Shibu Soren obit: India’s tallest tribal leader since Independence

Shibu Soren, who passed away on Monday, August 4, aged 81, was without a shadow of doubt, India’s tallest tribal leader since Independence.

In a political career spanning over five decades, Soren co-founded the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), an influential regional party that played a key role in the creation of a tribal-dominated state carved out of Bihar in 2000. After Jharkhand was granted statehood, Soren became an influential figure in the region’s politics.

He led the JMM as its president for 38 years until April 2025, when his son and the current chief minister of the state, Hemant Soren, succeeded him.

Also read: Shibu Soren obit: The revolutionary tribal voice who carved out Jharkhand

Sadly, for the late Soren, his time in office was seriously chequered. He could be described as among the few – or perhaps one of the few Indian politicians -- never to have completed a full term in office, be it at the state or Centre. And he held several of them during his long career.

Soren became Jharkhand CM thrice

Soren became the chief minister of Jharkhand three times between 2005 and 2010 but failed to finish any of these terms due to the state’s political instability. In May 2004, he became the Union coal minister in the then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government but quit only a few months later after being named in the Chirudih massacre case of 1975.

He returned to the Union Cabinet after being granted bail later that year. He resigned from the position to become the chief minister of Jharkhand in March 2005 but had to step down within 10 days after his party failed to prove its majority in the state Assembly.

Also read: Opposition protests over Bihar SIR rock LS; RS adjourned for the day to honour Shibu Soren

Soren's short ministerial stints at Centre

Soren was re-inducted into the Union government as the coal minister for the third time in early 2006, but had to quit again before completing a year, this time due to his conviction in another criminal case later in 2006. He was found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of his former personal secretary. In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld a high court’s verdict acquitting Soren.

The JMM patriarch was also elected to the Lok Sabha a whopping eight times, beginning 1980. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha at the time of his demise. He served in the Upper House for two terms.

But the eventful political career came much later.

Soren, a firebrand tribal leader

As a fiery young tribal leader, when Soren, along with Marxist trade unionist AK Roy and backward (then not classified as OBC) leader Binod Bihar Mahato, formed the JMM in 1972, it was a giant leap forward. It was an attempt to represent the aspirations of the tribals, a segment of society that many acknowledged as the original settlers of the land, but whose economic plight relegated them to the lowest of the low.

Also read: Former Jharkhand CM Shibu Soren dies at 81

As the JMM’s general secretary back in the 1970s, Soren organised agitations to reclaim tribal lands. At a time when the extremist Left movement was effective in India’s most backward states, particularly in undivided Bihar, his actions began to be identified with the Left, however obliquely.

The JMM started forcible harvesting in the lands. Soren was known for delivering summary justice against landlords and moneylenders, sometimes by holding his own courts. In the Chirudih incident of January 23, 1975, he allegedly incited a campaign to drive away ‘outsiders’, or non-tribals, in which at least 11 people were killed. Soren and numerous others were charged with various crimes related to this incident. Soren was acquitted after extended legal proceedings in March 2008. However, possibly related incitement charges—dating from two earlier deaths in 1974—remain pending.

Also read: Shibu Soren turns 81, JMM workers celebrate occasion

Back in the 1970s, coinciding with the tail end of the Naxalbari movement in the neighbouring West Bengal, Soren made his name as a feisty firebrand, but as is often the case with such stormy petrels, once he entered the labyrinthine world of power politics, the first casualty was idealism.

Shashinath Jha case

On November 28, 2006, Soren was found guilty in a case involving the kidnapping and murder of his former personal secretary Shashinath Jha. It was claimed that Jha was abducted from Delhi in May 1994 and taken to Ranchi, currently the capital of Jharkhand, where he was killed.

A CBI chargesheet stated that Jha’s knowledge of a reported deal between the Congress and the JMM to save the then minority government of PV Narasimha Rao during a no-confidence motion in July 1993 and an act of sodomy was the motive behind the murder.

In what is considered a landmark case involving political corruption, Soren and some of his party MPs were accused of taking bribes to vote against the no-confidence motion against Rao government.

JMM members were found money stuffed in pockets

Famously, the chargesheet noted that JMM members were found with money stuffed in their pockets, roaming around in New Delhi’s South Extension. It made it much simpler for the agency to prove charges. Such ‘simplicity’ could hardly be expected from the mainline political parties, much used to Switzerland’s super-efficient banking systems and well-entrenched shadowy hawala networks!

In its majority verdict in 1998, a five-judge Supreme Court bench quashed the case against the JMM MPs, citing immunity under Article 105(2).

In 2024, that historic judgment was overruled by the apex court, which stated that MPs and MLAs who accept bribes to vote or speak in a certain manner in the House are not immune from prosecution.

I have nothing left: Hemant Soren

After his father’s passing, Hemant Soren, wrote on X: “Our respected Dishom Guru (or great leader) has left us, I have nothing left.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the tributes, calling Soren “a grassroots leader who rose through the ranks of public life with unwavering dedication to the people”. Even those who were once opposed to him, including former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, said his death was a matter of ‘deep sorrow’ and called him a great leader who fought for the rights of tribal people and untouchables.

By any reckoning, it marked the end of an era.