Thousands of Adivasi leaders and community members gathered on the sacred soil of Marang Buru in Giridih, Jharkhand, on Thursday, 5 November 2026 — and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren stood before them with a single, urgent message: unity is the only shield.

Addressing the Marang Buru Dhormgadh Mahasammelan, Soren welcomed leaders, brothers and sisters who had travelled from Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh for the congregation. 'Marang Buru hamari aastha aur pehchaan ke prateek hain' (Marang Buru is a symbol of our faith and identity), he said, calling on every community member to 'stand united' in preserving the sacred site and the culture it represents. His closing line carried a sharp political edge: 'When we stay together, our strength will be so great that our opponents will not even be able to count us.'

Why Marang Buru carries the weight of an entire civilisation

Marang Buru — literally 'Great Mountain' — is the supreme deity and sacred highland at the centre of Santhal and broader Adivasi cosmology across eastern India. Far more than a religious site, it functions as a living anchor of indigenous identity: the axis around which land rights, forest access, language and spiritual sovereignty all turn. For communities facing sustained pressure from industrial expansion and mining operations across the Chota Nagpur plateau, the symbolism is not abstract. It is existential.

Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has long argued that Adivasi faith deserves formal recognition at the national level. In 2020, the Jharkhand Assembly passed a resolution demanding inclusion of the Sarna religion as a separate code in the national census — a demand that would distinguish Adivasi spiritual practice from Hinduism and ensure communities are counted, and therefore counted upon, in policy planning. That battle remains unresolved.

A five-state gathering, one political signal

The scale of today's mahasammelan was deliberate. By drawing tribal leaders across five states — Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh — Soren demonstrated that JMM's tribal solidarity project extends well beyond Jharkhand's borders. Cross-state congregations of this kind have been a periodic feature of Adivasi political mobilisation in eastern India, building a shared vocabulary of resistance around land, forests and religious sites.

The timing sharpens the signal. With political cycles in several of these states in motion, a gathering that fills the frame with community elders, grassroots leaders and ordinary families is as much about electoral arithmetic as it is about faith. Soren chose his language carefully — 'opponents will not even be able to count us' is a phrase that speaks simultaneously to cultural assertion and to the ballot box.

Marang Buru will keep drawing these crowds. The question is what resolutions follow — on the Sarna code, on forest rights, on mining encroachments. Soren has set the stage; the congregation now watches for what comes next.