Anaarkali - The saga of Bhil Tribal Adivasi Indigenous People

Prison for Helping a Woman to Deliver a Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:14:00 +0000

Madhuri, the activist of Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sanghatan has been arrested today afternoon, 16.5.2013, in a case in the Court of Shri D.P. Singh Sewach, Judicial Magistrate First Class in Barwani town of Madhya Pradesh. Madhuri, shown in the picture below and others had received a court notice to appear and was informed that the police had filed a closure report (khatma) in the case but the complainant had filed an objection to this and so the trial would have to proceed. Madhuri along with the other accused were offered bail by the magistrate but they refused saying that the case was a fabricated one and they would prefer to lodge their protest against such harassment by going to prison instead. Madhuri was then arrested from the court complex and remanded in Judicial Custody till 30th May 2013 and has been sent to Khargone women's Jail.

The details of the case are as follows:
An Adivasi resident of village Sukhpuri, Barwani, Baniya Bai, was taken to the Menimata Primary Health Centre (PHC) for delivery by her father-in-law, Dalsingh, on the night of 11th November 2008. They made the 15 km journey on a bullock cart because no other transport was available. After admitting and taking a cursory look at her, the compounder, V.K. Chauhan, and nurse, Nirmala, left the PHC and went home.
The next morning, Baniya was forced by the compounder and the nurse to leave the hospital. Her family was asked for Rs. 100, which they did not have and so Dalsing immediately went to get money from their village. Despite attempts to re-admit Baniya Bai to the PHC, the compounder flatly refused saying that they could not manage the delivery so she would have to go to Barwani District Hospital or Silawad Hospital.
Baniya’s relatives tried to get the Menimata hospital compounder, nurse and staff to call for the Janani Express, which is a scheme of the government to provide transport to pregnant women to carry them to a hospital for institutional delivery, but were unsuccessful. The family was told to make its own arrangements to refer to a better hospital. When forced to leave the PHC, Baniya Bai crawled out of the labour room, on to the road outside the PHC, where she lay down in severe pain.
Eventually, Baniya’s mother-in-law, Suvali Bai, went looking for a Dai or traditional birth attendant, in the marketplace and found Jambai Nana, who had come to the market to collect her wages. After hearing about Baniya Bai's situation, Jambai agreed to assist her, and at around 12PM, conducted a normal delivery on the road outside the hospital. The father-in-law gave his dhoti (loin cloth) to provide cover for Baniya Bai during delivery. Following this incident, a crowd gathered outside the health centre.
Madhuri, who was passing by, inquired about what was happening. She then called up the Silawad Community Health Centre, the Silawad Police Station as well as health officials from Barwani. Upon being informed, senior officials from the health department ordered for a vehicle to be sent immediately to the Menimata PHC. After being denied emergency obstetric care and being forced to deliver in public view, Baniya Bai and her child were taken to the Silawad Hospital for admission. The compounder, Vijay Kumar was suspended after repeated demands for action against him for his negligence from the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, but was soon reinstated.
Not only that a case was filed against Madhuri, Baniya Bai's Husband, Basant and others on the complaint of the erring compounder and it was registered as First Information Report No 93 of 2008 under sections 353, 332, 147, 148 and 342 of the Indian Penal Code which deal with preventing a government servant from doing his duty, illegal assembly and wrongfully confining a person. The complaint was that the accused had forced a pregnant woman, that is, Baniya Bai, who was in a critical condition and was in labour, to deliver in full public view just outside the Menimata PHC instead of allowing the compounder to take her to a well equipped hospital. However, no action was taken in the case against the accused by the Police until in the course of things they filed a closure report, obviously because the case was a false one. It is pertinent here to mention that the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan has been waging a long battle against the corruption and apathy of the bureaucracy not only in the health services but also in the education department and the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which has led to the termination of the services of many government staff who have been found to be guilty of defalcation of funds. There is tremendous local political and bureaucratic pressure on the Sangathan and especially on Madhuri and earlier too she has been served with notices for externment from the district and on one occasion a proposed mass rally of the organisation was violently opposed by the local politicians and bureaucrats. The filing of this false case against the Sangathan members has also been done due to the political pressure against it.
There are several serious issues that arise from this case:
First of all the pathetic state of health services that prevail in remote areas and the apathetic and cynical attitude of the skeleton staff who are present in these health centres despite the running of an ambitious scheme such as the Janani Suraksha Yojana to ensure institutional delivery.
Secondly this case of Baniya Bai is part of a writ petition filed in the High Court Of Madhya Pradesh, Indore Bench, in which this pathetic status of maternal health services was raised in the light of 29 maternal deaths recorded in a span of 9 months in Barwani District Hospital. Yet the magistrate in this case chose to ignore this whole issue and instead gave weight to the application filed by the complainant that the case should not be dismissed. This just goes to show how much the lower judiciary in this country is swayed by local political and bureaucratic pressure when it should be exercising an independent judicial mind to protect the rights of the oppressed.
Thirdly and most importantly what is the future of this country if activists and especially women activists like Madhuri, who are fighting for the rights of poor Adivasis are to be the victims of such brazen oppression from the corrupt and insensitive bureaucracy.

- based on a report by Anubha Rastogi

An Amazon Rewarded

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:20:00 +0000

Here is a news report of an award to Dayamani Barla who has fought valiantly against the Government and Corporates in Jharkhand in the face of severe repression for the rights of her tribal community -

Tribal rights activist Dayamani Barla who has been at the forefront of several mass movements in the past 15 years, including the campaign against Arcelor Mittal’s steel plant in Jharkhand, has been awarded the Ellen L Lutz indigenous rights award. Barla will receive the award from Cultural Survival, a Massachusetts-based non-profit organisation which supports the rights of indigenous people, at a ceremony at the Museum of the American Indian, in New York on 23 May.

“Her work makes a difference and impacts all of us by shaping hope and promise for the future — one story at a time, one protest at a time,” said the selection panel which sifted through a long list of nominees before picking the fiery Jharkhand land rights activist. Barla’s life story is one of extraordinary determination and achievement in the face of crushing poverty. Barla who belongs to the Munda tribe in Jharkhand saved on her small income as a housemaid to complete a Master’s degree. She later entered journalism, becoming the first Adivasi woman journalist from Jharkhand. For her writing, she won the Counter Media Award for rural journalism in 2000. She funds herself by running a small restaurant in Ranchi.

Dayamani Barla, a rousing voice against displacement, is also an outspoken critic against the injustices Adivasi communities face. Image credit: Cultural Survival.

Much to the vexation of corporate houses and government officials, Barla has succeeded in upending their best-laid plans through peaceful Gandhian protests which have draw masses. She has been jailed on several occasions for tenuous reasons; once for nearly two months because of leading a protest that caused a roadblock in 2006. But threats, jail time, and a slew of cases and warrants against her haven’t broken her resolve to oppose the displacement of tribals. In 2008, the BBC forecasted that for Arcelor Mittal, Barla would prove to be as much trouble as Mamata Banerjee had been for Tata Motors in West Bengal. Sure enough, Barla’s spirited campaign against ArcelorMittal’s proposed steel plant in Gumla-Khunti, in Jharkhand has now forced the company to relocate to Bokaro. Arcelor Mittal wanted to invest $8.79 billion to set up one of the world’s biggest steel plants in the largely tribal dominated forest area. The steel project required 12,000 acres of land and a new power plant which would have displaced 40 villages in Jharkhand.

Barla’s group, the Adivaasi, Moolvaasi, Astitva Raksha Manch fought the move tooth-and-nail. They successfully convinced villagers not to negotiate with the steel-maker because apart from causing massive displacement, the project would have destroyed the forests in the area, contaminated water sources and hurt the ecosystem. The same reasons propelled Barla to fight the Koel Karo dam project. Miranda Vitello, development assistant, at Cultural Survival said India’s land rights activist edged out over 50 nominees to win the Ellen L Lutz award which comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

www.firstpost.com

The Contradictions of Modern Development

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:25:00 +0000

On Sunday, 5th May 2013, four Bhil tribals from the village of Mathwad died when the bus they were travelling on overturned in a difficult hilly portion of the road to their village and fell 20 metres into the valley. These people were sitting on top of the bus as it was overcrowded with people returning from the weekly market in Chhaktala village. Fifty other people both men and women have been injured, some of them seriously. The bus caught fire after falling into the ditch but fortunately by that time all the passengers had been evacuated. And on this tragedy hangs a tale of the contradictory nature of modern development.
When I first came to the Mathwad region in 1985 the first joke I heard was that the road from Alirajpur to Mathwad had been blackened with a macadamised top quite a few times on paper but it still retained the mutiple colours of a mud road because the funds had been siphoned off to colour the pockets of the contractors, bureaucrats and politicians. The lack of a proper road meant that not only was there no public transport but that higher level administrators also could not visit the area frequently because it was difficult to reach by jeeps also. The mobilisation of the KMCS first put pressure on the administration and the government to visit the area and also do something to develop the roads. However, thirty years later the road to Mathwad still remains untarred and the only difference now is that it has been given a stone top in preparation for macadamisation.
Since the road still takes a heavy toll on a vehicle that travels on it regularly there is only one bus that does two trips a day from Alirajpur to Mathwad. It is a ramshackle bus that frequently breaks down. Obviously it was in no shape to take the heavier load that was there on sunday with many people sitting on the top of the bus along with the stuff they had bought from the market. In fact even in the plains part from Alirajpur to Chhaktala there are an insufficient number of buses plying compared to the people travelling and so there are many jeeps that ply illegally and are also overloaded as in the picture below.

Thus, even on plain roads there are accidents sometimes and the poor Bhil tribals who are seen clinging on in the above picture get seriously injured or even die. There are strict legal provisions to prevent this kind of overloading and the police are supposed to implement them. However, the police look the other way after taking a bribe and allow such blatant violations to continue. The problem is that if the jeep owner in the picture above or the bus owner in the case of the bus that overturned in Mathwad were to seat only the regulation number of passengers then there operation would not be profitable. Just the economic costs of running the vehicle are so high that the fare that they would have to charge from the limited number of passengers would be exorbitant. That is why throughout the world public transport has to be subsidised. If it is not then the private operators have to resort to overcrowding to stay afloat and earn a profit.
Even with roads it is the same problem. They cost the earth to build, especially in hilly areas like Mathwad. The government does not have the resources to build good roads and of course there is the ubiquitous problem of siphoning off of funds by corrupt officials. The government does not have funds because it cannot mobilise enough taxes from the people who are mostly poor. Since all economic activities require subsidies to make them profitable obviously those who are economically more powerful grab most of the government funds and the Bhils get the least whether it is in terms of roads, transport, health or education.
All this brings the whole project of modern development under a cloud. Even its economic costs are very high even if we do not count the environmental and social costs. Those engaged in economic activities within this paradigm from the lowest jeep owners to the highest corporation chief executive officers are all bribing the regulators to allow the cutting of or total neglect of costs so as to make a profit. Thus, if modern development is to be pursued then we must also be prepared to accommodate corruption and thievery and the disasters that arise from these.
Even though on vastly different scales altogether the overturning of the bus on the road to Mathwad is a manifestation of the same cost cutting and lack of regulatory oversight that led to the Bhopal Gas and the Fukushima Nuclear disasters.

Love and Its Management

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sun, 05 May 2013 09:53:00 +0000

According to Gerda Lerner the feminist historian who has done extensive field as well as archival research on the origins of patriarchy in the transition between the paleolithic and neolithic era, the control of women's sexuality by men precedes the emergence of private property. The later paleolithic era was one in which the homo sapiens sapiens species had developed leaving all other varieties of homo sapiens to become extinct and it did so by living in small tribes which controlled their territory for hunting and gathering. Frequently there were clashes between tribes over territories and in such cases the winning tribes used to abduct members of the losing tribe. This was because given the low life expectancy at that time of about 25 years of age, procreative human beings were the most important resource for any tribe. However, since the level of technology at that time did not allow men to be held captive over long periods of time, it was the practice to capture women instead and then make them pregnant through continuous raping over a period of a month or two and so render them incapable of fleeing.
With the advent of the neolithic revolution and the development of farming and livestock rearing, surpluses began to be accumulated and private property emerged. This made it imperative for men to know who their children were so as to be able to pass on the accumulated private property. Thus, the relatively free sexual relations between men and women of the later paleolithic era gave way to the institution of marriage and the further chattelisation of women. Consequently, marriage institutionalised the control of female sexuality and outlawed female independence. With time the institution of marriage has become more and more claustrophobic as far as women are concerned dooming most of them to giving birth to and rearing children in large numbers to ensure the continuance of the human race.
Tribal societies in India without exception are patriarchal and there is tremendous control of female sexuality in them. Even if there are greater instances of pre and extra marital sex in such societies as compared to the caste societies in India ( Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities in India are all caste ridden and so irrespective of the religion all non-tribal communities can be deemed to be caste societies), this is strictly controlled and severely punished if it becomes known even in tribal societies.
This long preamble has been necessitated in order to critique a tendency among the media in recent times to portray the Bhil tribal society as an exception to this all round male control of female sexuality, not so much to try and eulogise the supposed freedom of its women but to give a yellow and risque colour of free love to their culture. The Bhils of Jhabua, Alirajpur, Dhar, Dewas, Khargone, Khandwa and Barwani districts celebrate many festivals. The most important is Bhagoria, which is celebrated just before the Hindu festival of Holi in spring. This festival is a celebration of the harvest and a thanksgiving to nature as also a supplication to their Gods for more such harvests in the future. Men and women and especially the adolescents and young adults visit the weekly markets on the market days and partake in communitarian dancing and singing as shown in the picture below. So for a week before Holi by turns there are huge colourful turnouts of Bhil men and women in the weekly market villages and towns enjoying themselves in a celebration of song and dance.

