Prison for Helping a Woman to Deliver a Baby

Madhuri, the activist of Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sanghatan has been arrested today afternoon, 16.5.2013, in a case in the Court of Shri D.P. Singh Sewach, Judicial Magistrate First Class in Barwani town of Madhya Pradesh. Madhuri, shown in the picture below and others had received a court notice to appear and was informed that the police had filed a closure report (khatma) in the case but the complainant had filed an objection to this and so the trial would have to proceed. Madhuri along with the other accused were offered bail by the magistrate but they refused saying that the case was a fabricated one and they would prefer to lodge their protest against such harassment by going to prison instead. Madhuri was then arrested from the court complex and remanded in Judicial Custody till 30th May 2013 and has been sent to Khargone women's Jail.

The details of the case are as follows: 
An Adivasi resident of village Sukhpuri, Barwani, Baniya Bai, was taken to the Menimata Primary Health Centre (PHC) for delivery by her father-in-law, Dalsingh, on the night of 11th November 2008. They made the 15 km journey on a bullock cart because no other transport was available. After admitting and taking a cursory look at her, the compounder, V.K. Chauhan, and nurse, Nirmala, left the PHC and went home. 
The next morning, Baniya was forced by the compounder and the nurse to leave the hospital. Her family was asked for Rs. 100, which they did not have and so Dalsing immediately went to get money from their village. Despite attempts to re-admit Baniya Bai to the PHC, the compounder flatly refused saying that they could not manage the delivery so she would have to go to Barwani District Hospital or Silawad Hospital. 
Baniya’s relatives tried to get the Menimata hospital compounder, nurse and staff to call for the Janani Express, which is a scheme of the government to provide transport to pregnant women to carry them to a hospital for institutional delivery, but were unsuccessful. The family was told to make its own arrangements to refer to a better hospital. When forced to leave the PHC, Baniya Bai crawled out of the labour room, on to the road outside the PHC, where she lay down in severe pain. 
Eventually, Baniya’s mother-in-law, Suvali Bai, went looking for a Dai or traditional birth attendant, in the marketplace and found Jambai Nana, who had come to the market to collect her wages. After hearing about Baniya Bai's situation, Jambai agreed to assist her, and at around 12PM, conducted a normal delivery on the road outside the hospital. The father-in-law gave his dhoti (loin cloth) to provide cover for Baniya Bai during delivery. Following this incident, a crowd gathered outside the health centre. 
Madhuri, who was passing by, inquired about what was happening. She then called up the Silawad Community Health Centre, the Silawad Police Station as well as health officials from Barwani. Upon being informed, senior officials from the health department ordered for a vehicle to be sent immediately to the Menimata PHC. After being denied emergency obstetric care and being forced to deliver in public view, Baniya Bai and her child were taken to the Silawad Hospital for admission. The compounder, Vijay Kumar was suspended after repeated demands for action against him for his negligence from the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, but was soon reinstated.
Not only that a case was filed against Madhuri, Baniya Bai's Husband, Basant and others on the complaint of the erring compounder and it was registered as First Information Report No 93 of 2008 under sections 353, 332, 147, 148 and 342 of the Indian Penal Code which deal with preventing a government servant from doing his duty, illegal assembly and wrongfully confining a person. The complaint was that the accused had forced a pregnant woman, that is, Baniya Bai, who was in a critical condition and was in labour, to deliver in full public view just outside the Menimata PHC instead of allowing the compounder to take her to a well equipped hospital. However, no action was taken in the case against the accused by the Police until in the course of things they filed a closure report, obviously because the case was a false one. It is pertinent here to mention that the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan has been waging a long battle against the corruption and apathy of the bureaucracy not only in the health services but also in the education department and the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which has led to the termination of the services of many government staff who have been found to be guilty of defalcation of funds. There is tremendous local political and bureaucratic pressure on the Sangathan and especially on Madhuri and earlier too she has been served with notices for externment from the district and on one occasion a proposed mass rally of the organisation was violently opposed by the local politicians and bureaucrats. The filing of this false case against the Sangathan members has also been done due to the political pressure against it.
There are several serious issues that arise from this case:
First of all the pathetic state of health services that prevail in remote areas and the apathetic and cynical attitude of the skeleton staff who are present in these health centres despite the running of an ambitious scheme such as the Janani Suraksha Yojana to ensure institutional delivery.
Secondly this case of Baniya Bai is part of a writ petition filed in the High Court Of Madhya Pradesh, Indore Bench, in which this pathetic status of maternal health services was raised in the light of 29 maternal deaths recorded in a span of 9 months in Barwani District Hospital. Yet the magistrate in this case chose to ignore this whole issue and instead gave weight to the application filed by the complainant that the case should not be dismissed. This just goes to show how much the lower judiciary in this country is swayed by local political and bureaucratic pressure when it should be exercising an independent judicial mind to protect the rights of the oppressed.
Thirdly and most importantly what is the future of this country if activists and especially women activists like Madhuri, who are fighting for the rights of poor Adivasis are to be the victims of such brazen oppression from the corrupt and insensitive bureaucracy. 

- based on a report by Anubha Rastogi

An Amazon Rewarded

Here is a news report of an award to Dayamani Barla who has fought valiantly against the Government and Corporates in Jharkhand in the face of severe repression for the rights of her tribal community - 

Tribal rights activist Dayamani Barla who has been at the forefront of several mass movements in the past 15 years, including the campaign against Arcelor Mittal’s steel plant in Jharkhand, has been awarded the Ellen L Lutz indigenous rights award. Barla will receive the award from Cultural Survival, a Massachusetts-based non-profit organisation which supports the rights of indigenous people, at a ceremony at the Museum of the American Indian, in New York on 23 May.

