How to Fight Corruption

There were two news items of interest to those fighting corruption in the newspaper recently. The first was on the front page and was about the charges of corruption leveled against fourteen Ministers of the Government of India, including the Prime Minister of India, by the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement led by Anna Hazare. The other news was tucked away in a corner of an inside page about an externment notice being served on Madhuri Krishnaswamy, tribal rights activist, by the district administration of Barwani district in Madhya Pradesh. Both the news items highlight the difficulty of fighting corruption whether high or low and merit a little more analysis.
Starting with the externment notice to Madhuri, this was done under the provisions of the statute, Madhya Pradesh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, which ostensibly has been enacted to tackle habitual criminal offenders. So, when a person has been arraigned in a number of criminal cases, then on the complaint of the police, the district administration can issue a notice to this person as to why he or she should not be externed from the district itself and the adjoining districts so as to maintain law and order. However, in this case the externment notice was not given to a criminal but to a social activist helping the tribals fight for their rights and especially against the massive corruption in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the National Rural Health Mission and the Public Distribution System. The basis for this were a few criminal cases that had been lodged earlier by the police against Madhuri and other tribal members of their organisation, Jagriti Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (JADS). Most of these cases being of a false nature and instituted just to harass the activists had either ended in acquittals after trial in court or in some cases had been withdrawn after the JADS campaigned against this unjust oppression by the State. So when faced with organised resistance to corruption at the grassroots the administration and at a larger level the state responds by criminalising those who are protesting instead of those who are responsible for this corruption. This is the fundamental reason why grassroots movements across the country, since the time of independence, have never been able to root out corruption or coalesce into a viable political force of greater spread and depth to be able to challenge the state system.
The frustration that has built up among the common people as a result of this difficulty of tackling corruption has been the rallying force behind the IAC and given it the mandate to fight not only against grassroots corruption but also against the high level corruption which trickles down to the grassroots also. However, in the absence of a strong grassroots base the IAC has floundered after its initial heady start. Finding that grassroots activism is fraught with difficulties of the kind that Madhuri and the JADS are facing the IAC has fallen back on high profile campaigning at the central level to try and maintain the tempo. But while taking such dramatic steps as charging the Prime Minister and his colleagues with corruption may get them front page publicity it is unlikely to dent the corrupt system in any significant way.
The JADS fought this latest attack against it by adopting a two pronged strategy. It mobilised human rights organisations in India and abroad to start an Internet and media campaign against the patent injustice of the externment notice and it also began demonstrating through mass rallies at the grassroots. This had the desired effect of forcing the administration to take back the externment notice within a week. This underlines the importance of having a coordinated alliance between city based networking organisations and grassroots mass organisations so as to be able to fight corruption in any effective way. The IAC instead of trying to remain relevant by clinging on to the media through dramatic announcements should try and leverage the visibility they have gained to launch and support more movements like that of JADS instead of just targeting the high level corruption. There has to be a concerted effort to build up a wide ranging grassroots movement against the oppression and corruption of the centralised state system.

The First Legal Blow Against Patriarchy

In Independent India the first legal blow against patriarchy was sought to be dealt by the great Dalit leader Dr B.R. Ambedkar in the form of the Hindu Code Bill which was to ensure the right to divorce and right to property to women. However, the obscurantist upper castes, led by the President Rajendra Prasad prevented this and so the Bill failed to be enacted and had to be jettisoned in 1951. This led to the resignation of Ambedkar as the Law Minister and in his resignation letter he clearly accused the other members of his party Indian National Congress including the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of being against the bill and against women's emancipation. Ambedkar then resigned from the Congress party also and formed a new party. Even though later the Hindu Code Bill was enacted into law in bits and pieces even today women are deprived of property rights and it is not easy to get divorce either.

If the bill had become law in 1951 itself and had been strictly implemented then women would have had much more freedom and resulted in their producing less children. This would have meant that there would be less people in India now than there are and so less stress on natural and human built capital. Thus, the failure to launch an attack against patriarchy after independence was a great blunder. 

In this context one has also to evaluate the contribution of Ambedkar. In the ongoing debates around the publication of the derogatory cartoon in the school textbook I came across one comment that since Ambedkar was a liberal democrat and against communism he can be considered to be the same as the other liberal democrats. Now this raises the question whether it is possible to distinguish between liberal democrats or not. The problem with all ideologies whether liberal democratic, anarchist or Marxist is that whatever may be there theory, they are rarely the same in practice. Thus, it is possible to evaluate politicians on the basis of how much they have adhered to theory and so differentiate between them. 

Ambedkar definitely does well in this respect. He resigned from the Congress party after the fiasco of the failure of the enactment of the Hindu Code Bill and set up a new party called the Republican Party of India. He remained committed to the emancipation of the Dalits and women and for this he was prepared to give up the spoils of power. That is much more than can be said of people like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad or even the current bunch of politicians, irrespective of their parties, who participate in electoral politics. 