Now among the Bhils there is a practice among adolescent boys and girls of eloping instead of waiting for their parents to decide a match for them. Thus, throughout the year boys and girls decide to elope with each other and they do so during the festivals also, including the Bhagoria festival. However, the proportion of such elopements is miniscule as compared to the total number of marriages in Bhil society because when such elopement does take place then the boy's family has to pay an extra premium above the bride price which may at times exceed the latter. Therefore, families generally discourage their marriageable age children from eloping and instead pro-actively arrange for them to be married through kinship connections.

But disregarding this strict patriarchal control of love among the Bhils, the media has portrayed the Bhagoria festival continually as a love festival in which the boys and girls who are dancing together as in the picture above are doing so to select their partners as a prelude to eloping with each other in large numbers at the end of the day. This despite the fact that to this day there is not a single video in the public domain of any such couple fleeing together from the Bhagoria festival. It is also said that the Bhagoria festival has got its name from the Hindi word "Bhaagna" which means to flee. This is yet another preposterous fiction as the Bhil language does not have any such word. In fact the name Bhagoria comes from the village Bhagor in Jhabua district where this festival first began to take on a regional flavour rather than being restricted to being celebrated only in the villages as in the case of other Bhil festivals.

To give an idea of how tightly love and marriage are controlled in Bhil society here are two real life stories of what actually happens. A girl from Kanthari village of Alirajpur district, whose sister was already married to a boy in Vakner village, decided to elope with another boy from Vakner village while they were both working as migrant construction workers in Gujarat. The boy and the girl came back to the boy's village and then the family of the boy sent word to the girl's family that their daughter had now become their family member. A whole group of people, all males, from Kanthari village came to Vakner to resolve the issue. Traditionally in such cases the two parties sit at a distance from each other and negotiations are conducted by go-between people called "Vatars" to arrive at a consensus. The Kanthari people said that since the boy had eloped with the girl without prior information to the girl's family or going through a negotiated marriage, so the boy's family would have to pay a premium and demanded one lakh rupees in toto. The boy's family responded by saying that they would pay only rupees twenty thousand. This angered the Kanthari males no end and in typical patriarchal fashion they said this was an insulting economic devaluation of their honour. They got up and immediately began beating up the go-between who happened to the Sarpanch or the elected Village Council head of Vakner. It was only after the Sarpanch's wife and sundry other people intervened that the Sarpanch was rescued but by that time he had been severely beaten up requiring hospitalisation. The Kanthari men in the meanwhile boarded their jeep and fled from the scene. The people of Vakner phoned the office of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath in Alirajpur to complain about the Kanthari people's violent behaviour. The activist in the office in Alirajpur then phoned the police outpost in Chhaktala village which is on the return route to Kanthari from Vakner and the police apprehended the Kanthari men on their way back and put them in the lock up where they had to cool their heels as well as their tempers. So finally the Vakner men also reached the police outpost in Chhaktala the next day along with the Sarpanch of Kanthari. Eventually the dispute was resolved with the Vakner boy's family paying rupees forty thousand as bride price cum premium to the Kanthari girl's family and now everything is hunky dory.

In another incident the veteran Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath activist Khemla's daughter too eloped with a non-tribal mason while working as a construction worker in Gujarat. The mason's family said that they would not pay any bride price because in their caste it is the girl's family that pays the dowry. While Khemla was amenable to this, his brothers and larger kin group were not. They said that they would not only take the bride price but also the premium because the mason had married their niece without their prior consent. So Khemla's daughter did not return from Gujarat and preferred to stay there with her husband. This angered Khemla's brothers even further and they went in a jeep to search for their niece at Khemla's expense even though Khemla himself did not go. They returned empty handed as Khemla's daughter and her husband had fled from their residence being forewarned by Khemla. But even to this day Khemla's daughter who is now the mother of two children after more than six years has not been able to return to Alirajpur due to the intransigent patriarchal stance taken by her uncles and the larger kin group.

Control of women's sexuality through marriage is a fundamental aspect of patriarchal oppression and it is very much there among the Bhils also. To ignore this and portray the Bhagoria festival as a love riot and the Bhils as a society of elopers smacks of the yellow trivialisation that has now become a hall mark of most journalism these days.

Mumbai's Water Needs versus the Livelihoods of Tribals

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sun, 05 May 2013 07:30:00 +0000

Fresh water supply to the Mumbai-Thane-Navi Mumbai mega conurbation has now come into conflict with the livelihoods of the tribals of the neighbouring regions. As many as eight dams are slated to be built on rivers in the Western Ghats and in the process valuable flora and fauna will be submerged along with the livelihoods of thousands of tribals who have been living in this area for centuries. These tribals have now gone to court but such is the power of the rich people of Mumbai that the Government of Maharashtra is preparing to bull doze its way to constructing these dams disregarding the law clearly laid down in the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006 that the Village Council of the tribal villages has to be first consulted and their rights to the land settled before they can be displaced. A report by Meenal Tatpati on the situation prevailing in the submergence zone of the dam being built on the Kalu River in Murbad Tehsil of Thane district clearly brings out the injustice -

In the latest minutes of the Forest Advisory Committee a small paragraph titled Agenda Item No. 4 highlights a dam on the river Kalu in Murbad Taluka of Thane District. It talks about the submergence of 18 villages, a “comprehensive” rehabilitation package of 68.75 crore being sanctioned and goes on to recommend the project for clearance. What the paragraph does not reveal however, is, the huge socio-economic and cultural impact that a dam diverting 999.328 ha of forest land has already had on the ecology and the people, close to 18,000, who stand to lose their land, forests and livelihood.

ANTI-DAM SLOGANS ON THE WALLS OF THE HOUSES IN MURBAD

The Forests and its people

Murbad is a part of the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats. Many threatened species of fauna and flora and a rich biodiversity have made ecologists recommend it as an Ecologically Sensitive Area. It is also home to the Thakar, Mahadeo Koli and Katkari tribal communities, known for their dependence and intricate links with the forests. The forest here provides shelter, livelihood and sustenance. Produce from Mahua, Tendu, Palas, Mango and Jamun trees is bartered and sold in weekly markets. The forests have a dense cover of Aain, Khair, Kandhol and Khevada trees. Several medicinal plants and wild edible vegetables are also sourced. The streams and rivers provide fish and crabs and water to drink throughout the year. Bibi Pandurang Wakh of Pejwadi hamlet says, “The jungle here provides everything. Even during droughts its bitter tubers sustained us. If the dam comes, our rightful land will go. How will we survive? Where will we take our children and go?”

MAHUA FLOWERS TUBERS FROM THE FOREST FISHING EQUIPMENT

The tribal communities have made utmost use of the village land having planted trees like Mango, Jackfruit, Banana, and Cashew. On their small farmlands, they grow pulses and vegetables, selling them at the local markets.

BAMBOO WORKS

Besides being a rich resource base, the forests have tremendous socio-cultural significance. At Chasole, a village close to the Dam site, is an ancient temple, complete with hero stones. This temple will submerge under the dam waters. The archaeological significance will be lost. So will several sacred groves in villages that are slated to lose their forests.

THE SACRED GROVE AT KHARPATWADI AND THE HATKESHWAR TEMPLE IN CHASOLE WILL BE SUBMERGED

Illegal and unscrupulous attempts of the project proponents

The locals found about the project when JPC’s and dumpers arrived at the dam site, cut thousands of trees and excavated huge quantities of soil to begin building the dam wall. After repeated pleas to the contractors to stop the work failed, the local villagers sought the help of Shramik Mukti Sanghatna, a local organization working for tribal welfare in the region. An RTI filed by the Sanghatna revealed a tangled web of manipulation of laws and unethical tactics being used by the project proponents to further this project.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dweller’s (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006; an Act enacted to “redress historical injustice” meted out to tribals and forest dependent communities has not been implemented in the area. The Act provides that no forest dependent community can be evicted from forest land under their occupation till their rights under the Act are recognized and verified. It also provides for rights to be recognized over community forests and resources. These rights have not been recognized.

The locals had not been given prior information about the proposed dam. Being a tribal area, consultations with the gram sabha regarding the project as stated under PESA were conveniently sidelined by the project proponents. The construction of the dam began in late 2010, without forest clearance. The project proponents also engaged in direct land deals with some tribal families which is illegal under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code. This was done with total secrecy, and the soil required to build the dam was excavated from this land.

In June 2011, the Sanghatna filed a PIL in the Mumbai High Court against the project proponent on the basis of the issue of forest clearance. Meanwhile, the construction of the dam continued, amidst protests and dharnas by the project affected. The proposal was sent for FAC clearance only in August 2011. The project proponents used various tactics of coercion and threats to break the strong opposition to the dam, offering money to the landless and creating chasms within the community. However, people continued to oppose the dam, and in March 2012, the Mumbai High Court stayed the construction of the dam. By this time, 20% construction of the dam wall was already complete.

THE KALU RIVER

THE FORESTS OF SHISEWADI

Facing Displacement

These life-giving forests stand to disappear if the project is eventually completed. Also slated to disappear is the tribal whose identity is intricately linked with this forest. They will be lost, as statistics, a displaced population.

The rehabilitation plan announced by the district authorities provides about Rs 6 lakh to each affected family. The official figure of affected people is pegged at about 3000. This has been calculated without conducting either an EIA or a Social Impact Assessment (made mandatory by the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2007). Sangathan activists and locals say that about 40-42 hamlets will be affected, some whose land will submerge, some whose forests. Only 50% of the people in the affected villages own land, which means that half the population depends on the forests for sustenance. If the forests disappear, so do the people who depend on it. The actual figure of affected individuals is about 18,000! This is only the backwash effect of the actual dam. The water will be supplied to Navi Mumbai, about a 100 km away, in canals and piplelines, affecting thousands of villages downstream as well. But the proposal has no comments on this.

12 gram sabhas passed resolutions rejecting the project. They neither want the dam, nor the rehabilitation money.
Nausa Shiva Waghe of Shisewadi revealed the flaw in the way rehabilitation packages in our country are planned. When asked why they do not want to take the money offered and leave, he said, “What will we do with the money? It is never enough. Money comes, alcohol enters, vehicles enter and then the money goes!”

A rehabilitation package that only provides money completely misses the point. The displaced population is completely alienated, not just from their material source of livelihood but also from cultural and knowledge. Monetary assessment of these values is dehumanizing. The locals here will face loss of identity which money will not be able to restore.

THE KALU RIVER BED WITH THE DAM WALL IN THE BACKGROUND

The future

After rejecting the proposal in April 2012, the FAC in its latest meeting on 4th April has recommended the project for clearance with certain “conditions”. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra has repeatedly stated in his letters to the Ministry of Environment and Forests that the project is of vital importance to Mumbai’s water supply needs. As it expands in size and population, land, water and resources from surrounding areas will continue to be absorbed into this metropolis to feed and shelter its increasing population. Thousands of people along the banks of the rivers that are slated to provide water to Mumbai and other cities stand threatened to be dispossessed, stripped off their land and livelihood, their forests and their rivers. They do not figure in the decision making process making this a short-sighted and incomplete attempt at providing the need of one section of the society without taking into consideration the needs of the other. The Kalu Project is just one of 8 projects slated to come up in this area. On the Kalu itself, a hydroelectricity project is under construction upstream in Malsejh Ghat in Pune District. The geological sensitive nature of the Kalu basin being coupled with absolute disregard of the provisions of cumulative impact assessments of dams in this region will prove dangerous to the ecological and geological stability of the area. A complete socio-cultural and economic impact assessment of such projects, coupled with a biodiversity assessment done by independent agencies is a requirement that cannot be sidelined in such projects.
Meanwhile in Murbad, the people’s struggle will continue.

Worshipping Stinking Rivers

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:48:00 +0000

They do not worship rivers in Europe or North America. Yet the rivers there are spic and span with their water in most cases potable enough for drinking. Not only are there strict laws to ensure that untreated domestic and industrial wastes are not released into these rivers but also there is a high level of civic awareness about keeping the rivers clean. However, in India where not only do we worship rivers but have huge gatherings for doing so, the situation is exactly the opposite. Throughout the country and especially in the metropolises untreated waste water is being indiscriminately released into rivers and streams. So the Yamuna River is biologically dead in the 25 kilometer stretch within the city of Delhi having no dissolved oxygen whatsoever and instead having huge amounts of pollutants. So much so that tubewells nearby drawing water from more than 50 metres underground spew out polluted water. The picture below shows water coming out of the tubewell in Geeta Colony in Delhi and immediately foaming.

