| Wednesday , May 29 , 2013 |
- Tribal lensman wows Brazil | ||
| ACHINTYA GANGULY | ||
At a time when most young photographers are happy to upload feel-good images on Facebook, the lens of a tribal youth has captured gritty moments of the daily struggle of people living near Jadugoda uranium mines.
Shutterbug Ashish Birulee from Jadugoda accomplished the rare feat of getting 38 photographs exhibited as part of the 3rd International Uranium Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The exhibition, which ran at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro from May 16 to 26, showcased photographs portraying the harmful effects of radiation — chronic health problems and deformities — faced by people living near uranium mines in Jadugoda, East Singhbhum.
Besides Ashish, the other photographer whose frames were displayed was New Delhi’s Chinkey Shukla.
Ashish’s photographs shared the title of the film made by Ranchi-based national award winner Shriprakash, “Buddha weeps in Jadugoda”. Chinkey’s photographs were clubbed under the title “Jadugoda: the nuclear graveyard”.
Unfortunately, 24-year-old Ashish could not go to Rio as his passport was not ready. But, talking to The Telegraph over phone from Jadugoda, he sounded happy that his photographs were showcased in the prestigious platform. “I sent 38 black-and-white photographs on the subject. They mostly focus on physical deformities caused by radiation,” he said.
Ashish, who belongs to the Ho tribe, is a final-year sociology student enrolled in a distant education programme under EIILM University, Sikkim. Born and brought up in the area, the youth was exposed early in his life to the plight of people residing in and around mining areas.
“I became interested in photography when I got a chance to assist Sriprakash in making a film. Later, I also assisted some Australian photographers,” Ashish, who wants to become a cinematographer and make social documentaries, said.
Sriprakash, in Rio, said the photography exhibition received raves.
“This is for the first time that a Jharkhand adivasi photographer’s work has been exhibited in the international arena,” Sriprakash wrote in an e-mail to The Telegraph.
(courtesy - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130529/jsp/jharkhand/story_16945697.jsp#.Ua3vsNKBkab) |
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Pictures tell untold stories - Tribal lensman wows Brazil
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Adivasi imprints get into print
Adivasi imprints get into print- Three amateurs launch publishing house Adivaani | ||
SUSHOVAN SIRCAR
“In the beginning there was no land. Everything was under water
Thakur Jiv, the Supreme Being was present. As were the Bongas
The Bongas asked for Thakur Jiv’s blessing to create human beings
If it so be desired, we will create them”
— We Come from the Geese, an illustrated children’s book published by Adivaani
The Santhals were born through a stroke of godly ingenuity, says the book of creation of India’s first inhabitants.
To create Adivaani, a publishing house launched by a group of three amateurs to lend a voice to the nation’s indigenous population, months of human planning and perseverance were required.
Ruby Hembrom, a 35-year-old IT professional “with a big idea and little money”, started Adivaani in July last year with two friends — Mexican journalist Luis Gomez and Joy Tudu, a Jharkhand-based tribal rights activist.
“It’s a time machine for the Adivasis,” she said. “Our history and stories have been passed down generations orally. Since these tales are steadily vanishing, documentation is the key to their survival. Adivaani is primarily an attempt to let people know that we are capable of writing, too.”
“We at Adivaani want to go back in time to rescue what was left behind and leave something tangible for the future…. The countdown has begun,” their website says.
Daughter of a Bishop’s College theology professor, Calcutta-born Ruby studied at La Martiniere for Girls and took a degree in law from Calcutta University.
She has been with the IT industry in Gurgaon and Calcutta for the past 10 years, happily earning a good pay until she was overcome by the urge to do something meaningful for her largely invisible community.
The first step was to join a publishing course in April 2012. She soon realised that the tribal voice was missing from the popular discourse. The disappointment spawned the idea of setting up a publishing house: “One that is by the Adivasis and not by an urban historian writing from a pedestal.”
She found two amazing partners in her endeavour. Gomez was Ruby’s batchmate at the publishing course along with Tudu. He had two decades of experience in writing on the indigenous people in Latin America.
Their first book was out in October last year. It’s a translation of her father’s doctoral dissertation, Santal: Sirjon Binti Ar Bhed-Bhangao.
This one along with Santhal writer and blogger Gladson Dungdung’s Whose Country is it Anyway and We Come from the Geese were released at the New Delhi World Book Fair in February.
“Allowing the tribal people to write for themselves certainly gives the story a greater sense of autonomy,” said Tudu, who distributes Adivaani’s books across Ranchi and Dumka.
“The books were reasonably priced and attractively designed. Our inbox was flooded with mail soon after their release,” said Gomez, who looks after Adivaani’s technical side.
Calcutta, however, was cold in the beginning. “We expected a similar reception in Calcutta but no distributor or bookstore was forthcoming,” Ruby rued.
Finally, after several failed attempts across the city, she found Earthcare Books on Middleton Street. “I was surprised by the reception. They gladly accepted my books,” Ruby said. “I had just three copies of each book in my bag.” Barely 30 minutes after she stepped out of the store, the manager called: “Send as many copies of We Come from the Geese as possible.”
Store manager Sumit Sarkar said: “We support books on development and alternative subjects. Adivaani seemed interesting.”
There has been a steady demand from the Calcutta bookstore and two others in Ranchi. Ruby and her friends have nearly completed work on the second instalment of the illustrated book.
Boski Jain, another friend from the publishing course, chipped in with the illustrations. “Several schools in Ranchi have picked up our books for their libraries. Some stores in New Delhi are displaying them, too,” Tudu said.
For the time being the start-up venture is running on loads of goodwill and generosity, including Ruby’s salary from her IT job. Registering the publishing house and printing a thousand copies of the three books at a press on Amherst Street cost about Rs 1.5 lakh. The world wide web is doing its bit. “We planned to raise $5,000 (about Rs 2.75 lakh), but managed only $120 (about Rs 6,585) in two months. It’s okay for a start,” Gomez said.
They have some expansion plans. “We will gradually venture into writings by other communities such as the Kodas, the Mundas and the Oraons,” Ruby said.
(courtesy - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130518/jsp/calcutta/story_16757687.jsp#.UaS7JtKBklh ) |
Tribal cool on SMS - Smartphone app for Ol Chiki
Tribal cool on SMS
- Smartphone app for Ol Chiki
| OUR CORRESPONDENT | ||
Henda ho, am dom Santhal kana?
Hello, are you a Santhal? If so, there’s great news for you. Very soon, you can use your own language to SMS friends and relatives on your Smartphone.
Yes, Ol Chiki, the Santhal script, has now been converted as a downloadable app by a Jhargram-based civil engineer Kunar Hembram (50).
Hembram, a civil engineer and self-employed professional, came to Jamshedpur to launch his labour of love — it took him “a couple of years” to develop the app named Santhali Mobile Software — on Friday.
Jamshedpur (East) MLA Raghubar Das was the chief guest during the launch.
Hembram, an unusual techie, has been associated with Santhali literary outfits and developed digital versions of the tribal language.
Way back in 2001, when the Internet was in its infancy in India, he had developed a script conversion software to translate English, Hindi and Bengali to Ol Chiki and vice-versa.
Since 2008, techies have developed the Ol Chiki unicode — the software to support the script’s characters digitally — and patented them. But an authoritative, standardised version of a Santhali unicode is awaited.
Hembram has taken his version and made it compatible for cellphones, equipping the software with automatic spell-check. “Once I put it up on the Internet, users can download the app and install it in Smartphones for messaging,” Hembram said.
Right now, one has to get the app from Hembram personally via Bluetooth.
On teething troubles, Hembram added: “Ol Chiki also needs a standard key code. In English, alphabets stay in the same position in desktops, laptops and Smartphones, thanks to Qwerty”.
While Hembram pushes the case to standardise the digital use of Ol Chiki, he is also ushering in a unique revolution. Santhali youngsters can finally use their script — not Roman alphabets — to SMS something as basic as “hi, how are you? (chele cheg leka menama?)” or “catch you later (arhon lang natama)”. Cool.
(courtesy - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130525/jsp/jharkhand/story_16933214.jsp#.UaS7JtKBklh ) |
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Adivasi Movements in India: An Interview with Poet Waharu Sonavane
Adivasi Movements in India: An Interview with Poet Waharu Sonavane
Friday, 05 October 2012 10:57
Prachi Patankar The original interview was conducted in Marathi language in December, 2011.
I
have known Waharu since I was a little girl growing up in India. I have
many fond memories of him and his wife Hirkana. I used to accompany my
family to activist conventions and meetings in various parts of our home
state, Maharashtra. Waharu’s son Malema, myself, and other kids used to
sing social-movement songs with our parents and other community
organizers before the start of every meeting, and then play outside as
the discussions and strategy sessions continued throughout the day.
The
indigenous and tribal identified peoples of India are part of hundreds
of diverse tribes, nations, and ethno-linguistic peoples throughout
South Asia. Many group themselves together with the umbrella term
Adivasi; and many are recognized as Scheduled Tribes (STs) by the Indian
government. Together, they number almost 90 million people today,
almost 9% of India’s population. The Bhil are one Adivasi people, all
together numbering in the millions, rooted in various parts of western
India and Pakistan.
