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This paper tries to
briefly portray the situation and struggles of the adivasi women in the Eastern,
Central and Southern parts of India. The adivasi population in most states in
the North East have politically transformed into nationalities which are
struggling for their rights to self determination. Their conditions, experiences
and struggles need to be dealt with separately and deeply. Hence in this paper
we have not attempted to cover the situation and struggles of women from North
East who are ST in government classification.
The paper is
presented in three parts. The first deals with the situation of adivasi women in
their traditional societies. The second part deals with the laws and policies
adopted by the colonial and present governments and their impact on the adivasis
especially women. The third part deals with the various kinds of struggles waged
by them.
The general problems
faced by the adivasis are affecting both men and women. Poverty, exploitation,
displacement, land alienation, illiteracy, lack of health facilities etc are
such problems. Though there is a gender angle to these problems (intensity being
felt by the women a bit more due to their being women), the general impact is on
adivasis as a whole. It would neither be correct to view them only from a
women’s angle nor to view them just as general problems and consider only the
problems of patriarchy and gender bias as ‘women’s problems’. So in this paper
we are presenting the situation and struggle of adivasi people and at the same
time we are also presenting the specificities of the situations for an adivasi
woman. Thus we wish to present a more or less comprehensive picture of the
overall situation of the adivasi women and the struggles they are waging to
change all this and not just the patriarchal traditions in their society.
I. Conditions
Adivasis are among
the most deprived and oppressed sections of India. Gender bias and gender
oppression has meant that Adivasi women are worst affected. Adivasis constitute
8.4 crores of the population in India. India has the largest number of adivasis
(indigenous peoples) among the countries in the world, followed by Myanmar and
Mexico. Yet, in many cases the tribal population is decreasing, and some tribes
are on the verge of extinction.
Although, the sex
ratio of 972 amongst Scheduled Tribes (ST) in 1991 was much higher than that of
the general population, which was 927, yet it started showing a declining trend.
This adverse sex ratio, and its decline from 982 in 1971 to 972 in 1991 could be
attributed to higher mortality amongst females and their limited access to
health services. This shows a decline in the status of adivasi women and the
need to pay much more attention to this issue.
Further, the
incidence of poverty among Scheduled Tribes continues to be very high. Official
statistics show 45.86 and 34.75 per cent living below the poverty line in rural
and urban areas respectively in 1999-2000. In comparison the figures for the
general population were 27.09 and 23.62 per cent respectively. {Both figures are
highly understated….. Editor}
The per capita income
of tribals continues to be one of the lowest in the country.
Role in economy:
Adivasi women are central to the economy of their society. They take part in
agricultural production, gather forest produce, do wage labour where available
(from government or forest department works, tendu leaf and road contractors
etc) and almost single handedly bear the whole burden of domestic work,
child-rearing, rearing of cattle/livestock, going to markets to sell their
produce, do the marketing for their families etc. In one word, except those
tasks which are a taboo for them, they do all the work. There may be variations
in what they do in various areas but their central role is undeniable. In many
adivasi communities, the men even marry more than one woman so that they can sit
comfortably (doing the minimal work) while their wives toil away day and night.
Poor adivasi women
commonly referred to as head loaders, walk miles through different conditions,
collecting wood. Gathering fodder, picking leaves, brewing liquor and selling
them, the typical items of work of adivasi women are all characterized by
monotony, hard physical labour, harassment and exploitation. The activities they
predominantly engage in are such as trade in ‘minor’ forest produce and
manufacture and sale of products based on minor forest produce. These activities
are typically low income, seasonal activities, and marginal to the economy.
The liquor trade in
tribal areas finds a predominance of adivasi women. This may seem a sharp
contradiction when viewed in terms of the problems faced by adivasi women on
account of male alcoholism. But when viewed in context of the limited
availability of economic options and issues of survival, it is perhaps less
surprising that such trade is taken up by women. In the few cases that
employment is available to adivasi women, gender based discrimination in wages
both by government and contractors reinforces their economic marginalization.
The government and its departments itself pays lesser wages to women than men.
Land rights:
Half of the adivasi people do not have land. Even when they own some land, in
most cases they may be only marginal holdings. According to the 1991 Census, 42
per cent of the ST population were Main Workers. Of these, 54.5 per cent are
cultivators and 32.7 per cent agricultural labourers. Thus, more than 87 per
cent of the tribal main workers are dependent on agriculture. Further, while
42.9 per cent of the operational holdings of tribals belong to the category of
marginal farmers with less than 1 hectare, 24.1 per cent are of small farmers
category with 1 to 2 hectares; and only 2.2 per cent STs have large operational
holdings with more than 10 hectares.
Importantly, however,
in most of the regions, in most of the tribes adivasi women have no property
rights over land. While adivasi families survive predominantly on account of
women’s work, it is primarily men who have full usufructory and other rights
over land and other resources. But customary law has allowed women usufructory
rights to some extent.
According to a report
prepared by the British ruler Gautzer on the Santhal Paraganas during 1922 to
1935, called the Gautzer’s settlement Report, in Santhali Adivasi Law only males
can inherit land, where sons jointly succeed their father. An unmarried daughter
has no right in the immovable property. A widow has no claim on her deceased
husband’s property if there are male relatives. If a widow does not remarry,
then her rights to maintenance will continue. There is no uniform customary law
for Santhal adivasis and it often varies across villages and could be
significantly different between areas.
Some organizations
have demanded that the Hindu personal laws be made applicable to adivasis so
that polygamy can become illegal and women may inherit property. But under the
political conditions prevailing today this will end up as part of the campaign
to Hinduise adivasis. Adivasi women are struggling to reform their customs and
it is in this process that they can gain their rights.
Education: In
spite of the much publicised Sarva Shikshan Abhiyans, Ashram schools, mid-day
meal schemes the number of Adivasi children going to school and finishing at
least primary school is low. The number of ST girls in school is even lower. The
female literacy rate among tribals in 1991 was far lower (18.2%) as compared to
overall female literacy for the country (39.2%). According to the latest 2001
Census figures female literacy among Scheduled Tribes went up to 28.36 %. Though
there was an increase in total as well as female literacy among tribals, it is
still at a slower pace as compared to the overall population, and to the general
female literacy in the country. In 136 identified districts of erstwhile 11
states (now 13) tribal female literacy was below 10% as per the 1991 census. But
the total figures may not give the actual picture in particular areas. On the
one side the ST female literacy rate in north eastern states is very high while
on the other side there are states where their literacy rate is abysmally low.
For eg. districts like Jalor in Rajasthan with as low as 0.6 per cent of ST
female literacy rate, while Aizawl in Mizoram has a female literacy rate as high
as 85.7 per cent. (1991 Census).
The number of adivasi
women going for higher education including professional courses is miniscule.
All over India, there were one lakh 90 thousand adivasi women who are graduates
and above in 2001 !