Millions of people take holy dips in the Ganges River during the Kumbh Melas that are held every twelve years alternatively at Allahabad and Haridwar and also in the Shipra River in Ujjain and the Godavari at Nashik. None of these Rivers are clean and so it is really a conundrum as to how those taking dips in them can become holy. In fact a report in the Hindu newspaper says that the recently concluded Kumbh Mela in Allahabad has left a pile of trash and filth at the Sangam that is going to be a Herculean task to clean. Whenever I cross a stinking river or stream in a town or city I feel deeply disturbed that we have not been able to take a few simple steps to tackle this problem which is getting more and more serious by the day.
Another Kumbh Mela is to take place in Ujjain in 2016. So preparations have begun in earnest. The Shipra river in Ujjain is polluted heavily due to the stinking water that is discharged into it by the Khan River from Indore city and also other streams from Dewas town in addition to the untreated sewage from Ujjain itself. So the Government has initiated a project to lift water from a canal carrying irrigation water from the Indira Sagar dam on the Narmada River up some 300 meters and 30 kilometers to augment the flow of the Shipra. Simultaneously it wants to build a by pass canal to take the dirty water from the Khan River away from its confluence with the Shipra and make it join the latter after it passes through Ujjain. A few thousand crores will be spent on this when at a miniscule fraction of this cost to the exchequer decentralised waste water treatment and disposal systems can be installed with the rich who control most of the land in cities and towns bearing the costs. There are laws and rules in place for this to be done but these are blatantly flouted with Government agencies being the biggest violators.
The NGO TARU tried to get the residents of an upper class colony in Indore to install a sewage treatment plant. The NGO wanted some buy in from the residents and so asked them to contribute a quarter of the installation cost and all of the running costs. These would all be recovered by the reuse of water leading to a lesser demand for water supply from the municipality or from underground. Yet the residents could not come to an agreement. The leaders of the colony demanded a cut from the NGO to let them carry out the project as did the staffers of the Indore Municipal Corporation. When this is the mindset of the people then it is very difficult to do anything else but wallow in the worship of stinking rivers in the cities and towns of this country.

The Rise and Rise of the Tribal Village Council

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:17:00 +0000

A tremendously significant recent development is the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court of India regarding bauxite mining on the Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha on April 8th 2013. The writ petition (civil) number 180 of 2011 had been filed by the Orissa Mining Corporation Limited against the order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India dated 24.8.2010 rejecting the application of the former for providing Stage II clearance for the diversion of 660.749 hectares of forest land in the Niyamgiri Hills spread over the two districts of Rayagada and Kalahandi in the state of Odisha for mining of bauxite to be supplied to the Alumina Refinery Project set up by the multinational mining conglomerate Vedanta Plc . The Supreme Court in its judgment upheld this rejection primarily on the ground that the Gram Sabhas or village councils had not decided on the religious and cultural rights of the primitive tribal group of Dongria and Kutia Kondhs who reside in the area and so unless their considered opinion is taken the diversion cannot be allowed under the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act (FRA)2006. This judgment is analysed in detail in what follows to bring out its significance.
The Supreme Court was seized of the matter earlier also on a petition filed by Vedanta for directions to MoEF to grant environment clearance for the setting up of the Alumina Refinery and had decided in 2007 that the mining of bauxite could go ahead provided certain conditions regarding environmental protection and rehabilitation of the project affected persons were met and that the MoEF granted environmental clearance on the basis of existing legal provisions. A review petition was filed by an intervener against this order stating that the religious and cultural rights of the Dongria Kondhs as guaranteed under the FRA were being violated but this was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2008. Meanwhile the MoEF gave a Stage I clearance to the Orissa Mining Corporation in early 2009. Thus, the path appeared to be clear for Vedanta to go ahead with mining bauxite.
However, this is when the campaign against the project gathered steam on several fronts. The Dongria Kondhs themselves began to organise in an active manner against the project and several environmental activist groups in India and abroad began providing support to their struggle. These groups together ensured that for the first time the Dongria Kondhs approached a law court to fight for their rights as a petition was filed in the National Environment Appellate Authority against the order of the MoEF granting stage I clearance in 2009 alleging serious violations of the Environment Protection Act 1986 (EPA), FRA and the Forest Conservation Act 1980 (FCA). Simultaneously a huge international campaign was kicked off against Vedanta exposing all its skullduggery in willfully violating environmental laws and also trying to displace the Dongria Kondhs. The violations of the laws was so blatant and so well exposed by the petitioners that the NEAA ordered the MoEF in 2010 to reconsider its decision to give environmental clearance. This led the MoEF to constitute a committee headed by Dr N.C. Saxena to study in depth the situation prevailing in the project area with regard to compliance with various relevant laws. This committee submitted a scathing report documenting in detail the serious violations of various laws committed by the Government of Odisha and Vedanata. On the basis of this the Forest Advisory Committee of the MoEF refused forest clearance and eventually the MoEF refused the Stage II clearance.
The present judgment is a tour de force in legal reasoning. The judges were well aware of the fact that all the objections raised had been heard before in the earlier petition before the Supreme Court and yet it had dismissed them and ordered that the MoEF should decide on the basis of the prevailing laws on granting the clearance. Therefore, the judgment upholds the need for the exploitation of the bauxite for development and the right of the Odisha Government to so develop it. The judgment also says that even though there are gross violations of the EPA and the FCA by the Alumina Refinery and there is a clear link between the refinery and the bauxite mining in Niyamgiri it is not going into that. Instead the judgment traces the development of the law with regard to the sanctity of the rights of the tribals right from the constitution of the Dilip Singh Bhuria Parliamentary Committee, the subsequent enactment of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 (PESA Act) on the basis of the recommendations of the Bhuria Committee, the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Samatha case upholding the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution regarding the rights of tribals to their land (Samatha v. Andhra Pradesh (1997) 8 SCC 191), the judgment of the Supreme Court upholding the provisions of the PESA Act (Union of India v. Rakesh Kumar, (2010) 4 SCC 50) and the enactment of the FRA and also cites the various international conventions for the protection of the tribals and the environment to show that the rights of tribals and the close proximity of their lifestyles to the environment and its sustainability are paramount and protected by law. The FRA specifically provides that the Gram Sabha has to decide on the status of various rights of the tribals and these include religious and cultural rights. Thus, while the rights to land of some of the tribals in the Niyamgiri Hills have been settled by the Gram Sabhas in that region, the rights of the tribals to continue to worship Niyamraja who resides on the plateau on top of the Hills has not been settled by the Gram Sabha because this has not come up before it. The FRA specifically states that before any tribal group can be displaced from a certain area all their rights must first be settled by the Gram Sabha. Therefore, the Supreme Court in its judgment has ordered that the Gram Sabhas should be held in the region to decide on the religious and cultural rights of the tribal residents and only if they decide that they are willing to allow Niyam Raja's abode to be accessed can mining take place there. The court has also ordered that a district judge will oversee that the proceedings of the Gram Sabhas are completely fair and there is no pressure applied on the members by the Government or Vedanta.
This is a piquant situation. The Supreme Court now feels that mining should take place with the necessary environmental protection and social welfare measures as ordered earlier by it but yet it puts in the caveat that this can happen only if the Dongria Kondhs say that their religious and cultural rights will not be hurt and it is the tribal Gram Sabhas that will sanction this. With this judgment the tribal Gram Sabhas have now become the most powerful entities with regard to governance in their areas of jurisdiction.
An interesting feature of the case as it unfolded in the court is that the Government of India through the Solicitor General argued in favour of the MoEF rejection of the clearance. This goes to show that the combined power of tribal mobilisation at the grassroots and legal and policy lobbying by environmental action groups both nationally and internationally can lead to tremendous results. Beginning with the mobilisation for the enactment of PESA from 1993 onwards, two decades of such combined activism has resulted in the present judgment which has made the tribal Gram Sabha supreme in its area and immensely empowered small tribal organisations which are fighting the good fight in isolated remote locations. Some people have expressed their reservations regarding the judgment saying that the Government and Vedanta will use all their resources to subvert the Gram Sabhas. They may well do so even though given the level of mobilisation of the Dongria Kondhs and the supporting activists this will not be an easy proposition but what is important is that despite the Judges being disposed towards allowing mining they have been forced to stick to the letter of the law and empower the tribal Gram Sabha. By any counts it is a fantastic judgment that all of us working in tribal areas can use to increase our power and ensure justice for the tribals.

A Successful Fast

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 14:22:00 +0000

The fast being conducted by Medha Patkar and Madhuri Shivkar in the Golibar slums in Mumbai against the illegal demolition of their residences has resulted in a victory after nine days. In these depressing times when most mass protests and fasts are ignored by the corrupt and powerful establishment it is heartening to see one succeeding. Here is the report from the National Alliance of People's Movements -

On the 9^th day of Medha Patkar and Madhuri Shivkar’s fast at Golibar, Mumbai, Sh. Pritviraj Chavan, Chief Minister, Maharashtra intervened. After a meaningful meeting and written assurances by the Principal Secretary(Housing) and CEO, SRA followed by a meeting and agreement to the demands by the Chief Minister, Medha patkar and Madhuri Shivkar call off the fast at 1 AM on 13^th April, 2013, but the struggle will continue to ensure proper implementation of the decisions.Earlier in the day on April 12, thousands of supporters and Slum Dwellers reached to the door step of Chief Minister Bunglow and protested there the whole day, which forced the Chief Minister to agree on the demands on the 9^th day of the fast. A delegation consisted of Sh. ChandraShekhar, Architect, Vidya Bal, Editor, Miloon Saryajani (a Marathi Magazine), Pushpa Dave, Writer, Anjali Damania, Sumit Wajale, Prerna Gaikwad, Ajit Gavkhedkar and residents of Golibar and other slums in Mumbai met the Chief Minister. The fast started on 4^th April, 2013 after demolition of 70+ houses of GaneshKrupa Society, Golibar with the following demands:-

1. The enquiry in respect of 6 S.R.A. Projects, under the chairmanship of Principal secretary, Housing, is in progress since 13^th January, 2013. We demand that the work in all these projects should be stopped untill the report of the enquiry is completed and actions taken on the recommendations.

2. If demolitions are being carried out in accordance with court rulings but the preconditions put forth are not met, main issues and allegations of corruption through forgery, fraudulent consent are not resolved etc., then in such cases project work should be stopped and no further demolitions be carried.

3. In cases where the residents have submitted self development projects or wish to submit the same, they should be sanctioned and encourgaed and started immediately.

4. S.R.A. Should ensure that in case of ongoing S.R.A. Projects all conditions in L.O.I. should be complied with.

5. The L.O.I. of the developer should be withdrawn wherever the developers have submitted forged / false documents or wrong information in violation of the L.O.I – as in case of Shivalik builders.

6. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra has agreed to implement 'Rajeev Awas Yojana' in the slums of Mumbai instead of S.R.A., on 2^nd January, 2013. However these very slums are being buldozed even today. So, the displacement of these slums should be stopped till R.A.Y. is implemented. The same was conveyed to the State Government by the Union Minister Ajay maken on April 2, 2013.

7. Pilot projects in respect of slum at Mandala, Mankhurd under the R.A.Y. Have already been submiited to the state as well as Central Governments. That should be approved and implemented at the earliest.

8. Civic amenities (like water, toilets, nallahs, roads ) should be provided to all the slums immediately as per the written assurance given by the Municipal Commissioner.

9. The Chief Secretary had given a written assurance on 25^th May, 2011 that 19 bastis as agreed in the list, after 9 day fast by Medha Patkar, will be decalred slums within 3 months. There is no action on this assurance till date. The same should be done. The Chief Minister, and the Principal Secretary, Ministry of Housing had premised again in January, 2013 to complete this action during discussions held with them. They also gave a written assurance to that effect. The displacements that are being carried out at present are, therefore, grossly unjust and hence should be stopped forthwith.

10. Shri Ajay Maken, Minister for Housing and Urban poverty alleviation, Government of India has written a letter to the Chief Minister, Maharashtra state on 2^nd April, 2013. The Chief Minister should declare his stand on the letter in writing.

11. The land of Sathe Nagar should be given for R.A.Y. . This land is currently under the hold of Bombay Soap company.

The Chief Minister Agreed to the Following :-

1. On the issue of Ganesh Krupa Society’s Land: The residents of the Society has paid the amount towards the cost of the land to the government which they agreed. Without the consent of the residents the land cannot be developed. A Joint Meeting within a week will decide about the development of the land.

2. Rehabilitation building has been constructed on the Defence land which is under court process. No one at the rehabilitation site will be homeless even if defence wins the case. MHADA and Government of Maharashtra will look into the matter.

3. No demolition untill the enquiry is complete :- Chief Minister agreed to halt on demolitions of the 6 SRA projects by the Principal Secretary (housing) till the enquiry report comes and action taken. They will take action on the fraudulent cases related to SRA. The enquiry has been promised to be completed by 15^th May, 2013.

4. Mandala will be declared as the Pilot Project of Rajiv Awas Yojana in Mumbai. Chief Minister will talk to the Central Govt. to implement Rajiv Awas Yojana in Mumbai.