Waharu is a Bhil Adivasi, long-time poet and activist. Since the 1970s, he has been organizing for Adivasi self-sufficiency among his community near his hometown in western India. He is a big part of my wonderful childhood growing up among dedicated organizers and activists who made fighting to change the world look like it was fun, exciting, and something everyone should be involved in. The poetry and the songs that came out of this movement are still etched in my memories, and come out of my mouth unthinkingly as remarks to certain circumstances in life.
As the first Bhil poet to be published, Waharu has gained much critical acclaim, being mentioned in the same company as great Marathi-language poets like Narayan Surve and Baburao Bagul -- both Dalits (members of Scheduled Castes (SCs) considered ‘untouchable’ in the caste system). Adivasis and Dalits are often considered the most oppressed sectors of Indian society. Surve was the poet of my childhood. His poetry was in my school textbooks and adorned the walls of my house. His poetry challenged the status quo, bringing up topics that were often not talked about in Indian society. I remember, clearly, his poem about a sex worker who goes to admit her son to a school. When asked to submit her son’s father’s name, she hopelessly says to the school administrator, “Master bapachya thikani aata tumchach nav liva (Sir, instead of his father’s, now please just give him your name).”
Waharu’s poetry has now also made it into textbooks and universities. One of his poems has also been adapted by the rock band Indian Ocean for a song called “Boll Weevil.” The poem is about Adivasi courage and pride. His most well-known poem, “Stage,” caused an important debate during a time when he was also questioning the leadership of one of India’s best-known mass social movements, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), about Adivasi representation in its early years.
Like my father and many friends, Waharu is a member of Shramik Mukti Dal (SMD - toilers’ liberation league). SMD is a political organization in rural Maharashtra state, organizing with drought victims, dam evictees, poor women, and agricultural laborers -- against encroachments by the government and corporations, and working toward the annihilation of caste and patriarchy. Waharu’s main work continues through the Adivasi Ekta Parishad (Conference of Adivasi Unity), formed in 1992. During my recent visit to India, I caught up with him at SMD’s 13th national convention in coastal Maharashtra. I decided to interview him now, when some Adivasis are getting absorbed into the so-called mainstream, with its commercialization, caste hierarchy and patriarchy.
The problems of Adivasis remain. Many indigenous peoples worldwide face some similar struggles and questions, whether on Turtle Island (North America), in Latin America, Australia, and elsewhere. The word ‘occupy’ has raised discussions and debates in many places in the past year; Waharu is also talking about occupying and reoccupying, claiming and reclaiming – land, culture, values. In this interview, I also wanted to learn the changes that occurred in his perspective, from the time he named his son “Malema” (named for Marx-Lenin-Mao), to the recent work of the Adivasi Ekta Parishad. What shaped those changes, and why?
--Waharu Sonavane; translated by Bharat Patankar, Gail Omvedt, and Suhas Paranjape
Prachi Patankar: How did you start working in the Adivasi movement?
Waharu Sonavane: I was born in Shahada, in Nandurbar district of northern Maharashtra. In 1970 when I left school, I came back to Shahada. At that time there was a big drought in Shahada taluka (county). My young brothers and cousins, who should have been in school, had to go to work in the fields. My family wasn’t asking me to do manual labor because I was educated. But I started feeling that I was living off the work of my little siblings and cousins. So one day I started going to work with them. They welcomed the extra income in the household. It was difficult at first, as I wasn’t as used to manual labor as before.
One day when I had finished work and sat down to eat, my aunt said, “Brother, how long can we toil like this? You’re so educated and you’re working like us. Forest plots have just been released. We should get some share in this. Then we can live off our own land like farmers.“
I filled out two forms and went to the Member of Legislative Council. I wandered for eight days trying to get the land. Then someone told me that if you want help there’s a grassroots Adivasi leader who fights for our rights, his name is Ambarsingh. When I went to him, he said, “The community to which you have been born is burning in the fire of exploitation and atrocities. It is shouting, ‘Save us!’ But, the one who has the power to save it is running after employment and position.” That hit me. I said to him, “Look, you don’t think I could work for our people?” Ambarsingh said, “It’s easy to say, but something else to do it. Many people have tried, have stayed on for a month or two and then gone back. Sometimes doing this work for the community, you may remain hungry, get beaten up; sometimes you’ll have to go to jail.” I decided to stay.
Ambarsingh was once away; he was working for the Sarvodaya Mandal, a Gandhian cause. I was staying in his hut and hadn’t eaten for two days. At night there was no oil in the lamp. I was sitting in the dark; it was raining and the rain was falling on me. Then I thought, “I’m also human. A dog even goes to different houses and fills his stomach. I’m going leave.” But then I remembered Ambarsingh saying, “It’s easy to say, but to actually live it is something else.” Since then I’ve been committed to the movement.
PP: Tell us about the land liberation struggle that came up in the Dhule area.
WS: We started a struggle to get back the Adivasi land that had been lost to non-Adivasis. We carried out a survey to find out how the land was lost. Was it given as a kind of mortgage, for some need for cash or something? Was it lost in an old contract, or sold? After the survey, on January 30, 1972, we had a bhu-mukti (“land liberation”) rally, inviting leaders from different organizations. At that rally, Ambarsingh made a declaration that if Adivasis’ names were on the land record, and if they were the actual tillers, then we should re-occupy that land. This news flew like a big storm, and people throughout the villages started occupying land. It was a big movement. A fight between the Adivasis and the landlords! The police were on their side; there were legal cases filed against Adivasis. But still, in this struggle, we won back 10,000 acres for the Adivasi community!
The
next struggle was over education. Most Adivasis had not gotten any
formal schooling. So when dealing with any paperwork, people who weren’t
literate could only give their thumbprints, and they would get cheated.
So we started night schools for adult education. The 6th and 7th grade
students from our community would teach the adults. We also realized
that alcoholism was rampant and was ruining people’s lives; this had to
change. We collectively mobilized, broke a lot of liquor-store jugs.
We then took up a struggle for women’s liberation. We were shouting all kinds of slogans like “victory to toilers,” but we only slowly realized that among the toilers were women, who also needed to stand up for their own rights. Ambarsingh used to say that women and men are wheels of the same chariot, and both wheels need to be strong! Women are exploited and oppressed by people within the community. We started consciousness-raising about women’s equality. We then had a state-wide gathering on these issues of women’s rights.
This movement went forward through the formation of Shramik Sanghatana (toilers’ league). People from different parties and tendencies were in the movement, from Sarvodaya and other Gandhians, socialists and communists, and from the Magowa group (one precursor to SMD).
PP: This was a time of great social unrest across India. Labor unions and student unions were going on strike all over the country. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a repressive state of emergency in 1975. “Extraordinary laws” were being invoked and thousands of people were jailed for dissenting. How did this affect you?
WS: We also had been jailed during the Emergency period. Many of our activists were working underground. Within our movement, there were some differences about how we should work during the Emergency. Sarvodaya people were saying that if we wanted to be against the Emergency we should do individual satyagraha, one of Gandhi’s tactics. We were saying that opposition should be through a collective people’s struggle. There was a split among us on this issue. Later, there were differences regarding what kind of organization we should build. Some people among us went to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (one of the major parliamentary parties in India). Some people formed Shramik Mukti Dal. I was among those who went to SMD.
PP: You formed the Adivasi Ekta Parishad while you were already involved in Shramik Mukti Dal. So, what was the trajectory from SMD to forming an Adivasi-only organization?
WS: While this work was going on, we were thinking about our Adivasi communities and cultures. We needed to assess our situation. Where are the Adivasis today? They are divided among multiple religions, multiple parties, many organizations. Adivasi life and culture is based on equality, belief in love, humanism -- these life-values must not be forsaken. We should return to these values. We should oppose all kinds of exploitation; economic, patriarchal, social, caste. Even among Adivasis there are hierarchies now, since we are living within the larger societies. We should come together as Adivasis, rejecting hierarchies and caste.
Why shouldn’t we protect and conserve our own culture, which is based on great values? This is what revolution is, we thought, we should have a movement for this. And so in 1992, we put forward the principle of establishing an organization on the issues of existence, pride and self-respect, culture, history, education, self-reliance and development -- with Adivasi culture as our basis. Any Adivasi who agrees with this and believes in these principles can come. This was called the Adivasi Ekta Parishad (AEP).
PP: You were/are still a member of SMD. What was the response of SMD to this? What about other organizations?
WS: Shramik Mukti Dal supported this. But other organizations were trying to dominate us. One organization said, “If you come here and propagate this, we’ll break your legs.” Another distributed pamphlets against us. Their allegations were that we were self-declared leaders. They claimed that we were playing into the hands of powerful parties -- Congress party, Shiv Sena, etc. We continued our work. We met with different Adivasi movements. They also told us their experiences -- that whether it was the Communists (the parliamentary left), the Naxalites (Maoist rebels), BJP (Hindu nationalists), or Congress party (the main governing party in India), or whatever.... we Adivasis were always given a second-class status. They used us only as foot-soldiers, but never accepted us as leaders. We have the right to our own life. Based on this determination, we continued the movement and decided to build a united organization.
PP: Your poem “Stage” elicited quite a debate among various activists and movements. Could you talk about the poem, and how some of this thinking has influenced the working process within AEP?
