On the morning of March 7, hundreds of Adivasis dressed in traditional garb formed a human chain in the city of Ranchi.
The chain stretched across two kilometres, from Harmu chowk to Argora chowk, a route through which Jharkhand’s chief minister Hemant Soren was expected to pass on his way to attend the budget session of the assembly.
Protestors waved red and white striped flags, which represent the traditional Sarna faith of Adivasis in the region, and shouted, “Jharkhand sarkar, hosh mein aao!” – Jharkhand government, come to your senses.
They were protesting the recently completed construction of a ramp of the Siram Toli-Meccon flyover project in the Siram Toli area. Authorities claim that the flyover, which will span more than two kilometres, will reduce traffic congestion in the rapidly growing capital city.
But the Adivasi community is concerned because the end of the ramp is situated just a few feet from a site that holds immense social and cultural value to them: a kendriya Sarna sthal, or central sacred grove, which draws lakhs of visitors each year.
This is only the latest move that they say is eating into the grove’s land.
In 2022, the state’s welfare department took up a beautification plan that cost almost Rs 5 crore and included the construction of a building and a stage in the grove. In 2023, authorities encroached a little over 1,300 square feet into the grove to make space for the flyover. Now, with the ramp’s construction, the Adivasi community fears that traffic will enter Siram Toli right in front of the grove, which will further shrink the space around it.
“We first raised our voices when the site was encroached last year,” said Sukhram Kachhap, a local leader from the Sarna community, whom I met a few days later at Siram Toli. Construction work inside the site for its beautification was still underway. “But then we had a community meeting and we thought we would part with some of the land for the greater good – for development,” he explained. “We had no idea that the ramp would be constructed right in front of the Sarna sthal.”
The community’s fears over the destruction of the site are part of larger concerns that sacred groves across the state are steadily being encroached on. They argue that these groves are a central aspect of the faith, culture and way of life of the state’s Adivasis. They are also symbols of the community’s deep social and cultural ties with the environment.
The community is particularly distressed because the state is currently governed by a coalition government led by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which claims to represent Adivasi interests. To woo Adivasi voters, the party prominently used the slogan “abua raj, abua sarkar”, or “our own state, our own government”, in its 2024 assembly election campaign.
As a show of disappointment with the state’s lawmakers, on March 16, a coalition of Adivasi organisations held symbolic funeral rites for the 30 Adivasi MLAs in the state assembly at Albert Ekka chowk, a central area in Ranchi.
The activist Gladson Dungdung described it as “most tragic” that such encroachments were happening “when the chief minister, the leader of opposition and 30 MLAs in power are all Adivasi”. He said, “Is this an abua sarkar or a dummy sarkar? Who is actually running this government?”
He noted that the state has a long history of such encroachment. “In 1927, Tata took over a deshauli of the Ho community in the Saranda forests to open a steel plant,” Dungdung said, referring to a type of sacred grove. “After many protests, they were allowed to visit it once a year to worship there.”
Those protesting the ramp say that a much larger idea is at stake – that sites sacred to Adivasi communities face destruction because they do not typically resemble those of mainstream religions.
“Across Ranchi you will find temples that have cropped up on busy roads in recent years and nobody has uttered a word in their opposition,” said activist Sushma Biruli. “These are new buildings. Our sacred sites, including sacred groves, are several years old and registered in government documents. But these very sites end up being encroached, whereas new roads being built near temples are rerouted so that they don’t cut through temples.”
On March 22, Adivasi groups held a bandh to protest the flyover ramp at Siram Toli and threatened to destroy it – a key demand was that the ramp be removed before Sarhul, the most popular annual festival of the Sarna Adivasis, held on April 1 this year. On March 28, the administration told protestors that a portion of the ramp would be cleared to facilitate the smooth celebrations of Sarhul.
Two days later, however, protestors, led by the former state education minister Geetashree Oraon, clashed with the police as they wanted the entire ramp removed. Some, who were carrying axes, attacked the ramp, damaging it.
On April 1, when the chief minister visited the Sarna sthal to worship there on the day of Sarhul, Oraon with a few members of the community gathered at the site to protest, wearing black bands on their heads as a mark of protest.
Manjunath Bhajantri, the deputy commissioner of Ranchi said that before January, there had been no opposition from the community and claimed that there were vested interests behind the current protests. “There are some individuals with political interests who are misguiding the community,” he said, though members of the community denied this charge. “If we are to redo this, it will take another three years to redesign and rebuild the flyover,” Bhajantri said. “Then, too, there is no guarantee that everything will be approved by all communities.”