5. Slum declaration process will be according to the earlier agreement between the Andolan and Government of Maharashtra in May, 2011.

6. Chief Minister agreed to take Mandala as the Pilot Project of Rajiv Awas Yojana and to talk to the Central Government on RAY.

7. They ensured all ongoing SRA projects will be complied with all conditions of LOI and in cases of Fraud documents, LOI will be withdrawn.

After the agreement between the Chief Minister and the delegation from the Movement, Medha Patkar and Madhuri Shivkar called off the fast and were given juice by Vidya Tai Bal and Pushpa Tai Dave.

Prerna Gaikwad, Aba Tandel, Ajit Gavkhedkar, Alex, Sumit Wajale, Sandeep Yeole, Rajkumar, Santosh Thorat, Shriram Bhardwaj, Ajay Palande, Sangeeta, Jameel Bhai, Imtiaz Sheikh, Poonam Kanaujia, Uday Mohite, Seela Manaswinee. Contact : 09892727063 | 09212587159 | napmindia@gmail.com

Things Fall Apart

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:45:00 +0000

The meeting between European Colonialists and indigenous Americans, Africans and Asians was a traumatic one for the latter. No one has documented this better than Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in his classic first novel "Things Fall Apart". His passing away on 21st March 2013 marks the end of the era of critical post colonial novels from the third world.
When I first came to live and work among the Bhil tribals in Alirajpur I did not know much about tribal culture and lifestyles. The collection of books at the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath had a copy of "Things Fall Apart" and one of "Jungle ke Davedar" or Claimants of the Forest by Mahasweta Devi. While the first book revolves around a fictional tribal hero Okonkwo the latter is centred on the great Birsa Munda. What they have in common is the spirit with which these tribal heroes fought the British colonialists till their eventual death. Okonkwo is one of the most tragic figures of post colonial literature and it is not for nothing that "Things Fall Apart" is the most popular novel to be read in Africa. These books gave me a much better understanding of the tribal predicament in modern times and the big negative role colonialism had to play in this than any scholarly treatise could have.
Chinua Achebe later went on to write a searing critique of Joseph Conrad's classic "Heart of Darkness". I used to like Joseph Conrad a lot and relished reading his novels including the "Heart of Darkness". However, this critical essay of Achebe's showed how ingrained racism is among the whites so that even overtly progressive authors such as Conrad are covertly racist.
Achebe wrote in English which was the colonial language and not his own mother tongue which is Igbo unlike Mahasweta Devi who writes in Bengali her mother tongue. He defended this saying that - "There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheritance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He had this notion that the Igbo language—which had very many different dialects—should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. But the standard version cannot sing. There's nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It's heavy. It's wooden. It doesn't go anywhere."
In short the British colonialists distorted language also. Luckily they could not do so in India because the major Indian languages already had a rich written tradition.
One can't help wondering where post colonial criticism through the novel has vanished today when books like Arvind Adiga's "White Tiger" which is an eulogy to capitalist lumpenism and absolute trash also get the Man Booker Prize like "Things Fall Apart" did in its time. Even Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" which has won the Booker of Booker's prize is far inferior to Achebe's classic as far as critical post colonialism is concerned.

The Constitution Within The Constitution

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:19:00 +0000

The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution has been referred to as the Constitution within the Constitution for its provisions to safeguard the interests of the tribals living in areas that have been notifed under it. However, the Governors and the Tribes Advisory Councils which have been empowered to ensure "peace and good governance" in these areas by tempering the policies and actions of the State and Union Governments to accord with tribal needs and sensitivities have not fulfilled their responsibilities in this regard. The National Commission for Scheduled Tribals has in a recent report brought this to the notice of the President and recommended that this lapse should be rectified. Here is a report in the magazine Down to Earth on this -

Governors in the dock

GOVERNORS of states with sizeable tribal population have come in for indictment over not performing their special administrative roles. To ensure partial autonomy in tribal areas, the Constitution entrusts governors with immense powers to supervise the administration and governance in such areas. They can allow or disallow any law or development programme in tribal areas to protect self governance and development needs. They can also make regulations for harmony and effective governance. But governors are hardly doing so, finds the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.

In a confidential report sent to the President, the Commission has recommended that governors be made more accountable in dispensing their special duties in tribal areas notified under Schedule Five of the Constitution, which protects tribal interests. This comes at a time when the government is allocating large development funds for these areas, many of which are reeling from Maoist insurgency.

“There is a need to evolve a mechanism for the governor … in scheduled areas to monitor and ensure implementation (of constitutional provisions) in letter and spirit. So that governors may play an oversight role in the matter,” states the report sent in June last year and seen by Down To Earth.

The Commission, a constitutional body, sends an annual report to the President on the state of affairs in tribal areas notified under Schedule Five.

According to sources, the President, who also enjoys special powers in Schedule Five areas, has sent the report to the tribal affairs ministry. It should have been placed in Parliament after a review by the ministry. But the ministry, due to reasons known to it best, did not do so. “We did not table it in Parliament due to complex procedures and nonavailability of a Hindi version of the report,” A K Dubey, joint secretary of the ministry, says. He does not elaborate“complex procedures”.

Since its inception in 2004, the Commission has sent five annual reports to the President. Except for the first one, no report has yet been tabled in Parliament.

Review all laws

The latest report indicates constant failure of governors in overseeing developments in Schedule Five areas.

The most important responsibility of the governor is to ensure that the special panchayati raj law for tribal areas, known as PESA—Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act—is implemented effectively and any law that contradicts it is put aside. Through a notification, a governor can annul, restrict or modify state and Centre’s regulations without seeking the opinion of the Council of Ministers headed by the chief minister.

Governors’ reports rarely mention poor governance, insurgency or displacement

However, according to B D Sharma, the last commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, “All the laws are automatically applicable until the governor does not want to implement or amend as per the need of the Fifth Schedule areas.” As governors fail to perform this duty, general laws have automatically been applicable to tribal areas, often leading to conflicts.

The confidential report has recommended a review of all laws for their adaptation in Scheduled Areas. Every year the governor is supposed to send a TACs conducted meetings till December 2012. Senior journalist B G Verghese, who has written extensively on the issue, says sarcastically that it is mutely accepted by the Government of India that the governor in the Fifth Schedule, meant to be a “governor-in-council”, is acting on the aid and advice of his council.

The confidential report has recommended a review of all laws for their adaptation in Scheduled Areas. Every year the governor is supposed to send a report to the President on the state of affairs and his/her interventions.

The commission has suggested that the ministry of tribal affairs should issue a uniform format for preparation and submission of governor’s report. The format should have a provision for review of Union and state laws and their compatibility with the constitutional provisions safeguarding tribal interests. It should also have a specification for listing steps taken to protect the constitutional rights of tribals.

In reviewing laws, governors can consult the Tribes Advisory Councils (TACs) constituted by the states with tribal areas. In the current financial year, four states out of the 11 that have TACs conducted meetings till December 2012. Senior journalist B G Verghese, who has written extensively on the issue, says sarcastically that it is mutely accepted by the Government of India that the governor in the Fifth Schedule, meant to be a “governor-in-council”, is acting on

the aid and advice of his council.

The confidential report has recommended making TACs more accountable. The advisory councils should be reconstituted regularly and meet at least twice a year, says the report.

Out of focus

Governors’ role in Schedule Five areas has been under scrutiny ever since the enactment of PESA. It gained urgency in the recent past with large-scale industrialisation triggering conflicts in several tribal areas.

Governors are not only irregular in sending annual reports to the President (see map), but also evasive on the subjects these reports are meant to address. R R Prasad, director of the National Institute of Rural Development, has analysed such reports. According to him, none of these reports talks about burning issues like displacement, poor governance and insurgency.

“The reports are hardly objective assessments as required by the law. Largely, they read like a laundry list of physical targets and financial allocations under various schemes as reported by the state government’s department,” says Prasad. “It is time a more stringent system is put in place so that the annual report truly reflects the condition of tribes in these areas.”

There is no proper record of the annual reports submitted to the President. Non-profit Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative sought records on governors’ reports between 1990 and 2008 through the right-to-information route. But the tribal affairs ministry furnished reports dating from only 2001, citing the reason that the ministry was created in October 1999.

This is not the first time government’s own wing underscored governors’ negligence in tribal areas. In 2008 and 2011, during governors’ meetings in Delhi, the then president requested them to look into their roles in tribal areas more seriously. In April 2012, the Central government for the first time issued a directive to a governor in respect to his constitutional duty in Scheduled Areas. V Kishore Chandra Deo, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj, asked the governor of Andhra Pradesh to cancel the memorandum of understanding signed for bauxite mining in the state’s Scheduled areas. The governor, however, ignored the directive. The Commission’s report has officially raised an issue that has been simmering for some time now.
The Contradictions

This report of the NCST brings into focus the impracticability of implementing the Fifth Schedule which is basically a reformulation of the overtly paternalistic attitude towards tribals of the British Colonialists. Actually the real covert intention of the British in introducing an isolationist policy for the tribal areas in the Government of India Act of 1935 was to provide the tribals with a platform to challenge the hegemony of the Indian National Congress in the Freedom Movement and so weaken it. That is why while giving some semblance of autonomy they deliberately worded the law vaguely so that there was considerable ambiguity. The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution too carries over this ambiguity and combined with the reluctance of the Union and State Governments to give autonomy to tribals the implementation has been more in the breach.
Governance in tribal areas is now at a premium due to the conflicts that are emerging and the pressures from below are creating a milieu for the implementation of the Fifth Schedule. In fact in a bold effort one social activist from Chhattisgarh, B K Manish, has launched a legal battle through the courts to get the paramountcy of the Governor and the Tribes Advisory Council for the administration of Scheduled Tribal Areas established. However, given the weakness of the tribals in the Indian political economy and the trend among most tribal leaders in the mainstream political parties to participate in the loot of their community rather than promote communitarian tribal self rule the movement for grassroots tribal autonomy is not gaining strength as much as it should.

And the State's Mendacity Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:33:00 +0000

The extent to the State can go to cheat the people and break the law knows no bounds. The Central and Karnataka Governments secretly planned to hand over 10,000 acres of traditional pasture grasslands in Chitradurga district to the Defence, Nuclear and Space establishments for setting up various facilities without carrying out any environmental impact assesments or public hearings which are mandatory under the law in such cases. When people in the area came to know about this they obviously raised a stink and finally the Environmental Support Group (ESG) in Bangalore filed a petition in the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal challenging this illegal change of land use. The National Green Tribunal has now constituted an expert committee to look into the environmental impacts of this massive land use change. A report by the ESG is given below -

In a significant direction, the South Zone Bench of the National Green Tribunal comprising of Justice Mr. M. Chockalingam (Judicial Member) and Prof. Dr. R. Nagendran (Expert Member) set up a two member committee of experts to visit Challakere Taluk in Chitradurga District of Karnataka and study the ecological and environmental consequences of diversion of 10,000 acres of 'Amrit Mahal Kaval' (traditional pasture grassland ecosystems and District Forests) for a variety of Defense, Nuclear, Industrial and Infrastructure projects. The expert members named by the Tribunal are Dr. S. Ravichandra Reddy, Retd. Professor of Ecology, Bangalore University and Dr. K. V. Anantharaman, Deputy Director, Scientist “C” (Retd.), Central Silk Board, Bangalore.

The decision to constitute the expert team was taken on 21^st March 2013 based on applications filed by Leo F. Saldanha and Environment Support Group before the Tribunal during February 2013. The Applicants have consistently pointed out that the Karnataka Government comprehensively violated various forest, biodiversity and environmental protection laws while diverting about 10,000 acres of 'Amrit Mahal Kaval' for defense, industrial and infrastructure development projects. All this has also been done, without any Statutory Public Hearings and in total secrecy, thus comprehensively violating the Principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent that forms a major basis of various environmental and human rights protection laws. Further, it has been vehemently contended that this diversion is in absolute contradiction to various policies of the Central Government that seek to protect grasslands and livelihoods of pastoralists.

The Applications contended that all these gross illegalities have been committed despite the widely known fact that these ecologically sensitive grassland ecosystems serve as a special and critical habitat to a variety of flora and fauna; large herds of the highly threatened antelope species such as the Black Buck (Antilope cervicapra) graze these grasslands, and the ecosystem is a typical habitat for critically endangered birds such as Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps, only 250 individuals known to survive in all of South Asia) and Lesser Florican (Sypheotides indicus). These grasslands ecosystems have for centuries supported the rearing of drought tolerant locally bred variety of Amrit Mahal Cattle, besides providing a wide range of livelihoods opportunities for communities in about 60 directly impacted villages located around the Kaval. It is in consideration of all these values that the Karnataka Government had designated such Kaval land as District Forests per the Karnataka Forest Rules, 1969 and their protection was made sacrosanct by directions of the Karnataka High Court in 2002 and subsequent orders of the State.

