Jharkhand or Vananchal-Where Are the Tribals

become Vananchal What's in a name? Plenty, if one understands the ideology behind it, and the effort of the dominant classes to co-opt the tribals into the caste system. From the formation of the Chhota- nagpur Unnati Samaj in 1920 and the demand for a Jharkhand state by the Adivasi Mahasabha in 1939, Jharkhand has been a search for a tribal identity on one side and the dominant class efforts to co-opt them on the other. The BJP has succeeded to some extent in dividing and co-opting them, at least in part because the tribal leaders have not gone beyond the single demand of a state, to develop a political and economic ideology.