Not Mere Symbol, Birsa Munda is a Living Philosophy
Kumar Rana
15th November was the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda. He was an iconic fighter of the tribals of Chotanagpur for the rights of the tribal people for water, forest and land. This fight in the early parts of the nineteenth century developed as an integral part of our peoples’ struggle against colonial British rule and earned Birsa that iconic status. However, Birsa’s contribution went far beyond. His intellectual and philosophical imagination introduced a larger world view from the tribal traditional life and livelihood standpoint. This analysis throws light on these aspects. This has assumed great significance in the backdrop of the current vicious onslaught of the Hindutva forces to redefine the tribal religious identity within the straitjacket of the Hindutva framework.
A LIFE that lasted only twenty-five years, yet its expanse is vast. The Munda community he was born into, the land he belonged to, the struggles he led - all these could not contain him, his name has echoed across the country. For the Adivasi communities, ‘Dharti Aaba’ Birsa Munda is a symbol of continuous resistance. ‘Dharti Aaba’, literally meaning ‘Father of Earth’ is an expansive expression signifying the profound bond between people, nature and land - a symbol of an early, elemental environment consciousness. For rulers, his name has become a seal stamp. His statues and images are placed across cities in Jharkhand and even in the capital Delhi. His birthday, November 15, is celebrated as Jan Jatiya Gaurav Divas, and it’s also the Foundation Day of Jharkhand. The ruling parties have kept using him, mainly to justify their own misrule over the Adivasi communities. While they exalt him as a tribal hero, they continue the very injustices that Birsa fought against and for which he became a leader and a martyr. At the heart of his struggle lay the people’s rights over land and forest, cultural freedom, and a moral, eco-centred social order - one that stood apart from colonial modernity and majoritarian religious politics. Within this frame, we will briefly reflect on the contemporary relevance of Birsa’s philosophical vision.
EVOLUTION OF A FOLK HERO
In the late nineteenth century, British land policy transformed the age-old, traditional collective land system of Chhota Nagpur, turning land into privately owned property. The aim was to multiply revenue extraction. The land system of the region known as ‘Khuntkathi’, symbolized a pre-colonial culture of collective landholding. Under British rule this collective order slowly collapsed, and moneylenders and outsiders emerged as landowners.
The blow to this system not only devastated the day-to-day material life of the Adivasis but also gravely damaged relationships, amongst people as well as between people and nature. Forests, once regarded under Adivasi customary norms as free, living entities, from which one took only what was needed and never considered anyone’s property, were declared state property under colonial law. Hunting, shifting cultivation, gathering wood – activities integral to their livelihood – were suddenly criminalised. Meanwhile the State and its local allies plundered hundreds of thousands of acres of forestland, swelling both revenue and private capital. The Adivasis, along with their forest, soil, animals, rivers and water sources, all became victims of an advancing tide of capital. (For more details, please refer to my essay ‘Adivasi Bharat’ in Prashner Lokokotha, Kolkata, RBE Books, 2022, and the sources cited therein.)
It was in such a situation that Birsa was born into a Munda family in Chalakhat village of present-day Khunti district. Despite poverty and lack of opportunities, he managed to receive some schooling at the Christian School in Chaibasa. In the course of education, he came in contact first with Christians and later with Vaishnavs. His desire to learn was intense from childhood, matched by his ability to connect with people and draw them toward him. This hunger for knowledge led him to question the society of his time. Religious doubts arose. Out of these contradictions he eventually rejected both Christianity and upper caste Hindu practices and created a new religious movement named Birsait. It was an Adivasi religious reform movement often misleadingly interpreted as ‘Hinduism’ or ‘Conversion’.
From these social questions, he began - around the mid-1890s - to spread a message of self-rule, moral reform and spiritual awakening around the Munda, Oraon, and other communities. His famous call was ‘Abua disum, abua raj – ‘our land, our rule.’ Today this slogan appears prominently in various campaigns of the Jharkhand Government, yet the dream it carried has never been realised. Instead, by adopting this slogan, the present rulers have abandoned the very spirit of Birsa’s message.