Ultimately what is important is the fight for justice - social, economic, political and environmental. Given the huge concentration of resources and power in the hands of the capitalists the fight for justice presently is a difficult one regardless of one's ideology. Under the circumstances Ambedkar does provide an inspiring example even if one may have reservations about his abhorrence for Panchayati Raj or his espousal of capitalist development.

Much Ado About Nothing

A debate is raging over a cartoon drawn by Shankar in 1949 depicting Dr B.R. Ambedkar sitting like a cart driver on a snail which has been labelled as the constitution and with Jawaharlal Nehru in the background preparing to whip him. The cartoon was drawn in the context of the criticism at that time regarding the slow pace in which the Constituent Assembly was proceeding with the drafting of the Constitution. The controversy has arisen because this cartoon has been republished in a text book on political science for Class Eleven brought out by the National Centre for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) some six years ago. Recently members of the Republican Party of India, which is a Dalit party set up initially by Ambedkar after he left the Congress Party due to its failure to enact the Hindu Code advocating divorce and property rights for women, raised the issue of the cartoon showing Ambedkar in poor light and requested the NCERT that it be removed from the textbook. However, the NCERT refused to do so. Then slowly the issue began to gain steam among the Dalits and finally it was raised by Dalit politicians in parliament with considerable anger. Cutting across political lines all parliamentarians then raised their objections to the cartoon and demanded that it be removed from the textbook and the government hastily agreed. In the wake of the huge uproar against the cartoon being published in the textbook the two academic political scientists who as advisers had recommended the inclusion of the cartoon and supervised the preparation of the text, resigned from their advisory posts with NCERT.
However, subsequently a number of academics, all upper castes, began a campaign, castigating the reaction of the politicians as being a blow to the freedom of expression and to critical pedagogy. Now this obviously begs the question as to how critical the pedagogy is in this particular instance and what is the quality of expression, the publishing of this cartoon entails. My understanding is that the Constitution as it was finally enacted was a highly anti-people one. Roughly 63% of the sections were lifted verbatim or with minor changes from the Government of India Act of 1935 that the British colonialists had enacted to give limited self rule to the Indians. The constitution retained two very anti-people provisions. The first was that the first past the post electoral system would be followed instead of proportional representation and the second was that colonial laws like the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, Land Acquisition Act and the Indian Forest Act would continue to be valid. The first provision meant that the Congress party despite getting around 40 to 45 % of the popular vote was able to secure huge majorities in number of seats won in both the parliament and the state legislatures for close to twenty years at a stretch. The second provision meant that the tremendous groundswell of popular protest that surfaced very soon after independence, as the promise of emancipation and development was not fulfilled for the vast majority, was summarily crushed using the draconian provisions of the colonial laws which had been enacted precisely for this purpose by the British. Thus, the immense plurality and diversity that is India was sought to be streamlined in the same way as the British had done by the new Brown Sahibs consisting of the upper caste elite that held sway over the Congress, the judiciary and the bureaucracy and also in the fields of industry and agriculture.
The critical discussion in the textbook therefore should have been on this betrayal of the aspirations of the people by the Constitution and not about the delay in its formulation. The delay in the formulation took place because of the filibustering resorted to by the upper castes to prevent the adoption of the few progressive aspects like the chapters on Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy. Nehru, who was an extremely duplicitous person who used to mouth socialist doctrine while actually following a reactionary path of suppression of mass movements for rights, fully supported this delay in the drafting of the Constitution so as to get a colonial one through. Ambedkar in fact did his level best to expedite matters. Thus the cartoon is a travesty of the facts and of extremely poor quality. There is no case at all for inserting it into the textbook and misguiding the minds of young students with a non sequitur. This the point that the Dalit politicians are making. They are not asking to curtail the freedom of expression of the academics who misguidedly inserted this cartoon into the text book but objecting to such poor quality expression being featured in a textbook.
Dalits even today continually face oppression on a daily basis and very little of this is ever discussed in the parliament or legislature. On this occasion, however, they have taken up the matter and forged a bipartisan unity among all other politicians for the removal of this cartoon. Ambedkar cannot be made fun of in a text book for sins that he did not commit. Liberal democratic constitutions even at the best of times are woefully inadequate in addressing the illegality and violation of the rule of law by the upper classes. There should be a discussion in the text book regarding the serious problems that liberal democracy faces in ensuring justice for the oppressed and yet this has been given the go by and a trivial issue like the delay in the formulation of the Constitution has been highlighted. The text mentions that the Constituent Assembly was fairly representative of the people of India and the members were working in the national interest. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The members were elected on the basis of a limited franchise during the Colonial period in 1946 and they vigorously worked to safe guard their sectarian upper caste and feudal interests. This kind of text writing is especially surprising as both the advisors in this case are political scientists with strong socialist leanings and so should have been critical of the Constitution and the machinations of Nehru and the Congress party in its adoption. Even when their mistake was brought to their notice in a bona fide manner through a complaint to the NCERT they arrogantly refused to acknowledge it. Now that the power of identity politics has forced them to backtrack they are raising the bogey of their freedom of expression being curtailed and critical pedagogy being jeopardised.  

