Is the nascent Bharat Adivasi Party the new disruptor in central Indian tribal politics?

Far removed from the hustle and bustle of Jaipur’s high-octane politics, Kantilal Roat, national general secretary of the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), sits in a nondescript office in Dungarpur. The four-month-old party contested 27 seats in Rajasthan and won three, and one seat in Madhya Pradesh in the assembly elections that concluded in the two states in December.

The BAP bagged Chorasi and Aspur seats in Dungarpur and Dhariawad in Pratapgarh district, and Sailana in Madhya Pradesh’s Ratlam district. Amidst the saffron sweep, the four seats won by a nascent party did not account for any leverage in government formation. But the new tribal party, dominated by young workers, is being watched keenly for its potential to catch the tribal youth’s imagination.

Besides winning three seats, the BAP came first runner-up on seven other seats. The BAP is the breakaway front of the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP), formed by tribal strongman of central Gujarat Chhotubhai Vasava in 2017. The BTP was formed after Vasava quit the Janata Dal, which he was associated with for 27 years. The party was hemmed by his elder son Mahesh Vasava. It contested seven seats in alliance with the Congress in Gujarat in 2017 and won two—Dediapada by Mahesh and Jhagadia by Chhotubhai.

A year later, the BTP contested 11 seats in Rajasthan and won two seats: Rajkumar Roat from Chorasi and Ramprasad Dindor from Sagarwara. A firebrand leader, Roat, now 32, had won the Chorasi seat in 2018, becoming the youngest legislator in the state at the time. But soon, equations started souring between leaders and in 2021, the two MLAs exited the BTP. In 2022, the BTP did not give a ticket to Chhotubhai to contest from Jhagadia, as the son himself contested on the BTP mandate. The father filed candidacy as an Independent but lost to the BJP.

One of the founding leaders of the party and its candidate from Dungarpur seat, Kantilal Roat says they were in the process of registering a new party in 2021, but a fatal car accident, in which a few people of their team lost their lives and Kantilal went into coma for a few months, delayed their plans by a year. In September 2023, they were allotted the hockey symbol and the newbies pulled off a performance that was better than the traditional behemoths, such as the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Aam Aadmi Party. The BSP won two seats in Rajasthan and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) one, and both won none in Madhya Pradesh. The parent party, BTP, contested 27 seats in Rajasthan without any success.

Kantilal Roat has a double masters—one in political science and another in business management—while Sailana MLA Kamlesh Dodiyar raised Rs 2.38 lakh through crowd-funding for his election. Rajkumar Roat, among the founding members of the BAP in September 2023, and 31-year-old Aspur MLA Umesh Meena got married two years ago.

Party leaders admit that two tribal parties in this region splitting votes was not desirable, and that the road ahead was consolidation. But for now, this victory, considering the split, tastes sweeter.

Based in Dungarpur, the BAP’s eyes are now set on emerging as a national party with presence in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, the tribal heartland of central India. Chhotubhai is a well-wisher of the party, Roat says, while the veteran’s younger son Dilip Vasava, who supported his father during the fracas with brother Mahesh in 2022, is the national general secretary of the BAP.

For the Lok Sabha polls, the party intends to contest three seats in Rajasthan, two in Madhya Pradesh, at least three in Gujarat and possibly one seat in Maharashtra’s tribal belt. Speculation is rife as to whether the veteran strongman Chhotubhai will contest on the BAP or BTP symbol, or throw up a surprise.

The binding agenda of the party is the demand of a tribal state—Bhil Pradesh. Roat says this new state spans four states consisting of 13 Lok Sabha seats and 93 assembly constituencies, including unreserved seats where the tribal population holds a sway. Thrust on education, opposition to ‘Hindufication’ of tribal people, and conservation of their culture and identity through language and way of life sum up the BAP’s essence.

The young party claims to have over 100,000 registered members across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. This number will cross a million before the Lok Sabha polls, claims Roat.

The demand for a Bhil Pradesh stems from what BAP leaders claim is political parties’ apathy towards tribal identity, which is vested in their way of life. This is intricately linked to how they coexist with nature in forests, which is the genesis of their enduring demand for access to ‘Jal, Jungle and Jameen’. The BAP’s poll manifesto mentioned 90 per cent job reservation in tribal areas and will include the same in private sectors too in the region.

Nearly a decade after the Congress lost power at the Centre and as its reach in these states is also waning, the tribal voter appears to be getting disenchanted with the grand old party. The Congress had notched several brownie points by implementing the Forest Rights Act during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime. But its implementation is dependent on the state government of the day.

Though divided by political boundaries, the BJP is actively wooing these marginalised communities as a collective voting bloc, with a plethora of schemes. Another tack is recognising and celebrating the history of tribal leaders by constructing museums across states and venerating the freedom fighters from the community who stood up against the British during the freedom struggle.

In November 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a massive gathering of tribal people in Mangarh town in Banswara district in southern Rajasthan, commemorating the contribution of towering tribal leader Govind Guru and remembering the 1,500 martyrs who lost their lives in a Jallianwala Bagh-type massacre by the British in 1913. The audience had travelled from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Flanked by chief ministers of the three states, Modi had called upon the state governments to collectively work for the welfare of tribal communities.

These symbolic gestures matter and its effects are seen in the party’s performance in the assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The BJP won 17 of the 29 reserved tribal seats in Chhattisgarh, 24 of 29 in Madhya Pradesh and 13 of 25 in Rajasthan. It had won 23 of the 27 Scheduled Tribe seats in Gujarat in 2022.

Roat, however, claims these memorials come with perils of ‘Hindufication’ as temples of Hindu deities crop up in their neighbourhoods. “Of course we have nothing against any god, but this imposition makes us uncomfortable,” he says.

The BAP’s manifesto says it will shut down the Ved Vidyapeeth, a research centre for Vedic studies in the Govind Guru Tribal University in Banswara, ‘to draw youngsters back into the tribal culture’. The manifesto also talks of stopping religious activity and processions in schools. Opposition to the imposition of a Uniform Civil Code and support for caste-based census figure on their agenda.

Another concern is the aggressive land acquisition that the BJP government has embarked upon for multiple infrastructure projects, which require tribal people to sell off their land. Though they get a fair compensation, several communities have opposed these massive acquisitions as villages are split, communities get scattered and their way of life, particularly their language, is lost. Undermining the decision of gram sabhas of tribal villages during these land acquisitions is a growing concern.

Dilip Vasava says the party’s core agenda is securing the rights of tribal communities as guaranteed in the Constitution, which is getting scattered when certificates are awarded to ‘fake’ tribal people and they claim benefits. “Malnutrition and access to quality education are some of the elementary concerns that continue to plague tribal people since they live deep inside the jungles and in the hills. All governments have failed to safeguard tribal interests. Hence the need for Bhil Pradesh, in which the administration will always put tribal wellbeing as priority,” he explains.

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