Sunday, April 29, 2012
Naga rights group seeks Karanataka CM's attention
Imphal, April 28 2012:
The Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights-South (NPMHR-S) has written
to the chief minister of Karnataka in a strong worded form demanding to
book the culprits immediately in connection with the murder of Loitam
Richard of Imphal.
The Naga rights body also said that the Acharya NRV School of Architecture in Bangalore and its officials be held accountable for its role in hindering and impeding the case.
In a fuming memorandum dispatched to Karnataka chief minister D.V Sadananda Gowda, the Naga rights body asks," Had Loitam Richard not been from the North East India region would his hostel mates attack and assault him and its officials taken up in a more seriois maner?" .
The Naga PeoplescMovement for Human Rights then stated that the death of Loitam Richard has caused trauma to his family and relatives.
It has angered and reinforced the sense of injustice among people from the North East India who are being racially discriminated and harassed on a daily basis in metro cities to which Banguluru is no excception, the Naga rights group said.
The memorandum of the NPMHR-south sector demanded that a special investigative task force be set up to inquire into the death of Richard, and the guilty be brought to book immediately.
The NPMHR while citing the fishy activities of the institute where Loitam Richard was studying, said that the institute and its officials instead of taking responsibility in identifying the culprits, is hindering and impeding the case by tainting Loitam Richard as a drug abuser and blaming his death on head injuries he allegedly sustained in a two wheeler accident.
"It is important to mention the doctors there treated him as outpatient.
Had there been suspicion of serious injuries whatsoever, doctors would have surely advised and followed up with the righhtful tests and medical investigations as treatment protocol requires.
The absence of any such advise and the fact that Richard was let off after a routine procedure was indicative enough that he was fine and therefore blaming his death in the accident was clearly done to mislead the investigation of the case.
"The mala fide action of the institute and its officials to mislead and obstruct and obstruct the course of justice is highly questionable.
It suggests complicity on the part of the institute and its officials in the commission of the crime," the Naga rights body pointed out.(Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network)
The Naga rights body also said that the Acharya NRV School of Architecture in Bangalore and its officials be held accountable for its role in hindering and impeding the case.
In a fuming memorandum dispatched to Karnataka chief minister D.V Sadananda Gowda, the Naga rights body asks," Had Loitam Richard not been from the North East India region would his hostel mates attack and assault him and its officials taken up in a more seriois maner?" .
The Naga PeoplescMovement for Human Rights then stated that the death of Loitam Richard has caused trauma to his family and relatives.
It has angered and reinforced the sense of injustice among people from the North East India who are being racially discriminated and harassed on a daily basis in metro cities to which Banguluru is no excception, the Naga rights group said.
The memorandum of the NPMHR-south sector demanded that a special investigative task force be set up to inquire into the death of Richard, and the guilty be brought to book immediately.
The NPMHR while citing the fishy activities of the institute where Loitam Richard was studying, said that the institute and its officials instead of taking responsibility in identifying the culprits, is hindering and impeding the case by tainting Loitam Richard as a drug abuser and blaming his death on head injuries he allegedly sustained in a two wheeler accident.
"It is important to mention the doctors there treated him as outpatient.
Had there been suspicion of serious injuries whatsoever, doctors would have surely advised and followed up with the righhtful tests and medical investigations as treatment protocol requires.
The absence of any such advise and the fact that Richard was let off after a routine procedure was indicative enough that he was fine and therefore blaming his death in the accident was clearly done to mislead the investigation of the case.
"The mala fide action of the institute and its officials to mislead and obstruct and obstruct the course of justice is highly questionable.
It suggests complicity on the part of the institute and its officials in the commission of the crime," the Naga rights body pointed out.(Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network)
‘Tribes India' pavilion at Santhigiri
‘Tribes India,' a pavilion put up by TRIFED at Santhigiri Fest at Pothenkode, was inaugurated on Friday.
According
to a press note here, the pavilion, which showcases tribal art from
different States, gives a bird's eye view of tribal life and culture.
The sales pavilion, which is a Central government initiative to market
tribal products, doubles as a gallery of Indian folk art and traditional
handicraft.
Handcrafted textiles, embroidery, metal
products, tribal jewellery, bamboo products, stone pottery, paintings,
and other gift items are on offer at the pavilion. Things of everyday
use, traditional dresses, sculpture, and paintings have also been
displayed. The pavilion has also an exhibition of Warli paintings from
Maharashtra, Gond paintings from central India, and Saura painting from
Orissa.(
Today's Paper
» NATIONAL
» KERALA
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM,
April 28, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Halaki vokkalu declared as ST
Inclusion of Halakki Vokkalu Community into ST List
The
Government of Karnataka sent a proposal for inclusion of Halakki
Vokkalu community in the list of Scheduled Tribes of Karnataka in the
year 2009. The Government of India on 15-6-1999 (further revised on
25-6-2002) has laid down the modalities for deciding claims for
inclusion in, exclusion from and other modifications in the Orders
specifying lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. According to
these modalities, only those proposals, which have been recommended and
justified by the concerned State Government, and agreed to by the
Registrar General of India (RGI) and the National Commission for
Scheduled Tribes (NCST) are to be considered for amendment of
legislation. The proposal for inclusion of Halakki Vokkalu community in
the list of Scheduled Tribes of Karnataka is under process as per
approved modalities.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Mahadeo Singh Khandela in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Shri Mahadeo Singh Khandela in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
TRIBAL STATUS OF SCEDULE CASTE IN IMPHAL
Tribal groups celebrate on Scheduled Tribes recognition
Source: The Sangai Express
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 26 2012:
Celebrating recognition of Rongmei, Inpui, Liangmei and Zeme by the
Government of India as Scheduled Tribes, a function was held at
Haochong yesterday.
Addressing the function as chief guest, Home Minister Gaikhangam exhorted that the four sub-tribes to work through a common platform in unity.
Saying that Manipur is inhabited by many communities and ethnic groups, the Home Minister highlighted the need for peaceful coexistence among all communities.
It is said that another grand function would be held at Tamenglong district headquarters on May 9 and 10 in commemoration of the recognition granted to the four sub-tribes.
Addressing the function as chief guest, Home Minister Gaikhangam exhorted that the four sub-tribes to work through a common platform in unity.
Saying that Manipur is inhabited by many communities and ethnic groups, the Home Minister highlighted the need for peaceful coexistence among all communities.
It is said that another grand function would be held at Tamenglong district headquarters on May 9 and 10 in commemoration of the recognition granted to the four sub-tribes.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
tribe of odissa in transition
On a recent visit to Bhubaneswar, the capital of the large eastern state of Odisha,
I found the airport plastered with advertisements and slogans
expressing the nurturing, socially conscious side -- caring for the
poor, growth with inclusive values, creating happiness -- of the many steel and aluminum companies that have major operations in one of India's poorest but most mineral-rich and business-friendly states.
The most prominent voice in this cluster belonged to Vedanta, a London Stock Exchange-listed "globally diversified natural resources group with wide-ranging interests in aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, silver, iron ore, oil and gas and power," headed by Anil Agarwal, one of India's richest and most controversial businessmen. Vedanta's main interest in Odisha is represented by its subsidiary company Vedanta Aluminium, which has over the last decade set up, in the face of concerted opposition from tribal groups, an alumina refinery in the district of Lanjigarh, the most bauxite-rich area of a state that has over half of India's reserves of that mineral. A Vedanta ad at the airport declared that "Education is the backbone of a rising community," and announced, somewhat improbably, that the company was providing "quality education to all local children across [the districts of] Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda."
This month, Vedanta also put up on YouTube the last installment of a massive advertising and public-relations campaign it launched at the beginning of the year called "Creating Happiness." The hub of the campaign was a 90-second ad film widely played on Indian television this year, telling the story of a girl named Binno in a village in the state of Rajasthan. Made by one of India's most celebrated ad filmmakers, Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather India, the film supplies touching scenes from the lives of Binno -- who attends a school supported by Vedanta -- and her brothers. It is accompanied by commentary from a somewhat patronizing male voice asking if the girl's parents had access to the same opportunities, and demonstrating by this comparison that the company was "creating happiness."