“Her work makes a difference and impacts all of us by shaping hope and promise for the future — one story at a time, one protest at a time,” said the selection panel which sifted through a long list of nominees before picking the fiery Jharkhand land rights activist. Barla’s life story is one of extraordinary determination and achievement in the face of crushing poverty. Barla who belongs to the Munda tribe in Jharkhand saved on her small income as a housemaid to complete a Master’s degree. She later entered journalism, becoming the first Adivasi woman journalist from Jharkhand. For her writing, she won the Counter Media Award for rural journalism in 2000. She funds herself by running a small restaurant in Ranchi.

Dayamani Barla, a rousing voice against displacement, is also an outspoken critic against the injustices Adivasi communities face. Image credit: Cultural Survival.

Much to the vexation of corporate houses and government officials, Barla has succeeded in upending their best-laid plans through peaceful Gandhian protests which have draw masses. She has been jailed on several occasions for tenuous reasons; once for nearly two months because of leading a protest that caused a roadblock in 2006. But threats, jail time, and a slew of cases and warrants against her haven’t broken her resolve to oppose the displacement of tribals. In 2008, the BBC forecasted that for Arcelor Mittal, Barla would prove to be as much trouble as Mamata Banerjee had been for Tata Motors in West Bengal. Sure enough, Barla’s spirited campaign against ArcelorMittal’s proposed steel plant in Gumla-Khunti, in Jharkhand has now forced the company to relocate to Bokaro. Arcelor Mittal wanted to invest $8.79 billion to set up one of the world’s biggest steel plants in the largely tribal dominated forest area. The steel project required 12,000 acres of land and a new power plant which would have displaced 40 villages in Jharkhand.

Barla’s group, the Adivaasi, Moolvaasi, Astitva Raksha Manch fought the move tooth-and-nail. They successfully convinced villagers not to negotiate with the steel-maker because apart from causing massive displacement, the project would have destroyed the forests in the area, contaminated water sources and hurt the ecosystem. The same reasons propelled Barla to fight the Koel Karo dam project. Miranda Vitello, development assistant, at Cultural Survival said India’s land rights activist edged out over 50 nominees to win the Ellen L Lutz award which comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

www.firstpost.com

The Contradictions of Modern Development

On Sunday, 5th May 2013, four Bhil tribals from the village of Mathwad died when the bus they were travelling on overturned in a difficult hilly portion of the road to their village and fell 20 metres into the valley. These people were sitting on top of the bus as it was overcrowded with people returning from the weekly market in Chhaktala village. Fifty other people both men and women have been injured, some of them seriously. The bus caught fire after falling into the ditch but fortunately by that time all the passengers had been evacuated. And on this tragedy hangs a tale of the contradictory nature of modern development.
When I first came to the Mathwad region in 1985 the first joke I heard was that the road from Alirajpur to Mathwad had been blackened with a macadamised top quite a few times on paper but it still retained the mutiple colours of a mud road because the funds had been siphoned off to colour the pockets of the contractors, bureaucrats and politicians. The lack of a proper road meant that not only was there no public transport but that higher level administrators also could not visit the area frequently because it was difficult to reach by jeeps also. The mobilisation of the KMCS first put pressure on the administration and the government to visit the area and also do something to develop the roads. However, thirty years later the road to Mathwad still remains untarred and the only difference now is that it has been given a stone top in preparation for macadamisation.
Since the road still takes a heavy toll on a vehicle that travels on it regularly there is only one bus that does two trips a day from Alirajpur to Mathwad. It is a ramshackle bus that frequently breaks down. Obviously it was in no shape to take the heavier load that was there on sunday with many people sitting on the top of the bus along with the stuff they had bought from the market. In fact even in the plains part from Alirajpur to Chhaktala there are an insufficient number of buses plying compared to the people travelling and so there are many jeeps that ply illegally and are also overloaded as in the picture below.

Thus, even on plain roads there are accidents sometimes and the poor Bhil tribals who are seen clinging on in the above picture get seriously injured or even die. There are strict legal provisions to prevent this kind of overloading and the police are supposed to implement them. However, the police look the other way after taking a bribe and allow such blatant violations to continue. The problem is that if the jeep owner in the picture above or the bus owner in the case of the bus that overturned in Mathwad were to seat only the regulation number of passengers then there operation would not be profitable. Just the economic costs of running the vehicle are so high that the fare that they would have to charge from the limited number of passengers would be exorbitant. That is why throughout the world public transport has to be subsidised. If it is not then the private operators have to resort to overcrowding to stay afloat and earn a profit.
Even with roads it is the same problem. They cost the earth to build, especially in hilly areas like Mathwad. The government does not have the resources to build good roads and of course there is the ubiquitous problem of siphoning off of funds by corrupt officials. The government does not have funds because it cannot mobilise enough taxes from the people who are mostly poor. Since all economic activities require subsidies to make them profitable obviously those who are economically more powerful grab most of the government funds and the Bhils get the least whether it is in terms of roads, transport, health or education.
All this brings the whole project of modern development under a cloud. Even its economic costs are very high even if we do not count the environmental and social costs. Those engaged in economic activities within this paradigm from the lowest jeep owners to the highest corporation chief executive officers are all bribing the regulators to allow the cutting of or total neglect of costs so as to make a profit. Thus, if modern development is to be pursued then we must also be prepared to accommodate corruption and thievery and the disasters that arise from these.
Even though on  vastly different scales altogether the overturning of the bus on the road to Mathwad is a manifestation of the same cost cutting and lack of regulatory oversight that led to the Bhopal Gas and the Fukushima Nuclear disasters.

