Birhor
Birhor Supported, but Exploited
News about the Birhor last week in India’s Jharkhand state included a tragedy in one district one day and a triumph in another the day after. In Hazaribagh district, Kishun Birhor, a laborer working at an illegal stone quarry, stopped to take a break next to the edge of the hole. Due to a drought, […]
The Birhor Need Water
Last Friday, 10 Birhor people joined an audience of Indian academics at a two-day conference in the city of Ranchi, in northeastern India, titled “Development and Change in Primitive Tribal Groups of Jharkhand.” The purpose of the conference was to explore ways that the tribal peoples of Jharkhand State might be able to join the […]
Birhor Girls Take Up Boxing
Birhor girls living in the Indian village of Chalkari are learning, as the Deccan Herald delicately put it on Saturday, how to fight “for a better life.” The paper reported that numerous girls living in the village, located in the Dhanbad District, Jharkhand State, have taken up the sport of boxing. Several sources reported nearly […]
Birhor Live in Poverty
The Birhor in West Bengal state experience even more poverty than the ones in Jharakhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, the other states of northeastern India where they live. According to a report issued last week, the poverty of the Birhor in West Bengal persists despite the efforts of the state government to launch programs which could […]
Play about Birhor Receives Award
India’s most prestigious literary prize, the Sahitya Akademi Award, has just been given to Bhogla Soren for his latest published work, a play about the Santhali and Birhor peoples. The Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters, awards a plaque and a cash prize each year to the outstanding literary work in each of the […]
Birhor Boy Returns to his Village
Societies that want to hold on to their peaceful traditions have to be concerned about whether the education of their children will change their cultures, their economies, and their social values. Adults as well as young people face the challenge that education poses for a society—the potential advantages to individuals of more comfortable lives, versus […]
Naxalite Violence Advances to New Levels
Naxalite sabotage of an Indian express train late last week killed over 100 people and heightened tensions over the treatment of the Birhor and the other tribal peoples of eastern India. Media around the world carried the story of the horrible railway accident, and the increased severity of recent battles between the Naxalite Maoist rebel […]
Increasing Government Services for the Birhor
Birhor children in the Giridih District of India’s Jharkhand state have been attending school recently and doing well, according to a news report last week. Credit for the advances appears to belong to administrative officials of the district. Deputy District Commissioner Vandana Dadel put an integrated development plan in place eight months ago and the […]
Birhor Disappear in Gujarat
Six Birhor men from a village in Jharkhand state willingly followed a middleman to a supposed work assignment on the other side of India, in Gujarat state, and they haven’t returned. The middleman promised they would have jobs in a brick kiln in Gujarat, that they would make good money, and that they would return […]
Death of Last Bo Speaker Worries Birhor
A news story two weeks ago about the death of the last surviving member of the Bo tribe, in the Andaman Islands, made an impact on the Birhor of Jharkhand state. Evidently, state government officials are concerned about the gradually diminishing numbers of Birhor, a worry that they share with people in the village of […]