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Amongst Jharkhand’s Adivasi communities, a sacred grove is typically a patch of forested land that the community conserves and uses for various rituals and prayers.
Traditionally, every Adivasi village in Jharkhand had its own sacred groves in its outskirts. “A single village can have four or five groves,” said cultural activist Gunjal Ikir Munda. “Different groves serve different purposes. Some are used to celebrate Sarhul or the hunting festival Sendra, while others are dedicated to specific deities.”
Many sacred groves are patches of land that were set aside by the first Adivasi settlers in the region. They were typically maintained without enclosures, with borders only roughly marked by stones. This lack of demarcation made them prone to encroachment, activists note, particularly in areas like Ranchi that have seen rapid urbanisation and population growth. Thus, in many parts of the state, the Sarna Adivasi community, often with the support of the state government, has taken steps to protect these sacred sites, such as constructing concrete walls.
Experts see these measures as particularly vital because of the environmental importance of the sites. “The preservation of sacred groves is closely linked to the cultural practices and beliefs of local communities, making a strong connection between cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation,” researchers at the Institute of Forest Productivity in Ranchi wrote in a January 2025 paper.
Further, the authors noted, “The protected groves have rich genetic reservoirs, preserving genetic diversity of several plant species. This diversity is crucial for the adaptation and survival of species under changing climatic conditions.”
Adivasi intellectuals, too, assert that sacred groves serve as an example of how environmental conservation is embedded in the cultural and religious practices of Adivasi communities.
“Through our folklore we are told that when the ancestors were clearing land for agriculture, they realised that it was important to preserve the jungle, and so they decided to leave large areas of trees undisturbed for the gods,” said Dr Meenakshi Munda, assistant professor of anthropology at Kolhan University.
Munda explained that in many groves it was forbidden to cut any part of trees, while in others, branches and leaves could be trimmed, but cutting trees entirely was forbidden. “This resulted in huge areas being preserved as community forests, which preserved the biodiversity of that area,” she said.
One paper on tribal religion and biodiversity conservation noted that there are several factors behind the decline of sacred groves, including “grazing, ecotourism, fragmentation of the grove-owning families, greed, poverty, overexploitation, development, government policies, irresponsible behavior by corporations and erosion of cultural and religious beliefs”.
The Siram Toli grove is a prime example of such a site. “This is the most important sacred grove for all of Chota Nagpur,” said Abhishek Bhagat, a young student from Lohardaga district, who travelled to Ranchi in early March to participate in the human chain protest. “If its boundaries have not been respected, can you imagine what the condition of other sacred groves in the state must be like?”
The grove holds particular socio-cultural significance for the state’s Adivasis because the community has fought fiercely over decades to protect it.
In 1961, non-Adivasi settlers from Punjab began planning to cut the grove down to make way for a factory. However, when the prominent Adivasi leader Kartik Oraon heard about this, he intervened and ensured that their plans did not go forward.
Oraon and other Adivasi leaders then began the tradition of holding a procession on the day of Sarhul, for which people from the surrounding neighbourhoods would assemble at the grove. “They thought of how the grove could be saved for future generations and realised that more people would have to visit it,” said Geetashree Oraon, Kartik Oraon’s daughter.
In the 1980s, this annual tradition was reinforced by leaders like Ram Dayal Munda, who donned traditional Adivasi garments and sang and danced in the procession. “The procession became an assertion and celebration of Adivasi presence and cultural identity, which was being lost in Ranchi,” Gunjal Ikir Munda, the leader’s son, said.
Over the years, the number of people who participated in the procession grew steadily. Currently, lakhs of Adivasis in Ranchi and different parts of the state visit the sacred grove in Siram Toli each year to celebrate Sarhul.
Activists argue that given the site’s popularity, encroaching the space of the grove could also compromise visitors’ safety. “There are accidents happening in the Kumbh mela, despite the space for the mela being huge,” said Geetashree. “But here the space is already so small, how will lakhs of people get inside? This is an assault to the dignity of our community and could lead to stampedes.”
Along with fears that sacred groves are being encroached upon, some community members are also concerned about official moves to change their nature, especially in urban areas like Ranchi. Since 2016, for instance, the state government’s social welfare department has constructed boundary walls around sacred groves across the state, ostensibly to safeguard and protect them from encroachment.