WS: So while we were carrying out this movement, in 1994 we had our first sammelan (gathering) of the AEP, which brought together Adivasis from four states: Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. Up to this point, in the name of welfare and development for Adivasis, only others have spoken. People have said to Adivasis, “come into our religion; we’ll solve your problems and give you relief.” Some became Hindu; some became Christian; some became Muslim. Some went to different parties. After all of this, many years, our situation remained the same. We don’t have the decision-making power. We decided that it is us, Adivasis, who should speak on our stage about our problems. This is what my poem “Stage” is about (recites poem).
Others can come to listen. In the beginning, there were some problems; there was a journalist who was pleading to speak for fifteen minutes; we said no. In Rajasthan, there was a person who was working with an NGO among Adivasis; our people didn’t allow him to speak. Up until now, these are the ones who’ve been speaking, and we’ve been listening; now, it’s their turn to listen. It doesn’t matter who comes -- even a big leader or minister sits among the people. This is our discipline, our policy.
So the policy of the AEP is that there is a big stage that holds about 200 people. Nobody sits on it; there is only a microphone. Why? Because everyone is equal, and anyone among the Adivasis can go on the stage to speak.
PP: What are some of the demands of AEP?
WS: The attack on our culture and life should stop. We’re not called ‘Adivasis’ in the Indian Constitution, but ‘Scheduled Tribes.’ One demand is that we should be called Adivasis.
But really, who should we demand things from? From the government that uses us in the name of development and welfare? The question of ‘Adivasi development’ is not an Adivasi question; it’s theirs. The idea of development that they bring is in their mold, not ours. They say, come into the ‘mainstream.’ Have all the problems of people in the ‘mainstream’ been solved? Has there been development and welfare for all the people in the mainstream? If we come to the mainstream, the faults of the mainstream will also enter our life. That’s why we have to protect and care for our lives which are based on our values, our democracy.
I
could give you many examples. If someone dies in one house in the
village, then no one sweeps their house or fills water or cooks food.
The whole village is in mourning until after the burial. These people
who try to teach us about ‘culture’.... I’ve seen in Mumbai city, if
someone dies, neighbors close their doors and eat deep-fried food (a
luxury), ignoring the pains of their neighbors.
In our weddings and rituals, we don’t have any brahmins (the upper-most, ‘priestly’ caste). Brahmins promote inequality. Our weddings are democratic. When people are offered gifts, they ask whoever is present there, whether they should accept. In other weddings, brahmins utter some scriptural verses that no one understands, put some water here, put some rice there, do all kinds of things -- just giving orders. People just do these things, without understanding why they are doing it. This fight is between Adivasi values and brahmanic values -- not between Adivasis as persons and brahmins as persons. It’s a fight between democracy and autocracy.
Another example: If I haven’t been able to plow my land for some reason and time is passing, we give a call to the community, and whoever has a plow comes and does some of the work. They don’t ask for anything in return. But non-Adivasis, the ‘mainstream’ -- they call us ‘drunkards’ and ‘beggars,’ if we work all day and then come to ask for our rightful pay and livelihood. So we are working to stop this attack on our culture, and to preserve our values.
PP: Reflecting on her visit to Naxalite (Maoist) rebel-held area in Chhattisgarh state, the well-known Indian writer Arundhati Roy raised some questions in a 2010 essay. “Who are the Maoists? Are they just violent nihilists foisting an outdated ideology on tribal people, goading them into a hopeless insurrection? …. Is the Sandwich Theory—of ‘ordinary’ tribals being caught in the crossfire between the State and the Maoists—an accurate one? Are ‘Maoists’ and ‘Tribals’ two entirely discrete categories as is being made out? Do their interests converge?” Your thoughts on all this?
WS: In some areas, Naxals work among Adivasis, and Adivasis have joined them. In other ways, they too treat Adivasis badly, as second-class, as foot-soldiers for their agenda. I feel that most everyone tries to fit Adivasis into their own model, their own ideology. But those who support Adivasis by helping them to stand on their own feet and give them leadership, that’s real solidarity and support.
We also fiercely fought and sacrificed our lives during the Indian independence movement. Adivasis also fought in the struggle; but no one talks about it. During the great 1857 rebellion, the revolutionary Khajya Naik led a strong uprising against the British in Madhya Pradesh. His head was hung for eight days from a tree. People know the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of hundreds; they should also know Mangarh. Hundreds of Bhil Adivasis were shot there in 1913, because they revolted against the British.
This denial of our history has been happening since the Aryans entered this continent; it’s in the major mythology too. They killed Adivasis, calling them ‘rakshasas’ (demons), saying they eat human beings. People invoke the god Rama, who killed many ‘evil’ rakshasas. You know about the story of Ekalavya, right? (He was an Adivasi boy who tried to learn archery, and for that was punished, made to cut off his own thumb. Bhils believe they descended from him, so when they use bow & arrow they don’t use their thumb.)
Adivasis believe in the values of nature -- the wind blows for all equally. Our lives should be based on equality and love, and protecting and caring for this life. Living life is not just eating, drinking and sleeping. Revolution is not something you make one day and it is finished. How we take this change towards humanity is our fight!
Prachi Patankar is an activist, educator, and arts administrator based in New York City. She grew up in rural India among rural peasant movements. Currently, Prachi works with South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI) and serves on the board of Afghan Women's Mission and the War Resisters League, an organization dedicated to resisting war at home and war abroad since 1923.
( courtesy - http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/asia/2994-adivasi-movements-in-india-an-interview-with-poet-waharu-sonavane )
All photos of Adivasi Ekta Parishad gathering in Rajasthan, India. Credit: Satish Londhe
Waharu is a Bhil Adivasi, long-time poet and activist. Since the 1970s, he has been organizing for Adivasi self-sufficiency among his community near his hometown in western India. He is a big part of my wonderful childhood growing up among dedicated organizers and activists who made fighting to change the world look like it was fun, exciting, and something everyone should be involved in. The poetry and the songs that came out of this movement are still etched in my memories, and come out of my mouth unthinkingly as remarks to certain circumstances in life.
As the first Bhil poet to be published, Waharu has gained much critical acclaim, being mentioned in the same company as great Marathi-language poets like Narayan Surve and Baburao Bagul -- both Dalits (members of Scheduled Castes (SCs) considered ‘untouchable’ in the caste system). Adivasis and Dalits are often considered the most oppressed sectors of Indian society. Surve was the poet of my childhood. His poetry was in my school textbooks and adorned the walls of my house. His poetry challenged the status quo, bringing up topics that were often not talked about in Indian society. I remember, clearly, his poem about a sex worker who goes to admit her son to a school. When asked to submit her son’s father’s name, she hopelessly says to the school administrator, “Master bapachya thikani aata tumchach nav liva (Sir, instead of his father’s, now please just give him your name).”
Waharu’s poetry has now also made it into textbooks and universities. One of his poems has also been adapted by the rock band Indian Ocean for a song called “Boll Weevil.” The poem is about Adivasi courage and pride. His most well-known poem, “Stage,” caused an important debate during a time when he was also questioning the leadership of one of India’s best-known mass social movements, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), about Adivasi representation in its early years.
Like my father and many friends, Waharu is a member of Shramik Mukti Dal (SMD - toilers’ liberation league). SMD is a political organization in rural Maharashtra state, organizing with drought victims, dam evictees, poor women, and agricultural laborers -- against encroachments by the government and corporations, and working toward the annihilation of caste and patriarchy. Waharu’s main work continues through the Adivasi Ekta Parishad (Conference of Adivasi Unity), formed in 1992. During my recent visit to India, I caught up with him at SMD’s 13th national convention in coastal Maharashtra. I decided to interview him now, when some Adivasis are getting absorbed into the so-called mainstream, with its commercialization, caste hierarchy and patriarchy.
The problems of Adivasis remain. Many indigenous peoples worldwide face some similar struggles and questions, whether on Turtle Island (North America), in Latin America, Australia, and elsewhere. The word ‘occupy’ has raised discussions and debates in many places in the past year; Waharu is also talking about occupying and reoccupying, claiming and reclaiming – land, culture, values. In this interview, I also wanted to learn the changes that occurred in his perspective, from the time he named his son “Malema” (named for Marx-Lenin-Mao), to the recent work of the Adivasi Ekta Parishad. What shaped those changes, and why?
Stage
We didn’t go to the stage,
nor were we called.
With a wave of the hand
we were shown our place.
There we sat
and were congratulated,
and “they”, standing on the stage,
kept on telling us of our sorrows.
Our sorrows remained ours,
they never became theirs.
When we whispered out doubts
they perked their ears to listen,
and sighing,
tweaking our ears,
told us to shut up,
apologize; or else...
nor were we called.
With a wave of the hand
we were shown our place.
There we sat
and were congratulated,
and “they”, standing on the stage,
kept on telling us of our sorrows.
Our sorrows remained ours,
they never became theirs.
When we whispered out doubts
they perked their ears to listen,
and sighing,
tweaking our ears,
told us to shut up,
apologize; or else...
