India’s Superpower Euphoria CXCI

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India’s Superpower Euphoria CXCI
http://cogitoergosum.co.cc/2011/01/10/indias-superpower-euphoria-cxci/

10 01 11 Written by navanavonmilita

India Together: Adivasis

Un-shining India

The struggle in Kashipur against mining in sacred adivasi lands is
just one example of an India we cannot forget, says Kalpana Sharma.
Economic progress comes at a cost. But we can still ask whether the
cost has to be borne by people who will never see the benefits of such
progress.

December 2004 – Why do we feel a sense of relief when the year comes
to an end and celebrate the dawn of the New Year? Surely when the year
has been good, you should feel sad that it has ended. And perhaps
apprehensive that the year to come will not be so good. Whatever our
feelings, the close of the year makes at least some people pause and
think about the year that is about to end, about its highs and its
lows.

2004 has been a year of change for us in India, most principally
because of the change of government at the Centre. The hype around
“India Shining” has disappeared. But the India Un-shining has not yet
registered. For the first part of the year, we thought only of
politics and elections. Once that episode ended, and also government
formation, our attention shifted elsewhere. Now we have the property
battles of the wealthy, the Birlas and the Ambanis, the public
behaviour of the famous, like the recent Shahid-Kareena episode, and
the court battles of religious figures, like the murder charges
against the head of the Kanchi Mutt that dominate the news. And, of
course, the antics of the rebellious women in the out-of-power
Bharatiya Janata Party, Uma Bharati and Smriti Irani. In between all
these media preoccupations, there is not much space or time left to
report on what is happening in the other India, the one that is not
shining.

So spare a thought as the year ends to the adivasis of Kashipur in
Orissa. The State appears and disappears from the news. It appears
when there is tragedy, flood, drought, cyclone. It disappears when no
such natural or man-made calamity kills and maims hundreds of
thousands. The fact that regardless of major tragedies, there are
minor disasters occurring almost every day in Orissa is not the stuff
of headline news.

Orissa is poor, but it is also incredibly rich. Beneath its luxuriant
forests, inhabited mostly by the adivasis who form 22 per cent of the
population, lies a huge store of precious minerals. Orissa has 70 per
cent of all the bauxite found in India, the sixth largest deposit in
the world. It also has 90 per cent of India’s chrome ore and nickel
and 24 per cent of its coal. Multinational mining companies have long
been making a beeline for the State mostly to invest in the mining
industry. Despite its poverty, Orissa is amongst the top 10 States to
attract Foreign Direct Investment.

Yet, if you ask an adivasi woman or man what they think about all
this, they will tell you that they are not impressed. They do not like
the idea of their sacred mountain being carved up by a mining company
to extract the mineral that lies beneath. They do not care to be
forced to leave their ancestral lands and forests to be relocated in
cement boxes that are supposed to be their new, “modern” homes, which
they are told to accept gratefully as symbols of “progress”.

From December 1 to 16, hundreds of adivasis, mainly women, have been
demonstrating against the company determined to mine bauxite in the
Kashipur block of Rayagada district. These people have fought against
the mining company for 12 years and have successfully blocked access
to Baphlimali, a sacred mountain that is the site of the mine.

“No one, I repeat no one will be allowed to stand in the way of
Orissa’s industrialisation and the people’s progress”.

- Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik
Four years ago, on December 16, three young men were killed in police
firing when hundreds gathered to oppose the project. Four years later,
the mine remains a lure for multinationals. Despite the withdrawal of
the Norwegian company Norsk Hydro, Canadian multinational Alcan
remains in this joint venture with Indal as part of the Rs. 4,000
crore Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL). The people however
continue to oppose the project while the government is determined to
push it through. “No one, I repeat no one will be allowed to stand in
the way of Orissa’s industrialisation and the people’s progress”, the
Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told an Oriya TV news channel on
December 4.

And to prove his point, the police lathi-charged a peaceful gathering
of adivasis protesting against the project and marking the anniversary
of the police firing of 2000. Sixteen people including three women
were injured. Such news has become so commonplace that it failed to
make the national news although one hopes that at least the local
papers in Orissa reported it. I looked in vain in a number of
newspapers, including one that circulates in the east, and found not
even one paragraph on this protest.

The struggle in Kashipur is just one example of India Un-shining, an
India we cannot forget. Economic progress comes at a cost. But we can
still ask whether the cost has to be borne by people who will never
see the benefits. Displacement for the adivasis of Kashipur will mean,
inevitably, them joining the ranks of the urban poor. And as we know
in Mumbai, there is no welcome awaiting them in our cities. On the
contrary, they have been labelled “outsiders”. Even if they manage to
find a spot to live and some work, they will soon face demolition and
displacement, not unlike what they are fighting against in Kashipur.
Can one blame them if they prefer to stay where they are and fight it
out?

As the year ends, we can certainly celebrate the progress India has
made, the recognition it is getting for some of its skills.

We can also applaud a government that is moving in the direction of
recognising the rights of the poor to work and of women to an equal
inheritance. Yet, we cannot forget that large parts of India still lag
behind in basic social indicators such as education and health, that
the male-female sex ratio is a scandal, that violence against women
continues unabated, and that the disempowered, like the adivasis of
Kashipur, continue to fight an unequal battle for their rights. ⊕

Kalpana Sharma
December 2004

Kalpana Sharma is Chief of the Mumbai Bureau and Deputy Editor with
The Hindu, and a regular contributor to India Together. Her opinions,
which appear in a regular column with The Hindu, are concurrently
published on India Together with permission.

Do reservations work?

A number of researchers in economics have started to look closely at
political reservations. In one recent instance, Professor Rohini Pande
of Yale University has found that reservations in state legislatures
do increase influence in policy-making for scheduled castes and
tribes. Tarun Jain reports.

15 April 2005 – In an editorial last year, India Together argued in
favour of reservations for lower castes. In their piece, Ashwin Mahesh
and Subramaniam Vincent commented on the reasons we have reservations.
Affirmative action policies they argued not only directly benefit
lower castes through higher incomes, but have a larger impact on
public policies when individuals from lower castes are given a voice
in the decision making process. Other commentators on these pages have
followed a similar line of reasoning. For instance, when advocating
for reservation of Parliament seats for women, Kalpana Sharma writes
that “there is a greater chance of mainstreaming women’s concerns if
there are more women in positions of power from where these concerns
can be addressed.”

“Are reservations working?” ask Mahesh and Vincent, who say that the
impact of reservations on public policy would be most visible in
legislatures and panchayats. Despite their arguments, none of these
writers are able to provide any evidence that the legislators, once
elected, actually behave in ways expected of them. The complexity of
the political system means that there are a number of ways in which
legislators get impeded in their work. The legal scholar Upendra Baxi
argues that SC and ST legislators need to appeal both to upper-caste
constituents in reserved jurisdictions and to the primarily upper-
caste membership of their parties. Also, the dynamics of political
parties and bargaining within legislatures can dull activism of
individual legislators in favour of their communities. Or MLAs and MPs
might simply concentrate on increasing their own wealth and not care
about their constituents at all. Kalpana Sharma, perhaps thinking
about the behaviour of Indira Gandhi, Mayawati, Rabri, and other women
in power, writes that “there is no guarantee that [women’s
reservation] in itself will make a difference to the status of women
in the country.” These are prescient words, for casual empirics do not
explain what has been the actual result of political reservations in
India.

When casual empirics fail, perhaps it is time for a more rigorous
approach. A number of researchers in economics have started to look
closely at political reservations, both for lower castes and tribes
and for women in India. In an important paper published in the
American Economic Review in 2003, Professor Rohini Pande of Yale
University asked if reservations in state legislatures increased
influence in policy-making for scheduled castes and tribes. She
concluded that they did, and backed up this assertion by presented
evidence of targeted redistribution policies passed by SC and ST
legislators.

Legal identification of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes

Selection criteria for scheduled castes

1. Cannot be served by clean Brahmans
2. Cannot be served by the barbers, water-carriers, tailors, etc. who
serve the caste Hindus
3. Pollutes a high-caste Hindu by contact or by proximity
4. Is one from whose hands a caste Hindu cannot take water
5. Is debarred from using public amenities such as roads, ferries,
wells, or schools
6. Will not be treated as an equal by high-caste men of the same
educational qualification in ordinary social intercourse
7. Is depressed on account of the occupation followed and, but for
that, occupation would be subject to no social disability

Selection criteria for scheduled tribes

1. Tribal origin
2. Primitive ways of life and habitation in remote and less accessible
areas
3. General backwardness in all respects
Source: Constitution of India

For her analysis, Pande exploits a particular feature of the Indian
representative set-up. Each state legislature has seats reserved for
SC and ST candidates, but the proportion of seats varies by state.
There are more seats for states with higher proportion of SC and ST
population, and vice versa. Also, between 1950 and 1980, the seat
allocations kept changing as new data from the census became
available. So these variations allow Pande to compare the policies in
states with higher SC and ST representation to those with lower SC and
ST reservation.

Increasing SC reservation does not have a significant impact on
general spending policies such as total spending, spending on
education or land reforms. However, it has a significant impact on
targeted spending policies. • Women’s representation

• The merit of reservations

• Caste: Don’t ask, don’t tell

Pande’s results show that reservations impact different groups
differently, depending on the policy. Increasing SC reservation does
not have a significant impact on general spending policies such as
total spending, spending on education or land reforms. However, it has
a significant impact on targeted spending policies. Increasing
reservations by 1% increases job quotas for SCs by 0.6%, but does not
affect spending on SC welfare schemes. This split between general and
targeted policies sits well with the social structure of these groups.
Compared to STs, SCs are well educated but geographically distributed,
so they rely on individual specific schemes such as job quotas. An SC
legislator who advocates group-specific policies cannot be sure that
they will actually be used by the community that she or he wants to
target.

In contrast, ST reservations have an impact on a broader range of
spending policies. Increasing ST reservation by 1% decreases spending
on education by 0.4%, but increases spending on tribal welfare schemes
by 0.8%. Again, this matches what we know about tribal communities in
India. They are remote from the major population centres yet live
cohesively. So they are able to take advantage of and prefer group-
specific programs over individual-specific ones.

Pande’s research is one of the first threads in an emerging literature
on the behaviour of elected representatives in office. In 2004,
Professors Raghabendra Chattopadhyay of IIM Calcutta and Esther Duflo
of MIT published their research on the impact of reservations for
women in panchayats, specifically looking at Rajasthan and West
Bengal. Their analysis pointed to important differences in policies
enacted by panchayats headed by women and men, debunking the myth that
women sarpanches are puppets controlled by men. Even in panchayats
with “unassertive” women as sarpanches, the presence of a woman in a
position of authority often inspired other women in the Gram Sabha to
speak up, changing the dynamic of village policy making.

In another 2004 study, Professors Tim Besley, Rohini Pande, Lupin
Rahman and Vijayendra Rao found that if the Sarpanch position is
reserved for person from a Scheduled Caste or Tribe, then SC or ST
households are 7% more likely to have access to a toilet, an
electricity connection, or a private water connection via a government
scheme.

Among economists, the debate on the merits of reservations is just
beginning. The precise relationship between political power and policy
implementation is still not clear. And there are a number of
unresolved issues for everyone involved.

For political parties, there is a concern how political reservation
would change the people being elected to Vidhan Sabhas, and the
ideologies and policies they would back. Could this change be
significant enough to change the top leadership of the party and
government? If the change is perceived as minor enough, perhaps
existing legislators could be convinced to vote in favour of more
reservation, which includes women.

Finally, voters themselves must be concerned with reservation. How
does their involvement in the political process change as a result?
Does voter turnout increase or decrease when only certain kinds of
candidates can stand for elections? And how can voters signal
political support for or in opposition to reservation? Answering these
questions is a collaborative exercise. Social scientists bring their
best tools to understand what society is saying, but first the people
must themselves debate and decide their preferences. Hopefully the
results of reservations in the past will inform both the debate and
the decision. ⊕

Tarun Jain
15 Apr 2005

Tarun Jain is a Ph.D student at the University of Virginia,
Charlottesville.

References

1. Pande, Rohini (2003) “Can Mandated Political Representation Provide
Disadvantaged Minorities Policy Influence? Theory and Evidence from
India” American Economic Review, Vol. 93 (4), pp. 1132-1151.
2. Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra and Esther Duflo (2004) “Women as Policy
Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India,”
Econometrica 72 (5), pp. 1409-1443.
3. Besley, Timothy, Rohini Pande, Lupin Rahman and Vijayendra Rao
(2004) “The Politics of Public Good Provision: Evidence from Indian
Local Governments” Journal of European Economic Association Papers and
Proceedings, Vol. 2, 2/3, pp. 416-426.

4 years old, miles to go

Tribals constitute 32 per cent of Chhatisgarh’s population. Yet, four
years after the state was born, the status of the tribal population
does not seem to be improving. At a recent meeting in the state, a
network of journalists and activists took stock of the situation.
Surekha Sule reports.

01 May 2005 – Like an aspirant young couple separated from the joint
family, citizens of four year old Chhatisgarh too dream of an ideal
home carved out of the larger state of Madhya Pradesh. Seventy five
Chhatisgarhis (calling themselves ’36garhi’) gave vent to their
feelings at a “Dream Chhatisgarh Meeting”. They met in the forests of
Barnavapara in Mahasamunda district during April 7-9. I attended this
meeting. The participants are part of a larger e-group on the internet
called Chhatisgarh-net.

Dream they did, but with feet firmly on the ground reality. This
reality continues to be as summed up in following verses by the well
known Hindi poet and novelist, Vinod Kumar Shukla.

A lone tribal girl
is not scared of dense forest.
But she is scared to go to
Geedam’s market to sell
Mahua flowers.
It’s a market day!
With basketful of Mahua
on the head or the shoulder
these simple tribal(girl)s walk down
the hill & gather near a tree
to go ‘together’ to the market!

A discussion session is on at the meeting. Pic: Aman Namra.

The reality still includes many custodial deaths too. Goldie George of
Dalit Mukti Morcha told me about a boy who was caught by the police.
His crime was that he was carrying a few sticks collected from the
jungle. The authorities charged him with ‘stealing forest resources’!
The boy was detained by the police and beaten up. For his release,
George reports that police asked the parents to cough up a ‘ransom’.
They could not afford it, so the boy was beaten up till he died.

Another case is of the journalist Akshay Thakur who brings out from
Rajnandgaon, a local Hindi newspaper which criticizes the
establishment and gives voice to the downtrodden. He was implicated in
a fabricated case of printing naxal handouts to instigate tribals.
After 23 months in jail along with his five other journalist
colleagues, he was lucky to win the case and all were released. But no
such luck for over 2000-3000 similar false cases against poor tribals
and dalits charging them as naxalites. Their crime! They raise their
voices against the corrupt police or greedy jungle contractors.

For ages, tribal people and forests have complemented each other in
India. Tribals have taken as much as they need from the jungle and
given back, perhaps in a way that no economic theory has ever looked
at. For generations tribals in the Chhatisgarh region have lived on
collecting forest produce like Mahua, Tendu leaves, variety of tree
bark & resin and so on. But markets started intervening and the tribal-
jungle relationship as well as trade changed. With the entry of agents
and intermediaries began the never-ending saga of exploitation of
tribals followed by repression.

“Tomorrow, if a foreign company claims rights over a research of a
variety, a mere search on Google will produce my article exposing
their IPR claim,” says Pankaj Oudhia of Botanical.com. • Chhatisgarh
media : new and old

• Chhatisgarh rice bowl loss

Suddenly the new forest law tells them that such collection is illegal
and asks them to produce evidence of their right to live on their
land. A forest guard took some 107 adivasis’ thumb impression saying
their 300 acre land is being regularized but actually the land was
given to develop a nursery. Such incidences of outright cheating of
tribals are rampant. And these all were the very reasons for naxal
uprising which is strongest in Bastar. It is not for no reason that
the tribals resist forest and police departments who they feel are
filled with are outsiders, exploiting them.

Tribals constitute 32 per cent of Chhatisgarh’s population. Yet, four
years after the state was born, the status of the tribal population
does not seem to be improving. At the meeting, participants began from
how and why Chhatisgarh was created, how the Chhatisgarh-net e-group
was mooted by its coordinator and former BBC journalist Shubhranshu
Chowdhury and went to discuss a variety of issues related to
agriculture, water, tribal & forest, naxalites, dalits, industry &
power, mining, social development and the media situation.

Chhatisgarh was carved out of a part of Central India inhabited for
centuries by tribals – and rich in natural resources. The region is
famous for its biodiversity — rice varieties and medicinal herbs. One
of the early controversies was over rice varieties. 20000 indigenous
varieties of rice seeds had been painstakingly collected by the famous
rice researcher, the late Dr. Richaria. Richaria had documented each
rice seed variety in minute detail from the tribal farmers. There was
an outcry on the suspicion that top scientists from Chhatisgarh’s
Indira Gandhi Krishi Vidyalaya (IGKV) were going to sell this
information to agribusiness multinational Syngenta. The fear was the
traditional knowledge of Chhatisgarh’s farmers would loose out to
private intellectual property rights.

Dr Richaria’s collection of rice germ plasm has not been put into
public domain despite public opinion and media outcry. This worries
activists and vigilant Chhatisgarhis who would like to take action to
prevent private interests from accessing these seeds. But
establishment secrecy on the goings-on is the dilemma of the 36garhis.
How to fight an unseen enemy? 36garh e-group member Jacob Nellithanam
is an activist and expert on rice farming in Chhatisgarh. He appealed
for the formation of pressure groups to save the situation in the
state where 80 per cent of cultivable land is under rice and 90 per
cent population depends on the agriculture.

Sensing similar danger from another private firm to the traditional
knowledge of Chhatisgarh’ s simple, poor and illiterate people, Pankaj
Oudhia – an e-36garh group member and renowned agronomist – has taken
upon himself a mammoth mission. He is single-handedly documenting
Chhatisgarh’s varieties of medicinal herbs numbering over a lakh,
talking to the local people who know about these varieties, their
characteristics and their usefulness.

Over last four years, Oudhia has uploaded about 12000 such
documentation on www.botanical.com and to meet his objective of 1 lakh
such documents going on to the public domain in his life time, Oudhia
goes on at an astonishing speed of three such documentation a day plus
one or two articles for Hindi media for mass circulation. “Tomorrow,
if a foreign company claims rights over a research of a variety, a
mere search on Google will produce my article exposing their IPR
claim,” says Oudhia.

Adivasis performing a traditional dance at the meeting. Pic: Aman
Namra.

There is also the famous case of a stretch of Shivnath river in
Chhatisgarh given to a private company. This was first documented by
e-36garh member Arun Singh. In Raigarh district, three rivers were to
be similarly ‘privatised’, but the government did not go forward
because resistance from the people. The Shivnath issue is in the
Courts and is subjudice. Farmers took loans to dig bore wells but
private firms dug deeper rendering 15-20 villages without water.
Farmers now fear that hundreds of villages will run out of water.
Industries digging deeper and taking away water are also causing
pollution in the region. The pollution is taking its toll reflecting
on 30 per cent less of Mahua flower produce – a main livelihood source
of the tribals.

The making of the Chhatisgarh state actually never had tribal issue as
the central issue and unlike Uttaranchal and Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh
was not born out of people’s agitation demanding separate statehood.
It came much easily and because of political compulsions. Tribal
welfare was a suitable guise for fulfilling political aspirations. The
non-tribal view is that the tribal should retain their independent
identity. Hence on the topic of tribal welfare and development, the
talk veers away towards meaningless issues like searching for
alternate systems for the tribals, instead of the real issues related
to the lacuna in the mainstream system, says an e-36garh member, Sudip
Thakur, a Delhi based journalist.

Thakur raised pertinent questions like whether just making a separate
state amounted to giving control in the hands of tribals, or whether
the administration was going to truly take cognizance of tribal
problems. What is the role of the tribals in the development of this
state which is so rich in natural resources? Is it not high time to
change our scientific understanding taking into account the reality
about tribals? Otherwise how long are you going to make them dance in
their traditional attire in the Republic Day Parade, quips Thakur.

The failure tribal politicians elected through reservations to get
justice for their people must be seen together with the fact that
naxalite rule is now strong in Bastar and Rajnandgaon of Chhatisgarh.
Thakur says that whatever the outcome of debate on jungle-tribal
relationship, they will never get justice unless they get greater
partnership in political power. Though there is reservation in
assembly and parliament, this very provision is used as a strong
political weapon. Even when some adivasis have gotten politically
powerful, they have been sucked into the system and have not done
justice to their brethren. The naxalite rule strongly in Bastar and
Rajnandgaon of Chhatisgarh and make their land immune to outside
influence. But in areas where no outsider can dare to enter, e-36garh
member Ruchir Garg – editor of Deshbandhu – a local paper — went in
several times to study their life and working style.

The knowledge and experience rich e-36garh members communicate online
everyday and spread the news and views on Chhatisgarh. Alok Putul –
resident editor of Deshbandhu, Aman Namra – editor of Charkha and
Shubhranshu Chowdhury send daily updates. The medium is evolving into
an effective alternate digital media that has potential to act as
pressure group and a watchdog. Media outside Chhatisgarh could use the
postings on this group to know more about this little, new state. The
group has plans to launch a website as well.

* * *
Chattisgarh-net is an internet e-group. Archives of messages and
discussions are public. At the time of writing this report, the list
had 324 members. Groups.yahoo.com/group/chhattisgarh-net. ⊕

Surekha Sule
01 May 2005

Surekha Sule is a freelance journalist and an environmentalist based
in Mumbai, and a Media Fellow of the Ministry of Water Resources of
the Government of India. The Chhatisgarh-net group had invited her to
the April’05 meeting.

Nomads together

A National Convention of Nomads and Adivasis was organized last month
in Delhi. This was perhaps one of the first attempts to give a unified
political voice for Adivasi and Nomadic communities in India. G. N.
Devy writes on the efforts to make this convention happen, and its
import.

23 May 2005 – Nomadic communities, wrongly notified during the
colonial times as ‘criminal communities’, found the earliest
expression of their agony in the report of a reform committee headed
by Antrolikar on the eve of India’s independence. But the issue had to
wait for a voice till Marathi writers like Laxman Mane and Laxman
Gaikwad came up with their life-stories in the early eighties. These
writings were initially seen as ‘experimental dalit writing’ by
readers of Marathi literature. Nomadic communities in the states
outside Maharashtra did not find similar spokespersons.

My attention was drawn to the enormous scale of the problem – there
are nearly six crores of denotified and nomadic ‘citizens’ in India!
And when, together, we founded the Denotified and Nomadic Communities
Rights Action Group in 1998, I found to my utter surprise and dismay
that even the most enlightened of the progressive sections of Indian
society had barely been aware of the plight of India’s nomads.
Invariably one had seen the Banjaras and heard of the Pardhis, but one
was not aware that these had been victims of a hugely discriminatory
law, the Criminal Tribes Act, subsequently replaced by the Habitual
Offenders Act. Therefore, bringing the denotified and the nomads of
India together was not an easy task.

I was convinced from the beginning of the struggle that the denotified
and the nomads have to make common cause with other tribal communities
from the adivasi groups and the pastoralist communities such as the
Bharwads and the Dhangars in order to be effective in even a small
measure, and mainly because numbers matter in democracies with a weak
fabric of social justice holding it together. But, bringing the
nomadic, pastoralist and adivasi communities together has not been an
enviable matter. One imagines, in a theoretically loaded discussion
room, that being marginalised the communities would be all ripe and
ready to fall within a single basket of a marginalised class; but the
differences between them are quite stupendous.

The denotified communities have been asking for a Third Schedule, and
think of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as far more
fortunate. Adivasis have, even in a small measure, an acre or two of
their own, even when its legal title has been a matter of dispute
between the Forest Department and the Revenue Department. Adivasis
have a profound equation with the land of their habitation going back
to times beyond one’s memory; the nomads have neither the land nor the
relationship of any lasting nature. The nomadic world-view is unique.
The pastoralists have a completely different set of issues surrounding
their lives. They have a large movable property in their cows and
sheep, but the grazing land traditionally available to them has been
rapidly shrinking. These are relatively prosperous communities forced
in our time to shift their occupations. Jal, jungle, jhamin are the
central concerns for the adivasis, livelihood and food security,
social respect and legal protection are the crucial issues with
denotified and nomadic communities, and respect for non-sedentary
cultures is the main preoccupation with the pastoralists.

I tried to bring them together several times during the last decade,
and met with failure every time I made the attempt. Twice, in Delhi,
we had meetings of representatives of these three sections, once at
the India International Centre, with speakers such as Ashis Nandy and
Justice M N Venkatachaliah, and another time at the Constitution Club
with Mahashweta Devi herself to guide our footsteps. These meetings
progressed well till the concluding sessions; yet, in the conclusion
differences took over similarities. The common cause theory failed
disastrously.

Therefore, before making yet another attempt, my colleagues in Bhasha
and I had long consultations, lasting almost over a year, and decided
that we would approach the matter more through cultural practices than
through political aspirations of the communities. However, we felt
that a mere cultural mela would amount to a cruel travesty of the
agony and suffering of the adivasis, nomads and pastoralists.
Therefore, we put forward the proposition that “the primary mission of
the predatory state is sedentarisation of the subject.” Nomads and
pastoralists responded to this premise very enthusiastically, and the
adivasis decided to join in on the plank of the state’s being
predatory and, therefore, self-aggrandising.

After we came up with this formulation, we had a series of discussions
with the Adivasi Ekta Parishad, which has an impressive spread in
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, and the newly
formed DNT network under the title Lokdhara, which has started
energising the DNTs in Maharashtra. My own Bhasha Centre contacted
adivasis in the north-east, Orissa, Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,
as well as my colleagues in the now ceased DNT-rights action group.
They responded promptly. Besides, of the hundred and forty NGOs
working with tribals who had come to Tejgadh last November for the
Tribal Policy Conference, were contacted. In about eight weeks of
campaigning, we found that about two thousand individuals were
prepared to participate in a convention, should such a convention be
held. When we approached Dr. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty of Indira Gandhi
National Centre for the Arts in Delhi, he more than welcomed the idea
of so many numerous communities coming together at the IGNCA campus
with their dances, theatre, musical instruments, life-styles,
traditional knowledge, medicinal systems, and so on. This is how the
first ever National Convention of Nomads and Adivasis was organised at
the IGNCA from 21 to 24 April this year.

We put forward the proposition that “the primary mission of the
predatory state is sedentarisation of the subject.” Nomads and
pastoralists responded to this premise very enthusiastically
The format of the Convention provided space for every participant to
express herself or himself. The mornings and afternoons were devoted
to discussions on resources, rights, cultural identities, legal and
social justice, constitutional and human rights, and gender equality.
The early hours of evenings were given to special lectures in which
practically every major tribal/nomadic activist was present; and the
evenings were left open for cultural expression of every manner.
Delhi, and India, had never before seen Medha Patkar, B. D. Sharma,
Pradip Prabhu, Ashok Choudhary, Balkrishna Renke, Ram Guha, Ramanika
Gupta, and Justice M N Venkatachaliah come together on a common
platform. I wish I had been able to get there C. K. Janu, Kishore Sant
and Ram Dayal Munda, who were not there for logistical reasons. Even
Gadar had given his consent, and Mahashweta Devi had sent a special
message for the Convention from her hospital bed in Kolkata.

The desire to come together was clearly the dominant note in the
Convention. But, as expected, the drive for unity was sustained by the
amazing show of cultural diversity seen in the dances, theatre,
acrobatics, music, rituals and everything that was put on that
remarkable and magnificent display by the adivasis and nomads of
India. In terms of documented materials alone, the IGNCA had gathered
a pile of about three hundred hours of cultural and social
documentation.

The numbers need to be understood in their proper context. When an
adivasi or a nomad travels to Delhi from his or her village or basti,
the expenses involved sometimes cross the ability of that person to
earn over a period of several months. Their days in a conference such
as this one count back home as days of no-income. It is at a great
personal cost that such delegates participate in such conferences. To
have fifteen hundred delegates for the Convention, therefore,
expressed a nation-wide and deep seated desire of the adivasis, nomads
and pastoralists to be seen as belonging together where their cultural
identities are not threatened, where they can express themselves
without being intimidated into a ‘single’ class as ‘subjects’
victimised by the predatory state whose mission of sedentarisation has
marginalised the resource base of these communities.

Nomads together with adivasis in Delhi’s Convention in April, have, in
my opinion, spelt out the beginning of a new chapter in the history of
social struggles in India.

Ganesh Devy
23 May 2005

Dr. Ganesh N. Devy is founder trustee of Bhasha Research and
Publication Center in Baroda.

Remote adivasis face health care chasm

Despite crores of rupees having been spent in name of tribal and other
development programmes in one block of Palakkad district in Kerala,
the region suffers from poor access to decent health care. 80 per cent
of the adivasi population here are living in abject poverty. M
Suchitra reports.

25 July 2005 – The afternoon is hot. Pappa sits in the shade of a tree
in front of her mud-thatched hut holding her baby close to her bosom.
The child is groaning with high fever. Pappa is only thirty years, but
looks much older. Thin with a pale face and tired eyes, she is an
agricultural labourer, earning Rs 40-50 per day. She has five
children.

Ill and impoverished. A tribal mother and her child, Sholayur
panchayat. Pic: T Mohandas.

All the five times, Pappa delivered her baby at home. She worked until
her labour pain reached its peak. When she felt that it was about time
for the baby to come out she would stop work, get into the hut and
squat in the dark dingy room. Then the expectant mother would hold on
to the knotted rope that was hung from the ceiling for strength. Pappa
delivered all her babies squatting. There had never been any one to
attend to her during delivery. Each time, she cut the umbilical cord
herself, bathed the baby herself and buried the afterbirth herself.

“To stop the bleeding from the umbilical cord all you have to do is to
pour some kerosene oil on it and then put some dough on it. If that
isn’t enough, you can also put some talcum powder,” the mother of five
says with all the assurance of a doctor. Asked why not go to a
hospital for delivery, Pappa answers with another query. “Why should
anyone go to hospital for delivery? They don’t do things our way. You
have to lie down to deliver your babies there!”

In April 2006, M Suchitra was named the Development Journalist of the
year at the Developing Asia Journalism awards, for this article in
India Together. Click here to see more.
This mother and her children belong to the Muduga tribe, and live in
Varagampadi Ooru (a colony) in Sholayur Gram Panchayat in Attappadi
block of Kerala’s Palakkad district. They are are lucky. The proof is
in the fact that they are alive. This is not a piece of luck that
every adivasi mother and her children living in Sholayur as well as
the other two gram panchayats — Agali and Pudur — have. It’s true that
Kerala claims to have attained a high Physical Quality of Life Index –
as high as 80 – and has maternal and infant mortality rates much lower
compared to that of other states in India. Ninety-nine percent of
deliveries are institutionalised in the state. But statistics at the
Community Health Centre at Agali, the block’s headquarters, show a
different picture.

A different story altogether

In the period between March 2003 and March 2004, there had been four
deaths in the 603 births that had taken place. When 12 children die in
every thousand births in mainstream Kerala, infant mortality including
those stillborn is 66 for Attappadi. Eighty percent of the newborn
babies are under the normal weight of 2.5 kgs. The real picture could
be worse than the one statistics reveal.

The large incidence of maternal and infant deaths are malnourishment,
and this in turn is due to poverty, inefficiency and ineffectiveness
of the health services provided by the government and the tribal
people’s inaccessibility to it. There are three government primary
health centres (PHC), one community health centre (CHC) and 27
subcentres in this 745-sq kms block. But a large number of tribal
women in this region prefer deliveries at home.

The Bethany Tribal Mission Hospital, which functions near Anakkatty
near Sholayur on the Kerala Tamilnadu border, reports 230-275 births
in a year of which adivasi women account for only ten or twelve. These
women are usually from the Irulas who could merge into the mainstream
lifestyles. The Kurumbas who have not yet emerged out of the forests
and the Mudugas who have still not adjusted to the life outside
forests hardly ever come to the hospital. In the process of
mainstreaming the tribal communities over the years, the tribe of
traditional midwives has almost died out.

The posts of gynaecologists and pediatricians remain vacant in many
hospitals. A gynaecologist who joins a government hospital is entitled
to a pay of Rs 8000 to Rs 10000. But private hospitals pay specialists
anything from Rs 25000 to Rs 30000 when they sign-up. • National meet
– nomads, adivasis

• Why their kids are dying

Even though adivasi women have the self-confidence to have their
deliveries at home, childbirth in the absence of trained midwives
often leads to tragedy. Cutting the umbilical cord with rusted knives
or razor blades, tying stones to the end of the cord so that it falls
off, tying up the cord with dirty bits of string, applying mud to stop
the bleeding, leaving the mother dirty even when the child is cleaned
up — all these happen when inexperienced women help in the delivery
process.

