Film throws light on tribals' problems

At the time when a GoM is discussing the new mining policy allowing huge private participation, the Govt will hear the voice of tribals through a documentary, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Aug 5, 2007, 21:23:47 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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At the time when a Group of Ministers is discussing the new mining policy allowing huge private participation, the government will hear the voice of tribals through a documentary.

Mohua, a documentary mapping tribal population in four states, depicts how the tribals were thrown out of their own land by mining companies for the promises that were never met. Story of hundreds of tribals in Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand has just one message -- mining companies have degraded their natural resources necessary for their sustainability.

Be it Vedanta plant in Orissa or Sterlite Balco mining operations in Andhra Pradesh, the tribals have only thing to say: government officials connived with mining companies to throw them out of their land they have been tilting for centuries. The government can throw them out, as legally the tribals don't have ownership right over land in forest areas, the documentary says.

Incidentally, the documentary comes at a time when the government is finalising the rules to operationalise the Tribal Rights law, notified earlier this bill. The rules, once notified, will provide limited land and forest produce usage rights to the tribals for the first time.

The documentary also hinges on this legitimate demand of the tribals in wake of opposition for forest conservationists, who termed the tribal rights law as "death warrant" for forests and wildlife.

Though conservationists like Valmik Thapar and PK Sen have already represented their views to the government, the documentary will put forth the demand of tribals before Tribal Affairs Minister R Kyndiah and Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes on Tuesday. "We want to tell people in cities and towns the travails of being a tribal and how MNCs would steal their livelihood, if new mining policy is approved," said Vinod Kumar, who used footage collected over a period of three years for this documentary.

The 82-minute real life shots of tribals in remote parts of the country is also an interesting mix of how tribals are trying to survive with their ancient culture in modern India, and how reaping benefit of India's economic development is still a distant dream for most ribals.

Although the documentary avoids the controversial issue of Naxal movement, yet it mentions about Tribals' fight for their rights and the old colonial mentality of the government officials posted there.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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