Every three years, the Oraon tribal people of Masmano, a village located about 40 km from Ranchi in Jharkhand, gather at their Sarna sthal (a Sal grove where villagers worship sarna or nature). One villager — man, woman, or child — is chosen at random and blindfolded. A rice sieve is tied to their arm, with a stick protruding outward. The worship begins. The stick leads the blindfolded villager through Masmano. The villager finally stops in front of one house. The head of that house, a man, becomes the pahan or the principal priest of the village.
This is how pahans have been chosen at most Oraon villages in Jharkhand for as long as anyone can remember. The village picks people to occupy the positions of mahto, panbhara, kotwar, and munda in a similar manner. These positions together comprise the akhada, the village’s highest decision-making body. It is empowered by the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act or PESA Act, 1996, to use the “customary mode of dispute resolution” for disputes related to land, family, and marriage, among others.
“This will be under threat if the [Narendra] Modi government brings in a Uniform Civil Code (UCC),” explains Rajnish Oraon of the Adivasi Samanway Samiti, a civil society group working for tribal rights. At dusk, he is addressing the villagers of Masmano, who have returned from their farms and have gathered under a mango tree.