To make the matters worse, many of the subcentres do not have ANMs
(Auxiliary Nurse Midwife). All the subcentres are in isolated areas,
and government nurses are scared to stay at these places alone. Most
of the nurses, recruited from far away places, are hesitant to work in
this remote and backward tribal belt, and they stay away from duties
on continuous leave. The deserted sub-centres often become centres for
gambling and drinking and even for brewing illicit liquor.

The women are often unable to reach hospitals even if they want to.
They have to walk over difficult hilly terrain for eight and ten
kilometres before they can get hold of a vehicle. For adivasis who
live in hamlets like Galasi, Thudukki, Moolagangal etc., in Attappadi
block, even the community health centre at Agali is a distant world.

“The tribal women, when they reach the hospital after a complicated
delivery are very often in a critical condition,” points out Dr
Prabhudas, an Assistant Surgeon at the Primary Health Centre at Pudur.
Dr Prabhudas has been working in Attappadi for the last 20 years. “As
the facilities for attending a complicated delivery case are
inadequate in the primary health centres and community health centre,
we often refer them to a taluk hospital or district hospital.”

And to reach the Mannarghat Taluk Hospital from Agali, one has to
travel two hours by bus. The district hospital at Palakkad is further
one hour. There is nothing surprising about the fact that patients in
critical condition mostly die on the way, says Dr Prabhudas.

Even on reaching the government hospitals after a lot of effort, the
adivasi women and children are not fortunate enough to be treated by
specialists. The posts of gynaecologists and pediatricians remain
vacant in most of these hospitals. Specialist doctors prefer private
hospitals to government hospitals. A gynaecologist who joins a
government hospital is entitled to a pay of Rs 8000 to Rs 10000. But
private hospitals that charge hefty fees for abortions and caesareans
are willing to pay much more. Specialists are paid anything from Rs
25000 to Rs 30000 when they sign-up. Naturally, doctors prefer private
hospitals. Adivasi women who work as casual labourers do not have the
financial wherewithal to get treated at private hospitals.

“Earlier, at least graduate doctors used to show some interest in
being posted to such remote areas, as such services entitled them to
preference in admission to post-graduate courses. Now that the
government stopped giving preference to remote area services during
admission to post graduate courses, even graduate doctors are
reluctant to work in remote and backward places like Attappadi,” says
Dr Prabhudas.

Whether the deliveries take place at home or hospital, doctors point
out that tribal mothers are not healthy enough to deliver healthy
babies. Most pregnant women and lactating mothers hardly have enough
for two square meals a day. “Almost all of them are terribly anaemic.
Either they have sickle cell anaemia or anaemia from lack of proper
diet. Most of them suffer from protein deficiency too. It is dangerous
for a pregnant woman to have a haemoglobin count below ten. But most
pregnant adivasi women have counts of seven or eight. It even goes
down to five or six in some,” says Dr. Muralidharan, the Medical
Superintendent at the Bethany Tribal Mission Hospital. According to
him, Eclampsia (high blood pressure and seizures) is very common in
the third trimester in Attappadi’s adivasi women.

Uprooted first, and then mainstreaming fails

Their tragic tale started when the forest reached the hands of the
government and the land around it, in the hands of the settlers.
Earlier, when they lived in the forest their diet was a balanced one,
consisting of tubers and fruits and meat. And they used to cultivate
protein-and-iron-rich food like ragi, maize, pulses and chama. But
later, during the influx of settlers, tribals were forced to retreat
to the barren, parched, uncultivable hill-slops. Adivasi communities
constituted 63% of Attappadi’s population in 1961. According to the
2001 Census, the total population of Attappadi is 66,171 and Scheduled
Tribes constitute 27,121. Adivasi population has come down to 41%.

A survey report prepared as early as 1977 by a project officer at the
state’s Integrated Tribal Development Project reveals that the tribals
had then lost 14,000 hectares of fertile land to settlers, and now
27,000-strong tribal people hold just 2,000 acres of land.

A tribal family ifrom Pudur panchayat. Pic: T Mohandas.

Most of the adivasi women shoulder the responsibility of raising the
family on their own, while their men enslave themselves to liquor. The
women have no option other than going back to their wage labour within
a few days after delivery. Many of them suffer from acute and chronic
back pain.

Attappadi testifies how a mainstream development process could deeply
shatter an erstwhile self-sustained community. It is the first block
in Kerala where the Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) was
initiated by the state government. It had been declared an ITDP block
in 1970 after the State Planning Board assessed it as the most
backward block in the state. Ever since, the state government
implemented a good number of special projects — Attappadi Co-operative
Farming Society, the Western Ghats Development Programme, the
Attappadi Valley Irrigation Programme — for the development of the
block, and many other poverty alleviation programmes under the ITDP
and Integrated Rural Development Project.

According to the State Planning Board, during the Ninth Five Year Plan
(1997-2002) Rs 13.28 crores have been spent in this block alone. Out
of this amount 20% was spent in the health sector. A Rs 219-crore eco-
restoration project (Attappadi Comprehensive Environmental
Conservation and Wasteland Development Project) aided by the Japan
government is being implanted in this area since 1996 through
Attappadi Hills Area Development Society (AHADS), a state government
agency.

Yet, the region remains a symbol of backwardness with about 80 per
cent of the tribal population living in abject poverty. None of the
projects implemented here so far has taken the peculiarities of
adivasi culture and beliefs into consideration. Even the much-hyped
People’s Planning Programme implemented in the state during 1997-2002
as the Ninth Five Year Plan turned out to be a failure in Attappadi
since non-tribals constitute majority of the population, and also, due
to the illiteracy (overall literacy rate of Attappadi is 49.5 per cent
in sharp contrast with the totally-literate mainstream Kerala) and
lack of political and administrative awareness of the adivasis.

State’s priorities change

There are stark disparities in the healthcare services available to
remote tribal regions compared to other parts of the state. Also, as
Dr B Ekbal, national convenor of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (People’s
Health Movement) points out, there has been a definite decline in the
public health care system in the state since the 1980s. Starting from
the 1980s there was an overall drop in the rate of growth in
government health expenditure due to a fiscal crisis. This was
accentuated after 1991 as a result of economic liberalisation
policies.

In a study of the impact of macroeconomic adjustment policies on
access to healthcare, Dr D Narayana of the Centre for Development
Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, notes that between 1981-82 and 1997-98,
the state’s expenditure on medical and public health services, as a
proportion of total expenditure, declined from 9.62% to 6.98%. Capital
expenditure on medical and public health services, as a percentage of
total capital expenditure, plunged from 9.61% to 1.57%.

“As a result of this rolling back of government support to healthcare,
the first major casualty has been the rural health sector,” says Dr B
Ekbal, “It’s actually the lack of political commitment that has
largely brought about a decline in the public healthcare system in
Kerala. The state doesn’t even have a health policy of its own. There
has been no proper planning at the policy level. The government is
spending more money on super speciality hospitals than focusing on the
primary health care system.”

The State Health Department takes an indifferent attitude towards the
health issues of the tribal communities. The last comprehensive survey
in Kerala on the state of health and socio-economic status of the
adivasis was carried out in 1992. Instead of seeking sustainable
solutions to the problems faced by the tribal communities as a result
of their alienation from land, forest and culture, what is being done
is the distribution of free rice and iron tablets when starvation and
anaemia become acute. When a good amount of money is being otherwise
spent on development projects through the three-tier panchayats and
the centrally-assisted welfare schemes, is providing basic healthcare
services to the tribal communities that difficult? (Quest Features &
Footage). ⊕

M Suchitra
25 Jul 2005

M Suchitra is a Kochi based journalist associated with the Quest
Features and Footage. She was named the Development Journalist of the
year at the Developing Asia Journalism Awards 2006, for this article.
For more, see awards.

The betrayal of tsunami survivors

A blinkered bureaucracy has proved to be utterly insensitive to the
Andaman and Nicobar islanders. Instead of helping them rebuild their
lives and revive self-confidence, the government is reinforcing
practices of dependence and subservience while pushing its warped
version of relief and redevelopment, writes Colin Gonsalves.

Combat Law, Vol. 4, Issue 3 – Though much has been written about the
situation in Tamilnadu and Pondicherry, the conditions of tsunami
survivors in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is little known. Many
NGOs working in the area are collaborating with the administration and
are apprehensive about speaking out. With the arrival of the monsoons,
rehabilitation work has become slower. Many journalists covering the
Islands budget for a few days only, spend most of their time at Port
Blair, and cannot always make it to the smaller islands. The Human
Rights Lawyers Network team was on the Islands immediately after the
tsunami and has maintained a presence there to this day. This is their
report of the betrayal of the tsunami survivors.

The neglect of the people has its roots going back many decades and is
to be located in the isolation of the Islands from mainland India and
the consequent freedom given to the administration to do as they
please. Central scrutiny is minimal, few NGOs exist, the national
newspapers find it too expensive to cover the Islands in normal
circumstances and the Bar at Port Blair is not accustomed to doing
public interest petitions. All this creates a ripe situation for the
exploitation of the tribals who suffer without demur and protest
injustices done to them with amazing politeness.

Photographs by Sunil Kumar Jojo

Before the tsunami, the tribals had their own plantations, were
accustomed to fishing and had a certain sense of well being and self-
confidence. Though the balance of power between the administration and
the tribals always tilted in favour of the former, the tribals were
often determined to speak their mind and do as they please. The
tsunami changed all that. A once proud people are reduced to living in
tin sheds and on the free rations of government. They are shaken and
afraid. The administration could have responded to restore confidence
and self-esteem but did just the opposite. They reinforced practices
of dependence and subservience.

All that the people wanted in the first days after the tsunami were
tools so that they could build their houses with the timber lying
around. The government refused. Instead a hare-brained scheme for
providing tin sheds was floated at Delhi and pushed down the throats
of the tribals in the Islands. Tin sheds have been tried and have
failed everywhere. And yet in the Islands tens of thousands of these
sheets were ordered and distributed. From the cool confines of their
machaans made of wood the tribals were shifted to ovens where they
baked in the afternoon sun. These temporary structures had no flooring
and so when the rains came inside, so too did the slush.

Everywhere the tribals protested but they were scared that their
criticism of the tin sheds may be seen by the administration
negatively and may result in the withdrawal of benefits. So they
suffered the stupid mainlander. But they would ask again and again
‘give us tools’; they were ignored.

Then and now: The once proud Nicobari people living in their natural
habitat have been forced now to live in abominable conditions in
tinsheds.
That single act, the provision of good wood cutting tools would have
restored the confidence of the tribals. They would have built their
houses of wood once again. There was no need to have two phases, one
for the construction of temporary shelters and another for permanent
housing because the tribals would have merged the two phases and
expanded and consolidated the temporary shelter to convert it into
their final home. I have no doubt that had the administration done
this simple act of providing tools, all the tribals in the Islands
would have been housed within a month after the tsunami.

Instead what do we have? As long after the tsunami as May 2005, when
we visited the Islands, we found even the temporary shelters
incomplete everywhere, and the tribals leaving their homes and going
into the forest areas in the afternoons to escape the heat of the tin
sheds. And as we were leaving the monsoons first showers came in,
making the houses unliveable.

Then we learned that someone at Delhi has taken a decision to build
pre-fabricated houses, either of reinforced cement concrete or a steel
tubular structure, as permanent housing in the Andamans. The salinity
of the air will cause the RCC structures to corrode and the tubular
structures to rust. The tribals will not be able to maintain these
houses and repair them, having no skills to do so. If this dubious
plan works, the whole Andaman and Nicobar Islands will be converted
into a giant concrete slum. There are officials overanxious to push
this plan through, going from island to island and village to village
giving the people three plans to chose from: all RCC or steel but not
wood, giving the people the impression that they either accept that or
they will get nothing at all.

And then casually, almost as if by chance, we heard from the mouth of
a senior administration officer that the free rations will be
discontinued from October. There can be no greater injustice than
this. The lives of the tribals have been shattered, their communities
splintered, their livelihood destroyed, their homes washed away and,
in these circumstances, all that they have, in the name of a little
bit of security, is their free rations. They have no boats so they
cannot fish. Free grains is what they depend on to survive. What we
would like to know is: Who has taken the decision to discontinue the
provision of free grains and why are the people not being told about
this decision?

We found water shortages everywhere. People were drinking contaminated
water. Children were falling sick. Truly no one cares for the little
children. In the six months since the tsunami, apart from a few
sporadic attempts, their education came to a standstill, with the
State not bothering to supply text books and note books. Had that
elementary thing been done, the teachers in the villages would have
ensured that the students not lose any time.

Many villages were in darkness. Where the electricity lines were up
and the generators in place there was no kerosene. In some places
public transportation was at a standstill and people had to walk long
distances to reach their villages.

It is pathetic to see the manner in which the people travel from
island to island and that too in the Andamans which houses a large and
sophisticated naval base. The ships have no fixed timings. When they
sail they carry passengers many times their capacity with people
huddled on deck like cattle. The toilets are stinking and overflowing.
Sometimes for days the people wait.

Like the demand for tools we heard the demand for boats everywhere.
Like the demand for tools this was also something that would restore
self-confidence and a sense of self-worth. The people would fish. They
would travel from island to island carrying their vegetables and doing
some trade. Independence, morale and self-confidence of the tribal
people must be a priority.

Where has all the money gone? Ask an official, and he will give you a
lump sum figure. Ask another and he will give you an entirely
different sum. Why is it that the Government of India refuses to put
up on a website or publish in a newspaper the list of beneficiaries
with the amounts donated? There is strong resistance to this in the
administration. It is not the business of the NGOs to ask such
questions, we were told in a meeting. Large sums of money exist and
must be used for the purpose it was intended for. A CAG inquiry may be
of some use. But there is no excuse for a government, committed to the
Right to Information, not to disclose to the public at large details
of the money received and precise details as to how it is being spent.
The greatest justification for this is the fact that on the ground the
tribals suffer deprivation and ill health.

It is pathetic to see the manner in which the people travel from
island to island and that too in the Andamans which houses a large and
sophisticated naval base. The ships have no fixed timings. When they
sail they carry passengers many times their capacity with people
huddled on deck like cattle.
In the past two months the situation has shown some signs of
improvement. The Chief Secretary has initiated a larger process of
consultation with tribal leaders. Non-governmental organisations find
themselves better placed to engage with the administration and provide
the much needed support to affected communities. Whether the
administrations good intentions will be backed by action that improves
the conditions of the tsunami survivors is yet to be seen.

While the basic requirements of food, shelter, education and
livelihood have not been fulfilled, grand plans are afoot to convert
parts of the islands into a thriving tourist hub, with little thought
to the strain on the already fragile ecology of the battered islands.
On 24 July 2005, another offshore earthquake of magnitude 7.2 struck
the islands causing panic and the fear of another tsunami. Now more
than six months after the tsunami, the administration must quickly
move beyond workshops and start a systematic process of community
disaster drills. Communication with certain islands continues to be
erratic. The task is enormous. The efforts must be visible in the
lives of the common people without any further delay.

Colin Gonsalves
Combat Law, Volume 4, Issue 3

August-September 2005
(published 11 September 2005 in India Together)

CONSERVATION VS. TRIBAL RIGHTS

Ecology for the people

The ongoing vigorous debate between wildlife enthusiasts and tribal
rights activists must be steered by a vital lesson from past
conservation failures – that India’s unparalleled riches of
biodiversity can only be protected by working with, rather than
against, the rural and tribal communities who live closest to them,
writes Ramachandra Guha.

14 November 2005 – Early in 2005, a vigorous debate broke out within
India about the status of the country’s national animal, the tiger.
Reports began appearing in the press suggesting that there had been an
alarming drop in the animal’s numbers. In several formally notified
Project Tiger sanctuaries, such as Sariska, no tigers were spotted for
weeks on end. Anecdotal evidence from other parks – particularly those
in northern India – also confirmed the decline. This fresh
manifestation of a ‘tiger crisis’ led to the prime minister
constituting a Tiger Task Force, and, beyond this, to a wider debate
on the best means of preventing the tiger from sliding into
extinction.

As it happens, with this debate on the tiger was commenced,
simultaneously, a debate on the rights of adivasis in forest areas.
This was sparked off by a new legislation proposed by the Ministry of
Tribal Affairs, which seeks to give ‘a permanent stake to scheduled
tribes’ living in the forests. Based on the (correct) presumption that
the colonial regime had committed a ‘historic wrong’ in wresting
rights of forest ownership from the tribals, the new law wishes to
make amends, by now involving them more directly in forest use and
forest conservation.

The tribal rights bill has been vigorously opposed by wildlife
conservationists. In their view, it would only put further pressure on
the natural forests that are the last remaining redoubt of the tiger.
The prominent conservationist, Valmik Thapar, insists that “tigers
have to be saved in undisturbed, inviolate landscapes… You either
create landscapes that are undisturbed, or you don’t save tigers. As
far as I’m concerned, tigers and human beings – forest dwellers or
tribal peoples – cannot co-exist.”

“… tigers have to be saved in undisturbed, inviolate landscapes… You
either create landscapes that are undisturbed, or you don’t save
tigers. As far as I’m concerned, tigers and human beings – forest
dwellers or tribal peoples – cannot co-exist.”

- Valmik Thapar

• Understanding encroachments
• Forest fights, Indian style
• Recognition of forest rights
• “They are people too”

On the other side, anthropologists and tribal activists dismiss the
views of such conservationists as arrogant and elitist, as putting the
interests of animals above that of poor humans. Elitist these views
probably are, and very definitely unhistorical. For, in fact, tigers
and tribals have co-existed for centuries in India. True, in some
parts they now compete for survival and subsistence. But the reason
for that is that the living space and natural resources of both have
shrunk because of economic processes powered by humans who are not
tigers, nor tribals either. The shrinkage of the tiger’s habitat, and
the shrinking of their numbers, is the result of such things as large
dams, iron ore mines, and menus in Beijing and Taipei restaurants – in
sum, the result of the lifestyle of the urban elite and the industrial
and commercial interests that go with them. It is fair to say that in
the unfolding of these processes, the tribal has been almost as much a
victim as the tiger itself. The solution urged by Thapar and his
colleagues is to punish one victim in order, ostensibly, to save the
other.

The media, naturally, have seized on this debate between ‘the tiger’
and ‘the tribal’. However, two recent and quite soberly presented
reports allow us to go beyond these polarized positions, towards a
more scientific approach with regard to biodiversity conservation in
India. The first is a fascinating study of the country’s biodiversity
commissioned in 2000 by the ministry of environment and forests, and
coordinated by the pioneering environmental group, Kalpavriksh.
Covering all of India’s states and Union territories, this was the
most participatory exercise in environmental planning ever undertaken
in the country’s history. (It is also, most likely, without parallel
elsewhere in the world.) Kalpavriksh worked with state and Central
governments, NGOs, scientists, and peasant and tribal communities to
produce nearly one hundred plans, these grouped under political
regimes, ecological zones and subject themes. Each report aimed at
integrating the ecological security of the region or state with the
livelihood security of those humans who most critically depended on
its biodiversity. It studied and critically assessed biodiversity in
the wild as well as in cultivated areas, and gave a special focus to
the rights of women and children (the main cultivators and collectors
of this biodiversity).

These various specific studies have been synthesized in a ‘final
technical report’ entitled Securing India’s Future (see this link for
more). Where traditional conservation focusses merely on saving large
mammals – those ‘megacharismatic metavertebrates’ – what we have here
is a far more sophisticated approach, and in at least three respects.
First, it is ecumenical with regard to scale, whereby small patches of
refugia, such as sacred groves or ponds, are given the same loving
attention as are large areas of wilderness. Second, it is ecumenical
with regard to species, with rare plants (including cultivated plants)
and insects being valued along with megacharismatic metavertebrates.
Third, it respects not just the human rights, but also the knowledge
systems of local communities, in order to incorporate folk ecological
knowledge in the management of conservation regimes.

This final technical report, summarizing all the others, recommends
that in matters pertaining to biodiversity management, “the State
becomes a facilitator rather than a ruler”, by nurturing “a
decentralized natural resource governance structure”. It argues that a
viable long-term policy must “strengthen and support community
conservation areas – across the entire rural land/waterscape”.

As it happens, the report of the Tiger Task Force, also just
published, likewise recommends a shift from ‘exclusive’ to more
‘inclusive’ methods of national park management. It deplores the
tendency of “tiger lovers … to band together into a select group that
would control policy and programme formulation” in the “belief that
the tiger can only be protected by building stronger and higher fences
against ‘depredators’”. In contrast to this centralizing perspective,
the task force draws attention to the vulnerability and suffering of
the underprivileged Indians who “share their resources with the tiger,
without getting any benefits in return … To succeed, tiger
conservation … has to bring benefits to [these] poor people.”

How might this be accomplished? One way is to turn those who lived in
and around national parks “into the frontline defenders of the forests
and protected areas, rather than see them as antagonists”. Their
knowledge and skills could be used to guide researchers and eco-
tourists, rather than poachers. Rather than ban all human use of the
forests, the state might encourage the sustainable extraction of non-
timber forest produce, such as honey, as was in fact being done, very
successfully, in some parks in south India. The choice was between
working with local people “to create situations in which they can live
within the rules of the protected areas and in fact to strengthen
[their] protection”, or working against them “so that they
increasingly turn against the protected areas and animals”. If the
latter alternative was preferred, warns the report, the state would
have to “invest more and more into protection – more fences, guns and
guards. Maybe we will win. But it is more likely we will lose”.

Both within the state bureaucracy, and among traditional wildlifers,
there is a strong resistance to change, a knee-jerk reliance on a
narrow-minded, centralizing and essentially punitive approach to
conservation.
These two quite outstanding reports draw on years of cutting-edge
research by Indian scientists. Thus, biologists like Raman Sukumar
have shown how it is possible to resolve conflicts between large
mammals and vulnerable villagers living in and around park areas.
Sociologists like Ashish Kothari have convincingly argued that, in the
long run, only a more participatory approach will save the forests and
their varied inhabitants. And ecologists like Madhav Gadgil have
outlined how conservation needs to move outwards, from saving species
towards protecting habitats and biodiversity as a whole.

The three scholars mentioned in the previous paragraph are all
internationally renowned for their work. They are regarded, outside
India, as global pioneers. Sadly, they have sometimes been prophets
without honour in their own country. For both within the state
bureaucracy, and among traditional wildlifers, there is a strong
resistance to change, a knee-jerk reliance on a narrow-minded,
centralizing and essentially punitive approach to conservation. This
makes it all the more necessary that these truly visionary documents
do not gather dust in sarkari offices. It was the government which
commissioned these reports; pressure must now be brought to bear to
ensure that they are implemented. For the lesson of our past
conservation failures is simply this – that India’s unparalleled
riches of biodiversity can only be protected by working with, rather
than against, the rural and tribal communities who live closest to
them. ⊕

Ramachandra Guha
14 Nov 2005

Ramachandra Guha is a historian, and a regular columnist with The
Telegraph of Calcutta. His writings are republished here by
arrangement.

CULTURE

Gonds nourish aspirations at annual fair

In what is supposed to be an annual religious and cultural gathering,
nothing is more mixed up than the speeches. Talks that start with the
fine points of Gondi religion, its practice and ritual, inevitably
delve into subjects with deeper socio-political resonance. From
interior Maharashtra, Aparna Pallavi reports on the annual Kachhargarh
fair.

28 February 2006 – “What are you looking for in this place? If you are
hoping to find answers here, you are in the wrong place. The only
worthwhile thing you can hope to take back from here is questions,”
says the serious, bespectacled Justice L R Maravi, a sessions judge in
Gondia district, Maharashtra and a Gond community leader. One hardly
knows how to respond to this staggering but forthright piece of
advice. What kind of answers can you expect anyway in this place where
everything refuses to conform to your ideas of what they ought to be?

It is Maagh Purnima day, and we are at the annual Kachhargarh tribal
fair in the deep interior Salekasa tehsil of Bhandara district,
Maharashtra. The fair is held to celebrate the day when, in Gond
mythology, the children of Mata Kali Kankali (not to be confused with
the Hindu deity Kali), mother goddess of the Gond people, were rescued
from a cave by the Gond religious leader Kari Kupar Lingo and his
sister Jango Raitad.

As we thread our way through thick crowds towards the little village
of Dhannegaon located at the foot of Kachhargarh hill, Dr Motiram
Kangali, a prominent Gond community leader and head of the Gondi Punem
(religion and culture) Mahasangha — the apex religious body of the
Gonds, updates us on the history of the fair. Kangali is with the
Reserve Bank of India and is a Ph D. “In the year 1976 some of us,
then students active in the tribal students movement, read about this
fair in the books of Russle and C U Wills.” Kangali, and two of his
friends K B Maraskole and Sheetal Markam, (who later went on to form
the Gondwana Mukti Sena, one of the constituent bodies of the Gondwana
Ganatantra Party) visited the place out of curiosity. “We found that
the fair had shrunk from the grand affair it once used to be to nearly
a non-event, with hardly 500 people visiting the spot annually.”

After visiting several other Gond pilgrimage centres in Central India,
the group selected Kachhargarh – originally known as Koili Kachar
Lohgarh, as the most convenient spot where Gond tribals from Central
India, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh could be brought together under a
common identity. “It was also around the same time that we realized
that there was no written documentation of Gond history, culture,
mythology and ritual,” says Kangali. This prompted him to take up the
work of research and documentation.

It was ten full years after this first visit, from 1986 onwards, that
the fair started being held at the present large scale. The
organisational activity that went into the fair also led to the
formation of the Gondwana Ganatantra Party (GPP), the political
organisation of the Gond people. Today, as many as 3-4 lakh Gond
tribals from the above-mentioned states visit the fair over three or
four days around Maagh Purnima time. The number of non-Gonds is
negligible. Mostly, it is journalists and social observers or just
curious urbanites. There is no tourism value to this cave or fair yet.

People hovering at the entrance of the sacred Kachhargarh cave. Pic:
Aparna Pallavi.

Within an hour of arrival, we commence the three km walk to the sacred
Kachhargarh cave – the most important part of the pilgrimage. The last
stretch is a difficult climb over a jagged hillside dotted with
ancient trees. It is awesome and breathtakingly beautiful to the eyes,
and a torture to limbs long habituated to urban ease.

But it is worth the trouble after all. The ancient cave, with its
dark, damp walls, and the cool, heavy air that pervades it, belongs to
another time. Its stream is a not-very impressive trickle in February,
but it swells to a torrent during the rains. It is too dark inside to
trace the stream’s origin, but the gurgling sound inside the cave is
enchanting. Deep and wide enough to accommodate some 20,000 people at
once, Kachhargarh cave retains its timeless quiet despite the presence
of a few hundred people in it.

Even if one misses the religious or mythological significance, there
is no way one can miss the spirit. For once, we are back to the days
of the earth’s youth. Here is meaning. Here is beauty. Here at last
you learn the meaning of the words ‘peace that passeth understanding.’
Here time does not exist. Here all questions dissolve, and so do
answers. There is nothing to look for any more, and nothing to hold on
to either. If only you could stay in this place and this state of mind
for ever, things would be all right.

But it is getting dark, and we have to get back down. Back to today.

Down to the tiny hamlet of Dhannegaon, whose every home is an open
house during the three days of the fair (February 11, 12 and 13 this
year). “You don’t have to know the residents,” says Chandralekha
Kangali, “You can camp in anyone’s courtyard, cook food, eat, sleep,
and stock your luggage.” Over tea, Maharashtra state chief of the
Gondwana Ganatantra Party, Raje Vasudev Shah Tekam says, “This is
mainly a cultural and religious fair. We Gond people have lost our
identity, our culture and religion – we have become a scattered
people. Through this fair we want to refresh our understanding of
these things, and rediscover our identity and dignity as one people.”

The GPP is not politically very strong, at least yet. Hari Singh
Markam was once elected to Parliament in what is now Chhattisgarh.
Some people have been elected at the local level, again in
Chhattisgarh, and very few in Madhya Pradesh.

Gondi world view

The Gond religion is nature-based. The Gond style of social
organisation is based on the ‘saga’ (clan) system. Under this system,
which was established by the Gond religious leader Kari Kupar Lingo,
there are 12 ‘sagas’ or groups which are further divided into 750
‘kur’ or clans.

Each clan is bound by the Gondi religion to protect one tree or plant,
one animal and one bird. The clan names are based on this
categorisation. For instance, the name Markam relates to the mango
tree, while the name Kangali refers to a certain climber.

The marriage rules of Gond tribals are also based on this
organisation. All the clans in one ‘saga’ worship a certain number of
deities, ranging from 1 to 7. Intermarriage between members from
different clans is permitted if one clan worships an odd number
(visham) of deities and the other an even (sam) number. The clans with
odd and even numbers cannot intermarry.

In several parts of India, Gond communities have forgotten this system
of marriage. At present, research is on to rediscover the vital
details of this system. Community leaders feel that the
reestablishment of this system is vital to the identity of the Gond
community.

Women: Gond mythology has it that Kari Kupar Lingo’s sister Jango
(rebel) Raitad started a social reform movement for the rights of
women, after which widows were given rights to maintenance in the
marital home as well as remarriage. Also, a woman’s consent is
important for marriage. Women have equal educational status.

• Caste panchayats and Gond women
• Convention of adivasis and nomads

Politics, he explains, is not on the fair’s agenda, but it is
impossible to keep it out entirely, as political overtones to the
religious and cultural message are inevitable.

“We Gonds want to resurrect our social and religious structure — the
system of 12 sagas and 700 kur (clans),” says Anandrao Madawi,
mursenal (chief) of the Jagatik Gond Saga Mandi, the apex body of the
Gond tribal panchayats, “We want our own state, our own language, our
own punem (religion). We want others to recognise that we exist.”

A quick ramble in the little makeshift market – the kind that
inevitably springs up at such places — makes for interesting
observation. There are several stalls selling books on Gond religion,
culture and even the basics of the spoken language. “A lot of our
people have forgotten the Gondi boli (language),” explains Kangali.
His books are being sold under the name Motiravan Kangali – a small
but startling piece of tribal self-assertion against Hindu
assimilation. Kangali is known by this first name in the Gond
community, and retains his original first name, Motiram, at work.

At other stalls, Gond religious symbols are for sale – some emblazoned
on T-shirts, some framed together with Hindu symbols. Stalls selling
traditional Gond paraphernalia of worship – exotic roots and herbs –
sit cheek by jowl with others selling incense, coconuts, tulsi and
rudraksha beads. Several stalls selling cassettes and CDs of Gondi
songs are doing brisk business. But beneath their glossy, faux filmi
covers, (one has a picture of a popular Hindi film actress) it is
impossible to determine which ones are authentic and which have been
created for the market.

“Each year the number of people at the fair goes up,” quips a senior
journalist from Nagpur, Jagdeesh Shahu. “But each year you see lesser
and lesser traditional clothes,” he adds.

“It is certainly not easy,” admits Tekam, “Our people want to recover
their religious-cultural identity, but the Hindu and global cultures
do have an insidious grip over their minds. There are contradictory
pulls.”

But there are positive signs too, says Kangali. At one time Hindu
assimilation was so complete that Gond people were ashamed of their
identities, and even clan names had been modified to sound like Hindu
surnames, he points out. “But since the resurrection of this fair, a
large number of people have resumed their original identities and clan
names. That is a beginning, at least,” he says.

Meanwhile some Angadevs have also descended from the cave. The
Angadevs are very small idols, 33 in number, and symbolise the
children of the mother goddess who were rescued by Lingo and later
became the emissaries of his message. They are put on ornate palkhis
(palanquins) and brought to the fair. The original idols are very
small. It is not clear if they always accompany the palkhi, and the
palkhi itself is the symbol of the Angadev, I am told.

An authentic, unadulterated cultural ritual unfolds. Clad in clean
white cotton half shirts, half dhotis and head-scarves, — proper Gondi
costume — the bearers of the palkhis dance around the Gond flag to
rhythmic drum beats. Men and women overcome by hypnotic emotion whirl
round and round in the spaces between. Since there is no fixed time of
the Angadevs coming and going, the dance takes place as and when some
idols are ready to return.

One of the palkhis descending from the hill. Pic: Aparna Pallavi.

