CHAIBASA, the amazing megalith townSubhashis Das

CHAIBASA, the amazing megalith town
Subhashis Das

Large menhirs in Mohulsai.

This post is in actuality a tribute to Chaibasa, a town in Jharkhand in East India which has been unknowingly celebrating megalithism since many centuries.

Tall menhirs begin to appear once you enter Singhbhum and even you are quite far from the town. And as you come close you can see tall menhirs dotting the countryside.

Such megalithic burials in every Ho courtyard are called sasandiri

This is Ho country. Anthropologically speaking Hos are proto austroloid Kolarian people; a sister tribe of the Mundas and they are a megalithic lot too. They are believed to have entered the region of Singhbhum in South Jharkhand pretty late. Therefore their monuments, the megaliths are assumed to be relatively newer, not going beyond 500/600 years.

Ho homes are pieces of art…thoroughly whitewashed and half of it from the bottom dons beige or black colour produced from seeds. The floors too are painted from the extracts of various seeds. The village women toil to paint their homes every 15 days to keep them sparkling! These white homes dazzle in the sun in the Singhbhum landscape like jewels.

One tall menhir

Enter any Ho house; you are bound to confront megalithic burial slabs in their courtyard. As it is in their courtyards they would bury their ancestors and on it they would place large burial slabs known to them as Sasandiris. Later they would raise tall menhirs in their honour called Bidiris.

Such large menhirs called Bidiris dot the villages all around Chaibasa

So profoundly megalithic are the Hos that they would raise menhirs to commemorate any event; a major victory in a football game or the birth of girl child or a significant meeting that may have been held or perhaps even for the formation of the Jharkhand state.

Another set of tall menhirs (bidiris) in a village called Baiatu

What is unique about this place that majority of the homes have megaliths, it is a living tradition here.  If I had it my way I would have had Chaibasa be declared a heritage town not only for the innumerable megaliths that the region houses but also for continuing the tradition of megalith making since unknown times in an uninterrupted manner.

Know any place like this?

A Constitution’s Dead Army
Javed Iqbal

April 9, 2012 Thirty years ago, a retired armyman’s body was being dragged by a police jeep as his adivasi brethren, armed with bows and arrows, helplessly tried to stop the convoy but were fired upon and chased away.