Rediscovering Biodiverse Farming

Smallholder agriculture in tribal areas has traditionally thrived on biodiverse farming involving the growing of a variety of crops on a small piece of land. This ensured that some part of the crop came in despite the vagaries of nature. Unfortunately modern chemical fertiliser and hybrid seed based monocultures have put paid to this sustainable system and brought considerable misery to the tribals. The Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath has been trying to conserve and promote biodiverse farming in Alirajpur. Here is a report on another such effort in the Raygada district of Orissa -

Saraka, 38, is careful not to take credit for helping to turn around farming in this area, in the news just a decade ago for starvation deaths. "All we are doing is returning to our grandfathers’ practices," says this member of the Kondh tribe. Saraka recalls that his forebears sowed three different seeds in the same field: millet, legume, oilseed and maybe a creeper bean. The 72 Kondh households in Saraka's village of Munda, in Rayagada district, reside in the foothills of the Niyamgiri Hills, stretching over 250 km, that the London-based mining major Vedanta Resources Plc has been trying to exploit for its bauxite deposits.

"The environs, the climate and the forests have changed drastically," murmurs Bhima Saraka, 65, almost to himself, resting on a sagging string cot in front of the thatched house where he lives with 23 of his kinsmen. The rains, he observes, are "regularly irregular", resulting in crop losses year after year while Kondh families have grown in numbers, putting pressure on the forests they once shared with tigers and where they harvested tubers and fruits. In 2010, amidst public outrage over a spate of farmers’ suicides over poor harvests and high interest on loans taken for farming inputs, the then agriculture minister Damodar Rout admitted that Odisha’s agriculture was in crisis, "impacted by climate change, erosion, dryness, soil acidity and falling ground water levels."For Harish Saraka and other subsistence farmers in 70 Niyamgiri villages in Rayagada, adapting to changing conditions meant reverting to traditional farming methods such as mixed cropping, the use of organic fertilisers and trusted seed varieties.

So, while farming has been failing elsewhere in Odisha, Harish Saraka has been cultivating not three but 14 crops on his half-hectare land since the last two years - enough to see his family through the lean August-December season. "I now harvest 300 kg of food grains, a 200 percent increase from the earlier single-crop high-yield paddy farming," says Saraka. In Kerandiguda village, Loknath Nauri, 58, is the first to try mixed farming on a portion of his one-hectare hilly stream-fed land that he got under a government programme for the landless rural poor. "Seeing my good harvest, ten other households here have decided to try their luck this year," says Nauri, who is ready to share his seeds with them.

"The Kondhs’ once self-sufficient and local resource-based agriculture system was affected by the introduction of commercial high-yielding paddy," says Debjeet Sarangi who heads ‘Living Farms’, a non-government organisation (NGO) that works with marginal farmers. Bhima Saraka said that a few years back, Munda villagers were lured into planting high-yielding paddy seeds given free by the government along with chemical fertilisers. "The seeds were old and many did not sprout, while the fertilisers demanded water, and we have no source except the rains," he says. "None got much out of this ‘free gift’ except an important lesson, that their local seeds - acclimatised to their dryland soil and more able to withstand monsoon’s unpredictability - were indeed their lifeline," says Sunamajhi Pidika, Living Farms’s local field organiser.

Sarangi said tribal communities, "who neither cultivated nor ate rice traditionally, are now trying to re-establish their food sovereignty." ‘Ailing Agricultural Productivity in Economically Fragile Region of India’ - a recent study published by the Bhopal-based Indian Institute of Soil Sciences found that the cultivation area for small millets in Odisha had declined by 500 percent over the last 40 years. The popular perception is that the government policy is pushing in cash crops to the detriment of subsistence millet-farming practiced by communities like Bhima Saraka’s. "The government is not coercing the tribal people, just putting intelligent choices before them," said Nitin Bhanudas Jawale, administrative head of Rayagada district.

However, in April, it was decided to procure millet and make it available at fair price outlets, so that the tribal people could go back to their traditional food, Jawale said. "The U.N. World Food Programme is collaborating with us." "In discussions with village elders we came to know there are varieties of millets and pulses which can tolerate heat and water stress," says Sarangi."I have heard my grandfather talk of the 11 varieties of millet that his father cultivated," recounts 24-year-old Prasant Wadraka from Gandili village while waiting at the government’s tribal development office to collect free tin sheet roofing. According to Wadraka, near-extinct millet varieties include one called ‘kodo’ which has medicinal properties to control diabetes. Millet is packed with protein, B-complex vitamins and minerals, nutritionists say.