--Waharu Sonavane; translated by Bharat Patankar, Gail Omvedt, and Suhas Paranjape
Waharu Sonavane: I was born in Shahada, in Nandurbar district of northern Maharashtra. In 1970 when I left school, I came back to Shahada. At that time there was a big drought in Shahada taluka (county). My young brothers and cousins, who should have been in school, had to go to work in the fields. My family wasn’t asking me to do manual labor because I was educated. But I started feeling that I was living off the work of my little siblings and cousins. So one day I started going to work with them. They welcomed the extra income in the household. It was difficult at first, as I wasn’t as used to manual labor as before.
One day when I had finished work and sat down to eat, my aunt said, “Brother, how long can we toil like this? You’re so educated and you’re working like us. Forest plots have just been released. We should get some share in this. Then we can live off our own land like farmers.“
I filled out two forms and went to the Member of Legislative Council. I wandered for eight days trying to get the land. Then someone told me that if you want help there’s a grassroots Adivasi leader who fights for our rights, his name is Ambarsingh. When I went to him, he said, “The community to which you have been born is burning in the fire of exploitation and atrocities. It is shouting, ‘Save us!’ But, the one who has the power to save it is running after employment and position.” That hit me. I said to him, “Look, you don’t think I could work for our people?” Ambarsingh said, “It’s easy to say, but something else to do it. Many people have tried, have stayed on for a month or two and then gone back. Sometimes doing this work for the community, you may remain hungry, get beaten up; sometimes you’ll have to go to jail.” I decided to stay.
Ambarsingh was once away; he was working for the Sarvodaya Mandal, a Gandhian cause. I was staying in his hut and hadn’t eaten for two days. At night there was no oil in the lamp. I was sitting in the dark; it was raining and the rain was falling on me. Then I thought, “I’m also human. A dog even goes to different houses and fills his stomach. I’m going leave.” But then I remembered Ambarsingh saying, “It’s easy to say, but to actually live it is something else.” Since then I’ve been committed to the movement.
PP: Tell us about the land liberation struggle that came up in the Dhule area.
WS: We started a struggle to get back the Adivasi land that had been lost to non-Adivasis. We carried out a survey to find out how the land was lost. Was it given as a kind of mortgage, for some need for cash or something? Was it lost in an old contract, or sold? After the survey, on January 30, 1972, we had a bhu-mukti (“land liberation”) rally, inviting leaders from different organizations. At that rally, Ambarsingh made a declaration that if Adivasis’ names were on the land record, and if they were the actual tillers, then we should re-occupy that land. This news flew like a big storm, and people throughout the villages started occupying land. It was a big movement. A fight between the Adivasis and the landlords! The police were on their side; there were legal cases filed against Adivasis. But still, in this struggle, we won back 10,000 acres for the Adivasi community!
The
next struggle was over education. Most Adivasis had not gotten any
formal schooling. So when dealing with any paperwork, people who weren’t
literate could only give their thumbprints, and they would get cheated.
So we started night schools for adult education. The 6th and 7th grade
students from our community would teach the adults. We also realized
that alcoholism was rampant and was ruining people’s lives; this had to
change. We collectively mobilized, broke a lot of liquor-store jugs.We then took up a struggle for women’s liberation. We were shouting all kinds of slogans like “victory to toilers,” but we only slowly realized that among the toilers were women, who also needed to stand up for their own rights. Ambarsingh used to say that women and men are wheels of the same chariot, and both wheels need to be strong! Women are exploited and oppressed by people within the community. We started consciousness-raising about women’s equality. We then had a state-wide gathering on these issues of women’s rights.
This movement went forward through the formation of Shramik Sanghatana (toilers’ league). People from different parties and tendencies were in the movement, from Sarvodaya and other Gandhians, socialists and communists, and from the Magowa group (one precursor to SMD).
PP: This was a time of great social unrest across India. Labor unions and student unions were going on strike all over the country. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a repressive state of emergency in 1975. “Extraordinary laws” were being invoked and thousands of people were jailed for dissenting. How did this affect you?
WS: We also had been jailed during the Emergency period. Many of our activists were working underground. Within our movement, there were some differences about how we should work during the Emergency. Sarvodaya people were saying that if we wanted to be against the Emergency we should do individual satyagraha, one of Gandhi’s tactics. We were saying that opposition should be through a collective people’s struggle. There was a split among us on this issue. Later, there were differences regarding what kind of organization we should build. Some people among us went to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (one of the major parliamentary parties in India). Some people formed Shramik Mukti Dal. I was among those who went to SMD.
PP: You formed the Adivasi Ekta Parishad while you were already involved in Shramik Mukti Dal. So, what was the trajectory from SMD to forming an Adivasi-only organization?
WS: While this work was going on, we were thinking about our Adivasi communities and cultures. We needed to assess our situation. Where are the Adivasis today? They are divided among multiple religions, multiple parties, many organizations. Adivasi life and culture is based on equality, belief in love, humanism -- these life-values must not be forsaken. We should return to these values. We should oppose all kinds of exploitation; economic, patriarchal, social, caste. Even among Adivasis there are hierarchies now, since we are living within the larger societies. We should come together as Adivasis, rejecting hierarchies and caste.
Why shouldn’t we protect and conserve our own culture, which is based on great values? This is what revolution is, we thought, we should have a movement for this. And so in 1992, we put forward the principle of establishing an organization on the issues of existence, pride and self-respect, culture, history, education, self-reliance and development -- with Adivasi culture as our basis. Any Adivasi who agrees with this and believes in these principles can come. This was called the Adivasi Ekta Parishad (AEP).
PP: You were/are still a member of SMD. What was the response of SMD to this? What about other organizations?
WS: Shramik Mukti Dal supported this. But other organizations were trying to dominate us. One organization said, “If you come here and propagate this, we’ll break your legs.” Another distributed pamphlets against us. Their allegations were that we were self-declared leaders. They claimed that we were playing into the hands of powerful parties -- Congress party, Shiv Sena, etc. We continued our work. We met with different Adivasi movements. They also told us their experiences -- that whether it was the Communists (the parliamentary left), the Naxalites (Maoist rebels), BJP (Hindu nationalists), or Congress party (the main governing party in India), or whatever.... we Adivasis were always given a second-class status. They used us only as foot-soldiers, but never accepted us as leaders. We have the right to our own life. Based on this determination, we continued the movement and decided to build a united organization.
PP: Your poem “Stage” elicited quite a debate among various activists and movements. Could you talk about the poem, and how some of this thinking has influenced the working process within AEP?
WS: So while we were carrying out this movement, in 1994 we had our first sammelan (gathering) of the AEP, which brought together Adivasis from four states: Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. Up to this point, in the name of welfare and development for Adivasis, only others have spoken. People have said to Adivasis, “come into our religion; we’ll solve your problems and give you relief.” Some became Hindu; some became Christian; some became Muslim. Some went to different parties. After all of this, many years, our situation remained the same. We don’t have the decision-making power. We decided that it is us, Adivasis, who should speak on our stage about our problems. This is what my poem “Stage” is about (recites poem).
Others can come to listen. In the beginning, there were some problems; there was a journalist who was pleading to speak for fifteen minutes; we said no. In Rajasthan, there was a person who was working with an NGO among Adivasis; our people didn’t allow him to speak. Up until now, these are the ones who’ve been speaking, and we’ve been listening; now, it’s their turn to listen. It doesn’t matter who comes -- even a big leader or minister sits among the people. This is our discipline, our policy.
So the policy of the AEP is that there is a big stage that holds about 200 people. Nobody sits on it; there is only a microphone. Why? Because everyone is equal, and anyone among the Adivasis can go on the stage to speak.
PP: What are some of the demands of AEP?
WS: The attack on our culture and life should stop. We’re not called ‘Adivasis’ in the Indian Constitution, but ‘Scheduled Tribes.’ One demand is that we should be called Adivasis.
But really, who should we demand things from? From the government that uses us in the name of development and welfare? The question of ‘Adivasi development’ is not an Adivasi question; it’s theirs. The idea of development that they bring is in their mold, not ours. They say, come into the ‘mainstream.’ Have all the problems of people in the ‘mainstream’ been solved? Has there been development and welfare for all the people in the mainstream? If we come to the mainstream, the faults of the mainstream will also enter our life. That’s why we have to protect and care for our lives which are based on our values, our democracy.
I
could give you many examples. If someone dies in one house in the
village, then no one sweeps their house or fills water or cooks food.
The whole village is in mourning until after the burial. These people
who try to teach us about ‘culture’.... I’ve seen in Mumbai city, if
someone dies, neighbors close their doors and eat deep-fried food (a
luxury), ignoring the pains of their neighbors.In our weddings and rituals, we don’t have any brahmins (the upper-most, ‘priestly’ caste). Brahmins promote inequality. Our weddings are democratic. When people are offered gifts, they ask whoever is present there, whether they should accept. In other weddings, brahmins utter some scriptural verses that no one understands, put some water here, put some rice there, do all kinds of things -- just giving orders. People just do these things, without understanding why they are doing it. This fight is between Adivasi values and brahmanic values -- not between Adivasis as persons and brahmins as persons. It’s a fight between democracy and autocracy.
