Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 49, No. 1, April 2008 ISSN 1360-7456, pp83–97 Resources, representation, and authority in Jharkhand, India David Stuligross Peter Hjorts Vej 14, 3-TH, 2500 Valby, Denmark. Email:
[email protected] Abstract: Jharkhand is at the centre of India’s struggles to define ‘the environment’ and ‘economi- cally relevant natural resources’.Although cultural labels are applied by leaders who seek influence in these struggles as well as by many of those people who listen, an ethnonational analytic frame does not help answer the questions: How, why and when has the political idea of environment changed in India? When and why has the Jharkhand movement chosen violent tactics? When and why has the Jharkhand statehood movement realised electoral success? Or, why was Jharkhand state formed? To address such questions, a long range historical-institutional approach is much more fruitful. Keywords: electoral politics, environment, ethnonationalism, Jharkhand, natural resources, tribal politics. At first glance, the Jharkhand statehood move- alded it as ‘India’s newest tribal state’. Chief- ment had all the characteristics of a resource- Minister-in-Waiting Shibu Soren predicted that based ethnic movement: a local population that the new state would ‘surely enable the govern- had lived in a region since time immemorial ment to respond to tribal interests’. Whatever was forced out of its traditional economic and they might have been. Would that it were so. social relationship with that land and was Jharkhand deserves a second glance. The largely excluded from newly emerging eco- Jharkhand statehood demands demonstrate in nomic opportunities. The forcers and excluders an extreme form something that I suspect is a were ethnically distinct from the local popula- much more general truth: ethno-nationalism tion.