{"id":10701,"date":"2021-02-18T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/?post_type=ground_up_stories&p=10701"},"modified":"2026-05-05T18:15:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:45:03","slug":"unique-self-governance-system-needs-more-youth-involvement","status":"publish","type":"ground_up_stories","link":"https:\/\/idronline.org\/kn-in\/ground-up-stories\/unique-self-governance-system-needs-more-youth-involvement\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-two tribes that rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Munda community has a unique self-governance system called the baees padha<\/em> system, which we have been following for many generations now. The padha<\/em> system is spread across four districts in Jharkhand—Ranchi, Khunti, West Singhbhum, Saraikela Kharsawan—and some parts of Odisha. There are 1,600 odd revenue villages with 12-15 lakh people under this self-governance system.<\/p>

This traditional padha<\/em> system is called baees padha<\/em> because it has 22 killis<\/em> or tribes, each of whom have a dedicated role to perform in the governance system. (Baees<\/em> is the Hindi word for the number 22.)<\/p>

Each of the 22 killi<\/em>s has a raja, <\/em>who’s the head of that community. Each head is assigned between five and twenty revenue villages to look after. Every community is associated with one padha<\/em> based on their killi<\/em> or tribe. For instance, some killis<\/em> are called sipaahi<\/em> (soldier), some are called vakeel<\/em> (advocate), and some sanchaalak<\/em> (director).<\/p>

We assign the names of the communities of different villages according to the responsibilities of that position. For example, communities named laal<\/em> are advocates and their job is to hear and pass judgements whenever there is a case, not just in their community, but also in other villages. A sachiv’s<\/em> role for instance, is to write the proceedings of the meetings held.<\/p>

I am from gudiya padha<\/em>. Our mauja<\/em> (community) has 18 revenue villages in it within this self-governance system. In our padha<\/em>, four villages are assigned as laal<\/em>, one village as purohit<\/em> (responsible for all the puja-related work), and one village as pande<\/em> (secretary). When we say a village is assigned to a particular role such as laal, pande<\/em>, or purohit<\/em>, it means that every educated person in that designated village can take on that role and responsibility. It’s a collective system of governance and not person-specific.<\/p>

We want the younger generation to get involved in this system too. At the moment, they aren’t interested because they feel that they don’t have a platform to voice their opinions within this governance system. As a result, they don’t feel connected to these traditional socio-cultural systems. We are trying to include them so that they can carry forward this approach of self-governance. If they don’t get involved in our meetings or discussions today, they will face difficulties when the responsibility of the padha<\/em> system falls on them.<\/p>

Rejan Guria is a member of the Munda tribe of the gudiya padha from Jharkhand<\/em>. He spoke about the baees padha system of self-governance at Tata Steel Foundation’s event, Samvaad 2020<\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>

—

Know more:<\/strong> Understand the potential to deepen grassroots democracy if panchayats<\/a> are accorded their rightful place in local development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":68548,"template":"","categories":[28,29],"tags":[3578,3664],"series":[],"meta-filter":[],"schema-filter":[743],"no-display":[],"class_list":["post-10701","ground_up_stories","type-ground_up_stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy-government","category-youth","tag-adivasi-communities","tag-local-governance","contributor-india-development-review","states-jharkhand","schema-filter-article"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Munda tribe in Jharkhand have a unique self-governance system | IDR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Munda tribesman from Jharkhand talks about self-governance (baees padha) and the importance of youth involvement to take it forward.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/idronline.org\/ground-up-stories\/unique-self-governance-system-needs-more-youth-involvement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"kn_IN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Twenty-two tribes that rule\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Munda community has a unique self-governance system called the baees padha system, which we have been following for many generations now. 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