The pace of progress
of enrolment of both ST boys and girls at the middle level between 1990-91 and
1999-2000 has been quite impressive, the problem of dropouts happens to be a
common feature for both general and ST students. While both the categories have
been showing a decreasing trend during 1990-91 to 1998-99, the problem still
appears to be the worst with regard to STs.
The attitude of the
central and various state governments towards adivasis can be seen from their
unwillingness to start even primary education in the adivasi languages, while
spending crores on Sanskrit. In spite of the population of the main adivasi
communities like Gonds, Santhals, Bhils etc., running into lakhs up to today the
state governments are not conducting teaching in the adivasi languages forcing
the already alienated people to study in the state’s official language.
Health :
Health is an important indicator of the well being of any group
Literature on the
health status of the tribal women in India is not comprehensive. Most health
related studies are limited, they do not cover the various dimensions of health
affecting the status of tribal women like i) sex-ratio, ii) Female literacy,
iii) Marriage practices, iv) Age at marriage, v) Age of mother at first
conception vi) Life expectancy at birth, etc.
In Andhra Pradesh,
for example, more than 50 per cent of the tribal people do not have access to
drinking water, 70 per cent do not have power connections and more than 75 per
cent do not have access to roads. Although Rs.50 crore was allocated to private
contractors for tribal education and health, thousands of tribal people were
affected by malnutrition, hunger and disease. In Orissa, Rs.680 crores allocated
for tribal development had not been spent.
Poverty, deprivation
and now the reduction of government expenditure on basic medical health
facilities is reflected in the absolutely poor health condition of adivasi women
and children. Child bearing is in this 21 st
century still a risk to the life of the woman. Anaemia is the normal condition
for women, and malnutrition is rampant. Thus, the uproar in Maharashtra in 2005
over malnutrition deaths exposed the fact that the infant mortality rate (IMR)
in tribal areas was 80 per 1000 births and over 50% of these deaths were of
newly born children. Further the report revealed that 23,500 children died every
year in tribal areas in the state alone. In AP too, in the ITDA areas 80% of the
deliveries are conducted at home. The IMR rate is 165 per 1000 births while that
for the general population is 92/1000 births. 55% of children in the ITDA areas
are underweight. Even in the so called advanced state of Kerala the IMR in a
tribal block of Palakad dist. was 66 per thousand births. In UP’s Sonabhadra
dist. in one month alone 19 ST children died of malnutrition, which actually
means due to lack of food. The plight of the women who are bearing these
children can easily be understood. While these facts have been highlighted by a
section of the urban media what we want to highlight is that it is that it is
the policies of the government which have led to this state of affairs. Some
piecemeal solutions like serving nutritious khichdi in anganwadis cannot change
the basic conditions of the advasi population ( not to mention the corruption
rampant in such schemes).
The scanty data and
information available on the health status of the Adivasi population clearly
show that the maternal mortality (between 8 to 25 per 1000) is more than double
the rates than in the more advanced regions. Maternal mortality was reported to
be high among various tribal groups but no exact data is available. The main
causes of maternal mortality were found to be unhygenic and primitive practices
for parturition. The crude death rates are also very high. These adverse health
indicators are largely due to inadequate access to the nutritious foods and lack
of access to health care services.
High levels of
Hepatitis B infection among sections of the already minuscule tribal population
of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands raise medical and social concerns. Compared
to the average 4 to 5 per cent rate in the general population of mainland India,
the prevalence rate in these tribal populations is over 20 per cent. The lack of
purchasing power to buy food even at the public distribution system (PDS) rates
and the distress sale of whatever food surpluses exist are the main reasons for
the starvation deaths in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) region. The coal
mafia in West Bengal is employing poor Santhali adivasi men and women to extract
coal illegally from abandoned open cast mines. This is posing serious health
hazards. Accidents and deaths are common here.
The lack of food
supply through the TPDS is compounded by the fact that Adivasis have no rights
in forests that used to provide them with a variety of food. A ban on hunting
has meant reduced supply of healthy meat while a switch-over to cash crops has
led to reduced availability of food. Due to the depletion of forests due to
excessive felling by vested interests adivasi women have to walk much longer
distances to collect fuelwood and minor forest produce. Even in advanced stages
of pregnancy women have to work hard and go long distances. Thus their workload
has increased. The problem of hunger and malnutrition in Adivasi areas is
clearly linked to the inequalities and threats to livelihood security in these
regions. The solution of providing food for work (EGS) or free food would only
take care of the immediate needs of the Adivasis, but will not provide a
long-term solution.
The plight of adivasi
women in AP symbolizes their situation in all the backward forest areas. On an
average, 312 tribal people die in the Integrated Tribal Development Agency area
of AP every month. There could be several factors responsible for this, but
there is no denying that malaria is a major cause of the deaths. Even if one
survives an illness, it only leaves him or her more vulnerable to another, with
the body’s defences dwindling because of poverty and malnourishment.
Poverty stops them
from visiting the doctor when they fall ill. The maternal mortality rate is
nearly 25 per cent and the infant mortality rate is around 165 for every 1,000,
compared to 95 for every 1,000 at the State level. The under-five mortality rate
is also very high, nearly 50 per cent. Eighty per cent of the children are
anaemic and 55 per cent under-weight. Almost all the tribal girls get married by
the time they attain puberty and become mothers at a very young age.
Maternal and child
health care practices were found to be largely neglected in various tribal group
(i.e. Baster tribal groups, Kutia Kondhs of Orissa, Santals, Jaunsaris, Kharias
etc.) From the inception of pregnancy to its termination, no specific nutritious
diet was consumed by women. On the other hand, some pregnant tribal women (i.e.
Dudh Kharias, Santals) reduced their food intake because of the fear of
recurrent vomitting and also to ensure that the baby may remain small and the
delivery may be easier. Vaccination and immunization of infants and children
were inadequate among tribal groups.
There were two
genetic disorders namely sickle cell anaemia which were found to occur in rather
high frequencies in Schedule Tribes and Scheduled Caste populations, both male
and female were equally affected.
Patriarchy within the
community:
Though it is true
that adivasi women enjoy better status in the tribal societies when compared
with the casteist feudal Indian society in some aspects due to their central
role in the economy, it is by no means an ideal picture. In addition they have
been subject to patriarchal influences of the outside society. "Outsiders" like
traders, contractors, govt employees, police have been sexually exploiting
adivasi women. If the adivasi women in some parts of central India once
committed suicides, now with revolutionary movements and other mass movements
raging across their areas, adivasi women are taking their lives into their hands
and consciously trying to change the patriarchal structures inside their society
and are also fighting the outside influences thereby saving their male members
as well from these evils.
Forms of patriarchy :
Since adivasis belong to different tribes and live in different areas
their customs vary. So the forms of patriarchy may also vary. Basically the
denial of land rights and their restricted role in community public activity and
religious worship in most tribes is discrimination against women. Commonly
patriarchy also finds expression in the form of taboos. Some problems are found
among most of the communities like witch hunting, polygamy and liquor
consumption etc.