Love and Its Management

According to Gerda Lerner the feminist historian who has done extensive field as well as archival research on the origins of patriarchy in the transition between the paleolithic and neolithic era, the control of women's sexuality by men precedes the emergence of private property. The later paleolithic era was one in which the homo sapiens sapiens species had developed leaving all other varieties of homo sapiens to become extinct and it did so by living in small tribes which controlled their territory for hunting and gathering. Frequently there were clashes between tribes over territories and in such cases the winning tribes used to abduct members of the losing tribe. This was because given the low life expectancy at that time of about 25 years of age, procreative human beings were the most important resource for any tribe. However, since the level of technology at that time did not allow men to be held captive over long periods of time, it was the practice to capture women instead and then make them pregnant through continuous raping over a period of a month or two and so render them incapable of fleeing.
With the advent of the neolithic revolution and the development of farming and livestock rearing, surpluses began to be accumulated and private property emerged. This made it imperative for men to know who their children were so as to be able to pass on the accumulated private property. Thus, the relatively free sexual relations between men and women of the later paleolithic era gave way to the institution of marriage and the further chattelisation of women. Consequently, marriage institutionalised the control of female sexuality and outlawed female independence. With time the institution of marriage has become more and more claustrophobic as far as women are concerned dooming most of them to giving birth to and rearing children in large numbers to ensure the continuance of the human race.
Tribal societies in India without exception are patriarchal and there is tremendous control of female sexuality in them. Even if there are greater instances of pre and extra marital sex in such societies as compared to the caste societies in India ( Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities in India are all caste ridden and so irrespective of the religion all non-tribal communities can be deemed to be caste societies), this is strictly controlled and severely punished if it becomes known even in tribal societies.
This long preamble has been necessitated in order to critique a tendency among the media in recent times to portray the Bhil tribal society as an exception to this all round male control of female sexuality, not so much to try and eulogise the supposed freedom of its women but to give a yellow and risque colour of free love to their culture. The Bhils of Jhabua, Alirajpur, Dhar, Dewas, Khargone, Khandwa and Barwani districts celebrate many festivals. The most important is Bhagoria, which is celebrated just before the Hindu festival of Holi in spring. This festival is a celebration of the harvest and a thanksgiving to nature as also a supplication to their Gods for more such harvests in the future. Men and women and especially the adolescents and young adults visit the weekly markets on the market days and partake in communitarian dancing and singing as shown in the picture below. So for a week before Holi by turns there are huge colourful turnouts of Bhil men and women in the weekly market villages and towns enjoying themselves in a celebration of song and dance.

Now among the Bhils there is a practice among adolescent boys and girls of eloping instead of waiting for their parents to decide a match for them. Thus, throughout the year boys and girls decide to elope with each other and they do so during the festivals also, including the Bhagoria festival. However, the proportion of such elopements is miniscule as compared to the total number of marriages in Bhil society because when such elopement does take place then the boy's family has to pay an extra premium above the bride price which may at times exceed the latter. Therefore, families generally discourage their marriageable age children from eloping and instead pro-actively arrange for them to be married through kinship connections. 

But disregarding this strict patriarchal control of love among the Bhils, the media has portrayed the Bhagoria festival continually as a love festival in which the boys and girls who are dancing together as in the picture above are doing so to select their partners as a prelude to eloping with each other in large numbers at the end of the day. This despite the fact that to this day there is not a single video in the public domain of any such couple fleeing together from the Bhagoria festival. It is also said that the Bhagoria festival has got its name from the Hindi word "Bhaagna" which means to flee. This is yet another preposterous fiction as the Bhil language does not have any such word. In fact the name Bhagoria comes from the village Bhagor in Jhabua district where this festival first began to take on a regional flavour rather than being restricted to being celebrated only in the villages as in the case of other Bhil festivals.

To give an idea of how tightly love and marriage are controlled in Bhil society here are two real life stories of what actually happens. A girl from Kanthari village of Alirajpur district, whose sister was already married to a boy in Vakner village, decided to elope with another boy from Vakner village while they were both working as migrant construction workers in Gujarat. The boy and the girl came back to the boy's village and then the family of the boy sent word to the girl's family that their daughter had now become their family member. A whole group of people, all males, from Kanthari village came to Vakner to resolve the issue. Traditionally in such cases the two parties sit at a distance from each other and negotiations are conducted by go-between people called "Vatars" to arrive at a consensus. The Kanthari people said that since the boy had eloped with the girl without prior information to the girl's family or going through a negotiated marriage, so the boy's family would have to pay a premium and demanded one lakh rupees in toto. The boy's family responded by saying that they would pay only rupees twenty thousand. This angered the Kanthari males no end and in typical patriarchal fashion they said this was an insulting economic devaluation of their honour. They got up and immediately began beating up the go-between who happened to the Sarpanch or the elected Village Council head of Vakner. It was only after the Sarpanch's wife and sundry other people intervened that the Sarpanch was rescued but by that time he had been severely beaten up requiring hospitalisation. The Kanthari men in the meanwhile boarded their jeep and fled from the scene. The people of Vakner phoned the office of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath in Alirajpur to complain about the Kanthari people's violent behaviour. The activist in the office in Alirajpur then phoned the police outpost in Chhaktala village which is on the return route to Kanthari from Vakner and the police  apprehended the Kanthari men on their way back and put them in the lock up where they had to cool their heels as well as their tempers. So finally the Vakner men also reached the police outpost in Chhaktala the next day along with the Sarpanch of Kanthari. Eventually the dispute was resolved with the Vakner boy's family paying rupees forty thousand as bride price cum premium to the Kanthari girl's family and now everything is hunky dory.