7 pm. Time for today’s session of the Gond religious conference. The
huge marquee, with a capacity of at least 20,000 people, is crammed
full. They squeeze tighter inside the marquee and spill our over the
huge ground at the centre of which the marquee has been erected. By
midnight, the crowd will have swelled three times this size, say
community leaders, and a visual estimate indicates that this may not
be an exaggeration.

We are huddled on the dias — which appears to be an open-for-all area
where people come and take up space at will — with a motley crowd of
about 70 people. The speakers are a mixed crowd of politicians,
religious leaders, community elders and others whose identities are
not very clear.

Nothing is more mixed up than the speeches that are made. In the very
beginning, the announcers have instructed all speakers to stick to
religious matters. But talks that start with the fine points of
religious precept, practice and ritual, inevitably slip off into
subjects with deeper socio-political resonance. Language, culture,
identity, exploitation, the need for organisation and political self-
assertion, the need to resist cultural assimilation — all interlace
with rhetoric, religion, myth, ritual and even superstitious mumbo-
jumbo to form one complicated fabric in which it is impossible to
identify or sort out the different strains of thought.

The resolutions that are passed are definitely not religious —
inclusion of the Gondi language in the Eighth Schedule of the
Constitution and Gondi as an optional subject in schools in the seven
states with a high proportion of Gond population. Community leaders
say there are about 14 crore Gonds in the country — twice the
population of Maharashtra.

One is tempted to be judgemental — no clarity, no coherence, no order.
No one knows what they want. Why do they want to hold a religious fair
if they are going to talk politics?

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Or is it so? How much coherence can you reasonably expect from a
people who, along with their fellow adivasi communities, have been
victims of ruthless uprooting, exploitation and assimilation for
centuries? A people who are mostly impoverished, uneducated, have no
recourse to social or political power or sanction? A people who must
create a past, present and future; a history, identity and aspiration
for themselves — an entire discourse — all at once? Is twenty years
enough for such a mammoth task?

The questions do not allow easy responses. The realities are complex
and multilayered, and concerns that look overly simple one moment are
mindboggling the next.

Or maybe we are just missing the desperate undertone to everything
else — get together to survive! Hold on to each other — any link, any
reason will do. Just stand together…..

Meanwhile it is midnight. On the dias and in the marquee, people are
curling up to sleep where they can, even as a cultural programme is
announced. There is nothing to do but to follow suit.

As I work my tired body into a semi-comfortable posture between other
sleeping bodies, Justice Marawi’s eyes are suddenly just two inches
away from my own. “Did you get any answers?” he asks in a whisper. Did
I? I shake my head. “Pay attention to the questions, though,” he
whispers back, “Who knows one day they will lead to answers.” ⊕

Aparna Pallavi
28 Feb 2006

Aparna Pallavi is a journalist based in Nagpur, and writes on
development issues.

PRS LEGISLATIVE BRIEF

STs (Recognition of forest rights) bill

Who can live in forested areas? What rights to they have over lands
they have lived in for generations? Can they be relocated, and if so
on what terms? Legislation in Parliament attempts to balance forest
dwellers’ rights with economic and environmental objectives. Kaushiki
Sanyal presents a legislative brief.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BILL
(Read this section in detail)

*

The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005 seeks
to recognise forest rights of forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes (FDSTs)
who have been occupying the land before October 25, 1980.
*

An FDST nuclear family would be entitled to the land currently
occupied subject to a maximum of 2.5 hectares. The land may be
allocated in all forests including core areas of National Parks and
Sanctuaries.
*

This page is organised as follows: The highlights of the Bill and the
key issues to be considered are listed briefly first; the details of
each are presented thereafter. Click here to see the highlights in
detail, and here to see the detailed analysis of key issues.
In core areas, an FDST would be given provisional land rights for five
years, within which period he would be relocated and compensated. If
the relocation does not take place within five years, he gets
permanent right over the land.
*

The Bill outlines 12 forest rights which include the right to live in
the forest, to self cultivate, and to use minor forest produce.
Activities such as hunting and trapping are prohibited.
*

The Gram Sabha is empowered to initiate the process of determining the
extent of forest rights that may be given to each eligible individual
or family.

KEY ISSUES AND ANALYSIS
(Read this section in detail)

*

There are no reliable estimates of the likely number of eligible
families although the Bill proposes to vest forest land rights to
FDSTs. Therefore, it is not known whether there could be significant
risk to existing forest cover.
*

If FDSTs in core areas are not relocated within five years, it could
lead to loss of forests, which are crucial to the survival of certain
species of wildlife. Large-scale relocation, on the other hand, could
result in possible harassment of FDSTs.
*

Communities who depend on the forest for survival and livelihood
reasons, but are not forest dwellers or Scheduled Tribes, are excluded
from the purview of the Bill.
*

The Bill specifies October 25, 1980 as the cut-off date to determine
eligibility. However, it does not clarify the kind of evidence that
would be required by FDSTs to prove their occupancy.
*

Terms such as ‘livelihood needs’ have not been defined. This could
lead to litigation and delay in implementation.

PART A: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BILL

Context

The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005 was
drafted to fulfill the need for a comprehensive legislation to give
due recognition to the forest rights of tribal communities [1]. These
rights were not recorded while consolidating state forests during the
colonial period as well as in independent India.

Recognizing the symbiotic relationship between tribal people and
forests, the National Forest Policy, 1988 [2], made provisions to
safeguard the customary rights and interests on forest land of
tribals. In order to implement these provisions, the Ministry of
Environment and Forest (MoEF) issued a set of six circulars [3] on
September 18, 1990 which decreed that pre-1980 occupation of forest
land would be eligible for regularization provided the State
Government had evolved certain eligibility criteria in accordance with
the local needs and conditions. The State Governments, however, failed
to implement the 1990 Guidelines.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court order [4] led to large scale evictions by
the Forest Departments of various states. Following mass protests by
tribal communities, the MoEF issued supplementary guidelines on
February 5, 2004 to address the issue of recognizing the legal right
of tribal communities to forest land and resources. However, the
Supreme Court issued a stay order on the Guidelines.

Key features

* Rights of Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes

The Bill seeks to recognize and vest forest rights in forest dwelling
Scheduled Tribes (FDSTs), where they are scheduled, with respect to
forest land and their habitat. The forest rights in the core areas of
National Parks and Sanctuaries shall be granted on provisional basis
for a period of five years from the date of commencement of this Act.
If the holders of such rights are not relocated within five years with
due compensation, the rights would become permanent. The rights can be
inherited but they are not transferable.

The Bill delineates 12 rights of FDSTs over a variety of subjects. The
rights include: (a) living in the forest for habitation or for self
cultivation for livelihood, (b) community rights such as nistar (the
right of a resident of a village in respect of cattle grazing and
collection of jungle produce), (c) right to own, use or dispose of
minor forest produce, (d) conversion of forest village to revenue
village, (e) conversion of pattas or leases issued by any local
authority or any state government on forest land to titles, and (f)
other traditional customary rights. Customary rights exclude hunting,
trapping or extracting body parts of any wild animal. FDSTs also
cannot indulge in any activity that adversely affects wild animals,
forests and the biodiversity in the local area and need to ensure that
adjoining catchments areas and water sources are adequately protected.

Forest rights of FDSTs would be subject to the condition that such
communities had occupied forest land before October 25, 1980 [The
Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 came into force on this date]. The
Bill specifies that no FDST shall be evicted from forest land under
his occupation till the recognition and verification procedure is
completed.

The Bill states that forest rights would be vested on such land which
is occupied by an individual or family or community when the Act comes
into force. The rights would be restricted to the area under actual
occupation and shall not exceed an area of 2.5 hectares per nuclear
family. The title would be registered jointly in case of married
persons and in the name of the single head in case of single member
households.

Forest rights would be conferred free of conditions such as Net
Present Value (NPV) and compensatory afforestation for diversion of
forest land [5]. Under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, the state
government or any other authority cannot divert forest land for non-
forest purposes without prior approval of Government of India. In case
it is diverted, a certain amount of money (NPV of the land) has to be
deposited with the government for purposes of compensatory
afforestation, and the State government has to keep aside a
proportionate area of land for afforestation.
* Authorities for Vesting Forest Rights

The Gram Sabha, a village assembly of all adult members of a village,
shall have the authority to initiate the process of determining the
nature and extent of individual or community forest rights that may be
given to FDSTs within the local limits of its jurisdiction under this
Act. The Gram Sabha is empowered to receive claims, consolidate and
verify them, and prepare a map delineating the area of each
recommended claim in such manner as may be prescribed for exercise of
such rights. It would then pass a resolution to that effect and
forward a copy to the Sub-Divisional Level Committee (SDLC).

The SDLC, which shall be constituted by the State Government, would
examine the resolution passed by the Gram Sabha and prepare the record
of forest rights. It would then be forwarded to the District Level
Committee (DLC) through the Sub-Divisional Officer for a final
decision. The DLC would be the final authority to approve the record
of forest rights prepared by the SDLC.

A State Level Monitoring Committee would be formed to monitor the
process of recognition and vesting of forest rights. The Committee
would submit returns and reports to the nodal agency (the ministry
dealing with Tribal Affairs). The SDLC, DLC and the State Level
Monitoring Committee would consist of officers from the departments of
Revenue, Forest and Tribal Affairs at the appropriate level as may be
prescribed.

If a person is not satisfied by the ruling of the Gram Sabha, he can
file a petition to the SDLC who would consider and dispose of such
petition. If a person is not satisfied by the decision of the SDLC, he
can petition to the DLC within 60 days of date of decision of the
SDLC. The DLC’s decision would be final and binding.
* Penalties for Offences

In case a person is found guilty of contravening or abetting the
contravention of the provisions of the Act, engaging in unsustainable
use of forest or forest produce, killing any wild animal or destroying
forest or any other aspect of biodiversity or felling trees for any
commercial purpose, he shall be punished with a fine which may extend
to Rs 1,000. In case the offence is committed more than once, the
forest rights of the guilty person would be derecognized for such
period as the DLC, on the recommendation of the Gram Sabha, may
decide. The penalty would be in addition to any other law for the time
being in force.

If members or officers of authorities and committees commit an
offence, they would be deemed guilty and can be fined up to Rs 1,000.

PART B: KEY ISSUES AND ANALYSIS

The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005, aims
to recognize and enforce the rights of FDSTs to forest land and
resources. The main challenge of the Bill is to harmonize the
potentially conflicting interest of recognizing forest rights of FDSTs
while protecting forests and wildlife resources. Lack of data

• Ecology for the people
• Forest fights, Indian style
• Understanding encroachment
• Their lands, our laws

Although the Bill proposes to recognize and vest forest land rights to
FDSTs, there are no reliable estimates of the number of families who
will be benefiting from the proposed legislation. Secondly, although
the government estimates that there are around 2-3 million people
living inside India’s protected areas (national parks and sanctuaries)
[6], there is no census of the number of FDSTs residing within the
core areas of national parks and sanctuaries [7]. Therefore, it is not
possible to calculate how much forest land would be required in order
to implement the provisions of the Bill.

Tribal Rights vs Environmental Conservation

* Differing Viewpoints

There are three main streams of thought regarding this issue. Some
experts say that tribal communities have lived in forests for
centuries, and granting them the formal right over forest land is just
undoing a historical injustice. On the other extreme, some
conservationists say that certain species of animals (such as the
tiger) cannot co-exist with humans, and there is a need to reserve at
least some parts of forests to conserve these species. They also say
that increased human habitation in forests will cause depletion of
forest cover, resulting in significant ecological costs. A third view
is that traditional forest dwellers help in preserving forests, and
giving them land rights would actually help in ecological conservation
[8]. However, there does not appear to be any clear evidence to
conclusively support any of these views. Some of these issues are
discussed below.
* Allotment of Land

The Bill prescribes 2.5 hectares as the upper limit of forest land
that an FDST nuclear family may be allotted. However, there is a
possibility that it might result in elimination of legal protection
for forest cover, which could lead to heavy ecological damage [9]. For
instance, the possible depletion of watershed forests of Central
India, which allow penetration of rain water into the sub soil, could
lead to drying up of rivers such as Narmada, Tapti, Mahanadi,
Godavari, Krishna, and Cauveri [10]. The counter-argument is that the
Bill only seeks to recognize the forest rights of FDSTs who have been
cultivating the forest land for generations. In any case, the total
forest land under encroachment is estimated by the government at 13.43
lakh hectares [11], which amounts to about 2% of the recorded forest
area in the country [12].

It is also possible that confiscating forest land from the tribal
families, who possess more than 2.5 hectares of land, could lead to
further impoverishment of tribal communities [13].
* Core Areas

The Bill grants forest rights to FDSTs in core areas [14] of National
Parks and Sanctuaries provided they are relocated within five years.
If relocation does not take place within the prescribed time period,
the holder would get permanent right over forest land. Therefore,
there would either be large scale relocation of tribal communities or
they would get permanent right over land in core areas.

Given India’s poor track record in relocating people affected by
development projects, such as the Narmada Dam [15], or from
sanctuaries such as Sariska and Gir [16], the possibility of large
scale relocation from core areas raises the spectre of loss of
livelihood and hardship for FDSTs.

There could also be an argument against advocating coexistence between
wild animals and tribal communities. Certain species such as tigers,
rhinos, and elephants are vulnerable to pressures from human land use
[17]. These species are typically large-bodied, slow breeding, need
large areas, and vast resources for survival. Some experts argue that
it might be more realistic to identify protected areas, which consist
of National Parks and Sanctuaries (about 4.7% of India’s geographical
area [18]) as inviolate while areas outside such reserves could be
utilised to serve the needs of tribal communities [19].

Coverage

* 1980 ‘cut-off date’

The Bill takes October 25, 1980 as the cut-off date for vesting and
recognizing forest land rights of the tribal community. However, the
Bill does not specify the kind of evidence that FDSTs would require to
prove their occupancy of forest land before 1980. Although states such
as Maharashtra have adopted more effective procedures than just
documentary evidences (oral testimonies, evidence of elders of the
village etc.) for verifying claims [20], it is not mandatory for every
state to adopt such practices. Therefore, there might be a case for
specifying a set of admissible evidences in the Bill itself.

Also, it is unlikely that FDSTs would have the required documentary
evidence to prove their occupancy over forest land before 1980 [21].
Thus, in order to minimize evictions, a case could be made for
settling the claims of FDSTs on the basis of current occupancy of
forest land.
* Exclusion of certain communities

The Bill only recognizes forest rights of FDSTs who are defined as
‘Scheduled Tribes who primarily reside in forests and includes the
Scheduled Tribes pastoralist communities and who depend on the forests
or forest lands for bona fide livelihood needs.’ Other communities who
depend on the forest for survival and livelihood reasons, but are not
forest dwellers or Scheduled Tribes, for instance in large sections of
Chattisgarh and forest tracts of Uttaranchal [22], are excluded from
the purview of the Bill. This could lead to large-scale eviction of
such people and increase social tension among the various forest
communities.

The Bill also specifies that FDSTs would be granted forest rights only
in places where they are scheduled. However, such a clause could lead
to denial of rights to tribal communities on the ground that they do
not reside in the area where they are scheduled even though many
tribal people have been displaced due to development projects and
creation of protected areas [23].

Role of Gram Sabha

Although the Gram Sabha has been given the power to initiate the
process of determining forest rights, the final decision rests with
the DLC. The DLC is also the authority that would decide the period
for which an FDST’s forest rights is to be derecognized in case of
repeated contravention of the provisions of the Act. Although the
Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill envisages involvement of
democratic institutions at the grassroots level, the Gram Sabha does
not have the power to recognize forest rights or enforce such rights.

Eviction and Relocation

The Bill does not place any explicit restriction on the methods that
can be used to remove non-eligible forest dwellers. This is a concern,
given the history of cases where brutal force has been used to evict
tribal families [24]. The Bill mentions that FDSTs would be relocated
from core areas of National Parks and Sanctuaries with due
compensation. However, the Bill does not clarify exactly what kind of
compensation would be offered to the tribal people, what recourse they
would have if such compensation is not satisfactory or is altogether
denied.

Definitions

Certain terms mentioned in the Bill have not been defined. It could
lead to difficulty in implementing the provisions of the Bill. Clause
3 (j) mentions ‘the right to protect, regenerate or conserve or manage
any community forest resource which they have been traditionally
protecting and conserving for sustainable use.’ The term ‘community
forest resource’ is not defined, and hence, it is not clear whether
these also include resources within government owned forests including
National Parks and Sanctuaries. The term ‘nuclear family’ has also not
been defined, though each ‘nuclear family’ has a right up to 2.5
hectares of forest land. FDSTs are defined as those ‘members or
community of the Scheduled Tribes who depend on the forests or forest
land for bonafide livelihood needs’. The term ‘livelihood needs’ is
not defined which leaves the scope of activities allowed open to
interpretation.

Penalties

The Bill imposes a fine of Rs 1,000 on FDSTs in case of contravention
of provisions of the Act. If the offence is repeated, the person’s
forest rights might be derecognized for such period as decided by the
DLC on the recommendation of the Gram Sabha. However, the Bill does
not specify whether an FDST has the right to appeal such a ruling of
the DLC to a higher authority (such as the State Level Monitoring
Committee) other than to a court.

The member of a committee is also required to pay a fine of Rs 1,000
if found guilty of contravening the provisions of the Act. However,
this amount might not be a sufficient deterrent. ⊕

Kaushiki Sanyal
15 Apr 2006

Kaushiki Sanyal is a researcher with Parliamentary Research Service, a
unit of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. PRS is an
independent initiative to make the process of law-making in India more
transparent, better informed and participatory.

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Notes

1.

The National Advisory Council (Chairperson: Smt. Sonia Gandhi), made
certain recommendations, including the need for central legislation,
to improve the condition of the tribal population (see
http://nac.nic.in/concept%20papers/evictions.pdf)
2.

National Forest Policy, 1988
3.

(FP1) Regularization of Encroachment (FP2) Review of Disputed Claims
over Forest Land (FP3) Regularization of Pattas and Leases (FP4)
Elimination of Intermediaries and Payment of Fair Wages to the
Labourers on Forestry Works (FP5) Conversion of Forest Villages into
Revenue Villages and Settlement of Other Old Habitations (FP6) Payment
of Compensation for Loss of Life and Property Due to Predation/
Depredation by Wild Animals.
4.

In T.N. Godavarman vs Union of India (Writ Petition (C) No. 202 of
1995), the Supreme Court issued an order “restraining the Union of
India from permitting regularization of any encroachments whatsoever
without leave of this Hon’ble Court.” However, a letter of Inspector
General of Forests, dated May 3, 2002, instructs state governments to
evict the ineligible encroachers and all post-1980 encroachers from
forest land in a time bound manner. The letter refers to the SC order
of Nov 23, 2001
(see http://nac.nic.in/concept%20papers/evictions.pdf).
5.

Net Present Value (NPV) and Compensatory Afforestation are
requirements associated with using forest land under the Forest
(Conservation) Act, 1980. NPV of the diverted forest land is a measure
of the potential value of such land. The Supreme Court, in the course
of Godavarman case, mandated that any user agency, prior to diverting
forest land, would have to pay the NPV of that land to a Court created
Central Government agency called Compensatory Afforestation Management
and Planning Agency. The value, which is subject to upward revision,
was set at the rate of Rs 5.80 lakh to Rs 9.20 lakh per hectare of
forest land depending upon the quantity and density of the land in
question converted for non-forest use.
(see http://164.100.194.13/allied_forclr/htmls/Guidelines/Guidelines.htm,
and

http://www.elaw.org/resources/text.asp?id=2998)

6.

Press Information Bureau, Govt. of India
7.

M.D. Madhusudan, “Of Rights and Wrongs: Wildlife Conservation and
Tribal Bill”, (Economic and Political Weekly), November 19, 2005
8.

Pradip Prabhu, “The Right to Live With Dignity”, (Seminar), No. 552,
Aug 2005
9.

P.V. Jayakrishnan, “Is there a need for this Bill?”, (Seminar), No.
552, August 2005
10.

Beware of Tribal Bill’s Consequences: Buch, Hindustan Times, May 21,
2005
11.

Press Release, Ministry of Tribal Affairs
12.

Bela Bhatia, “Competing Concerns”, (Economic and Political Weekly),
Nov 19, 2005
13.

Madhuri Krishnaswamy, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”, (Economic
and Political Weekly), Nov 19, 2005
14.

Core Areas: National Parks and Sanctuaries are required to keep
certain areas inviolate for purposes of wildlife conservation. The
areas may be determined by the Ministry of the Central Government
dealing with Environment and Forests.
15.

Mike Levien, “Narmada: Life, Struggle and Exodus”, (India Together),
August 2004
16.

Ghazala Shahabuddin, Ravi Kumar, Manish Shrivastava, “Pushed over the
Edge”, (Economic and Political Weekly), Aug 6, 2005
17.

Refer M.D. Madhusudan (Note 7)
18.

Wildlife Institute of India’s Executive Summary, “Wild Life Protected
Area Network in India: A Review”
19.

Valmik Thapar’s Dissent Note in the Report of the Tiger Task Force
(Joining the Dots) set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forest
20.

Jean Dreze, “Tribal Evictions from Forest Land”, March 2005
21.

Refer Madhuri Krishnaswamy (Note 13)
22.

Refer Madhuri Krishnaswamy (Note 13)
23.

Madhu Sarin, “Scheduled Tribes Bill, 2005: A Comment”, (Economic and
Political Weekly), May 21, 2005
24.

Refer Jean Dreze (Note 20)

Comments (1)

* Posted by Dambarudhar Jamuda,

The FDSTs are mostly illiterate. Hence their gram Sabhas may not
deliver goods. Whether the rules made thereunder require the
Authorities to act as facilitators for the same and whether there is
provision for fixing responsibility in case of lapses. Any legislation
without teeth becomes ineffective, more so for the Acts meant for down
trodden.

IN PICTURES – Fight for Survival, documentary, 20 mins.

For more information on the film: madari.shorturl.com

27 April 2006 – It is often overlooked that laws are driven by the
values of the law makers. When these values turn against a particular
community, such as the African-Americans in the Jim Crow South,
zealous do-gooders often use the protection of the “law” to brutalize
those communities. In India, the Animal Rights Act is such a cover,
used by animal rights NGOs and forest department officials to
prosecute the Madaris, an iconic community that has worked with
animals through the millennia.

Fight for Survival won the second prize from amongst 85 films at the
South-Asia Livelihood Documentary Festival “Jeevika”, organised by the
Centre for Civil Society, in New Delhi from 20-28 January 2006.

• Convention of nomads and adivasis
• Gonds nourish aspirations at fair

In the film, Fight for Survival (20 mins), director Dakxin Bajrange
shows us the results of this persecution. In Gujarat in 2003, the
Animal Help Foundation and the forest department literally took the
fight to the Madaris. Under the guise of protecting animals, Madaris
were beaten by hired thugs, dragged out from their bastis, and locked
up in dog-cages. Their snakes were taken away, depriving them of their
only source of livelihood. But in the ruling values paradigm,
officials and the urban NGO have greater credibility than the Madaris
who are seen anyway as representative of an ignorant India, an India
that ‘India Shining’ seeks to leave behind.

Bajrange spoke to the NGOs who decry that “India is known as a country
of elephants and snake-charmers” and forest department officials to
get their side for the film. The officials brush off the complaints of
torture and beatings declaring that “to bring any change, some pain is
necessary.” Despite its focus on particular episodes of persecution,
Fight for Survival is a rich record of the lives of the Madaris. The
Madaris emerge not just as “snake-charmers”, but a living, thriving,
dynamic community.

Being a member of a stigmatised tribe himself, Bajrange brings to the
film a sense of the real, lived experience of being on the wrong side
of the law. In highlighting the situation of the Madaris, he speaks
out for voiceless communities everywhere.

Tarun Jain.
27 Apr 2006

Tarun Jain is a Ph.D student in Economics at the University of
Virginia.

• Adivasis
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Comments (2)

* Posted by Radhika Sharma,

I believe there are two ways of getting out of any situation; the one
that makes the situation better and the one that makes it worse. The
way that Animal Help Foundation and Forest Department are trying to
solve this issue (and I say this with all due respect to the cause),
is an example of the latter way.

India is indeed the land of snake charmers and elephants. And there
are ways to make sure it stays that way, without the consequent harm
to the animals. What if, for example, we were to introduce a system of
licensing these madaris. Only the license holder madaris would be
allowed to perform at predesignated places. These people could be
subjected to regular inspections/surprise audits of the animals and
the conditions they are kept in. Better still, these guys could be
provided some basic training on how to look after their animals. This
calls for more intervention and commitment from the government. The
non-licence holder madaris, if trying to run a illegal show, can be
then taken to task.

A cultural tradition should be provided more support to sustain and
flourish, not eliminated.

* Posted by sandeep kumar,

respected sir,
I think the possible answer to this problem is to engage these snake
charmers in
conservation of snakes by promoting venum cooperative which has helped
the Irula tribe in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh. This will not only
help the snake
charmers but will also help in snake conservation as well as snake
bitten
people.

yours faithfully,
sandeep kumar,
jharkhand 827006

THE NARMADA SAGA

Shunglu committee : familiar fait accompli

Both the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister recognised that
rehabilitation for Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river was
incomplete, but neither was willing to fulfil their legal
responsibility to actually stop construction. Instead, the the Shunglu
Committee is now “independently” investigating rehabilitation and it
appears compromised, worries Mike Levien.

3 July 2006 – Once again this year’s monsoon rains will bring
destruction instead of kharif to the people of the Narmada Valley. Yet
again the government has raised the height of the Sardar Sarovar (SSP)
dam without providing rehabilitation to those who will be displaced.
Successive dharnas by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) in Delhi,
including a three week fast by Medha Patkar and dam-affected villagers
Jamsingh Nargave and Bhagwatibai Patidar, have failed to make the
government listen.

In May, 48 dam-affected villages presented overwhelming evidence in
their Supreme Court application that rehabilitation of all affected
families at the impending 122m dam height is incomplete. Both the
government-appointed Group of Ministers who visited the valley and the
Madhya Pradesh government in its own petition to the court confirmed
this assertion. Despite all this, the Supreme Court allowed
construction on the SSP to continue. It is indisputable that this
decision is a direct violation of the apex court’s previous decisions
and relevant law.

Without the threat of stopping construction, the states have no
incentive to actually provide the required rehabilitation to project
affected families.

• A moral breach in the dam
• The dams balance sheet

According to the Narmada Waters Dispute Tribunal Award (NWDTA) and the
Supreme Court’s own decisions of 2000 and 2005, rehabilitation of all
Project Affected Families (PAFs) in all three affected states (Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat, and Maharashtra) must be totally completed six
months before each successive increase in the dam height. Anyone who
cares can look this up in the original NWDTA decision and also the
Supreme Court’s 2000 and 2005 decisions. Construction on the dam thus
cannot legally precede full rehabilitation of affected families.

The Shunglu Committee

Both the apex court and the Prime Minister recognised that
rehabilitation was incomplete, but neither was willing to fulfil their
legal responsibility to stop construction. Instead, the Prime Minister
created, and the Supreme Court endorsed, an Oversight Group (known as
the Shunglu Committee) to “independently” investigate the
rehabilitation situation in the Narmada Valley. The Court indicated
that it would be willing to stop construction if the committee finds
rehabilitation to be incomplete.

First, this decision employs a very strange logic. The Shunglu
Committee was supposed to report back to the Prime Minister about the
rehabilitation status in the valley by 20 June (this has since been
delayed). Based on this report, the Prime Minister is supposed to
issue a recommendation within seven days to the Supreme Court, which
is expected to make a decision by July 3. Even if the committee finds
that rehabilitation is incomplete (which it will if it conducts its
mission in good faith), by this time construction up to 122 m will be
finished!

This means that regardless of the committee’s findings, over 35,000
families in the Narmada Valley will see their homes, fields, and
communities flooded before the vast majority of them are given their
legally guaranteed rehabilitation. It must be stated again that this
is entirely illegal according to the NWDTA and the Supreme Court’s
previous decisions. Furthermore, as history shows, without the threat
of stopping construction, the states have no incentive to actually
provide the required rehabilitation to project affected families.
Thus, lakhs of adivasis displaced at 110m, 100m, 90m and below are
still languishing without alternative livelihoods to turn to, as any
trip to the Narmada Valley will show.

Second, the survey of dam-affected villages that the Shunglu Committee
has been conducting with the help of the National Sample Survey
Organization (NSSO) is methodologically flawed in several ways. First,
the instructions given to the committee by the Court only allow it to
investigate whether those affected between the 110 and 122 metre dam
heights have been rehabilitated. However, it is clear that lakhs of
people below that height are still unrehabilitated due to past illegal
height increases. Further, the committee is only allowed to verify the
information presented in the state’s rehabilitation reports and cannot
look beyond them.

Even if the committee finds that rehabilitation is incomplete (which
it will if it conducts its mission in good faith), by this time
construction up to 122 m will be finished!
Thus the committee is not investigating the status of affected people
who are not on the government’s official lists. But one of the biggest
problems with rehabilitation in the Narmada Valley is that thousands
of people have been entirely left off the official PAF lists! Even as
the committee is in the valley on its investigation, Narmada Valley
Development Authority (NVDA) officials are also there, resurveying and
adding hundreds of more people to the lists daily. But none of these
people will be shown in the committee’s report. Gramsabhas have also
conducted comprehensive sample surveys in four villages, which show
many more people affected by submergence than are on the government’s
PAF lists. But the Shunglu Committee refuses to take all these into
consideration.

Third, the way the surveyors are asking questions guarantee that they
will miss much of what’s happening in the Narmada Valley. The
surveyors are only asking people yes or no questions, and thus not
allowing villages to provide open-ended answers that would shed light
on the real rehabilitation realities that people are facing. For
example, in one village an interviewee reported that he had not
received compensation for his soon-to-be submerged house. Instead of
noting this, the surveyor asked him if he had received a houseplot.
The interviewee responded that he had on paper, but had not received
compensation for his house and thus could not build a new one, and
that moreover there were no civic amenities like electricity at the
site. But the surveyor simply recorded that the person had received a
houseplot! In another example, surveyors refused to listen to
villagers who were trying to tell them that their land would become
tapu (surrounded by water) because they did not have a column for that
on their survey. Without open eyes and ears, how is the committee
supposed to understand the actual situation in the valley?

Reports from many villages also indicate grave and inappropriate
behaviour by government surveyors, which severely call into question
their “independence” and impartialness. While surveyors are not
supposed to be accompanied by government patwaris, NVDA officials have
been seen with almost every team. Clearly this is inappropriate
influence by an agency that has a vested interest in continued dam
construction. Meanwhile, villagers not being directly surveyed and the
people’s representative organisation (the NBA) are not allowed to talk
to surveyors. Even more disturbing, surveyors have been propagandising
and even making speeches to villagers about the dam project. Some
surveyors have encouraged villages to accept the meager (and illegal)
cash compensation that the government of Madhya Pradesh is offering
instead of demanding the land they are legally entitled to. In another
village, one of the surveyors (who happened to be from Gujarat)
actually gave a speech to PAFs about how the dam was in the national
interest and that they should make a sacrifice for it. Another told
them that they should move to Gujarat. Is this an impartial survey or
propaganda for illegal government policies? The Shunglu Committee
appears not to be an independent investigation, but a stalling tactic,
allowing dam construction to proceed before full rehabilitation is
completed.

The patent absurdity of all this would make the situation comic if it
weren’t so tragic. When the monsoon waters back up behind the 122m dam
wall, many thousands of people will be flooded from their homes. Small
adivasi villages and densely populated towns of Nimad will be
submerged, along with their shops, markets, and temples. Farmers will
lose their fields and crops, and since the concerned governments do
not recognise many of them as affected, they will be shoved off
without compensation or alternative land to turn to for their
livelihood. Those who are identified as affected will be dumped in tin
sheds with no cultivable land if they are lucky (even these tin shed
homes have yet to be constructed in many of the rehabilitation sites).
Others who are not officially counted could wind up in the slums of
the nearest cities, as happened to many evictees of the upstream Bargi
Dam. How many this will happen to is hard to predict as it depends on
the size of the monsoon rains. But it’s a lot more people than all
three state governments are recognising, and is certainly measured in
lakhs.

What next?

Given the sheer number of oustees and the gaping holes in the
governments’ rehabilitation plans, it is impossible that this could be
corrected before the August-September submergence, even if the
governments were making an effort. The Group of Ministers team sent to
the Narmada Valley by the Prime Minister reported that rehabilitation
in Madhya Pradesh at the 122m dam height would take at least another
year.