Alongside the Binno film, the company also announced that it was sponsoring a Creating Happiness Film Competition that would invite "film students across the country to visit any of the 550 villages where we have a presence, and find their own Binno." In a piece called "Vedanta touches souls with 'Creating Happiness'," the news platform Exchange4media reported:
To cite only a small number of such inconvenient truths that muddy the company's narrative: In August 2010, India's then-minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, canceled Vedanta Alumina's clearances to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha. At that time, the Times of India reported:
Even so, it's one thing to accept that mining is a necessary reality. It's quite another to accept the reality of Vedanta's collusion with the government of Odisha to try and pay off tribals to vacate mineral-rich land to generate vast profits. Those profits are only derived from the development of one of India's poorest states. The company then uses the thin gruel of its own corporate social responsibility measures to generate the material for PR campaigns such as the one that swamped India's television screens in January. As Padmaja Shaw wrote last month in the media-analysis website The Hoot, in a piece called "Creating Happiness?" democracy is reduced to a farce when capital-rich entities are allowed to control the message on a matter of wide-ranging importance merely because they have the cash to control the medium:
The most prominent voice in this cluster belonged to Vedanta, a London Stock Exchange-listed "globally diversified natural resources group with wide-ranging interests in aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, silver, iron ore, oil and gas and power," headed by Anil Agarwal, one of India's richest and most controversial businessmen. Vedanta's main interest in Odisha is represented by its subsidiary company Vedanta Aluminium, which has over the last decade set up, in the face of concerted opposition from tribal groups, an alumina refinery in the district of Lanjigarh, the most bauxite-rich area of a state that has over half of India's reserves of that mineral. A Vedanta ad at the airport declared that "Education is the backbone of a rising community," and announced, somewhat improbably, that the company was providing "quality education to all local children across [the districts of] Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda."
This month, Vedanta also put up on YouTube the last installment of a massive advertising and public-relations campaign it launched at the beginning of the year called "Creating Happiness." The hub of the campaign was a 90-second ad film widely played on Indian television this year, telling the story of a girl named Binno in a village in the state of Rajasthan. Made by one of India's most celebrated ad filmmakers, Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather India, the film supplies touching scenes from the lives of Binno -- who attends a school supported by Vedanta -- and her brothers. It is accompanied by commentary from a somewhat patronizing male voice asking if the girl's parents had access to the same opportunities, and demonstrating by this comparison that the company was "creating happiness."
Alongside the Binno film, the company also announced that it was sponsoring a Creating Happiness Film Competition that would invite "film students across the country to visit any of the 550 villages where we have a presence, and find their own Binno." In a piece called "Vedanta touches souls with 'Creating Happiness'," the news platform Exchange4media reported:
In an effort to make people aware of the social side of their existence, Vedanta Group [...] has unveiled its first ever national corporate campaign under the platform of ‘Creating Happiness’, sharing with people the stories of hope, change, success and a better future. Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal’s vision of contributing to building sustainable communities and integrating sustainability as a core part of the business is at the heart of this campaign. [....]Fair enough, but there were some inconvenient facts that Pandey omitted to mention, as did most of the media channels that ran the advertisements. The missing facts point to a yawning gulf between the kind of information supplied by advertising, and the kind of information generated by investigative journalism, regulatory bodies, or even states. Were one to place these facts alongside the company's campaign, it would appear that Vedanta is less the leader in sustainable development and social responsibility in India's universe of corporations, and more the black sheep of that world. It stands accused of habitually forging ahead with its mining and quarrying operations before the requisite permissions have been granted, and of dividing and destroying local economies and fragile ecosystems, such as those in the hills of Niyamgiri in Lanjigarh, Odisha, with its economic might and ability to influence state policy.
Talking to exchange4media about the campaign, Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman, O&M, said, “Beyond business, Vedanta is doing extensive work for sustainable development. We wanted it to be as realistic as possible unlike an ad, and thus we have shown real people with real stories. Binno, the main face of the campaign, is so amazingly charming. Her true story, with that charm, emotion, sentiment and happiness, will inspire many.” [...]
Adding to the idea of inspiring others, Pandey said, “You get inspired when you see that there is so much being done. It inspires and moves me. I feel that I may start small, but I can make a difference. Large brands are not made in the head, but heart, that is why when you take the softer side and touch people, people remember you.”
To cite only a small number of such inconvenient truths that muddy the company's narrative: In August 2010, India's then-minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, canceled Vedanta Alumina's clearances to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha. At that time, the Times of India reported:
Mining giant Vedanta consistently violated several laws in bauxite mining at Niyamgiri, encroached upon government land, got clearances on the basis of false information and illegally built its aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh, Orissa. As the company engaged in these violations, the Orissa government colluded with it and the Centre turned a blind eye. These are some of the findings of the four-member N C Saxena committee, which on Monday recommended that the company not be allowed to mine in the hills that are the abode of the Dongaria Kondh and Kutia Kondh tribes in Orissa.And in July 2010, Peter Popham reported from Vedanta's annual general meeting in London:
The no-holds-barred indictment of the state and private sector in the $1.7 billion project brings out the short shrift given to concerns about tribal rights and environmental protection. It is significant also because it underlines the changed sensibilities of the government towards the issues against the backdrop of Left-wing extremism and why Naxalites are finding it easy to influence alienated tribal belts.
Nyamgiri is regarded as a god by the Dongria Kondh tribe that lives on it, so for them and their supporters, tearing the peak of the mountain apart for bauxite would be sacrilege. In their effort to spike this argument, this year the company rolled out the top manager at the company's nearby bauxite refinery, Mukesh Kumar, who claimed that the tribe no longer worship the mountain and welcome the mine's arrival. Music to shareholders' ears – but was it true?From these testimonies it seems clear that one doesn't have to be a left-wing revolutionary (opponents of Odisha's huge mining projects are routinely tarred as "Maoists" by the government) or a crusader against big business to have serious doubts about Vedanta's approach to law, ethics, transparency and due process. Indeed, it isn't clear that at a time when the world, and especially developing economies, need vast quantities of aluminum and steel, it is realistic to insist (as Samarendra Das does in an essay and the prominent Indian writer Arundhati Roy does in her recent book on left-wing extremism, governments and mining in India, "Walking With The Comrades") that states and societies can agree to "leave the bauxite in the mountain" for good.
This was the point seized on by Samarendra Das, an Indian research scholar and activist from Orissa, who rose from his seat to ask Mr Kumar a simple question: by what name do the Dongria Kondh refer to Nyamgiri, their holy mountain? The silence was deafening – until filled by the boos and catcalls of the activist-shareholders at the meeting, which from that point onwards went down hill. [...]
Dr. Felix Padel, the anthropologist who happens to be Darwin's great-grandson [...] was among the shareholder-activists witnessing Vedanta's discomfiture this week. Padel has lived among the tribals of Orissa for years, and in his new book, Out of this Earth, co-authored with Samarendra Das and launched in London last night, the techniques by which mining giants set about breaking the resistance of tribal people who happen to be in their way through fraud, forcible occupation, corruption and intimidation, are documented in painstaking detail.
Even so, it's one thing to accept that mining is a necessary reality. It's quite another to accept the reality of Vedanta's collusion with the government of Odisha to try and pay off tribals to vacate mineral-rich land to generate vast profits. Those profits are only derived from the development of one of India's poorest states. The company then uses the thin gruel of its own corporate social responsibility measures to generate the material for PR campaigns such as the one that swamped India's television screens in January. As Padmaja Shaw wrote last month in the media-analysis website The Hoot, in a piece called "Creating Happiness?" democracy is reduced to a farce when capital-rich entities are allowed to control the message on a matter of wide-ranging importance merely because they have the cash to control the medium:
Very little debate has been allowed in the mainstream media on why the mining enterprise is suddenly the private property of corporations to exploit and profit from national wealth while brutalising the very people in whose name this is supposed to be happening.The outrage generated by the ad campaign meant that Benegal and the actress Gul Panag pulled out of the Vedanta jury, leaving Pandey as the sole judge. After the student films had been made, Aman Sethi and Priscilla Jebaraj reported in the Hindu:
Corporate entities further compound the absence of debate on this reality by buying the best of advertising talent to promote an idyllic image of themselves as messiahs of liberation and transformation for the tribal people, specially using images of children. [...] The advertising industry in India boasts of some of the world’s best creative minds. It is not an industry that we can accuse of being unaware of the reality in India. When advertising of dubious nature shows up on the media, it is, therefore, roundly condemned. [...]