In another incident the veteran Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath activist Khemla's daughter too eloped with a non-tribal mason while working as a construction worker in Gujarat. The mason's family said that they would not pay any bride price because in their caste it is the girl's family that pays the dowry. While Khemla was amenable to this, his brothers and larger kin group were not. They said that they would not only take the bride price but also the premium because the mason had married their niece without their prior consent. So Khemla's daughter did not return from Gujarat and preferred to stay there with her husband. This angered Khemla's brothers even further and they went in a jeep to search for their niece at Khemla's expense even though Khemla himself did not go. They returned empty handed as Khemla's daughter and her husband had fled from their residence being forewarned by Khemla. But even to this day Khemla's daughter who is now the mother of two children after more than six years has not been able to return to Alirajpur due to the intransigent patriarchal stance taken by her uncles and the larger kin group.

Control of women's sexuality through marriage is a fundamental aspect of patriarchal oppression and it is very much there among the Bhils also. To ignore this and portray  the Bhagoria festival as a love riot and the Bhils as a society of elopers smacks of the yellow trivialisation that has now become a hall mark of most journalism these days.

Mumbai's Water Needs versus the Livelihoods of Tribals

Fresh water supply to the Mumbai-Thane-Navi Mumbai mega conurbation has now come into conflict with the livelihoods of the tribals of the neighbouring regions. As many as eight dams are slated to be built on rivers in the Western Ghats and in the process valuable flora and fauna will be submerged along with the livelihoods of thousands of tribals who have been living in this area for centuries. These tribals have now gone to court but such is the power of the rich people of Mumbai that the Government of Maharashtra is preparing to bull doze its way to constructing these dams disregarding the law clearly laid down in the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act 2006 that the Village Council of the tribal villages has to be first consulted and their rights to the land settled before they can be displaced. A report by Meenal Tatpati on the situation prevailing in the submergence zone of the dam being built on the Kalu River in Murbad Tehsil of Thane district clearly brings out the injustice -

In the latest minutes of the Forest Advisory Committee a small paragraph titled Agenda Item No. 4 highlights a dam on the river Kalu in Murbad Taluka of Thane District. It talks about the submergence of 18 villages, a “comprehensive” rehabilitation package of 68.75 crore being sanctioned and goes on to recommend the project for clearance. What the paragraph does not reveal however, is, the huge socio-economic and cultural impact that a dam diverting 999.328 ha of forest land has already had on the ecology and the people, close to 18,000, who stand to lose their land, forests and livelihood.

ANTI-DAM SLOGANS ON THE WALLS OF THE HOUSES IN MURBAD

The Forests and its people

Murbad is a part of the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats. Many threatened species of fauna and flora and a rich biodiversity have made ecologists recommend it as an Ecologically Sensitive Area. It is also home to the Thakar, Mahadeo Koli and Katkari tribal communities, known for their dependence and intricate links with the forests. The forest here provides shelter, livelihood and sustenance. Produce from Mahua, Tendu, Palas, Mango and Jamun trees is bartered and sold in weekly markets. The forests have a dense cover of Aain, Khair, Kandhol and Khevada trees. Several medicinal plants and wild edible vegetables are also sourced. The streams and rivers provide fish and crabs and water to drink throughout the year. Bibi Pandurang Wakh of Pejwadi hamlet says, “The jungle here provides everything. Even during droughts its bitter tubers sustained us. If the dam comes, our rightful land will go. How will we survive? Where will we take our children and go?”

MAHUA FLOWERS              TUBERS FROM THE FOREST                        FISHING EQUIPMENT

The tribal communities have made utmost use of the village land having planted trees like Mango, Jackfruit, Banana, and Cashew. On their small farmlands, they grow pulses and vegetables, selling them at the local markets.

BAMBOO WORKS

Besides being a rich resource base, the forests have tremendous socio-cultural significance. At Chasole, a village close to the Dam site, is an ancient temple, complete with hero stones. This temple will submerge under the dam waters. The archaeological significance will be lost. So will several sacred groves in villages that are slated to lose their forests.

THE SACRED GROVE AT KHARPATWADI AND THE HATKESHWAR TEMPLE IN CHASOLE WILL BE SUBMERGED

Illegal and unscrupulous attempts of the project proponents

The locals found about the project when JPC’s and dumpers arrived at the dam site, cut thousands of trees and excavated huge quantities of soil to begin building the dam wall. After repeated pleas to the contractors to stop the work failed, the local villagers sought the help of Shramik Mukti Sanghatna, a local organization working for tribal welfare in the region. An RTI filed by the Sanghatna revealed a tangled web of manipulation of laws and unethical tactics being used by the project proponents to further this project.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dweller’s (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006; an Act enacted to “redress historical injustice” meted out to tribals and forest dependent communities has not been implemented in the area. The Act provides that no forest dependent community can be evicted from forest land under their occupation till their rights under the Act are recognized and verified. It also provides for rights to be recognized over community forests and resources. These rights have not been recognized.

