The Red Threat

 What is it to be stateless and homeless in your own country? What is it to be treated as an outcaste and a second class citizen in a country you call your home? These are questions unlikely to have bothered those who are reading this blog post right now. They are questions from the tribal communities of India which have gone unanswered for over six decades. Their misery and suffering have never made their way into the framework of government policies.

As the government remains preoccupied with fulfilling the demands of big businessmen, the misery of poor farmers invariably gets ignored.

For decades the forests have been the perennial hub for many tribal communities of India. However, with the fast decreasing forest cover, their homes are now under threat of being converted into industrial zones. Already many of the sub tribes have become oblivion and more are on their way to follow a similar destiny. Forest Conservation laws have been of no help in saving their forest land, instead even a small share from forest is denied to the tribal. This has made them intruders in their own houses. In Bhandarpaani, Betul district (Madhya Pradesh), homes of 73 tribal families was set on fire by the Forest Department on the night of 4 July 2004. People were kept in different places and families were separated – even the members of the same family were unaware of each others whereabouts. The only sin committed by the tribal was that their village had been situated on forest land for generations. Thirty five persons of the tribe were illegally confined in Ranipur Forest Range Office.

The above narrated plight of the tribes might sound like a bollywood movie scene but unfortunately it was a sordid reality faced by the forest dwellers of Bhandarpaani. One will be surprised to know that all this was done to evict Adivasis to make the land available for mining.

There have been farmer suicides and tribal struggle to save their land from encroachment, but ironically, no firm action has been taken so far. The government stands blindfolded, without the least motivation to pull the beleaguered tribal community out of the clutches of the politics of land grabbing by big companies. In March last year, around 1000 farmers lost 1,050 hectares of land to Tata Steel’s 5 million tonne steel plant project in Bastar. Despite opposition from the tribal community, the company and the government went ahead with their programme of strategically capturing the land of the poor, whose property receives the least protection from government bodies.

Like the Tatas, there are several other steel, textile and telecom business groups who have used their political and financial power to fill their coffers at the cost of unprotected forest dwellers.

 The forest dwellers are living with a continuous threat of being alienated from their lands, their homes, and from the forest, their sole asset, by a government whose resources have always run short when it comes to rural development. Areas rich in mineral resources are readily handed over to industries without considering the environmental hazard these firms can create. The Vedanta bauxite refinery in Orissa is an example of such exploitation. The bauxite refinery, built and operated by Vedanta at the base of Niyamgiri hills, has displaced over a hundred tribal families. The mining activity on the hills has made the lives of the villagers miserable. Locals are reported to have developed sores on their body after bathing in a river close to the refinery. They have also complained of cattle deaths after drinking the same water. The locals are living in a precarious situation, without any response from either the government or the owners of the refinery. The Niyamgiri mountain, which is a storehouse of Bauxite and home to 8000 Dongria Kondh tribals, is facing the threat of destruction as Vedanta decides to step up its mining activity in the region.

 Government favours for a British company and its cavalier neglect of its own people is not a new phenomenon, but a sudden surge in Maoist activities in the tribal belt is. The violence in Lalgarh and recent bandhs called by the rebellious Maoist groups in tribal areas manifest the mounting anger of the tribal community. Maoists have named their protest as ‘People’s War’. This resistance has become a threat for the government, which sees it as a serious threat to internal security. What the government refuses to admit is its prior neglect that has contributed to the transformation of this peaceful greenbelt into a ‘Red Corridor’. Government decisions have always been in favour of the rich and the so – called civilized mainstream. The present conflict has emerged because a particular community wants to act against a government that has always ignored their rights to development. The zero-tolerance strategy and the war-like situation that the government is planning to create is a means of suppressing the voices of the deprived. It sounds strange to me that a country, which resorts to dialogue with Pakistan even after proven terrorist activities from across the border, fails to take the initiative to solve the Naxal problem in a peaceful manner. This again shows how little the government cares for the tribal community. I do not support the killing of innocent people in this battle between the adivasis and the government but eually, I also do not support the random killing of tribal people under the pretext of solving the problem.

The government, which has always been insensitive in its tribal policies, should open its eyes cap and dissect the problem layer by layer.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qLHBk9v-xw

 The problem is not with the present demands of the tribals but the underlying dissatisfaction and grudge that they hold against the government. Killing the Naxals would only be a short term solution. If the government is serious about wanting to get rid of this problem, it will have to get off its throne and try to understand the grievances of the tribal community.

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Anjali Kispotta