The Iron Lady Of Jharkhand
The Ellen L Lutz Award is given to those who have stood up for the rights of indigenous people despite facing numerous odds. It is an international recognition of your struggle. How do you view this?
The tribal society has a very intrinsic relationship with nature, the rivers, the hills and the jungle. It is a part of their heritage. We don't view nature as property. The cultural values, identity and history of this society are closely tied with nature. The fight we have begun is not just to save land and water. It is to save our society's values and the knowledge that we have gained through the years. For the global market, nature is a commodity and they abuse this commodity for their profit. They have an upper hand in declaring nature as a resource and the government has aided them in doing so. They have taken away the land from the tribal and the farming society. The government is trying to hush down the protestors in Jharkhand and other places across the country. They are going to destroy our heritage.
Jharkhand has a history of rebellions. The Koel Karo movement is one of them; eight people were killed during a protest fighting against the construction of the dam. This movement was one of the longest people's movement in the country and went on for forty years. In Dumka, Jharkhand, coal miners and steel industries wanted to usurp land, there was police firing during a protest, three people died and false charges were levied on some of the protestors. They were charged as insurgents and put in prison for about seven months. In Jamshedpur, people who are fighting encroachments have also been charged on false grounds and put in jail.
The award that I got is recognition of the fight for our rights, the fight against oppression by the government and corporate houses. The world understands and empathises with our fight. This is a felicitation of the struggle of the people. The award is not just for Dayamani, it is for all those who have risen against the subjugation. People in the world have joined us and promised to stand by our side. It is not only an Indian phenomenon, it is a message to the world that wherever there is injustice and encroachment by the government and corporate houses, wherever tribals or the farming community are struggling, there is solidarity that comes from all over. If on one side there are the factories and an oppressive government, on the other side there will be people like us, who believe in justice and want to preserve our identity and culture.
You were jailed for nearly three months during the Nagri protests which was clearly a political move on the government's part. What was the situation there?
I saw that the system of governance does not benefit the tribal community. Jail is a form of state repression. One of my fellow inmates was there for stealing a jackfruit. Six months jail for an Adivasi for having illegally eaten a jackfruit? There's no concept of justice here. People who rob the state, who oppress the people, walk free. Corporate houses and criminals make policies with the government as to how to run the state in order to make personal benefits. Politicians and industrialists come to Jharkhand on the behest of trading. Though there have been warrants of arrest issued in their names for the past two-three months but there has been no action. The warrants are being withdrawn. They jailed me because I stood in solidarity with people; because I spoke for the farmers and the prosperity of the marginalised. I realised that when one fights for the community, one becomes a criminal in the eyes of the government.
The highlight of the movement was that you had to fight against the court. How do you react to such misgivings?
We went against the policies of the government. They said that we acquired the land around 1957-58. But when I enquired about details such as the area of land acquired, the compensation paid etc, I learnt that out of 153, 123 people were against taking money for the land. From '57 itself, people refused to give up their land. The land has been in the hands of the farmers for many generations, they have been paying their taxes, so effectively; they are the absolute owners of the land. The government stated that the land was acquired for the Bisra Agricultural University, so I sent an RTI with the same questions to the university. The university replied that they did not have the answers; the management itself did not have any answers to the questions we had posed. No compensation also was made to the farmers, so it becomes clear that the land was not acquired by the government through fair means. The government lied to the high court. They misguided the high court, so the high court was unable to justly pass an order. Our fight is not against the court, nor against any university, it is against the government that did not provide the right documents and hid truths from the court. We want universities to be built, but simply not on agricultural land. We welcome the government to build universities on the wastelands around the area, but not on the land that we use for our livelihood.
At one point, your movement had to go against the sitting judge looking into the Nagri land case?
The court is generally hand-in-glove with the government, but some judges still value humanity and empathise with us. We went to court because we have faith in the court. But when it came to the issues of settlement, we felt the court was biased. The unfortunate issue is that the court that decided to give land to the universities is the same one that heard our plea. So how do we expect justice? This is a question that we have posed not only to the courts but also to the human rights commission. We also want to ask the "welfare state" as to where we could go from this point, when justice is only a mirage.
Across the world, the middle-class is rising to support the cause of the marginalised and the oppressed, but what about people who talk about economic development and education to argue your worldview?
See, the dialogue is not between the people, the court and the government. It is only between the court and the government. All the protests are being silenced by the government. Even the government realises this. We are just saying that leave this land and take the 1900 acre fallow land next to it. It's true that the middle class did not stand up in this matter. But they did try to help in other ways. When I was in jail, it was the middle class that helped me get bail. There were media persons, novelists, artists who campaigned for my release. Where do they come from? They are also in some way affiliated to the middle class.
We are not against development or prosperity or creation of jobs. Higher education is very important. I even took the media to the 1900 acre land. It is a large piece of land and since the government wanted 227 acres, whatever institution they want to make, they can go ahead. What is the meaning of development? Development should mean preservation of fertile, agricultural land. The productivity of foodgrains is declining, not only in Jharkhand but in the entire country. If you don't preserve agricultural land, then the productivity will obviously decrease. We are telling the government to save agricultural land and develop the fallow land for institution purposes. This is will be development.