It is somewhat disheartening to see people such as Piyush Pandey, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, and renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal associate themselves as jury with a film festival, Creating Happiness, that Vedanta has launched.
Vedanta's “Creating Happiness” campaign, according to company spokesperson Senjam Raj Sekhar, is part of an “initiative to tell our side of the story”; yet the hostile reception on blogs and social-media networks like Facebook and Twitter highlights the risks of exposing a tightly controlled corporate message to the anarchy of the internet. [...] Activists have even started a viral “Faking Happiness” campaign in an attempt to highlight Vedanta's alleged malpractices. [...]Meanwhile, far from the worlds of advertising, PR and industry -- all part of India's booming post-liberalization New Economy, but also responsible for currents and narratives that have made the burgeoning middle class unsympathetic or oblivious to the problems of those beneath them, different from them, or dissenting from them -- the tribals of Niyamgiri are still agitating to keep their sacred mountains unmolested.
“We told them do not make a corporate film,” Mr. Sekhar said, “find the story of either an individual or a family or the entire village or the community whose lives have changed…so it's not about the programme but about individuals.”
The films themselves are student productions showcasing a variety of CSR initiatives such as hospitals, football academies, company run schools, rural entrepreneurs and anganvadis. Yet, none of the films explore themes such as ecological damage or the impact of mining on forest communities. The sole film to address the issue of rehabilitating project-affected individuals describes Vedanta as a “path-breaking leader of social upwardness [sic]” that has rescued “the lives of tribals from the darkness of backwardness.”
Monday, April 23, 2012
gujjar of kashmeer seek intervention from Antony
Jammu Apr 23: Tribal Research and Cultural Foundation- a frontal
organization of tribes--- on Monday urged Defence Minister A K
Antony, to revoke all orders restricting nomads to migrate
seasonally.
In a letter signed by Gujjar dignitaries addressed to Union Minister the tribe urged for free movement of all migratory communities to the areas belonging to them since centuries.
Giving details about the letter Dr Javaid Rahi, Secretary Tribal Foundation said that they written a detailed letter to Defence Minister to restore all pastures and Dhoks bared for the tribes located on Line of Control , Indo Pakistan International Border and Ladakh areas since 1990 onwards.
“In view of Firing on Indo-Pak Border and militancy the forces in J&K had restricted the entry of Gujjars Bakerwals in few dhoks and pastures located near border in district like Poonch, Rajouri, Jammu , Kathua, Barmamulla, Kupwara, Bandipur , Kargil and Leh districts. All such orders should be revoked immediately as the Gujjars and Bakerwals have suffered a great loss to their lifestyle, economy and tribal culture,” the letter reads.
“Since November 25, 2003 when ceasefire came into force between India and Pakistan the tension reduced and now this is the right time to allow tribals to move freely in their traditional areas located in Ladakh and on International border,” it states.
In a letter signed by Gujjar dignitaries addressed to Union Minister the tribe urged for free movement of all migratory communities to the areas belonging to them since centuries.
Giving details about the letter Dr Javaid Rahi, Secretary Tribal Foundation said that they written a detailed letter to Defence Minister to restore all pastures and Dhoks bared for the tribes located on Line of Control , Indo Pakistan International Border and Ladakh areas since 1990 onwards.
“In view of Firing on Indo-Pak Border and militancy the forces in J&K had restricted the entry of Gujjars Bakerwals in few dhoks and pastures located near border in district like Poonch, Rajouri, Jammu , Kathua, Barmamulla, Kupwara, Bandipur , Kargil and Leh districts. All such orders should be revoked immediately as the Gujjars and Bakerwals have suffered a great loss to their lifestyle, economy and tribal culture,” the letter reads.
“Since November 25, 2003 when ceasefire came into force between India and Pakistan the tension reduced and now this is the right time to allow tribals to move freely in their traditional areas located in Ladakh and on International border,” it states.
PTI on tribes
Jamshedpur, Apr 22:
Tata Steel's Tribal Cultural Society has launched ‘Project Aakansha' to
facilitate the education of children of ethnic communities in the area.
Being a unique initiative in education, the society aims to improve the
condition of children belonging to primitive Sabar and Birhor tribes,
who have no access to various benefits, including education, officials
said.
The Society has brought together under this umbrella, the children of
eight villages, including Gobarghusi, Dongageral, Chhotabanki,
Loraidungri, Patipani, Burudih, Dholkocha and Oppo, in Patamda block of
East Singhbhum district, as well as Birhor colony of West Bokaro.
The Project was launched by Tata Steel Vice-President,
Mr Varun Jha, and Ms Surekha Nerurkar, President, All-India Women's
Conference and wife of Tata Steel Managing Director, Mr H. M. Nerurkar,
at a function held here last evening. In all, 128 tribal children have
been admitted to four different schools, including Holy Cross School,
Chowka; Loyola School, Chaira Dhalbhumgarh; St Thomas School, Gamharia;
and St Roberts School, Hazaribagh.
Cultures in danger 150 dams proposed in Arunachal Pradesh could devastate the state's vibrant indigenous cultures. Jason OverdorfApril 23, 2012 06:00
ROING, Arunachal Pradesh — Not long ago, the tribal denizens of the
northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh cautioned their drinking
buddies: “Don't piss too hard, or the government will come along to set
up a hydropower project.”
With state legislators inking pacts with developers faster than once a month, and accepting millions of dollars in upfront payments, the joke hit home. Developers, planners and politicians view Arunachal Pradesh as an ideal site for hydroelectric power projects, due to its 10 major river basins and the state's sparse population.
But even though the more than 150 dams proposed for the state won't displace hundreds of thousands of people, the cost to local communities promises to be devastating.
The area is home to 20 indigenous tribal groups, the largest of which, the Nishi, numbers only around 300,000 people. Because of their small size, entire tribal groups, clustered together by some commonalities of language and culture, could be wiped out as a result of these proposed dams. Already, some of the 80-odd sub-tribes, which each have their own unique customs and number as few as 10,000 people, are fading away.
Read Dam Nation Part 1: How many dams can one state hold?
“This whole area is mine,” said Mite Lingi, chairman of an Idu Mishmi tribal organization called the Idu Indigenous People's Council. “This mountain, this river, this land. Suddenly you come and start talking all these legal points. If that doesn't anger you, what would?”
Those “legal points” are reminiscent of the treaties that relegated America's native peoples to reservations or the doctrine of terra nullius — land owned by no one — through which the British Crown usurped most of a continent from the indigenous Australians.
Since prior to India's independence from Britain in 1947, Arunachal's indigenous tribes have been protected from mass migration from other parts of India by laws that require a special permit to enter the state and prohibit outsiders from settling here. But there were no such protections from the forces of the state itself, which turned over millions of acres of tribal land to the forest department for logging and conservation.
Once outsiders are allowed in, past experience with refugees from Bangladesh and illegal migrants from Nepal shows, they are difficult to expel. And because the indigenous tribes are tiny, the influx of laborers threatens to wipe them out or devastate their communities forever – just as the cultures of the native peoples of America, Australia, Canada and other nations were devastated by the appropriation of their traditional lands in the name of development.
Vulnerable peoples
A dozen-odd large dams, including the majority state-owned National Hydroelectric Power Corporation's (NHPC) Dibang Multipurpose Project, are slated for the Dibang River Basin, home to the endangered Idu Mishmi tribe.
The government and local supporters argue that these projects will benefit the nation by providing a cheap, clean and renewable source of electricity, and benefit local residents by moderating the effects of floods and providing the state with free power and millions of dollars in revenue for the construction of roads, schools and hospitals.