The resistance Birsa built in 1899-1900 against the British and their local collaborators - known as Ulgulan - was not a mere armed revolt; it was a blend of social reform and folk revival. Villagers refused to pay taxes, reclaimed their lands, and united under his leadership. In the end, British forces suppressed the movement. Birsa was arrested and sent to Ranchi Jail, where on June 9, 1900, at only twenty-five years of age, he died under mysterious circumstances. (For details - see the authoritative work ‘Birsa Munda and His Movement: 1872-1901 by Kumar Suresh Singh, Kolkata; Seagull; 2002)
His premature death not only gave him the status of a martyr but also transformed him into a divine figure amongst the Adivasis - a deity in whose image individual Adivasis see themselves whenever they rise against injustice. (When writing the monograph ‘Birsa Munda’ Gangchil, Kolkata, 2012, I relied on this aspect.)
Although Birsa’s movement was short-lived, it paved the way for the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, which imposed restrictions on the sale or transfer of Adivasi land - much like how the armed rebellion of 1855 in the Damin-i-Koh region, led by Sidhu and Kanhu, led to the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act.
Four central ideas emerge clearly from Birsa Munda’s thoughts - a) land is sacred, collective and not for sale, b) revival of one’s own folk culture, c) opposition to superstition, alcohol abuse, and internal divisions and d) an ethical environmental consciousness - the principal of harmony between humans and nature. Birsa’s ideas outline an integrated model of society in which politics is not the centre, society and nature are. In today’s era of global precarity, when doubts about the survival of this planet are deepening, Birsa’s thought offers us rich resources of resistance.
STRUGGLE FOR ADIVASI DIGNITY
We need to look anew at Birsa’s struggle today because his ideals are directly tied to the question of rights over land, forest and livelihood. Even now, in many Adivasi regions of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Eastern India, communities face displacement due to corporate mining, industrial projects and dam construction. This reality mirrors the modern forms of the British landlords and ‘dikus’ of Birsa’s time. People say that Birsa once declared, “Our land is our mother, to sell is to sell one’s own soul”. There is no documented proof that he actually said this, perhaps people crafted it orally over time. Yet that is precisely Birsa’s success - the way he thought became the way people learned to think. For this reason, Adivasis today play such a leading role in many forests and environmental protection movements. The ecological sense of justice that Birsa invoked has acquired new meaning in the present climate crisis.
Birsa Munda did not merely fight for land. He gave a developed philosophical cultural form to the struggle for Adivasi dignity. It was a struggle that expressed the broad, life-flowing idea of the people against structures of domination. Today, this contradiction has grown even sharper. Though the British are gone, the so-called indigenous rulers have displaced Adivasi philosophy and turned Adivasi culture into a purchasable commodity. Thus, Adivasi languages, dances, songs, and attire are displayed as folk culture, while their living political meaning is concealed. Government events may showcase Adivasi dances, even as budgets for Adivasi languages and education are cut. Identity is separated from culture, and both are damaged. This process may rightly be called cultural colonialism. Culture is decorated and displayed, but its meaning and power are taken away. Birsa's core message was - to have one's own culture is to have the right to control.
Birsa created his own religion, neither Hindu nor Christian, but an Adivasi folk renewal. In today's India, where religion is increasingly polarised, Birsa's stance is profoundly important. He did not reject external religions out of hatred. His rejection was rooted in self-respect and self-identity. His religion affirmed the idea of one God, but a God connected to land, trees, and community, an ecocentric monotheism. In contrast, in Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and others, he observed a tendency to separate humans from the wider natural world and to place God above all. In his philosophy, God, humans, hills, and rivers all participate equally, none is supreme. Even today, his thoughts teach us that the true purpose of religion is human dignity, the balance of human and natural existence, not division.