The government must take several steps immediately. First, the
problems with the Shunglu committee’s investigation must be
acknowledged. Whatever the committee’s conclusions, it is already
clear that their survey will provide only a very partial and
incomplete picture of the rehabilitation situation in the Narmada
Valley. The committee’s final report should take into consideration
the information and critiques brought to light by the gramsabhas and
the NBA. Two, with the impending monsoon rains, the government must
act on war-footing to provide rehabilitation to those who will be
displaced.

The glaring injustice and illegality of this must also serve as a
lesson for next year, when the government will again try to push the
dam height to 140 metres. But the law is clear. No further height
increase should be allowed until it is shown that every family in the
submergence area has received its full, legally-guaranteed
rehabilitation. So far, the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister, and the
three respective state governments have all failed to live up to their
responsibility to enforce the law and protect the rights of people in
the Narmada Valley. ⊕

Mike Levien
3 Jul 2006

Mike Levien is a Ph D Student in Sociology at the University of
California-Berkeley. He can be reached at mlevien @ berkeley.edu. He
has recently been travelling in the dam-affected villages and
rehabilitation sites of the Narmada Valley, where he has spoken with
dam-affected people. He previously spent a year in 2003-2004 writing
about the Sardar Sarovar Project and Narmada Bachao Andolan.

MONSOON REPORT

Horrifying face of the dammed river

Incessant rainfall in the catchment area of the Sardar Sarovar dam,
coupled with less water being allowed to flow into the Narmada main
canal led to an unusual overflow in early August, despite upstream
dams not recording downstream releases. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports on
the devastation in the Narmada valley.

30 August 2006 – On 28 July, a news story filed by The Indian Express
correspondent reported inflow of 651.29 cubic metres (23000 cubic
feet) water per second at the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river.
Four days later, on 2 August, a press release from PTI filed from
Ahmedabad flashed the news of the controversial dam overflowing. Per
second inflow of water at the dam was 3308.40 cubic metres (1.16 lakh
cubic feet) and outflow through the sluice gates downstream was
1324.60 cubic metres (0.46 lakh cubic feet). Overflow was registered
at 122.50 cubic metres (0.04 lakh cubic feet) per second.

Behind these apparently obscure numbers is the real story. This
summer, following the clearance from Narmada Control Authority to
raise the height of the dam from 110.64 to 121.92 metres, Gujarat had
raised the height of the dam to 119 metres before the onset of the
monsoon and had to stop the construction work when monsoon rains
arrived. The water level at the dam had touched 119.11 meter mark, as
indicated by a flood control room official. And as predicted, by the
end of July, submergence had already started with increased inflow of
water.

So there was a natural curiosity as to how effectively and optimally
did Gujarat utilise the fresh impoundment water in the reservoir?

A correspondent with Gujarati language newspaper Sandesh reported that
“the gate of Main Narmada Canal is just 0.5 metre open and the water
flowing down the main canal is merely 580 cusecs (i.e. cubic feet per
second).” A glance at Gujarati newspapers suggested that Narmada Main
Canal was carrying such a meager amount of water thanks to breaches at
several places. This situation led to the sudden build up of water at
dam site since while the inflow of water into reservoir went up,
following intense rains in the catchment area in Maharashtra, the
volumes of waters flowing into main canal was very meager. (Breaches
in the Narmada canal have occurred routinely during past couple of
monsoons due to failure to provide for adequate drainage structures.
See: Rivers and Plans run Off Course, Sep. 2005)

In the past years, the water level at Sardar Sarovar Dam site rose
only after the release of water from upstream Tawa, Bargi and Indira
Sagar Dam.

• In the dam’s waters they trust
• Overflowing with the official view

India Together readers will recollect the remarks made by P K Laheri,
chairman of SSNNL on how would they utilise waters to be impounded in
reservoir, were they allowed to raise the height of the dam (See:
Overflowing with the Official View). Last year on 1 August, The Indian
Express report quoted him saying, “All this water could have been
saved. Two months of storage in the dam has been lost. If the level
had been five metres higher, the curve of power generation would have
been optimum. We could have filed up reservoirs in scarcity prone
areas of Surendranagar and Banaskantha, or released water into more
rivers like Sabarmati. We wanted to do all this in this monsoon. It is
unfortunate…we will have to wait for the next season.”

The controversial dam has generated much debate and the summer of this
year witnessed hundreds of oustees affected by the dam camping at
Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. And since the first week of August, the dam
started overflowing leading to wide spread submergence in the river
valley. The incessant rainfall in the catchment area of the dam,
coupled with meager amount of water being allowed to flow into main
canal led to a rather unusual event, where we witnessed the dam
overflow even as upstream dams on the Narmada river had not recorded
downstream releases. In the past years, the water level at Sardar
Sarovar Dam site rose only after the release of water from upstream
Tawa, Bargi and Indira sagar Dam. (Such downstream releases from
upstream Tawa and Indira Sagar Dam started from August 15.)

On 4 August, water level at the dam site had reached a high of 127.4
metres.

The local people were planning to launch a satyagraha at three
different villages slated to drown under dam waters starting during
5-7 August. But the sudden rise in the water levels at dam site led to
drowning of houses from Dhankhedi, Bhadal and Danel villages in
Maharashtra. Hamlets in other eight villages were just on the brink of
submergence. Two jeevanshalas (boarding schools for adivasi students
studying in 1st to 4th standard) in Danel and Bhadal village got
submerged. But this did not dampen their spirits, more than 3000
adivasis and farmers marched to Badwani, M.P., a district headquarter
that has been base of Narmada Bachao Andolan for last two decades,
braving incessant rains. After taking out a rally at Badwani they
gathered at Rajghat on the banks of Narmada river to launch a
satyagraha with a resolve to fight the injustice. They were joined by
the supporters and fraternal organizations from various states
including Gujarat, Tamilnadu, Kerala, U.P., West Bengal, Delhi and
other states.

But even as they moved to another adivasi village, Bhitada in
Alirajpur tehsil of Jhabua district in M.P., they were in for a very
grave situation with Narmada waters constantly rising. More than 120
children studying at Jeevanshala in Danel got stranded and had to face
rising waters, until a barge from Maharashtra came around – not to
rescue them but to arrest them. When the police arrested them and took
them to the dam site, they took out a march against the displacement
and the dam in Gujarat. They all were brought to Akkalkua later.

By the afternoon of 7 August 7 (at 1 pm), water level at the dam site
had risen up to 127.35 metres. At Rajghat, the waters were overflowing
the bridge connecting Nisarpur and Badwani towns. Even as this figure
was reported, news agencies quoted Bharuch District Administrator
suggesting that the water level at dam site may rise up to 129 metres
by that time. The activists who returned from Bhitada and Chimalkhedi
villages on 9 August described the situation in the submergence
villages as horrifying. Noorjibhai Padvi of village Danel told
visitors, “the huge mountains that took us hours to climb are all gone
under water. It’s an awesome, horrifying face of the river that till
the dam came was so friendly to us. It is this government that has
robbed us of our friendly river and in turn given us this swollen
reservoir that has unleashed large-scale devastation.” The hills the
villagers referred to are part of Vindhya range.

Additionally, all roads leading towards the valley were blocked due to
the heavy downpour. Apart from the cutting off the mountain routes,
the waters had blocked the entry from Dhadgaon, from Madhya Pradesh or
Gujarat to the villages affected by the Sardar Sarovar dam.

In the rehabilitation sites in Gujarat also, most of the fields of
resettlement villages were inundated, destroying crops. In many sites
such as Karnet, Thuvavi, etc., water entered the houses. In
Maharashtra, waters entered in houses in Vadchhil and Javda and one
‘nullah’ burst, destroying the houses and sown fields. Keshav Vasave
from Maharashtra pointed out that not only the Madhya Pradesh
government, but Maharashtra government too failed to provide any
decent and legal resettlement to the tribal oustees in the state.
“There are no basic services like drinking water, fodder, fuel,
cultivable land, protection from rains in these places. We are cheated
and live the life of destitutes.”

The situation in the Narmada valley remains severely grave. In the
absence of proper planning, what we have witnessed is that all the
states are committed to thwart the debate and raise the dam height.
And with ad hoc administration, they have created devastation in
upstream submergence villages as well as downstream villages. Any
further increase in the height has to be questioned, since not only
have the state governments failed to rehabilitate affected people,
they have also wreaked havoc with lives of people upstream and
downstream.

Earlier, Supreme Court judges used a report of Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh’s Shunglu-committee, which does not present the ground level
truth. They posted the next hearing in the ongoing case to September.
Also, administration and news agencies in Gujarat have been issuing
statements regarding situation downstream of the Sardar Sarovar dam,
which is equally severe with 8.5 metres overflow registered at the dam
site. Several villages and a large part of Bharuch town (downstream)
got inundated with floodwaters.

To add insult to injury, the NVDA in Madhya Pradesh issued a press
briefing that only spoke on affected people accepting the disbursal of
cash compensation and passed it off as if they were getting
rehabilitated with alternate land. The Pioneer reported this on 6
August. But that the cash compensation was illegal and that the NVDA
was maintaining silence on the situation of adivasi villages affected
by submergence, went unreported.

With a very high inflow at another dam – Ukai on the river Tapti – the
city of Surat in south Gujarat was also severely affected by floods.
Prime Minister Singh did undertake an aerial survey of Surat and south
Gujarat. But he chose not to fly over the submerged Narmada valley,
look at the large expanse of villages drowning under waters and then
try to find on returning, what the Rehabilitation Oversight Group
commented on the probability of submergence. Neither did the rising
waters also ask the affected people before submerging their lands and
homes. But making an oblique reference to the fate of the Narmada Dam
oustees at his Independence Day speech, Singh said: “When I see large
development projects coming up, while one rejoices at the progress
that is being made, one worries for those who are displaced, for those
who have lost their land and livelihood.”

This will not do. The decisions that have imposed submergence on
affected people without properly rehabilitating them must be reversed.
⊕

Himanshu Upadhyaya
30 Aug 2006

Himanshu Upadhyaya is an independent researcher working on Public
Finance and Accountability issues.

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Comments (3)

* Posted by kirti patel,

I just want to clarify that dam or higher dam hight were not the cause
of flood.

1) With or without dam, the downstrean areas would experience floods
when there is too much rainfall upstream for a small river chennel to
manage the water flow.

2) Dam hight contains the waterflow resulting from excessive rain
upstream. So dam height can prevent floods and not cause them.

3) The only times flood can still result is that rainfall is so heavy
upstream that height of dam is not high enough to hold all that water
forcing the authorities to release excessive water from the dam to
prevent dam to be brown away.

(3) One can argue all day as to how much water should have been
released and how and when – but it is not exact science – it depends
on human judgements and how nature would behave over next several
hours to days. Nobody can procrastinate how much rain would fall and
how much water will be collected in upstream areas and how much
excessive water that dams would have to handle – even best estimates
are mere guesses and nature can prtove all of them wrong forcing
unplanned and unanticipated actions that involves minimizing the
fallout – choosing between lessor of the devastation. To politicise
them is worst kind of political opportunism.

* Posted by K.Sriharsha,

The article by Mr.Himanshu Upadhayaya, clearly brings to fore the fact
that even repeated blunders in the so called path of development with
the lives of the marginalised do not bring about any change in the
attitude of the rulers.

As amply portrayed in the article by Mr.Upadhayaya, the situation
since the previous monsoon has only worsened if anything.

We can talk about the techicalities of water storage and discharge,
but the question here is much graver than that. The question here is
of lives of the poor.

* Posted by Himanshu Upadhyaya,

To totally miss the point that my article talked more about the
devastation caused by Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) dam upstream due to
submergence results probably from a biased misinterpretation. Those
readers who miss the point the author wants to convey are free to read
the said article and other articles hyperlinked on the page again. To
merely behold an overflowing big dam and shout “a dam is overflowing
and everything is at peace on the earth” is to close rational
questioning at one’s own peril.

VERRIER ELWIN LECTURE

The tribal world and imagination of the future

“The Constitution is yours. The borders are yours. The sovereignty is
yours. The flag is yours. What is ours? What is that is both tribal
and Indian in the Constitution?” Shiv Visvanathan recalls an
Independence-era conversation that marks the passage of the adivasis,
unheard and unheeded, between two worlds.

14 November 2006 – Social scientists make poor story tellers. They get
absorbed in the objectivity of roles and institutions, and are also
unable to handle the nuances of repetition and redundancy, mistaking
them for cliches. Yet social scientists must tell stories.

On November 9th, 1947, negotiations between the tribal communities of
Chhotanagpur and the Indian government had broken down. The Indian
army under General Cariappa was worried, its focus already under
strain with the joint tensions of Kashmir and Hyderabad. Only Sardar
Patel was cool. He said, “we don’t fight the tribals. These people
fought wars of independence years before 1857. They are the original
nationalists.”

Patel’s sentiment had the idea that these tribals wanted a nation
without the nation-state. They loved the idea of Gandhi as father of
the nation but they would not accept the idea of the nation-state
which was anathema. For India, the problem of the Constituent Assembly
had become a fractured dialogue confronting a divided nation. The
first division was the silence of the Partition, the absence of the
Muslim League in the making of the Indian state. But the second break
that perplexed Patel, Nehru and Azad was the recalcitrance of the
tribes. It was not just the claim that they were autochthonous, more
original and native to India. It was not the argument that now that
freedom was coming, the Indians as conquerors should leave like the
British were leaving with their baggage of modernity, isms and the
Janus gift of progress. Two outsiders being shown the exit door was
high drama, but as comedy. For the tribals, while British hegemony was
tragedy, Indian democracy would be a farce. Neutral observers cringed
at this fatal use of Marx.

“These people fought wars of independence years before 1857. They are
the original nationalists.”
Nehru and Sardar were clear. The tribals were not razakars. Their
culture was different. Their plea was different. Their world and their
arguments were an appeal to a different imagination. The tribals, the
leaders felt, had to be talked to. Or, in the more dialogic language
of democracy, they had to be talked with. A change of prepositions was
becoming a change of propositions. Grammar was the first signal of
change, language, the first semiotics of freedom.

While the call for dialogue was in the air, there were a few violent
skirmishes. A few criminal/denotified tribals were lynched in public.
Two young boys were tortured to death. The osmosis of power was clear.
British or Indian, tribes were to be the cannon fodder of the emerging
state. The criminal justice system was irrelevant to them. Of course
witnesses in official time would laugh cynically. The Indian state was
still feeble, still hesitant. It had yet to offer its great
contribution, the drama of encounter deaths, to the world. Encounter.
Let me tell the reader it was not a dialogic idea which summoned a
Buber or Gandhi. Encounter was an asymmetric event, a zero sum game
where any random tribal was shot dead because he was seen as guilty by
being. The Indian police in later years would add their own privatized
twist to it by creating a perverse system of accounting. They would
file for excess ammunition and sell it off to the arms market.

Despite the violence the tribal leaders held their peace. They wanted
their world along our world. They wanted to be separate, equal and
reciprocal. The Gandhians and socialists were the most perplexed.
Jaipal Singh, one of the leaders, tried to explain. He asked them to
recollect the early days of the constituent assembly when the groups
were discussing the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP). He
reminded them of the discussion on prohibition, the state’s right to
prohibit alcohol. Singh reminded them that at that time, he had said
he could not think of tribes without their wine. He recollected how
the Gandhians had reprimanded him. When he had said a tribal’s drink
was a part of his being, his identity, his festivals, his celebrations
of life, the Gandhians had turned preachy, saying it violated the
precepts of the master, turning tribals into a social work problem.

Singh laughed at this, and said either the missionaries had never left
or when they left, they had left behind the Trojan horse called
‘social work’. He asked them to look at the violence of social work,
where some group is always defined as problematic, unreformable, and
refractory to the state. Social work problematizes the tribal as
alcoholic even before he accepts the state.

Nehru summoned Jaipal Singh, Ram Dayal Munda and other leaders to
Delhi. The men from Chhotanagpur spent their day with their old
Christian friend J C Kumarappa. The acerbic Gandhian welcomed them and
proceeded to quarrel with Nehru and Singh. Late next day, he drove
them in a tanga from the locality of Paharganj to Parliament. There
was a commotion near India Gate. The army held up the tanga saying it
was not allowed on public roads. Kumarappa argued that the army could
not decide what was public. The guests watched curiously wondering if
the Viceroy’s horse had similar problems. Eventually a phone call from
Nehru cleared the controversy and the dissidents made their regal way
to Parliament offices.

The two teams met and Nehru talked about history, the new tryst with
destiny. He felt at ease. Singh was also a Cambridge don, a hockey
blue. Singh listened and told Nehru he did not believe in history. He
asked Nehru whether he had heard of the new word which had just been
invented by President Truman. He called it ‘development’. An innocuous
word, colourless, odourless like most poisons and equally lethal.
Munda warned him that development would claim more victims than any
religion, any dogma. Nehru was distracted and wondered what he was
talking about. Only Kumarappa stood still, as if he had seen a new
horseman of the Apocalypse. The two groups decided to meet over the
next few weeks to talk things over. Nehru and Patel were clear they
could not think of an India without tribes. The tribal team agreed
whole-heartedly.

The Kumarappa papers

The report of the discussion that followed was found in the Kumarappa
papers. It came to light only in 2005, when two young researchers,
then-diasporic Indians from the University of Maryland, Venu Madhav
Govindu and Deepak Malghan, obtained a fellowship to write a biography
of the man. The report is a portion constructed on the basis of
Kumarappa’s minutes. The report is a bit secretive as to names,
occasionally using initials, which were a trifle confusing. The
debates of ideas, the politics is starkly there but the gossipy
richness of who said what to whom is occasionally lost.

The meeting with the Chhotanagpur Five was held in Teen Murti Bhavan,
then home of Jawaharlal. The meeting was attended by Sarojini Naidu,
Abul Kalam Azad, Kaka Saheb Kalelkar, Nehru and Patel. Benegal Rau,
ICS, was secretary and rapporteur. A British anthropologist, a certain
Verrier Elwin, also informally attended some sessions of the meeting.

The meeting broke into a furore even before the terms of the
discussions could be elaborated. The unfortunate event that led to the
confusion was the word ‘secessionist’. Mrs. Naidu’s use of the term
was objected to. The Chhotanagpur five not only objected to the use of
the term, but also what they claimed was the misunderstandings it
created. Secession, they felt, was an unfortunate term. Secession was
the key word in a political discourse and it unfortunately assumed the
baggage of state discourse, of passports, nationality, boundaries,
borders and security. Oddly, it was Mr. Elwin who grasped it with
typical understatement. He explained to Mrs. Naidu, “Our Munda friend
is not talking politics. He is talking as kinsmen. When families
mature or when a young man decides to marry, he takes a new home close
to his old one. The new house is different from but connected with the
old home. Segmentation would be the more appropriate word. Only now
the older home is demanding a distance from the new.”

In India, citizenship belongs not just to a domesticated middle class,
but its millions of nomads, its pastoral groups, its tribals who were
not part of the constituent assembly and probably never heard of it.
One of the five, Dr. Raphael Horo, himself part of the new Ranchi
Institute of Research, agreed vigorously. But Singh intervened to add,
“yes it is a kinship term. We are kinsmen. But there is a politics to
it. One has to redefine secession separately. It is not just the
physical movement of a group away from the ruler. In that sense, India
was always full of secessions, full of a million quarrels or mutinies.
Villagers used to move away from the ruler whenever he turned
oppressive. In many cases, the ruler sent a messenger beseeching his
subjects to come back and they did.” (Elwin notes in his diary, that
Patel grunted at this movement.)

The Chhotanagpur five argued that Indian democracy would always have
to be fluid or different. It was not a stock of collectivities but a
flow of people. In India, citizenship belongs not just to a
domesticated middle class, but its millions of nomads, its pastoral
groups, its tribals who were not part of the constituent assembly and
probably never heard of it. Their way of life, their taxonomies defied
the nation-state. India could only be India if yesterday’s
secessionist was today’s citizen. It was a cycle of life, lifestyle,
of livelihood that transcended the current ideas of politics. Modern
politics hovers between taxonomy and taxidermy. Either way, it wants
to pin you down. Benegal Rau, remembering his revered Laski and Dudley
Stamp, blurted that this challenged the current ideas of place and
space. Elwin brushed it aside by commenting a nomad carries his place
with him. But a tribal leader emphasized there was more to it.

Dr. Horo chuckled quizzically. He explained to Elwin that it is not
anthropology you need but science fiction. Quoting Margaret Mead, the
young Columbia University anthropologist explained that what
anthropology invents of the past, science fiction does the same of the
future. It is the anthropology of the future, a visionary science
which would be taught in a post-colonial age. The structure of India
is such that it needs renewal and dynamism. People seceding and
returning will be a cycle of political seasons. “Our new Ranchi
Institute survey projects that by the 1980′s at least 20-30 million
Indians and not just tribals would be seceding in some form or other.”

Nehru snapped abruptly saying, “Enough of H. G. Wells and Verne.”
Munda replied, “Wells as a novelist was a fertile imagination. It was
Wells as a Fabian who went dead politically.”

An uneasy silence followed. Rau notes in his minutes that Nehru was
wondering whether it was Columbia University rather than LSE he should
be worrying about. Columbia produced Kumarappa, Ambedkar, and now
Horo. This lot unlike the Laski troupe were more unpredictably
political. Nehru added that when he told Horo that SF was not even
literature, Horo is said to have replied, “you have to think beyond
Leavis. SF is bad text trying to capture the oral nature of
storytelling. As archive, it is miserable, as conversation and dream
exquisite.”

Kumarappa, in his minutes, notes that Patel, listening to all these
asides, was getting impatient. He turned to Jaipal Singh and said,
“All this is meaningless. We are not debating a syllabus, we are
discussing a constitution. Constitutionally what you are suggesting is
not possible.” Patel insisted, “Our preamble is non-negotiable. Our
borders are non-negotiable. This is not a seminar or a haat. It is
about our country you are talking about.”

Singh nodded sadly, realising that when push came to shove the
“tribals were not yet Indians. Only potential Indians, problematic
Indians, primitive Indians, but never Indians per se. India, like
Brahminism, needs twice-borns not the twice-aborted.” Both groups
realized that positions were polarized and old wounds had surfaced.
Mrs. Naidu proposed the group meet early the following day. That was
the only item of consensus that day.

The next day began warmly, like old friends reuniting over tea. Yet
the mood shifted oddly within a few minutes when Raphael Horo asked,
“what about the third secession?”

Panditji exploded, “There has been no other act of secession.
Partition is not secession. Yours is the only event of secession.”
Jaipal Singh immediately agreed that the question of Partition was
different from the tribal debate. But then added quietly, “what about
CPR?”

There was a sense of defeat on both sides. Both realized they had been
upstaged by history with capital H.

• Year of birth: 1871
• For tribals, only paper pledges

It was Patel who answered. “Travancore did not secede. C. P. Ramaswami
pledged total loyalty to India. CPR is not the Nizam. He is totally
Indian.”

It was one of the five who intervened. His name is not mentioned. He
said, “what if?” There was an incredulous silence. He said, “what if
ecology demanded that Kerala secede but allow its citizens to migrate
and work in India? Would India or Kerala have lost anything? With its
land reform, its openness to women, its social movements for temple
reform, it might be an alternative model to India.” Patel dismissed
the Marxists as a bunch of Brahmin boys. Munda noted that the original
description was Ambedkar’s.

Then Jaipal Singh began one of his longer speeches. He looked only at
Nehru and Patel. He said, “there is little you are offering us. The
Constitution is yours. The borders are yours. The sovereignty is
yours. The flag is yours. What is ours? What is that is both tribal
and Indian in the Constitution? What is the shared legacy, the common
weave? You have defined rights, the isms, the industry, the science,
let something be ours.” It was then that Nehru proposed that maybe
Singh could define Directive Principles of State Policy. Singh added
wryly, “Ah the non-justiciable part.” Nehru added, “It is a vision of
the future.” Munda said he liked the irony, “your past as your future,
our anthropology now as your science fiction.” Over the next two days,
the tribals wrote or itemized the dreams of the future into the
Directive Principles of State Policy.

The Kumarappa diaries mention that the debates around the DPSP became
one of the most vibrant dialogues about the future of India. What
struck him most was that tribals as an interest group did not begin
with their sense of victimhood, of wrongs to be righted, but of
democracy as a fundamental question.

The Kumarappa report indicates that the Chotanagpur five were excited
by the prospects of the exercise and adds that their discussions
provided one of the most interesting chapters of the new constituent
assembly debates. As Raphael Horo said later, “It is only when
anthropology confronts science fiction or when primitivism meets
robotics that the basic assumptions of a society begin to reveal
themselves.” One also understands the difference between pre-emptive
futures captive to old isms and the preferred futures, the song lines
of freedom. What remains today is the preamble the group wrote to the
Directive Principles.

The DPSP, they argued, was a gyroscope for the future, a sociological
litmus test, an early warning system telling you whether the
directions make sense. Horo, its principal author, began by
contending, “A constitution is a symbol of homecoming. It enfranchises
all those made homeless, made helpless by old laws. It is an
invitation to the marginal, the vulnerable, the outlaw, the dissenters
to experience the constitution as a dwelling, a place for multiple
beings and becomings. The future is only a possibility for
citizenship.”

The paradox of the Indian Constitution is that it disenfranchises
thrice. It disenfranchises, outlaws and negates the tribe. Its ideas
of sovereignty, its notion of the eminent domain assures the tribal or
the peasant has no access to the forest. He has no access to his
resources or a theatre for his cosmology. His food, his medicines, his
play all came from the forest but forest is no longer a commons. The
drama of common access and common maintenance is now over. It is the
ultimate paradox of anthropology where the native becomes outlaw in
his own land. We face the paradox of a constitution that criminalizes
its own citizens.

Munda notes added that the disenfranchisement of the marginal tribal
peasant was hidden in the abstractness and alleged universalism of the
Constitution. A constitution that floats in abstract time is
genocidal. Worse, it has no memory of its own executions as it fails
to record the logic of its own erasures. The group feels that all
constitutions that float in abstract time are cosmically homeless. A
constitution must embody multiple time – the time of the nomad, the
seasonal time of pastoral groups, the time of agriculture and women’s
time. The DPSP is a ganglion of times that connects to official
constitution based on clock time. Clock time for the constitution is
both empty and necrophilic.

The ecological embedding of the constitution needs not only an
embedding in time, but in the life-worlds of its people. A
constitution can’t only deal with life in the abstract as a system. It
has to connect life, life world, life cycle, livelihood, lifestyle to
the life chances of the people. To speak of electricity and nuclear
power in the world of the forest is lethally paradoxical.

A constitution cannot tacitly speak the language of an official
science. If every citizen is a man of knowledge, then the constitution
must be a referendum of multiple knowledges. The citizen is not an
object of science. Instead, every man must be seen as a scientist,
every village a science academy.

To officialize western science is to pre-empt a future. It privileges
the synthetic fertilizer over the earthworm and all the other
organisms that make life possible. It is a constitution that
privileges taxidermy over life. We understand the dreams of science
but we demand it understands other forms of knowledge not in the
museum or the laboratory but in the domain of life.

Given the gigantic technological projects emerging around roads,
factories, dams, the old panchayat of consensus and participation is
not adequate. We need a new concept that brings the tribe, the
policeman, the healer, the shamam, the doctor, the psychiatrist, the
vaid and the hakim into a conversation of knowledges. But a mere
dialogue is not enough. We suggest the new concept of cognitive
justice, the right of different knowledges to co-exist and thrive
together. Medical policy then must reflect the grammar of these
different notions of suffering, health and healing. The pluralism of
ecological, medical, agricultural systems may not survive without
cognitive justice.

A technological project is not an act of innocence. But it needs a new
democracy of vigilance. We propose:

* That human rights teams be attached to every project.
* That every project be subject to rules of transparency.
* That the methodology of doubt and skepticism that science made
famous be applied to every project beginning with the Damodar Valley
Corporation.
* That each project be subject to referendum and occasional recall.
* That the language of evaluation should be also in the language of
subjects, their notions of memory, their ideas of well being, their
sense of fairness.

After the meeting

The Kumarappa documents end with this fragment. Legend has it that
there was a longer extract focusing on the everyday-ness of culture,
politics and technology. When the documents came up for discussion,
the beginning of the end was clear. The Gandhians and socialists and
the Marxists treated it with contempt. The document lacked the Linus
blanket of progress. It appeared like a letter from another world.

Both Nehru and Sardar were too preoccupied with the Partition. Sardar
had become more Bismarckian than ever refusing any negotiation on the
nation-state, “We need a copy book nation. If I allow you the freedom
to experiment, the whole of the north east would go on fire.” Nehru
struck a different chord echoing the other half of Sardar’s mind. He
said, “the partition has been too traumatic. Over one million people
dead and 16 million people displaced. We need time to heal” he begged.
The rest sympathized but Horo blurted, “one day you will create more
refugees from your dam projects. DVC will be an epidemic”. But there
was a sense of defeat on both sides. Both realized they had been
upstaged by history with capital H. The legal expert Rafael Lemkin had
just coined the word Genocide to refer to the holocaust. Partition,
everyone realized, could be the invisible Holocaust.

The meeting broke down soon after. Nehru and Sardar had joined the
costume ball of the state. Governance has its dramas which are
demanding. Jaipal Singh and Munda returned to wait as Nehru advised.
But the opportunity never came. Sometimes tragedy is a drama whose
time never comes. All it leaves is the salty stale bitter taste of
irony of a forgotten people.

Rememberance

Of the Chotanagpur five, only one remains alive, Raphael Horo. He left
soon after the meetings for a small college town in the United States
to teach anthropology. Horo had built a tremendous reputation as a
linguist. His dictionaries were standard work.

I bumped into him at a conference. He sensed my presence, deftly
moving away and foiling my first attempts at meeting him. I ambushed
him over coffee one afternoon and asked him about his reflections.
There was no bitterness in what he said. It was almost as if history
was a trickster from whom we must learn. “Independence was a time for
hope. We were like kids at Christmas, each leaving his socks out
hoping for his own version of freedom. I guess we realize independence
is not freedom. It is like space and place. Independence is like
space. It is official. Freedom is a place, it needs to be built again
and again.” He paused and suddenly asked, “Have you been to
Jamshedpur, the home of Tata Steel. I used to watch the Dalma hills
where my tribe used to practice Jhum, setting fire to the forest. It
was a stupendous, almost mythical blaze. On one side of the hills, you
could see the forest on fire and on the other, the Tata factories
pouring slag down their huge factory mounds. Two fires, two modes of
creativity and for a while I thought they were balanced. After all
there was the kinship of iron and steel within us.”

“It did not work.” There was a silence, a thoughtful one as if Horo
was collecting the right word. “It was a victory of stereotypes. The
government read us as a bundle of complaints, a trade union of tribal
rights and interests, but we were not interested in being interest
groups of foisting victimology. We wanted to join the festival called
freedom, offer our ideas, our philosophies, our vision of India, but
we had already been museumized or criminalized. We went as
philosophers and were dismissed as savages.”

“Have you read the Brundtland* report? It is supposed to be on
sustainable development, on energy. It is bowdlerised idiocy. There is
more sustainability in Jhum, in shifting cultivation, that in the
entire report. If Brundtland is the Charles Lamb, shifting cultivation
is a Shakespearian drama of sustainability.”

He laughed and shrugged. “Take care,” he said.

I never met him again. ⊕

Shiv Visvanathan
14 Nov 2006

Shiv Vishwanathan is a sociologist based in Ahmedabad. He teaches at
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Infortmation and Communication
Technology. This article is the text of the 2006 Verrier Elwin lecture
organized by the Bhasha Research and Publications Centre. The lecture
was delivered in the form of historical fiction. Both the meeting
descibed herein and its report attributed to J C Kumarappa are
fictional and not real historical events.

* The Brundtland report is the report of the UN World Commission on
Environment and Development (1987), chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Comments (4)

* Posted by G.K.Subbarayudu,

Fascinating. One India or Many? The question is better issuized here
than in other sub-national discussions. For the first time, I see the
issue as larger than political ideologies of region, language,
religion, caste, class, community which were hell-bent on trivializing
sub-nationalisms for limited gain. What this post shows is that the
way forward is for India to have a more expansive and responsive
political attitude to what are essentially cultural differences.
Homogenising is a restrictive practice that fuels conflict. The
flowing movements adduced here are more likely to keep an India
together with minimum friction than the hardened borders of
constitutional delimitation. Thoughts of uniform codes by politically
motivated groups must be dumped . Let code-mixing happen in a more
natural time-frame than the artificial, legislated, majoritarian,
insistent ones adopted by politicized hustlers.Political objectives
should not be allowed to override and hasten cultural flows and
directions.

