“Khatiyan Bachao”( Save Khatiyan). Under this slogan, a section of tribals led by the MLA of the ruling party JMM Lobin Hembrom has launched a protest against the Hemant Soren government’s employment policy.

The Soren government’s employment policy is based on a 60-40 percent quota. It means 40 percent for the general category and 60 percent reservation for underprivileged sections.

These 60 percent reservation means 26 percent of the seats will be reserved for Scheduled Tribes ( ST), 14 percent for Other Backward Classes( OBC), and 10 percent for Economically Weaker Sections(EWS).

After the Soren government’s Assembly approved domicile policy based on 1932 Khatiyan( land records) was not accepted by the Governor, the domicile policy notified during the BJP government led by the then CM Raghubar Das in 2016 remains in force( find details of this policy explained in a format attached here, courtesy hindustantimes.com, April 8, 2016).

This was not acceptable to JMM MLA Lobin Hembrom and his supporters who were demanding an employment policy based on 1932 Khatiyan.

Toward the same end, Hembrom supporters gathered outside the old Assembly premise in Ranchi and demanded the implementation of the 1932 Khatiyan-based domicile. 

The rebel JMM MLA Hembrom has appeared in social media saying, “if speaking truth is rebellion then think we are rebels”( sach bolna agar bagawat hai, to samjho ham bhi bagi hain).

Notably, students under the banner of the Jharkhand State Students Union have been protesting against “60-40” based reservation policy and demanding 1932 based Khatiyan domicile policy for providing 100 percent jobs to locals. They had launched an agitation on April 17,18 and 19.