awoke to the new dawn with the vision of a progressive enlightened state. With time the roads deteriorated (at a slightly faster pace) as have our dreams faded. The heady days of 2001 slowly turned to the hangover of chaos and corruption. MoUs were signed by the dozen, giving hope for industrial development. The MoUs are not worth the paper they were signed on and hope has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

The provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution have been stood on their head by the high court — a quaint irony, as the most potent reason for the creation of Jharkhand is and has been that most of Jharkhand comes under the Schedule Areas Act as envisaged in the Fifth Schedule.

But amid all this despair, the beacon of hope burns brightly. Jharkhand, with 33 per cent of the nations mineral wealth and the nicest and simplest of people, has to be developed for the national good. The impetus will come not from the exploiters but the coming together of capital and people for their mutual benefit. When the bounties of the earth are developed in partnership for mutual good we will see a true State of Jharkhand.