I am not sure I am saying anything with any degree of clarity. What I
do know is I am beginning to see something refracting, and my
certainties will no longer be self-validating.
Thanks .
Sincerely
Subbu

* Posted by sipra mukherjee,

Fascinating. A land furore happening in bengal’s singur right now that
carries the same echoes – whose land? whose government? who decides?
But what is interesting – perhaps heart-sinkingly disappointing – is
that even the sound of these echoes is beginning to get distanced from
reality. Do the sounds that reach us emanate from the mouths of the
natives, – or the political parties? Or is it a case of appropriation
of the native protest by the political leaders? It is impossible to
say any more. The stereotypes seem to have taken over here too.

* Posted by Anil,

superb piece indeed, it very beautifully takes us to a differnt level
of understanding which needs to be understood especially in thses
turbulant times when the prophecies are coming true. In fact I am of a
firm belief that indigenous people’s ways of society offers a
sustainable development model.
only thing that keeps me wondering is how can the author say only one
is alive as Our very own Ram Dayal Munda is very much alive.

* Posted by Ranjeet,

Great reading! And what to say about the vision of these Great Adivasi
leaders! But the sad part is that though a tribal’s drink may be a
part of his being, his identity, his festivals, his celebrations of
life, there can be no arguments that it also has proved to be the
downfall of many promising, Jaipal Singh included.

More to follow...

...and I am Sid Harth

[cogitoergosum]

PUCL Bulletin, February 2003

The Adivasis of India -
A History of Discrimination, Conflict, and Resistance

– By C.R. Bijoy, Core Committee of the All India Coordinating Forum of
Adivasis/Indigenous Peoples

The 67.7 million people belonging to “Scheduled Tribes” in India are
generally considered to be ‘Adivasis’, literally meaning ‘indigenous
people’ or ‘original inhabitants’, though the term ‘Scheduled
Tribes’ (STs) is not coterminous with the term ‘Adivasis’. Scheduled
Tribes is an administrative term used for purposes of ‘administering’
certain specific constitutional privileges, protection and benefits
for specific sections of peoples considered historically disadvantaged
and ‘backward’.

However, this administrative term does not exactly match all the
peoples called ‘Adivasis’. Out of the 5653 distinct communities in
India, 635 are considered to be ‘tribes’ or ‘Adivasis’. In comparison,
one finds that the estimated number of STs varies from 250 to 593.

For practical purposes, the United Nations and multilateral agencies
generally consider the STs as ‘indigenous peoples’. With the ST
population making up 8.08% (as of 1991) of the total population of
India, it is the nation with the highest concentration of ‘indigenous
peoples’ in the world!

The Constitution of India, which came into existence on 26 January
1950, prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste,
sex or place of birth (Article 15) and it provides the right to
equality (Article 14), to freedom of religion (Articles 25-28) and to
culture and education (Articles 29-30). STs are supposedly addressed
by as many as 209 Articles and 2 special schedules of the Constitution
– Articles and special schedules which are protective and
paternalistic.

Article 341 and 342 provides for classification of Scheduled Castes
(the untouchable lower castes) and STs, while Articles 330, 332 and
334 provides for reservation of seats in Parliament and Assemblies.
For purposes of specific focus on the development of STs, the
government has adopted a package of programmes, which is administered
in specific geographical areas with considerable ST population, and it
covers 69% of the tribal population.
Despite this, and after the largest “modern democracy” of the world
has existed for more than half a century, the struggles for survival
of Adivasis – for livelihood and existence as peoples – have today
intensified and spread as never before in history.

Over centuries, the Adivasis have evolved an intricate convivial-
custodial mode of living. Adivasis belong to their territories, which
are the essence of their existence; the abode of the spirits and their
dead and the source of their science, technology, way of life, their
religion and culture.

Back in history, the Adivasis were in effect self-governing ‘first
nations’. In general and in most parts of the pre-colonial period,
they were notionally part of the ‘unknown frontier’ of the respective
states where the rule of the reign in fact did not extend, and the
Adivasis governed themselves outside of the influence of the
particular ruler.

The introduction of the alien concept of private property began with
the Permanent Settlement of the British in 1793 and the establishment
of the “Zamindari” system that conferred control over vast
territories, including Adivasi territories, to designated feudal lords
for the purpose of revenue collection by the British. This drastically
commenced the forced restructuring of the relationship of Adivasis to
their territories as well as the power relationship between Adivasis
and ‘others’. The predominant external caste-based religion sanctioned
and practiced a rigid and highly discriminatory hierarchical ordering
with a strong cultural mooring.

This became the natural basis for the altered perception of Adivasis
by the ‘others’ in determining the social, and hence, the economic and
political space in the emerging larger society that is the Indian
diaspora. Relegating the Adivasis to the lowest rung in the social
ladder was but natural and formed the basis of social and political
decision making by the largely upper caste controlled mainstream. The
ancient Indian scriptures, scripted by the upper castes, also further
provided legitimacy to this.

The subjugated peoples have been relegated to low status and isolated,
instead of either being eliminated or absorbed. Entry of Europeans and
subsequent colonisation of Asia transformed the relationship between
the mainstream communities and tribal communities of this region.
Introduction of capitalism, private property and the creation of a
countrywide market broke the traditional economy based on use value
and hereditary professions.
All tribal communities are not alike. They are products of different
historical and social conditions. They belong to four different
language families, and several different racial stocks and religious
moulds. They have kept themselves apart from feudal states and
brahminical hierarchies for thousands of years.
In the Indian epics such as Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas
(folklores) there are many references to interactions and wars between
the forest or hill tribes and the Hindus.

Eminent historians who have done detailed research on the epic
Ramayana (200 B.C to 500 B.C) have concluded that ‘Lanka’, the kingdom
of the demonic king Ravana and ‘Kishkinda’, the homeland of the
Vanaras (depicted as monkeys) were places situated south of Chitrakuta
hill and north of Narmada river in middle India. Accordingly, Ravana
and his demons were an aboriginal tribe, most probably the Gond, and
the Vanaras, like Hanuman in the epic, belonged to the Savara and
Korku tribes whose descendants still inhabit the central Indian forest
belt. Even today, the Gond holds Ravana, the villain of Ramayana, in
high esteem as a chief. Rama, the hero of Ramayana, is also known for
slaughtering the Rakshasas (demons) in the forests!

The epic of Mahabharata refers to the death of Krishna at the hands of
a Bhil Jaratha. In the ancient scriptures, considered to be sacred by
the upper castes, various terms are used depicting Adivasis as almost
non-humans. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Puranas,
Samhitas and other so-called ‘sacred books’ refer to Adivasis as
Rakshasa (demons), Vanara (monkeys), Jambuvan (boar men), Naga
(serpents), Bhusundi Kaka (crow), Garuda (King of Eagles) etc. In
medieval India, they were called derogatorily as Kolla, Villa, Kirata,
Nishada, and those who surrendered or were subjugated were termed as
Dasa (slave) and those who refused to accept the bondage of slavery
were termed as Dasyu (a hostile robber).

Ekalavya, one of their archers was so skillful that the hero of the
Aryans, Arjuna, could not stand before him. But they assaulted him,
cutting his thumb and destroying his ability to fight – and then
fashioned a story in which he accepted Drona as his Guru and
surrendered his thumb as an offering to the master! The renowned
writer Maheshwata Devi points out that Adivasis predated Hinduism and
Aryanism, that Siva was not an Aryan god and that in the 8th century,
the tribal forest goddess or harvest goddess was absorbed and adapted
as Siva’s wife. Goddess Kali, the goddess of hunters, has definitely
had a tribal origin.

History of the Adivasis
Little is known about the relationship between the Adivasis and non-
Adivasi communities during the Hindu and Muslim rules. There are stray
references to wars and alliances between the Rajput kings and tribal
chieftains in middle India and in the North-East between the Ahom
Kings of Brahmaputra valley and the hill Nagas. They are considered to
be ati-sudra meaning lower than the untouchable castes. Even today,
the upper caste people refer to these peoples as jangli, a derogatory
term meaning “those who are like wild animals” – uncivilised or sub-
humans.

The Adivasis have few food taboos, rather fluid cultural practices and
minimal occupational specialization, while on the other hand, the
mainstream population of the plains have extensive food taboos, more
rigid cultural practices and considerable caste-based occupational
specialisation. In the Hindu caste system, the Adivasis have no place.
The so-called mainstream society of India has evolved as an
agglomeration of thousands of small-scale social groups whose
identities within the larger society are preserved by not allowing
them to marry outside their social groups.

The subjugated groups became castes forced to perform less desirable
menial jobs like sweeping, cleaning of excreta, removal of dead
bodies, leather works etc – the untouchables. Some of the earliest
small-scale societies dependent on hunting and gathering, and
traditional agriculture seem to have remained outside this process of
agglomeration. These are the Adivasis of present day. Their autonomous
existence outside the mainstream led to the preservation of their
socio-religious and cultural practices, most of them retaining also
their distinctive languages. Widow burning, enslavement, occupational
differentiation, hierarchical social ordering etc are generally not
there. Though there were trade between the Adivasis and the mainstream
society, any form of social intercourse was discouraged. Caste India
did not consciously attempt to draw them into the orbit of caste
society.

But in the process of economic, cultural and ecological change,
Adivasis have attached themselves to caste groups in a peripheral
manner, and the process of de-tribalisation is a continuous one. Many
of the Hindu communities have absorbed the cultural practices of the
Adivasis. Although Hinduism could be seen as one unifying thread
running through the country as a whole, it is not homogenous but in
reality a conglomeration of centuries old traditions and shaped by
several religious and social traditions which are more cultural in
their essence (and including elements of Adivasi socio-religious
culture).

Adivasis at the lowest rung of the ladder
Adivasis are not, as a general rule, regarded as unclean by caste
Hindus in the same way as Dalits are. But they continue to face
prejudice (as lesser humans), they are socially distanced and often
face violence from society. They are at the lowest point in every
socioeconomic indicator. Today the majority of the population regards
them as primitive and aims at decimating them as peoples or at best
integrating them with the mainstream at the lowest rung in the ladder.
This is especially so with the rise of the fascist Hindutva forces.

None of the brave Adivasi fights against the British have been treated
as part of the “national” struggle for independence. From the
Malpahariya uprising in 1772 to Lakshman Naik’s revolt in Orissa in
1942, the Adivasis repeatedly rebelled against the British in the
north-eastern, eastern and central Indian belt. In many of the
rebellions, the Adivasis could not be subdued, but terminated the
struggle only because the British acceded to their immediate demands,
as in the case of the Bhil revolt of 1809 and the Naik revolt of 1838
in Gujarat. Heroes like Birsa Munda, Kanhu Santhal, Khazya Naik,
Tantya Bhil, Lakshman Naik, Kuvar Vasava, Rupa Naik, Thamal Dora,
Ambul Reddi, Thalakkal Chandu etc are remembered in the songs and
stories of the Adivasis but ignored in the official text books.

The British Crown’s dominions in India consisted of four political
arrangements:

1. the Presidency Areas where the Crown was supreme,
2. the Residency Areas where the British Crown was present through the
Resident and the Ruler of the realm was subservient to the Crown,
3. the Agency (Tribal) areas where the Agent governed in the name of
the Crown but left the local self-governing institutions untouched and
4. the Excluded Areas (north-east) where the representatives of the
Crown were a figure head.

After the transfer of power, the rulers of the Residency Areas signed
the “Deed of Accession” on behalf of the ruled on exchange they were
offered privy purse. No deed was however signed with most of the
independent Adivasi states. They were assumed to have joined the
Union. The government rode rough shod on independent Adivasi nations
and they were merged with the Indian Union. This happened even by
means of state violence as in the case of Adivasi uprising in the
Nizam’s State of Hyderabad and Nagalim.

While this aspect did not enter the consciousness of the Adivasis at
large in the central part of India where they were preoccupied with
their own survival, the picture was different in the north-east
because of the historic and material conditions. Historically the
north-east was never a part of mainland India. The colonial
incorporation of north-east took place much later than the rest of the
Indian subcontinent. While Assam ruled by the Ahoms came under the
control of British in 1826, neighbouring Bengal was annexed in 1765.
Garo Hills were annexed in 1873, Naga Hills in 1879 and Mizoram under
the Chin-Lushai Expeditions in 1881-90. Consequently, the struggles
for self-determination took various forms as independence to greater
autonomy.

A process of marginalization today, the total forest cover in India is
reported to be 765.21 thousand sq. kms. of which 71% are Adivasi
areas. Of these 416.52 and 223.30 thousand sq. kms. are categorised as
reserved and protected forests respectively. About 23% of these are
further declared as Wild Life Sanctuaries and National Parks which
alone has displaced some half a million Adivasis. By the process of
colonisation of the forests that began formally with the Forest Act of
1864 and finally the Indian Forest Act of 1927, the rights of Adivasis
were reduced to mere privileges conferred by the state.

This was in acknowledgement of their dependence on the forests for
survival and it was politically forced upon the rulers by the glorious
struggles that the Adivasis waged persistently against the British.
The Forest Policy of 1952, the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972 and
the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 downgraded these privileges of the
peoples to concessions of the state in the post-colonial period.

With globalisation, there are now further attempts to change these
paternalistic concessions to being excluded as indicated by the draft
“Conservation of Forests and Natural Ecosystems Act” that is to
replace the forest act and the amendments proposed to the Land
Acquisition Act and Schedule V of the constitution. In 1991, 23.03% of
STs were literate as against 42.83% among the general population. The
Government’s Eighth Plan document mentions that nearly 52% of STs live
below the poverty line as against 30% of the general population.

In a study on Kerala, a state considered to be unique for having
developed a more egalitarian society with a high quality of life index
comparable to that of only the ‘developed’ countries, paradoxically
shows that for STs the below poverty line population was 64.5% while
for Scheduled Castes it was 47% and others 41%. About 95% of Adivasis
live in rural areas, less than 10% are itinerant hunter-gatherers but
more than half depend upon forest produce. Very commonly, police,
forest guards and officials bully and intimidate Adivasis and large
numbers are routinely arrested and jailed, often for petty offences.
Only a few Adivasi communities which are forest dwellers have not been
displaced and continue to live in forests, away from the mainstream
development activities, such as in parts of Bastar in Madhya Pradesh,
Koraput, Phulbani and Mayurbanj in Orissa and of Andaman Islands.

Thousands of Korku children below the age of six died in the 1990s due
to malnutrition and starvation in the Melghat Tiger Reserve of
Maharashtra due to the denial of access to their life sustaining
resource base. Adivasis of Kalahandi-Bolangir in Orissa and of Palamu
in south Bihar have reported severe food shortage. According to the
Central Planning Committee of the Government of India, nearly 41
districts with significant Adivasi populations are prone to deaths due
to starvation, which are not normally reported as such.
Invasion of Adivasi territories The “Land Acquisition Act” of 1894
concretised the supremacy of the sovereign to allow for total
colonisation of any territory in the name of ‘public interest’ which
in most cases are not community notions of common good. This is so
especially for the Adivasis. The colonial juristic concept of res
nullius (that which has not been conferred by the sovereign belongs to
the sovereign) and terra nullius (land that belongs to none) bulldozed
traditional political and social entities beginning the wanton
destruction of traditional forms of self-governance.

The invasion of Adivasi territories, which for the most part commenced
during the colonial period, intensified in the post-colonial period.
Most of the Adivasi territories were claimed by the state. Over 10
million Adivasis have been displaced to make way for development
projects such as dams, mining, industries, roads, protected areas etc.
Though most of the dams (over 3000) are located in Adivasi areas, only
19.9% (1980-81) of Adivasi land holdings are irrigated as compared to
45.9% of all holdings of the general population. India produces as
many as 52 principal, 3 fuel, 11 metallic, 38 non-metallic and a
number of minor minerals.

Of these 45 major minerals (coal, iron ore, magnetite, manganese,
bauxite, graphite, limestone, dolomite, uranium etc) are found in
Adivasi areas contributing some 56% of the national total mineral
earnings in terms of value. Of the 4,175 working mines reported by the
Indian Bureau of Mines in 1991-92, approximately 3500 could be assumed
to be in Adivasi areas. Income to the government from forests rose
from Rs.5.6 million in 1869-70 to more than Rs.13 billions in the
1970s. The bulk of the nation’s productive wealth lay in the Adivasi
territories. Yet the Adivasi has been driven out, marginalised and
robbed of dignity by the very process of ‘national development’.

The systematic opening up of Adivasi territories, the development
projects and the ‘tribal development projects’ make them conducive for
waves of immigrants. In the rich mineral belt of Jharkhand, the
Adivasi population has dropped from around 60% in 1911 to 27.67% in
1991. These developments have in turn driven out vast numbers of
Adivasis to eke out a living in the urban areas and in far-flung
places in slums. According to a rough estimate, there are more than
40,000 tribal domestic working women in Delhi alone! In some places,
development induced migration of Adivasis to other Adivasi areas has
also led to fierce conflicts as between the Santhali and the Bodo in
Assam.

Internal colonialism Constitutional privileges and welfare measures
benefit only a small minority of the Adivasis. These privileges and
welfare measures are denied to the majority of the Adivasis and they
are appropriated by more powerful groups in the caste order. The steep
increase of STs in Maharashtra in real terms by 148% in the two
decades since 1971 is mainly due to questionable inclusion, for
political gains, of a number of economically advanced groups among the
backwards in the list of STs.

The increase in numbers, while it distorts the demographic picture,
has more disastrous effects. The real tribes are irretrievably pushed
down in the ‘access or claim ladder’ with these new entrants cornering
the lion’s share of both resources and opportunities for education,
social and economic advancement.
Despite the Bonded Labour Abolition Act of 1976, Adivasis still form a
substantial percentage of bonded labour in the country.

Despite positive political, institutional and financial commitment to
tribal development, there is presently a large scale displacement and
biological decline of Adivasi communities, a growing loss of genetic
and cultural diversity and destruction of a rich resource base leading
to rising trends of shrinking forests, crumbling fisheries, increasing
unemployment, hunger and conflicts. The Adivasis have preserved 90% of
the country’s bio-cultural diversity protecting the polyvalent,
precolonial, biodiversity friendly Indian identity from bio-cultural
pathogens. Excessive and indiscriminate demands of the urban market
have reduced Adivasis to raw material collectors and providers.

It is a cruel joke that people who can produce some of India’s most
exquisite handicrafts, who can distinguish hundreds of species of
plants and animals, who can survive off the forests, the lands and the
streams sustainably with no need to go to the market to buy food, are
labeled as ‘unskilled’. Equally critical are the paths of resistance
that many Adivasi areas are displaying: Koel Karo, Bodh Ghat,
Inchampalli, Bhopalpatnam, Rathong Chu … big dams that were proposed
by the enlightened planners and which were halted by the mass
movements.

Such a situation has risen because of the discriminatory and predatory
approach of the mainstream society on Adivasis and their territories.
The moral legitimacy for the process of internal colonisation of
Adivasi territories and the deliberate disregard and violations of
constitutional protection of STs has its basis in the culturally
ingrained hierarchical caste social order and consciousness that
pervades the entire politico-administrative and judicial system. This
pervasive mindset is also a historical construct that got reinforced
during colonial and post-colonial India.

The term ‘Criminal Tribe’ was concocted by the British rulers and
entered into the public vocabulary through the Criminal Tribes Act of
1871 under which a list of some 150 communities including Adivasis,
were mischievously declared as (naturally) ‘criminal’. Though this
shameful act itself was repealed in 1952, the specter of the so-called
‘criminal tribes’ continue to haunt these ‘denotified tribes’ – the
Sansi, Pardhi, Kanjar, Gujjar, Bawaria, Banjara and others. They are
considered as the first natural suspects of all petty and sundry
crimes except that they are now hauled up under the Habitual Offenders
Act that replaced the British Act! Stereotyping of numerous
communities has reinforced past discriminatory attitudes of the
dominant mainstream in an institutionalised form.

There is a whole history of legislation, both during the pre-
independence as well as post-independence period, which was supposed
to protect the rights of the Adivasis. As early as 1879, the “Bombay
Province Land Revenue Code” prohibited transfer of land from a tribal
to a non-tribal without the permission of the authorities. The 1908
“Chotanagpur Tenancy Act” in Bihar, the 1949 “Santhal Pargana Tenancy
(Supplementary) Act”, the 1969 “Bihar Scheduled Areas Regulations”,
the 1955 “Rajasthan Tenancy Act” as amended in 1956, the 1959 “MPLP
Code of Madhya Pradesh”, the 1959 “Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land
Transfer Regulation” and amendment of 1970, the 1960 “Tripura Land
Revenue Regulation Act”, the 1970 “Assam Land and Revenue Act”, the
1975 “Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restriction of Transfer of Lands and
Restoration of Alienated Lands) Act” etc. are state legislations to
protect Adivasi land rights.
In Andhra for example, enquiries on land transfer violations were made
in 57,150 cases involving 245,581 acres of land, but only about 28% of
lands were restored despite persistent militant struggles. While in
the case of Kerala, out of a total claim for 9909.4522 hectares made
by 8754 applicants, only 5.5% of the claims have been restored. And
this is happening in spite of favourable judicial orders – orders
which the state governments are circumventing by attempting to
dismantle the very protective legislation itself.

The callous and casual manner with which mainstream India approaches
the fulfillment of the constitutional obligations with reference to
the tribes, and the persistent attempts by the politico-administrative
system to subvert the constitution by deliberate acts of omission and
commission, and the enormous judicial tolerance towards this speak
volumes on the discriminatory approach that permeates the society with
regard to the legal rights of the Adivasis.

Race, religion and language

The absence of neat classifications of Adivasis as a homogenous social-
cultural category and the intensely fluid nature of non-Adivasis are
evident in the insuperable difficulty in arriving at a clear
anthropological definition of a tribal in India, be it in terms of
ethnicity, race, language, social forms or modes of livelihood.

The major waves of ingress into India divide the tribal communities
into Veddids, similar to the Australian aborigines, and the
Paleamongoloid Austro-Asiatic from the north-east. The third were the
Greco-Indians who spread across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Pakistan from
Central Asia. The fourth is the Negrito group of the Andaman Islands –
the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa and the Sentinelese who
flourished in these parts for some 20,000 years but who could well
become extinct soon. The Great Andamanese have been wiped out as a
viable community with about only 30 persons alive as are the Onges who
are less than a 100.

In the mid-Indian region, the Gond who number over 5 million, are the
descendants of the dark skinned Kolarian or Dravidian tribes and speak
dialects of Austric language family as are the Santhal who number 4
million. The Negrito and Austroloid people belong to the Mundari
family of Munda, Santhal, Ho, Ashur, Kharia, Paniya, Saora etc. The
Dravidian groups include the Gond, Oraon, Khond, Malto, Bhil, Mina,
Garasia, Pradhan etc. and speak Austric or Dravidian family of
languages. The Gujjar and Bakarwal descend from the Greco Indians and
are interrelated with the Gujjar of Gujarat and the tribes settled
around Gujranwala in Pakistan.

There are some 200 indigenous peoples in the north-east. The Boro,
Khasi, Jantia, Naga, Garo and Tripiri belong to the Mongoloid stock
like the Naga, Mikir, Apatani, Boro, Khasi, Garo, Kuki, Karbi etc. and
speak languages of the Tibeto-Burman language groups and the Mon
Khmer. The Adi, Aka, Apatani, Dafla, Gallong, Khamti, Monpa, Nocte,
Sherdukpen, Singpho, Tangsa, Wancho etc of Arunachal Pradesh and the
Garo of Meghalaya are of Tibeto-Burman stock while the Khasi of
Meghalaya belong to the Mon Khmer group. In the southern region, the
Malayali, Irula, Paniya, Adiya, Sholaga, Kurumba etc belong to the
proto-Australoid racial stock speaking dialects of the Dravidian
family.

The Census of India 1991 records 63 different denominations as “other”
of over 5.7 million people of which most are Adivasi religions. Though
the Constitution recognises them as a distinct cultural group, yet
when it comes to religion those who do not identify as Christians,
Muslims or Buddhists are compelled to register themselves as Hindus.
Hindus and Christians have interacted with Adivasis to civilize them,
which has been defined as sanscritisation and westernisation. However,
as reflected during the 1981 census it is significant that about 5% of
the Adivasis registered their religion by the names of their
respective tribes or the names adopted by them. In 1991 the
corresponding figure rose to about 10% indicating the rising
consciousness and assertion of identity!

Though Article 350A of the Constitution requires primary education to
be imparted in mother tongue, in general this has not been imparted
except in areas where the Adivasis have been assertive. NCERT, the
state owned premier education research centre has not shown any
interest. With the neglect of Adivasi languages, the State and the
dominant social order aspire to culturally and socially emasculate the
Adivasis subdued by the dominant cultures. The Anthropological Survey
of India reported a loss of more than two-thirds of the spoken
languages, most of them tribal.

Fragmentation Some of the ST peoples of Himachal Pradesh, Uttar
Pradesh, W. Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and
Mizoram have their counterparts across the border in China (including
Tibet), Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The political aspirations of
these trans-border tribes who find themselves living in different
countries as a result of artificial demarcation of boundaries by
erstwhile colonial rulers continue to be ignored despite the spread
and proliferation of militancy, especially in the north east, making
it into a conflict zone.

The Adivasi territories have been divided amongst the states formed on
the basis of primarily the languages of the mainstream caste society,
ignoring the validity of applying the same principle of language for
the Adivasis in the formation of states. Jharkhand has been divided
amongst Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa though the Bihar
part of Jharkhand has now become a separate state after decades of
struggle. The Gond region has been divided amongst Orissa, Andhra,
Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Similarly the Bhil region has been
divided amongst Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

In the north-east, for example, the Naga in addition are divided into
Nagaland, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Further administrative
sub-divisions within the states into districts, talukas and panchayats
have been organised in such a way that the tribal concentration is
broken up which furthers their marginalisation both physically and
politically.

The 1874 “Scheduled District Act”, the 1919 “Government of India Act”
and later the “Government of India Act” of 1935 classified the hill
areas as excluded and partially excluded areas where the provincial
legislature had no jurisdiction. These formed the basis for the
Article 244 under which two separate schedules viz. the V Schedule and
the VI Schedule were incorporated for provision of a certain degree of
self-governance in designated tribal majority areas. However, in
effect this remained a non-starter. However, the recent legislation of
the Panchayat Raj (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996 has
raised hope of a radical redefinition of self-governance.

By not applying the same yard stick and norms for Adivasis as for the
upper caste dominated mainstream, by not genuinely recognizing the
Adivasis’ traditional self-governing systems and by not being serious
about devolving autonomy, the Indian State and society indicates a
racist and imperialist attitude.
The call for a socially homogenous country, particularly in the Hindi
Hindu paradigm have suppressed tribal languages, defiled cultures and
destroyed civilisations.

The creation of a unified albeit centralised polity and the extension
of the formal system of governance have emasculated the self-governing
institutions of the Adivasis and with it their internal cohesiveness.

The struggle for the future, the conceptual vocabulary used to
understand the place of Adivasis in the modern world has been
constructed on the feudal, colonial and imperialistic notions which
combines traditional and historical constructs with the modern
construct based on notions of linear scientific and technological
progress.

Historically the Adivasis, as explained earlier, are at best perceived
as sub-humans to be kept in isolation, or as ‘primitives’ living in
remote and backward regions who should be “civilized”. None of them
have a rational basis. Consequently, the official and popular
perception of Adivasis is merely that of isolation in forest, tribal
dialect, animism, primitive occupation, carnivorous diet, naked or
semi-naked, nomadic habits, love, drink and dance. Contrast this with
the self-perception of Adivasis as casteless, classless and
egalitarian in nature, community-based economic systems, symbiotic
with nature, democratic according to the demands of the times,
accommodative history and people-oriented art and literature.

The significance of their sustainable subsistence economy in the midst
of a profit oriented economy is not recognised in the political
discourse, and the negative stereotyping of the sustainable
subsistence economy of Adivasi societies is based on the wrong premise
that the production of surplus is more progressive than the process of
social reproduction in co-existence with nature.

The source of the conflicts arises from these unresolved
contradictions. With globalisation, the hitherto expropriation of
rights as an outcome of development has developed into expropriation
of rights as a precondition for development. In response, the
struggles for the rights of the Adivasis have moved towards the
struggles for power and a redefinition of the contours of state,
governance and progress.

Institute of Indology

Un espacio exclusivo para la difusión de la cultura milenaria de la
India An exclusive space for the dissemination of the ancient culture
of India

EL CHAMANISMO EN LA INDIA ABORIGEN THE INDIAN IN INDIA Shamanism
Susana Ávila Susana Avila

La imagen del chamán, tal y como lo define el Diccionario de la Real
Academia Española —como un hechicero al que se le supone dotado de
poderes sobrenaturales para sanar a los enfermos, adivinar el
porvenir, invocar a los espíritus, etc.— no existe en el hinduismo
porque muestra serias contradicciones con sus principios básicos. The
image of the shaman, as defined by the Dictionary of the Spanish Royal
Academy, as a sorcerer who is endowed with supernatural powers is to
heal the sick, foretell the future, summon spirits, etc. there .- in
Hinduism because it shows serious contradictions with basic
principles. Sin embargo, entre las tribus aborígenes que habitaron en
la India sí es posible encontrar rastros chamánicos y procedimientos o
rituales que sí que presentan rasgos comunes con las prácticas de los
chamanes. However, among the aboriginal tribes who lived in India it
is possible to find traces shamanic rituals and procedures or other
presenting features in common with the practices of shamans.

El hinduismo basa su filosofía en la evolución del hombre en
consecución del fin último que es la liberación de la rueda de la
vida, el estado de moksha , en el que se funde con el Absoluto.
Hinduism bases its philosophy on the evolution of man in pursuit of
the ultimate goal is the liberation of the Wheel of Life, the state of
moksha, which merges with the Absolute. El camino que sigue es el del
karma , las buenas acciones, que le van a permitir su evolución tras
innumerables reencarnaciones. The path ahead is that of karma, good
deeds, which will allow its evolution after numerous reincarnations.
Su aplicación es general, para todos los hombres, si bien a algunos
les cuesta más que a otros, pero no distingue a unos elegidos que
posean unas capacidades especiales y unos poderes blindados al resto
de sus semejantes a lo largo de sus sucesivas vidas. Its application
is usually all men, although some are harder than others, but does not
distinguish a select few who possess special capabilities and powers
shielded the rest of their peers throughout successive lives. Que
utilice en su ayuda la concentración ( dhârana ), la meditación
( dhyâna ), el conocimiento ( jñâna ), la devoción ( bhakti ) y un
sistema tan utilizado por el chamanismo como es el éxtasis ( samâdhi )
no implica que sus métodos sean chamánicos pues difieren tanto en la
forma de alcanzarlo como en su finalidad. To use their aid
concentration (Dharana), meditation (dhyana), knowledge (jnana),
devotion (bhakti) and a system as used in shamanism as ecstasy
(samadhi) does not imply that their methods are shamanic they differ
in the way of achieving it and in its purpose.

Sería imposible establecer un comportamiento homogéneo a lo largo de
toda la India, pues fueron multitud de tribus, de etnias, las que
poblaron el vasto territorio. It would be impossible to establish a
uniform behavior throughout India, as were a multitude of tribes,
ethnic groups which populated the vast territory. Durante los siglos
XIX y XX muchos han sido los arqueólogos e investigadores que han
hecho incursiones en el campo de la mitología tribal haciéndonos
llegar datos con los que hacernos una idea de sus creencias y
tradiciones. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there have
been many archaeologists and researchers who have made inroads in the
field of tribal mythology and sending us the data we get an idea of
their beliefs and traditions.

Conviene aclarar que muchas de las tribus aborígenes han sobrevivido
hasta hoy en el territorio del Indostán y, si bien han adoptado
algunas creencias hinduistas y ellos mismos se consideran a sí mismos
hindúes, esto no es obstáculo para que hayan seguido manteniendo vivas
ciertas costumbres antiquísimas y prácticas que la tradición
brahmánica docta de la India no se atrevería a tener en consideración.
It should be clear that many of the Aboriginal tribes survive today in
the territory of Hindustan and, although they have adopted some Hindu
beliefs and they themselves consider themselves Hindus, this does not
preclude that have continued to keep alive some ancient customs and
Brahmanical tradition practices learned in India would not dare
consider.