"The movement in India to return to traditional seeds is growing stronger and at country inter-NGO level too we exchange seeds to supplement local communities’ seed needs," says Sarangi. In 2008, Living Farms began a programme of giving poor families seeds on condition that after harvest the same quantity would be returned plus 10 percent ‘interest’ to be put into grain banks. Simple woven bamboo baskets sealed with thick clay-and cow dung daub, the grain banks are managed by Kondh women and opened only in times of need. Just before the monsoons all the seed varieties are sown on the same field. These are a combination of niger (an oilseed), sorghum, millet varieties like finger, foxtail, pearl, pigeon pea and horse gram along with creeper beans. Some of these will ripen in 90 days while others will take 120 days before harvest.

According to leading Indian agro-scientist M.S. Swaminathan, mixed cropping - that involves several cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetable and fodder crops - retards buildup of insect pests. It is significant that tribal communities never use chemical inputs or even diesel irrigation pumps, and sell their produce in the local market. "Their products have minimum carbon footprints," Sarangi said. "In the imminent global climate crisis, we have much to learn from indigenous communities." 

No Respite for those Fighting for Justice

Here is a post about how workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme are being victimised in West Bengal for opposing the use of machines which is banned under the provisions of the statute -

Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity strongly condemns the unreasonable and unwarranted arrest of 8 Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers from Lakhanpur GP, Hura Block , Purulia district on 23^rd April 2012. This arrest is a means by which the administration and Panchayat want to suppress any protest against their own corruption and illegality in implementation of MGNREGS.

The latest action by PBKMS members was to stop the use of machines and contractors in moving earth in Lakhanpur GP in an NREGS scheme. The workers had in the month of February and March twice sent back earthmover machines brought in by a contractor to move earth. When a third attempt was made, 463 workers voluntarily shifted the earth, thus causing loss to the contractor and all those who would have got a commission out of this gross misuse of MGNREGA funds. Vested political leadership had threatened to file cases against PBKMS leaders at that time itself.

The facts of the present case are as follows: 99 workers applied for MGNREGS work in Lakhanpur GP of Hura block. They were given the work of making a road in Khoiripira upto the Nadighat. On 23^rd April 2012 ,the workers found that they were being asked to spread the earth being brought by two tractors on the new road. They complained to the supervisor that if this meant that their work would be measured according to the quantity of earth that they spread, this would mean too little for each worker , and they would therefore not earn minimum wages for the day’s work. The supervisor was not able to tell them the rate at which they would be paid, so they decided to ask the Panchayat for an explanation.

When all 99 of them reached the Panchayat, they found the Pradhan absent. No one else was willing to give them an answer, so the workers began a peacefuldharna (sit down strike) in front of the Gram Panchayat office with their baskets, spades and pickaxes. The dharna began at 11 AM and continued till 6 PM, with no one willing to address the workers’ problems . At around this time, the PBKMS district secretary, Mohan Mahato, himself an NREGS worker from that Gram Panchayat, who had heard about the problem came to the Gram Panchayat office to enquire about what had happened. Soon after, a large number of policemen came and arrested  Mohan and 7 other workers.

After this, the PBKMS State Treasurer, Uttam Gayen and many others from the State Committee tried calling up the OC Hura PS and the BDO to find out why the 8 workers had been arrested. Our phone calls were ignored. Uttam Gayen went to the Police Station to find out what the problem was, but the OC refused to meet him.

It was from the Purulia district court that we found out what the case was about. The 8 workers have been arrested on charges of obstructing a Government servant.  The case has been filed by the Upapradhan in the name of Biplab Mondal and Chaitanya Mahato, leaders of the PBKMS who were not even present at the spot, and Mohan Mahato, who arrived at the tail end of the dharna, just before the police action started.  The case has the convenient    tag of “and others” besides these three, making it easy for the police to arrest whosoever they please whenever they please.

At present the workers have been remanded to jail custody for 15 days up to 8^th May 2012, causing huge problems for them and their families, as all of them are daily wage earners

The PBKMS would like to raise the following objections about this whole procedure:-

·         Wage disputes over the amount of earth work done are the most common place occurrence in MGNREGS works. If an arrest is made every time a worker raises a doubt about measurement and his/her wages, how many arrests will the administration be making every day?

·         As per the Grievance Redressal Rules under the Act, the first place where grievances are to be raised is the Gram Panchayat. The BDO has also always told our workers to go to the Panchayat with their problems. If arrests are made when workers go to the Panchayat with a grievance, where are workers supposed to go for grievance redressal?