The locals had not been given prior information about the proposed dam. Being a tribal area, consultations with the gram sabha regarding the project as stated under PESA were conveniently sidelined by the project proponents. The construction of the dam began in late 2010, without forest clearance. The project proponents also engaged in direct land deals with some tribal families which is illegal under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code. This was done with total secrecy, and the soil required to build the dam was excavated from this land.

In June 2011, the Sanghatna filed a PIL in the Mumbai High Court against the project proponent on the basis of the issue of forest clearance. Meanwhile, the construction of the dam continued, amidst protests and dharnas by the project affected. The proposal was sent for FAC clearance only in August 2011. The project proponents used various tactics of coercion and threats to break the strong opposition to the dam, offering money to the landless and creating chasms within the community. However, people continued to oppose the dam, and in March 2012, the Mumbai High Court stayed the construction of the dam. By this time, 20% construction of the dam wall was already complete.

THE KALU RIVER

THE FORESTS OF SHISEWADI

Facing Displacement

These life-giving forests stand to disappear if the project is eventually completed. Also slated to disappear is the tribal whose identity is intricately linked with this forest. They will be lost, as statistics, a displaced population.

The rehabilitation plan announced by the district authorities provides about Rs 6 lakh to each affected family. The official figure of affected people is pegged at about 3000. This has been calculated without conducting either an EIA or a Social Impact Assessment (made mandatory by the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2007). Sangathan activists and locals say that about 40-42 hamlets will be affected, some whose land will submerge, some whose forests. Only 50% of the people in the affected villages own land, which means that half the population depends on the forests for sustenance. If the forests disappear, so do the people who depend on it. The actual figure of affected individuals is about 18,000! This is only the backwash effect of the actual dam. The water will be supplied to Navi Mumbai, about a 100 km away, in canals and piplelines, affecting thousands of villages downstream as well. But the proposal has no comments on this.

12 gram sabhas passed resolutions rejecting the project. They neither want the dam, nor the rehabilitation money.
Nausa Shiva Waghe of Shisewadi revealed the flaw in the way rehabilitation packages in our country are planned. When asked why they do not want to take the money offered and leave, he said, “What will we do with the money? It is never enough. Money comes, alcohol enters, vehicles enter and then the money goes!”

A rehabilitation package that only provides money completely misses the point. The displaced population is completely alienated, not just from their material source of livelihood but also from cultural and knowledge. Monetary assessment of these values is dehumanizing. The locals here will face loss of identity which money will not be able to restore.

THE KALU RIVER BED WITH THE DAM WALL IN THE BACKGROUND

The future

After rejecting the proposal in April 2012, the FAC in its latest meeting on 4th April has recommended the project for clearance with certain “conditions”. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra has repeatedly stated in his letters to the Ministry of Environment and Forests that the project is of vital importance to Mumbai’s water supply needs. As it expands in size and population, land, water and resources from surrounding areas will continue to be absorbed into this metropolis to feed and shelter its increasing population. Thousands of people along the banks of the rivers that are slated to provide water to Mumbai and other cities stand threatened to be dispossessed, stripped off their land and livelihood, their forests and their rivers. They do not figure in the decision making process making this a short-sighted and incomplete attempt at providing the need of one section of the society without taking into consideration the needs of the other. The Kalu Project is just one of 8 projects slated to come up in this area. On the Kalu itself, a hydroelectricity project is under construction upstream in Malsejh Ghat in Pune District. The geological sensitive nature of the Kalu basin being coupled with absolute disregard of the provisions of cumulative impact assessments of dams in this region will prove dangerous to the ecological and geological stability of the area. A complete socio-cultural and economic impact assessment of such projects, coupled with a biodiversity assessment done by independent agencies is a requirement that cannot be sidelined in such projects.
Meanwhile in Murbad, the people’s struggle will continue.

Worshipping Stinking Rivers

They do not worship rivers in Europe or North America. Yet the rivers there are spic and span with their water in most cases potable enough for drinking. Not only are there strict laws to ensure that untreated domestic and industrial wastes are not released into these rivers but also there is a high level of civic awareness about keeping the rivers clean. However, in India where not only do we worship rivers but have huge gatherings for doing so, the situation is exactly the opposite. Throughout the country and especially in the  metropolises untreated waste water is being indiscriminately released into rivers and streams. So the Yamuna  River is biologically dead in the 25 kilometer stretch within the city of Delhi having no dissolved oxygen whatsoever and instead having huge amounts of pollutants. So much so that tubewells nearby drawing water from more than 50 metres underground spew out  polluted water. The picture below shows water coming out of the tubewell in Geeta Colony in Delhi and immediately foaming.

Millions of people take holy dips in the Ganges River during the Kumbh Melas that are held every twelve years alternatively at Allahabad and Haridwar and also in the Shipra River in Ujjain and the Godavari at Nashik. None of these Rivers are clean and so it is really a conundrum as to how those taking dips in them can become holy. In fact a report in the Hindu newspaper says that the recently concluded Kumbh Mela in Allahabad has left a pile of trash and filth at the Sangam that is going to be a Herculean task to clean. Whenever I cross a stinking river or stream in a town or city I feel deeply disturbed that we have not been able to take a few simple steps to tackle this problem which is getting more and more serious by the day.
Another Kumbh Mela is to take place in Ujjain in 2016. So preparations have begun in earnest. The Shipra river in Ujjain is polluted heavily due to the stinking water that is discharged into it by the Khan River from Indore city and also other streams from Dewas town in addition to the untreated sewage from Ujjain itself. So the Government has initiated a project to lift water from a canal carrying irrigation water from the Indira Sagar dam on the Narmada River up some 300 meters and 30 kilometers to augment the flow of the Shipra. Simultaneously it wants to build a by pass canal to take the dirty water from the Khan River away from its confluence with the Shipra and make it join the latter after it passes through Ujjain. A few thousand crores will be spent on this when at a miniscule fraction of this cost to the exchequer decentralised waste water treatment and disposal systems can be installed with the rich who control most of the land in cities and towns bearing the costs. There are laws and rules in place for this to be done but these are blatantly flouted with Government agencies being the biggest violators.
The NGO TARU tried to get the residents of an upper class colony in Indore to install a sewage treatment plant. The NGO wanted some buy in from the residents and so asked them to contribute a quarter of the installation cost and all of the running costs. These would all be recovered by the reuse of water leading to a lesser demand for water supply from the municipality or from underground. Yet the residents could not come to an agreement. The leaders of the colony demanded a cut from the NGO to let them carry out the project as did the staffers of the Indore Municipal Corporation. When this is the mindset of the people then it is very difficult to do anything else but wallow in the worship of stinking rivers in the cities and towns of this country.