This has been a concern at Siram Toli also – as part of the 2022 beautification plan, the state welfare department laid paver blocks on the ground of the grove, installed concrete rings or metal bars around the trees and erected a three-storeyed building, called Sarna Bhawan, on the site.
“Beautification is alright, but what happened in its name changed the very nature of the sacred grove,” said Sukhram Kacchap.
At the same time, Sukhram and others also noted that the beautification plans caused a divide amongst the community members: while Adivasis who were city-bred aspired to have a building inside the grove, akin to how other religions have temples and churches, those from villages did not want any disturbance to its environment.
“We live in harmony with nature, so our sacred grove should also remain natural,” said Bhagat. “Why do we need a building when we have the earth? We didn’t want air conditioners because we are used to the wind from the trees.”
Some Adivasi intellectuals shared these concerns, even as they maintained that it was important to protect sacred groves. “It is the nature of things to change, and enclosures have become necessary to protect sacred groves,” said Mahadev Toppo, a poet. “However, the groves should remain in harmony with nature, because that connection is the very foundation of Adivasi identity.”
Gunjal explained that this was not a minor concern, and that the visual characteristics of sacred groves were central to Adivasi culture. “It is difficult to explain other aspects of the Sarna faith, but the worship of trees is the most visually memorable element of Sarna culture,” he said. “It shows our connection to nature and practices of environmental conservation. But with the onset of the concretisation of sacred groves, this easily noticeable visual is also changing.” He noted that in one particularly striking instance, “in Kanke area of Ranchi, there is a sacred grove where a tree has been constructed from cement”.
The problem was a complex one, Gunjal noted, explaining that even as such processes eroded the original nature of groves, they also protected them by marking them out in ways similar to how dominant religions marked their sites. While trees in an open field are vulnerable and easy to destroy, he observed, demolishing a built structure such as a temple can lead to far more serious repercussions. “There is a discourse about Adivasis being different from other mainstream religions,” he said. “At the same time, urbanisation is creating pressures for us to become like others. It is important to protect sacred groves, but how exactly do we do this? There is no right or wrong way. But in doing so, are we able to sustain our ancestral values of environmental conservation?”
Social worker Ashok Bhagat warned that changing the physical form of a sacred grove was often the first step in changing its religious identity. “That’s how the Adivasi identity of Deori sthal changed and it became a Hindu temple,” he said. “First, they built an enclosure, then they put idols inside, finally the temple came up.”
On March 7, some women protestors said that the construction of enclosures restricts the movement of the goddess said to reside in sacred groves. “Sarna maa is said to roam all over the village to protect it,” said protestor Poonam Tigga. “How will she roam around if we enclose her within walls”.
Ultimately, as the encroachment of Siram Toli shows, even the construction of enclosures does not always ensure the protection of sacred groves. “Thousands of sacred groves in Jharkhand have been wiped out in the name of development,” said activist Gladson Dungdung at the protest. “The very faith and identity of Adivasis is under attack.”
Sacred groves are not the only traditional sites under threat. “We Sarnas have multiple sites such as sarna sthal, masna sthal, marai sthal, deshauli, akhra, dhumkuriya, which are considered to be sacred and are an integral part of our community’s spiritual and cultural practices,” said Ashok Bhagat.
Mahadev Toppo explained that all these sites were interconnected through rituals and functions, and had an important role to play in the cultural ecosystem of the Sarna community.
Among these kinds of sites are the daari, water reservoirs whose functioning is linked to that of the sacred groves. “The water of the daari is essential to perform our rituals for weddings, births and funerals,” said Bashanti Kacchap, a resident of Pokhar Toli, a village on the outskirts of Ranchi city.
On the afternoon of March 20, I visited Pokhar Toli, which is around two kilometres from the airport, and close to an army camp.
The day was scorching at about 32 degrees Celsius, as I walked on a barren ground to reach the Sarna sthal, where I was to meet a group of Sarna women from the village. But upon reaching the grove, there was a palpable coolness under its tall trees, which provided a large patch of shade to those who stood underneath. A stone slab read that the grove had been established in the year 1808.
“The sacred grove of the neighbouring village in Hinoo was acquired by the airport several decades ago,” said Bashanti.“Since then, people are only allowed to visit it once a year, on Sarhul. And now, we are fighting to save our daari.”
Bashanti explained that since non-Adivasi communities began settling in the village, around three decades ago, traditional community land in the village, known as bhuinhari land, was taken over bit by bit until just a little over 3,000 square feet were left, on which the daari was situated.