En estas tribus, muchas veces, la figura del sabio era bicéfala, por
un lado estaba el sacerdote al que se le consultaban los asuntos de
rutina, pero también había otra persona que, poseyendo la facultad de
intermediar con los espíritus, era el encargado de tratar todo lo que
quedaba fuera de lo común. In these tribes, many times, was two-headed
figure of the wise, on the one hand was the priest who is consulted
routine matters, but there was another person who, possessing the
power to mediate with the spirits, was responsible for try all that
was left out of the ordinary. Este medium es lo que podemos aproximar
más a la figura de chamán y, dependiendo de la tribu, ponía en
práctica diversos tipos de rituales. This medium is what we can bring
more to the figure of a shaman and, depending on the tribe, put into
practice various kinds of rituals. Es el caso de la tribu de los
bondos, en las tierras altas de la región de Orissa, quienes
utilizaban a un medium para problemas que se escapaban a su capacidad
y durante la ceremonia él caía en trance y profetizaba; se
emborrachaba y sus desvaríos se interpretaban como la voz del dios.
This is the case of the tribe of goodness, in the highlands region of
Orissa, who used a medium for problems that are beyond its capacity
during the ceremony and he fell into a trance and prophesied, was
drunk and his ravings are interpreted as the voice of God.

En Madhya Pradesh, la tribu de los kol, también bifurcaba la figura
del maestro, del sabio, atribuyendo al sacerdote un valor más social y
reservando al medium la tarea de dirigir el culto a los dioses locales
quien, en trance, empezaba a temblar, luego gritaba, se golpeaba a sí
mismo y se convertía, en apariencia, en una persona totalmente
distinta. In Madhya Pradesh, the Kol tribe, also forked the figure of
the teacher, sage, giving the priest a social value and reserving the
medium the task of leading the worship of local gods who, in trance,
began to tremble, then screaming, hitting himself and became
apparently a completely different person.

Uno de los problemas que más afligían a los primitivos, como a todo el
mundo, era la enfermedad, que atribuían sistemáticamente a un disgusto
o mala predisposición del dios por lo que recurrían al medium para su
solución. One of the problems that afflicted the primitive, like
everyone, was the disease that routinely attributed to a dislike or
ill disposition of God, so he turned to the medium for its solution. Y
éste no dudaba en bajar a las regiones inferiores para resolver el
problema. And he did not hesitate to descend to the lower regions to
solve the problem. Así, entre los ao-nagas, que habitaban en el
distrito de Mokokchung, muy cerca de la frontera birmana, el brujo, al
recobrarse del trance, contaba que había visto el alma del paciente en
los cielos y que había visitado a unos amigos entre los dobles-
espíritus que allí habitaban. Thus, among the year-Nagas, inhabitants
of Mokokchung district, near the Burmese border, the witch, to recover
from the trance, had he had seen the patient’s soul in heaven and that
he had visited some friends in double-spirits who lived there.

Otra tribu naga, como son los konyak-nagas, del distrito de Changlang
en Arunachal, creían que su medium podía viajar a las regiones de los
muertos para rescatar el alma del paciente que había sido raptado
aprovechando su sueño. Another Naga tribe, such as Konyak-naga,
Changlang district in Arunachal, believed that his medium could travel
to the regions of the dead to rescue the soul of the patient who had
been kidnapped by exploiting their dream.

Sus vecinos, los kachari de la región de Assam, incluían el sacrificio
de una cabra durante el trance del medium para que de su observación
determinar la causa y el remedio de la enfermedad que le afligía.
Their neighbors, the Kachari of Assam, including the sacrifice of a
goat during the trance medium for observation determine its cause and
cure of the disease that afflicted him.

El mago de los oraons de Bengala —tribu que también se asentó en los
estados de Bihar y Madhya Pradesh— buscaba el alma extraviada del
paciente a través de las montañas y de los ríos, hasta el país de los
muertos. The Wizard of Bengal Oraons-tribe also settled in the states
of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, sought the lost soul of the patient
through the mountains and rivers, to the land of the dead.

Llama la atención la libertad con que actuaba el medium en la aldea
pahari del Himalaya, que continuamente introducía innovaciones
religiosas ocasionadas por los estados disociativos de conciencia que
se producían durante el trance, de modo, como observa Berreman, el
investigador que más ha profundizado en su estudio, que «no hay que
extrañarse de la diversidad y la constante y sorprendentemente rápida
rotación de los dioses venerados en la aldea pahari». Struck by the
freedom with which the medium acted in Pahari village in the
Himalayas, which continually caused religious innovations introduced
by the dissociative states of consciousness that occurred during the
trance, so, as observed by Berreman, the research that has deepened
their study that “there is nothing surprising diversity and
surprisingly constant and rapid turnover of the gods revered in the
Pahari village.”

La posesiones eran muy frecuentes en la India tribal. The possessions
were very common in tribal India. En los estudios de Edwin sobre los
baigas, tribu asentada en la India Central, encontramos la descripción
de una ceremonia durante la cual «los medium caen en un frenesí y se
arrojan al suelo, con movimientos espasmódicamente contraídos, y
agitan la cabeza furiosamente de un lado para otro mientras el dios
cabalga sobre ellos». In studies on Baigas Edwin, tribe settled in
central India, we find the description of a ceremony during which “the
medium fall into a frenzy and thrown to the ground, made jerky
movements and head furiously waving a side to side while the god rides
on them. “

Estas posesiones eran involuntarias y voluntarias de manera sucesiva
y, lo que es más, de forma consecuente. These possessions were
involuntary and voluntary in sequence and, what is more, consistent.
Lo habitual era que el medium se resistiera a abandonarse a los
poderes incontrolables de lo «salvaje», seguido de una sumisión a los
patrones de conducta que le demandaba la situación. Typically, the
medium was that people from leaving the uncontrollable powers of the
“savage”, followed by a submission to the patterns of behavior that
the situation demanded. Todo ello era facilitado gracias a la ausencia
de rigidez en el ritual que seguía el medium , con el que, una vez en
trance, todo podía pasar. This was facilitated by the lack of rigidity
in the ritual that followed the medium, with which, once in a trance,
everything can happen. Cosa que no ocurría entre los sacerdotes, que
dirigían la actividad religiosa cuidadosamente prescrita,
estereotipada y sumamente ritualizada. Was not the case among the
priests, who ran religious activity carefully prescribed, stereotyped
and highly ritualized.

Un caso que ilustra este tira y afloja entre el medium y el espíritu
es el matrimonio entre el chamán y un ser del mundo subterráneo que se
daba entre los hill saora, población aborigen del estado de Orissa,
caso que parece ser un fenómeno único en la India aborigen. One case
that illustrates this tug of war between the medium and the spirit is
the marriage between the shaman and a creature of the underworld who
was among the hill Saora, Aboriginal people of the state of Orissa, a
case that appears to be a unique phenomenon in the native India. El ex-
misionero y antropólogo Verrier Elwin, gran investigador de los mitos
tribales, cuenta que Kintara, un brujo de Hatibadi, le confió que
cuando él tenía doce años, una mujer-espíritu tutelar llamada Jangmai
se le acercó en un sueño, le declaró su amor y quiso que la desposara.
The former missionary and anthropologist Verrier Elwin, great scholar
of tribal myths, that Kinter, Hatibadi a wizard, he confided that when
he was twelve, a woman called Jangmai tutelary spirit approached him
in a dream, he said his love and wanted the bride. Kintara se negó y
durante un año ella acudió regularmente a hacerle la corte tratando
que cediera. Kintar refused for a year she went regularly to the court
trying him to yield. Como no lo conseguía le envió un tigre para
morderle y eso le asustó tanto que finalmente el joven aceptó casarse
con ella. As he did not get sent a tiger to bite and that frightened
him so much that finally the young man agreed to marry her. Pero casi
inmediatamente, otra mujer-espíritu-protectora fue también a pedirle
que se casara con ella. But almost immediately, another woman-spirit-
protector was also to ask her to marry her. Cuando se enteró la
primera le dijo: «Yo fui la primera en amarte y te considero como mi
marido. When he heard the first said, “I was the first love and I
think as my husband. Y ahora tú quieres a otra y yo no lo permitiré».
And now you want another and I will not allow it. ” Y en un arrebato
de celos se lo llevó a la selva, le arrancó la memoria e hizo con él
lo que quiso, no obstante prometió a sus padres portarse bien con el
muchacho y ayudarle en todas sus dificultades. And in a fit of
jealousy led him into the jungle, snatched the memory and made him
what he wanted, despite her parents promised to behave well with the
boy and help in all difficulties. Cinco años después Kintara se casó
(en el mundo de los vivos) con Dasuni, una mujer de su aldea, y la
protectora llegó a un acuerdo con ella. Kintar five years after he
married (in the living world) with Dasuni, a woman from his village,
and the protective agreed with her. De su esposa terrestre tuvo un
hijo y tres hijas y de su protectora tuvo un hijo y dos hijas, que
vivieron en las regiones inferiores. Land his wife had a son and three
daughters and her protector had a son and two daughters, who lived in
the lower regions. Un día su mujer-espíritu le llevó a su hijo para
que lo conociera y él sacrificó una cabra en su honor. One day his
wife brought him to mind his son to meet him and he sacrificed a goat
in your honor.

Elwin también encontró este mismo esquema entre las mujeres brujas que
eran elegidas por un protector sobrenatural. Elwin also found this
same pattern among women witches who were chosen by a supernatural
protector. La muchacha primero se resistía a semejante pretendiente,
después entraba en un periodo de crisis aguda que finalmente se
resolvía cuando ella aceptaba la propuesta. The first girl was
resisting such a suitor, then entered a period of acute crisis was
finally resolved when she accepted the proposal. «El sueño que obliga
a una muchacha a aceptar su profesión y la marca del sello de la
aprobación sobrenatural, toma la forma de visitas de un pretendiente
del mundo subterráneo que le propone matrimonio con todas las
consecuencias extáticas y numinosas». “The dream that a girl forced to
accept his profession and the kind of stamp of approval supernatural
takes the form of a suitor visits the underworld who proposes to her
with all the consequences numinous ecstatic.”

Una joven recuerda la primera visita que le hizo un espíritu protector
en sueños, vestido con ropas muy elegantes. A young woman remembers
the first visit he made a protective spirit in dreams, dressed in
elegant clothes. Ella lo rechazó y él la envolvió en un torbellino y
la depositó sobre una alta rama que comenzó a balancearse. She refused
and he wrapped her in a whirlwind and deposited on a high branch that
began to sway. Ella se sintió aterrorizada pensando que iba a caer
desde tanta altura y se apresuró a aceptar su oferta de casamiento.
She was terrified thinking he was going to fall from such heights and
was quick to accept his offer of marriage.

Otra mujer, ya casada y con un hijo cuando recibió la visita de su
protector, se negó a satisfacerle y cayó enferma. Another woman, now
married with a son when he was visited by his patron, refused to meet
you and fell ill. Su marido mandó llamar a un brujo de la aldea vecina
y el protector habló por su boca diciendo: «Voy a casarme con ella; si
no acepta se volverá loca». Her husband summoned a witch doctor from
the neighboring village and spoke through his mouth guard saying,
‘I’ll marry her, if not accepted will become crazy. ” Finalmente se
vio obligada a aceptarlo y aprendió, en sueños, el arte de chamanizar.
Finally she was forced to accept it and learn, in dreams, art
chamanizar.

Otra cuestión era si el oficio de brujo, o la calidad de mago era
hereditaria o había una predestinación para ello. Another question was
whether the office of a witch, wizard or quality was inherited or had
a predestination to it. Entre los mun, la posesión de un medium por
parte de un dios concreto no estaba predestinada astralmente, sino que
se inauguraba «con una enfermedad imprevisible». Among the world, the
possession of a medium by a particular god was not predestined astral,
but was opened “with an unpredictable disease.” En cambio, entre los
lepchas de Sikkim, en el Himalaya, estudiados por Geoffrey Gorer, la
categoría sacerdotal era hereditaria, aunque no por ello prescindía de
instrucción. In contrast, among the Lepchas of Sikkim in the
Himalayas, studied by Geoffrey Gorer, the priestly class was
hereditary, but by no means dispensed with instruction.

Luego, con la llegada de los arios, empezamos a ver una marcada
diferencia que se presenta entre las prácticas chamánicas y los
rituales brahmánicos; mientras que en las primeras el factor
espontáneo era una constante y toda la ceremonia se abría a la
improvisación del chamán, el brahmán seguía un proceso muy reglado.
Then with the arrival of the Aryans, began to see a marked difference
occurs between the shamanistic practices and rituals Brahman, while in
the first factor was a constant spontaneous and the whole ceremony is
open to the improvisation of the shaman The Brahmin was a very
regulated. Los largos comentarios de los Brâhmanas establecen la
correcta realización de los ritos y es esta exactitud y la precisión
lo que garantizaba su eficacia y no la voluntad o el capricho de los
dioses. Long established hotel Brâhmanas proper conduct of rites and
it is this accuracy and precision which ensured its effectiveness and
not the will or whim of the gods.

Aunque haya procedimientos dentro de los cultos devocionales a Shiva y
Shakti, o en las prácticas que siguen los munis , los yogis o
cualquier otro tipo de estático con vestigios chamánicos, el contrate
con el ascético sacrificio de uno mismo de la tradición brahmánica
docta de la India, no podría ser más acusado. Although there are
procedures within the devotional cults of Shiva and Shakti, or the
practices followed by munis, yogis or any other type of shamanic
remains static, the contrast with the ascetic self-sacrifice of the
Brahmanical tradition of scholarly India could not be sharper. Pero
sería cuestionable si, en cada caso, se puede hablar de un elemento
chamánico propiamente dicho o de una tradición mágica que rebasa la
esfera del chamanismo. But it is questionable whether, in each case,
one can speak of a shamanic element itself or a magical tradition that
goes beyond the realm of shamanism.
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+ LAS METAS ESPIRITUALES DE LA FILOSOFÍA HINDÚ SPIRITUAL GOALS OF
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INFORMACIÓN Y ACTIVIDADES DEL INSTITUTO DE INDOLOGÍA INFORMATION AND
ACTIVITIES OF THE INSTITUTE of Indology

El Instituto de Indología es una Asociación Cultural de Madrid que se
fundó en 1995, a iniciativa de un grupo de amigos, de quien fue cabeza
y motor D. The Institute of Indology is a cultural association was
founded in Madrid in 1995 at the initiative of a group of friends, who
was head and motor D. Rafael Iruzubieta, actualmente Presidente de
Honor. Rafael Iruzubieta currently Honorary President. En el artículo
1º de los Estatutos del Instituto, registrados en el Ministerio del
Interior, Registro Nacional de Asociaciones (núm. 160172), se
especifica que carece de ánimo de lucro, y en el artículo 3º figuran
como objetivos «el estudio y la difusión de la cultura de la India».
In Article 1 of the Statutes of the Institute registered with the
Ministry of Interior, National Register of Associations (No. 160172),
specifies that no profit, and Article 3 º set objectives “the study
and dissemination the culture of India. ” En el artículo 30º se aclara
que «la Asociación carece de patrimonio inicial o fondo social». In
article 30 clarifies that “The Partnership has no initial wealth or
social background.”

El Instituto de Indología no está ligado a ninguna entidad ni pública
ni privada, por lo que se trata de una asociación absolutamente
independiente, al margen de que pueda organizar ciclos de conferencias
y otras actividades con el patrocinio o colaboración de instituciones
públicas o privadas. The Institute of Indology is not tied to any
entity or public or private, so this is a completely independent
association, regardless of whether they can organize lecture tours and
other activities sponsored or collaborative public and private
institutions. Precisamente, esta independencia va muy unida a la
variedad de áreas de conocimiento que el Instituto aborda en sus
actividades. Indeed, this independence is very close to the variety of
areas of knowledge that addresses the Institute in its activities. A
diferencia de otras asociaciones, por ejemplo centradas en lo
religioso o en lo filosófico, tan frecuente cuando se habla de la
India, el Instituto de Indología, sin olvidar ese aspecto de la
cultura de la India, aborda otros muchos temas, que pertenecen a áreas
muy diversas de conocimiento, sin perder de vista la propia realidad
actual de la India y de su desarrollo económico y social. Unlike other
associations, for example focusing on the religious or philosophical,
as often when talking about India, the Institute of Indology, not to
mention that aspect of the culture of India, addresses many other
issues, which belong to very diverse areas of knowledge, without
losing sight of the reality of India today and its economic and social
development.

Al margen de lo expuesto, el Instituto de Indología mantiene muy
buenas relaciones de colaboración con la Embajada de la India en
España, con Casa Asia (Barcelona y Madrid) y con Casa de la India en
Valladolid. Apart from the above, the Institute of Indology has a good
working relationship with the Embassy of India in Spain, with Casa
Asia (Barcelona and Madrid) and the India House in Valladolid.

La actual Junta Directiva del Instituto de Indología está compuesta
por las siguientes personas: The current Board of the Institute of
Indology is composed of the following:
Presidente: Dr. D. Chairman: Dr. D. Pedro Carrero Eras Pedro Carrero
Eras
Vicepresidente: D. Vice President: D. Fernando Peláez López Fernando
López Peláez
Secretaria: Dª. Secretary: Ms. Rosa M. Rosa M. Gutiérrez Sierra Sierra
Gutiérrez
Tesorera: Dª. Treasurer: Ms. Paloma Callejo Fernández Paloma Fernández
Callejo
Ostenta el cargo de Presidente de Honor el Dr. D. Holds the position
of Honorary Chairman Dr. D. Rafael Iruzubieta Fernández. Iruzubieta
Rafael Fernández.

Desde su fundación en 1995 el Instituto de Indología ha organizado un
buen número de ciclos de conferencias y cursos de verano, tal y como
se especifica a continuación. Since its founding in 1995, the
Institute of Indology has organized a number of conferences and summer
courses, as specified below.

1996: Curso de verano bajo el título de La India de ayer a hoy ,
celebrado en Aguadulce (Almería), dentro de los organizados por la
Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 1996: Summer School under the title
of India past and present, celebrated in Aguadulce (Almeria), within
organized by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

1997: Intervención institucional en los Actos conmemorativos de la
Independencia de la India, entre los que destaca la organización de un
ciclo de conferencias celebrado en el Consejo General de las Cámaras
de Comercio, Navegación e Industria de Madrid. 1997: Institutional
Intervention in the celebrations of the Independence of India, most
notably the organization of a lecture held at the General Council of
Chambers of Commerce, Navigation and Industry of Madrid.

1999: Curso de verano bajo el título de Panorámica actual de la India,
celebrado en Aguadulce (Almería), dentro de los organizados por la
Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 1999: Summer course titled panorama
of India, celebrated in Aguadulce (Almeria), within organized by the
Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

2000: Ciclo de conferencias La India de ahora y de siempre , celebrado
en la Cámara de Comercio e Industria de Madrid, en una primera fase
entre abril y junio y en una segunda entre octubre y diciembre. 2000:
Lecture The India of today and always, held in the Chamber of Commerce
and Industry of Madrid, in a first phase from April to June and a
second between October and December.

2001 (20-24 de agosto): Curso de verano La India mágica y la India
real , celebrado en El Escorial, dentro de los organizados por la
Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2001 (20-24 August): Summer School
and The Magic India real India, held in El Escorial, within organized
by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

2003 (18-22 de agosto): Curso de verano La India mágica y la India
real , celebrado en El Escorial, dentro de los organizados por la
Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2003 (18-22 August): Summer School
and The Magic India real India, held in El Escorial, within organized
by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

2005 (8 al 12 de agosto): Curso de verano La India: visión actual de
una cultura milenaria , celebrado en El Escorial, dentro de los
organizados por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2005 (8 to 12
August): Summer School India: current view of an ancient culture, held
in El Escorial, within organized by the Universidad Complutense de
Madrid.

2005 (meses de octubre a diciembre): Primer Ciclo de Conferencias de
Otoño que, con el título de La India de las mil caras , se celebra en
la Embajada de la India en Madrid. 2005 (October to December): First
Fall Lecture Series, with the title of India with a thousand faces,
takes place at the Embassy of India in Madrid.

2006 (meses de octubre a diciembre): Segundo Ciclo de Conferencias de
otoño que, con el título de La India: entre la tradición y el siglo
XXI , se celebra en la Embajada de la India en Madrid. 2006 (October
to December): Second Fall Lecture Series, with the title of India:
between tradition and the XXI century, is held at the Embassy of India
in Madrid.

2007 (30 de julio-3 de agosto de 2007): Curso de verano La India:
entre la tradición y el futuro , celebrado en El Escorial, dentro de
los organizados por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2007 (July
30-August 3, 2007): Summer School India: between tradition and future,
held in El Escorial, within organized by the Universidad Complutense
de Madrid.

2009 (meses de febrero a marzo): Tercer Ciclo de Conferencias de otoño
que, con el título de La India: vida y cultura , se celebra en la
Embajada de la India en Madrid. 2009 (February and March): Third
Lecture in autumn, with the title of India: Life and Culture, held at
the Embassy of India in Madrid.

2009 (27 de julio-3 de agosto: Curso de verano La India: tradición y
modernidad , celebrado en El Escorial, dentro de los organizados por
la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2009 (July 27-August 3: Summer
School India: tradition and modernity, held in El Escorial, within
organized by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Junto a estas actividades mencionadas son numerosas otras que se han
desarrollado a lo largo de estos años, como presentaciones de libros e
iniciativas, actos y acontecimientos relacionados con la India en los
que el Instituto ha estado presente a través de algunos de sus socios.
Along with these activities mentioned are numerous others that have
developed over the years, such as book launches and initiatives,
actions and events related to India in which the Institute has been
present through some of its partners. Hay que destacar, en este
sentido, las organizadas últimamente por Casa Asia en Barcelona y
Madrid, así como un Ciclo de conferencias sobre Arte y Literatura
organizado por la Casa de la India en Valladolid. It should be noted
in this regard, recently organized by Casa Asia in Barcelona and
Madrid as well as a series of lectures on Literature and Art organized
by the India House in Valladolid.

Kol Adivasi

The Kol, one of the Adivasi Groups of the Jharkhand state. They are
found in North Chotanagpur and Santhal Pragana division. They mostly
live in the districts of Dumka, Deoghar and Giridih of Jharkhand
state. The Kol tribes are divided in 12 clans as Hansda, Soren, Kisku,
Marandi, Tudu, Chaunde, Hembrom, Baske, Besera, Chunair, Murmu and
Kisnov.

Culture

The Kol village are situated at plain areas. Houses are erect with
bamboo, and sal saplins, tied with grass ropes and thatched with
straw.

Family

Kol family is Patriarchal. Family structure is nuclear as well as
joint.

Marriage

The ritual of marriage generally comes in the life of all boys and
girls of the the Kol, Exogamous is the usual form of marriage. For
marriage Girl’s family goes in search of boy.

Birth

Birth is regarded as very joyous occasion in the society of the Kol.
After 3rd or 6th day of a birth of a child they organise feast which
is known as “Chatthi”.

Death

The Kol are aware of death reality. They know well that wherever birth
there is is death. But they do not know the age and time of death,
although it is pre-decided. Some die just after birth, some die in
infancy, some in young age. The death during old age is taken good
because it brings occasion of transformation of body and soul of a
person. The dead body is buried or cremated. Only male members
participate in death rituals. From the day the dead body is buried
they organise “Sharad” for 10 days.

Economy

Major economic activities of the Kol is Iron Smelting, agriculture and
as labour. 2 – 3% are working in Government jobs.

Religion

The Kol are very religious tribe, they follow Sarna religion and
Singhonga is worshipped as a great almighty of God. They also believe
in naturalism and worship natural objects like sun, river, mountain,
tree, animal, birds, plants and bushes.

Political Organization

The Kol tribe does not have political career. Traditional panchayat
system is prevalent in their society. The head of the families are the
member and the head is called as Manjhi.

This page has been developed and maintained by Jharkhand Volunteer*

© Jharkhand Org

Jharkhand.ORG (India) -> www.jharkhand.org.in

Jharkhand.ORG (United States) -> www.jharkhand.us

Jharkhand.ORG (United Kingdom) -> www.jharkhand.org.uk

Jharkhand

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jharkhand

— state —

Seal
Ranchi

Location of Jharkhand in India

Coordinates 23.35°N 85.33°E / 23.35°N 85.33°E / 23.35;
85.33Coordinates: 23.35°N 85.33°E / 23.35°N 85.33°E / 23.35; 85.33

Country India

District(s) 24

Established 15 November 2000

Capital Ranchi

Largest city Jamshedpur

Governor M.O. Hasan Farook Maricar

Chief Minister Arjun Munda

Legislature (seats) Unicameral (81)

Population

• Density
26,909,428 (13th)

• 360 /km2 (932 /sq mi)

HDI (2005) increase
0.513 (medium) (24th)

Literacy 58.6% (27th)

Official languages Hindi

Time zone IST (UTC+5:30)

Area 74677 km2 (28833 sq mi)

ISO 3166-2 IN-JH

Website jharkhand.nic.in

Jharkhand (Hindi: झारखंड, pronounced [ˈdʒʱaːrkʰəɳɖ] ( listen)) is a
state in eastern India. It was carved out of the southern part of
Bihar on 15 November 2000. Jharkhand shares its border with the states
of Bihar to the north, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the west,
Orissa to the south, and West Bengal to the east. It has an area of
28,833 sq mi (74,677 km²). The industrial city of Ranchi is its
capital while Jamshedpur is the largest city of the state. Some of the
other major cities and industrial centres are Dhanbad, Bokaro and
Hazaribagh.

The name “Jharkhand” means “The Land of Forests”.

History

Main article: History of Jharkhand

According to some writers like Gautam Kumar Bera,[1] there was already
a distinct geo-political, cultural entity called Jharkhand even before
the period of Magadha Empire. Bera’s book (page 33) also refers to the
Hindu Mythological book Bhavishya Purana (around 1200 AD), where the
reference of Jharkhand is found. The tribal rulers, some of whom
continue to thrive till today were known as the Munda Rajas,[2] who
basically had ownership rights to large farmlands.[3] During the
Mughal period, the Jharkhand area was known as Kukara.

British Rule

After the year 1765, it came under the control of the British Empire
and became formally known under its present title, “Jharkhand” – the
Land of “Jungles” (forests) and “Jharis” (bushes). Located on Chhota
Nagpur Plateau and Santhal Parganas, the place has evergreen forests,
rolling hills and rocky plateaus with many places of keen beauty like
Lodh Falls.

The subjugation and colonization of Jharkhand region by the British
East India Company resulted in spontaneous resistance from the local
people. Almost one hundred years before Indian rebellion of 1857,
adivasis of Jharkhand were already beginning what would become a
series of repeated revolts against the British colonial rule:

The period of revolts of the Adivasis to protect their Jharkhand land
took place from 1771 to 1900 AD. The first ever revolt against the
landlords and the British government was led by Tilka Manjhi,[4] a
valiant Santhal leader in Santal tribal belt in 1771. He wanted to
liberate his people from the clutches of the unscrupulous landlords
and restore the lands of their ancestors. The British government sent
its troops and crushed the uprisings of Tilka Manjhi. Soon after in
1779, the Bhumij tribes rose in arms against the British rule in
Manbhum, now in West Bengal. This was followed by the Chero tribes
unrest in Palamau. They revolted against the British Rule in 1800 AD.
Hardly seven years later in 1807, the Oraons in Barway murdered their
big landlord of Srinagar west of Gumla. Soon the uprisings spread
around Gumla. The tribal uprisings spread eastward to neighbouring
Tamar areas of the Munda tribes. They too rose in revolt in 1811 and
1813. The Hos in Singhbhum were growing restless and came out in open
revolt in 1820 and fought against the landlords and the British troops
for two years. This is called the Larka Kol Risings 1820–1821. Then
came the great Kol Risings of 1832. This was the first biggest tribal
revolt that greatly upset the British administration in Jharkhand. It
was caused by an attempt by the Zamindars to oust the tribal peasants
from their hereditary possessions. The Santhal insurrection broke out
in 1855 under the leadership of two brothers Sidhu and Kanhu. They
fought bitterly against the British troops but finally they too were
crashed down.

Then Birsa Munda revolt,[5] broke out in 1895 and lasted till 1900.
The revolt though mainly concentrated in the Munda belt of Khunti,
Tamar, Sarwada and Bandgaon, pulled its supporters from Oraon belt of
Lohardaga, Sisai and even Barway. It was the longest and the greatest
tribal revolt in Jharkhand. It was also the last tribal revolt in
Jharkhand. All of these uprisings were quelled by the British through
massive deployment of troops across the region.

British Government faced a lot of tribal revolt in Chhota Nagpur
Division. Wherever resistance to British rule existed they tried to
divide them. The policy of “Divide and rule” was made effective by
Lord Curzon, when he was Governor General of India. He carried out
Partition of Bengal in 1905, when the Princely states of Gangpur and
Bonai of Chota Nagpur States were transferred from the control of
Commissioner of Chhota Nagpur Division to Orissa division and Princely
states of Jashpur, Surguja, Udaipur, Chang Bhakar and Koriya were
transferred from Chhota Nagpur Division to Chhattisgarh Division of
Central Provinces, leading to shrinkage of Chhota Nagpur Division. Due
to popular resistance to Partition of Bengal, the two Bengals were
united in 1912 by Governor General Harding and the province of Bihar –
Orissa was created by taking out of Bengal the Bihar division, Chhota
Nagpur Division and Orissa division. During this creation Midnapur,
Purulia and Bankura remained with Bengal. Thus, whenever there was
reorganization of Provinces, Chhota Nagpur Division lost some area.
Thus during British rule, tribal areas, although geographically
continuous, were put under different administrations. As a result of
this, when India gained independence in 1947 and after the Princely
states acceded to Government of India in 1948, the Princely states of
Gangpur and Bonai were put under Orissa province, Princely states of
Jashpur, Surguja, Udaipur, Chang Bhakar and Koriya were put under
Madhya Pradesh and Midnapur, Purulia and Bankura were put under West
Bengal. Princely states of Gangpur and Bonai were combined to form
Sundergarh District. Princely states of Surguja and Udaipur were
combined to form Surguja District and Chang bhakar and Koriya were
combined to form Koriya district. All these are Jharkhandi areas and
effort should be made to get back these areas. Jharkhand is incomplete
without these areas.

The 20th century Jharkhand movement may also be seen as moderate
movement as compared to the bloody revolts of the 19th century. Having
the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act 1908 to protect their lands, the tribal
leaders now turned to socio-economic development of the people. In
1914 Jatra Oraon started what is called the Tana Movement. Later this
movement joined the Satyagrah Movement of Mahatma Gandhi in 1920 and
stopped giving land tax to the Government. In 1915 the Chhotanagpur
Unnati Samaj was started for the socio-economic development of the
tribals. This organisation had also political objectives in mind. When
the Simon Commission came to Patna in 1928, the Chhotanagpur Unnati
Samaj sent its delegation and placed its demand for a separate
Jharkhand State for self-rule by the tribals. The Simon Commission
however did not accede to the demand for a separate Jharkhand State.
Thereafter Theble Oraon organised Kishan Sabha in 1931. In 1935 the
Chhotanagpur Unnati Samaj and the Kishan Sabha were merged with a view
to acquire political power.

Jharkhand Movement- post-Indian independence

For almost six decades the movement had been changing colour and
strategy to gain a foothold. Gradually, the Jharkhand Party grew
politically stronger but the various Commissions examining the demands
for a separate Jharkhand State rejected it one after another. In
August 1947 the Thakkar Commission rejected it saying that it would
not be beneficial for the Adivasis. In 1948 Dar Commission also
examined the demand for a separate Jharkhand state but rejected it on
linguistic grounds. Despite these reports of these Commissions going
negative in nature, Jharkhand Party never lost sight of its ultimate
target – a separate state of Jharkhand. Jharkhand Party contested the
1952 elections with a declared aim of strengthening the demand of a
tribal homeland and won 32 seats in the Bihar Assembly. In the second
General Election in 1957 too Jharkhand Party won 32 seats and for two
terms the party remained the leading opposition party. In 1955 the
Report of the State Reorganisation Commission came out. Here too the
demand for a separate Jharkhand state was rejected. In the third
general election in 1962 the party could win only 23 seats in the
Bihar Assembly. Personal interests of the Jharkhand leaders started
playing upper hands. The following year Jharkhand Party aligned with
Congress and Jaipal Singh became a minister in Vinodanand Jha’s
government in Bihar. With this, the demand for the Tribal Homeland was
put into cold storage for nearly a decade.