The Rise and Rise of the Tribal Village Council

A tremendously significant recent development is the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court of India regarding bauxite mining on the Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha on April 8th 2013. The writ petition (civil) number 180 of 2011 had been filed by the Orissa Mining Corporation Limited against the order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India dated 24.8.2010 rejecting the application of the former for providing Stage II clearance for the diversion of 660.749 hectares of forest land in the Niyamgiri Hills spread over the two districts of Rayagada and Kalahandi in the state of Odisha for mining of bauxite to be supplied to the Alumina Refinery Project set up by the multinational mining conglomerate Vedanta Plc . The Supreme Court in its judgment upheld this rejection primarily on the ground that the Gram Sabhas or village councils had not decided on the religious and cultural rights of the primitive tribal group of Dongria and Kutia Kondhs who reside in the area and so unless their considered opinion is taken the diversion cannot be allowed under the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forestdwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act (FRA)2006. This judgment is analysed in detail in what follows to bring out its significance.
The Supreme Court was seized of the matter earlier also on a petition filed by Vedanta for directions to MoEF to grant environment clearance for the setting up of the Alumina Refinery and had decided in 2007 that the mining of bauxite could go ahead provided certain conditions regarding environmental protection and rehabilitation of the project affected persons were met and that the MoEF granted environmental clearance on the basis of existing legal provisions. A review petition was filed by an intervener against this order stating that the religious and cultural rights of the Dongria Kondhs as guaranteed under the FRA were being violated but this was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2008. Meanwhile the MoEF gave a Stage I clearance to the Orissa Mining Corporation in early 2009. Thus, the path appeared to be clear for Vedanta to go ahead with mining bauxite.
However, this is when the campaign against the project gathered steam on several fronts. The Dongria Kondhs themselves began to organise in an active manner against the project and several environmental activist groups in India and abroad began providing support to their struggle. These groups together ensured that for the first time the Dongria Kondhs approached a law court to fight for their rights as a petition was filed in the National Environment Appellate Authority against the order of the MoEF granting stage I clearance in 2009 alleging serious violations of the Environment Protection Act 1986 (EPA), FRA and the Forest Conservation Act 1980 (FCA). Simultaneously a huge international campaign was kicked off against Vedanta exposing all its skullduggery in willfully violating environmental laws and also trying to displace the Dongria Kondhs. The violations of the laws was so blatant and so well exposed by the petitioners that the NEAA ordered the MoEF in 2010 to reconsider its decision to give environmental clearance. This led the MoEF to constitute a committee headed by Dr N.C. Saxena to study in depth the situation prevailing in the project area with regard to compliance with various relevant laws. This committee submitted a scathing report documenting in detail the serious violations of various laws committed by the Government of Odisha and Vedanata. On the basis of this the Forest Advisory Committee of the MoEF refused forest clearance and eventually the MoEF refused the Stage II clearance.
The present judgment is a tour de force in legal reasoning. The judges were well aware of the fact that all the  objections raised had been heard before in the earlier petition before the Supreme Court and yet it had dismissed them and ordered that the MoEF should decide on the basis of the prevailing laws on granting the clearance. Therefore, the judgment upholds the need for the exploitation of the bauxite for development and the right of the Odisha Government to so develop it. The judgment also says that even though there are gross violations of the EPA and the FCA by the Alumina Refinery and there is a clear link between the refinery and the bauxite mining in Niyamgiri it is not going into that. Instead the judgment traces the development of the law with regard to the sanctity of the rights of the tribals right from the constitution of the Dilip Singh Bhuria Parliamentary Committee, the subsequent enactment of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 (PESA Act) on the basis of the recommendations of the Bhuria Committee, the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Samatha case upholding the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution regarding the rights of tribals to their land (Samatha v. Andhra Pradesh (1997) 8 SCC 191), the judgment of the Supreme Court upholding the provisions of the PESA Act (Union of India v. Rakesh Kumar, (2010) 4 SCC 50) and the enactment of the FRA and also cites the various international conventions for the protection of the tribals and the environment to show that the rights of tribals and the close proximity of their lifestyles to the environment and its sustainability are paramount and protected by law. The FRA specifically provides that the Gram Sabha has to decide on the status of various rights of the tribals and these include religious and cultural rights. Thus, while the rights to land of some of the tribals in the Niyamgiri Hills have been settled by the Gram Sabhas in that region, the rights of the tribals to continue to  worship Niyamraja who resides on the plateau on top of the Hills has not been settled by the Gram Sabha because this has not come up before it. The FRA specifically states that before any tribal group can be displaced from a certain area all their rights must first be settled by the Gram Sabha. Therefore, the Supreme Court in its judgment has ordered that the Gram Sabhas should be held in the region to decide on the religious and cultural rights of the tribal residents and only if they decide that they are willing to allow Niyam Raja's abode to be accessed can mining take place there. The court has also ordered that a district judge will oversee that the proceedings of the Gram Sabhas are completely fair and there is no pressure applied on the members by the Government or Vedanta.
This is a piquant situation. The Supreme Court now feels that mining should take place with the necessary environmental protection and social welfare measures as ordered earlier by it but yet it puts in the caveat that this can happen only if the Dongria Kondhs say that their religious and cultural rights will not be hurt and it is the tribal Gram Sabhas that will sanction this. With this judgment the tribal Gram Sabhas have now become the most powerful entities with regard to governance in their areas of jurisdiction.
An interesting feature of the case as it unfolded in the court is that the Government of India through the Solicitor General argued in favour of the MoEF rejection of the clearance. This goes to show that the combined power of tribal mobilisation at the grassroots and legal and policy lobbying by environmental action groups both nationally and internationally can lead to tremendous results. Beginning with the mobilisation for the enactment of PESA from 1993 onwards, two decades of such combined activism has resulted in the present judgment which has made the tribal Gram Sabha supreme in its area and immensely empowered small tribal organisations which are fighting the good fight in isolated remote locations. Some people have expressed their reservations regarding the judgment saying that the Government and Vedanta will use all their resources to subvert the Gram Sabhas. They may well do so even though given the level of mobilisation of the Dongria Kondhs and the supporting activists this will not be an easy proposition but what is important is that despite the Judges being disposed towards allowing mining they have been forced to stick to the letter of the law and empower the tribal Gram Sabha. By any counts it is a fantastic judgment that all of us working in tribal areas can use to increase our power and ensure justice for the tribals.