·         As per Grievance Redressal Rules, each Panchayat is supposed to have a complaints register, is to receive written complaints and the Pradhan is to dispose of the same within 10 days. The Lakhanpur Gram Panchayat Pradhan and his staff do not even know about this procedure, forget following it. They are therefore law breakers. Why should not a case under section 25 of the MGNREG Act be filed against them?

·         Two of the accused, Biplab Mondal and Chaitanya Mahato, were not even on the spot when the supposed law and order problem took place. A third , Mohan Mahato, arrived almost at the end , when the so called “incident” was almost over. How can they be held responsible for the alleged law and order problem? Why has the police filed an open ended case of “and others”, if not to harass any worker who raises the issue of rights under NREGS?

·         The Lakhanpur Gram Panchayat has been with the Trinamul Congress since 2009, though the Upapradhan is with the CPM. It is therefore obviously the TMC local leadership that is responsible for this problem. What kind of “change” or “paribartan” on behalf of the TMC leadership does this behaviour entail?

PBKMS suspects that this patently false case has been filed as a means to stop NREGS workers and PBKMS workers from stopping corruption in the NREGS works. We demand immediate withdrawal of the false case and immediate release of the workers. It also demands that proper grievance redressal procedures be put in place for NREGS complaints as per the Grievance Redressal Rules

Reflections on Anarchism, Atheism and Deep Ecologism

If human beings have to live together in large centralised societies then there will be state systems and bureaucracies to run them with the ever present danger of injustice, violence and inequity. Anarchists therefore speak of living in small societies even if that means the sacrifice of many of the material advantages of living in centralised systems. The important question today is whether it is possible to retreat from the highly centralised systems that control our lives and which are held together by the legal monopoly of force granted to states to run them. If this force is suddenly withdrawn then there will indeed by anarchy which may not be what the anarchists want. I am an anarchist but i have not yet found an answer to this problem in the writings of the many famous anarchists. The suggestion that people should limit their desires and live frugally thus obviating the need for force to discipline greedy and so violent people is an utopian one and parallels the suggestions of the spiritual ascetics (not that the monopoly of force given to states has been able to rein in greed and violence with much success). Personally one can live frugally but to expect the whole of humanity to do so is impractical. The tribal peoples have done so for millennia and are still doing so today in some places but they are a miniscule minority. Also given the huge push for consumerism to sell the goods and services that are being produced in ever larger numbers by a capitalist global economy backed up by heavy military expenditure to ensure that the Occupiers do not succeed in derailing the global system there is little likelihood of anarchist or spiritual projects succeeding.
Atheism is a rational choice. There is no proof of the existence of God. Neither is there any proof that God does not exist. Under the circumstances one is free to choose either way. Atheists generally choose to not believe in the existence of God in the absence of any proof of such an existence. Atheists may be anarchists and they may not be as in the case of most Marxists who are die hard statists (at least till as long as communism does not come and as has happened so far socialist states degenerate into capitalistic ones before that eventuality). Similarly anarchists may be atheists like in the case of Berkman but they may not be as in the case of Gandhi. Atheists may be nature conservationists like the Deep Ecologist Arne Naess or they may not be so like most Marxists. At the core of ascetic spiritualism, naturalistic atheism or deep ecologism and anarchism is an ethic of frugality and that is their strength. As a naturalistic atheist and anarchist I can only suggest the adoption of the frugality ethic but I cannot expect it to be adopted universally for that is a form of religious expectation! The greatest anarchist credo will always remain the one that was voiced by Thoreau and forms the bedrock of my own anarchism -” If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Whats in a Name?

