The Centre told the Jharkhand High Court on Thursday that “infiltration is assessed to have taken place” in the state through the Sahibganj and Pakur districts, and that support from the Jharkhand government in addressing the issue had “been less than expected”, reported The Hindu.

The submission was made in connection with a 2022 public interest litigation filed by a Bharatiya Janata Party worker in the state.

The plea claimed that the proportion of Scheduled Tribes in the population of the state’s Santhal Pargana division was declining due to “illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh” who were marrying into Adivasi families to acquire land and influence.

A Scroll investigation has found such claims to be false. The controversy is playing out as the state prepares to hold an Assembly election later this year. The BJP is seeking to defeat the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress coalition, which came to power in 2019.

Against this backdrop, some have sought to stoke communal sentiments. An anonymous list that was recently circulated on messaging platform WhatsApp accused the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha of “appeasing its vote bank” – a veiled reference to Muslims – and in the process, endangering the state’s Adivasis.

The affidavit submitted to the High Court, through an undersecretary of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, endorsed the petitioner’s claim of a decline in the region’s Adivasi population, but clarified that “linkages to Bangladesh immigrants in any of these land related cases have not been established, so far”.

It cited data from the Office of the Registrar General of India to claim that the proportion of Scheduled Tribes in Santhal Pargana’s population was 44.67% in 1951, and fell to 28.11% in 2011.

It also clarified that there were other factors responsible for the dip other than migration.

“Quantum of decrease in tribal population due to outward migration, low child-birth rate among tribals, conversion to Christianity and other reasons needs also [sic] to be assessed,” the Centre said.

The Centre also noted that “loopholes” in existing laws had been “misused” to facilitate the transfer of land from “tribals to non-tribals”, such as through the use of affidavits for land gifting.

It cited an incident from July 18, 2024, in Pakur district, when tensions between Adivasis and Muslims arose due to these alleged practices.

Nowhere in its affidavit did the Centre blame “infiltration” for the observed demographic changes. Despite this, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Friday sought to leverage the claim by continuing to push claims about “Bangladeshi infiltrators”.

The High Court is mulling the formation of a fact-finding committee to assess demographic changes in Santhal Pargana and has asked the Centre and the state government to suggest potential committee members.

On July 25, Dubey had alleged in the Lok Sabha that “Bangladeshi infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women to grab their land and property, and to use them as proxies to gain power in the region.

He claimed, without evidence, that 100 Adivasi women mukhiyas were married to Muslims.

His claims echoed what Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said at a meeting of the BJP’s Jharkhand unit on July 20. Shah had alleged that “thousands of infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women to “obtain certificates and buy land”, labelling the practice “love jihad and land jihad”.

Asha Lakra, a BJP politician and member of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, claimed that ten Adivasi women elected representatives in nine panchayats in Sahibganj were married to “Bangladeshi infiltrators, Rohingya Muslims”.

Scroll has found that four of the 10 cases Lakra cited were false. Three of the women had Adivasi husbands. The fourth, Kapra Tudu, had married outside the Adivasi community, but her husband, Nitin Saha, is Hindu, not Muslim.

In six cases, where Adivasi women panchayat leaders were indeed married to Muslims, all of them told Scroll they had married out of choice. “The Indian constitution gives us the freedom to marry whom we please,” one said.

Manoj Pandey, the spokesperson of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, told The Hindu that Shah should resign if there is evidence of Bangladeshi infiltration, as such matters fall under his ministry’s purview.

The party also posted excerpts from the affidavit on social media platform X, criticising the Centre for “admitting” its “failures” and “blaming others” for it.

The Centre’s affidavit admitted that the matters related to foreign countries were part of the Union List of the Constitution, however, “implementation of the said laws is conducted through the aid of the State governments”, which it said was “in line with the principles of cooperative federalism”.

It said: “The state government of Jharkhand is duty bound and fully empowered to tackle the problems related to illegal immigrants, as power to deal with such cases has been delegated to them in accordance with provisions of the Constitution.”

In its affidavit, the Centre said it had informed the Jharkhand government in 2021 about 145 foreigners living in the state, with an additional list of 205 suspected foreigners. It said it anticipated that the state government would investigate the citizenship status of these individuals.

Affidavits filed in court last month by the authorities of all six districts in Santhal Pargana region show that Sahibganj district reported four cases involving four undocumented migrants between 2016 to 2024, with one conviction. No other district reported any complaints of “illegal immigrants”.

The Centre’s affidavit claimed that the share of the Hindu population in the Santhal Pargana region “decreased by 22.42%”.

On the other hand, the affidavit said that the “Christian population growth rate” was 67.48% and that the Muslim population’s share had “increased by 13.3%”.

The 2011 Census recorded “5,857 Muslim tribes registered in Santhal Pargana”, it said.

The Centre’s affidavit does not address the fact that the Scheduled Tribe population in Jharkhand practices various religions, including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and the indigenous faith known as Sarna, reported The Hindu.

Also read: How the BJP is trying to exploit Adivasis’ anxieties in Jharkhand for electoral gain