Among the Birhors of
Jharkhand hunting wild animals and deep forests are taboo for women. During
menstruation women are not supposed to touch the hunting nets and other
implements. They are patrilocal (but not so strictly followed) and patrilineal.
(Though there is not much property to pass on except ‘a few brass utensils’). In
the Munda, Ho, Oraon and Kharia tribes men do not, as a rule, participate in the
domestic labour of cleaning, cooking and childcare. They do these jobs only if
the woman is ill or otherwise unable to tackle them. Among the Ho and Munda a
woman must not even touch the plough. So as to minimize the chances of
accidentally touching the plough, it is kept outside the house. Among the
Santhal, Oraon and Khasia there is no such taboo. They often carry it to the
field but not on their shoulders. (Women are not allowed to carry loads on their
shoulders nor use a carrying pole – except among the Mundas). Munda women can
use the carrying pole, but they must not touch a yoked plough. Santhal and other
tribal women cannot thatch a roof or use a leveler. They may not shoot arrows,
use a razor, chisel holes, strike an axe or fish with line and hook. They cannot
weave cloth or string a cot.
Among the Munda there
is no prohibition against women touching weapons or using them, though they must
not step over them. But most of the tribes have prohibitions on women handling
some or all weapons or they are allowed to carry them only during certain
functions. Women cannot partake of the sacrificial meat offered to the family
spirits (bonga). They can assist in certain ceremonies but can only share
certain portions of the sacrificial meat, i.e., other than the head, which is
the most valued part of the meat. Among traditional Mundas, making rope bins,
storing grain in them and taking it out, even for day to day use, is the
exclusive right of man. Among the Santhal, menstruating women are not supposed
to go into the vegetable garden or make pickles.
Among the Gonds of
AP, Chattisgarh and Maharashtra there are taboos on women eating delicacies of
hunted animals, and eggs. They do all the agricultural works including ploughing
but they cannot bundle the stalks or step on the threshing ground. They should
not enter the grain storage room. The serious problem they face is that of
forced marriages. The father drinks liquor and accepts to give the daughter in
marriage. Young men some times abduct and marry them forcefully. Some girls run
away but life becomes very difficult after that for them. During menstruation
they face a lot of discrimination and humiliation. They are kept in small,
ill-maintained huts away from the village and have to cook in broken vessels.
The lack of strong
preference for sons does not necessarily mean there is no discrimination between
boys and girls. This may not be so in matters of food but boys do get more time
to play, unlike girls, who at an earlier age have to begin contributing to the
family labour. The discrimination between boys and girls is most strongly
reflected is in the field of modern education. Female literacy among the
adivasis lags considerably behind male literacy.
In a process of
contact with outsiders there is also a conflict in cultural norms. The Ho women
in Singhbhum treat regular sexual relationships as marriage while non-adivasis
sexually exploit them, treating them as promiscuous. Such women are virtually
ostracized when they return to the village especially if they have had a child
by the alliance. Hence the only cases of official marriage between non-adivasis
and adivasi women will take place for the purpose of a legal foothold and
appropriating adivasi land. A socially ostracized woman will get no help in
ploughing her land, thatching her roof (both of which are taboo for her). She
gets no help in the essential rituals, nor help, such as food loans in times of
scarcity.
The adivasi society
(especially the upper echelon) that comes into contact with Hindu caste society
aspires to its values in an effort at upward social mobility. Though bride price
is still an important part of marriage negotiations, the practice of dowry is
being increasingly adopted. The position of a married woman too takes a beating
during such transactions. Divorce and remarriage become more difficult than they
originally were. Children out of wedlock are now considered "illegitimate".
Adivasi men prefer their wives to become housebound on the pattern of Hindu
peasant groups. Polygamy is still prevalent. According to Santhali customary
law, a man can have up to five wives at a time. If a man is dissatisfied in any
way with his wife, he can easily throw her out of the house. With no land in her
name, this leaves her in a particularly vulnerable position. Their rights to
their children are also not absolute. In some tribes if a woman remarries she
may not take her children with her.
In recent years, land
hunger is causing more and more male relatives to forcibly occupy land where a
woman has no brothers. There are increasing cases of brothers-in-law throwing
out the widows of their dead brothers.
The incident of
migration of men, the option of having more than one wife, the absence of
women’s rights over land and other productive resources, have all combined to
create an environment where deserting of women by their husbands is extremely
common. Access to land, that is, in combination to other forces is much more
than a mere economic factor affecting adivasi women but has strong social
implications.
Witch hunting:
The real motivation
for witch-hunting is the desire to eliminate the woman and take away her land.
Witch-hunting reflects the immediate economic objective of taking away of
widow’s rights to the land in favour of the husband’s male relatives. Among the
Santhals, where widows have a relatively stronger transition of rights on land,
witches are exclusively women, whereas among Munda, Oraon and Ho it can be both
men and women.
Witch hunting is an
instrument of class as well as gender oppression used by the propertied classes
by recruiting adivasi people as unconscious accomplices. Though men suspected of
practicing witchcraft are also sometimes attacked or killed, women that too poor
dalit /adivasi women, single, widowed, disabled, women without children i.e.,
those who lack protection or support are the most vulnerable. Witch-hunting, as
many studies have shown has economic connotations and revolves around land.
Whenever landlords or family members (men) or just men from the community want
to usurp the land especially of widows who have got land rights in the tribal
communities they are branded as witches by the ‘ojhas’ ( witch doctors known
under different names in different areas like bhagats, guruvus etc). Egged on by
the ojhas the mob lynches them or attacks them so brutally that they become
unfit for any work for many days. The attacks can include stripping and parading
the victim, tonsuring, blackening the face, slashing the victim with knives or
other sharp instrument, beating, burning, knocking away the teeth and even
burying alive. The social boycott which follows is the most feared punishment.
The ojhas are not
just acting according to superstitions but are often supported by vested
interests – economic, political and social. Since illnesses are common and there
is no public health care system to speak of, adivasis inevitably end up
consulting the ojhas and due to traditions and lack of any scientific knowledge
about the cause of illness easily believe him when he points to some helpless
widow. The police too take the side of the ojhas and landlords. The
administration plays a nominal role.
The State and Central
governments have done next to nothing to curb this evil. Due to pressure from
women and democratic organizations ‘ Prevention of Witch Practices Act 1999’ had
to be passed to outlaw the practice of witch craft in Bihar. [This itself
indicates the proportions the problem had taken. In Jharkhand alone, around 200
women are killed every year. They are regular reports in AP, Assam and other
tribal dominated states.]
On the other hand on
September 22, 2003 at a function in Patna, Sanjay Paswan the then union minister
for human resource development felicitated 51 witch doctors, shamans and
sorcerers. He even had the guts to declare that he was seriously thinking of
introducing a new course in school syllabus on the basis of experience of
witchcraft practitioners for ‘it is they who protect the villagers from evil
spirits’. No doubt, the NDA government thought it best that such superstitions
continue so that the atmosphere in the tribal areas would be more conducive to
the saffronization drive of its main partner BJP in those areas.
