From leading the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha to holding Cabinet portfolios, Soren’s legacy was steeped in defiance, folklore, and grassroots revolution.
Navin Upadhyay
Shibu Soren, the towering figure of India’s tribal rights movement and the founder of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), passed away today at the age of 81 at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi.
The news was confirmed by his son and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who posted on X:
“Beloved Dishom Guruji has left us. I lost everything today.”
Soren had been undergoing treatment for over a month and had been in critical condition for several days. His death marks the end of an era in Jharkhand politics and the tribal rights movement.
The spearhead of the tribal movement in the jungles of Jharkhand, Soren was more than a politician for thousands across the hills and plateau of the region. He was “Dishom Guruji,” the divine guide of the people, a man whom legend said no arrow could pierce.
Born in the remote village of Nemra in 1944, Shibu Soren’s life is often described in two parts: the man and the myth.
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The man was a coal miner’s son who lost his father at the hands of landlords. He went on to become a fierce trade unionist, a parliamentarian, a Union Minister, and thrice the Chief Minister of the state he fought to carve out of Bihar. But the myth—the myth was born much earlier.
In the tribal villages of Santhal Pargana and Dumka, elders still whisper stories by firelight of the young Soren who walked barefoot into zamindar compounds, who would call out landlords by name and warn them to return stolen land to the adivasis—or face the wrath of the people. And they did, many times, out of fear not just of his growing mass following but of the belief that this man could not be harmed.
“He was our Bhole Baba,” said a village headman in Jamtara district on phone. “Bullets and arrows missed him. He was protected by the spirits of the forest. He was chosen.”
During the 1970s and 80s, when Soren led militant agitations against feudal oppression and moneylenders, rumours spread that his body bore no wound despite attacks. In one oft-repeated tale, a group of armed goons was said to have surrounded him deep in the Dumka jungles. They let loose a volley of arrows. Not one touched him.
#ShibuSoren is no more 💔
The man who shook the system
The voice that rose from the soil
The rebel who built JharkhandNot a politician
A phenomenon called GurujiIndia just lost a giant. pic.twitter.com/aJI9NMZQpg
— Amock (@Politicx2029) August 4, 2025
“We knew then that he was not an ordinary leader,” said an elderly tribal woman in Godda district. “We began to fast and pray in his name. For us, he was sent by Singbonga (the tribal god).”
Such myths elevated Shibu Soren to a semi-divine status, giving birth to an oral tradition where he was no longer just a political leader but a folk deity of justice. In village murals, he was often painted standing beside tribal gods, holding a bow in one hand and a bundle of land deeds in the other—symbolizing resistance and restoration.
Even his detractors could not deny his charisma. Despite political controversies—including arrests in corruption cases and legal battles—Soren remained a moral anchor for many in Jharkhand’s marginalized communities. He spoke in their dialects, walked their dusty roads, and never lost the raw cadence of his Santhali roots.
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In 2004, when he was briefly named the Chief Minister but failed to prove majority, villagers lit bonfires and stayed awake all night singing traditional war songs in his honour. His rise and fall in politics were seen not as defeat, but as a cosmic struggle—of a god sent to fight the demons of greed and oppression.
His final years were quieter, marked by illness and his son Hemant Soren’s rise to power. But in the villages of Dumka, Deoghar, and Pakur, his followers still believed he held sway not only over Jharkhand’s political fate but over its soul.
As the news of his death spread today, conch shells were blown and silence fell over tribal hamlets.
“Guruji is not dead,” a tribal priest in Sahebganj said. “He has gone back to Singbonga. He will return when we need him again.”
Such is the power of Shibu Soren’s legacy—part political, part mythical, and wholly unforgettable.