The Challakere Kaval land ranges over 12,000 acres, and constitute the last remaining large contiguous semi-arid grassland in Karnataka. The State which boasted at the time of independence of possessing about 4,00,000 acres of 'Kaval' grasslands, is now, per the Forest Department submissions to the Supreme Court, left with only about 45,000 acres of such habitat. Producing incontrovertible evidence before the Tribunal, the Applicants demonstrated that the beneficiaries of the illegal transfer of such ecologically precious grassland/forest land include Defense Research Development Organisation (for drone testing and development), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (uranium enrichment facility), Indian Institute of Science (Synchroton), Indian Space Research Organisation (satellite centre), Sagitaur Pvt. Ltd. (Solar Farm), Karnataka Housing Board (township), and Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association and Karnataka Udyog Mitra (for a range of private industrial and ancillary units related to the defense sector) – all of which are projects with significant or massive environmental and social impacts. All of these proponents have been provided such ecologically precious land at a pittance of a cost: Rs. 30-35,000/acre.

The Applicants have also produced evidence that despite statutory notices of violation of environmental laws from Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, issued about two years ago, none of the project proponents have complied with any of the mandatory environmental and forest clearance norms and standards. Instead, a variety of project activities have commenced including the building of a 30 kms long high wall by DRDO in comprehensive violation of the Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2006 which categorically bars commencement of any project activity until environmental and forest clearances have been granted. Such developments have blocked local pastoralists' access to their pasture land and to lakes and streams which are critical drinking water sources for cattle. This is particularly worrying given the long periods of drought affecting the region causing extensive distress to impacted families. Besides, the massive wall has seriously constrained the movement of the highly endangered Black Buck, and could potentially isolate the population, thus weakening its genetic vitality. In addition, DRDO is on record to have conducted various bombing sorties in the grasslands, none of which appear to have been with any consent from civil and military authorities.

The Applications filed in February 2013 have prayed for interim relief of stay on ongoing illegal activities and for allowing access to grazing pastures for local pastoralists. In consideration of this aspect the Tribunal has repeatedly sought the response of the Karnataka Government and Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests, including even directing Karnataka's Principal Secretary for the Environment Department to appear in person on 13^th March 2013. Yet, no response has been forthcoming. Taking this situation into account, the 21^st March order observes that “(i)n the considered opinion of the Tribunal, the counter of the respondents have to be taken into consideration before deciding the question whether to grant an order of interim relief or not and hence, (the case hearing) has got to be adjourned granting time till 15.04.2013 to file their counter. It is made clear that if the counter is not filed by any of the respondents, it will be taken that they have no counter to offer.”

The Applications, related documents and a copy of the order are accessible on the ESG website at: www.esgindia.org

Environment Support Group

Banashankari II Stage
Bangalore 560070. INDIA
Tel: 91-80-26713559~61
Voice/Fax: 91-80-26713316
Web: www.esgindia.org
Email: esg@esgindia.org

A Legal Stymie

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 05:56:00 +0000

One of the great aspects of the struggle being conducted by the Narmada Bachao Andolan against the construction of big dams on the River Narmada is the strong legal battle that it is fighting. The latest success in this respect is that the acquisiton of the houses of some 6500 oustees of the Maheshwar Dam project has lapsed because the Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited which is building the dam has failed to deposit the money decided as compensation by the Collector. The NBA had conducted a detailed legal case against the acquisition in the court of the Collector and got proper compensation values decided by the court. Here is the report by the NBA which gives details of this legal stymie that it has secured -
In a very important development, on 11th of March 2013, the acquisition of the houses of 6500 families affected by the Maheshwar dam lapsed, when the land acquisition awards could not be passed within two years from the date of the Section 6 declaration under the Land Acquisition Act on the 11th of March
2011, because of the failure of the private company owning the project -
Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited, belonging to the S.Kumars group to deposit the required funds for the award amount to be paid as compensation to the affected villagers. At the same time, the M.P. Power Management Company has also issued show cause notice to the Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited for the cancellation of the R&R agreement. In light of the refusal of the State Government to purchase the extremely high cost Maheshwar power and steps taken by it to terminate the Power Purchase Agreement for the project, as well as the deliberate and willful failure of the private company to ensure payment of compensation and the rehabilitation and resettlement measures for the oustees, the NBA demands that the project should be scrapped and status existing before the
constriction of the project be restored.
Illegal land acquisition process ongoing for 2 years
The process of acquisition of the houses of 6500 families belonging to the 7 most populous villages of Pathrad, Sulgaon, Bhatiyan Bujurg, Mardana, Nagawan, Amlatha, and Sasabarud affected by the Maheshwar Project commenced on 5th March 2010. After that the company Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited (SMHPCL) executed an agreement under Section 41 of the Land
Acquisition Act with the State Government to deposit in advance the entire award amount before the land acquisition proceedings. However without any such advance deposit by the company, the proceedings under Section 6, 9, etc were illegally carried out. Despite repeated demands by the Land Acquisition
Officer and the Superintending Engineer of the M.P. Power Management Company who is responsible for the R&R works, the Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited did not deposit the required award amount of Rs. 305 crores. It is noteworthy that if award under the Land Acquisition Act is not passed within 2 years of Section 6 declaration by the Government, the land acquisition proceedings automatically lapse. In these cases, the Section 6 declaration was on the 11th of March 2011. Thus, when the awards were not passed by the Land Acquisition Officers by the 11th of March 2013, because of the failure of the company to deposit the award amount, the entire land acquisition proceedings lapsed, and became nullified.
Wilful refusal to do acquisition and R&R
As per own admission of company SMHPCL, they have invested Rs. 3300 crores on the project, but only Rs. 203 crores out of a total required Rs. 740 crores on R&R works. The statutorily binding Environmental Clearance for the project and Orders of the Supreme Court requires that all R&R measures
including allotment of land may be done well in advance of completion of dam construction. It is thus clear that the SMHPCL has not released the funds required for the R&R of thousands of affected families, and has obstructed the R&R of these families.
State gives notice to cancel Rehabilitation Agreement
The M.P. Power Management Company which was implementing the R&R measures for the Maheshwar Project, on behalf of the Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited has taking cognizance of the persistent defaults by the SMHPCL to release required funds of R&R, has issued a show cause notice to
the SMHPCL as to why the M.P. Power Management Company Limited should not cancel the R&R agreement and withdraw its staff from the project site. The State has also rejected the reply of the SMHPCL in this regard.
Project should be scrapped in public interest
In light of the fact that the State Government has initiated the process of termination of the Power Purchase Agreement for the purchase of the extremely expensive Maheshwar power, and on the other hand the M.P. Power Management Company is seeking to cancel the R&R agreement because the actions of the company has resulted in cancellation of the acquisition of the houses of 70% of the oustees and non-completion of over 85% of the R&R works, the Narmada Bachao Andolan demands that the project should be scrapped in public interest, and the status existing before the construction of the dam be restored.
Alok Agarwal, Surendra Singh, Kailash Patidar, Mohanbhai
Narmada Bachao Andolan
2, Sai Nagar, Mata Chowk,
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh -450 001
Telefax : 0733 - 2228318
E-mail : nbakhandwa@gmail.com

Gruesome Death of Yet Another Lonely Activist

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:57:00 +0000

Activists fighting their lonely battles against corruption in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) remain very insecure in the face of administrative complicity with the corrupt politicians. Here is a report by the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) on the latest case of murder of an MGNREGS activist in Bihar -

A six member fact finding team of the NAPM visited Ratnauli village of Muzaffarpur district in Bihar on 24th March 2013, where Ram Kumar Thakur, a lawyer and RTI activist was shot dead yesterday evening, 23^rd March. Ram Kumar was returning by cycle from the courts with his nephew early yesterday evening. On reaching Purshottampur village, Jamarua panchayat, at around 4:30 pm they were surrounded by six men who came on two motorcycles. The men who have been identified by the nephew are Raj Kumar Sahni, Brahmanand Sahni, Parmanand Sahni, Rajesh Kumar Sahni, Mahesh Sahni, Sukhdev Sahni. According to nephew, Sujit Kumar, It was Rajesh Kumar Sahni, the son of the Mukhiya who gave instructions to surround them and shoot. Ram Kumar was being rushed to the nearby hospital in a tempo when they were met by the police who transferred ram kumar to a bolero with a missing number plate and told the accompanying people to reach Prashant Hospital, but instead of taking Ram Kumar to Prashant Hospital the police took him to Ma Janaki hospital. Those accompanying Ram Kumar have said that the police caused a delay of two hours as a result of which Ram Kumar was brought dead to the hospital. An FIR stating the above has been filed in Manihari Police Station this afternoon.

Ram Kumar Thakur had been actively raising the issue of corruption in his village, Ratnauli, for the last few years. He had filed a number of RTI applications on the implementation of the MGNREGS and IAY. In a social audit conducted by the Department of Rural Development in September 2011, Ram Kumar Thakur, among others had raised objections to the inclusion of ‘ghost’ names in the muster roll that were read out during the public hearing. This resulted in an uproar where the Mukhiya and his supporters vociferously opposed these claims as false. The social audit could not be completed because of the disruption which then erupted into a fight where those who had objected to the fudged muster roll were beaten. Ram Kumar Thakur was also beaten by the Mukhiya’s men during this incident. After this incident an FIR was filed against the perpetrators by the district administration, however action is yet to be taken.

Most recently Ram Kumar had filed a case with the State Vigilance Commission on the installation of solar lights under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The case which was filed along with Sundeshwar Sahni of Lok Jagran Manch, an NGO based in Muzaffarpur raised questions on the allocation of money under the project and alleged mis-management of funds by the Mukhiya, Raj Kumar Sahni. The issues raised by them were even investigated by the Sub-Divisional Officer. The findings of this investigation are not yet available. Following this, in the month of December, Ram Kumar Thakur and his family had received death threats from the Mukhiya’s son, Rajesh Sahni. A letter asking for protection was even sent to the DIG of police by Ram Kumar Thakur asking for protection.

Over three months since Ram Kumar received threats at his home, over three months since the letter asking for protection was sent to the police, and well over a year since the fight that broke out during the social audit in which he was beaten, Ram Kumar was killed by the perpetrators of previous incidents of violence who were well known to the police and district administration. Had the police and administration taken notice of Ram Kumar’s appeal for protection, Ram Kumar Thakur would still be alive. Ram Kumar is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.

Based on the facts that have come to light the NAPM demands that:

Those named in the FIR be arrested immediately
Speedy trial be undertaken.
Immediate compensation of Rs. 20 lakhs be given to the victim’s family
Police complicity be investigated.
A complete investigation into the corruption issues raised by Ram Kumar in Ratnauli Panchayat should be done by the Rural Development Department, Government of Bihar.
This is the fifth case of murder of a RTI activist/ whistleblower in Bihar and so taking a serious note of this, the Government should work towards a comprehensive law for the protection of such persons.

Ram Kumar was also an associate of the Bihar MNREGA Watch, which has been spear heading an unprecedented mobilization of workers in Ratnauli panchayat, and has in the past years spread to other blocks of Muzaffarpur. Sanjay Sahni and others of Bihar MNREGA Watch have been actively raising their voices for securing entitlements under MNREGA and the national and state pension schemes for close to two years through public meetings, demonstrations and application filing.

Members of the NAPM fact finding team included Shahid Kamal (NAPM), Ashish Ranjan (NAPM), Mahendra Yadav(NAPM), Ranjit Paswan (JJSS), Sanjay Sahni (Bihar MNREGA Watch) and Arvind Kumar (JJSS).

Contact Numbers : 9973363664/ 9973936658

Whose Dirt Is It Anyway?

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:14:00 +0000

One of the most shameful aspects of Indian society is that a substantial number of people still have to do manual scavenging of human faeces from dry latrines. This is an age old custom and hundreds of thousands of Dalit men and women still have to manually clean the faeces from dry latrines and carry it on their heads to dump it away from the habitations. The Government of India enacted the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 but till date there has not been a single conviction under this statute even though manual scavenging is still rampant in the country. What is more disconcerting is that the Government of India itself is a violator of the law through the Indian Railways. The passenger trains of the railways have open latrines through which the faeces, urine and water are released onto the tracks below. While this is not so much of a problem between stations it does become a serious one in stations where the tracks are laid in between cemented aprons and platforms. Even today the Indian Railways employ Dalits as manual scavengers to clean this dirt.
The Safai Karmachari Andolan (SFA) or Janitors Campaign which has been conducting a concerted campaign for over two decades to rid this country of this inhuman scourge filed a public interest litigation a decade ago in the Supreme Court alleging that the Railways with its 170,000 open discharge toilets was the biggest violator of the Prohibition of Manual Scavenging Act. The Railways employs a huge army of Dalits, who are mostly contract labourers, to clean the dirt from the stations manually. The Supreme Court Judges initially refused to believe that this was true as the Railways denied this fact totally. The SFA had to submit photographic evidence from across the country to convince the judges that the situation was indeed as bad as alleged.
The Railways have nevertheless continued to dilly dally citing the huge cost of taking remedial measures which basically means adding tanks to trains to contain the sewage generated and then dispose them in sewage treatment plants built at stations. There is a suggestion for using bio digester toilets which will then release partially treated black water at the bigger stations to be emptied there for further treatment. Alternatively a septic tank can be put below the toilets with an aerator pump pushing air into the tank run by a gear system attached to the wheels. This aerated digestion will substantially treat the black water and it can then be emptied out into tanks at the stations for further solar and chemical treatment to make it fit for washing of the trains and for flushing the toilets. To decrease the sewage load there can be an automatic system that whenever the train is running at or above a certain speed the toilets will open outside and below that speed they will empty into the tank. In this way the problems of dirt on the stations, manual scavenging and supply of water for washing trains and flushing toilets can be simultaneously solved. That the railways is not doing this just shows how obstinate the Government system is in its unjust character. The Government is also steadfastly refusing to hold a census to have an authoritative estimate of the number of manual scavengers and dry latrines despite several representations for this from the SFA. Manual Scavengers in fact are the backbone of the sewage system in cities also. Whenever, the sewers get blocked, which is pretty often, they have to descend into them to clean them. Every year some manual scavengers die due to inhaling the toxic gases that are generated in the sewers while trying to clean them. A man cleaning a sewer as in the picture below is a common sight in most cities.