The liberalization
policies of subsequent governments from ’91 have worsened the health scenario
and people find health services becoming more of a mirage day by day. So it
would not be far from the truth to claim that the ruling classes are directly
responsible.
II. Laws and policies
and their Impact
The adivasis live in
resource rich regions that have been administratively neglected. The regions are
rich in forests, water, minerals and fertile land. About 70% of the country’s
forests, about 90% of the country’s coal and more than half of the remaining
mines are located in regions inhabited by them.
The oppression and
exploitation of adivasis and the exploitation of the forest resources date back
to the British colonial rule. Restrictions were imposed on adivasis using forest
resources who till then enjoyed them as their natural right. The British
considered forest their property and imposed taxes on everything – land, water,
timber and other forest produce – it was during British rule that the migrations
of the non-tribals to the tribal areas began on a large scale. Since collection
of land tax was done in cash, adivasis had to depend on moneylenders to raise
enough cash. Their labour became a commodity and they had to sell it in British
estates or mines or in the various construction projects such as roads and
railways. Worse still, some of the communities were branded criminals and the
cruel term ‘criminal tribes’ was used which our rulers continued to use
shamelessly.
Transfer of power in
1947 to the Indian big landlords and big bourgeoisie only helped more
exploitation by them and the imperialists. Many laws and policies have been
adopted by the ruling classes which either remained unimplemented or just
worsened the situation for the adivasis. The courts have been the unscrupulous
accomplices of the ruling classes in interpreting these laws to benefit the
landlords, big bourgeois and the imperialists.
The Forest
Conservation Act (FCA) of 1980 arbitrarily froze approximately 22 per cent of
the country’s land for forest conservation, including areas recorded as forest
in any government record.
Several other Acts
have even intensified the exploitation of tribals further. Acts such as: (i) the
Mining Act, (ii) Land Acquisition Act (by the government for its various
projects) (iii) Wild Life Preservation Act (iv) Excise Act etc. have not only
deprived the adivasis of their traditional occupations and control over land and
forest resources, but also displaced them from their traditional homelands and
disrupted the tribal bonds of solidarity and life patterns. There is also a
rapid migration of the non-tribals into tribal areas leading to discrimination
and suppression of the adivasis even in the Scheduled Areas.The governments have
been trying to abolish the laws which gave protection to the adivasis. It was
only with the resistance of the people that such attempts have been thwarted
time and again.
Not only that but the
government flouts the very laws it makes to serve the imperialists’ interests.
The mining leases granted to the private companies militated against all laws
and principles governing the protection of tribal people. They violated, for
instance, the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and the Forest Conservation Act,
1980. When the tribal people protested they were suppressed, arrested, illegally
held or evicted from their homes. The companies began to mine the area without
the mandated environment impact assessment; without putting in place any relief,
rehabilitation and disaster management plans; and with scant regard for the
tribal people’s means of livelihood.
In May 2002 the
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) issued a circular to all States
ordering them to evict all ‘encroachers’ immediately. A massive eviction drive
ensued, which targeted forest communities rather than the commercial and mafia
interests which have actually led to the destruction of forests. This has
led to huge dislocation and suffering among already impoverished people. Lakhs
of families have been rendered homeless - as many as 40,000 families in Assam
alone - and there are many recorded cases of excessive violence. Large scale
evictions followed in 2004 also. In response to the widespread protests that
followed and according to the election promise the UPA government brought the
Scheduled Tribes and Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005.
But before that the
NDA government formulated the draft National policy on Tribals. It spoke of
‘assimilation’ and used words like ‘mainstream’ which denote complete absence of
respect for their independent status and unique culture. It even dared to
categorize them as Hindus irrespective of their own affiliation. And it did not
address the problem of adivasi women or girls. It blatantly sanctioned the
displacement and land alienation of the adivasis by stating that displacement
can be allowed in the name of ‘public interest’!
Since the adoption of
New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1991 the control of World Bank in many of the
projects and schemes concerning forests is very obvious. These have the sole aim
of gaining unrestrained access to the natural resources though it is disguised
under attractive names like Joint Forest Management (JFM), restoring forests,
preserving bio diversity etc. The forest ‘Protection Committees’ to be formed
under JFM are in effect controlled by the forest department for their
secretaries have to be forest rangers. Worse, in AP, the JFM has industry as its
third partner facilitating quicker privatization.
Moreover forests are
being opened to private entrepreneurs in the name of promoting tourism. Eco
tourism is promoted in the adivasi areas by the state governments. This is not
only posing threats to ecology and destroying indigenous cultures but is also
increasing the danger of sex tourism. Tourism too plays a role in alienating
adivasis from their lands. Adivasi communities living near Borra caves in AP
became mere contract workers as they have been taken over by the government.
The draft bill
brought by the UPA government proposes to distribute 2.5 hectares of forest land
each tribal family occupying forest land before October 25, 1980. The manner in
which the various governments (irrespective of the political party in power)
have dealt with the struggles - incidents of firings on their demonstrations,
killing people, mass arrests, lathi charges, rapes and sexual harassment and
other forms of brutal repression points to one fact , that they are hell bent
upon giving the rights over forests to the big landlords, big capitalists and
imperialists and not to the adivasis as claimed in the bill.
Displacement, relief
and rehabilitation:
Millions of people
have been displaced by various planned development schemes since independence,
and adivasis form a significant part of those displaced and affected.
By a conservative
estimate, in the period 1951-90, over 26 million people got displaced by
‘development’ projects such as dams, canals, mining, industries, thermal plants,
sanctuaries, and defense installations. Although adivasis make up just 8% of our
population, they account for more than 8.54 million (40%) of the displaced
persons of all projects and of those only 2.12 million (24.8 per cent) tribals
could be resettled, so far. Due to rapid industrialisation in tribal areas, 3.13
lakh people have been displaced due to mining operations, and a total of 13.3
lakh tribals have been displaced from their ancestral lands. In addition to
direct displacement, mining activity also affects the livelihoods of thousands
more as water tables get disrupted, an excessive burden is dumped on fertile
agricultural land and forests are cut.
Despite large-scale
displacement of people by various development projects since 1947, the country
lacks a comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation (R and R) policy. It was
in 1993 that the ministry of rural development drafted a national rehabilitation
policy. In the Indian federal structure, resettlement is a state issue, but only
a few state governments have come out with a comprehensive R and R policy to
resettle project affected people.
Around 24 villages
with 1,545 families, mainly Sahariya Adivasis, were relocated outside the forest
in northwestern Madhya Pradesh to create a sanctuary for five to eight Asiatic
lions from the Gir forest in Gujarat. These six years have been full of hardship
and poverty. The lions are yet to be brought into the forest. Meanwhile,
thousands of displaced villagers are practically starving.
