The 150th birth anniversary this year of the tribal martyred hero, Bhagwan Birsa Munda (1874-1900) has begun to be observed with deserved enthusiasm in Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and other parts of the country. Many Indians, especially those of tribal stock, would perhaps agree that this is an appropriate time to dwell on the abysmal conditions in which Birsa’s children are forced to live and die. The Nagri incident which happened more than a decade ago near Ranchi should continue to serve as an eye-opener.
Nagri village, about 20 kilometres from the Jharkhand capital of Ranchi, was in the eye of a storm for several months in 2012. Without consulting the inhabitants of the village, the government of Jharkhand acquired 227 acres of tribal land to construct a law university, an institute of management and several centres of information technology. The villagers of Nagri claimed that the land was agricultural, had been so for generations and, therefore, the government should look elsewhere for the proposed educational hub. Ranchi city turned into a battleground between policemen and protesting villagers under the leadership of the popular tribal leader, Dayamani Barla. Adivasi children and women carrying placards which read “Nagri raiyoto ki jameen wapas karo” (Land belonging to Nagri farmers must be returned), were to be seen all over the city.
Initially, the government had used force to put down the resistance of the villagers. Tribal lives were lost in police repression and many of the protestors were injured. Later, Arjun Munda’s BJP regime tried other means, mixing discussions with threats, to take the wind out of the defiant villagers. Nagri residents took to protesting outside the Chief Minister’s house. Black flags and loud slogans became the order of the day at key points in Ranchi, indicating that displacement of Adivasis in the name of ‘development’ or ‘progress’ would not be tolerated.
Arun Pradhan, a land stir activist, went on record that the whole purpose of separating the tribal districts of south Bihar to form the State of Jharkhand, avowedly to serve the interests of Adivasis, was defeated by the government’s illegal land acquisition moves and other related measures. Pradhan: “The basic purpose of having a separate Jharkhand has been defeated. It was created to preserve the rights of the tribal to jal (water), jungle (forest) and jameen (land). But the government is hell-bent upon snatching away tribal land.”
Adivasis are faced with the spectre of being denied their basic rights to livelihood, to traditional lifestyles and to an identity that is quite different from that of the diku (the outsider). Everywhere they are displaced and marginalized; but everywhere they are defying the arson and anarchy that are being sought to be imposed on them. Everyone save the Adivasi seems to have prospered in greater or lesser degree in what was originally Adivasi country. When the genuine Adivasi activist, albeit an almost extinct species these days, raises his voice in protest, or the Adivasi mother tries to put her child to sleep with a lullaby about Birsa Bhagwan, they are in effect echoing the words of their compatriot and the Australian aboriginal leader Mick Miller, who complains of being “truly strangers in our own land… we are living on the fringes of a white, affluent society, treated as fourth- and fifth-class citizens”.
Almost all the major steel plants in India are located in what was once tribal land. These factories attracted men and women from all parts of the country who soon began to encroach on the homes, hills, fields and jungles of the Adivasis – the indigenous people, the original inhabitants. Be it Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Bhilai or Bokaro, or any other industrial settlement that one may care to mention, everyone has done well save those who were once owners of the land on which the factories stand.
In course of time Adivasis have come to be defined only in terms of numbers invoked at least once every five years and then consigned to the dustbin of oblivion. Who knows better than the interlopers how they robbed the Adivasis of their land, their forests and rivers, metals, minerals, languages and lifestyle, customs and ceremonies, gods and ancestors, their creativity and confidence, their pride and sense of self-worth, and their deep-rooted communion with Nature. All in the name of introducing them to the welfare of the mainstream; to democratic governance and the rule of law. The truth is, they haven’t even a toehold on the good earth called mainstream.
When India’s capitalists or the government of India itself take over Adivasi land to build factories, dams, canals or highways, they are known to dish out the same explanations as their equally wily counterparts do elsewhere, particularly in the Western world. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, who continues to be anathema to the political establishment even after his death presumably because he was in the habit of saying unfashionable things, had in fact a few meaningful points to make about the exploitation of Adivasis. His dark words, to be found in his The Continent of Circe, should make sense to at least some of his countrymen, notably those who have lived for long in the industrialized parts of the Chhotanagpur region.
Sex as an instrument of subjugation has been effectively used by outside elements from the beginning of the history of industrialization of the Chhotanagpur region. If anything, this fact of life is truer today than it was in days gone by. With industrialization spreading its arms aggressively, Adivasi girls are stepping out of their homes in larger numbers in search of daily bread, to end up very frequently as easy meat for a growing class of contractors and their henchmen.
The outsider’s demand for sexual favours from vulnerable Adivasi women could have been scotched, however belatedly, if the political leadership of the Jharkhandis meant what they habitually promise in their election manifestos. But the leadership has proved to be weak-kneed at best and collaborationist at worst. In such a setting it is hardly surprising that the upper hand remains with the moneyed and the powerful cutting across political and other lines, or should we call it ‘faultlines’?
In 1977, Mahasweta Devi wrote the memorable book called Aranyer Adhikar. Two years later, it won the Sahitya Akademi award. The book is a stirring reconstruction of the brief life of Birsa Munda and the turbulent times in which that life was lived. If you travel through Jharkhand today, you will find statues of the tribal hero dotting the State – in parks and gardens, in schools and colleges, in marketplaces and bus-stands. But, tragically, there is no sign of improvement in the lives of Birsa’s children. The descendants of the man they call Birsa Bhagwan, such is his hold on the loyalty and imagination of the tribal masses, continue to live badly fractured lives.
On June 9, 1900, Birsa Munda, leader of an abortive revolt by the Mundas against oppressive British rule, died in Ranchi Jail. The jail authorities gave it out that he had died of cholera, when there was enough evidence to prove that the prisoner had been fed on poisoned food. Birsa’s last words indicated his belief that, one day, the Mundas would throw off the oppressor’s yoke and be their own master. True, at the time of the Nagri protest, there was a Munda at the helm of affairs in Jharkhand, but his mind and his heart were seemingly far removed from the welfare and well-being of his people.
(Vidyarthy Chatterjee writes on cinema, society, politics)