But opponents argue that the drive for progress is colored by a 19th century-style ethnocentric desire to "civilize the savages." They say planners have underestimated the social impact of the displacement of local communities and an influx of laborers from outside the state.
“Our population is near about 13,000,” said Tone Mickrow, general secretary of the All Idu Mishmi Students Union (AIMSU), another tribal organization. “Once these dams come up, the employees of one single company will be larger than our entire community.”
Because of their small population, the Idu Mishmi tribe faces perhaps the gravest risk from the dams planned for their traditional lands. Fighting for their community's survival, tribal organizations took to the streets 11 times between 2007 and 2011 to prevent NHPC from holding a mandatory public hearing for its 3,000 megawatt dam, dubbed the Dibang Multipurpose Project.
Read Dam Nation Part 2: The threat to the environment
Activists like Mickrow and Lingi say that the government labeled them Maoists — associating them with a simmering civil war underway across eastern India that the prime minister has repeatedly called the greatest threat to India's security — and subjected them to police harassment in retaliation.
In one incident that has heightened tensions, eight young men and a young woman suffered gunshot wounds when police in Roing opened fire on a group of high school and college students after a fight broke out during the celebration of the Durga Puja festival in October. The local government administration insisted that the violence was unrelated to the dam controversy and claimed that the crowd attacked the police. But dam opponents aren't convinced.
The largest town in the Lower Dibang Valley, Roing was until recently the epicenter of the struggle to block the dams in this area.
“We feel that they were trying to send the message that they can do anything,” said Raju Mimi, an activist-journalist who writes for the Arunachal Times.
Such demonstrations of state power, together with NHPC's increasingly lucrative offers for local residents, have crushed the Idu Mishmi's once absolute opposition to the Dibang Multipurpose Project. Now, representatives like Lingi and Mickrow – who hold elected positions in various tribal organizations, but have only scorn for the area's local legislators – have resigned themselves.
Instead of opposing the project altogether, they now demand a share of the dam's revenue for the local community, rather than only for the state.
“It is as though we grew tired of ourselves,” said Lingi. “We kept on postponing the public hearing. It's a record in India in fact. After that we also couldn't think out a further strategy.”
Fear of annihilation
The state's larger tribes also fear that displacement and the influx of laborers will devastate their people.
Though their population is more than 10 times that of the Idu Mishmi, for instance, some members of the 150,000-strong Adi tribe fear that laborers brought in to work on the many Siang River Basin dams will erode the community's political power and gradually strip the Adi of their cultural identity.
“If you build a dam here, the whole Pongging area, the Komkar area, Minyong belt and the Galo belt will be completely annihilated,” said Igul Padung, an academic based in the East Siang District headquarters of Pasighat.
“They will all become downtrodden people, without land, without their home, without their culture, without their identity,” he said.
Jaiprakash Associates Ltd., a private company that is part of the $3 billion Jaypee Group, expects an influx of about 8,000 outsiders, including laborers and their families, for its 2,700 MW Lower Siang Hydroelectric Project alone. And that's just one of many dam projects proposed for the area.
Read Dam Nation Part 4: Adventure alternative
Critics like Padung argue that company-commissioned impact assessments have underestimated the number of workers they will require, ignoring the natural turnover among migrant laborers. Moreover, they say, because projects like these take years — in some cases, decades — to complete, the major ones are likely to overlap.
“I agree to development, but not at the cost of my people being washed away,” said Vijay Taram, a lawyer and spokesman for an anti-dam group called the Forum of Siang Dialogue. He also has been labeled a Maoist and put under surveillance by the Intelligence Bureau, he said.
The pro-dam view
Both the state government and the dam builders say that the more than 150 hydroelectric power projects planned for Arunachal Pradesh will benefit local communities.
Along with free electricity, the state will receive a steady flow of revenue that it can use to build badly needed roads, schools and hospitals, government officials say.
The companies have promised contracts to locally owned firms and employment for local people, too. In Roing, for instance, NHPC is sponsoring an upgrade of the local government-run Industrial Training Institute (ITI), which could train locals in the vocational skills needed to work in dam-related industries.
Meanwhile, project developers promise to provide infrastructure and services in villages built especially for the people displaced by the dams — not to mention perks like nature parks, playgrounds, gardens, and other recreation facilities near project areas.
“Hydro projects are a boon to the society and the population in and around the projects,” a statement on NHPC's website reads. “With enhanced employment opportunities, increased earnings, enriched life style and improved standard of living, the people in these localities experience an economic and social upliftment.”
That has not been the experience of villagers displaced by India's many past dam projects, including people affected by the Indira Sagar Project in Madhya Pradesh, the Chamera I and Chamera II projects in Himachal Pradesh or the Loktak project in Manipur, according to the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.
In 2004, for instance, some 200,000 people displaced by the Indira Sagar Project were forced to move without the resettlement packages required by law. While many threw themselves on the mercy of relatives or rented rooms in neighboring towns, a few hundred of the poorest families moved into a resettlement colony ambitiously named “New Harsud” where there was “no water, no sewage system, no shelter, no school, no hospital,” according to a contemporary report by India's Outlook magazine.
Similarly, in Arunachal Pradesh itself, the state's first large dam, the Ranganadi Hydroelectric Project built by NEEPCO on a tributary of the Subansiri River, continues to generate complaints.
In 2008, an investigation by India's Down to Earth magazine found that displaced residents promised schools, a 20-bed hospital, free electricity and jobs and contracts when the dam was commissioned in 2002 were still waiting for the approach road to be built to their new village some six years later. Only six people had been given jobs, some claimed the free electricity had never materialized, and though a school had been built there were no teachers. Many had already given up and moved on.
Today, too, people living downstream of the Ranganadi dam are migrating to the state capital of Itanagar because of the disruption to their lives caused by the occasional release of massive quantities of water from the dam, according to Tongam Rina, editor of the Arunachal Times. In the winter, the area goes completely dry as the dam taps all the water for generating power — wreaking havoc on the farms below. During the summer rains, the unscheduled and sudden release of surplus water has killed livestock.
“They live in fear. That used to be a huge picnic spot earlier. But now after 4 o'clock no one will stay there because they never know when they will release the water from the dam,” said Rina.
Read more: Old problems plague new India
That's not the only evidence that suggests dam planners are completely out of touch with the residents their projects affect.
Consider the tone of this passage from the social impact study conducted for NHPC's Dibang Multipurpose Project, in which supposed experts claim that the 5,800 laborers who the Idu Mishmi tribal leaders fear will scatter their people and destroy their culture will actually be a boon.
“Such a mixture of population has its own advantages and disadvantages,” argues the study. “The advantages include exchange of ideas and cultures between various groups of people which would not have been possible otherwise. Due to longer residence of this population in one place, a new culture, having a distinct socio-economic similarity would develop which will have its own entity. Work opportunities will drastically improve in this area.”
There is no mention of any disadvantages.
But even if NHPC and other dam builders are sincere, and they do deliver on their promises, there appears to have been little effort to understand the sociological impact of this “enriched life style.”
“Isn't it irony that they talk of our benefit without asking us?” said Lingi. “You impose something on someone and say this is for your good. That is like admonishing a kid.”
Consider the social impact study for the Lower Siang project.
“Most of the houses are kaccha [raw], made up of bamboo, cane, leaves of straw and wood and are raised about two feet above the ground on the wooden posts,” observe the authors, before noting that most residents do not “avail the electricity” and lack access to education and health care and concluding “that quality of life in the region is not satisfactory.”
Schools and hospitals are, of course, a good thing — if they ever materialize. But the thrust seems designed to push people to adopt the lifestyles of the plains and drive them into cities rather than to improve their lives.
Scoffed at here, the locally made bamboo homes are cheaper, more environmentally friendly and better suited to the climate than the concrete houses of the city. So much so that the vast majority of homes built along the highways in the most “developed” part of the state, in some of its wealthiest towns and villages, are still made of cane and bamboo.
“You go to any village and ask anybody, 'I'll give you a home in the town, you go there.'” said Taram. “He will say no. They are very much content there. He is happy with his life, living in the jungle in a thatch house. He will not be happy here living enclosed in concrete.”