There is also gender
bias in the form of compensation. Substantial land is often worked, owned and
even inherited by women in many cases, but compensation is provided to the head
of the family or to men. A uniform, state regulated patriarchy is thus forced
upon different cultures. Compensation to oustees is limited to individual
landowners, who have land titles. The nuclear family is the basis. In tribal
households and joint families, households are often registered in the name of
one individual, thus other members of the family including women are deprived of
compensation. Such a policy provides the Indian state with the opportunity to
minimize its expenses on compensation. Besides a substantial number of adivasis
do not have legal rights to the lands they have cultivated.
Trafficking and
Migration of Adivasi Women
Poor economic
conditions, usurpation of their land by outsider landlords, lack of employment
opportunities, displacement and poverty are forcing adivasi men and women to
migrate to urban areas or to areas where there is work. Earlier only men
migrated to urban centers but in recent years large scale migration of single
women is taking place from all regions. Tribal families are driven by poverty to
send unmarried daughters. These single women and tribal girls are being
exploited by employers and are in a vulnerable position. They are also becoming
victims of attacks by anti social elements.
Many tribal girls
from Sundargarh district have been sold to brothels in Delhi for sums varying
between Rs. 8,000 and 20,000. The social repercussions are proving disastrous.
Migrant tribal girls find it difficult to get married within tribal societies,
as people suspected she could be HIV positive euphemistically called ‘Delhi
disease’. Even minor illnesses are feared to be this disease and the girl is
socially boycotted and her family also faces social isolation. In some
instances, the families of the tribal girl have refused to accept her as she had
migrated without permission. Many kidnappings of tribal girls are also reported
and the most likely place they were to end up at brothels of Delhi and Mumbai.
Sundargarh district has become a wholesale market for bringing girls to the send
the sex bazaars of urban centers.
Placement agencies
have also came up. The girls lived in extremely deplorable conditions before
employment. 15-20 girls were forced to stay in a small and dingy room in
extremely unhygienic conditions. Exploitation continued even after employment as
they were never paid the full salary and most often, half of their salary was
taken by the placement agencies. These agencies are run by non-tribals and
unregistered and resort o fraud and deceit often. Some tribal girls from Orissa
have also been spotted working in massage parlours. Severe exploitation, sexual
harassment, human degradation, trafficking and poor health and disease are the
cruel consequences of such migration.
A recent report says
about two lakh adivasi young women from Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal are
presently working as house-maids in middle class houses! 61,000 in Delhi, 42,000
in Kolkata, 36,000 in Mumbai, 13,000 in Bangalore and 26,000 in Goa. Young
Jharkhandi men and women are lured by agents, taken out of Jharkhand like cattle
to contractors and brick kiln owners. Many middle class and upper middle class
houses in Hyderabad have house maids who are as young as 9 or 10 years old
belonging to the Lambada, Gond and other tribes from the neighbouring Telangana
districts. Away from homes and the love and care of the elders they are losing
their childhood in the innumerable household tasks. The newspapers time and
again report incidents of cruelty (burning their bodies with hot irons, locking
them up without food, beating them black and blue etc) by employers but these
are falling on the deaf ears of the administration.
Cultural and
religious onslaught :
While the work of
Christian missionaries among adivasis started during colonial rule, the Hindutva
forces have been concentrating on the adivasi belt for the past two decades. Due
to the work of the missionaries many adivasis have been converted to
Christianity. Now Hindutva forces claim that all tribals are Hindus and are
seeking to ‘reconvert’ them in an aggressive manner. They are establishing
schools in forests for adivasi children, conducting Kumbh Melas like Shabari
Kumba Mela, health centres and faith centres, distributing or selling calendars,
pictures of gods Hanuman, lockets, stickers etc., in the adivasi areas to
achieve their target. In Rajasthan on one occasion, 4,000 activists stayed with
every tribal family for about seven days and arranged a picture of a Hindu god
in every home and gifted Hanuman lockets for every individual and took Rs. 5
from each family for the lockets, calendar and the flag. Hanuman is portrayed as
a tribal god and built statues/temples to Hanuman all over Rajasthan. In his
name, they are encroaching government land. Dalit Christian women have been
dragged out of their houses, publicly tonsured and socially boycotted. In some
villages they constructed fences dividing the ‘Hindu’ tribal people form the
‘Christians’. Many tribal Christians left their home in fear and even if stay on
it is amidst fear. A number of Christian’s houses were ransacked and looted and
churches and prayer halls were destroyed throughout the Dang district of
Gujarat. Schools were also damaged. In the name of ashrams of so called godmen,
large tracts of forest land is occupied but the administration looks the other
way. There have been allegations of sexual harassment and rapes in these ashrams
in Bastar in Chhathisgarh. Both Christianity and Hinduism as religions preach
the adivasis not to revolt against the treacherous injustices they are subjected
to. The manner of their funding or their motives is definitely questionable. But
in the present juncture, the particularly aggressive tactics of Hindutva forces,
the deadly attacks on Christian missionaries as well as adivasi Christians, pose
a grave threat and should be condemned as the immediate danger.
With its imminent
changes for adivasi culture as a whole, for women embracing Hinduism means
losing some of the freedoms they enjoyed in their society and becoming docile
Sitas.
In reaction to the
aggressive attempts of Hindutva forces like Bajrang Dal and VHP to claim adivasi
as Hindus, a small section among some adivasi communities esp. educated sections
are building organizations and conducting activities asserting their distinct
religious and cultural identity, like the Gondi Dharam or Gondwana Samaj. Some
organizations have also tried to develop scripts for languages of the Gond,
Munda, Ho people. In other regions too, in Chotta Nagpur region, there have been
campaigns during census operations to not get classified as Hindus and assert
the tribal religion.
Role of NGOs :
The doors being fully
opened for penetration by the IMF/WB and loot of natural resources by the MNCs
was accompanied by another phenomena is the flooding of NGOs on to the social
and political scene. Most of them were funded by US, EU and Japan imperialists
through multinational funding agencies. One section of the NGOs, like the
conservationists have taken an openly anti-people stand demanding that forest
dwellers be evicted from the forests to preserve the animals and trees. Union
and State government also funded local NGOs, which claim to have an alternative
for every problem (like alternative forest policy, grass roots democracy,
participating development, alternative development etc.) but the actual aim of
all these high sounding names is to divert the people’s attention from the main
causes for the problems – big landlords, big capitalists and imperialists. In
the adivasi areas hundreds of NGOs have seen formed. With their collaborationist
approach they obfuscated the reality and stopped the people’s resistance from
turning militant. The huge amount of funds only helped create a set of power
brokers at the local level.
The NGOs tried to
make people feel that the state was very much concerned about people’s
betterment and only because of some dishonest politicians and officers, benefits
doled out by the state were not reaching them, otherwise, their fate would have
changed. This approach by the NGO not only made the people more loyal to the
state/existing order but also more dependent on them.