A Successful Fast

The fast being conducted by Medha Patkar and Madhuri Shivkar in the Golibar slums in Mumbai against the illegal demolition of their residences has resulted in a victory after nine days. In these depressing times when most mass protests and fasts are ignored by the corrupt and powerful establishment it is heartening to see one succeeding. Here is the report from the National Alliance of People's Movements -

On the 9^th day of Medha Patkar and Madhuri Shivkar’s fast at Golibar, Mumbai, Sh. Pritviraj Chavan, Chief Minister, Maharashtra intervened. After a meaningful meeting and written assurances by the Principal Secretary(Housing) and CEO, SRA followed by a meeting and agreement to the demands by the Chief Minister, Medha patkar and Madhuri Shivkar call off the fast at 1 AM on 13^th April, 2013, but the struggle will continue to ensure proper implementation of the decisions.Earlier in the day on April 12, thousands of supporters and Slum Dwellers reached to the door step of Chief Minister Bunglow and protested there the whole day, which forced the Chief Minister to agree on the demands on the 9^th day of the fast. A delegation consisted of Sh. ChandraShekhar, Architect, Vidya Bal, Editor, Miloon Saryajani (a Marathi Magazine), Pushpa Dave, Writer, Anjali Damania, Sumit Wajale, Prerna Gaikwad, Ajit Gavkhedkar and residents of Golibar and other slums in Mumbai met the Chief Minister. The fast started on 4^th April, 2013 after demolition of 70+ houses of GaneshKrupa Society, Golibar with the following demands:-

1.       The enquiry in respect of 6 S.R.A. Projects, under the chairmanship of Principal secretary, Housing, is in progress since 13^th January, 2013. We demand that the work in all these projects should be stopped untill the report of the enquiry is completed and actions taken on the recommendations.

2.       If demolitions are being carried out in accordance with court rulings but the preconditions put forth are not met, main issues and allegations of corruption through forgery, fraudulent consent are not resolved etc., then in such cases project work should be stopped and no further demolitions be carried.

3.       In cases where the residents have submitted self development projects or wish to submit the same, they should be sanctioned and encourgaed and started immediately.

4.       S.R.A. Should ensure that in case of ongoing S.R.A. Projects all conditions in L.O.I. should be complied with.

5.       The L.O.I. of the developer should be withdrawn wherever the developers have submitted forged / false documents or wrong information in violation of the L.O.I – as in case of Shivalik builders.

6.       The Chief Minister of Maharashtra has agreed to implement 'Rajeev Awas Yojana' in the slums of Mumbai instead of S.R.A., on 2^nd January, 2013. However these very slums are being buldozed even today. So, the displacement of these slums should be stopped till R.A.Y. is implemented. The same was conveyed to the State Government by the Union Minister Ajay maken on April 2, 2013.

7.       Pilot projects in respect of slum at Mandala, Mankhurd under the R.A.Y. Have already been submiited to the state as well as Central Governments. That should be approved and implemented at the earliest.

8.       Civic amenities (like water, toilets, nallahs, roads ) should be provided to all the slums immediately as per the written assurance given by the Municipal Commissioner.

9.       The Chief Secretary had given a written assurance on 25^th May, 2011 that 19 bastis as agreed in the list, after 9 day fast by Medha Patkar, will be decalred slums within 3 months. There is no action on this assurance till date. The same should be done. The Chief Minister, and the Principal Secretary, Ministry of Housing had premised again in January, 2013 to complete this action during discussions held with them. They also gave a written assurance to that effect. The displacements that are being carried out at present are, therefore, grossly unjust and hence should be stopped forthwith.