With state legislators inking pacts with developers faster than once a month, and accepting millions of dollars in upfront payments, the joke hit home. Developers, planners and politicians view Arunachal Pradesh as an ideal site for hydroelectric power projects, due to its 10 major river basins and the state's sparse population.
But even though the more than 150 dams proposed for the state won't displace hundreds of thousands of people, the cost to local communities promises to be devastating.
The area is home to 20 indigenous tribal groups, the largest of which, the Nishi, numbers only around 300,000 people. Because of their small size, entire tribal groups, clustered together by some commonalities of language and culture, could be wiped out as a result of these proposed dams. Already, some of the 80-odd sub-tribes, which each have their own unique customs and number as few as 10,000 people, are fading away.
Read Dam Nation Part 1: How many dams can one state hold?
“This whole area is mine,” said Mite Lingi, chairman of an Idu Mishmi tribal organization called the Idu Indigenous People's Council. “This mountain, this river, this land. Suddenly you come and start talking all these legal points. If that doesn't anger you, what would?”
Those “legal points” are reminiscent of the treaties that relegated America's native peoples to reservations or the doctrine of terra nullius — land owned by no one — through which the British Crown usurped most of a continent from the indigenous Australians.
Since prior to India's independence from Britain in 1947, Arunachal's indigenous tribes have been protected from mass migration from other parts of India by laws that require a special permit to enter the state and prohibit outsiders from settling here. But there were no such protections from the forces of the state itself, which turned over millions of acres of tribal land to the forest department for logging and conservation.
Once outsiders are allowed in, past experience with refugees from Bangladesh and illegal migrants from Nepal shows, they are difficult to expel. And because the indigenous tribes are tiny, the influx of laborers threatens to wipe them out or devastate their communities forever – just as the cultures of the native peoples of America, Australia, Canada and other nations were devastated by the appropriation of their traditional lands in the name of development.
Vulnerable peoples
A dozen-odd large dams, including the majority state-owned National Hydroelectric Power Corporation's (NHPC) Dibang Multipurpose Project, are slated for the Dibang River Basin, home to the endangered Idu Mishmi tribe.
The government and local supporters argue that these projects will benefit the nation by providing a cheap, clean and renewable source of electricity, and benefit local residents by moderating the effects of floods and providing the state with free power and millions of dollars in revenue for the construction of roads, schools and hospitals.
But opponents argue that the drive for progress is colored by a 19th century-style ethnocentric desire to "civilize the savages." They say planners have underestimated the social impact of the displacement of local communities and an influx of laborers from outside the state.
“Our population is near about 13,000,” said Tone Mickrow, general secretary of the All Idu Mishmi Students Union (AIMSU), another tribal organization. “Once these dams come up, the employees of one single company will be larger than our entire community.”
Because of their small population, the Idu Mishmi tribe faces perhaps the gravest risk from the dams planned for their traditional lands. Fighting for their community's survival, tribal organizations took to the streets 11 times between 2007 and 2011 to prevent NHPC from holding a mandatory public hearing for its 3,000 megawatt dam, dubbed the Dibang Multipurpose Project.
Read Dam Nation Part 2: The threat to the environment
Activists like Mickrow and Lingi say that the government labeled them Maoists — associating them with a simmering civil war underway across eastern India that the prime minister has repeatedly called the greatest threat to India's security — and subjected them to police harassment in retaliation.
In one incident that has heightened tensions, eight young men and a young woman suffered gunshot wounds when police in Roing opened fire on a group of high school and college students after a fight broke out during the celebration of the Durga Puja festival in October. The local government administration insisted that the violence was unrelated to the dam controversy and claimed that the crowd attacked the police. But dam opponents aren't convinced.
The largest town in the Lower Dibang Valley, Roing was until recently the epicenter of the struggle to block the dams in this area.
“We feel that they were trying to send the message that they can do anything,” said Raju Mimi, an activist-journalist who writes for the Arunachal Times.
Such demonstrations of state power, together with NHPC's increasingly lucrative offers for local residents, have crushed the Idu Mishmi's once absolute opposition to the Dibang Multipurpose Project. Now, representatives like Lingi and Mickrow – who hold elected positions in various tribal organizations, but have only scorn for the area's local legislators – have resigned themselves.
Instead of opposing the project altogether, they now demand a share of the dam's revenue for the local community, rather than only for the state.
“It is as though we grew tired of ourselves,” said Lingi. “We kept on postponing the public hearing. It's a record in India in fact. After that we also couldn't think out a further strategy.”
Fear of annihilation
The state's larger tribes also fear that displacement and the influx of laborers will devastate their people.
Though their population is more than 10 times that of the Idu Mishmi, for instance, some members of the 150,000-strong Adi tribe fear that laborers brought in to work on the many Siang River Basin dams will erode the community's political power and gradually strip the Adi of their cultural identity.
“If you build a dam here, the whole Pongging area, the Komkar area, Minyong belt and the Galo belt will be completely annihilated,” said Igul Padung, an academic based in the East Siang District headquarters of Pasighat.
“They will all become downtrodden people, without land, without their home, without their culture, without their identity,” he said.
Jaiprakash Associates Ltd., a private company that is part of the $3 billion Jaypee Group, expects an influx of about 8,000 outsiders, including laborers and their families, for its 2,700 MW Lower Siang Hydroelectric Project alone. And that's just one of many dam projects proposed for the area.
Read Dam Nation Part 4: Adventure alternative
Critics like Padung argue that company-commissioned impact assessments have underestimated the number of workers they will require, ignoring the natural turnover among migrant laborers. Moreover, they say, because projects like these take years — in some cases, decades — to complete, the major ones are likely to overlap.
“I agree to development, but not at the cost of my people being washed away,” said Vijay Taram, a lawyer and spokesman for an anti-dam group called the Forum of Siang Dialogue. He also has been labeled a Maoist and put under surveillance by the Intelligence Bureau, he said.
The pro-dam view
Both the state government and the dam builders say that the more than 150 hydroelectric power projects planned for Arunachal Pradesh will benefit local communities.
Along with free electricity, the state will receive a steady flow of revenue that it can use to build badly needed roads, schools and hospitals, government officials say.
The companies have promised contracts to locally owned firms and employment for local people, too. In Roing, for instance, NHPC is sponsoring an upgrade of the local government-run Industrial Training Institute (ITI), which could train locals in the vocational skills needed to work in dam-related industries.
Meanwhile, project developers promise to provide infrastructure and services in villages built especially for the people displaced by the dams — not to mention perks like nature parks, playgrounds, gardens, and other recreation facilities near project areas.
“Hydro projects are a boon to the society and the population in and around the projects,” a statement on NHPC's website reads. “With enhanced employment opportunities, increased earnings, enriched life style and improved standard of living, the people in these localities experience an economic and social upliftment.”
That has not been the experience of villagers displaced by India's many past dam projects, including people affected by the Indira Sagar Project in Madhya Pradesh, the Chamera I and Chamera II projects in Himachal Pradesh or the Loktak project in Manipur, according to the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.
In 2004, for instance, some 200,000 people displaced by the Indira Sagar Project were forced to move without the resettlement packages required by law. While many threw themselves on the mercy of relatives or rented rooms in neighboring towns, a few hundred of the poorest families moved into a resettlement colony ambitiously named “New Harsud” where there was “no water, no sewage system, no shelter, no school, no hospital,” according to a contemporary report by India's Outlook magazine.
Similarly, in Arunachal Pradesh itself, the state's first large dam, the Ranganadi Hydroelectric Project built by NEEPCO on a tributary of the Subansiri River, continues to generate complaints.
In 2008, an investigation by India's Down to Earth magazine found that displaced residents promised schools, a 20-bed hospital, free electricity and jobs and contracts when the dam was commissioned in 2002 were still waiting for the approach road to be built to their new village some six years later. Only six people had been given jobs, some claimed the free electricity had never materialized, and though a school had been built there were no teachers. Many had already given up and moved on.