III. Adivasi women in
the Fore
Adivasi women have
been part of struggles of the community from the earliest times. They were part
of the struggle to resist forced integration into the caste based agricultural
societies in the feudal period. During colonial rule even British officers have
documented their active participation in the revolts and uprisings,.
Revolts against the
British
From 1763 to 1856
there were at least 40 major rebellions against British rule. And among these
the revolts of adivasis were many. In all these revolts, many of which were
concentrated in Central and eastern parts of India, women played an active and
important part Women’s role in the Kol rebellion, in the Santhal uprisings, in
the revolt led by Birsa Munda, by Alluri Sitaramaraju, the Bhumkal revolt led by
Gundadhur has never been given its due though they were very much involved in
the entire struggle and faced the repression too.
Struggles against
Land Alienation:
A study of 1996 shows
that most Adivasis and Dalits (comprising about 47 per cent of the population)
have been divested of "good and fertile" lands and have become marginal farmers
or labourers. In contrast, the low lands with high productivity and fertile
lands are controlled by fewer than 10 per cent of the people, most of whom are
non-Adivasi absentee landholders.
As per the
information available with the Ministry of Rural Development, as many as 4.65
lakh cases of alienation of tribal land covering an area of 9.17 lakh acres were
registered. The states affected by large scale tribal land alienation include
Andhra Pradesh (2.79 lakh acres), Madhya Pradesh (1.58 lakh acres), Karnataka
(1.30 lakh acres), and Gujarat (1.16 lakh acres).
Among the most
important struggles in which adivasi women have been in the forefront militantly
have been the struggles to regain the lands alienated from them by landlords,
moneylenders. For all the promises of the Central and State governments, and the
laws enacted by them adivasis never got back the lands they had been cultivating
for centuries. In the forests they are considered as encroachers. Their very
existence is bound up with the land and forest. Inevitably the land struggle has
been an important struggle for women. While local struggles were taking place in
various parts of the country it was the Naxalbari movement in North Bengal’s
Siliguri sub-division that attracted the attention of the whole country. It
began in March 1967 when the poor and landless adivasi peasants of North Bengal
surged forward to occupy the lands on the call of the Kisan Sabha, that had
resolved to seize the lands illegally taken over from them by exploitative
landlords and smash the power of the landlords, women were there in large
numbers. They were there to plant the red flags in the occupied fields. Inspite
of police trying to suppress their movement the women too were active to keep
the struggle alive. Seven women and two children were killed on May 25, 1967 in
the police firing when they tried to go ahead with a meeting at Prasadjote.
Later, when the men went into hiding in the face of police repression women kept
confronting the police while looking after the fields and home. Many women also
left their homes in order to organize the peasants. The participation of adivasi
and non-adivasi women was even more marked in the Srikakulam struggle that broke
out in the hill districts of north Andhra Pradesh in 1967 against landlord power
and for the seizure of their lands that had been illegally acquired from them by
the moneylenders and landlords. The movement’s turning point came on 31 st
October 1967 when landlords of Levidi village physically attacked and fired on a
large group of women going to a Girijan Sangham conference with red flags in
their hands. Later as the struggle took an armed form, some women joined the
dalams (guerrilla squads) as well. At great personal risk village women helped
to sustain the squads in the face of encirclement by armed police. Many were
arrested. In this Srikakulam struggle, among 157 people killed by the special
armed police in so called encounters 17 were women, of which 13 were adivasi
women.
The militancy of
adivasi women has been remarkable. They have been in the forefront of the
struggles in Adilabad and Khammam districts (Andhra Pradesh) for land occupation
– lands of landlords and government lands under the banner of the Adivasi Ryotu
Coolie Sangham (ARCS) in the late 1970s. During the course of the struggle a
Conference organized in Indervalli in Adilabad district in April 1980 was
suddenly banned by the State government. Among the thousands who had gathered
there, it was an adivasi woman who killed a policeman with her bow and arrow. In
the ensuing police firing over 60 people were killed. Movements to end landlord
oppression and to occupy lands have continued throughout the decade of the 1980s
and the 1990s by the destitute, land hungry adivasi peasantry in Andhra Pradesh,
Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh under the leadership of the
revolutionaries and others and in most of these struggles women are an important
component. They have also occupied and started cultivating forest lands and
faced harassment of forest officials and the police. Their role in production
and in the family inevitably has made them break the barriers of patriarchal
restrictions to come forward in the struggle. These have been struggles for
their very survival. The struggles led by the Adivasi Mukti Sangathana in
Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh in the 1990s was for regaining the lands
lost to landlords and moneylenders. Similarly the adivasis of Kerala united at
the State level in 2002 to force the government to give them lands that had been
promised to them over the past two decades. Women from among the adivasis came
into the leadership of this struggle. The center of the struggle was Wayanad
district when the people entered the forest and occupied lands there. The State
government had to agree to give land and to make Schedule V applicable to Kerala.
The efforts of
subsequent governments (of TDP and Congress) in AP to get rid of the 1 of 70 Act
to protect the landlords’ lands or to sell off the mineral resources to MNCs in
1989 and 2000 have been stopped due to mass resistance and again now another
attempt is being made by the YSR government under various guises to give away
the rich resources to the MNCs, but adivasis and democratic forces are fighting
it out. Between 1996 and 2004 due to severe protests by the adivasis and other
people the government had to backtrack on the attempt to give Chintapalli
forests for Bauxite mining to a Dubai company.
Struggle against
Major Projects and their Impact:
40% of the people
displaced by development projects are Adivasis and this amounts to about 10
million persons. It is estimated that another 10 million will be displaced in
the next couple of decades. This means, that at the dawn of the 21 st
century, almost a third of the entire Adivasi population of the country will be
development displaced persons. The past two decades has led to major struggles
by affected people against big projects - mining, industrial and irrigation -
being planned by the state and central governments in the interest of big
capitalists. Adivasis have been active in the struggles since they have learnt
from the bitter experiences of their neighbours what the horrifying consequences
of displacement are. While some struggles have concentrated on preventing a
project from being set up, others have struggled for proper rehabilitation and
some against the damage to environment and health. Though these movements may
not be exclusively women’s movements, undoubtedly women have been an extremely
active and effective part of the mobilization.