Recently a reader raised the issue of the nomenclature of the people who are variously named as Tribes, Adivasis and Indigenous People. Since this is a vexing question I had sought to bypass it by including all three in the title of this blog. However, since the issue has been flagged it is appropriate that it is discussed here. Human beings were all hunter gatherers before the advent of the neolithic revolution about ten thousand years ago when they gradually became pastoralists and agriculturalists. This was an important change because it allowed humans to build up capital in the form of domesticated animal herds and stored grain and freed them from the need to always hunt and gather like animals and instead pursue economic and intellectual development. Initially the capital accumulation was not great but slowly with settled agriculture and trade developing capital accumulation and economic and intellectual development gained momentum. State formation followed to ensure that the accumulated capital and trade could be secured. This is the path that most of humanity has followed.
However, a set of people throughout the world have opted out of this path and have instead decided to live at subsistence levels with minimal or no accumulation still practising hunting and gathering or shifting agriculture. These people have customs in place that ensure that accumulated household surpluses are periodically distributed to the community through celebratory festivals so as to maintain economic equality. The societal formation that corresponds to this is generally referred to as tribe. So there are tribes throughout the world and some of them are still uncontacted. In India even though there are no uncontacted tribes there are still some that have minimal contact with the mainstream civilisation.
The tribes in India have been wary of the mainstream civilisation and been at odds with it for several millennia. Due to their existence in dense forests they mostly retained their independence from the mainstream kingdoms and empires. However, the British changed all that as they aggressively entered into and decimated forests to expand settled agriculture, plantations, mining and timber felling. This led to a tremendous amount of conflict which left the tribes severely devastated. Nevertheless the British colonialists also instituted a policy of  protection for these tribes in the later stages of their rule and it is this that was formalised in the Constitution of India after independence in 1947 with the provision of protection and reservation for the tribes in a special schedule and thereby they have come to be officially known as Scheduled Tribes.
Globally the tribes of the Americas have been very active politically and have since the formation of the United Nations been campaigning for their rights. In the context of the Americas they have coined the term Indigenous Peoples to indicate those who were residing in the Americas before the Europeans colonised their areas, decimated them and migrated heavily to set up mainstream economic and social systems. Their efforts resulted in the United Nations constituting a group in 1982 to formulate a draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for adoption by the General Assembly. This was a long process which eventually resulted in the adoption of the Declaration in 2007 and the details are available here and here. One of the most cited descriptions of the concept of the indigenous was given in 1986 by Jose R. Martinez Cobo, the Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, in his famous Study on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations as part of this draft formulation process  -

“Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.

            “This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:

a)      Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them;

b)      Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;

c)      Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.);

d)     Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language);

e)      Residence on certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;

f)       Other relevant factors.

            “On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who belongs to these indigenous populations through self-identification as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by these populations as one of its members (acceptance by the group).

            “This preserves for these communities the sovereign right and power to decide who belongs to them, without external interference” 
Following this the International Labour Organisation adopted a Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples in 1989 and in it Indigenous people have been defined as -

“a) tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations; 

 b) peoples in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization or the establishment of present state boundaries and who irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.”

  The problem in the Indian context is that if the country is taken as a whole then the mainstream population and the tribes are both indigenous with the former having followed the path of accumulation and development while the latter have not. However, within the country it can be said that there has been an internal colonialism, expressly so in the post independence period, when the mainstream population aided by the independent Indian state has continually encroached into the areas of residence of the tribes and marginalised and devastated them. So internally the definitions given above apply to the tribes and they can claim to be indigenous peoples. In many cases they refer to themselves as adivasis in Hindi which means indigenous people. The Indian government is obviously loathe to accept that the tribes in India are indigenous peoples as defined above. The tribes themselves are pushing for recognition as indigenous peoples so as to be able to claim their rights under the provisions of the powerful Declaration of the United Nations. The most important part of the definition is that if a set of people who have distinctly tribal characteristics want to declare themselves as indigenous peoples vis a vis the mainstream population then they have the right to do so. This has its upsides as well as downsides. The Gujjars in Rajasthan have now begun demanding that they too are tribes and so indigenous people and should be notified as Scheduled Tribes whereas the Meenas who are already so notified since the time of independence are vehemently opposing this.
Consequently the name to be given to these people who have traditionally led a non-accumulative lifestyle in tribes has become a contentious issue. Primarily because most of them have now become part of the mainstream socio-economic system and want to take advantage of the benefits of this system while ensuring that they do not have to bear the costs as they have had to so far. So one can say that they are tribals, adivasis and indigenous peoples all rolled into one!
The nomenclature may be useful to these people in their fight for their rights but what is more important is that they insist on a reorientation of the path that mainstream society has followed so far. Today is another of those international days - Earth Day, to be celebrated ostensibly to underline the importance of nature. However, unless the traditional conservationist culture of the indigenous peoples is adopted by more people worldwide there is no real hope of saving the earth or humanity. 

Bestiality of Police

The police in Alirajpur town paraded a tribal youth publicly for two hours in the streets after tying his hands to his waist after having beaten him up in police custody. It is alleged that they did this on the orders of the local tribal Member of the Legislative Assembly in whose office the tribal youth used to work and which he had stopped doing and so earned the ire of the legislator according to a news report in Hindustan Times Indore today. This is a typical instance of the misuse of the police for political ends that has been the bane of Indian democracy. It is interesting to note that all the main characters in this story are tribals - the victim, the alleged conspirer who is the local MLA and the head of the police station. So while the system of police repression inherited from the British is in place it does not really matter if tribals or dalits get into it through reservation because ultimately these elites among the tribals and dalits will also imbibe the negative spirit of repression that is at the core of the system. What is needed is an overhaul of the system wherein arbitrary powers of detention are not given to the police. In the present instance the alert activists of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath brought this macabre instance of police bestiality to the notice of the press and so it has got wider publicity. However, there are many instances of such brutality of the police at the behest of their political masters that are going on routinely throughout India which get suppressed. This is also the main reason why people's movements for justice and rights cannot sustain themselves in the long run and fall by the wayside due to police repression.