This article appears in Daily News & Analysis on the 9th of April, 2012.
Gangaram Kalundia was bayonneted in the police van, and then dragged across the village, for speaking for the rights of his people, and there was never any prosecutions against the police for his murder.
Gangaram was an adivasi of the Ho tribe, who joined the army when he was 19 years old, fought in the war of 1965 and the war of 71 as part of the Bihar Regiment, and had risen to the rank of Junior officer.
He voluntarily retired and returned home to find that his village Illigara in Chaibasa of West Singhbhum of Jharkhand (then Bihar), along with some 110 other villages would be submerged due to the Kuju dam project, that was funded by the World Bank.
He would organize his people to fight for their fundamental rights against displacement and the project exactly thirty years ago, to only be brutally murdered by the police early in the morning on the 4^th of April, 1982.
‘This is where we placed stones to stop the convoy that had Gangaram,’ Said Tobro, then 14 years old, now pointing to a small woodland by the roadside, ‘and this is where we were, with bows and arrows, but the police fired upon us and chased us away.’
While Gangaram Kalundia was killed in 1982, a long agitation had still sustained itself, that had often driven people like Tobro underground, aware that the police were rounding people up. Surendra Biduili, 52, was a part of the agitation against the dam, and the eventual victory in 1991 when, ‘the World Bank withdrew the money.’
‘Their reports said that the dam would only submerge lands that had paddy,’ he continued, ‘but it was a lie, we were cultivating vegetables as well.’
It was much later when Gangaram had become a symbol for oppurtunistic politics, and his shaheed divas, would be attended by every other political party, or as Surendra would say, ‘First everyone used to be afraid to mention Gangaram’s name, now all the parties of contractors and dalaals come for his shaheed divas.’
In The Thousands
Gangaram Kalundia was not the only adivasi leader killed for representing the rights of people. Just a few kilometres away from Chaibasa, across the Sal tree forest, is the village of Bandgaon, where Lalsingh Munda was killed in broad daylight in the market on the 1^st of November 1983. His concerns were that sacred grounds were being used by non-tribals and contractors as a waste dump.
‘You travel by bus to Chaibasa, well, back then, people used to get off the bus to piss into the sacred grounds.’ Said Phillip Kujur, a member of JMACC (Jharkhand Mines Area Coordination Committee).
Phillip Kujur was also associated with Lalit Mehta who was brutally murdered in Palamau in May 2008, Niyamat Ansari who was killed by the Maoists in Latehar District on the 2^nd of March, 2011, and on the 29^th of December, 2011, Pradip Prasad was killed by PLFI extremists in the village of Mukka, Latehar.
Sister Valsa who fought for the adivasis in Pachuwara in Pakur District of Jharkhand was murdered on the 15^th of November, 2011.
The roads in adivasi villages are punctuated with memorials for fallen leaders and activists.
The office for NGO Birsa in Chaibasa has a memorial stone with other names: Vahaspati Mahto killed in 1977 in Purulia, Shaktinath Mahto killed in 1977 at Dhanbad , Ajit Mahto killed in 1982 at Tiraldih, Beedar Nag killed in 1983 at Gua, Ashwini Kumar Savaya killed in 1984 in Chaibasa, Anthony Murmu killed in 1985 at Banjhi, Nirmal Mahto killed in 1986 at Jamshedpur, Devendra Mahji killed in 1994 in Goilkera. The memorial ends with the sentence, ‘anaam shaheed….hazaaron mein.’ (Unknown Martyrs, in the thousands)
‘When I was young,’ Said Phillip, ‘I was travelling with two veteran activists, who kept pointing to village after village saying, ‘here’s where another cadre of ours was killed’, and there I was, another man they trained to fight for people’s rights. Finally, I turned to them and asked, ‘you taught all these people how to fight, but did you teach them how to stay alive?’
In recent times, K Singanna, one of the first organizers of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh in Narayanpatna Block of Koraput District of Odisha was shot thrice in his back in a police firing incident on the 20^th of November, 2009. Since then, another leader Nachika Linga has been living underground in fear of arrest, or death, as posters calling for him to be caught ‘dead or alive’ were posted all over Narayanpatna after the firing. Both individuals were responsible for organizing the Kondh adivasis to claim their rights as per the Fifth Schedule, to free themselves as bonded labourers on their own land.
In Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, Muria and Koya adivasis committed to taking the cause of their people via rallies, writ petitions, and organizing them to fight peacefully for their rights, have almost all been arrested as alleged Maoists. Manish Kunjam, an ex-MLA, has faced repeated death threats and his own cadre, responsible for working in the villages, have been in and out of jail.
On International Labour Day, the 1^st of May, 2008, in Kalinganagar Industrial Park of Jajpur, Odisha, one of the leaders of the Anti-displacement group, Dabar Kalundia was attacked outside the gates of the Rohit Ferrotech Steel Plant and escaped, but Omin Banara (51) was killed.
In Memory of Gangaram

‘They all talk about Gangaram, but they don’t care about his wife.’
Birangkui Kalundia, widow of Gangaram, lost her only daughter when she was giving birth to her grandchild. She was widowed by the state, and her daughter would be another statistic to those 80,000 women who die every year due to childbirth.
Her brother-in-law, would also cut ties with her, often dividing the produce of Gangaram’s 15 acres for himself, leaving her out with nothing, and after his death, she moved out of the village his husband fought for, to move in with her new caretakters, her nephew and his wife, where she lives with a quiet pride to this day.
She still holds onto the medals won by her husband, the citation for his President’s Medal,  speaking in soft tones unforgivingly about the men who killed her husband, coming to terms with injustice in this life, to a hope for justice in the next.