Finally the pressure from the Supreme Court has forced the Central Government to promise to enact a new law that will put the onus on the Indian Railways to install toilets and cleaning systems that do not use manual scavenging but that too is waiting to be tabled in Parliament.
The Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan (RGA) or the National Dignity Campaign is another organisation that has been campaigning for over a decade to end manual scavenging and have also taken steps to provide rehabilitation to freed manual scavengers. The RGA launched a Rashtriya Maila Mukti Yatra or National Freedom from Dirt March recently from November 30th 2012. The photo of the final rally of the march being taken out in Delhi on 31st January 2013 is given below.

The Maila Mukti Yatra according to its organisers traveled 10000 Kilometres covering 18 states and 200 districts in two months. Thousands of liberated women participated in the Yatra and mobilised 50,000 manual scavengers to stop the practice. More than 3000 Manual Scavengers were liberated during the Yatra. The Yatra culminated at New Delhi on 31^st January 2013. Thousands of liberated manual scavengers expressed their commitment to eradicate this practice from the country. Three Ministries of the Government of India participated in the programme and expressed their commitment for passing a new legislation to end this practice and announced several provisions for rehabilitation. Different Commissions and representatives of the United Nations also assured that they would work for eradication of the practice of manual scavenging. Importantly, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights supported the Yatra. A “Delhi Deceleration for Eradication of Inhuman Slavery of manual scavenging from the Nation” was also adopted by the participants which chalks out a programme of action to achieve a manual scavenging free India.

The problem arises because people are not prepared to take care of their own dirt. Treating and recycling dirt in a decentralised manner is the best option and there are enough simple technologies to do this as mentioned earlier in the case of the Indian Railways. However, since there are a set of indigent people who have no other alternative but to do this work the rest of society cavalierly decides to offload their dirt onto the heads of these people.

The Struggle Continues Against POSCO

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 08:43:00 +0000

The POSCO Protirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) which is conducting the struggle against the POSCO Steel Plant and Port project in Odisha reports that the combined human rights violations of the State of Odisha and the POSCO Corporation to forcibly acquire the lands of a few villages for the proposed Steel Plant and Port continue as detailed below -
On 6:30 pm on 2nd March, hired musclemen of Posco threw bombs at anti-POSCO activists in Patana village and killed 3 activists and severely injuring several others; one of them is batting for his life at cuttack medical college. This conspiracy was hatched by POSCO management and local contractors with active connivance with the Odisha government to murder Abhay Sahoo the President of PPSS, and to violently supress the anti-POSCO struggle with despicable unconstitunal means by hiring criminal elements to eliminate and intimidate activists of PPSS which is spearheading the anti-POSCO movement.

It is to be noted that a few years ago the hired hoodlums of POSCO management attacked Shri Dula Mandal an anti-POSCO activist of Gobindpur village killing him. This indicates that a criminally degenerate corporate sector with a compliant pro-business and anti-people state can stoop down to any level for satisfying its greed.

On 5th March 12 platoons of armed police led by the District Collector and SP forcibly entered Gobindpur village and destroyed more then 25 betel vines the major source of livelihood of the local people.

The state assembly is in session from February 26 - March 7 and the Odisha Government has begun preparations to resume forceful land acquisition in the village. The government was forced to stop land takeover activities at Gobindapur village in the proposed project site in the first week of February owing to stiff opposition from villagers and concerned people across the globe.

The Odisha government is going ahead with the forceful land acquisition process for the steel plant despite the fact that POSCO does not have an environmental clearance for the project. The environmental clearance given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on January 31, 2011 was suspended by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on March 30 of 2012. Posco does not even have a memorandum of understanding with the Government now. The one it had singed on July 22, 2005 lapsed on July 21, 2010 and no fresh MoU has been signed so far.

Even, in the Palli Sabha meeting of Gobindapur, and the Gram Sabha meeting of Dhinkia Panchayat on 18 October, 2012, more then 2000 residents unanimously voted against diversion of land for POSCO's project under provisions of the Forest Rights Act 2006. The ongoing land acquisition is a blatant violation of the Forests Rights Act as the rights over forest lands in the area have not been recognized and vested and consent of the Palli Sabhas has not been obtained by the State Government.

The above incidents expose the criminal nexus between national and international big business with comprador third world states, who can go to any extent to prostrate in front of their imperial masters to hand over the natural resourses to the Marauding Multinational Corporations.

A fact finding team that had gone to investigate the above atrocities on March 9th 2013 was also attacked by the hired goons as detailed below -

A Civil Liberty Fact Finding Team (CLFFT) consisting of Meher Engineer (Scientist, Kolkata), Sumit Chakravartty( Editor, Mainstream Weekly), Manoranjan Mohanty (Former Prof. Delhi University),Kamal Nayan Choubey (PUDR), Ranjana (PUDR), Pramodini (PUCL, Odisha), Mathew Jacob (Human Rights Law Network), Partha Ray, Sanhati, Sanjeev Kumar (Delhi Forum) were assaulted when they were returning from a visit to the affected villages on March 9, 2013. They had come all the way from Delhi and Kolkota to find out truth relating to bombing and lathicharge that resulted in the killing of three of our men on March 2 and severe injuries of several women on March 7.

When the world was preparing to celebrate Women’s day, the village women of Govindpur , Dhinkia and Patanahat got brutally beaten up by police and goons close to armed police camp in Govindapur as they had gone there to demand withdrawal of police camp from the area and to allow them to live in peace on March 7 as continuous deployment of five platoons of police at Govindpur village has made life miserable for everybody. Police presence is also a major reason why bombing has taken place and 3 important lives have been lost. The presence of police is only encouraging the criminal elements to unleash a reign of terror which was also experienced by the fact finding team on March 9, 2013.

Perhaps it does not require any emphasis that women are the worst hit in today’s situation. The women don’t at all feel safe and the administration is fully aware of this fact. Despite that they are not doing anything which prompts us to say that they might be behind all these acts of violence. Everything could have come out in open by independent fact finding teams but now even such teams are attacked.

One can understand what might have happened to our women protesters on March 7. Around 2.30 p.m. on 7th March 2013, hundreds of men and women of PPSS came in procession and staged a peaceful demonstration near the Mangalapada police camp at the entry point of Gobindpur village demanding withdrawal of armed police from their locality. The police fired teargas shells and made a lathi-charge on the peaceful protestors. As a result more than 40 persons have sustained injury. Women activists were cornered and beaten up by plain-clothes policewomen. Bilochan Khatua, Sulochana barik, Solia mallick, Sati Barik, Nayana Dash, Tulashi Dash, Basanti Mandal, Satya Mallick, Pravati Swain, Taaopi Samal , Lopa Samal and many more of Govindpur village were injured.

Women claimed that their eyes burned when the police fired teargas shells. This shows the government’s double standards. On one hand, the government is claiming that it was acquiring land peacefully while on the other hand it is using police force which is contradictory.

Meanwhile the South Korean Ambassador Kim Joong Keun visited Odisha on 6th march 2013. When people in the proposed POSCO project site are mourning the killing of 3 activists of the movement who were killed in a bomb attack on March 2, the Ambassador did not say anything to express his grief. He was obsessed with the progress of the POSCO project.

The PPSS is conducting one of the most valiant people's struggles that the country has witnessed since independence but the State and the Multinational Corporation are hell bent on crushing it by hook or by crook.

One Billion Rising

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:57:00 +0000

Today on International Women's Day it would be useful to dwell on a recent campaign that was orchestrated by the United Nations - "One Billion Rising", targeted at ending the most virulent manifestation of patriarchy - gender based violence. This is important because it underlines the value of dedicated grassroots issue based campaigning over a long period of time in bringing about positive social change.
The story begins in 1994 with the staging in New York of the iconic play "Vagina Monologues" written by and starring Eve Ensler. Based on interviews with many women this play consists of many stories about women who have suffered various forms of gender based violence including the most terrible - rape and trafficking. The huge success of this play and the inspiration it provided women to stand up and speak out against gender based violence instead of quietly suffering to avoid the stigma attached to publicly admitting to being a victim of gender based violence. Ensler and some other women then formed the voluntary organisation V Day on February 14th, Valentine's Day in 1998 to combat gender based violence with the V standing for Violence which was to be ended, Valentine or love which was to be established and Vagina which was to be foregrounded as an expression of womanhood instead of being hidden by the stigma that surrounded women's sexuality and its unjust exploitation by men. Initially the thrust was to organise shows of the play and raise money to fund campaigns against gender based violence. However, over time the organisation has become a worldwide movement against gender based violence that has raised over $ 75 million for the purpose.
As a prelude to celebrating their fifteenth anniversary on 14th February 2013 V Day hit upon the idea of a campaign to have one billion women rising up against gender based violence on that day. The simple idea being that given the fact that one third of all women suffer some form of gender based violence or other during their lives, roughly one billion women are victims of this. So to counter this there should be a movement of at least one billion women rising to fight gender based violence. The tremendous credibility that V Day has achieved over these last fifteen years in its fight against GBV resulted in the United Nations putting its might behind this campaign and carrying it across the world. That is how on 14th February this year Bhil tribal women of the KMCS from remote villages in Alirajpur district too went all the way to Bhopal to participate in the "One Billion Rising" campaign event organised there jointly by various organisations.
Unlike the usual hype around International Women's Day which dies down immediately after, the V Day campaign against GBV is a longstanding one that has gathered strength over the years through hard grassroots work and continues to surge ahead on the strength of committed voluntary work by millions of people across the world.
Finally, a story about the extent of GBV and its peculiar manifestation would serve to underline the importance of the work that V Day is doing and how it should be emulated by all organisations. A Bhil tribal woman was in prison in Jhabua having been accused of murdering her mother-in-law. Suddenly one day she began vomiting in prison and complaining of severe stomach pain. She was brought to the main Government Hospital in Indore and there the doctors found that she was five weeks pregnant despite having been in judicial custody in prison for more than five months. The authorities instead of conducting an enquiry to find out who was responsible for making the woman pregnant while in judicial custory, sought to hush up the matter and got the doctors to perform an abortion on the woman and then submit a second report saying that the woman had not been pregnant. Matters would have ended there but for the fact that one newspaper in Indore decided to follow up the story and splashed it on its front page and thereafter kept up pressure on the administration to get justice done to the woman. The woman herself was terrified and would not say anything to anyone. Eventually the newspaper filed a petition in the High Court in Indore on behalf of the woman and now after judicial pressure it has been established that the woman was indeed pregnant when she was first brought to the hospital. It remains to be seen what eventually happens in this case but it just goes to show how pervasive is GBV and the importance of maintaining constant vigil to eliminate it as being the bulwark of patriarchal oppression.

Back to the Grind

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:46:00 +0000

The Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath held a big public rally today in Alirajpur after quite some time. Large public rallies and threats of legal action for their non-performance force the administration and the government to heed people's demands. The implementation of the MGNREGS and the Forest Rights Act was flagging for sometime. Schools also are not running properly as teachers do not take classes and the midday meal scheme for students is not being implemented properly. Numerous complaints to the concerned officials had not borne any results. That is why over the past month meetings were held in the villages preparing a list of demands and spreading the word that a big public rally would be held on 26th February 2013.
I normally do not go to the village meetings much these days but this time in an effort to mobilise more people I visited many villages that I had not been to for more than twenty years. It was great to meet people whom I had known as a youth, when they too were young. We have all become old now with grey hair and wrinkled faces!! The common refrain was that I should not have run away from Alirajpur like I did leaving them to their devices! Person after person lamented the fact that they had become inactive in the absence of the regular meetings and analysis workshops that used to be a hallmark of the KMCS in its heydays. One lady who had been a great beauty when she was young, was now a haggard old woman from the rigours of bearing fifteen children. I found it very difficult to adjust her present looks to the memory I had of her from twenty years ago.
Anyway efforts put in by all resulted in a big build up to the public rally which was covered well by the media during the past month leading to the administration getting into high gear and doing work that had been pending for more than a year in some cases. The big problem as always is with the MGNREGS. There are not enough staff to sanction work, evaluate it when it is completed and then make payments and so there is an inordinate delay which provides ample scope for the officials to engage in malpractices. The turnout at the rally finally was pretty good especially with a considerable number of women taking part as seen in the picture below.