Another example: If I haven’t been able to plow my land for some reason and time is passing, we give a call to the community, and whoever has a plow comes and does some of the work. They don’t ask for anything in return. But non-Adivasis, the ‘mainstream’ -- they call us ‘drunkards’ and ‘beggars,’ if we work all day and then come to ask for our rightful pay and livelihood. So we are working to stop this attack on our culture, and to preserve our values.
PP: Reflecting on her visit to Naxalite (Maoist) rebel-held area in Chhattisgarh state, the well-known Indian writer Arundhati Roy raised some questions in a 2010 essay. “Who are the Maoists? Are they just violent nihilists foisting an outdated ideology on tribal people, goading them into a hopeless insurrection? …. Is the Sandwich Theory—of ‘ordinary’ tribals being caught in the crossfire between the State and the Maoists—an accurate one? Are ‘Maoists’ and ‘Tribals’ two entirely discrete categories as is being made out? Do their interests converge?” Your thoughts on all this?
WS: In some areas, Naxals work among Adivasis, and Adivasis have joined them. In other ways, they too treat Adivasis badly, as second-class, as foot-soldiers for their agenda. I feel that most everyone tries to fit Adivasis into their own model, their own ideology. But those who support Adivasis by helping them to stand on their own feet and give them leadership, that’s real solidarity and support.
We also fiercely fought and sacrificed our lives during the Indian independence movement. Adivasis also fought in the struggle; but no one talks about it. During the great 1857 rebellion, the revolutionary Khajya Naik led a strong uprising against the British in Madhya Pradesh. His head was hung for eight days from a tree. People know the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of hundreds; they should also know Mangarh. Hundreds of Bhil Adivasis were shot there in 1913, because they revolted against the British.
This denial of our history has been happening since the Aryans entered this continent; it’s in the major mythology too. They killed Adivasis, calling them ‘rakshasas’ (demons), saying they eat human beings. People invoke the god Rama, who killed many ‘evil’ rakshasas. You know about the story of Ekalavya, right? (He was an Adivasi boy who tried to learn archery, and for that was punished, made to cut off his own thumb. Bhils believe they descended from him, so when they use bow & arrow they don’t use their thumb.)
Adivasis believe in the values of nature -- the wind blows for all equally. Our lives should be based on equality and love, and protecting and caring for this life. Living life is not just eating, drinking and sleeping. Revolution is not something you make one day and it is finished. How we take this change towards humanity is our fight!
Prachi Patankar is an activist, educator, and arts administrator based in New York City. She grew up in rural India among rural peasant movements. Currently, Prachi works with South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI) and serves on the board of Afghan Women's Mission and the War Resisters League, an organization dedicated to resisting war at home and war abroad since 1923.
( courtesy - http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/asia/2994-adivasi-movements-in-india-an-interview-with-poet-waharu-sonavane )
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Jharkhand: The failed promise of an adivasi state | Analysis | Human rights
Jharkhand: The failed promise of an adivasi state | Analysis | Human rights
By Richard Toppo
By Richard Toppo
A tribal perspective from Jharkhand describes how the creation of the state, ostensibly for the welfare of tribal populations, has only led to their exploitation and displacement
Almost a century ago, Katherine Mayo published a book titled Mother India that criticised the Indian way of living. Such were the author’s views that even Gandhi described it as “the drain inspector’s report” which examined only the drains of the country. Conflating with Mayo’s discriminatory work was another contemporary piece by Rudyard Kipling titled White Man’s Burden. Things would have been different had these works been considered the mere fancy of creative minds. But they were perceptions that became the paradigms of the western perspective, veiling the ground realities and on-going brutalities and actually making people believe that what the colonisers did was in the best interests of the colonised. As a result, most westerners were alienated from the plight of the colonised. Purpose well served -- unopposed exploitation.
Years later, India seems to walk the same line that it once so bluntly lambasted. Tribal communities in central areas of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh have been exploited, displaced and dispossessed of their resources by the state. But the government has successfully created an illusory perception of ‘development’ that has alienated the middle class from the plight of the tribals. As a result, the government ruthlessly exploits tribal populations, and does so almost unchallenged by other sections of society.
Placating tribals
On November 15, 2000, tribals, mostly from central India, had something to rejoice about. A demand articulated for over a century saw the birth of the state of Jharkhand.
Demands for separate statehood for Jharkhand were first raised in 1914 by tribals, as mentioned in the State Reorganisation Committee Report 1955-56. Tribal politicians vigorously took up the cause, supported by other indigenous communities. For long, the mineral-rich areas of Chota Nagpur and Santhal Pargana had been exploited and the tribal people displaced in the name of development. Racial discrimination of tribals by outsiders, referred to as dikus in the tribal tongue, was rampant. The demand for separate statehood was not merely to establish a distinct identity but also to do away with years of injustice.
However, the creation of Jharkhand has only increased the vulnerability of tribals. The token concessions of a tribal chief minister and a few reserved constituencies were deemed a green signal to displace tribals for so-called ‘development’. According to reports of the Indian People’s Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights, a total of 6.54 million people have so far been displaced in Jharkhand in the name of development. The ongoingland acquisition at Nagri village (near Ranchi, Jharkhand) for the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL) may seem like development projects in the eyes of the educated and the affluent. But these elite educational institutes have displaced over 500 tribal villagers. The displacement in the name of dams, factories, mining, etc goes largely unreported.
In a place where displacement and development have become synonymous, the strategic reasons for such oppressive measures go beyond monetary gain. One senses, quite palpably, consistent attempts by various corporate firms to exert control over the policy formulation process. This political-corporate nexus was very apparent when 42 MoUs were signed as soon as Jharkhand came into being. According to a human rights report published by the Jharkhand Human Rights Movement (JHRM), the state government of Jharkhand has so far signed 102 MoUs which go against the laws of the Fifth Schedule. Vast tracts of land will be required to bring these MoUs to fruition.
People’s opposition and various constitutional laws against land acquisition have always been impediments to the corporations. In 2011, a people’s movement forced Arcelor Mittal to pull out of a proposed project in Jharkhand. The corporate sector has been trying hard to change the status quo in its favour, and in doing so has adopted some dubious means. The Chota Nagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act is one of several laws provided by the Constitution to safeguard tribal interests. It was instituted in 1908 to safeguard tribal lands from being sold to non-tribals. The law was meant to prevent foreseeable dispossession, and preserve tribal identity. Loss of land would naturally lead to loss of tribal identity as the issuance of a community certificate requires proof of land possession.
The private sector seems to have taken a special interest in drastically reforming or abolishing the CNT Act. Corporate-owned newspapers like Prabhat Khabar and Dainik Bhaskar have campaigned vigorously for reforming the Act to make transfer of land from tribals to non-tribals more flexible. Needless to say, any reform in this direction would directly benefit corporations that own mines in the tribal lands of Jharkhand, and pave the way for future land acquisition.
The state government, irrespective of party banner, has been part of such threats to tribal interests. Non-inclusion of the Sarna religion in the religion category of census data has drastically downsized tribal populations. There have been lapses on the part of the administration to provide accurate data on tribal populations, many of which are underreported.
With the never-ending displacement, the tribal population figure has dropped to a mere 28% on paper.
The dark side of anti-Naxal operations
There is little doubt that the Naxal menace has increased over the years. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has good reason to declare Naxalism the biggest internal security threat. In Jharkhand alone, since its formation, a total of 4,430 cases of Naxal violence have been reported so far; 399 police personnel, 916 Naxalites, and 395 common people have lost their lives in such violence. The brutal way in which Naxal violence is perpetrated -- beheading, mutilating body parts, slitting throats -- has greatly amplified people’s fears. Splinter groups like the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), Jharkhand Liberation Tiger (JLT) and Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC) have further intensified the problem and led to the administration using counter-violence.
The security forces deployed in Maoist infested areas face constant threat to their lives. While the terrain here is conducive to guerrilla warfare, the local police finds itself inadequately armed and trained to engage in such warfare. Hence, central forces armed with superior firepower and equipment and better training are called in.
People are told that the Naxalites wish to overthrow the government by violent revolution and undemocratic means, and that they need to be stopped to sustain India’s ‘bright future’. But some facts go unheard. According to a report by JHRM, since the creation of Jharkhand a total of 4,372 people have been arrested on the charge of being Naxalites. Of these, 315 are hardcore Naxals for whom the government had announced prize money. The remaining 4,057 have no record of any criminal offence; even the police has been unable to establish their Naxal involvement (1). In an extreme case, sources claim that the government was instrumental in sustaining the PLFI during the initial days of its formation, to counter the CPI (M). The move backfired and the PLFI became a prominent terror group in Jharkhand.
In other instances, countless innocent people (mostly tribals) have been killed during anti-Naxal operations. The incident that occurred on April 15, 2009 at Latehar, Jharkhand, exposed the dark side of these operations. Five tribals were picked up from their homes by the CRPF and district police, taken to a nearby place and shot dead. The initial police investigation tried to cover up the act, claiming the tribals were Maoists. Following protests, the Jharkhand police finally accepted that they were ordinary villagers who had no links with Naxalites.
The recent exposure of anti-Naxal operations in the Saranda jungle, home to over 125,000 tribals, is even more disturbing. Central and state forces deployed here under Operation Monsoon and Operation Anaconda destroyed homes and killed innocent people, not sparing even the food the tribals had. As revealed by JHRM, during Operation Anaconda, 33 villagers were arrested on charges of Naxal involvement. The police has been unable to provide any evidence to support this claim.