POLITICS OF MEMORY
After long struggles and sacrifices, when Jharkhand was formed as a separate state in 2000, Birsa Munda was chosen as its emblematic figure. Universities, airports, stadiums, postage stamps, all began to bear his name. Yet, at the same time, we see his name being used as an ornament of politics and power. A Birsa Munda Memorial Park may be built, but Adivasis of that very region often lose their land to new industrial projects. This duality reveals how Birsa is turned into a symbol while his philosophy is obscured. He was a fighter for land and freedom. Yet, today, his name is invoked to promote policies that cause displacement and deforestation.
In political speeches, Birsa is often presented as a national freedom fighter. This certainly honours him, but it erases his Adivasi identity. Birsa did not fight for a nationalist state. He fought for a land in which Adivasis would have full rights to self-determination, where divisions between humans, and between humans and nature would not exist. His declaration, 'Abua Disum, Abua Raj', was an assertion of local sovereignty, not nationalism. And this declaration is not meant for one region alone. It speaks for the whole world, of a world where no human dominates another and capital does not dominate nature. Thus, as his symbolic stature has risen, his revolutionary thought has faded, as if he has been turned into a fixed statue, no longer seen as a living, breathing idea.
Those in power usually appropriate a revolutionary figure in three ways: A. Through pseudo-praise and ritual remembrance, such as declaring holidays, issuing postage stamps, erecting statues; B. Through distorted reinterpretation, portraying his movement as a peaceful reform rather than a rebellion; and C. Through control, using his name to justify policies that run contrary to his ideals. All three stages have occurred in Birsa's case. For instance, even as government policy moves towards privatising forest regions, Birsa Munda Day is celebrated in areas experiencing displacement.
In television, textbooks, and political campaigns, Birsa is often depicted as a brave young warrior, preacher, and selfless leader. But in his portrayal, his political philosophy is absent. He is called Bhagwan Birsa, thus lifted from the realm of human struggle into divinity, where there is little space for questioning, reasoning, or social critique. This process, known as depoliticization, hides political rebellion behind religious or moral imagery.
Today, many youths, teachers, and activists across Jharkhand and neighboring states are forming organizations in Birsa's name, such as the Birsa Seva Sangh, the Dharti Aabba Movement, the Ulgulan Manch, and others. These groups work in areas such as education, environment, and women's rights. Yet, they also complain that while politicians evoke Birsa as an emotional symbol during elections, his ideals are ignored when it comes to policymaking. This is an example of memory politics, where the memory of the past is used for the convenience of the present.
REVIVE BIRSA’S PHILOSOPHY
Birsa Munda was not merely an indigenous hero, he was a philosopher of nature, justice, and freedom. His life and struggle teach us that:
- land is not just an economic resource; it is the foundation of culture.
- culture is not merely song and dance; it is the expression of dignity and moral strength.
- politics is not simply a game of power; it is a means of establishing social justice.
Today, in the name of development, forests are being cleared, rivers are drying up, languages are disappearing. At such a moment, Birsa's voice reminds us, “a society that forgets nature destroys itself”. In these words, we can faintly hear the echo of someone with whom Birsa had no direct acquaintance, Karl Marx - No one truly owns this earth, we are merely its temporary dwellers.
Therefore, the ongoing wrongdoing of turning Birsa into a symbol while allowing capital to lead the assault that renders his ideas ineffective must be exposed and resisted. Destroying the conspiracy to transform the symbol of rebellion into an obedient mascot of the state is a task that politics must take up. Birsa spoke of self-rule, yet in his name, others now rule. Advancing the struggle to establish the right to self-determination that Birsa dreamt of should be considered a central political alternative of our time.
True homage to Birsa does not lie in merely celebrating his birth anniversary, it lies in reviving his philosophy. He reminds us that freedom does not mean this state's authority over people, freedom means the ability of humans and nature to move forward together, intertwined without domination for those who remain steadfast in the struggle against capitalism. The long-neglected Birsa returns as a guide and pathfinder.
(Originally published in Bengla in Marxbadi Path)
