In the din of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s unsuccessful Jharkhand electoral campaign, marked by the incessant rhetoric of Bangladeshi infiltration and tribal population decline, there lies a deep and complex reality. There is no evidence of any illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the Santhal Pargana region. Moreover, the claims around the tribal decline overlook the myriad socio-economic pressures of industrialisation, land alienation, poverty and marginalisation that have driven indigenous populations to the brink of dispossession. The rise in migration and the dwindling presence of tribals are less about religious encroachment and more about the slow suffocation of an entire way of life under the weight of economic forces. This is not a simple story of “us” versus “them,” but one of exploitation, survival, and an ever-changing struggle for identity amidst a backdrop of political and economic forces larger than any single community or narrative. In 2022, a writ petition to the…

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