Between Maoists and mines

Author(s): Sayantan Bera

Issue: Apr 30, 2012

Ho tribals lose hold of Saranda as mining is set to take over the pristine sal forest. A report and photographs by Sayantan Bera
A gateway to Saranda turns red corridor, courtesy iron ore dust (Photos: Sayantan Bera)If only this were a mere coincidence. Last year the Centre intensified its combing operation to flush out Maoists from the dense Saranda forests of Jharkhand. By August, following Operation Anaconda, it claimed to have “sanitised” the forests of insurgents. In October the Union Ministry of Rural Development announced a whopping Rs 263 crore development package for 36,000 tribals who traditionally inhabit the forest. Earlier in February, the Centre had renewed and expanded the lease of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) to mine iron ore in the forest. The public sector unit is the only company mining inside the forest. Nineteen more projects to mine iron ore in the heart of Saranda are in different phases of approval.
Activists working with the forest dwellers doubt the intention of the government. “The Rs 263 crore Saranda Development Plan, piggybacking on the anti-naxal operation has a clear mining interest,” says Gladson Dungdung of Jharkhand Human Rights Movement (JHRM) and member of the Assessment and Monitoring Authority of the Planning Commission. “Villages situated next to the proposed mining projects saw fake encounters and rape cases during the anti-Naxal drive. While the government is yet to settle the land titles of the tribals under the Forest Rights Act of 2006, the security forces burnt down whatever land records they had.”
Spread over 80,000 hectares in West Singhbhum district, Saranda is the largest sal forest in Asia. It also stands atop one of the world’s largest single deposit of iron ore—over 2,000 million tonnes. At least 36,000 Ho tribals live inside the forest. Most of them collect minor forest produce like sal leaves and seeds to earn a living or are small farmers.
While announcing the Saranda Development Plan as a model for other Maoist-affected areas, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh had said, “more mining means more Maoism,” arguing for no private mining in the forests.
But Dungdung’s argument is not unfounded. A copy of Saranda Development Plan, which Down To Earth obtained from the forest department, shows 62 per cent of the Rs 263 crore package will be spent on infrastructure development like roads and offices alone. The government has relaxed the restriction to have only unpaved roads inside reserve forests. A network of 130 km of cement-concrete roads will be laid at an expense of Rs 104 crore. The network will be later extended to 250 km. Sushil Barla, district general secretary of the Congress and member of JHRM, says, the Rs 80-lakh-per-km roads are not meant for forest dwellers or department officials to deliver the development programme. One cannot justify such high costs if not for almost a metre deep cement concrete roads required to transport iron ore. Trucks carrying the ore weigh up to 30 tonnes and require heavy duty roads.
The next major chunk of the package is for integrated development centers (IDCs)—prefabricated structures to house civil and forest officials who will administer the package. IDCs will be a one-stop-development shop that will provide subsidised ration under the public distribution scheme, generate employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, and have health centres, forest offices, banks, anganwadi, retail stores, mobile towers and even photo studios. The cost for constructing an IDC is Rs 6 crore. The plan is to set up 10 IDCs to cater to all the 56 Saranda villages.
These leave Rs 99 crore for development works like providing housing facilities for people below poverty line, clean drinking water and sanitation, watershed projects, installing handpumps, solar lanterns and setting up schools.
Xavier Dias, activist and writer who has worked with mine workers of Jharkhand for three decades, says the plan is a two-pronged strategy. “The package, which will receive funds from industries through their corporate social responsibility, will help garner acceptance from the forest dwellers on opening up of new mining areas. Simultaneously, it will deny Maoists the safe refuge of dense forests as it will be cleared for mining, roads and ancillary development.”
For Maoists, it was a safe haven
Located at the trijunction of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, Saranda is strategically crucial for Maoists. By the government’s own reckoning, Saranda is the headquarters of the Maoists’ eastern regional bureau. Strategically, it comes next to the Dandakaranya forests of Chhattisgarh, which the Maoists have declared the liberated zone. The forests are also the prime revenue earner for the banned organisation. Dungdung says Maoists earn at least Rs 500 crore per year from Saranda by imposing levies on mining companies. Some offer them protection money to do business in a Maoist bastion, while those mining illegally beyond their lease area pay hefty sums. In 2007-08, Rungta Mines and Usha Martin reportedly paid Rs 25 lakh each to Maoists. Months after the combing operation, the paramilitary forces in March discovered opium fields inside Saranda as another source of their income.
Sources: Bulletin of mining leases and prospecting licences, 2010, Indian Bureau of Mines; PIB Release: Permission for mining activities on September 5, 2011; Minutes of the Inter ministerial meeting on December 20, 2010 in Ministry of Steel; Proceedings of the Forest Advisory Committee meeting on February 11, 2011; Status of MoUs Signed for Mega Investment, published by the government of Jharkhand
Besides, in and around Saranda are doco areas where iron ore can be illegally obtained from river beds and fields. Four people can gather as much as 12 tonnes of ore within three hours, which can be transported to crushers dotting the 140 km road from Rourkela to Barbil in Odisha, running almost parallel to Saranda. The crushers then sell it to legal mines. Maoists collect a share of the booty and detonators from them.
Government eyes untapped minerals
According to the Indian Bureau of Mines’ 2010 report, West Singhbhum is the most mined district in Jharkhand, and accounts for almost the entire share of iron ore mined in the state. Already 44 mining leases for iron ore are operational covering an area of 12,374 ha. At present, most mining activity, except in SAIL’s Chiria mine, is concentrated on the periphery of Saranda. Once the 19 mining projects, which are in different stages of approval, are given the go-ahead, an additional 11,000 ha, or more than one-seventh of the Saranda, will be opened up for mining (see:  map and table). Besides, the government is setting up 21 paramilitary camps across the forest, 17 of which have received forest clearance. Add to these the concrete roads, IDCs and ancillary developments for mining.
There is no assessment of the gross impact of these developments on Saranda and its dwellers.