We have now made up our mind to take the administration to court for violating the provisions of the MGNREGA, Forest Rights Act and the Right to Education. All the years of agitation and mobilisation by many mass organisations across the country have resulted in the enactment of these powerful statutes and it is the threat of legal action that has helped the KMCS in forcing some implementation of the these in Alirajpur. But the time has now come to carry out the threat to get more results.
The experience of this past month of intensive mobilisation shows that there is no alternative to going back to the grind of village level work for securing the rights and entitlements of the poor and powerless. Facebooking and such other social media networking may be good enough for the middle class but for the vast majority who are out of the ambit of the Internet, especially tribals, we have to trek dusty and hilly terrain to get them to come out of their remote fastnesses and hold the administration and the government to task. All in all it was a nice way to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the KMCS.

Dilemma of Development

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:24:00 +0000

Priyanka Panchal the Vodafone Foundation's World of Difference Programme Volunteer with Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra continues her reporting of her work in Alirajpur -

What is the smallest village in terms of population that you have been to? 5000 people?? 2000? 1000? Okay. That’s great. But can you imagine a village which has 50 people? Yes, most part of this week was dedicated to exploring such villages on the banks of the River Narmada. Many families in India are bigger than that.
These villages have a unique ecosystem. The amount of hardships that they face to make sure they have a cooked meal in their house every night is astonishing. But I have shared this sort of experience last time.This time round, I will focus on the other side of this system. Our NGO, Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra, that is working so that they can bring a change in the lives of these struggling citizens of our wonderful nation.During our village trips, we had to make a journey on motorbike à busàsmall rowboatàbig motorboatàwalking the final phase to reach the village. One day, when we reached Akdia village on the banks of the River Narmada by motorbike, we came to know that the motor boat which was to take us to Bada Amba village had been seized by some people since the boat owner had failed to pay them back. Sounds exciting, but that’s not what the story is about. The story actually begins from here. Considering where we were, we still had two boats to interchange and then walk about 5 Kms to reach the people we had committed to meet in Bada Amba. To fulfill that commitment, we needed a small rowboat to get us to another bigger motorboat. To get there, we have to find a boat. But how???
These are areas without any cell phone network. To arrange for another boat actually meant travelling another five kms on our self propelled two leggers to another village, Chilakda, where we MIGHT get a boat. Most of us would have called it a day. But not the activists of DGVK. They had committed to the villagers that we would be there for the meeting. And a journey back would have meant a failure on that commitment. The hallmark of a true leader is someone who doesn’t compromise on his commitment. We took the risk and the fortunes did favour the brave! We found a rowboat, reached midway in the river, changed to a motorboat and finished the journey! All this happened just because we took the risk of going to the next village and not giving up.
At Bada Amba, the activists and I interacted with the women and told them to become aware of their rights and fight for them. The way the activists interacted with them and enthused the women to chalk out a programme of action was one of the most inspiring moments in this week. A fitting example that true leaders are born out of situations. That there are many books outside the books. The invaluable books of experience which we ourselves write, we ourselves understand.

After this we returned to Alirajpur and immediately left for Bhopal as we had to make a presentation with the employees of Vodafone in Madhya Pradesh for fund raising. I spoke to most of the employees personally and answered their queries about DGVK and its projects and how we as Vodafone can help. The MP team was so excited about the work that we are sure that we will raise a suitable amount for a noble cause.

I have now had reached Indore. The first day was spent in a visit to a slum where DGVK was conducting an awareness camp regarding women's health and especially gynaecological disorders. When there is such a big uproar in the country regarding women’s rights and freedom, I felt this would be a great chance to know the feelings of fellow women in Indore. Women are the bearers of the next generation. Women are the pillars of society. Women are the most important link of every family etc etc. The truth is that women’s health has been one of the most neglected areas of healthcare. Women’s health is one of the most ignored subjects by men. Women’s health is one of the darkest secrets of our society. The admirable work being done by DGVK is in its foresight. It has educated men about women’s health. It is a program that makes men more aware of what a woman goes through when she undergoes any gynaecologocal disorder. I spoke to a group of teenage girls about menstrual hygiene and the behavioral changes which they go through. Also spoke to their parents on how to help their daughters in managing these changes.

A third dimension to this week was the introspection done after visiting the villages on the banks of the Narmada. These are villages that have been affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built on the River Narmada. Considerable portions of these villages have been submerged. The people have been offered lands to go to and resettle. Some have gone but others have preferred to stay on. They currently live in an area which is about 200 kms from mainstream civilization, but to me, they live about 50 years away. Back in time. Not every time can we blame the Government for not implementing change. There is a lot of internal resistance. At what cost? Should we preserve the love for the land of the villagers or work for their Greater Good - we need to think about this dilemma of development.

An Unheralded Titan

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 01:57:00 +0000

It is with great sadness that I write about the demise of possibly the greatest warrior of Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath. Punia Bhima even on his deathbed in his village Pujara Chowki, told all those around him that the only medicine for all their ills was the Sangathan and they should never leave it. A man who remained true to his culture and to the hoary traditions of Bhil tribal militancy, Punia Baba as he was fondly called was the quintessential salt of the earth.

He was in his youth, in the 1950s, an active member of the "Lal Topi Andolan" or red cap movement, which had fought tenaciously for the rights of the Bhil tribals against the exploitation of the non-tribal Princes who ruled in Alirajpur and later the logging contractors of the Forest Department who indiscriminately cut down the forests for timber after independence. In one major battle Punia Baba killed one particularly oppressive and cruel contractor and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released after ten years in prison and continued his struggles for justice. However, with time the Lal Topi Andolan lost its strength as its leaders were either coopted or coerced into siding with the ruling Congress party and the corrupt administration. Punia Baba being illiterate and uncompromisingly militant refused to be cowed down but was unable to sustain the fight alone.
When the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath began its mobilisation in the 1980s then Punia Baba once again came into his own. He led the villagers from about five villages in the fight against the Forest Department which was fought along with many tribal organisations across the country. Despite being illiterate he was a very perceptive political activist and so invariably a part of any major delegation of the KMCS for discussions with administrators and mainstream political leaders. Eventually these efforts culminated in the legislation of the Forest Rights Act ( Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers Act 2006) which seeks to do away with the injustice meted out to tribals in India from the British period onwards. Later he took an active part in the implementation of the FRA and is one of the few people in Madhya Pradesh who have got title deeds complete with a satellite map showing the location of his farm in the forest. Even though very few of the others in Alirajpur district have got such complete deeds nevertheless the total number is more than 8000 and the process is still continuing.
Punia Baba as a leading member of the KMCS was also targeted by the administration in the early 1990s when the battle against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the river Narmada was at its peak. In one particularly harsh crackdown on the KMCS almost the whole of the leadership, including Punia Baba, were arrested on various false charges which included attempt to murder and then handcuffed and paraded in the streets of Alirajpur on different occasions. The picture below shows Punia Baba in handcuffs along with other activists of the Sangathan on their way to the magistrate's court in Alirajpur.

The Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath then took the administration to the Supreme Court for various rights violations. The Supreme Court took Suo Moto cognisance of the fact that the administration had blatantly violated earlier orders from it regarding not handcuffing under trial prisoners and especially political activists fighting for their rights and admitted a contempt petition. The strictures and directions passed by the Supreme Court on this petition are now the main law of the land regarding the use of handcuffs.
It was not only as a political activist that Punia Baba excelled but also as a first class environmental conservationist. He pioneered the Sangathan's forest conservation programme which covers more than fifty villages in Alirajpur that have members of the KMCS. Today the forests of his own village Pujara Chowki are one of the best in Alirajpur as shown in the picture below.

Punia Baba represented a rare breed of tribal activists who despite being illiterate were naturally militant and politically mature, flourishing as fighters for the rights of their people whenever they got an opportunity. That the the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath has been able to survive for thirty long years and is still fighting the hard fight against State injustice and oppression is because of the tenacity of such unheralded Titans as Punia Baba. We can only hope that he will not rest in peace but will be reborn with added vigour to continue the struggle for justice.

Oppression is the first and last Resort of the Government

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 08:53:00 +0000

The Orissa Government has begun another violent operation to break one of the most militant, non-violent and resilient people's movements against destructive development in this country in recent times - The anti-POSCO struggle. Madhuresh Kumar of the National Alliance of People's Movements reports how there is an outpouring of support from across the country for the people against this unjust oppression -

Reacting to the inhuman attack on women and children by Orissa Police at the crack of the dawn on February 3rd, citizens groups across political spectrum today staged a dharna at Orissa Bhawan, New Delhi. Protesters joined by All India Students Association, National Alliance of People's Movements, Delhi Solidarity Group, Inqulabi Mazdoor Kendra, Socialist Front and others barged inside the Orissa Bhawan and forced the officials to come out and talk to them. At the intervention of the Delhi police protesters moved out of the premises but continued the protest outside. Speaking at the protest, Vijay Pratap said that there is only 'company raj' in Orissa and there is no legitimacy to it, before 2014 elections movements across the country need to come together and expose them. Sandeep Singh, AISA said it is completely inhuman to beat up children, whose right to protest has been accepted by National Commission of Child Rights Protection.

Surya Das, activist – film maker, said that current round of acquisition is completely illegal since there is no MoU, National Green Tribunal has suspended its environmental clearance even then they are carrying the land acquisition, for what ? Madhuresh Kumar, NAPM, added that UPA government is complicit in this too, since they are standing for a company which has been fined Rs 10 Crore by Department of Revenue Intelligence for tax evasion. They should be blacklisted from carrying out any business rather than rolling out red carpet for them. Sanjeev Kumar, Delhi Solidarity Group, brought to fact hundreds of false cases filed against the activists by Orissa state, many of who are living in constant fear of arrest or have already been arrested and then secured bail. Protesters submitted a memorandum to the Joint Commissioner of the Orissa Bhawan, who assured conveying the concerns to the government.

Support to the Posco Pratoridh Sangram Samiti also poured in from all across the country. In a letter Medha Patkar, Maj General Sudhir Vombatkere & Sister Celia (Karnataka), Sandeep Pandey, Arundhati Dhuru (Uttar Pradesh), P Chennaiah & Ramaksrishnan Raju (Andhra Pradesh), C R Neelakandan (Kerala) and others of National Alliance of People's Movements wrote to the Chief Minister condemning the police violence and brought out all the illegalities with the project. They demanded immediate withdrawal of the police force, false cases against activists and also no further land acquisition, since the project has no legal sanction and is against the wishes of the people.

National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers, People's Union for Civil Liberties, People's Union for Democratic Rights, Housing and Land Rights Network, Praja Rajya Vedike, BIRSA Jharkhand, All India Forum of Forest Movements and many other organisations from across the country condemned the brutal attack on peacefully protesting women and children. It is extremely inhuman and against all the laws that Police presence in the area has been increased and used to increase the tension and instill fear in the people. People's Movements stand in solidarity with the Posco Pratoridh Sangram Samiti and struggling people of Orissa and will continue to oppose any plan for furthering interests of POSCO in the area against people's wishes.

Where will the Poor Go?

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:42:00 +0000

Cities in India are synonymous with slums. The bigger the city the more are the slums. They house anything between 30 to 50 per cent of the total urban population in about 10 % of the available land mostly in insalubrious locations near garbage dumping grounds and dirty streams. It is an irony that the most indispensable labouring population of cities in India have to live next to the solid and liquid waste generated by the more well healed citizens in huge quantities. That would still be tolerable from the point of view of the slum dwellers but in recent times even that has become problematical. As land values have escalated enormously in cities, the once neglected fringe areas along the dirty streams and in the garbage dumping grounds have now become of prime value. So throughout the country the poor people are being displaced from the slums on these lands to make way for high value residential and commercial development and the Government is hand in glove with private real estate barons in this. Things have been compounded by the fact that since the financial meltdown of 2008 land along with gold have become the two most sought after investment instruments for the rich.
Consequently city after city is witnessing so called beautification drives and the most glaring one is that which took place in Delhi where the slums along the river Yamuna were cleared to make way for the Commonwealth Games village, the flats now having been sold to the rich. A huge drive is on in Mumbai too to clear the Golibar slums which are on private land and not on public land despite court orders restraining the Government from doing so.
Indore too is not to be left behind. Among the many hair brained schemes is one that plans to build a river side corridor along the two dirty streams that flow through the city carrying its stinking untreated wastewater. The plan is to clear the slums that are there along these streams and build roads with commercial and residential spaces. The waste water is to be channelised through sewers along the streams to a sewage treatment plant so that the streams become clean once again. Huge amounts of money are going to be spent on this and the poor slum dwellers are going to be displaced to locations some twenty kilometers away in the same way as was done for the residents of the Yamuna Pushta slums in Delhi.
Indore has a long history of struggle by slum dwellers against eviction and for better amenities. The Jhuggi Basti Sangharsh Morcha is currently continuing in this rebellious tradition and conducting a battle against displacement by the proposed Riverside Corridor. The organisation staged a sit in at the Indore Municipal Corporation office on 21st January 2013 and later took out a rally in Indore of over five hundred slum dwellers to press their demand that the Riverside Corridor scheme should be scrapped and instead the slums should be developed and provided with proper amenities. The people in the sit in at the Indore Municipal Corporation office are pictured below.