In the 4th General Election held in 1967 the party had a very poor
show. It could win only 8 Assembly seats. The party was soon split
into several splinter groups each claiming to be the genuine Jharkhand
party. These were the All India Jharkhand Party led by Bagun Sumroi,
the Jharkhand Party led by N.E. Horo, the Hul Jharkhand Party led by
Justin Richard which got further fragmented and came to be called the
Bihar Progressive Hul Jharkhand Party and it was led by Shibu Soren.
The movement was infused with a new radicalism when Santhal leader
Shibu Soren formed the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in league with the
Marxist co-ordination Committee in 1972. In its early years, the JMM
under Soren’s leadership, brought industrial and mining workers mainly
non-tribals belonging to Dalit and Backward communities such as
Surdis, Doms, Dusadh and Kurmi-Mahtos, into its fold. However Soren’s
association with the late congress M.P. Gyanranjan brought him close
to then prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, in New Delhi. He won
the Dumka Lok Sabha seat in 1972. Irked by Soren’s association with
the Congress, a few of the younger members of the JMM banded together
in Jamshedpur and set up the All Jharkhand Students’ Union (AJSU).
This did nothing to stunt the growth of the JMM in the 1991 Lok Sabha
election where the JMM won six seats.

That year saw the emergence of another foreign educated scholar, Ram
Dayal Munda, who reignited the movement by unifying splinter groups
among the tribals. Under his guidance the Jharkahnd Coordination
Committee was constituted in June 1987, comprising 48 organizations
and group including the JMM factions. Due to Munda, Soren, Mandal and
AJSU leaders like Surya Singh Besra and Prabhakar Tirkey briefly
shared a political platform. But the JMM pulled out of JCC as it felt
that ‘the collective leadership was a farce’. The JMM/AJSU and JPP
successfully orchestrated bandhs,economic blockades in 1988-89. In the
interim, BJP came out with its demand for a separate “Vananchal” state
comprising 18 districts of Bihar, arguing that demand for a greater
Jharkhand is ‘not practical’.

In response, Buta Singh, the then Home minister, asked Ram Dayal
Munda, the then Ranchi University vice chancellor , to prepare a
report on Jharkhand. Munda handed his report in September 1988,
advising the Home Ministry to grant ‘autonomy’ to ‘Greater Jharkhand’.
In August 1989, the Union Home Ministry formed a committee on
Jharkhand Matters (CoJM) to look into the issue. In September 1989 the
COJM submitted its report proposing the alternatives to the formation
of a greater Jharkhand, a Union Territory or a Jharkhand general
council. In 1995 the Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council(JAAC) was set
up after a tripartite agreement was signed by the Union government
represented by the then minister of State for Home Rajesh Pilot, the
Bihar government represented by the then chief minister Lalu Prasad
Yadav and Jharkhand leaders like Soren, Munda, Mandal, Besra and
Tirkey. Horo did not sign this agreement. He dubbed the JAAC as the
‘fraud’ and stuck to his demand for Tribal Homeland. So did the AJSU
and JPP.

In July 1997, Shibu Soren offered support to minority government of
Laloo Prasad Yadav with a condition of a separate Jharkhand bill in
the assembly. On 2 August 2000, the bill to create a separate state of
Jharkhand to be carved out of Bihar was passed in Lok Sabha by voice
vote with two key allies of ruling NDA strongly opposing the measure
and the opposition Rashtriya Janta Dal and the CPI-M demanding it to
be referred to a parliamentary committee. The long cherished demand of
people of the region was fulfilled, the celebration was on through out
the Jharkhand region. On 11 August,the Parliament approved the
formation of Jharkhand, when the Rajya Sabha passed the Bihar
reorganisation bill 2000 by voice – vote, to carve out the new state
out of Bihar’s southern region. On 25 August,the then President Mr.
K.R. Narayanan approved the Bihar reorganisation bill 2000.On 12
October 2000, the Center issued the gazette notification stating 15
November 2000 to be the appointed date for the formation of new
Jharkhand Government.

The state of Jharkhand became a functioning reality on 15 November
2000 after almost half a century of people’s movements around
Jharkhandi identity, which disadvantaged societal groups articulated
in order to augment political resources and influence the policy
process in their favour. The Jharkhandi identity and the demand for
autonomy was not premised solely on the uniqueness of its tribal
cultural heritage, but was essentially a fallout of the failure of
development policy to intervene in socio-economic conditions of both
the adivasis and non-adivasis in the region.

Jharkhand state was created on 15 November 2000 by carving out 18
districts of Bihar but the dream of Greater Jharkhand still remained
unfulfilled. Tribal dominated districts of Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar,
Sundargarh and Deogarh of Orissa state and Purulia,Bankura and
Midnapore districts of West Bengal and the districts of Jashpur,
Surguja, Koriya of Chhattisgarh state are still not part of Jharkhand.

Jharkhand – a separate state

The dynamics of resources and the politics of development still
influence the socio-economic structures in Jharkhand, which was carved
out of the relatively ‘super forward’ southern part Bihar. According
to the 1991 census, the state has a population of over 20 million out
of which 28% is tribal while 12% of the people belong to scheduled
castes. Jharkhand has 24 districts, 211 blocks and 32, 620 villages
out of which only 45% are electrified while only 8,484 are connected
by roads. Jharkhand is the leading producer of mineral wealth in the
country, endowed as it is with vast variety of minerals like iron ore,
coal, copper ore, mica, bauxite, graphite, limestone, and uranium.
Jharkhand is also known for its vast forest resources.

This paradoxical development profile of Jharkhand is combined with the
fact that distortions in distribution and access to resources have
made little difference to lives of ordinary people. However, the
people of the region are politically mobilized and self-conscious and
are actively seeking better bargains for the state. The people in
Jharkhand have the advantage of being culturally vibrant, as reflected
in the diversity of languages spoken, festivals celebrated, and
variety of folk music, dances, and other traditions of performing
arts.

Geography and climate

Most of the state lies on the Chota Nagpur Plateau, which is the
source of the Koel, Damodar, Brahmani, Kharkai, and Subarnarekha
rivers, whose upper watersheds lie within Jharkhand. Much of the state
is still covered by forest. Forest preserves support populations of
tigers and Asian Elephants.

Soil content of Jharkhand state mainly consist of soil formed from
disintegration of rocks and stones, and soil composition is further
divided into:

1. Red soil, found mostly in the Damodar valley, and Rajmahal area
2. Micacious soil (containing particles of mica), found in Koderma,
Jhumeritilaiya, Barkagaon, and areas around the Mandar hill
3. Sandy soil, generally found in Hazaribagh and Dhanbad
4. Black soil, found in Rajmahal area
5. Laterite soil, found in western part of Ranchi, Palamu, and
parts of Santhal Parganas and Singhbhum

Flora and fauna

Jharkhand has a rich variety of flora and fauna. The National Parks
and the Zoological Gardens located in the state of Jharkhand present a
panorama of this variety.

Betla National Park in the Palamu district, located 8 km away from
Barwadih, covers an area of about 250 square kilometers (96.5 sq mi).
The national park has a large variety of wildlife, including tigers,
elephants, bisons (which are locally known as gaurs), sambhars, wild
boar, and pythons (up to 20 feet (6.1 m) long), spotted deers
(chitals), rabbits and foxes. The mammalian fauna to be seen at Betla
National Park also include langurs, rhesus monkeys, blue bulls and
wild boars. The lesser mammals are the porcupines, hares, wild cats,
honey badgers, Malabar giant squirrels, mongooses, wolves, antelopes
etc. In 1974, the park was declared a Project Tiger Reserve.

Part of the reason for the variety and diversity of flora and fauna
found in Jharkhand state may be accredited to the Palamau Tiger
Reserves under the Project Tiger. This reserve is abode to hundreds of
species of flora and fauna,[6] as indicated within brackets: mammals
(39), snakes (8), lizards (4), fish (6), insects (21), birds (170),
seed bearing plants and trees (97), shrubs and herbs (46), climbers,
parasites and semi-parasites (25), and grasses and bamboos (17).

The Hazaribag Wildlife Sanctuary, with scenic beauties, 135 km (84 mi)
away from Ranchi, is set in an ecosystem very similar to Betla
National Park of Palamu.

Jawaharlal Nehru Zoological Garden in Bokaro Steel City is the biggest
Zoological Garden in Jharkhand. It has many animal and bird species,
spread over 200 acres (0.81 km2), including an artificial waterpark
with boating facilities. Another zoo is also located about 16 km from
Ranchi, and a number of mammalian fauna have been collected there for
visitors.

Demographics

Main article: Tribes of Jharkhand

Population Growth

Census Pop. %±

1951 9,697,000 —
1961 11,606,000 19.7%
1971 14,227,000 22.6%
1981 17,612,000 23.8%
1991 21,844,000 24.0%
2001 26,946,000 23.4%

Source:Census of India[7]

Jharkhand has a population of 26.93 million, consisting of 13.88
million males and 13.08 million females. The sex ratio is 941 females
to 1000 males. The population consists of 28% tribals, 12% Scheduled
Castes and 60% others. The population density of the state is 274
persons per square kilometre of land, However, it varies from as low
as 148 per square kilometre in Gumla district to as high as 1167 per
square kilometre in Dhanbad district. Around 10% of the population is
Bengali speaking and 70% speak various dialects of Hindi.[8]

Hinduism is the majority religion in the state, with 68.5% of the
population practising the faith. Islam is followed by 13.8% of the
population and the Animisitic Sarna religion is practised by 13% of
the population. Christianity with 4.1% of the population is the fourth
largest religious community in Jharkhand. Jainism, Buddhism and
Sikhism are all practiced making few less than 1%.[9]

Jharkhand has 32 tribal groups. These are the Asur, Baiga, Banjara,
Bathudi, Bedia, Binjhia, Birhor, Birjia, Chero, Chick-Baraik, Gond,
Gorait, Ho, Karmali, Kharia, Kharwar, Khond, Kisan, Kora, Korwa,
Lohra, Mahli, Mal-Paharia, Munda, Oraon, Parhaiya, Santal, Sauria-
Paharia, Savar, Bhumij, Kol and Kanwar. In some of the districts of
Jharkhand, the tribal population is predominate.

Language, literature and culture

Hindi is the State Language. The people of Jharkhand speak a number of
languages belonging to three major language families: the Munda
languages which include Santhali, Mundari, Ho, Kharia, Bhumij and
Kurmali; the Dravidian languages which include Oraon (Kurukh), Korwa,
and Paharia (Malto) and the Indo-Aryan languages which include Magahi,
Nagpuri, Sadri, Khortha, Angika, Oriya Hindi and Bengali.

Cuisine

Since the state is populated by people from all over India, food that
is found in the state is varied. Native inhabitants have a cuisine in
which spices are rarely used and rice is the staple. Natives prepare
different dishes of rice like different types of Rotis, Pittha,
Dhuska, Dudhauri, etc.
Dhuska is a famous dish of Jharkhand cooked with mashed rice and
pulses and served with either aaloo dum or mutton curry.

Tribals and Sadan use different types of flowers as vegetables, such
as the flower of drum-stick, august and Jhirool. Use of Sag, i.e.
leaves of different shrubs and other small plants, is perhaps another
peculiarity of Jharkhandi food. Commonly used sags are Palak,Beng,
Kataei,Gendhari, Konar, methi, bhatua and chana.

Local alcoholic drinks include rice beer, originally known as Handiya,
named after the vessel (earthen pot) used to make it. indeed handiya
or rice beer is cultutally associated with native i.e. Tribals as well
as Sadan as this drink consumed by both men and women, on social
occasions like marriage and other festivals. Another common liquor is
called Mahu, made from a fruit called “Mahua”.

There are many foods that are a part of the traditional cuisine that
are also known for their medicinal values, like Kurthi, which is used
like a kind of pulses and is considered a cure for kidney stones.
Fruits such as Jackfruit, Blackberry, Mango, and Litchi are found in
abundance. Sattu is also major part of cuisine.

Administrative districts

The state was formed with 18 districts, which were formerly part of
south Bihar. Some of these districts were reorganized to form 6 new
districts, namely, Latehar, Saraikela Kharsawan, Jamtara, Sahebganj,
Khunti and Ramgarh. Presently, the state has 24 districts: Ranchi,
Lohardaga, Gumla, Simdega, Palamu, Latehar, Garhwa, West Singhbhum,
Seraikela Kharsawan, East Singhbhum, Dumka, Jamtara, Sahebganj, Pakur,
Godda, Hazaribagh, Chatra, Koderma, Giridih, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Deoghar,
Khunti and Ramgarh.

Largest cities in Jharkhand

(2001 Census of India estimate)[10]

Rank City District Population Rank City District Population

Jamshedpur

Ranchi

Bokaro

01 Jamshedpur East Singbhum 1,104,713 06 Hazaribag Hazaribag
135,473
02 Dhanbad Dhanbad 1,065,327 07 Deoghar Deoghar 112,525
03 Ranchi Ranchi 863,497 08 Ramgarh Ramgarh 110,496
04 Bokaro Steel City Bokaro 648,978 09 Chirkunda Dhanbad
106,227
05 Phusro Bokaro 174,402 10 Giridih Giridih 105,634

Government and politics

The state is headed by a Governor, who is appointed by the President
of India. However, the real executive power rests with the Chief
Minister, Shri. Arjun Munda and the cabinet. The political party or
the coalition of political parties having majority in the Legislative
Assembly forms the Government.

The administrative head of the State is called Chief Secretary, under
whose jurisdiction a hierarchy of officials drawn from the Indian
Administrative Service / State Civil Services function.

The judiciary is headed by a Chief Justice and Jharkhand has a
separate High Court, located in Ranchi.

Jharkand is one of the thirteen states in which the Naxalite rebels
have considerable influence.

On 5 March 2007, Sunil Mahato, a member of the national parliament was
shot dead by Naxalite rebels while watching a football match on the
Hindu festival of Holi near Kishanpur, some 160 km (100 miles) east of
state capital, Ranchi.[11] Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) candidate Mrs
Suman Mahato, wife of slain JMM MP Sunil Mahato, won the Jamshedpur
Lok Sabha by-poll in Sep 2007. Mrs Mahato defeated her nearest rival
Dr Dinesh Sarangi of the BJP by a margin of 58,816 votes.

On Wednesday, 23 December 2009, Jharkhand headed towards a hung
assembly, with indications that no political group or combine was
likely to get a majority in the 81-member house. But now on 11th-
Sep-2010 BJP Person Sri Arjun Munda becomes the Chief Minister for the
state. the people of jharkhand is facing unstable government.and this
is one of the biggest hurdles in the inclusive development of state.
Chief Ministers of Jharkhand

Name Party From To

Babulal Marandi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 20 November 2000 18
March 2003

Arjun Munda BJP 18 March 2003 2 March 2005

Sibu Soren Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) 2 March 2005 12 March 2005

Arjun Munda BJP 12 March 2005 18 September 2006

Madhu Koda Independent – with INC support 18 September 2006 26
August 2008

Shibu Soren JMM 27 August 2008 13 January 2009

Shibu Soren JMM 30 December 2009 30 May 2010

President’s rule - 1 June 2010 10 September 2010

Arjun Munda BJP 11 September 2010 -

Ministry The Centre imposed President’s rule in Jharkhand on 19
January 2009 to 11 September 2010, when JMM chief Shibu Soren resigned
as CM after he lost the Tamar Assembly by-election to Jharkhand Party
candidate Gopal Krishna Patar (alias Raja Peter) by more than 9,200
votes. The president’s rule followed the Union cabinet’s
recommendation based on Jharkhand governor Syed Sibtey Razi‘s report
to the Centre. Razi wrote that following the resignation of Soren as
CM on 12 January, no political alliance was in a position to form an
alternative government.

Naxal insurgency

Jharkand has been at the centre of the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency.
Since the uprising of the Naxalites in 1967, 6,000 people have been
killed in fighting between the Naxalites and counter-insurgency
operations by the Police, and its paramilitary groups such as the
Salwa Judum.[12]

Despite having a presence in almost 7.80% of India’s geographical
area[13] (home to 5.50% of India’s population), the state of Jharkand
is part of the “Naxal Belt” comprising 92,000 square kilometres,[13]
where the highest concentrations of the groups estimated 20,000
combatants[14] fight. Part of this is due to the fact that the state
harbors a rich abundance of natural resources, while its people live
in abject poverty and destitution.[15] The impoverished state provides
ample recruits for the communist insurgents, who argue that they are
fighting on behalf of the landless poor that see few benefits from the
resource extractions.[15] As the federal government holds a monopoly
on sub-surface resources in the state, the tribal population is
prevented from staking any claim on the resources extracted from their
land.[15] In response, the insurgents have recently begun a campaign
of targeting infrastructure related to the extraction of resources
vital for Indian energy needs, such as coal.[13]

In response to the growing influence of the insurgents, the Indian
government has recently enacted a scheme by which free mobile phones
would be handed out in exchange for villagers’ cooperation with
security forces – although intelligence officials express concern at
the possibility of misinformation, and the difficulty in determining
villagers from rebels [12]

Economy

Jharkhand’s gross state domestic product for 2004 is estimated at $14
billion at current prices. Born out of partition from old Bihar state
in 2000, Jharkhand produces about 70% of the output of the old Bihar
state. Since it is rich in minerals, the state per capita income is
likely to increase in the coming years.

Jharkhand has a concentration of some of the country’s highly
industrialized cities such as Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Bokaro Steel City
and Dhanbad. It also has several firsts in India, including:

* Largest fertilizer factory of its time in India (since shut
down) at Sindri, Dhanbad
* First Iron & steel factory at Jamshedpur
* Largest Steel plant in Asia, Bokaro steel plant, Bokaro.
* Biggest explosives factory at Gomia, Bokaro.
* First methane gas well at Parbatpur, Bokaro.

Major industrial units

Bokaro Steel Plant

* Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro.
* Tata Steel Plant, Jamshedpur.
* Tata Motors, Jamshedpur
* Heavy Engineering Corporation, Ranchi.
* Patratu Thermal Power Station, Ramgarh.
* Chandrapura Thermal Power Station, Bokaro.
* Bokaro Thermal Power Station.
* Tenughat Thermal/Hydro Power Station, Bokaro.
* Jindal Steel Plant, Patratu.
* Electrosteel Plant, Bokaro.
* Usha Martin, Ranchi.
* Central Coalfields Limited.
* Bharat Coaking Coal Limited.
* Eastern Coalfields Limited.

Upcoming mega projects

Jharkhand has several towns and innumerable villages with civic
amenities. Urbanization ratio is 22.25% and the per capita annual
income is US$ 1,490. Jharkhand also has immense mineral resources:
minerals ranging from (ranking in the country within bracket) from
iron ore (1st), coal (3rd), copper ore (1st), mica (1st), bauxite
(3rd), Manganese, limestone, china clay, fire clay, graphite (8th),
kainite (1st), chromite (2nd), asbestos (1st), thorium (3rd),
sillimanite, uranium (Jaduguda mines, Narwa Pahar) (1st) and even gold
(Rakha Mines) (6th) and silver and several other minerals. Large
deposits of coal and iron ore support concentration of industry, in
centers like Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Ranchi. Tata Steel, a S&P CNX 500
conglomerate has its corporate office in Jharkhand. It reported a
gross income of Indian Rupee ₹. 204,910 million for 2005. NTPC will
start coal production from its captive mine in state in 2011-12, for
which the company will be investing about Rs 1,800 crore. [16]

Education

The literacy rate in Jharkhand is 59.6% (2007). As per the 2001 census
conducted by Government of India the official literacy rate for the
state was 54.13% (Male: 69.74%; Female: 39.38%) with 5 districts above
the average literacy rate:[17][18]

1. Purvi Singhbhum: 69.42% (Male: 80.08%; Female: 57.95%)
2. Dhanbad: 67.49% (Male: 80.03%; Female: 52.93%)
3. Ranchi: 65.69% (Male: 77.76%; Female: 52.77%)
4. Bokaro: 62.98% (Male: 76.99%; Female: 47.17%)
5. Hazaribagh: 58.05% (Male: 72.06%; Female: 43.15%)

Jharkhand has a network of government and privately run schools,
although standards of teaching vary considerably from place to place,
as also from school to school.

After formation of new state, Jharkhand Education Project Council
(JEPC) has been implementing four projects for spread of elementary
education namely DPEP, SSA, NPEGEL, KGBV. Hence works have been
accomplished in the state towards achieving the goal of UEE but due to
slow pace, the target of hundred percent enrolment and retention of
children in schools is not yet attained.[19]

Jharkhand has made primary education so accessible that 95% of
children of ages 6–11 are enrolled in school, as opposed to 56% in
1993–94, so this will likely to improve literacy a great deal. Some of
the better known schools which operate chain of school nationally and
regionally are Oxford Public School, Delhi Public School, Kendriya
Vidyalaya, Chinmaya Public School,Loyola school,Sacred Heart School,
St.Xavier’s, Shishu Mandir,Surendranath centenary School, etc.
Students from Jharkhand have proved themselves on national as well as
international level. Students from the state have always ranked well
in almost all the national level competitive exams.[20]

Schools

The medium of instruction in schools is Hindi/English with English/
Hindi/Sanskrit/Urdu/Bangla/Oriya as second language. After 10 years of
schooling, students can join 2 years of Intermediate course (or +2
courses) in Arts, Science and Commerce. This is followed by 3 years of
degree courses (graduation)or 4 years of Engineering/Agriculture/
Medicine degree. On May 2008, Jharkhand became the first in India to
introduce free haircuts for poor students. 40,000 barbers will be
employed with a monthly salary of 1000 rupees (25 US dollars) which
will cost the state government 40 million rupees (1 million US
dollars).[21]

Universities

Institute Main Building, BIT Mesra

A number of non-technical colleges are located in bigger cities and in
small towns. Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) offer popular three-
year diploma courses.

Jamshedpur is home to one of the best business school in India,
[citation needed] the Xavier Labour Relations Institute,(XLRI).A
recent development, the Government of India has set up an Indian
Institute of Management IIM at Ranchi under the mentorship of IIM
Calcutta. The State Government has allocated land for the same near
Birsa Agricultural University,Kanke and the session for its first
batch with highest CAT CUT-OFF 99.65 Percentile,for any other IIMs
including Ahmedabad and Calcutta has started from the 7th of July,2010
itself. Due to strategically favourable location (proximity to many
industries) and a pool of competitive students IIM Ranchi is soon
expected to break into the league of top notch IIMs.

Jharkhand has five universities: Ranchi University and Birsa
Agricultural University at Ranchi, Sidhhu Kanhu University at Dumka,
Kolhan University at Chaibasa and Vinoba Bhave University in
Hazaribagh. Each of these has constituent and affiliated colleges
located in other cities and towns, the best of which offer post-
graduate and PhD programs.and one more university is Nilambar Pitambar
university at medininagar,palamau.

Jharkhand has a number of engineering colleges: National Institute of
Technology, Jamshedpur, Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, Birsa
Institute of Technology Sindri, Dhanbad, Indian School of Mines
University, Dhanbad, and the National Institute of Foundry and Forge
Technology (NIFFT). Among which BIT mesra, NIT Jamshedpur and ISM
Dhanbad are among top 15 technical colleges in the country.

There are three medical colleges in Jharkhand namely M.G.M Medical
College at Jamshedpur, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS)
at Ranchi and Patliputra Medical College And Hospital (PMCH) at
Dhanbad.

Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS) at Ranchi is also one of
oldest B school well known for its Personnel management and Rural
Development courses.[3]XISS ranked 6th in East and 31st in all India –
Outlook MDRA B-Schools Ranking 2010 and Business Today in 2010 ranked
XISS on 36th position in all India.

Health

On account of salubrious climate, Jharkhand, particularly its capital
Ranchi, has been like a health resort. As far back as 1918, facilities
were set up for treatment of mentally challenged – Central Institute
of Psychiatry, Ranchi.

In certain areas of Jharkhand, poverty and consequent malnutrition
have given rise to diseases like tuberculosis (TB). In fact, TB has
assumed epidemic proportions in certain areas of the state. For
management and treatment of such diseases, organizations like
Ramakrishna Mission through Ramakrishna Mission Tuberculosis
Sanatorium [22] (set up in 1948), Ranchi, has been doing exemplary
work, and supplementing the efforts of the Government and other
agencies. Likewise, in the field of treatment of cancer, Tata Main
Hospital, Jamshedpur,[23] is rendering pioneering work. In the same
way Bokaro General Hospital equipped with modern facilities for the
treatment Cancer and heart related problems with capacity of 1100 beds
one of the largest in eastern India.

Although several public and private health facilities are available in
the state, overall infrastructure for dispensing health related
services require improvements. An exception is the famous Tata Motors
Hospital which is an example of a ISO 14001 and 18001 certified
hospital with DNB teaching facilities.

Fluoride in groundwater presents a public health problem in Jharkhand.
A recent survey led by the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra,
Ranchi in collaboration with UNICEF in the northwest districts of
Palamau and Garhwa found fluoride levels above the drinking WHO
drinking water guidelines.[24] Fluoride in drinking water leads to
dental fluorosis, prevalent bone fractures, and skeletal fluorosis, an
irreversible disabling condition.[25][26] Some work has focused on
combating fluorosis through increased calcium intake by consuming
local plants.[27] Researchers at Princeton University and the Birla
Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi are currently investigating
defluoridation options, while performing an epidemiological survey to
assess the extent of fluoride linked health problems and the impact of
future interventions.[28][29]

Almost 80% of Jharkhand’s people are farmers, although it contains 40%
of India’s mineral reserves it has some of India’s poorest people, in
Summer 2009 the state was threatened by drought, with people
criticising the government for not providing food aid or assistance.
[30]

Veterinary

Jharkhand has a diverse domestic animal population, including local
and crossbred cattle, black bengal goat, chhotanagpuri sheep, murrah
and local buffalo, broilers and ducks of many varieties. The state
Veterinary department runs Veterinary Dispensaries located throughout
Jharkhand and posts Touring Veterinary officers, Block Animal
Husbandary Officers, Touring Veterinary officers (mobile), Assistant
Poultry Officers and Veterinary Surgeons to support the agricultural
industry.

The state has a Veterinary College located at Kanke, Ranchi.

Sports

Hockey, football and cricket are popular games with the people of
Jharkhand. Jharkhand has given some brilliant players like Jaipal
Singh, a former Indian hockey captain and Olympian and Manohar Topno,
Vimal Lakra, currently playing for the Indian Hockey team but the most
famous is Mahendra Singh Dhoni who is the captain of Indian cricket
team and the best wicket keeper batsman for India till date[citation
needed]. Jaipal Singh was the captain of the hockey team that won the
first gold medal for India in Olympic games 1928 at Amsterdam.

Media

Electronic media ETV Bihar/Jharkhand broadcasts Jharkhand-related news
on a popular program called Johar Jharkhand at 7:30 am and 7:30 pm.

Print media include the Hindi newspapers “Jharkhand Newsline“,Prabhat
Khabar, Hindustan and Dainik Jagran,Dainik Bhaskar published from the
state capital, Ranchi and available in almost all parts of the state.
English newspapers like Times of India &Hindustan Times are published
from Ranchi and are available across Jharkhand. Other important Indian
newspapers in Hindi, English and local languages are also available in
bigger cities by the afternoon and after a day’s delay in smaller
towns. Most of the national magazines in Hindi and English are
regularly available in bigger cities and at other places where supply
may be arranged through newspaper vendors. The internet media like
[www.jharkhandmirror.org jharkhandmirror] and [www.newswings.com
newswings] are also available. National magazine [THE PUBLIC AGENDA]
[31] is also available all over the state as its head office is
situated at harmu, Ranchi.

“Johar Disum Khabar” is only fortnightly newspaper published in local
tribal & regional language from Ranchi. A monthly magazine “Johar
Sahiya” is also published in the state’s popular regional language
Nagpuri-Sadri.

Ranchi and Jamshedpur have around five radio stations and All India
Radio is available throughout the state. In 2007, private FM Channels
have also started operation in the state. Doordarshan, the national
television broadcaster, is also available in almost all parts of the
state. Bigger cities in Jharkhand are served by all television
channels available in India and channels are received through cable.
In some interior regions, channels are received via satellite dishes.

Landline telephone connectivity is provided by BSNL, Tata Indicom and
Reliance Communications and covers almost all parts of the state.
Cellular service, covering all major centres of the state, is provided
by Vodafone, Airtel (GSM Service), Aircel, BSNL, Idea Cellular and
Reliance Communications and also by Tata Indicom and Reliance Infocomm
(CDMA Service). Internet connectivity is available in all the
districts.

References

1. ^ Gautam Kumar Bera (2008). The unrest axle: ethno-social
movements in Eastern India. Mittal Publications. pp. 32–35. ISBN
9788183241458.
http://books.google.com/?id=9qrmTdshzKQC&pg=PA31&dq=distinct+geo-political+Jharkhand&q=distinct%20geo-political%20Jharkhand.
2. ^ P K Mohanty (2006). “4: Tribes of Jharkhand”. Encyclopaedia
Scheduled Tribes In India. Gyan Publishing House. p. 105. ISBN
9788182050525. http://books.google.com/?id=u-yM6OYrIEcC&pg=PA105&dq=kukara,+jharkhand&q=kukara%2C%20jharkhand.
3. ^ J.B. Hoffmann (1984). A missionary social worker in India.
Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana. p. 54. ISBN 9788876525391.
http://books.google.com/?id=bL3ISWm-tOYC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=munda+raja&q=munda%20raja.
4. ^ “Freedom Struggle”. Wesanthals.tripod.com. 2000-11-14.
http://wesanthals.tripod.com/id50.html. Retrieved 2010-07-18.
5. ^ Birsa Munda and His Movement 1874-1901: A Study of a
Millenarian Movement in Chotanagpur, by Kumar Suresh Singh. Oxford
University Press, 1983
6. ^ “Birds and animals found in the forest of the Palamau
district”. Official website of the Palamau district.
http://palamu.nic.in/forestchap4.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
7. ^ “Census Population” (PDF). Census of India. Ministry of
Finance India. http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2006-07/chapt2007/tab97.pdf.
Retrieved 2008-12-18.
8. ^ National Network of Education (2007-10-24). “Jharkhand demand
second language status for Santhali, Bengali, Jharkhand News”.
Indiaedunews.net. http://www.indiaedunews.net/Jharkhand/Jharkhand_demand_second_language_status_for_Santhali,_Bengali_2305/.
Retrieved 2010-07-18.
9. ^ [1]
10. ^ “Jharkhand”. Office of the Registrar General and Census
Commissioner. 2007-03-18. http://www.citypopulation.de/India-Jharkhand.html.
Retrieved 2008-07-23.
11. ^ “South Asia | ‘Maoist rebels’ shoot Indian MP”. BBC News.
2007-03-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6418271.stm.
Retrieved 2010-07-18.
12. ^ a b Bhaumik, Subir (5 February 2009). “Cell phones to fight
India rebels”. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7871976.stm.
Retrieved 6 May 2010.
13. ^ a b c “Rising Maoists Insurgency in India”. Global Politician.
2007-01-15. http://globalpolitician.com/22790-india. Retrieved
2010-07-18.
14. ^ Maoists who menace India, New York Times, April 17, 2006]
15. ^ a b c Aug 9, 2006 (2006-08-09). “Asia Times Online :: South
Asia news – Hidden civil war drains India’s energy”. Atimes.com.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HH09Df01.html. Retrieved
2010-07-18.
16. ^ “NTPC eyes 20K crore thermal plant in MP”.
business.rediff.com. http://business.rediff.com/report/2010/oct/26/ntpc-eyes-thermal-plant-in-mp.htm.
Retrieved 27 Oct 2010.
17. ^ District-specific Literates and Literacy Rates, 2001
18. ^ “National Family Health Survey, 1998–99: Fact Sheet,
Jharkhand, Section: Basic Socio-Demographic Features of Jharkhand”. p.
3. http://www.nfhsindia.org/data/jh/jhfctsum.pdf.
19. ^ Sanjay Pandey (2007-10-16). “The poor state of girl child
education in Jharkhand State”. MyNews.in. http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=89.
20. ^ Sanjiv Shekhar (26 May 2009). “Many clear IIT-JEE in
Jharkhand”. TNN. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Ranchi/Many-clear-IIT-JEE-in-Jharkhand/articleshow/4577536.cms.
21. ^ Free haircut
22. ^ “de beste bron van informatie over rkm tbs. Deze website is te
koop!”. rkmtbs.org. http://www.rkmtbs.org/main.htm. Retrieved
2010-07-18.
23. ^ “Welcome to Tata Memorial Centre”. Tatamemorialcentre.com.
2004-01-01. http://www.tatamemorialcentre.com/index.htm. Retrieved
2010-07-18.
24. ^ “Fluoride alert for groundwater” The Telegraph, Calcutta,
Friday 11 January 2008
25. ^ Alarcon-Herrera, M.T., et al. (2001). “Well water fluoride,
dental fluorosis, and bone fractures in the Guadiana Valley of
Mexico”. Fluoride 34 (2): 139–149. http://www.fluoride-journal.com/01-34-2/342-139.pdf.
26. ^ Khandare, AL; Harikumar, R; Sivakumar, B (2005). “Severe bone
deformities in young children from vitamin D deficiency and fluorosis
in Bihar-India.”. Calcified tissue international 76 (6): 412–8. doi:
10.1007/s00223-005-0233-2. PMID 15895280.
27. ^ “Fluoride Toxicity in Jharkhand State of India,” Disability
News India
28. ^ “Fluoride alert for groundwater,” The Telegraph, Calcutta,
Friday 11 January 2008. [2]
29. ^ MacDonald, L. “Water and Health: An effective, sustainable
treatment strategy to halt the fluorosis endemic in rural villages of
Jharkhand State, India”
30. ^ Jharkhand farmers despair at drought
31. ^ http://www.thepublicagenda.in/

* “Official State Website”. http://www.jharkhand.nic.in/.
Retrieved 2007-04-13.
* The World Bank publication on Jharkhand

External links

Portal-puzzle.svg Jharkhand portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jharkhand

* Jharkhand travel guide from Wikitravel
* Jharkhand State Government Official website
* Tourism guide of jharkhand state
* Jharkhand-Chamber (Business Unlimited)

Uttar Pradesh Bihar
West Bengal
Jharkhand
Chhattisgarh Orissa
v · d · eStates and territories of India

States

Andhra Pradesh · Arunachal Pradesh · Assam · Bihar · Chhattisgarh ·
Goa · Gujarat · Haryana · Himachal Pradesh · Jammu and Kashmir ·
Jharkhand · Karnataka · Kerala · Madhya Pradesh · Maharashtra ·
Manipur · Meghalaya · Mizoram · Nagaland · Orissa · Punjab · Rajasthan
· Sikkim · Tamil Nadu · Tripura · Uttar Pradesh · Uttarakhand · West
Bengal

India

Union Territories

Andaman and Nicobar Islands · Chandigarh · Dadra and Nagar Haveli ·
National Capital Territory of Delhi · Daman and Diu · Lakshadweep ·
Puducherry
v · d · eDivisions and Districts of Jharkhand, India

South Chotanagpur division

Gumla • Khunti • Lohardaga • Ranchi • Simdega

North Chotanagpur division

Bokaro • Chatra • Dhanbad • Giridih • Hazaribagh • Koderma • Ramgarh

Palamu division

Garhwa • Latehar • Palamu

Santhal Pargana division

Deoghar • Dumka • Godda • Jamtara • Pakur • Sahebganj

Kolhan division

East Singhbhum • Seraikela Kharsawan • West Singhbhum

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jharkhand“

Categories: Jharkhand | States and territories of India | States and
territories established in 2000

Birsa Munda

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Birsa Munda

Birsa Munda, photograph in Roy
Born 15 November 1875(1875-11-15)
Ulihatu, Ranchi, India
Died 9 June 1900(1900-06-09)
Ranchi Jail, Ranchi, India

Birsa Munda (1875–1900) was a tribal leader and a folk hero, belonging
to the Munda tribe who was behind the Millenarian movement that rose
in the tribal belt of modern day Bihar, and Jharkhand during the
British Raj, in the late 19th century making him an important figure
in the history of the Indian independence movement.