“It’s genocide of the adivasis,” says Dias. Saranda is to eastern India what the Amazon rainforests are to the world. Its springs feed rivers like the Karo, the Baitarani and the Sanjay that flow through Odisha. With mining these perennial streams are dying. Wastewater from washaries of iron ore mines on the periphery have already contaminated the groundwater aquifers. Mine workers and residents in the periphery of Saranda are dying due to liver diseases caused by contaminated groundwater, while companies blame it on alcoholism. The average life expectancy has plummeted to 45 years in Noamundi where the Tata Iron and Steel Company Ltd operates its mines, Dias adds.
Since announcing the Saranda Development Plan, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh visited the forest twice to oversee its implementation. On December 2, he visited Chotanagra village, one of the gateways to the interiors of Saranda, with truckloads of goodies—bicycles, transistor radios and solar lanterns. “Some of them were distributed and the rest remains locked in the block office,” says Bhimsen Gop, the village postmaster. “Those who got the cycles spent Rs 200 to fix the missing parts. But that is not an issue. The problem is we are never heard by the government or mining companies. What use are development programme or CSR freebies when our land is turning barren and perennial streams are drying up?” he asks.
Three companies have been allowed to mine Kudliba hills deep inside Saranda
A visit to Dhobil reveals Gop’s concerns. Dhobil is located next to SAIL’s Chiria mine, one of the country’s oldest iron ore mines operating since 1936, and has borne the maximum brunt of mining. Extending from Chotanagra to Dhobil, Chiria covers almost 3 per cent of Saranda. Every monsoon, the sludge and mining waste flows into the agricultural fields, covering it with red mud. Residents say more than 25 ha in the village are lying barren. One perennial stream has dried up on a five-kilometre stretch. During monsoon it carries water laden with iron ore. The public hearing for expanding the lease area of SAIL was done in Chiria village, some 15 km from Dhobil. The public hearing for ArcelorMittal’s proposed mining project in Karampada forest was held 22 km away in Kiriburu village. So did the hearings for Rungta Mines and Electrosteel Castings. They successfully held their public hearings in Chotanagra, some 30 km from Ushariya village. The village in the heart of Saranda will be directly affected by the mining of Kudliba hills. Jaunga Banda, a part time labourer at Chiria mine was among the few from from Ushariya who took the pain of attending the public hearing. “I could not comprehend what was going on. I just hope that they leave some forests for our graves,” he says.
SAIL offered woollen clothes to children in Dhobil after the expansion of its mine lease;
Among the Ho it is customary to give burials in a corner of the village under the shade of trees. Traditionally, sasandiris (burial stones) are their land titles. None of the villages surrounding the proposed mines will be displaced but the forests will disappear.
Analysts say the mining leases inside Saranda are in violation of the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution that protects the rights of tribals like the Ho. The Fifth Schedule requires the government to consult and seek the advice of Tribal Advisory Council (TAC) on matters of general welfare and transfer of land, says Stan Swamy of the civil society group Bagaicha. But the government never sought the advice of TAC.
SAIL’s mine has dried up the perennial stream in Dhobil
Likewise, under the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Area’s Act (PESA) of 1996, it should have consulted the gram sabha before granting mining leases. But the state government is yet to implement PESA. So far the argument given by the Jharkhand government was that the state did not hold panchayat elections and therefore the Act is not applicable. But the excuse does not hold anymore after the state had its first panchayat elections in 2011, Swamy adds. Devendra Nath Champia, member the state legislative assembly for two decades, a Ho himself, says time is ripe to implement the 1997 Samata Judgement of the Supreme Court, whereby transfer of tribal land to corporations without the consent of the community is deemed null and void.
Who quelled their voice?
The Ho are known for their historic struggles. Following their revolt against the British occupation of their territory, in 1836-37, the British formed the Kolhan estate, now covering the expanse in and around Saranda, and recognised their customary community rights to the forests, rivers, hills and cultivable land. They recognised the traditional Munda-Manki system of the village headman who has policing powers and rights to settle land disputes. In the late 19th century, the Ho joined the struggle led by Birsa Munda against the feudal agrarian system promoted by the British.
Sanjay Basu Mallick, forest rights activist and historian, says in 1978 the Ho fought the forest department as it replaced vast swathes of sal forests with commercial teak plantation and to restore their customary rights to minor forest produce. In 1981 they pleaded before the Commonwealth for complete autonomy from the Indian government. They even resisted for long the panchayat elections arguing their traditional system of governance is superior.
But today, an eerie silence hangs over these villages. To protest would be at the risk of being called a Maoist.