Today, too, people living downstream of the Ranganadi dam are migrating to the state capital of Itanagar because of the disruption to their lives caused by the occasional release of massive quantities of water from the dam, according to Tongam Rina, editor of the Arunachal Times. In the winter, the area goes completely dry as the dam taps all the water for generating power — wreaking havoc on the farms below. During the summer rains, the unscheduled and sudden release of surplus water has killed livestock.
“They live in fear. That used to be a huge picnic spot earlier. But now after 4 o'clock no one will stay there because they never know when they will release the water from the dam,” said Rina.
Read more: Old problems plague new India
That's not the only evidence that suggests dam planners are completely out of touch with the residents their projects affect.
Consider the tone of this passage from the social impact study conducted for NHPC's Dibang Multipurpose Project, in which supposed experts claim that the 5,800 laborers who the Idu Mishmi tribal leaders fear will scatter their people and destroy their culture will actually be a boon.
“Such a mixture of population has its own advantages and disadvantages,” argues the study. “The advantages include exchange of ideas and cultures between various groups of people which would not have been possible otherwise. Due to longer residence of this population in one place, a new culture, having a distinct socio-economic similarity would develop which will have its own entity. Work opportunities will drastically improve in this area.”
There is no mention of any disadvantages.
But even if NHPC and other dam builders are sincere, and they do deliver on their promises, there appears to have been little effort to understand the sociological impact of this “enriched life style.”
“Isn't it irony that they talk of our benefit without asking us?” said Lingi. “You impose something on someone and say this is for your good. That is like admonishing a kid.”
Consider the social impact study for the Lower Siang project.
“Most of the houses are kaccha [raw], made up of bamboo, cane, leaves of straw and wood and are raised about two feet above the ground on the wooden posts,” observe the authors, before noting that most residents do not “avail the electricity” and lack access to education and health care and concluding “that quality of life in the region is not satisfactory.”
Schools and hospitals are, of course, a good thing — if they ever materialize. But the thrust seems designed to push people to adopt the lifestyles of the plains and drive them into cities rather than to improve their lives.
Scoffed at here, the locally made bamboo homes are cheaper, more environmentally friendly and better suited to the climate than the concrete houses of the city. So much so that the vast majority of homes built along the highways in the most “developed” part of the state, in some of its wealthiest towns and villages, are still made of cane and bamboo.
“You go to any village and ask anybody, 'I'll give you a home in the town, you go there.'” said Taram. “He will say no. They are very much content there. He is happy with his life, living in the jungle in a thatch house. He will not be happy here living enclosed in concrete.”
tribe in caste census
New Delhi, April 23: The National
Advisory Council will ask the Centre to focus the ongoing
socio-economic caste census on enumerating and classifying denotified,
nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, or DNTs.
The
plan is to give these groups priority while issuing unique identity
cards and introducing laws that will grant them explicit recognition on
the lines of the 1992 statute on minorities.
The
NAC said special directives must be issued to the housing and urban
poverty alleviation and rural development ministries to ask states to
refer to the provisional lists of DNTs prepared by the National
Commission on Denotified and Nomadic Tribes.
The
council called for making flexible the conventional definitions of
“residence” and “address” so that peripatetic and geographically
isolated communities were not left out of the census ambit.
The
council, which met on Friday under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi,
noted that there had been no census of the DNTs who were notified as
“criminal tribes” in pre-Independent India regardless of their
profession: itinerant merchants who service far-flung villages,
musicians, dancers, story-tellers, pastoral communities, artisans or
religious mendicants.
Although
the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was repealed after Independence and the
communities were “denotified”, the NAC members noted that their status
remained ambiguous.
In
many states they had been classified as OBCs, in some as Dalits and
tribes and in others as nothing. The result was, in the absence of
proper caste certificates, they had been unable to access the legal
rights and benefits given to the underprivileged.
A
special working group, set up by Sonia with Planning Commission and NAC
member Narendra Jadhav as convener, proposed introducing a law like the
SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, to deal with the different
kinds of offences and atrocities against the DNTs.
It
called for abolishing the Habitual Offenders’ Act, 1959, that it noted
was “similar to the spirit” of the colonial Criminal Tribes Act.
Among
the other legislative actions the NAC suggested were to re-examine the
Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act,
1959, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1986, the Wildlife
Protection Act, 1972, the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and excise
laws.
The
council’s case was these laws were used as a ruse to target DNT
communities engaged in street entertainment, collecting forest produce,
hunting small game for sustenance and growing staple food through
shifting cultivation. The excise laws, it noted, prevented brewing and
selling of traditional liquor.
Along
with a legislative agenda, the NAC outlined other back-up mechanisms
and structures such as a special package and sub-plan for these groups
and designing new programmes and schemes to enable improved
livelihoods.
Emphasising
the need to bring to the mainstream marginalised communities, the
council said existing programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the National Rural Livelihoods
Mission must include the DNTs and relax the rule demanding a permanent
address. It also said MPs and MLAs must set aside 10 per cent of their
constituency funds for these communities.
Another
NAC sub-group dealing with social protection presented its
recommendations to strengthen the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Bill, 2011, prepared by a central committee.
The
council felt that the definition of disability should shift clearly to
a social model as envisaged by the UN Convention of Rights of Persons
with Disabilities, and the right to education of challenged children
must be safeguarded.
It
said there should be incentives so that they studied in inclusive
schools and that families with disabled persons should be recognised as
poor and food insecure and, therefore, given high weightage in targeted
social security and poverty redress programmes.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
RIGHT TO LIFE
Some 60km from the razzle-dazzle of Udaipur -a city that boasts of
India's second-costliest residential building after Mukesh Ambani's
apartment in Mumbai- an unlettered 14-year-old in Jalampura village
squats on his haunches weighing his existence.
"If I get work this year as well (as a
farm labour in Gujarat), I will get to eat and will also be
able to save up a few hundred rupees for the family to tide over the
post-monsoon period," says Nandu, who has been working in Gujarat's
farms ever since he started to walk.
The lake city of Udaipur, a favourite haunt of heads of state,
American movie stars and honeymooners, has an ugly reality tucked away
in its innards.
Last year, 26 tribals from Udaipur district's Kotra block died allegedly of hunger; the state is inquiring into this. In adjoining Pratapgarh district's Choti Sadri block, 29% of the tribal children there were found to be severely acutely malnourished, voluntary organization Prayas found after a small survey. The national average is 7%.
Child migrations from this hunger belt to the more prosperous Gujarat are becoming a regular feature. The state government estimates about 130,000 children from Udaipur and its adjoining districts-Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh, Chittor and Rajsamand-migrate every year in search of work.
"The actual figures are much higher as child migrants often go unreported," says Sudhir Katiyar of the Dakshini Rajasthan Mazdoor Union, a voluntary organisation working to prevent seasonal migrations of tribal children from south Rajasthan.
"Many of them die of snakebites or the adverse impact of working in BT fields (that produce genetically modified crops)," he added. "Half the child migrants are girls and they have also been subjected to sexual exploitation. Most of such cases have gone unreported as the country did not have an effective child labour act until last year."
The Union government's nutrition support programme, Integrated Child Development Services, and other central and state schemes are scarcely visible in South Rajasthan's undulating landscape. In three villages surveyed by Hindustan Times, poor tribals were not issued below poverty line cards that entitle them to subsidized food. Primary health centers rarely function.
According to a 2006 report of the National Sample Survey Organization, out-of-pocket medical expenses in India are the highest in the world. "In South Rajasthan, such expenses are even higher," says Dr. Narendra Gupta, Consultant at Prayas.
Many children in the 0-6 age group in south Rajasthan's tribal belt (comprising the six districts of Udaipur, Banswara, Pratapgarh, Chittor and Rajsamand and Dungarpur) are Vitamin-A deficient; 60-70% of them suffer from malnutrition, estimates Child Fund (India), one of the world's largest voluntary organisations working on child development.