The Fifth Schedule spoke about the development of the country. Wherever this development would take place, the government can acquire land only by the consent of the farmer. What the government is doing here is a violation of the Fifth Schedule and a violation of human rights. This is violation of the Constitution. Here we have the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (CNT Act). All we are asking is for the implementation of this Act. How do we become traitors or anti-development by this? We become criminals if we are sowing our lands. Then you arrest us and during the jail period of two and a half months, put nine cases against us. What is my crime? If the government is talking about food security, then am I also not talking about food security in my own way?
You meet a lot of people and fight several battles every day. The movement has its own troublemakers as well. Did you ever feel like giving up your struggle?
My life has been a struggle from the start. In my childhood, we lost our land to zamindars and became landless. From the age of 12, life has been about anxieties and little irritants. As a domestic help in Ranchi, my next meal was always a matter of chance. Countless nights were spent owing to the benevolence of policemen of the nearby thana who would give us leftover rotis. I have experienced the sorrow of being landless – that feeling of being absolutely dispossessed and orphaned. It started at a personal level, but now it is a fight for the entire community and the country. How can I give in to threats by the government or corporations? If your life can be useful for saving communities and a way of living, death threats don't matter much. I could have had children of my own, but preferred not to. When the future of so many Adivasi children needs to be secured, we thought we better do without kids of our own. Who will understand this?
And the difficulty of running a hotel..
If I didn't run the hotel, then how would I learn self-dependence? The roti that I eat is not a result of somebody's benevolence. As you have seen, my husband Nelson and I run it with great difficulty. We have to do the cooking, serving and cleaning. At times, Nelson becomes too burdened because I am out visiting the villages. At times our headache is about finding boys who can work with us. The roti and tea we serve to people sustains us not just economically but also gives us a sense of pride. We are in peace. There's no anxiety of dependency. I do not have a bank balance and I am happy about it. LIC agents at times ask me to get insured. I laugh and tell them the people who struggle with me are my insurance.
You say this is a fight for culture and society. The world is moving at a very fast pace. There's technology, modern education is reaching villages and things are changing. Where is the new generation of tribals in all this churning?
The world and culture are not stagnant things. It is ever changing. But the root remains our culture. Birsa Munda died a hundred years ago, but his fight has not died yet. Aren't we fighting for the same cause? America runs the whole world but they have their own history of Native American resistance, who we call 'Red Indians'. They also fought the English for their survival. Tribal people all over the world share a common concept of struggle. The tribal king Seattle was told by the English to surrender lands, mountains and rivers in exchange for an infinite sum of money. But he told them in the 1800's itself that it was not possible for Native Americans to sell these lands because it was part of their cultural heritage. During their struggle, over time, Native Americans have been reduced to very few in numbers. Today, the people who are trying to keep this culture alive are being named for the Ellen Lutz award. So there is a belief that somewhere, the culture is still alive.
Even we believe in technological development. But globalization is trying to counter us and remove us from our homelands using technological developments. We need to stand up paralled to these challenges and use the same technological developments to fight globalization as they have used against us. Today adivasis will work the plough and work with computers as well. We want to fly aeroplanes and have ambitions to reach the moon as well. We are working to be engineers too and why shouldn't we? This is our land, our skies and we consider it our heritage. It is our right to control these areas. We have to stand against the people who want to take away our lands and we want to do it not just by shouting slogans. So there is no question that we are against any technological developments.
So you believe that the new generation of adivasis can actually be role models of change instead of being casualties?
Yes they can, but with an adivasi thought and with adivasi values. We adivasis in Jharkhand and other tribes all over India are trying to do a similar thing and keep our culture alive. The young boys who are fighting along with me are against not just the construction of big buildings but are also fighting for our language and heritage. It is a fight to ensure that we are able to hand over our lands in the trust of our youth. We are fighting for them, our youth. So why wouldn't they join us? We are not just fighting for ourselves.
For example, Jharkhand has 104 companies that have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government. One company wants at least 50 to 60 hectares of land. As per all on-the- record MOU's, if we allocate this much amount of area to every company, there would come a time when 79,717 sq kms of Jharkhand would have to be given to companies who would open mines to excavate minerals. These companies would be handed over all the water resources as well as access to underground water. If they continued to mine at this rate then the entire state would become hollow. You can't call that land anymore. How would we be able to hand it over to our coming generations?
There will be a fraction of our youth who will want globalisation and the construction of buildings and then there would be a section that will join us in our fight against the encroachment. Today every corporate house talks about the Birsa Munda ideology, because they cannot rule Jharkhand without it. Of the 104 companies that have signed the MoU's, three or four companies used lies of discrimination to step into Jharkhand. We haven't allowed other companies to acquire land in the state so far and this has been our strength. It is my belief that I am fighting for the truth and for our coming generation. It has been 150 years since Birsa Munda was martyred. After us, the next generation will continue our struggle and other such sons of the land will be born who will protect adivasi culture, language, social values and our community's rights.
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