The Narmada Struggle Continues

Governments in this country refuse to listen to reason that is being dinned into their heads by people's movements about not following anti-people policies. Even court orders do not seem to have any effect and the governments brazenly ignore them to pursue a policy of unsustainable and unjust development. Under the circumstances it becomes really difficult for people's movements to hold on in the face of such blatant illegality of the State. Here is a note from the Narmada Bachao Andolan detailing the government's attempt to fill up the Maheshwar dam despite clear directives from the courts and the Ministry of Environment and Forests that they cannot do so without first rehabilitating the project affected persons -

Despite the facts that no synchronization and electricity generation is possible at EL 154 meters of the Maheshwar dam, that there is no survey of the impact of submergence at EL 154 meters, and that less than 15% of the villagers of the 61 villages affected by the Maheshwar dam have been rehabilitated and resettled, the State Government and the S.Kumar’s company Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Limited (SMHPCL) which is building the Maheshwar dam on the river Narmada has asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) of the Central government for permission to fill the Maheshwar dam up to 154 meters.

A team of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests visited the submergence area on 22^nd and 23rd of March, 2012, in this regard, and their report is awaited. The Narmada Bachao Andolan demands that the State and Central Governments should not accord any permission for filling of Maheshwar dam up to 154 meters as the same would be arbitrary, and against the law and the Constitution, and expresses grave apprehension that any such filling may cause the death of hundreds and thousands of villagers in the submergence area in the plains of the Narmada valley. The Andolan declares that if any permission is given for submergence, in village after village, the villagers will embark on Jal Satyagraha, and will choose death to abandoning their lands and homes without rehabilitation and resettlement.

No electricity generation possible at EL 154 meters

As per letter of Secretary, Union Ministry of Power dated 18.02.2011 and opinion of Central Electricity Authority dated 17.02.2011, no synchronization and electricity generation is possible at EL 154 meters of the Maheshwar dam. It is clear from this that the company and the State want to submerge the area only so that thousands of families will flee the area without rehabilitation and resettlement. It is clear that when the power from this privatized company is so costly, ie. Rs. 10 per unit that it cannot be sold, public interest lies in saving the 61 villages from any submergence.

Submergence at 154 meters in the monsoon of 2011: Revenue records expose false claims of Secretary Energy and Collector Khargone

It may be noted that erstwhile Minister MOEF had passed Order dated 6.05.2011 prohibiting closure of the gates of the Maheshwar dam. The Orders of the Hon’ble High Court Madhya Pradesh dated 18.02.2009, 5.03.2009, 6.05.2009, 12.05.2009, 18.05.2009, and 28.07.2009 in W.P. No. 1359/09 also prohibited any submergence of the 61 villages affected by the Maheshwar dam. However, in violation of the Order of the MOEF dated 6.05.2011, conditions of the environmental clearance dated 1.05.2001 and the aforementioned Orders of the Hon’ble High Court Madhya Pradesh, on the 27^th of August 2011 the Company SMHPCL illegally closed five gates of the Maheshwar dam fully and others partially, causing the illegal submergence of 70 houses in villages Sulgaon, Pathrad, Behgaon, Bhatiyan and Mardana, and 41 fields in villages Jalud, Sulgaon, Bhasunda, Lepa, Lalpura, Amlatha, Bakawa, and Teliyaon. In addition, a settlement in Village Pathrad was completely encircled by water and houses in villages Sulgaon and Mardana were also cut off by the waters.

The submergence of lands and houses on 27^th August 2012 is clearly set out in the revenue records of the Revenue Department. Despite this, on the 17^th of January 2012, District Collector Khargone wrote a letter at the instance of the SMHPCL making the completely false averment that on filling the dam up to 154 meters, there would be no submergence of houses and fields. However the revenue records annexed to his own letter showed submergence.

Hundreds and thousands of people to submerge without rehabilitation and resettlement at 154 meters: Contempt of Supreme Court judgment

It may be noted that the State Government has no estimate of the submergence which will ensue at EL 154 meters, since no study has been done to what extent the back-waters may climb behind the Maheshwar dam when the reservoir is permitted to fill up to EL 154 meters. The area behind the Maheshwar dam in the plains of the Narmada valley is absolutely flat. Thus, even a small submergence may cause the drowning and death of hundreds and thousands of persons in the area. It may also be noted that as per the Order and judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court dated 15.03.2005 in Narmada Bachao Andolan vs. Union of India & Ors., the dam cannot be permitted to be built without prior rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected families to that level, and submergence can only be permitted six months after the completion of rehabilitation and resettlement. In this case even the extent of submergence is yet to be known, and rehabilitation and resettlement is a far cry. It is clear that any permission for submergence up to 154 meters would be in contempt of the Order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court. Moreover, if the reservoir is impounded up to 154 meters, thousands of pumps situated on the river-banks and pipe-lines will be submerged, stopping agricultural activity and provision of drinking water in these villages.