The Narmada valley
has sustained lakhs of adivasi and non-adivasi peasants for hundreds of years
but the major plans to build 30 big dams and almost 3000 other smaller dams and
other projects on the river has meant the displacement of thousands of
families.It is estimated that 40,000 families are affected by the project. From
1986 when the construction on the Sardar Sarovar dam had commenced the question
of the rehabilitation of those whose lands were acquired by the government came
up first in Nandurbar district on the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh,
and later on the movement spread to other parts of Madhya Pradesh. A broad front
uniting the rich peasants and traders the adivasi small peasants mobilized to
oppose the dam and expose before the world what development means and whom it
benefits. But from 1990 when they were unable to stop the construction of the
dam the focus of the agitation and mobilization became proper rehabilitation and
restricting the height of the dam to minimize the number of villages and people
affected. The main force in the mobilization for the various rallies,
satyagrahas, dharnas and even jal samadhi programs. In this two decade long
agitation have been the adivasis, esp adivasi women. Women have been beaten by
the butts of rifles, they have been dragged on the ground, faced rape yet they
have continued the struggle saying "no one will leave; the dam will not be
built." (Koi nahi hatega, band nahi banega)
The Struggle against
the dams on the Koel Karo in Ranchi district too has been a long one. The
project was initiated in the mid 1970s but picked up momentum in 1983. Munda
adivasi women from the villages facing submergence have been involved in the
agitation to save their fields and homes. Women and men mobilized in large
numbers, barricaded the roads, women sowed crops on the mud roads so that police
jeeps cannot enter the area. Thus they prevented the foundation stone laying
program by Prime Minister Narsimha Rao in 1995. In February 2001, near Tupkara
police outpost the police fired on 5000 men, women and children, killing 10
people including three children.
The adivasis of
Vishakapatnam and other districts of north Andhra have formed various fronts to
struggle against the state government’s efforts to give mining leases to private
companies in the reserved forests of the district. The state government
attempted to grant the leases for bauxite mining in contravention of the Forest
Conservation Law and the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution thereby harming both
the environment and also further eroding the rights of the adivasis. Massive
mobilization of the women and men from the hills and forests of the region in
December 2003 forced the government to step back.
Similarly the
villagers of Kashipur taluka in Rayagada district have been struggling for 12
years to prevent the mining of bauxite in their area and the setting up of an
aluminium production plant by the Birlas and Canadian company ALCAN in the
vicinity, and have successfully blocked access to Baphlimali, a sacred mountain
that is the site of the mine. On December 16, 2000, three adivasis were killed
in Kashipur when police fired on unarmed villagers associated with the people’s
struggle against bauxite mining. On December 1 st,
2004, the state police launched a brutal lathi charge on 400 adivasis, mostly
women, who had gathered to protest the inauguration of a road to a proposed
bauxite-mining site in Baphlimali owned by ALCAN. As a result, 16 people were
critically injured and three women were beaten unconscious. Since this incident,
platoons of armed police with firing orders have occupied the plant. This has
led to long drawn agitations in different parts of the state.
Kalinga Nagar itself
has witnessed scores of demonstrations and protest meetings against different
projects in the past. Thirteen industrial houses are presently implementing
their steel projects in the area.
The Kalinganagar
dispute centred on the acquisition of 12,000 acres of land rich in iron and
chrome ore. The Orissa State sold 2,000 crores to Tata Steel for its Rs
16,000-crore project at Rs 3.35 lakhs an acre. The tribals who own land in the
locality are angry that while the State’s Industrial Infrastructure Development
Corporation (IIDCO) paid them Rs.37,000 an acre for their land in the early
1990s, the authorities are now handing over the land to industrial houses for
Rs.3.5 lakh an acre. The compensation was later increased to a little over
Rs.50,000 but many have not accepted the money. Those with no land of their own
are the worst sufferers.
Armed tribals
objected to commencement of construction work at the site of the six million
tonne steel project of the Tata Steel at Kalinganagar on January 2 nd
2006. The police opened fire killing 12 persons. A havaldar was killed by the
adivasis in retaliation.The firing comes less than 15 days after the Adivasis of
Kashipur (Orissa), observed Martyr’s Day on December 17 to mark the fifth
anniversary of the killing of three youth from Kocheipadar by police during a
demonstration against the proposed Utkal Alumina Plant.
Many fact finding
teams have established the fact that they were shot while retreating or at point
blank range by holding them. A 28 year old woman Jinga Jarka was also killed
while retreating. Bodies of four men and the woman handed over to the adivasis
by police had their wrists chopped off. The killings and the ghastly treatment
of the dead shocked the country and led to wide scale protests.
Kalinganagar is a
turning point in that it had brought other and previously dispossessed adivasis
also to the war path. The effect of the firing spread to other parts of the
State. Hundreds of people blocked the entry points to Rourkela city demanding
that the Rourkela Steel Plant return its surplus land which it had taken from
them about 50 years ago. And the Kalinganagar people have vowed not to forget
the sacrifices of the 12 martyrs and by propagating their struggle and sacrifice
throughout the state they are now building a even more broad based movement
against the lopsided development model of the BJD-BJP government in Orissa.
Struggle for right to forests and other natural resources
Ever since the
governments have taken over the forests the forest produce has become a source
of revenue and income not only for the governments but also for contractors.
Adivasis are the wage labourers who sweat through the heat and rains to collect
the produce and then sell it to avaricious traders or contractors for a
pittance. Adivasi women are very much in the forefront in foraging for leaves
and roots to fill the empty bellies of their families, for collecting firewood
for the needs of the home or to sell in the local market, to collect tendu
leaves, fruits, bark and the innumerable other produce from the forests that
have a market. But the curtailment of their access to the forest and their right
to collect the produce of the forest has affected adivasi women the most and
hence they have been militant in the struggles against forest officials and
their harassment, for proper rates for the produce they collect. Women have been
in the lead in the struggles to get higher rates for tendu leaves they pluck and
against the numerous ways the contractors cheat them in various districts of
Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra etc wherever they
have been organized. In Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra women have been
successful through in getting the right to cut and sell bamboo (or bamboo
products) after paying a nominal royalty from the forest.
The Coca-Cola plant
in Plachimada, a village in Palghat, Kerala was commissioned in March 2000 to
produce 1,224,000 bottles of Coca-Cola and other drinks. The company started to
illegally extract millions of liters of clean water from more than 6 bore wells
installed by it using electric pumps in order to manufacture millions of bottles
of soft drink.
According to the
local people, Coca-Cola was extracting 1.5 million litres per day. The water
level started to fall, going from 150 feet to 500 feet. As a result the
borewells and other water sources for drinking water and for irrigation went
dry. Further the waste water entered the fields affecting crops. They sold
sludge as fertilizer damaging the fertile soil.
The women realized
that the water was toxic and polluted and they had to walk miles.to bring water.
The women started a "dharna" (sit-up) in 2002 at the gates of Coca-Cola which
went on for days together. A movement started by local adivasi women had
unleashed a national and global wave of people’s energy in their support. The
police gave protection to Coca Cola and the people waging struggle especially
women and children were put behind bars. During one day on dharna about 130
protesters were arrested of whom 30 were women and 9 were children, mostly
babies, at around 5 pm and taken to the Chittoor Police Station. Blouses of 5
Adivasi women were torn and some senior officials were particularly keen to
abuse and threaten the protesters with further physical attack. Due to the
agitation the High Court ordered Coca-Cola to stop pirating Plachimada’s water.
These are only some of the struggles going on.
