the paradigm shift of the nationalists

The new chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi belongs to the Santal community and was formed in the context of the RSS, the paramilitary group that promotes Hindu supremacy. In the past he supported a fanatic accused of the murder of several Christians and Muslims. According to experts, the BJP is out to prove that even those belonging to disadvantaged castes can come to power.

Bhubaneswar () – For the first time, Orissa has a chief minister belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu ultranationalist party from which Prime Minister Narendra Modi also comes. This is Mohan Charan Majhi, who in the last local elections – held at the same time as the elections for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament – defeated Naveen Patnaik, in power for 24 years, and his party, the Biju Janata Dal, a regional party, winning 78 of the 147 seats in the Legislative Assembly (the BJD obtained 51 and the Congress, the main opposition party, 14). The BJP also won 20 of Orissa’s 21 parliamentary seats (Congress won only 1).

However, two days after being sworn in as the new chief minister, controversies have already arisen about him. Indeed, Majhi participated in the campaign for the release of Dara Singh, a fanatic of the Hindu militant organization Bajrang Dal, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 for the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines, who was burned alive along with his two sons in one of the many black pages in the history of persecution against Christians in this State of India.

The attack on Reverend Staines was only the latest in a series of crimes committed by Singh against minority people: he was also found guilty of the murder of a Muslim shopkeeper whose arms he had cut off before setting him on fire, and the murder of a Catholic priest, Father Arul Das, who was killed with an arrow while fleeing when his church was burned down. Graham Staines ran a home for lepers. Dara Singh led a crowd towards the car where the missionary was sleeping and, as in the other cases, set it on fire.

When Keonjhar prison authorities prevented Singh from seeing his family and lawyers in 2022, Mohan Charan Majhi, who was a BJP leader at the time, along with other party members, They protested against the decision, stating that within the party a way to support him would be considered. The protest campaign was organized and spearheaded by Suresh Chavhanke, director of Sudarshan TV, who has never hidden his Islamophobia from him.

Mahji, 52, comes from a family of the Santal ethnic group, which constitutes about 23% of the total population of Orissa. He is the third tribal leader to hold the position, but the first elected from the BJP ranks. His predecessors were part of Congress. From a young age, like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a fascist-inspired paramilitary organization linked to the BJP that maintains the supremacy of Hinduism. Later he worked as a teacher in one of the schools that depend on the RSS, and later dedicated himself to a political career as a representative of tribal communities. He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2000, from the Keonjhar constituency, reserved by law for members of tribal groups, and focused attention on environmental violations and corrupt practices in the mining sector.

Although in the last elections there has been a clear decline in the influence of the BJP – which needs, for the first time, the support of its coalition partners to remain in the New Delhi government -, according to analysts, the party has acted with ability to secure tribal votes. And it is among the indigenous populations where they will try to rebuild their base, marking an important paradigm shift. The indigenous populations, in fact, have historically been supporters of the Congress and only later, in the case of Orissa, of the BJD. The fact that Droupadi Murmu, originally from Rairangpur, another district of Orissa, was elected president of India in 2022, has undoubtedly weighed on her, experts say.

Analyst Robi Das explained to Frontline that the BJP has broken with the feudal mentality that characterized Orissa: “For the first time the lower caste dominates the government,” he commented. “I always thought the BJP was an upper-caste party, but this government seems to be changing that perception. If you look at the composition of the cabinet, there are three tribal ministers, including the chief minister; There is a Dalit minister and there are representatives of the peasant caste and the warrior caste. The upper castes, which have always ruled the State, were not taken into consideration.” And this could be an important reset point for the BJP.

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