Domicile, Migration, and Identity in Jharkhand

Industrialisation and urbanisation have contributed significantly to outsiders’ migration into Jharkhand’s urban spaces and industrial centres. As a result of their settling down, buying land, and accumulating fixed, immovable assets, the share of the local population started declining, particularly the Adivasi population in south Bihar (Jharkhand). This chapter explores the conditions of the Adivasis and Sadan and unravels debates around migration and domicile policy. This demographic shift has greatly impacted the Adivasis of Jharkhand, with their leaders losing control over the state’s politics. The domicile issue has thus been central to how tribal and Jharkhandi identity is sought to be reimagined in a lesser-known and controversial urban space, such as Ranchi. Utilising Bakhtin’s concept of ‘heteroglossia’ to extrapolate the non-linear, conflicting, and uneven attributes that inform the domicile issue, the chapter explores the recent debates within Jharkhand on the issue of domicile and how migration has been problematised therein. It also demonstrates how the domicile policy rearticulates the discussion on asserting Jharkhandi identity among Adivasis after the creation of the Jharkhand state.