Struggles against
Patriarchy and Social Evils:
Within the adivasi
communities themselves, especially those which are in the throes of broader
struggles, adivasi women are themselves organizing struggles to change the
patriarchal customs that are hampering their desire to gain an equal status
within the community. Among the Gonds, esp the Madia Gonds in Gadchiroli girls
have struggled and won the right to wear blouses after marriage and motherhood
too. Girls in Bastar division of Chhathisgarh are struggling to end menstruation
taboos, against compulsory attendance in Ghotuls, against forced marriages,
against the system of marrying young women to boys much younger in age. Adivasi
women’s organizations in Jharkhand are campaigning against witch hunting and
helping women who are affected. They are conducting people’s courts to nail the
culprits and expose the mercenary motives behind such practices. They are also
campaigning against superstitious beliefs that make ordinary people support
these practices. Women’s organizations are campaigning against and even stopping
marriages being conducted against the will of the girl. If the practice has
reduced in recent times it is because of the efforts of the campaigns. In
various parts of Chhathisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand women’s organizations are
campaigning against polygamy – educating women about the powerless and miserable
situation of women in polygamous marriages.
Women have been
forced to struggle against village elders to attend meetings and participate in
programs of women’s organizations and struggles on general issues. Women’s
organisations in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh are also campaigning to educate
adivasi girls against marrying non-adivasi men who lure them into marriage to
gain control over the lands in the control of the adivasi community. Women have
taken militant processions to close down govt licensed liquor shops which are
playing havoc with the lives of families and increasing indebtedness, wife
beating and other forms of violence against women.
One of the most
common problems which adivasi women face is sexual exploitation by outsiders –
forest contractors, usurers, landlords, forest department officials etc. the
relatively free sexual relations among unmarried adivasis were also exploited by
them for their own ends. The innocent adivasi women would be ensnared mostly by
force. There have been militant agitations against this by both revolutionary
and reformist organizations and it has come to an end in those areas. But this
exploitation continues where they are not so organized.
As a broader
consciousness grows among adivasi women these campaigns and struggles will
inevitably succeed in transforming the entire community and its social relations
in a democratic direction.
Struggles for
political power:
There is another kind
of struggle waged by adivasi men and women in unity with all of the exploited
classes which aim to completely change the present socio-economic structure of
this society and believe that all the present day problems plaguing them would
be solved in the new society as that society endeavors to bestow political power
on them. In fact, they are the fighters for that society now, they will be the
builders of it and wield the political power in it. The struggle for political
power of adivasis along with other oppressed and exploited sections of the
society can be stated to have begun from the Naxalbari movement in the late 60s.
Adivasis had been part of Communist led armed movements in the 20 century and in
their armed revolts against the British, but this was different because this was
fought with the aim of political power for the oppressed masses. Since then the
Naxalbari tradition of armed struggle continued in various rural parts of India.
But quite significantly it has a strong presence in the forests of central and
southern India. The most striking feature of these revolutionary movements is
the large presence of adivasi women. They are becoming part of revolutionary
organizations like adivasi peasant organizations and women organizations and
militantly fighting against the exploitation of forest department officials,
contractors and also against the looting of the forest by big capitalists and
MNCs. They are forming cultural organizations which propagate against the
oppressive aspects of the tribal culture and give the revolutionary alternative
to such culture, simultaneously preserving the rich cultural heritage and the
literary tradition. But all these activities are not done just for their sake
but with the ultimate goal of capturing political power. That is why they have
taken up arms. They are forming organs of political power and taking up all
economic, political and production activities under them. They have built up a
strong women’s movement which fights against patriarchy in their society and
recruits women for the revolutionary cause.
The state has taken
the revolutionary activities of these poor adivasis seriously from the beginning
and has been unleashing severe repression. As a result many adivasi men and
women were killed in real and false encounters with the police and para-military
forces. Scores of women were sexually assaulted and raped. Many were thrown into
jails under false cases. In some instances police did not give away information
about their whereabouts and they languished in those hell-like conditions
without any contact. Police raped them in custody but took videos of them by
forcing them to say that revolutionaries raped them. In the name of giving
employment the governments are forming ‘Girijan (adivasi) Battalions.’ Already
in some states such battalions were formed. In AP adivasis have protested this
severely and so the government had to backtrack. They alleged that the
government wants to use them as cannon fodder and against their own brothers and
sisters in the revolutionary movement. This repression on adivasi women has
taken a particularly barbaric form in the Salwa Judum campaign organised
by adivasi ruling class politicians.in Baster. Since June 2005 gathering their
supporters and with the direct help of the armed police and para military they
have been attacking villages supporting the revolutionary movement, raping and
killing women, burning houses and driving away thousands of villagers But just
as their predecessors these adivasi women are giving a fine example of
resoluteness in face of all this and forging ahead. There is basic difference in
the development model pushed down their throats by the present govt.s and the
development model they want to pursue and establish. The hope of a new society
is attracting adivasi women into these revolutionary movements in large numbers.
Dozens of them have emerged as leaders of the revolutionary movement which is
quite remarkable considering the general picture of backwardness.
A study of the
social, economic, political and cultural conditions of the adivasi women
underlines the fact that unless the exploitation and oppression of the
landlords, capitalists and the imperialists ends and the patriarchal oppression
inside their society is fought adivasi women cannot be liberated. And it is
equally true that they can never achieve it in isolation but only by integrating
with the other oppressed masses in this struggle. The adivasi women in the
revolutionary movements are exactly working for that end and this presents a
bright future to all adivasi women.
Conclusion
The appalling
situation of the adivasi women presented here points out the drastic changes
that have to be made even if the least improvement in their conditions is to be
achieved. They establish without a doubt that independence doesn’t mean anything
if millions of adivasis are suffering this fate in India. Though adivasis
especially women may be one of the most exploited and marginalized people in our
country the situation of other poor, oppressed classes is not much different
either. This shows that the exploitative, oppressive socio economic order of the
society itself has to be drastically changed if all of them have to be
liberated. It has to be a joint struggle of all these classes and not separate
struggles by each class or section as the root cause of their problems is the
same.
It is only natural
that adivasis are in the forefront of struggles not only to fight injustices
against them but also in the struggle to change society as a whole. The freedom
loving, militant, sacrificing adivasis are becoming a source of inspiration to
all struggling people. On the other hand the state is trying to repress them in
the most vicious manner and adivasi women are especially bearing the brunt. So
we want to call attention to the need for all democratic forces to come out
openly in support of their struggles and against the brutal state repression
unleashed on them. We want to emphasize that emancipation of adivasi women
doesn’t just mean an end to patriarchal practices or prejudices in their society
but also liberation from all problems faced by them. Both these struggles have
to be waged jointly by men and women and women should play a leading role in
both these struggles. The women’s movement in India should stand firmly with the
struggling adivasi women to the end in both these struggles because women’s
liberation in India is pointless if millions of adivasi and peasant women are
not liberated.
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