This so called beautification of cities is a process of gentrification which marginalises the poor and is being vigorously pushed by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and also the World Bank. The people displaced are provided with alternative accommodation of very inferior quality in distant locations far away from their places of work considerably inconveniencing them. If the rich continually use their power to displace the poor from cities where will they go?

The Guest is God

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:11:00 +0000

The Vodafone Foundation has initiated a World of Difference Programme wherein an employee of Vodafone India will spend forty days interning with an NGO. Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra in Alirajpur has been chosen as one of these NGOs and a young lady Priyanka Panchal has begun working with the organisation. Here is her first report of her experience of working with the Bhil Adivasis of Alirajpur -

Ten days have passed since I stepped in the state of Madhya Pradesh – for the first time in my life! I have travelled some 900 kms on motorbike and 30 odd on foot to reach to the people during these ten days! Something that I could not even THINK of doing just about a fortnight back. True it is what they say – Our limitations are just within our minds…
My task has been cut out. Retrieve the money from the inactive bank accounts of 53 self help groups across different villages. The days started with journey on the bike with Mr. Mukesh of Dhas Gramin Vikas Kendra to reach to the village, assemble the people over there, get their consent forms signed (in most cases thumb impressions) to close their accounts and retrieve their money. Once we had a sizeable number of consent forms, we went to the bank and got the money back for the people.
The money will be distributed by Dhas Gramin back to the families. Well, if it was just the job I would talk about, this would be it. But I think the trip has started to contribute beyond just getting the money back. I will write about it.
“Atithi Devo Bhava (The Guest is God)” has been written in Indian Scriptures and has been a part of the sacred Indian traditions since time immemorial. But sadly, in our world this phrase has somehow gone back to being just black and white ink. Sometimes an attractive poster maybe, or a brilliant campaign to woo the tourists. I went to a house that was approximately 100 sq feet, and just had one room which was systematically divided into everything they wanted, without walls. It was a house with 1/100th facilities of a furnished urban house (but it was the best in the village!). We just expected to have a glass of water (Frankly on the first day, I would have preferred to drink from my own bottle, but they wouldn’t let you do that - Adivasi Hospitality) and begin with our meeting and then proceed. But the family which would have vegetables of this quantity only on special occasions for themselves, had a complete meal ready for an unknown visitor who was coming to their home (after such warmth shown, I can’t mention it as a mere ‘house’) for the first time!! I was touched!!
Without having an access to the brilliant Incredible! India Campaign which has the theme of Athithi Devo Bhava, this family actually showed me what it means. It doesn’t require a million dollar campaign, it just requires a heart that goes to think beyond one’s self. That meal would have cost them about 3 days of their average food, but the love, the faith, the affection they showed taught me what probably the scriptures meant when they wrote that phrase.
I also went to a 1000 year old temple which falls on the way of my daily route. Ten Centuries! We don’t even know how the civilizations will exist after 10 centuries from today! It must have been a testimony to so many histories! The feeling I got when I saw the temple was similar to when I saw the movie – “Paan Singh Tomar”. Like he was an unsung hero of India, I think places like these are the unsung places of India!
I will be contributing to getting the money of the 53 SHGs back from the banks at the end of my 2 months here. To them, it will mean a lot. But, the job that I will have done seems so miniscule than what these so called “illiterate” people staying kilometers away from the Urban life have taught me already – to spread cheer is life, to live happily is life. I guess they are good where they are right now….. These people keep the goodness in the world alive..I guess this is exactly the reason why Gandhiji would have said “India lives in her villages”. I agree. Everywhere else, sadly, we just exist.

Thirty and Still Ticking

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:23:00 +0000

Social Activist Khemraj Choudhary made his way to Alirajpur from Rajasthan in the autumn of 1982 because he had heard that the Bhil and Bhilala adivasis residing there were some of the most militant people around but they were nevertheless suffering deep poverty and exploitation. Their militancy was being wasted in vendetta against each other instead of being directed towards their exploiters. He met Khemla Aujnaharia a slightly educated Bhilala adivasi youth who had earned a name for himself in fighting the corruption and apathy of government officials and they together began trying to organise the adivasis into fighting for their rights. They were soon joined by Amit Bhatnagar another social activist from Delhi. The result was that in 1983 the first ever strike by adivasi workers in the construction of an earthen dam against the non-payment of minimum wages took place. The strike was successful and this kicked off the organisation process. Today thirty years later the organisation Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath is still functioning and has carved out a name for itself in securing forest rights, conservation of and control over natural resources, better education and health and greater recognition for their culture for the adivasis.
The organisation worked on a shoestring for many years up to 2007 and so there were no cameras to record the activities. Thus, there are not many photographs of the people who played a major part in its activities or the many mass actions that were undertaken in the early years. Somehow after considerable searching some vintage pictures have been found and they are shown below to commemorate the vibrant longevity of this people's organisation. The first picture shows the people on a hunger strike demanding forest rights in 1989. This strike culminated successfully and ended more than two decades of oppression by the Forest Department on the adivasis of Alirajpur.

The next picture shows a rally being taken out in Alirajpur in the early 1990s demanding that instead of big dams small tanks should be built for sustainable and equitable water resource management.

The next picture shows a few activists and adivasi members preparing to settle down for the night at the first ever office of the Sangathan in Attha village. There was no electricity at that time in the late 1980s and the radio held by the woman activist Chittaroopa Palit more popularly known as Silvy was the only way to keep abreast with the goings on in the rest of the world.

The next picture shows a few other activists in a rural setting. In the middle are Shankar Tadavla and his wife Veena with their daughter flanked by Amit Bhatnagar and his wife Jayashree and Revji Phulia.

The next picture shows some of the activists of the organisation in the office in Alirajpur in the early 1990s.

The organisation has always stressed the importance of the conservation of the environment and the adivasi culture. The organisation used to host a "Jungle Mela' every year from 1987 onwards well into the mid 1990s as a signature of its efforts in this regard. The next picture is of one of these fairs.

Today only the adivasi full timers remain in Alirajpur to carry on the work as all the non-adivasi activists, some have been shown above while others have not, have moved on. But the great work that was done in the initial decade up to the mid nineteen nineties provided such a solid base that even today the Sangathan continues to make sparks fly!!

A Window on Maoism in Chhattisgarh

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 07:43:00 +0000

Maoism has reached its peak in many senses in the Dandakaranya region in the extreme south of the State of Chhattisgarh in India. The Maoists have an active mass base of people in the area who are ruled by their Janathana Sarkar and they have a People's Liberation Guerrilla army and also armed jan militias which are capable of defending their areas of control against the security forces of the Indian State. Due to their ruthless execution of informers the Maoists have also ensured that not only are the movements of their armed cadre and top leaders shrouded in absolute secrecy but also that very little authentic information about them is available to the intelligence agencies of the State and the general public. Thus, the only way to get to know something about this armed political movement, that has successfully fought the State in its remote forested bastion, is when the Maoists themselves allow some intellectuals and journalists into their area to talk to them and see their activities. Since in today's media dominated world it is important to have publicity, the Maoists have selectively chosen to open a few windows from time to time into their otherwise information dark room. Shubhanshu Choudhury's book "Lets Call Him Vasu – With the Maoists in Chhattisgarh" is the latest in a slew of such books or monographs that have been published in recent times, written by journalists or intellectuals who have been favoured by the Maoists to peek into their otherwise closed world.

This book provides some interesting insights into the Maoist movement in Dandakaranya on the basis of hard journalistic reporting. The most important is the massive support that the Maoists have among the tribals in their area of influence which ensures their being able to survive despite the State's concerted offensive against them. The State's strategy of launching a counter movement of tribals in the form of the "Salwa Judum" and displacing them from the villages and putting them in camps near the highways has backfired. The tribals who suffered the atrocities of the Salwa Judum and witnessed the rampant corruption and mismanagement in the camps have preferred to cast their lot with the Maoists despite the risks of State oppression involved in this. The young tribals, both boys and girls, have joined the Jan Militia and then graduated to the PLGA and are fiercely committed to establishing their Janathana Sarkar and freeing themselves from the yoke of the Indian State which they find to be unjust and repressive. Clearly it is not only the fear of the Maoist's guns that keep the tribals in their thrall but also a genuine disillusionment with the way the Indian State has functioned in their area.

The second important insight is regarding the weapons and military tactics of the Maoists. Shubhranshu through discreet but pointed questioning has been able to ferret out some information about this. Regulation firearms are at a premium for the Maoists and they have to get them mainly by raiding the camps of the security forces or police stations or blowing up their patrols. Even so bullets are difficult to get and so there are standing instructions that firearms are not to be used unless absolutely necessary. This increases the importance of the less efficient country made firearms and especially the improvised explosive devices which are the most favoured weapons for attack. Consequently, the Maoists are rarely in a position these days to face frontally any big exercise of the security forces and rely instead on well planned secret attacks on smaller patrols who are foolish enough to ignore safety precautions. Their tribal intelligence network immediately gives the Maoists information about possible sitting ducks among the security forces and so there are regular such sorties which result in the death of security personnel and an increase in the arms cache of the Maoists.

The book deals with the various aspects of Maoism in Dandakaranya laced into the personal narrative of one Maoist who is given the name Vasu. This is the person who has made it possible for Shubhranshu to get a chance to be with the Maoists and even interview the elusive General Secretary Ganapathy. The story of Vasu underlines the deep commitment of the non-tribal cadre of the Maoists who have sacrificed everything for the cause of the Indian Revolution and are living in extremely hard conditions, always on the move, even though they are now in their fifties or more. However, Vasu's story also underlines the futility of the Maoist enterprise of bringing about a revolution from a remote tribal corner in the current global and national context. Vasu has two children who are now grown up and are living a mainstream life in Andhra Pradesh. He has never been in touch with them after going underground due to security reasons and desperately writes a letter and gives it to Shubhranshu to deliver to them which the latter obviously tears and throws away the moment he is out of the Maoist area and before he encounters any police personnel!! This futility of the Maoist project is further underlined when Shubhranshu does not succeed in getting any satisfactory answers to the many uncomfortable questions he asks Ganapathy about the future of the movement in the context of the dominance of the mighty Indian State and its total encirclement and containment of the movement to a few remote forested patches peopled by tribals.

There are many more stories in this book which have been narrated in a simple style and provide a very interesting read. Overall this book represents good investigative non-judgmental journalism that has brought out some earlier unknown information about one of the long standing underground armed political movements in this country and is recommended reading for both lay readers and scholars.

Down With Patriarchy

noreply@blogger.com (Rahul Banerjee) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 14:25:00 +0000

The brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus has angered the masses, especially the students, in Delhi and across the nation to launch the biggest ever mass protest against gender based violence. However, in all this anger it has been forgotten that rapes are not the worst or most rampant form of gender based violence. It is trafficking of girls and women and their forced induction into sex work that is the most demeaning and widespread form of gender based violence. Numbering in the hundreds of thousands in South Asia annually, trafficking victims are taken all over the world and mostly to the middle east for sex work in addition to that in the sub-continent itself. Despite the obvious violation of women's rights, trafficking and sex work continue because there is little enforcement by the authorities to prevent this. The reason for this is the rule of patriarchy.
Following feminist historian Gerda Lerner's seminal book "Creation of Patriarchy", a huge volume of research has established fairly conclusively that the subjugation of women preceded class oppression arising from differentials in economic power with the advent of private property. During the hunter gatherer stage in the late paleolithic and early neolithic era when one clan fought with another it was easier for the victors to capture the women than the men. The reason being that the level of technology then was insufficient to keep men captives for a long time. However, with women it was possible to rape them repeatedly and make them pregnant and so less prone to running away. Thus raping has a very long history and is intricately linked to the patriarchal exercise of power by men which later has extended to forcing women into sex work. Currently the way industrial capitalism has developed globally, there are a huge number of males on the move and to cater to their sexual urges there is a flourishing sex work and pornography industry staffed by women, mostly from the economically weaker sections of society, who have been forced into this demeaning profession.
The institution of marriage itself is a coercive relationship for most women who have to shoulder the brunt of the domestic care work in addition to bearing a huge number of children to provide enough male progeny. Over and above this women have to submit to sex with their husbands even if they may not be disposed to do so, something that has come to be characterised as marital rape. Men under the influence of alcohol, which is now freely available illegally in every nook and cranny, tend to be even more sexually abusive of their wives than otherwise.
Finally the most obnoxious form of gender based violence is that perpetrated by the minions of the State, mainly the security forces. In India this is most rampant in areas where there are insurgencies going on as in the North East, the Central Indian Maoist hotbed and Kashmir. However, even in other areas there are frequent instances of police personnel indulging in custodial rape. The State in most cases tries to cover up these acts of gender based violence by its minions because class and gender oppression coincide in such cases to maintain the rule of capital intact. In much the same way as it looks the other way when alcohol is being sold illegally because in the final analysis, sozzled men are much less likely to revolt against capitalist oppression.
Gender based violence is thus endemic and a direct result of patriarchy. So unless patriarchy is countered no amount of law making is going to put a stop to gender based violence of all kinds including the most virulent forms - rape, trafficking and sex work, in the same way as law making has not put a stop to class oppression in liberal democratic societies.