9-minute spotlight on Ho script ANIMESH BISOEE

Subhashish Chakraborty

Ever wondered how the word earth is written in the Ho script? Or for that matter, how and from where the characters of Ho — a Munda language developed by Dr Lako Bodra — have been derived?

Short filmmaker Subhashish Chakraborty’s (34) nine-minute documentary Magical Script shall enlighten you.

Ho, the almost extinct language of tribals, was back in the spotlight in Jamshedpur with Chakraborty, a corporate sustainability department employee of Jusco, screening his film at Chambers Bhavan on Saturday.

The screening was attended by more than 200 people, all of whom appreciated the first-of-its-kind endeavour.

A 2006 Union tourism ministry fellowship awardee, Chakraborty did extensive research to trace the origin of Warang Kshiti — a script of Ho that is lying in utter neglect in tribal-dominated Jharkhand. The documentary, he added, was a tribute to Loko Bodra, who has been credited with finding the Warang Kshiti script.

It took nearly two months to complete the documentary that was primarily shot at Ho-dominated villages of Pandadih (in Silli, near Ranchi) and Jorapokhar (in West Singhbhum’s Jhinkpani block).

Speaking to The Telegraph, Chakraborty said that it took him close to one year to conduct research. “I visited various Ho-dominated villages in Ranchi and West Singhbhum and met tribal scholars to collect information,” said Chakraborty.

He added that he was shocked by the neglect shown by the younger generation to the language despite its rich literature and hence, turned his lens on the subject with hopes of changing things around.

Chakraborty, who has to his credit 20 short stories besides a documentary on tribal painters — the film had made it to Cannes Film Festival but failed to bag an award — said that he would distribute copies of the film among “genuine” NGOs that were working for the uplift of tribals.

“The tribals should be made aware of the richness of Ho script,” he said.

“So, my objectives of shooting this film were many. But, primarily I hope to generate interest among the masses about this tribal language and hopefully among government officials too. The state should give the script its due recognition and use Ho for official transactions as well if possible,” added the filmmaker.

In another development, Tata Steel Tribal Development Society on Sunday launched a training in tribal scripts at Karandih with an aim to revive dying tribal languages.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120507/jsp/jharkhand/story_15459734.jsp#.T6iENVLYfiS