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The more the
Maharashtra Government tomtoms about the progressive and efficient nature of the
state administration the more its callousness towards the plight of the masses,
esp. of the rural masses is being exposed. Already the revelation of large-scale
malnutrition among rural children, esp. tribal children in various parts of the
state and malnutrition deaths, and the suicides by desperate debt-ridden
peasants, has exposed the anti-people character of the State Government. The
Congress-NCP led state govt is busy trying to woo the multinationals to invest
in the state and is bending over backwards to accomodate them at the cost of
total neglect of the rural economy. The way the state govt is tackling the
serious drought situation in the state is a pointer to this neglect of the rural
population. The Cong-NCP led Govt has promised to make the state tanker-free,
(the previous Shiv Sena-BJP led Govt had made the same promise) since it has
become a well known fact that the tanker lobby that supplies water to villages
(and in cities) has become a vested interest that earns crores and hence blocks
implementation of any schemes that give permanent solution to the problem of
water scarcity , whether of drinking water or of irrigation and other needs. Yet
this year too the main drought relief task undertaken in the state is the supply
of water through tankers to scarcity villages.
The Maharashtra
Government has always boasted about its Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS). It
collects a professional tax from those sections of the urban population who are
below the taxable limit. This tax money is supposed to entirely go to fund the
EGS scheme. But what is the real state of affairs ? While crores are being
collected by way of professional tax, the EGS is only a mirage as far as the
rural poor are concerned. Food for work they said, but where is the work. Even
if in any one area a EGS work is started it rarely lasts beyond 10 days. For an
unemployed, starving people what does 10 days work in an entire season of six
months mean? The godowns are bursting with grain, including grain allotted for
the food for work program. But little reaches the rural poor
Hence facing this
state of affairs the peasants, both tribal and non-tribal of North Gadhchiroli
and Gondia districts decided to take the grain that is theirs by right since the
govt will not give it. After discussing with the squads of the CPI-ML(PW) and
concerned area committees and with their encouragement and help, from February
this year, a series of raids were conducted on Govt godowns stocking grain While
in some cases the squads accompanied the villagers, in others the village mass
organisations and militia acted on their own initiative. They seized the grain
and carried it off to distribute to all needy villagers.
* On 12th of February
2003, people from 7 villages in Deori area carried away 250 bags of rice from a
Government godown. More than 200 people participated in this mass action and
they later distributed the grain to poor families in all 7 villages. Each family
got about 50 kgs.
* On 14th March the
villagers of Korchi area took control of the godown of the Adivasi Vikas
Mahamandal at Betkati and seized 343 bags (100 kg each) of grain.
* On March 19 people
from the Khobramenda area took their muzzleloaders and went to seize the godown.
They carried away 260 bags of paddy.
* On March 28, the
people from Korchi area took away 147 quintals of paddy from the Adivasi Vikas
Mahamandal godown.
In all cases the grain was
distributed to the villagers by the people themselves. The police have tried
their utmost to find the grain and get the names of those who participated in
the raids but they have drawn a blank. The people getting organised under
revolutionary leadership have decided that they will not suffer the drought
silently and they will not let their children die of malnutrition.
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