Birsa Munda is named with great respect as one of the freedom fighters
in the Indian struggle for independence against British colonialism.
His achievements in the freedom struggle became even greater
considering he accomplished this before his 25th year.

Birsa’s devotion to his people was such that he was almost revered as
God by his followers. By the time he was in his 20s, his activities in
the tribal areas of Jharkhand state (earlier Bihar) had already begun
to worry the British establishment to a considerable extent. He was
finally caught by the British on 3 February 1900 when he was only 25
years old. He died soon afterwards in mysterious circumstances on 9
June 1900 in Ranchi Jail.

Early childhood

Birsa Munda was born in the year 1875 on a Thursday, and he was named
after the day of his birth according to the then prevalent Munda
custom. The folk songs reflect popular confusion and refer to both
Ulihatu and Chalkad as his birth-place. Ulihatu was the birth-place of
Sugana Munda, father of Birsa. The claim of Ulihatu rests on Birsa’s
elder brother Komta Munda living in the village and on his house which
still exists albeit in a dilapidated condition.

Birsa’s father, mother Karmi Hatu [1] , and younger brother, Pasna
Munda, left Ulihatu and proceeded to Kurumbda near Birbanki in search
of employment as labourers or crop-sharers (sajhadar) or ryots. At
Kurmbda Birsa’s elder brother, Komta, and his sister, Daskir, were
born . From there the family moved to Bamba where Birsa’s elder sister
Champa was born followed by himself.

Soon after Birsa’s birth, his family left Bamba. A quarrel between the
Mundas and their ryots in which his father was involved as a witness
was the immediate reason for proceeding to Chalkad, Sugana’s mother’s
village, where they were granted refuge by Bir Singh , the Munda of
the village. Birsa’s birth ceremony was performed at Chalkad.

After childhood

Birsa Munda had a very nice and enjoyful childhood. He was a boy
living with Britishers. Birsa’s early years were spent with his
parents at Chalkad. His early life could not have been very different
from that of an average Munda child. Folklore refers to his rolling
and playing in sand and dust with his friends, and his growing up
strong and handsome in looks; he grazed sheep in the forest of
Bohonda. When he grew up, he shared an interest in playing the flute,
in which he became adept, and so movingly did he play that all living
beings came out to listen to him. He went round with the tuila, the
one-stringed instrument made from the pumpkin, in the hand and the
flute strung to his waist. Exciting moments of his childhood were
spent on the akhara (the village dancing ground). One of his ideal
contemporaries and who went out with him, however, heard him speak of
strange things.

Driven by poverty Birsa was taken to Ayubhatu, his maternal uncle’s
village. Komta Munda, his eldest brother, who was ten years of age,
went to Kundi Bartoli, entered the service of a Munda, married and
lived there for eight years, and then joined his father and younger
brother at Chalkad. At Ayubhatu Birsa lived for two years. He went to
school at Salga, run by one Jaipal Nag. He accompanied his mother’s
younger sister, Joni, who was fond of him, when she was married, to
Khatanga, her new home. He came in contact with a pracharak who
visited a few families in the village which had been converted to
Christianity and attacked the old Munda order.

He remained so preoccupied with himself or his studies that he left
the sheep and goat in his charge to graze in the fields covered with
crops to the dismay of their owners. He was found no good for the job
and was beaten by the owner of field. He left the village and went to
his brother at Kundi Bartoli, and stayed with him for some time. From
there he probably went to the German mission at Burju where he passed
the lower primary examination.He also studied at Chaibasa at Gossner
Evangelical Lutheran Mission school run by German missionaries. It was
here where he was transformed into a fighter for tribals. A Father at
the school was narrating the children about the Kingdom of Heaven. The
young Daud Purty(baptised name of Birsa) questioned the Father where
was this Kingdom of Heaven when there was so much exploitation of
tribals by zamindars and landlords in their own homeland.

The Formative Period (1886-1894)

Birsa’s long stay at Chaibasa from 1886 to 1890 constituted a
formative period of his life. The influence of Christianity shaped his
own religion.citation required This period was marked by the German
and Roman Catholic Christian agitation. Chiabasa was not far for the
centre of the Sardars’ activities influenced Sugana Munda in
withdrawing his son from the school. The sardars agitation in which
Birsa was thus caught up put the stamp of its anti-missionary and anti-
Government character on his mind..citation required Soon after leaving
Chaibasa in 1890 Birsa and his family gave up their membership of the
German mission in line with the Sardar’s movement against it.

He left Corbera in the wake of the mounting Sardar agitation. He
participated in the agitation stemming form popular disaffection at
the restrictions imposed upon the traditional rights of the Mundas in
the protected forest, under the leadership of Gidiun of Piring in the
Porhat area. During 1893-4 all waste lands in villages, the ownership
of which was vested in the Government, were constituted into protected
forests under the Indian Forest Act VII of 1882. In Singhbhum as in
Palamau and Manbhum the forest settlement operations were launched and
measures were taken to determine the rights of the forest-dwelling
communities. Villages in forests were marked off in blocks of
convenient size consisting not only of village sites but also
cultivable and waste lands sufficient of the needs of villages.

In 1894, Birsa had grown up into a strong and handsome young man,
shrewd and intelligent. He was tall for a Munda, 5 feet 4 inches, and
could perform the feat of repairing the Dombari tank at Gorbera
damaged by rains. His real appearance was extraordinary pleasant : his
features were regular, his eyes bright and full of intelligence and
his complexion much lighter than most of his people.

During the period he had a spell of experience typical of a young man
of his age and looks. While on a sojourn in the neighbourhood of
village Sankara in Singhbhum, he found suitable companion, presented
her parents with jewels and explained to her his idea of marriage.
Later, on his return form jail he did not find her faithful to him and
left her. Another woman who served him at Chalkad was the sister of
Mathias Munda. On his release form prison, the daughter of Mathura
Muda of Koensar who was kept by Kali Munda, and the wife of Jaga Munda
of Jiuri insisted on becoming wives of Birsa. He rebuked them and
referred the wife of Jaga Munda to her husband. Another rather well-
known woman who stayed with Birsa was Sali of Burudih.

Birsa stressed monogamy at a later stage in his life. Birsa rose form
the lowest ranks of the peasants, the ryots, who unlike their
namesakes elsewhere enjoyed far fewer rights in the Mundari khuntkatti
system, while all privileges were monopolized by the members of the
founding lineage the ryots were no better than crop-sharers. Birsa’s
own experience as a young boy, driven form place to place in search of
employment, given him an insight into the agrarian question and forest
matters; he was no passive spectator but an active participant in the
movement going on in the neighbourhood.

The Making of a Prophet

Birsa’s claim to be a messenger of God and the founder of a new
religion sounded preposterous to the mission. There were also within
his sect converts form Christianity, mostly Sardars. His simple system
of offering was directed against the church which levied a tax. And
the concept of on God appealed to his people who found his religion
and economical religion saving them the expense of sacrifices. A
strict code of conduct was laid down : theft, lying and murder were
anathema ; begging was prohibited.

The stories of Birsa as a healer, a miracle-worker, and a preacher
spread, out of all proportion to the facts. The Mundas, Oraons, and
Kharias flocked to Chalkad to see the new prophet and to be cured of
their ills. Both the Oraon and Munda population up to Barwari and
Chechari in Palamau became convinced Birsaities. Contemporary and
later folk songs commemorate the tremendous impact of Birsa on his
people, their joy and expectations at his advent. The name of Dharti
Aba was on everybody’s lips. A folk songs in Sadani showed that the
first impact cut across the lines of caste Hindus and Muslims also
flocked to the new Sun of religion. All roads led to Chalked.

Birsa Munda and his movement

The British colonial system intensified the transformation of the
tribal agrarian system into feudal state. As the tribals with their
primitive technology could not generate a surplus, non-tribal
peasantry were invited by the chiefs in Chhotanagpur to settle on and
cultivate the land. This led to the alienation of the lands held by
the tribals. The new class of Thikadars were of a more rapacious kind
and eager to make most of their possessions.

In 1856 the number of the Jagirdars stood at about 600, and they held
from a village to 150 villages. By 1874, the authority of the old
Munda or Oraon chiefs had been almost entirely effaced by that of the
farmers, introduced by the superior landlord. In some villages the
aborigines had completely lost their proprietary rights, and had been
reduced to the position of farm labourers.

To the twin challenges of agrarian breakdown and culture change, Birsa
along with the Munda responded through a series of revolts and
uprisings under his leadership. The movement sought to assert rights
of the Mundas as the real proprietors of the soil, and the expulsion
of middlemen and the British. He was treacherously caught on 3
February 1900 and died in mysterious conditions on 9 June 1900 in
Ranchi Jail.Though he lived for a very short span of 25 years,he
aroused the mind-set of the tribals and mobilised them in a small town
of Chhotanagpur and was a terror to the British rulers.

Birsa Munda in popular culture

His birth anniversary which falls on 15 November, is still celebrated
by tribal people in as far as Mysore and Kodagu districts in Karnataka
[2], and official function takes place at his Samadhi Sthal, at Kokar
Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand [3].

Today, there are a number of organizations, bodies and structures
named after him, notably Birsa Munda Airport Ranchi, Birsa Institute
of Technology Sindri, Birsa Munda Vanvasi Chattravas, Kanpur and Birsa
Agricultural University. The war cry of Bihar Regiment is Birsa Munda
Ki Jai (Victory to Birsa Munda) [4]. In 2008, Hindi film based on the
life of Birsa, Gandhi Se Pehle Gandhi was directed by Iqbal Durran
based on his own novel by the same name.[5]. Another Hindi film,
“Ulgulan-Ek Kranti (The Revolution)” was made in 2004 by Ashok Saran,
in which 500 Birsaits or followers of Birsa acted [6]

Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, writer-activist Mahasweta Devi’s
historical fiction, “Aranyer Adhikar” (Right to the Forest, 1977), a
novel for which she won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Bengali in 1979,
is based on his life and the Munda Rebellion against the British Raj
in the late 19th century; she later wrote an abridged version Birsa
Munda, specifically for young readers [7].

See also

* History of birsapur*

References

1. ^ Birsa Mumda commemorative postage stamp and Biography India
Post, 15 November 1988.
2. ^ Tribals celebrate Birsa Munda birth anniversary Times of
India, 18 November 2001.
3. ^ Homage to Bhawan Birsa Munda on his Birth Anniversary at
Ranchi Raj Bhavan (Jharkhand) Official website. 15 November 2008.
4. ^ Bihar Regiment bharat-rakshak.com.
5. ^ Film “Gandhi Se Pehle Gandhi “is on Birsa Munda bollywood-
buzz.com.
6. ^ Ulgulan-Ek Kranti (The Revolution)
7. ^ Biography for Mahasweta Devi ” Ramon Magsaysay Award Official
website. “

* The Dust-storm and the Hanging Mist: A Study of Birsa Munda and
His Movement in Chhotanagpur, 1874-1901, by Suresh Singh. Published by
Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1966.
* Birsa Munda and His Movement 1874-1901: A Study of a Millenarian
Movement in Chotanagpur, by Kumar Suresh Singh. Published by Oxford
University Press, 1983.
* Birsa Munda, by A. H. Khan. Publications Division, Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India.[1]
* Capturing Birsa Munda: The Virtuality of a Colonial-era
Photograph. Daniel J. Rycroft

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Birsa Munda

* Birsa Munda – The Great Hero of the Tribals at Govt. of Orissa
website.

References

1. ^ Birsa Munda, Biography Publications Division, Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India.

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Persondata

Name Munda, Birsa
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth 1875-11-15
Place of birth Ulihatu, Ranchi, India
Date of death 1900-06-09
Place of death Ranchi Jail, Ranchi, India

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birsa_Munda“

Categories: People from Jharkhand | Indian independence activists |
Culture heroes | History of Bihar | History of Jharkhand | 1875 births
| 1900 deaths

Santals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Santhal)

Santals Total population
6,050,000

Regions with significant populations

India
Jharkhand 2,410,509 [1]
West Bengal 2,280,540 [2]
Bihar 367,612 [3]
Orissa 629,782
Languages

Santali
Religion

Sarna • Sari Dhorom

Related ethnic groups

Mundas • Hos • Kols

The Santal (Hindi: संताल,Bengali: সাওতাল, also spelled as Santhal
(formerly also spelt as Sonthal), are the largest tribal community in
India, who live mainly in the states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar,
Orissa, and Assam. There is also a significant Santal minority in
neighboring Bangladesh, and a small population in Nepal.

Santali language and anthropology

The Santali language is part of the Austro-Asiatic family, distantly
related to Vietnamese and Khmer. A few of the Indian anthropologists
also believe that humans first came to India about 65000-55000 years
ago[citation needed]. Historians believe that they were the ancestors
of the tribal community residing in the eastern part of India
(excluding hilly portions). So the Santals, Kols and Mundas may be the
descendants of them.

The Santali script, or Ol Chiki, is alphabetic, and does not share any
of the syllabic properties of the other Indic scripts such as
Devanagari. It uses 30 letters and five basic diacritics. It has 6
basic vowels and three additional vowels, generated using the Gahla
Tudag.[4]

The Santal script is a relatively recent innovation. Santali did not
have a written language until the twentieth century and used Latin/
Roman, Devnagri and Bangla writing systems. A need for a distinct
script to accommodate the Santali language, combining features of both
the Indic and Roman scripts was felt, which resulted in the invention
of new script called Ol Chiki by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925. For
his noble deeds and contribution of the script Ol Chiki for the Santal
society, he is revered among Santals. He wrote over 150 books covering
a wide spectrum of subjects such as grammar, novels, drama, poetry,
and short stories in Santali using Ol Chiki as part of his extensive
programme for uplifting the Santal community. Darege Dhan, Sidhu-
Kanhu, Bidu Chandan and Kherwal Bir are among the most acclaimed of
his works. Pandit Raghunath Murmu is popularly known as Guru Gomke
among the Santals, a title conferred on him by the Mayurbhanj Adibasi
Mahasabha.

Beside Pandit Raghunath Murmu, very few Indian linguists worked
seriously on the linguistic aspects of the language. One of them was
Dr. Byomkes Chakrabarti (1923-1981). He was a Bengali research worker
on ethnic languages. He was a renowned educationist and a poet too.
His major contribution was in finding out some basic relationship
between Santali language and Bengali language. He showed (in ‘A
Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali’) how the Bengali language,
under the influence of the Santali language, has some unique
characteristics absent from other Indian languages.

His contribution on the origin and development of the Bengali and
Santali language was fundamental in nature, and provided the scope for
research in newer fields of liguistics.
Santali culture

The Santali culture has attracted many scholars and anthropologists
for decades. Some studies of the Santali culture were done by the
Christian missionaries. The most famous of them was the Norwegian-born
Reverend Paul Olaf Bodding. Unlike many other tribal groups of the
Indian subcontinent, the Santals have preserved their native language
despite waves of migrations and invasions such as Aryan, Hun, Mughals,
Europeans, and others.

Santali culture is depicted in the paintings and artworks in the walls
of their houses. Local mythology includes the stories of the Santal
ancestors Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Bhudi.

The Santal people love music and dance. Like other Indian ethnic
groups, their culture has been influenced by mainstream Indian culture
and by Western culture, but traditional music and dance still remain.
Santal music differs from Hindustani classical music in significant
ways. Onkar Prasad has done the most recent work on the music of the
Santal but others preceded his work. The Santal traditionally
accompany many of their dances with two drums: the Tamak’ and the
Tumdah’. The flute (tiriao) was considered the most important Santal
traditional instrument and is still considered important by most.
Santal dance and music traditionally revolved around Santal religious
celebrations. This is still true to a degree, although traditional
religious beliefs have been significantly altered as a result of
influence of Hinduism and Christian missionaries. However, Santal
music and dance both retain connections to traditional celebrations.
The names of many Santal tunes are derived from the traditional ritual
with which they were once associated. Sohrai tunes, for example, were
those sung at the Sohrai festival.

The Santal community is devoid of any caste system and there is no
discrimination on the basis of birth.

Religion

Santals believe in supernatural beings and ancestral spirits. Santali
rituals consist mainly of sacrificial offerings and invocations to the
spirits, or bongas. It is believed by some scholars that Bonga means
the same as Bhaga (or Bhagavan).[5] The Santal system of governance,
known as Majhi–Paragana, may be compared to what is often called Local
Self Governance. This body is responsible for making decisions about a
village’s socioeconomic condition.

The Santal rebellion

Main article: Santhal rebellion

Background

The insurrection of the Santals was mainly against the corrupt
moneylenders, zamindars and their operatives. Before the advent of the
British in India the Santhals resided peacefully in the hilly
districts of Mayurbhanj Chhotanagpur, Palamau, Hazaribagh, Midnapur,
Bankura and Birbhum. Their agrarian way of life was based on clearing
the forest; they also engaged themselves in hunting for subsistence.
But, as the agents of the new colonial rule claimed their rights on
the lands of the Santals, they peacefully went to reside in the hills
of Rajmahal. After a brief period of peace the British operatives with
their native counterparts jointly started claiming their rights in
this new land as well. The simple and honest Santals were cheated and
turned into slaves by the zamindars and the money lenders who first
appeared to them as business men and lured them into debt, first by
goods lent to them on loans. However hard the Santals tried to repay
these loans, they never ended. Through corrupt measures of the money
lenders, the debts multiplied to an amount for which a generation of
the santal family had to work as slaves. Furthermore, the Santali
women who worked under labour contractors were disgraced and abused.
This loss of the freedom that they once enjoyed turned them into
rebels.

Rebellion

On 30 June 1855, two great Santal rebel leaders, Sido Murmu and his
brother Kanhu, mobilized ten thousand Santals and declared a rebellion
against British colonists. The Santals initially gained some success
but soon the British found out a new way to tackle these rebels.
Instead, they forced them to come out of the forest. In a conclusive
battle which followed, the British, equipped with modern firearms and
war elephants, stationed themselves at the foot of the hill. When the
battle began the British officer ordered his troops to fire without
loading bullets. The Santals, who did not suspect this trap set by the
British war strategy, charged with full potential. This step proved to
be disastrous for them: as soon as they neared the foot of the hill,
the British army attacked with full power and this time they were
using bullets. Thereafter, attacking every village of the Santals,
they made sure that the last drop of revolutionary spirit was
annihilated. Although the revolution was brutally suppressed, it
marked a great change in the colonial rule and policy. The day is
still celebrated among the Santal community with great respect and
spirit for the thousands of the Santal martyrs who sacrificed their
lives along with their two celebrated leaders to win freedom from the
rule of the Jamindars and the British operatives.

Santal Population

Sl.Name of State/District Total Population Santal population Per cent

I BIHAR

DEOGARH 9,33,113 NA
DHANBAD 26,74,651
2,40,718 9
DUMKA 14,95,709
5,68,370 38
GIRIDIH 22,25,480
3,56,077 16
GODDA 8,61,182
1,20,565 14
HAZARIBAGH 16,01,576
64,063 4
KATIHAR 18,25,380
1,09,522 6
KODARMA 6,29,264
37,755 6
PASCHIM SINGHBHUM 17,87,955
1,78,795 10
PURBI SINGHBHUM 16,13,088 NA
PURNIA 18,78,885
93,944 5
SAHIBGANJ 7,36,835
3,09,471 42

II ORISSA

BALASORE 16,96,583
1,69,658 10
BHADRAK 11,05,834
33,175 3
CUTTACK NA
DHENKANAL NA
KEONJHAR 13,37,026 NA
KHURDA NA
MAYURBHANJ 18,84,580
5,67,282 28
SUNDARGARH NA

III TRIPURA*

TRIPURA 2,200

IV WEST BENGAL

BANKURA 28,05,065
3,36,607 12
BARDHAMAN 60,50,605
3,63,036 6
BIRBHUM 25,55,664
1,53,340 6
WEST (N&S) DINAJPUR 12,00,924
1,80,138 15
JALPAIGURI 28,00,543 NA
MALDAH 26,37,032
1,84,592 7
MEDINIPUR 83,31,919
13,33,107 16
PURULIA 22,24,577
3,33,686 15

V ASSAM

ASSAM NA 2,00,000

References

Text document with red question mark.svg

This article includes a list of references, related reading or
external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline
citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise
citations where appropriate. (May 2009)

1. ^ “Jharkhand: Data Highlights the Scheduled Tribes” (PDF).
Census of India 2001. Census Commission of India.
http://censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/SCST/dh_st_jharkhand.pdf.
Retrieved 2010-01-10.
2. ^ “West Bengal: Data Highlights the Scheduled Tribes” (PDF).
Census of India 2001. Census Commission of India.
http://censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/SCST/dh_st_westbengal.pdf.
Retrieved 2010-01-10.
3. ^ “Bihar: Data Highlights the Scheduled Tribes” (PDF). Census of
India 2001. Census Commission of India.
http://censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/SCST/dh_st_bihar.pdf.
Retrieved 2010-01-10.
4. ^ http://wesanthals.tripod.com/id45.html
5. ^ P. 292 The Cult of Brahmā By Tārāpada Bhaṭṭācāryyeṇa, Tarapada
Bhattacharyya

Bibliography

* Archer, W. G. The Hill of Flutes: Life, Love, and Poetry in
Tribal India: A Portrait of the Santals. Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1974.
* Bodding, P. O. Santal Folk Tales. Cambridge, Mass.: H.
Aschehoug; Harvard University Press, 1925.
* Bodding, P. O. Santal Riddles and Witchcraft among the Santals.
Oslo: A. W. Brøggers, 1940.
* Bodding, P. O. A Santal Dictionary (5 volumes), 1933-36 Oslo: J.
Dybwad, 1929.
* Bodding, P. O. Materials for a Santali Grammar I, Dumka 1922
* Bodding, P. O. Studies in Santal Medicine and Connected Folklore
(3 volumes), 1925-40
* Bompas, Cecil Henry, and Bodding, P. O. Folklore of the Santal
Parganas. London: D. Nutt, 1909. Full text at Project Gutenberg.
* Chakrabarti, Dr. Byomkes, A Comparative Study of Santali and
Bengali, KP Bagchi, Calcutta, 1994
* Chaudhuri, A. B. State Formation among Tribals: A Quest for
Santal Identity. New Delhi: Gyan Pub. House, 1993.
* Culshaw, W. J. Tribal Heritage; a Study of the Santals. London:
Lutterworth Press, 1949.
* Edward Duyker Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West Bengal and
the Naxalite Movement, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1987, pp.
201, SBN 19 561938 2.
* Hembrom, T. The Santals: Anthropological-Theological Reflections
on Santali & Biblical Creation Traditions. 1st ed. Calcutta: Punthi
Pustak, 1996.
* Orans, Martin. “The Santal; a Tribe in Search of a Great
Tradition.” Based on thesis, University of Chicago., Wayne State
University Press, 1965.
* Prasad, Onkar. Santal Music: A Study in Pattern and Process of
Cultural Persistence, Tribal Studies of India Series; T 115. New
Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1985.
* Roy Chaudhury, Indu. Folk Tales of the Santals. 1st ed. Folk
Tales of India Series, 13. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1973.
* Troisi, J. The Santals: A Classified and Annotated Bibliography.
New Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1976.
* ———. Tribal Religion: Religious Beliefs and Practices among the
Santals. New Delhi: Manohar, 2000.

External links

* Santals-Intro to our Music, Picture, Folktales, Videos…
* All India Santal Welfare and Cultural Society
* Santal Arts
* A Portal for Santals
* Santal Dance
* Edward Duyker Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West Bengal and
the Naxalite Movement

See also

* Santhal rebellion

v • d • e

List of Indigenous groups of Bangladesh

Bawm · Chak · Chakma · Garo · Khasiya · Khumi · Khyang · Kuki · Lushai
· Mahle · Marma · Mro or Murang or Mru · Munda · Oraon · Pankho ·
Rakhaine · Santals · Tanchangya · Tripuri

v • d • e

Scheduled tribes of India

Asur · Baiga · Bharia · Bhil · Bhumij · Bhutia · Birhor · Bodo · Bodo-
Kachari · Boksa · Bonda · Chakma · Chenchu · Dimasa · Garo · Gondi
· Hmar · Ho · Karbi · Khasi · Khonds · Kol · Korwa · Kuki · Lepcha ·
Lodha · Mahli · Mara · Mech · Mishing · Mizo · Mog · Munda · Mudugar ·
Naga · Oraon · Rabari · Rabha · Reang · Santals · Sora · Tripuri

v • d • e

Tribes of Jharkhand

Asur • Baiga • Bhumij • Birhor • Chero • Gond • Ho • Kodaku • Kol•
Kora • Korwa • Mahli • Mal Paharia • Munda • Oraon • Santal • Sauria
Paharia

v • d • e

Scheduled Tribes in Orissa

Bhottada • Binjhal • Bhumij • Bhuiya • Bhumia • Gond • Khond • Kisan
• Kolha • Koya • Munda • Oraon • Paroja • Santal • Saora • Shabar

v • d • e

Scheduled Tribes in West Bengal

Asur · Adhikari · Badia (Bediya) · Bhumij · Bhutia · Toto · Dukpa
· Kagatay · Birhor · Birjia · Chik Baraik · Gorait · Hajang · Ho ·
Karmali · Kharwar · Kora · Korwa · Lepcha · Lodha · Mahali · Mahli ·
Mal Pahariya · Mech · Mru · Munda · Nagesia · Oraon · Parhaiya · Rabha
· Santal · Sauria Paharia · Sabar · Tamang · Subba

v • d • e

Cultures in the standard cross-cultural sample

Africa African sccs cultures.jpg

Nama (Hottentot) • Kung (San) • Thonga • Lozi • Mbundu • Suku • Bemba
• Nyakyusa (Ngonde) • Hadza • Luguru • Kikuyu • Ganda • Mbuti
(Pygmies) • Nkundo (Mongo) • Banen • Tiv • Igbo • Fon • Ashanti (Twi)
• Mende • Bambara • Tallensi • Massa • Azande • Otoro Nuba • Shilluk •
Mao • Maasai

Circum-Mediterranean Circum-mediterannean sccs cultures.jpg

Wolof • Songhai • Wodaabe Fulani • Hausa • Fur • Kaffa • Konso •
Somali • Amhara • Bogo • Kenuzi Nubian • Teda • Tuareg • Riffians •
Egyptians (Fellah) • Hebrews • Babylonians • Rwala Bedouin • Turks •
Gheg (Albanians) • Romans • Basques • Irish • Sami (Lapps) • Russians
• Abkhaz • Armenians • Kurd

East Eurasia East eurasian sccs cultures.jpg

Yurak (Samoyed) • Basseri • West Punjabi • Gond • Toda • Santal •
Uttar Pradesh • Burusho • Kazak • Khalka Mongols • Lolo • Lepcha •
Garo • Lakher • Burmese • Lamet • Vietnamese • Rhade • Khmer • Siamese
• Semang • Nicobarese • Andamanese • Vedda • Tanala • Negeri Sembilan
• Atayal • Chinese • Manchu • Koreans • Japanese • Ainu • Gilyak •
Yukaghir

Insular Pacific Insular pacific.jpg

Javanese (Miao) • Balinese • Iban • Badjau • Toraja • Tobelorese •
Alorese • Tiwi • Aranda • Orokaiva • Kimam • Kapauku • Kwoma • Manus •
New Ireland • Trobrianders • Siuai • Tikopia • Pentecost • Mbau
Fijians • Ajie • Māori • Marquesans • Western Samoans • Gilbertese •
Marshallese • Trukese • Yapese • Palauans • Ifugao • Chukchi

North America North american sccs cultures.jpg

Deg Hit’an • Aleut • Copper Eskimo • Montagnais • Mi’kmaq • Saulteaux
(Ojibwa) • Slave • Kaska (Nahane) • Eyak • Haida • Bellacoola • Twana
• Yurok • Pomo • Yokuts • Paiute (Northern) • Klamath • Kutenai • Gros
Ventres • Hidatsa • Pawnee • Omaha (Dhegiha) • Huron • Creek • Natchez
• Comanche • Chiricahua • Zuni • Havasupai • Papago • Huichol • Aztec
• Popoluca

South America South america SCCS cultures.jpg

Quiché • Miskito (Mosquito) • Bribri (Talamanca) • Cuna • Goajiro •
Haitians • Calinago • Warrau (Warao) • Ya̧nomamö • Carib • Saramacca •
Munduruku • Cubeo (Tucano) • Cayapa • Jivaro • Amahuaca • Inca •
Aymara • Siriono • Nambicuara • Trumai • Timbira • Tupinamba •
Botocudo • Shavante • Aweikoma • Cayua (Guarani) • Lengua • Abipon •
Mapuche • Tehuelche • Yaghan

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santals“

Categories: Social groups in Orissa | Social groups of Bihar | Social
groups of West Bengal | Ethnic groups in Bangladesh | Indigenous
peoples of South Asia | Social groups of Jharkhand | Santhal

* This page was last modified on 8 December 2010 at 16:43.

* Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike License;

Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

…and I am Sid Harth

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