Forbidden country
The block headquarters of Kotra, about 140 km off Udaipur, has the dubious distinction of being the crime capital of south
Rajasthan because of a thriving system of what the tribals call 'mohtana', or extortion money demanded by one tribe of another. Failure to pay can lead to a 'charothra', or conflict, and indeed, clashes between tribal groups are common. Several villages that were occupied by small tribes lie deserted as residents couldn't pay up. Unofficial estimates about Rs50 lakh worth of 'mohtana' has been paid in Kotra over the past decade.
At Kotra, nearly all government officials were away on the morning of June 06. The block development officer was off on a holiday to DehraDun, while the panchayat head and the tehsildar or revenue officer were 'resting" at the district headquarters of Udaipur - leaving behind deputy superintendent of police Ram Dhan Bairwa as the sole government representative in the block that day. "I have only 12 constables. What can I do (about the tribal conflicts)?" asks Bairwa.
The post of sub divisional magistrate at Kotra has been vacant for about two months. The block and panchayat offices have 40% vacancies.
"The scenario is much the same in most tribal villages. Officials are unwilling to get posted to these areas and are mainly operating out of the district centers," says Ganesh Purohit of the Jan Jagran Vikas Samiti, an Udaipur-based voluntary organisation working on tribal welfare. "The aanganwadi worker (AWC) worker is the only one who remains physically present in the villages."
Implementation of various welfare programmes, naturally, suffers.
At Kotra, payments to workers from poor rural households under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA, the Union government's flagship employment programme, have been pending since March, A Rajasthan government official said, while adding: "State government employees have also not been paid salaries for a month," he adds. "MNREGA payments are sometimes pending because of failure of implementing agencies to produce utilization certificates. but it is just not possible to delay salaries of state government employees", a senior Rajasthan government official said on conditions of anonymity, as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Perception and reality
About 32 km from Dungarpur, amid a sea of stark poverty, stands a partially built modern structure for the Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendra, An e-governance centre, AT Reita village. Two homes have been built at Reita's poor villagers under the Indira Awas Yojana, a housing scheme for the poor, since the scheme's inception 26 years ago. Against the stated requirement of one anganwadi centre for a village of 300-800 people, the Reita Gram Sabha (four villages with about 2,000 people) has just one-run out of a grocery shop. And the government appointed auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) for the village turns up about once in two months, "considering that she has to undertake long treks," said Jai Chand, the village sarpanch or head.
Almost nothing in Udaipur and surrounding districts is what has been mandated. The government's various schemes for the welfare of the tribals and the villagers are implemented in partial measures, if at all, according to many of the people here.
"We sometimes get work under the MNREGA but payments are pending. The AWCs (anganwadi centres) are several times closed but they show 100% attendance. Our children go to Gujarat to earn an extra buck," said Soma BHIL, a Reita villager. Tribals have just enough food to sustain their lives, but there are no savings. Sending children to Gujarat means there is one stomach less to feed. also,when these children return, they have some hard cash saved up.
A day after Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party that leads the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, launched the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in the adjoining Banswara district in June, the chief concern of another Reita villager, Deva, was about the lack of teachers in the village. "Sixty percent of the teaching posts in the schools in the village are vacant. School buildings are abandoned".
The HT team found neither teachers nor students at two schools visited at reita village. "one of these schools has just a chowkidar, who doubles up as a teacher aswell!", said a villager.
The NRLM is a flagship program of UPA-II, aimed at providing livelihood options to below poverty line (BPL) households by setting up self- help groups (SHGs).
"Intentions are noble, but the reality is that the teachers, doctors and other professionals do not want to live or work in these areas. Grand schemes like the NRLM have remained mostly un-implemented", said Premchand Gharasia, the village pradhan or head.
Skewed budgeting
"The terrain poses a tough challenge. But successive governments have also not tried enough to bring development to the region," says Bhawar Singh Chadana of the Udaipur-based Astha, a voluntary organisation.
Official statistics reflect Chadana's argument. Rajasthan's 7.1 million tribals are entitled to budgetary allocations of 12.56% of the state's budget. Actual allocations in the past few years have hovered between 3.15% and 7.5% since 2007-08. Rajasthan's tribal sub plan budget for 2011-12 is RS.1467.5 crore - a mere 7.61% of the state's total budget. This year, the state government has committed to spend half of the funds of the tribal sub-plan- A separate plan head for tribal welfare - for power generation. But according to the Jaipur-based Budget Analysis and Research Centre (BARC), a voluntary organisation, the state government has not specified plan heads under which the fund will be spent. Specifying plan heads is a mandatory first step for implementing schemes.
Over the past few years, the office of the commissioner, tribal area development (TAD), has been gradually rendered a toothless body, with posts either surrendered or unfilled. Posts of development officers are vacant in all the six tribal districts in Rajasthan. Half a dozen posts of deputy directors are vacant have been vacant the past three years.
Several TAD posts have been abolished in recent years, including that of officers in charge of agriculture, cooperatives, industries and lift irrigation.
"The TAD budget is cleared by the budget finance committee but there are constant tussles within the state government. The TAD is nobody's baby, as it is only the nodal agency with no powers", said an official of TAD on condition of anonymity. "The state government insists on clearance of every single project by the concerned ministry of the state government. This leads to delays and failures to produce utilization certificates in time. In past years, almost half the TAD funds (Rs317 crore for 2011-12) have remained unused."
Time warp
Men, women and children squat under trees at Kotra block's Nichli Sugri village as a priest chants his mantras. More than 500 people have gathered for a ceremony at a barren land the size of a football field. Young boys dart about, distributing freshly prepared 'prasad', a religious offering.
"It is 'mrityu bhoj' (feast to honour the dead) being observed by the community," says Nirmal Singh Garasia, head of the NICHLI SUGRI Village panchayat.
Despite a ban on 'mrityu bhoj' because of excessive spending on this regressive custom by the tribals, the Rajasthan government is unable to prohibit its observance.
In addition to the government's neglect, the hunger belt earns its nickname also because of the time-warped beliefs of the tribals here.
Child marriages, elopements and desertions are common among tribal couples, leading to a vicious cycle of frequent pregnancies and malnutrition. Tribals here also believe newborns should be fed goat milk the first six months and breast-feeding should begin thereafter, and resist sending women to hospitals for deliveries.
"The government and the voluntary organizations have not been able to do much about the situation," says Chetan Abhinendra Kumar, Child Fund's project director at Jharol block in Udaipur district.
Convergence model
The Dungarpur district administration has given its best shot at implementing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's convergence model of development-a coming together of several government programmes by merging the activities of the health and the information, education and communications (IEC) departments.
"Panchayat officials and gametis (tribal chiefs) have been involved and village-level task forces have been set up for a social audit of government schemes," says Dungarpur district magistrate Prem Chand Kishan.
Mansingh Sisodia, a volunteer of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a voluntary organisation, doesn't think much of the initiative. "The concept may work fine in villages close to urban centers but not in the far-flung remote areas." Reita is 30 kilometers through harsh, undulating terrain from Dungarpur, its closest city.
District IEC coordinator for MNREGA, Mahesh Joshi, raises another issue: "I have no facilities and no staff and am paid half the salary that my counterpart gets in Madhya Pradesh. How do you expect me to remain motivated?" he asked.(sri nanad jha, HT)
Last year, 26 tribals from Udaipur district's Kotra block died allegedly of hunger; the state is inquiring into this. In adjoining Pratapgarh district's Choti Sadri block, 29% of the tribal children there were found to be severely acutely malnourished, voluntary organization Prayas found after a small survey. The national average is 7%.
Child migrations from this hunger belt to the more prosperous Gujarat are becoming a regular feature. The state government estimates about 130,000 children from Udaipur and its adjoining districts-Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh, Chittor and Rajsamand-migrate every year in search of work.
"The actual figures are much higher as child migrants often go unreported," says Sudhir Katiyar of the Dakshini Rajasthan Mazdoor Union, a voluntary organisation working to prevent seasonal migrations of tribal children from south Rajasthan.
"Many of them die of snakebites or the adverse impact of working in BT fields (that produce genetically modified crops)," he added. "Half the child migrants are girls and they have also been subjected to sexual exploitation. Most of such cases have gone unreported as the country did not have an effective child labour act until last year."