A few years ago, locals recounted, a non-Adivasi settler from Bihar bought the plot next to the daari. In 2022, the Sarna community decided to put a boundary around the daari to protect it from encroachment. However, the settler filed a petition in the Jharkhand High Court demanding that the boundary be taken down so that she could construct a road leading to her house.
The community was taken by surprise with the case. Asked to appear at court with just a day’s notice, they scrambled to find a lawyer who could represent them. “He didn’t fight for us properly and we lost the case,” said Meena Toppo, another resident of Pokhar Toli.
Bashanti said that government officers, including the subdivisional officer and the deputy superintendent of police, prepared reports for the case that stated that the daari was a sacred site for the Sarna community and arguing that it should not be interfered with – but the court did not pay heed to them.
The daari is situated at a five-minute walk from the village’s sacred grove, past houses and temples with tall boundary walls.
On walking to it, we came up to an open ground with overgrown vegetation, large chunks of concrete, plastic waste and animal faeces. The daari itself, a small water reservoir, like a well, was barely visible amidst the waste. When I peered inside, I saw a bag of cement floating inside it. As Meena Toppo walked around the site with me, she burst into tears. “Have you ever seen the sacred site of any other community in such a terrible state?” she said. “Why does this only happen to Adivasis?”
At the far end of the ground stood half-constructed rooms of bricks. “We had planned to construct a small classroom space there so that children from the neighbourhood could come learn Kurukh, and other cultural practices,” Meena said. But, she added, they were forced to halt the construction because the settler had sought that same land for the construction of the road.
The community fears that their Sarna sthal might also be at risk, particularly since it does not have an enclosure. “We collected money in the community and tried building an enclosure in 2022 itself, but it was broken down by the soldiers from the military camp,” said Basanti. “They said that this land comes under their jurisdiction and we are not allowed to put up an enclosure. We have drunks coming here at night and dirtying the place.”
Residents of the neighbourhood of Purani Ranchi in the city find themselves in a similar predicament. Deep inside the neighbourhood, which is one of the city’s oldest and is packed with houses and shops, are three open spaces for a dhumkuriya, or a traditional educational centre, a Sarna sthal and a daali katari field of the Kurukh Sarna community.
In late January last year, the community found itself plunged into a dispute over the field, after staff of a builder claimed that the family of the community’s pahan, or priest, had sold him the land. They were surprised to hear this, since traditionally, the daali katari land was agricultural land that the community gave the priest for his services. “It is communal land. It cannot be sold off to someone,” said local leader Vijay Oraon. “Historically this land was passed on from one pahan to another as they changed.”
In fact, today the community continues to use the land despite the conflict over it. “The money for all the rituals of the community comes from the produce grown from this land,” said Oraon.
Atul Kerketta, a local leader, explained that the community did not only use the field, but also regularly performed rituals on it. “When there’s a temple or a mosque, people easily see the architecture and understand that it’s a sacred site,” he said. “But they don’t know that our groves and fields are also sacred.”
A few days after meeting the builder’s staff, locals found that enclosures had come up around the field overnight, and that CCTV cameras had been installed to monitor it. Community members went to the local police station to lodge a complaint. When they did not receive immediate help from the police, they decided to break down the enclosure of the field. Since then, the builder has lodged a case against local leaders, and locals have lodged a counter-case against them.
Now, like the residents of Pokhar Toli, those of Purani Ranchi also feel that they need a wall to protect the community’s land.
“Ideally an agricultural field should not have concrete boundaries as it obstructs the flow of water,” Vijay Oraon said. “But we are collecting money and planning on constructing a wall for its protection.”
In fact, the locality’s Sarna sthal already has an enclosure. The community decided to build one because, in the early 2000s, after Jharkhand became a separate state from Bihar, the neighbourhood began to grow at an accelerated rate – during this time, new residents entered the grove and cut down trees at night.
Today, the trees at the heart of the sacred grove are surrounded by concrete walls, and another enclosure made of bamboo sticks forms a wider perimeter.
But the two enclosures do not encompass the entire area of the sacred grove. “We’ve put up the enclosures using our own money, so it was expensive to cover such a huge space,” said Kerketta. “But now we see that we have no choice. People have begun dumping garbage here. They wouldn’t do this in front of a temple or mosque, but they do that here. So slowly, we’ll expand the enclosure.”
