The Agitator from Silli

A hunger strike over alleged exam irregularities has turned Devendra Mahto into the most visible face of Jharkhand’s youth discontent.

For nearly three weeks, Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium has been the nerve centre of a student agitation over alleged irregularities in Jharkhand’s recruitment examinations. At its centre stands 33-year-old Devendra Nath Mahto, a student leader who has turned an indefinite hunger strike into both a political challenge and a test of the government’s willingness to listen.

Mahto began fasting on August 2 under the banner of the JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch, after weeks of demonstrations, meetings and appeals failed to produce a breakthrough. His demand is straightforward: cancel examinations that students believe were compromised, investigate the alleged irregularities and overhaul the recruitment system. The government says it has accepted most of the students’ demands. The protesters say that claim is misleading. The resulting stalemate has made Mahto increasingly difficult to ignore.

His blood sugar and blood pressure fell sharply, he became dehydrated and doctors warned that his body was struggling to cope. He was shifted to Ranchi’s Sadar Hospital after his health deteriorated following a student march towards the State Assembly. Yet on August 13, from his hospital bed, Mahto wrote to the civil surgeon seeking permission to return to the protest site. “My body is undergoing treatment on the hospital bed, but my soul is at the satyagraha site,” he said.

With this, Mahto is consciously casting the agitation in the vocabulary of satyagraha. Sonam Wangchuk, the climate activist, urged him during a video call to drink water, warning that refusing both food and water amounted to suicide. Mahto agreed to take water and salt, but not food. He stood firm on his position that the hunger strike would continue until the demands were met.

His political journey began from Silli in Ranchi district. Mahto completed his higher education in 2020 at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University in Ranchi. His academic credentials are unusually broad: postgraduate degrees in Sanskrit, Kurmali, and Tribal and Regional Languages, all in first division, along with a B.Ed. Education. They constitute the terrain from which he emerged.

His entry into electoral politics came quickly. He contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Ranchi as an Independent. Later that year he fought the Silli assembly seat for the Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM), the party he continues to represent. While electoral success has thus far eluded him, he has had more success with agitation.

In December 2024, when he was associated with the Jharkhand State Students’ Union, police detained him after a lathi-charge during demonstrations over alleged malpractice in the JSSC CGL document-verification process. That episode saw Mahto come into his own, as a standard-bearer of frustrated youth fighting an administrative system they believe is failing them.

The present agitation began with the declaration of the results of the 14th JPSC Preliminary Test. Students say the process was riddled with irregularities. They began protesting on July 5, met the Governor two days later, burnt an effigy on July 8 and presented evidence to Chief Minister Hemant Soren on July 20. When those efforts produced no settlement, Mahto escalated the confrontation.

The demands extend beyond a single examination. Protesters want the cancellation of several recruitment examinations conducted since 2019, a CBI investigation, disclosure of category-wise cut-offs, OMR sheets and response sheets, and action against those allegedly responsible. They also want a predictable recruitment calendar modelled on the UPSC and SSC systems. The larger complaint is therefore about trust as much as examinations.

The government’s attempts at negotiation have failed to settle the dispute. Protesters have remained unconvinced, particularly over the proposed investigation and the government’s claim that 98 percent of their demands have been met.

Meanwhile, Mahto has become the movement’s most recognisable. His central argument is that recruitment is a question of life or death for students in a state where government employment carries enormous significance.

Whether Mahto can convert physical sacrifice into political leverage remains uncertain. Hunger strikes often narrow the room for compromise. For now, however, his weakened body has made the Jharkhand government’s problem more visible. The man who once sought political relevance through elections has found it through protest. His next challenge is to turn that visibility into results without allowing the movement he leads to be consumed by the drama of his own sacrifice.