Birsa Munda’s birthplace gets new roads, schools, but for most tribal villages in Jharkhand the wait continues

The birthplace of Adivasi icon Birsa Munda, Ulihatu – a village in the Khunti Lok Sabha constituency of Jharkhand – the development in recent years is visible. Freshly tarred roads, new schools and water tanks are among the examples. In addition to the new infrastructure, visits by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who launched the Rs 24,000 crore Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) Development Mission from here, as well as by President Droupadi Murmu have raised the village’s profile. As part of its outreach efforts in the tribal-dominated state, the BJP Central government also christened Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary on November 15 as ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas’.

But there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction running among Ulihatu’s residents. Some complain that when the PM visited, the local administration covered houses not deemed presentable with green nets. With voting for the Lok Sabha polls set to begin on Monday, there is seemingly a lack of political enthusiasm in the area and there is no overt support for any party.

Birsa Munda’s great-grandson Sukram, who is in his late 80s, is not optimistic about the ongoing elections. “None of the political parties actually deliver what they promise. There are some basic issues, like drinking water for every household, which need to be solved. When the PM came the entire area was covered with green cloth because aesthetically this did not look nice,” said Sukram, who decided to stay in Ulihatu and run a small grocery store rather than relocate with his two sons who work in the local administration in the Khunti district headquarters.

Though Ulihatu has seen some development, it remains an outlier among tribal villages.

Not far, around 60 km from the Arki block