The Union government's nutrition support programme, Integrated Child Development Services, and other central and state schemes are scarcely visible in South Rajasthan's undulating landscape. In three villages surveyed by Hindustan Times, poor tribals were not issued below poverty line cards that entitle them to subsidized food. Primary health centers rarely function.
According to a 2006 report of the National Sample Survey Organization, out-of-pocket medical expenses in India are the highest in the world. "In South Rajasthan, such expenses are even higher," says Dr. Narendra Gupta, Consultant at Prayas.
Many children in the 0-6 age group in south Rajasthan's tribal belt (comprising the six districts of Udaipur, Banswara, Pratapgarh, Chittor and Rajsamand and Dungarpur) are Vitamin-A deficient; 60-70% of them suffer from malnutrition, estimates Child Fund (India), one of the world's largest voluntary organisations working on child development.
Forbidden country
The block headquarters of Kotra, about 140 km off Udaipur, has the dubious distinction of being the crime capital of south
Rajasthan because of a thriving system of what the tribals call 'mohtana', or extortion money demanded by one tribe of another. Failure to pay can lead to a 'charothra', or conflict, and indeed, clashes between tribal groups are common. Several villages that were occupied by small tribes lie deserted as residents couldn't pay up. Unofficial estimates about Rs50 lakh worth of 'mohtana' has been paid in Kotra over the past decade.
At Kotra, nearly all government officials were away on the morning of June 06. The block development officer was off on a holiday to DehraDun, while the panchayat head and the tehsildar or revenue officer were 'resting" at the district headquarters of Udaipur - leaving behind deputy superintendent of police Ram Dhan Bairwa as the sole government representative in the block that day. "I have only 12 constables. What can I do (about the tribal conflicts)?" asks Bairwa.
The post of sub divisional magistrate at Kotra has been vacant for about two months. The block and panchayat offices have 40% vacancies.
"The scenario is much the same in most tribal villages. Officials are unwilling to get posted to these areas and are mainly operating out of the district centers," says Ganesh Purohit of the Jan Jagran Vikas Samiti, an Udaipur-based voluntary organisation working on tribal welfare. "The aanganwadi worker (AWC) worker is the only one who remains physically present in the villages."
Implementation of various welfare programmes, naturally, suffers.
At Kotra, payments to workers from poor rural households under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA, the Union government's flagship employment programme, have been pending since March, A Rajasthan government official said, while adding: "State government employees have also not been paid salaries for a month," he adds. "MNREGA payments are sometimes pending because of failure of implementing agencies to produce utilization certificates. but it is just not possible to delay salaries of state government employees", a senior Rajasthan government official said on conditions of anonymity, as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Perception and reality
About 32 km from Dungarpur, amid a sea of stark poverty, stands a partially built modern structure for the Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendra, An e-governance centre, AT Reita village. Two homes have been built at Reita's poor villagers under the Indira Awas Yojana, a housing scheme for the poor, since the scheme's inception 26 years ago. Against the stated requirement of one anganwadi centre for a village of 300-800 people, the Reita Gram Sabha (four villages with about 2,000 people) has just one-run out of a grocery shop. And the government appointed auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) for the village turns up about once in two months, "considering that she has to undertake long treks," said Jai Chand, the village sarpanch or head.
Almost nothing in Udaipur and surrounding districts is what has been mandated. The government's various schemes for the welfare of the tribals and the villagers are implemented in partial measures, if at all, according to many of the people here.
"We sometimes get work under the MNREGA but payments are pending. The AWCs (anganwadi centres) are several times closed but they show 100% attendance. Our children go to Gujarat to earn an extra buck," said Soma BHIL, a Reita villager. Tribals have just enough food to sustain their lives, but there are no savings. Sending children to Gujarat means there is one stomach less to feed. also,when these children return, they have some hard cash saved up.
A day after Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party that leads the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, launched the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in the adjoining Banswara district in June, the chief concern of another Reita villager, Deva, was about the lack of teachers in the village. "Sixty percent of the teaching posts in the schools in the village are vacant. School buildings are abandoned".
The HT team found neither teachers nor students at two schools visited at reita village. "one of these schools has just a chowkidar, who doubles up as a teacher aswell!", said a villager.
The NRLM is a flagship program of UPA-II, aimed at providing livelihood options to below poverty line (BPL) households by setting up self- help groups (SHGs).
"Intentions are noble, but the reality is that the teachers, doctors and other professionals do not want to live or work in these areas. Grand schemes like the NRLM have remained mostly un-implemented", said Premchand Gharasia, the village pradhan or head.
Skewed budgeting
"The terrain poses a tough challenge. But successive governments have also not tried enough to bring development to the region," says Bhawar Singh Chadana of the Udaipur-based Astha, a voluntary organisation.
Official statistics reflect Chadana's argument. Rajasthan's 7.1 million tribals are entitled to budgetary allocations of 12.56% of the state's budget. Actual allocations in the past few years have hovered between 3.15% and 7.5% since 2007-08. Rajasthan's tribal sub plan budget for 2011-12 is RS.1467.5 crore - a mere 7.61% of the state's total budget. This year, the state government has committed to spend half of the funds of the tribal sub-plan- A separate plan head for tribal welfare - for power generation. But according to the Jaipur-based Budget Analysis and Research Centre (BARC), a voluntary organisation, the state government has not specified plan heads under which the fund will be spent. Specifying plan heads is a mandatory first step for implementing schemes.
Over the past few years, the office of the commissioner, tribal area development (TAD), has been gradually rendered a toothless body, with posts either surrendered or unfilled. Posts of development officers are vacant in all the six tribal districts in Rajasthan. Half a dozen posts of deputy directors are vacant have been vacant the past three years.
Several TAD posts have been abolished in recent years, including that of officers in charge of agriculture, cooperatives, industries and lift irrigation.
"The TAD budget is cleared by the budget finance committee but there are constant tussles within the state government. The TAD is nobody's baby, as it is only the nodal agency with no powers", said an official of TAD on condition of anonymity. "The state government insists on clearance of every single project by the concerned ministry of the state government. This leads to delays and failures to produce utilization certificates in time. In past years, almost half the TAD funds (Rs317 crore for 2011-12) have remained unused."
Time warp
Men, women and children squat under trees at Kotra block's Nichli Sugri village as a priest chants his mantras. More than 500 people have gathered for a ceremony at a barren land the size of a football field. Young boys dart about, distributing freshly prepared 'prasad', a religious offering.
"It is 'mrityu bhoj' (feast to honour the dead) being observed by the community," says Nirmal Singh Garasia, head of the NICHLI SUGRI Village panchayat.
Despite a ban on 'mrityu bhoj' because of excessive spending on this regressive custom by the tribals, the Rajasthan government is unable to prohibit its observance.
In addition to the government's neglect, the hunger belt earns its nickname also because of the time-warped beliefs of the tribals here.
Child marriages, elopements and desertions are common among tribal couples, leading to a vicious cycle of frequent pregnancies and malnutrition. Tribals here also believe newborns should be fed goat milk the first six months and breast-feeding should begin thereafter, and resist sending women to hospitals for deliveries.
"The government and the voluntary organizations have not been able to do much about the situation," says Chetan Abhinendra Kumar, Child Fund's project director at Jharol block in Udaipur district.
Convergence model
The Dungarpur district administration has given its best shot at implementing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's convergence model of development-a coming together of several government programmes by merging the activities of the health and the information, education and communications (IEC) departments.
"Panchayat officials and gametis (tribal chiefs) have been involved and village-level task forces have been set up for a social audit of government schemes," says Dungarpur district magistrate Prem Chand Kishan.
Mansingh Sisodia, a volunteer of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a voluntary organisation, doesn't think much of the initiative. "The concept may work fine in villages close to urban centers but not in the far-flung remote areas." Reita is 30 kilometers through harsh, undulating terrain from Dungarpur, its closest city.
District IEC coordinator for MNREGA, Mahesh Joshi, raises another issue: "I have no facilities and no staff and am paid half the salary that my counterpart gets in Madhya Pradesh. How do you expect me to remain motivated?" he asked.(sri nanad jha, HT)
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