Tribals of Jharkhand wear their traditional headgear made up of bull?s horns while performing a dance ritual in Ranchi. The settlers are in the midst of a leadership vacuum after a ruling by the high court. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Tribals of Jharkhand are facing a severe leadership crisis especially in the wake of the developments triggered by the Jharkhand High Court scrapping certain provisions in sections of the Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996 (PESA).

Following the verdict, reservation for tribals as heads of all elected panchayat bodies has been limited to 50 per cent. ?How could there be a leadership crisis among tribals when Jharkhand is a state carved out for them?? observed a journalist friend of mine who lives in Delhi.

Not only my journalist friends, many others who have not been to Jharkhand in the last few months, too, will not agree with me since the domicile issue that rocked the state in 2002 saw the unity show of the sadans (original settlers) and tribals. But this unity was short-lived.

On the night of September 8, a call from Dumka kept me worried for the rest of the night. The caller happened to be a long-time acquaintance of mine and a local tribal leader, Ericson Hansda. He told me that tribals living in Santhal Pargana were being alienated from the rest of society.

By the next day Hansda?s tone made me worried. It was half past eleven at night when he called up on my mobile to seek help, saying local authorities were forcefully evacuating tribal youths from hostels of local colleges. He wanted me to intervene and somehow stop the move. Soon my cell phone was buzzing with more such calls from Dumka.

I told them my limitations as a journalist and asked them to contact the tribal leaders from Santhal Pargana such as Stephen Marandi, Shibu Soren, Babulal Marandi or Thomas Hansda. But the leaders told me that none of the politicians were available at that hour. The frequency of the telephone calls increased and I had to ultimately call up some of those known to me in Jharkhand Janadhikar Party (JJP) in Ranchi.

After a little while, JJP vice-president Ratan Tirkey called me back to say the state home secretary was in Delhi and that was not responding to the call. Finally, I had to call another friend of mine in Jamshedpur ? Salkhan Murmu, a former MP of BJP representing the Mayurbhanj district of Orissa.

It was midnight by the time word came in from Dumka that Murmuhad has taken up the matter with home secretary J.B. Tubid, who apparently asked the Dumka district administration to stop the evacuation of hostel and carry out such actions only in the day.

Though the issue was resolved for the time being, it left me wondering about the seriousness of the leaders from Santhal Pargana. The events also made me wonder why tribal leaders ? particularly Stephen Marandi, Thomas Hansda, Babulal Marandi and Shibu Soren ? are still tight-lipped on the status of tribals in the scheduled areas specially in context of PESA.