The problem with an over-hyped ‘Red Corridor’ is that it justifies the actions of the security forces: they are seen as deployed in enemy terrain to ‘protect’ India’s ‘bright’ future. And so, a ‘few’ innocent casualties at the hands of the security forces are deemed inevitable. The victims are labelled ‘Maoist supporters’. As the Red Corridor mostly falls under tribal areas, a general, albeit fallacious, perception exists that the tribals in these areas are Naxalites or Naxalite supporters. What worsens the situation is the exclusion of such areas by the concerned state administration which, after 64 years of independence, has failed to establish any communication with people living in these areas. A district mostly falls in the Red Corridor zone not because the people here support the Naxal ideology, but because the administrative units in these areas are nowhere to be seen, giving a free hand to the Naxalites. It is the failure on the part of the state administration to reach out to rural tribal areas that has provided ample opportunity for Naxalism to flourish.
Decades after their exclusion, the government is trying to bring tribal societies out of their so-called ‘museum culture’ into the mainstream. But the methods being adopted are displacement, and the giving away of lands to multinational companies to set up factories, thereby reducing even the most affluent farmer to a petty labourer. The fact that abundant mineral resources sit beneath these tribal lands hardens the government’s stance, making it determined to counter any opposition with a heavy hand.
There is a dual strategy behind the tag ‘Red Corridor’. Multinational companies and mining corporations have incurred huge losses, mostly in tribal areas: firstly, as levy amount to several Naxalite outfits amounting to hundreds of crores in a single year; secondly, uncertainty over land acquisition even after signing MoUs with the concerned state government due to tribal laws and people’s opposition. By declaring districts Maoist zones, the government clears the ground for future operations to be conducted by the security forces. The mission: to ‘liberate’ such zones from the evil clutches of Naxalites and ‘anti-developmental’ forces. The ‘anti-developmental forces’, as termed by the government, are tribals whose protests are solely aimed at retaining their land; they have no intention whatsoever to topple the government. Several cases of tribals protesting against forcible land acquisition and being killed or imprisoned for allegedly being Naxals have been reported across the state of Jharkhand.
Tribals stand on a thin line between Naxalites and the government, exploited and destroyed by both. In areas where the Naxalites have a presence, not following their orders could result in gruesome killings. Thus, any meeting called by any of these outfits is an unspoken compulsion for the village, not an option.
In such a scenario, resorting to indiscriminate firing and blaming Naxalites for using innocent villagers as human shields is not only a failure on the part of the security forces but also on the state to provide safety to its citizens. The illusion presented to the common man has entwined tribals and Naxalites in such a complex manner that any number of killings in tribal areas fails to generate much sympathy among the people. The recent killing of 18 alleged Naxalites at the hands of the security forces in Chhattisgarh, and its aftermath, is evidence of the general perception that even if these people are not Naxalites, they are definitely supporters.
All in the name of ‘national interest’
In an interview with Shoma Chaudhary from Tehelka, in 2009, Home Minister P Chidambaram made the following comment: “No country can develop unless it uses its natural and human resources. Mineral wealth is wealth that must be harvested and used for people.” But who are the ‘people’ for whom mineral wealth must be harvested? The middle class and elites who own multinational corporations.
The mineral resources have more to do with profiting private firms than national growth. For example, the royalty fixed by the central government for iron ore is just 10% of the value of mined iron ore, extraordinarily benefiting private mining firms. Tribals have always remained outside the loop of beneficiaries. This was evident in thenon-implementation of the PESA Act until recently, for more than 10 years, in scheduled areas of Jharkhand even after a 2010 directive from the Jharkhand High Court. Adding to this was non-implementation of theSamatha judgment across areas under the Fifth Schedule, which would have hugely benefited tribals. Tribals have repeatedly been exploited, displaced and ruined in the name of ‘national interest’.
Jawaharlal Nehru once exquisitely explained the meaning of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, or ‘Victory to Mother India’, as victory to millions of people spread across the vast tract of India. The privileged classes who are fervently nationalistic must understand that their fellow nationals are being bludgeoned into a war-like situation. These wars are not only perpetrated by the juggernaut of so-called ‘development’ but are sustained by false myths that have blinded the general public. In a brilliant piece by George Monbiot, published in the Guardian, the author speaks about the injustices of the British Empire and the myths so well established that “we appear to blot out countervailing stories even as they are told”.
In order to sustain an actual inclusive growth, people need to do away with such false perceptions and not let exploitative action go unchallenged. Only then will the true essence of ‘Victory to Mother India’ materialise. National development is not just about showcasing the country’s economic growth on paper. A massive GDP growth rate is meaningless if tribals and other underprivileged peoples continue living underdeveloped lives. As a tribal, I expect the government to set aside its false perceptions of development that encourage exploitation of tribal communities, and bring about real meaningful growth.
(Richard Toppo is a researcher based in Ranchi, Jharkhand)
Endnotes
1 Jharkhand Human Rights Report 2001-2011. Published by Jharkhand Human Rights Movement
Infochange News & Features, July 2012
(courtesy - http://www.infochangeindia.org/human-rights/analysis/jharkhand-the-failed-promise-of-an-adivasi-state.html )
(courtesy - http://www.infochangeindia.org/human-rights/analysis/jharkhand-the-failed-promise-of-an-adivasi-state.html )
Is central India’s civil war a resource war over metals for arms?
28 août 2012 — javier
Felix Padel
Ratan Tata takes off on fighter jetThere
is a lot of evidence that the arms trade is an epicentre of corruption,
and that it fuels conflicts around the globe. Andrew Feinstein’s
brilliant new book, The Shadow World (2011, review by Padel
2012) shows this clearly. Less scrutinized are the centrality of the
arms industry to the world economy, the industry’s links with mining,
and its outstanding greenhouse gas emissions. However much we limit our
individual carbon footprints, will this make any difference unless we
curtail our wars?
Since 2005, the tribal areas in central-eastern India have plunged into a ‘slow war’, between security forces and Maoists. Underlying this, and a key reason for Maoist recruitment in these areas, is the displacement of millions of adivasis (indigenous or tribal people) from their land and resource base. The leadership on both sides is non-tribal, but the foot-soldiers are mainly adivasis – on the Maoist side, motivated by outrage at multiple injustice, and on the security force side through the system of SPOs – adivasis recruited as ‘Special Police Officers’ for a small salary in an area where numbers of displaced unemployed are growing – a recipe for civil war. Malnourishment among adivasis and dalits, according to India’s official statistics on nutrition, stands at over 50%.
Links between India’s mining companies and arms manufacturers are well known. For example, Nalco (National Aluminium Company) has close links with military aircraft factories run by HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd), and Balco (Bharat Aluminium Company) has had a contract to supply India’s nuclear missile programme, probably inherited by Vedanta.1 In January 2007, an agreement was drawn up for Indo-Russian collaboration on BrahMos missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, aimed at selling ‘about 1,000 missiles in the near future to clients in India, Rusia and some friendly countries’.2 India’s President Abdul Kalam, who worked on his country’s nuclear missile programme, devotes space in his book India 2020 (Kalam and Rajan 1998) to emphasizing the importance of India developing aluminium-lithium alloys, to keep up with the arms race.
The extraordinary spate of new mining deals signed by the state governments of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand from 2000-2005 were accompanied by deals between India mining companies and international arms producers. Nothing symbolized this more potently than a photo on the front page of Indian newspapers on 8 February 2007 of Sir Ratan Tata, head of the Tata group, sitting for a flight in the cockpit of a F-16, grinning like a maniac. This was the emblem of a deal signed by Tata and HAL with Lockheed for manufacturing components for this plane, and came around the same time that Tata bought up Corus (British Steel), Landrover, and Jaguar.
Perhaps nothing defines the distinction between ‘developed’ and ‘developing country’ status more than the extent of a country’s arms industry: ‘developed countries’ are basically the key countries who have manufacture and sale of arms at the centre of their economy. So in the warped logic of global power and influence, perhaps India’s bid to raise itself in the global hierarchy through rapid expansion of its arms industry makes sense.
The trouble is, this comes at a terrible cost for thousands of villages, whose way of life has been basically in tune with nature since time began. Over 600 adivasi villages had been burnt by Salwa Judum (a tribal militia created to fight the Maoists in Bastar, south Chhattisgarh) within two years of its formation in mid-2005, creating at least 200,000 refugees. Bastar is (or was) India’s tribal heartland. Its Muria Gonds and other tribes had evolved a lifestyle based on long-term sustainability and extraordinary beauty. To those who knew these cultures, the atrocities taking place there over the last seven years are a descent into hell for those who least deserve it. A recent massacre at Sarkeguda village, near Bijapur (Dantewada District), has at least drawn wider attention to the situation whereby perpetrators in uniform commit appalling crimes with impunity, and villagers have no hope of getting justice. Nineteen adivasi villagers were killed on the night of 28 June, when about 800 armed police of the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) converged on an area between three villages, where a meeting was in progress about a forthcoming agricultural festival. CRPF sources claimed they were shot at, and six jawans were wounded (some say by friendly fire), and that some of the dead were ‘hardcore Maoists’ – as a result of which, Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister and India’s Home Minister commended the CRPF involved for bravery. Civil rights groups and journalists contest every aspect, showing that these people had returned to villages close to a CRPF camp, that had been burnt by Salwa Judum and painstakingly rebuilt, and a high probability that cases registered against certain villagers were false.3
India’s Tribal Affairs Minister, Kishore Chandra Deo, has described this massacre as a ‘fake encounter’. It joins a woefully long list of well-documented fake encounters. In many ways, the Maoist-‘Operation Greenhunt’ conflict is a ‘false flag’ war, masking a war over resources. Maoists and security forces/mining companies share an ideology based on top-down power, sacrificing life and materialistic values: no-one imposed steel production more ruthlessly than Mao, and Bastar’s adivasis had managed to resist new iron-ore mines and steel plants with considerable success until Maoists undermined their traditional leadership.
