HT Archive: Building an equitable for our tribals

But there has emerged a silver lining. Women’s organisations are coming up.

(Edited except of an article written by author and activist Mahasweta Devi that appeared on August 15, 1997.)

Jawaharlal Nehru addresses the nation from Red Fort on Independence Day (HT Photo)

When Independence came, the leaders should have given it some consideration that the British were here to exploit India, and not to make it a flourishing economy. The leaders should have started everything from scratch, like strict enforcement of land reforms, land distribution to the landless, preservation and enlargement of forest areas, setting up of schools, laying roadways, ensuring drinking water and Irrigation facilities. electricity, housing, etc. These should have reached the people living below the poverty line all over India, and this should have been achieved by 50 years. But, regrettably, only 10% may have been achieved.

We can well surmise that the tribals have borne the brunt of this laid-back attitude. In making big projects, the Government of India is always taking away tribal land. The evicted tribals are increasing in number, becoming rootless and swelling the number of migrant workers.

They have been chiefly left at the mercy of contractors entrusted with the construction of such big projects such as the Narmada dam or the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) at Ranchi. The DVC dams in West Bengal and Bihar saw thousands and thousands of Santhals evicted. We find that to meet the ever-growing need for land of non-resident Indians or residential non-Indians, agricultural land is being taken away. As a result, both tribal and non-tribal peasants have suffered. In the Sunderbans, hundreds of acres of tribal land have been converted into fisheries for prawn cultivation.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, after the tribal revolt in the Chhotanagpur plateau, countless Santhals, Oraons, Mundas, Bedias and other tribals became landless. They were recruited by middlemen for cleaning the jungle and preparing large tracts for tea gardens as well as cropland. That is how these tribals came to West Bengal.

On making an objective survey of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and other places, we find that the story remains the same. Even before Independence, tribal and non-tribal peasants in Kakdwip in West Bengal and Telangana in Andhra Pradesh were deprived of land. By 1955, the Zamindari Abolition Act came into force. But the zamindars had pre-empted this move by 1952-53. So, they felled forests, kept benami land and evicted tribals who had lived there for hundreds of years. In most cases, they held the ownership rayati patta.

In the tea gardens in the 19th century, tribals were given large areas of land, but no patta. As the returns from the gardens increased, the tribals were evicted. The 1946 Tebhaga movement in Jalpaiguri was a result of the grievances of the landless tribals, and 12 of them became martyrs while fighting for their cause. The Naxalite movement originated from the land-grievance of the tribals.

There are legal provisions to preserve tribal land. But neither the tribals nor the government can do anything as land revenue officers are generally corrupt. For a tribal to approach them and get redress is almost impossible. To make matters worse, no land reform has been attempted in the rest of the country. Even in a state like Kerala, the assembly passed a bill the other day which said outsiders could acquire any tribal land anywhere.

The worst sufferers among them are the so-called criminal tribals. In 1871, the British notified many forest tribes as criminal ones along with some Scheduled Caste groups. In 1952, the Government of India declared them as denotified tribes, meaning they would no longer be treated as criminals. But for years the neighbouring people and the police have grown into believing that such tribes comprised born criminals. We have Lodhas in Midnapore district and the Kheria-Shabars in Purulia in this category. On December 20, 1996, five Lodhas rescued a forest beat officer from some miscreants who had attacked him when the officer caught them red-handed felling trees. The Lodhas not only saved him, but also took him to hospital, risking their own lives. Four days later the forest officer lodged an FIR with the local police naming the culprits and speaking eloquently of the Lodhas. But the district police submitted a charge sheet in which the five Lodhas were named as the accused. The Lodhas have fled their homes in terror. That there exists a bias against these people cannot be denied.

Another example highlighting the same situation involves Lalit Shabar, a Kheria boy, who was sent to work in a neighbouring village. There he was bound to a tree and his right hand chopped off by none other than the local panchayat pradhan. The Lodhas and Kherias bear the stigma of being branded criminals to this day as the people and the police refuse to change their attitude.

But there has emerged a silver lining. Women’s organisations are coming up. Women have become conscious of the discrimination against them and are protesting. In Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, women rose in protest against country liquor and forced the government to ban it, though the move has not been totally successful. The point to remember is that the protesting women belonged to the poorer strata of society. Women are also increasingly joining the decision-making process at the grassroot level.

HT Archive: Integration to integrity - The mission before India

HT Archive: Despite big economic gains, many gaps remain

HT Archive: A call to forge a sense of national identity