Paper short abstract:

This paper would analyse the different renditions of their past by the Tana Bhagats of Jharkhand in order to make sense of how histories and memories of adivasi movements are reworked in post-colonial times.

Paper long abstract:

The Tana Bhagat movement, as the colonial archive suggests, began in 1914, almost a hundred years ago. Even today, the Tanas, as a political community, continue with their struggles in the Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Palamau districts of Jharkand. Fractured into small groups and sharing different sets of grievances, they legitimise their demands and claim redress from the Indian state on the basis of a history that they chalk out for themselves. But this construction of the past is often different from that provided in official correspondence, ethnographic reports, anthropological accounts and missionary writings, 'sources' crucial for the historian's construction of Tana pasts. Drawing as they do on the memories of events passed down generations, but carefully reordering these in conjunction with events relevant today, the Tana Bhagats narrate their history at ritual gatherings, and record it in pamphlets that they distribute during demonstrations on the streets of Ranchi, in petitions that they submit to government officials and politicians. These references to the past, I would like to argue, though not always mutually exclusive, are at times historically framed, at times carefully crafted, at times consciously evocative. Drawing upon Tana pamphlets and petitions, testimonies in courts during legal battles, and my own ethnographic experiences, this paper would analyse the different renditions of the Tana past in order to make sense of how histories and memories of adivasi movements are reworked in post-colonial times.