Throughout central India, indigenous movements against new mines and metal factories, involving forced displacement and ecocide, are targeted on the grounds of Maoist infiltration. This is the case at Kalinganagar, where adivasis protesting a new Tata steel plant were shot dead in January 2006; in the Narayanpatna area of south Odisha, where an organisation called the Chasi Mulya Adivasi Sangha, orchestrating opposition to new mountain-top bauxite mines as well as mass takeovers of adivasi lands was viciously suppressed after Maoists publicly supported it; in the Saranda forest in south Jharkhand, where recent deals for new iron-ore mines were preceded by a mass invasion aimed at clearing out Maoists; in the vast Abhujmaar forest in Bastar, home to the Hill Mara Gonds, who have preserved a harmonious way of life shattered recently by an invasion of 3,000 CRPF, who reported several fatal encounters as they searched for Maoists hideouts; and in dozens of other key areas.
Khandadhara, a mountain range in north Odisha home to the Paudi Bhuiya tribe, is the site of an epic, though little-reported resource conflict: Paudi Bhuiya have been moved out of the forest in large numbers on the spurious grounds that their age-old practice of shifting cultivation destroys the forest, while a shady company called the Kalinga Commercial Corporation is already breaking production targets denuding mountains completely of their forest with iron and manganese mines, whose ore is already being exported in large quantities to China and South Korea (Mukherjee 2012).
In Kalinganagar and other contested sites, police often behave as a private army ensuring mining, construction and energy companies take possession of farmers’ lands. In an age of escalating conflicts worldwide, ‘mineral wealth’ becomes the touchstone of financial value, as the basic resource for waging war.
The irony is that villagers with cultivation systems based on highly developed principles of long-term sustainability are being displaced in the name of ‘development’. Can humans develop beyond the primitive stage we’re presently stuck at of ove-rexploiting Earth’s resources, and settling disputes through wars and atrocities?
Notes
1. The Telegraph, Calcutta, 2 March 2001
2. The New Indian Express, Bhubaneswar, 30 January 2007.
3. ‘Story of an Op Lost’, and ‘Factual Inconsistencies’, Outlook 16 and 23 July 2012, at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281550 and http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281691, among many articles published about this encounter.
Feinstein, Andrew 2011. The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Kalam, A.P.J. and Y.S. Rajan 1998. India 2020: A Vision for the New Millenium. Penguin.
Mukherjee, Madhusree 11 June 2012. ‘The death of a waterfall’, Outlook, at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281092
Padel, Felix 22 September 2007. ‘A Cry against the Hidden War: Bastar’s Civil War’, in Tehelka magazine, at http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=cr220907A_CRY.asp
_____ February 2008. ‘Mining as a Fuel for War’, in The Broken Rifle, issue no.77 p.1, at http://www.wri-irg.org/node/3576
_____ November 2010. ‘Deconstructing War on Terror’, Radical Anthropology, issue no.4, at http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/old/journal_04.pdf
_____ 7 April 2012. ‘Epicentre of Corruption’: review of Feinstein 2011, Economic and Political Weekly, vol.XLVII no.14, at http://www.theshadowworld.com/media/203-epw-review.pdf
(courtesy - http://www.wri-irg.org/fr/node/20305 )
Ratan Tata takes off on fighter jetThere
is a lot of evidence that the arms trade is an epicentre of corruption,
and that it fuels conflicts around the globe. Andrew Feinstein’s
brilliant new book, The Shadow World (2011, review by Padel
2012) shows this clearly. Less scrutinized are the centrality of the
arms industry to the world economy, the industry’s links with mining,
and its outstanding greenhouse gas emissions. However much we limit our
individual carbon footprints, will this make any difference unless we
curtail our wars?Since 2005, the tribal areas in central-eastern India have plunged into a ‘slow war’, between security forces and Maoists. Underlying this, and a key reason for Maoist recruitment in these areas, is the displacement of millions of adivasis (indigenous or tribal people) from their land and resource base. The leadership on both sides is non-tribal, but the foot-soldiers are mainly adivasis – on the Maoist side, motivated by outrage at multiple injustice, and on the security force side through the system of SPOs – adivasis recruited as ‘Special Police Officers’ for a small salary in an area where numbers of displaced unemployed are growing – a recipe for civil war. Malnourishment among adivasis and dalits, according to India’s official statistics on nutrition, stands at over 50%.
Links between India’s mining companies and arms manufacturers are well known. For example, Nalco (National Aluminium Company) has close links with military aircraft factories run by HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd), and Balco (Bharat Aluminium Company) has had a contract to supply India’s nuclear missile programme, probably inherited by Vedanta.1 In January 2007, an agreement was drawn up for Indo-Russian collaboration on BrahMos missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, aimed at selling ‘about 1,000 missiles in the near future to clients in India, Rusia and some friendly countries’.2 India’s President Abdul Kalam, who worked on his country’s nuclear missile programme, devotes space in his book India 2020 (Kalam and Rajan 1998) to emphasizing the importance of India developing aluminium-lithium alloys, to keep up with the arms race.
The extraordinary spate of new mining deals signed by the state governments of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand from 2000-2005 were accompanied by deals between India mining companies and international arms producers. Nothing symbolized this more potently than a photo on the front page of Indian newspapers on 8 February 2007 of Sir Ratan Tata, head of the Tata group, sitting for a flight in the cockpit of a F-16, grinning like a maniac. This was the emblem of a deal signed by Tata and HAL with Lockheed for manufacturing components for this plane, and came around the same time that Tata bought up Corus (British Steel), Landrover, and Jaguar.
Perhaps nothing defines the distinction between ‘developed’ and ‘developing country’ status more than the extent of a country’s arms industry: ‘developed countries’ are basically the key countries who have manufacture and sale of arms at the centre of their economy. So in the warped logic of global power and influence, perhaps India’s bid to raise itself in the global hierarchy through rapid expansion of its arms industry makes sense.
The trouble is, this comes at a terrible cost for thousands of villages, whose way of life has been basically in tune with nature since time began. Over 600 adivasi villages had been burnt by Salwa Judum (a tribal militia created to fight the Maoists in Bastar, south Chhattisgarh) within two years of its formation in mid-2005, creating at least 200,000 refugees. Bastar is (or was) India’s tribal heartland. Its Muria Gonds and other tribes had evolved a lifestyle based on long-term sustainability and extraordinary beauty. To those who knew these cultures, the atrocities taking place there over the last seven years are a descent into hell for those who least deserve it. A recent massacre at Sarkeguda village, near Bijapur (Dantewada District), has at least drawn wider attention to the situation whereby perpetrators in uniform commit appalling crimes with impunity, and villagers have no hope of getting justice. Nineteen adivasi villagers were killed on the night of 28 June, when about 800 armed police of the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) converged on an area between three villages, where a meeting was in progress about a forthcoming agricultural festival. CRPF sources claimed they were shot at, and six jawans were wounded (some say by friendly fire), and that some of the dead were ‘hardcore Maoists’ – as a result of which, Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister and India’s Home Minister commended the CRPF involved for bravery. Civil rights groups and journalists contest every aspect, showing that these people had returned to villages close to a CRPF camp, that had been burnt by Salwa Judum and painstakingly rebuilt, and a high probability that cases registered against certain villagers were false.3
India’s Tribal Affairs Minister, Kishore Chandra Deo, has described this massacre as a ‘fake encounter’. It joins a woefully long list of well-documented fake encounters. In many ways, the Maoist-‘Operation Greenhunt’ conflict is a ‘false flag’ war, masking a war over resources. Maoists and security forces/mining companies share an ideology based on top-down power, sacrificing life and materialistic values: no-one imposed steel production more ruthlessly than Mao, and Bastar’s adivasis had managed to resist new iron-ore mines and steel plants with considerable success until Maoists undermined their traditional leadership.
Throughout central India, indigenous movements against new mines and metal factories, involving forced displacement and ecocide, are targeted on the grounds of Maoist infiltration. This is the case at Kalinganagar, where adivasis protesting a new Tata steel plant were shot dead in January 2006; in the Narayanpatna area of south Odisha, where an organisation called the Chasi Mulya Adivasi Sangha, orchestrating opposition to new mountain-top bauxite mines as well as mass takeovers of adivasi lands was viciously suppressed after Maoists publicly supported it; in the Saranda forest in south Jharkhand, where recent deals for new iron-ore mines were preceded by a mass invasion aimed at clearing out Maoists; in the vast Abhujmaar forest in Bastar, home to the Hill Mara Gonds, who have preserved a harmonious way of life shattered recently by an invasion of 3,000 CRPF, who reported several fatal encounters as they searched for Maoists hideouts; and in dozens of other key areas.