More than 85% oustees yet to be rehabilitated and resettled

In the last 16 years, the S.Kumar’s who own the Maheshwar Project and the State Government have been able to rehabilitate and resettle less than 15% of the affected families. Not a single family has been rehabilitated by allotting lands as per R&R Policy. Over 60,000-70,000 persons of 61 villages of the area are affected by the Maheshwar dam. Following are the figures of the State Government and the company:

• Family Lists for 41 out of 61 villages not yet prepared.
• Allotment of a minimum of 2 ha. of land – 100% families left to be allotted.
• Acquisition of land – 70% families left to be given.
• Allotment of house-plots – 78% families left to be given.
• Rehabilitation grant – 87% families left to be given.
• Shifting of families – 93% families left to be shifted.

It is clear that submergence being sought by the company without prior rehabilitation and resettlement is nothing but an unholy attempt to cause the oustees to flee without rehabilitation and resettlement.

State government silent on submergence of sacred Omkareshwar town due to Maheshwar dam

The State government has not denied the statement of the NBA that submergence of the sacred Omkareshwar town is likely due to the back-water submergence of the Maheshwar dam.

No permission for submergence up to 154 m

The Narmada Bachao Andolan calls on the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests take action under S. 16 and 17 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 for the illegal closure of gates and illegal submergence in the monsoon of 2011 and to refuse permission for filling of water up to 154 meters. The NBA also demands that action be taken against Collector Khargone and other officials for knowingly giving the SMHPCL a false certificate that filling of the reservoir at EL 154 meters will not cause any submergence of lands and houses. The NBA also severely censures the S.Kumar’s and the State Government for seeking to cause the death of thousands of villagers by asking for filling of the reservoir up to EL 154 meters, and cautions them that the people’s will respond by taking action against them and for by undertaking Jal Satyagraha in village after village.

 Narmada  Bachao  Andolan

2, Sai Nagar, Mata Chowk,
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh -450 001
Telefax : 0733 - 2228318
E-mail : nbakhandwa@gmail.com

A Memorial Service with a Relevance

On April 2nd 2001 the police under orders from the Government of Madhya Pradesh killed four members of the Adivasi Morcha Sangathan in Mehndikhera village in Dewas district when a big contingent of the latter had gathered to protest against the government team demolishing their houses and beating up and arresting people. Since then every year a memorial service is held on this day at the monument that has been set up to commemorate these martyrs on the main road in Bisali village near the place of the confrontation which is pictured below.

The Bhil tribals have a tradition of erecting memorials to their martial forefathers and these base relief sculptures in stone are called Gathas. In this instance apart from the four Gathas for the four martyrs of the Adivasi Morcha Sangathan there is in the center a slightly bigger Gatha for the great Bhil freedom fighter Tantia who had fought the British valiantly in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
The Adivasi Morcha Sangathan had been making very simple demands at the time - that in accordance with the  Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act and the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution the tribal Gram Sabha or village general body should be recognised as the paramount institution of governance at the village level. Even though the Government was loathe to accede to this demand the tribal organisation had gone ahead and actualised it on the ground in a small area of about twenty five villages where the tribal Gram Sabhas were effectively in control of their affairs and had marginalised the State and Central Governments. This proved to be too much for the latter and it was stated that "the might of the State Government could not be allowed to be marginalised". So a huge armed force of police and forest officials were sent down to these villages to terrorise the people through an indiscriminate campaign of destruction, beating up and arrest which did not even spare the women.
This is not surprising as the independent Indian State has continually trampled on the rights of the tribals and other peasants when it has come to usurping their lands for so called development projects. Even now there are movements going on in various parts of the country against such unjust displacement due to dams in Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, steel and aluminium plants in Orissa and nuclear power plants in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In all these instances it is possible to initiate decentralised and environmentally and socially sustainable processes for generating electricity, utlising water or producing steel and aluminium. However, such decentralised production will not lead to the accumulation of profits which is what drives the modern world. That is why the State uses the force at its disposal against the protestors to favour the rich and powerful.
The Adivasi Morcha Sangathan along with the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath and other organisations continue to fight for tribal autonomy and justice in western Madhya Pradesh and the memorial service at the martyr's monument in Bisali on April 2nd every year serves to rededicate these fighters to their cause. While the whole world gravitates around big celebrations in cities the dour Bhil tribals carry out their own small celebrations in remote corners to keep the flame of environmental and social mass movements for justice and sustainability burning.