Khandadhara, a mountain range in north Odisha home to the Paudi Bhuiya tribe, is the site of an epic, though little-reported resource conflict: Paudi Bhuiya have been moved out of the forest in large numbers on the spurious grounds that their age-old practice of shifting cultivation destroys the forest, while a shady company called the Kalinga Commercial Corporation is already breaking production targets denuding mountains completely of their forest with iron and manganese mines, whose ore is already being exported in large quantities to China and South Korea (Mukherjee 2012).
In Kalinganagar and other contested sites, police often behave as a private army ensuring mining, construction and energy companies take possession of farmers’ lands. In an age of escalating conflicts worldwide, ‘mineral wealth’ becomes the touchstone of financial value, as the basic resource for waging war.
The irony is that villagers with cultivation systems based on highly developed principles of long-term sustainability are being displaced in the name of ‘development’. Can humans develop beyond the primitive stage we’re presently stuck at of ove-rexploiting Earth’s resources, and settling disputes through wars and atrocities?
Notes
1. The Telegraph, Calcutta, 2 March 2001
2. The New Indian Express, Bhubaneswar, 30 January 2007.
3. ‘Story of an Op Lost’, and ‘Factual Inconsistencies’, Outlook 16 and 23 July 2012, at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281550 and http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281691, among many articles published about this encounter.
Feinstein, Andrew 2011. The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Kalam, A.P.J. and Y.S. Rajan 1998. India 2020: A Vision for the New Millenium. Penguin.
Mukherjee, Madhusree 11 June 2012. ‘The death of a waterfall’, Outlook, at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281092
Padel, Felix 22 September 2007. ‘A Cry against the Hidden War: Bastar’s Civil War’, in Tehelka magazine, at http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=cr220907A_CRY.asp
_____ February 2008. ‘Mining as a Fuel for War’, in The Broken Rifle, issue no.77 p.1, at http://www.wri-irg.org/node/3576
_____ November 2010. ‘Deconstructing War on Terror’, Radical Anthropology, issue no.4, at http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/old/journal_04.pdf
_____ 7 April 2012. ‘Epicentre of Corruption’: review of Feinstein 2011, Economic and Political Weekly, vol.XLVII no.14, at http://www.theshadowworld.com/media/203-epw-review.pdf
(courtesy - http://www.wri-irg.org/fr/node/20305 )
Sunday, June 17, 2012
The last of the asbestos miners
By Javed Iqbal
When miner Dansingh Bodra was asked about the people from his village who he worked with in the asbestos mines of Roro, who have all died before their time, he slowly starts counting, first to himself, and then loudly: “gyaara, Pooliya Sondi… baara, Rohto Gop… taira, Bagan Sondi… chowda, Vijay Singh Sondi… pandra, Gono Sondi… sola, Harish Sondi… sattra, Sukmon Sondi… atthra, Rahto Samadh.”
Dansingh himself suffers from cancer, a huge tumour grows out of his stomach.
It took him five minutes to remember the dead. A few seconds to denounce the company that laid them off one fine day when the mines shut down in 1983.
“They gave us nothing, no healthcare, no pension, just these illnesses.”
“I worked in the mines for 12 years, and from that day itself I used to cough, and slowly it started to get worse.”
This man with a lump growing out of his stomach remains a testament to the reality of internal colonisation, of a company that currently earns aggregate revenues of over Rs800 crore, of industrial development, and the idea that mining offers jobs.
Dansingh Bodra awaits death in a village where his three grandchildren sleep behind him suffering from fever. The mines have long but closed down, but the dust and pollution that emanates from them, still spread across the fields.
Even today, as per law, especially as per section 22 of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981, all asbestos mines have to be closed. But Hyderabad Industry Limited, part of the CK Birla Group, did not close their mines at Roro village at Chaibasa, West Singhbhum, Jharkhand. As a result, the asbestos fibres that are blown into the wind, that seep into the fields and rivers, still exist 30 years after the mines shut down.
“So many people died before they turned forty,” said Birsingh Sondi, who points to his neighbours house, “There lived Mangalsingh Sondi, who was 25 when he died, and he never even worked in the mine. His father, Sukmon, worked there, and he died a few years ago too.”
A deadly carcinogen
Asbestos, whose use, manufacture and extraction is banned across the European Union, is still used widely across India and is part of a Rs4,000 crore industry dominated by around 18 companies who justify the use of asbestos as a substitute for affordable roofing, and claim that chrysotile asbestos can be safely manufactured and used without risks.
The companies claim that the kind of asbestos used in India isn’t carcinogenic, even as all forms of asbestos are classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation, the International Labour Organisation, and the International Agency For Research On Cancer, who mention in a report that was published in 2010: ‘Epidemiological evidence has increasingly shown an association of all forms of asbestos (chrysotile, crocidolite, amosite, tremolite, actinolite, and anthophyllite) with an increased risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma.’ It goes on to mention that an estimated 125mn people are still exposed to asbestos at the workplace.
Yet, the Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers Association, one of the main lobby groups for the continued production and use of asbestos, has repeatedly claimed, “Some five hundred other products and industrial processes are recognised as carcinogens, but this does not mean that we must prohibit their use.”
While the lobby has often reiterated that chrysotile asbestos is safe, the chairman of the Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers Association, Abhaya Shanker, is also the managing director of Hyderabad Industries Limited. According to him, they have closed the Roro mine, and that the mountains of asbestos tailings from the mine are not carcinogenic.
“Roro is a finished chapter, a closed mine 30 years back, what’s the point of Roro? I don’t understand,” he exclaims in a telephonic interview. “That is all an old story, an old type of asbestos and that is all done. The mine is safely handed over, and closed, and handed over to the government of India, and there is no danger to the public. It’s all bullshit.”
“According to the Supreme Court directives in the CERC case, you have to monitor the health of your workers? Do you also monitor the health of your workers from Roro?” I asked.
“You can look at our world class health monitoring system, for our workers… for several years we keep calling them, for check-ups, for studying them…” responds Shanker.
“Even the Roro workers?”
“The Roro workers are all finished, we would have done them (the survey) for a couple of year, and it’s been 30 years now, nobody would be alive now,” says Shanker.
Closing the mountain
Roro Hills at Chaibasa were first mined for chromite in the early 1960s by the Tatas. The mines were sold to the CK Birla Group, as the Tatas moved onto mining chromite at Sukinda, in Odisha, which itself, aaccording to international environmental group Blacksmith Institute, is one of the 10 most polluted places in the world, where approximately 70% of the surface water is contaminated by hexavalent chromium, and 24.7% of the population living around the mines are suffering from pollution-induced diseases.
When I had visited the village of Suanla in Sukinda in 2010, an old man scoffed at the media’s ability to highlight the issue. He claimed that over 30 people have died in the past few months. Some called the deaths in Suanla an exaggeration, but in the house of Markand Hembram, four members of the household had died within a year.
Quoting the report by the Blacksmith Institute, the government itself had gone on to say: ‘It is unique, it is gigantic and it is beyond the means and purview of the [Orissa Pollution Control] Board to solve the problem.’
Back at Roro, there were attempts to close the mountain and clean up. Way back in 2003, a public hearing was held where villagers from 14 villages around the mines had spoken up about working in the mines and the health issues in their villages. The hearing was organised by Jharkhand Organisation For Human Rights, and was paneled by a group of prominent doctors and advocates.
The report of the hearing was taken to the District Collector and Chief Medical officer who were given representations for conducting medical camps, to monitor health of workers and non-workers, and to detail a scientific closure of mines and to hold Hyderabad Industries Limited accountable to pay for health and environmental damages.
Yet, till date, there have never been any attempt by any official body — from the Pollution Control Board, the Directorate General of Mines Safety, the Mining Department, the company or the local administration to remediate and clean up the mine tailings or do a proper closure.
At Roro, only three miners who worked with the Birla Group are left alive. But not everyone worked directly under the company since independent contractors had also taken on the work of disposing asbestos dust, and they paid workers Rs1.50 per day, for working from eight in the evening to eight in the morning, to clear dust.
“There was no izzat in mining, we should never have allowed them here,” says Dansingh Bodra, who had even worked underground, mining asbestos without any protective clothing. And there were accidents: Turam Sondi, Jida Sondi and Dausar Sondi were killed in the mines in a few years before the lockout and the closing of the mines.
“No one should ever have worked the way we did.”
( courtesy - The last of the asbestos miners - India - DNA )
Dansingh Bodra awaits death in a village where his three grandchildren sleep behind him suffering from fever. The mines have long but closed down, but the dust and pollution that emanates from them, still spread across the fields.
Asbestos, whose use, manufacture and extraction is banned across the European Union, is still used widely across India and is part of a Rs4,000 crore industry dominated by around 18 companies who justify the use of asbestos as a substitute for affordable roofing, and claim that chrysotile asbestos can be safely manufactured and used without risks.
“Even the Roro workers?”
Closing the mountain
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