10.    Shri Ajay Maken, Minister for Housing and Urban poverty alleviation, Government of India has written a letter to the Chief Minister, Maharashtra state on 2^nd April, 2013. The Chief Minister should declare his stand on the letter in writing.

11.    The land of Sathe Nagar should be given for R.A.Y. . This land is currently under the hold of Bombay Soap company. 

The Chief Minister Agreed to the Following :-

1.      On the issue of Ganesh Krupa Society’s Land: The residents of the Society has paid the amount towards the cost of the land to the government which they agreed. Without the consent of the residents the land cannot be developed. A Joint Meeting within a week will decide about the development of the land.

2.      Rehabilitation building has been constructed on the Defence land which is under court process. No one at the rehabilitation site will be homeless even if defence wins the case. MHADA and Government of Maharashtra will look into the matter. 

3.      No demolition untill the enquiry is complete :- Chief Minister agreed to halt on demolitions of the 6 SRA projects by the Principal Secretary (housing) till the enquiry report comes and action taken. They will take action on the fraudulent cases related to SRA. The enquiry has been promised to be completed by 15^th May, 2013.

4.      Mandala will be declared as the Pilot Project of Rajiv Awas Yojana in Mumbai. Chief Minister will talk to the Central Govt. to implement Rajiv Awas Yojana in Mumbai.

5.      Slum declaration process will be according to the earlier agreement between the Andolan and Government of Maharashtra in May, 2011.

6.      Chief Minister agreed to take Mandala as the Pilot Project of Rajiv Awas Yojana and to talk to the Central Government on RAY.

7.      They  ensured all ongoing SRA projects will be complied with all conditions of LOI and in cases of Fraud documents, LOI will be withdrawn.

After the agreement between the Chief Minister and the delegation from the Movement, Medha Patkar and Madhuri Shivkar called off the fast and were given juice by Vidya Tai Bal and Pushpa Tai Dave.

Prerna Gaikwad, Aba Tandel, Ajit Gavkhedkar, Alex, Sumit Wajale, Sandeep Yeole, Rajkumar, Santosh Thorat, Shriram Bhardwaj, Ajay Palande, Sangeeta, Jameel Bhai, Imtiaz Sheikh, Poonam Kanaujia, Uday Mohite, Seela Manaswinee. Contact : 09892727063 | 09212587159 | napmindia@gmail.com

Things Fall Apart

The meeting between European Colonialists and indigenous Americans, Africans and Asians was a traumatic one for the latter. No one has documented this better than Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in his classic first novel "Things Fall Apart". His passing away on 21st March 2013 marks the end of the era of critical post colonial novels from the third world.
When I first came to live and work among the Bhil tribals in Alirajpur I did not know much about tribal culture and lifestyles. The collection of books at the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath had a copy of "Things Fall Apart" and one of "Jungle ke Davedar" or Claimants of the Forest by Mahasweta Devi. While the first book revolves around a fictional tribal hero Okonkwo the latter is centred on the great Birsa Munda. What they have in common is the spirit with which these tribal heroes fought the British colonialists till their eventual death. Okonkwo is one of the most tragic figures of post colonial literature and it is not for nothing that "Things Fall Apart" is the most popular novel to be read in Africa. These books gave me a much better understanding of the tribal predicament in modern times and the big negative role colonialism had to play in this than any scholarly treatise could have.
Chinua Achebe later went on to write a searing critique of Joseph Conrad's classic "Heart of Darkness". I used to like Joseph Conrad a lot and relished reading his novels including the "Heart of Darkness". However, this critical essay of Achebe's showed how ingrained racism is among the whites so that even overtly progressive authors such as Conrad are covertly racist.
Achebe wrote in English which was the colonial language and not his own mother tongue which is Igbo unlike Mahasweta Devi who writes in Bengali her mother tongue. He defended this saying that - "There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheritance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He had this notion that the Igbo language—which had very many different dialects—should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. But the standard version cannot sing. There's nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It's heavy. It's wooden. It doesn't go anywhere."
In short the British colonialists distorted language also. Luckily they could not do so in India because the major Indian languages already had a rich written tradition. 
One can't help wondering where post colonial criticism through the novel has vanished today when books like Arvind Adiga's "White Tiger" which is an eulogy to capitalist lumpenism and absolute trash also get the Man Booker Prize like "Things Fall Apart" did in its time. Even Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" which has won the Booker of Booker's prize is far inferior to Achebe's classic as far as critical post colonialism is concerned. 

The Constitution Within The Constitution

The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution has been referred to as the Constitution within the Constitution for its provisions to safeguard the interests of the tribals living in areas that have been notifed under it. However, the Governors and the Tribes Advisory Councils which have been empowered to ensure "peace and good governance" in these areas by tempering the policies and actions of the State and Union Governments to accord with tribal needs and sensitivities have not fulfilled their responsibilities in this regard. The National Commission for Scheduled Tribals has in a recent report brought this to the notice of the President and recommended that this lapse should be rectified. Here is a report in the magazine Down to Earth on this -

Governors in the dock

GOVERNORS of states with sizeable tribal population have come in for indictment over not performing their special administrative roles. To ensure partial autonomy in tribal areas, the Constitution entrusts governors with immense powers to supervise the administration and governance in such areas. They can allow or disallow any law or development programme in tribal areas to protect self governance and development needs. They can also make regulations for harmony and effective governance. But governors are hardly doing so, finds the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.

In a confidential report sent to the President, the Commission has recommended that governors be made more accountable in dispensing their special duties in tribal areas notified under Schedule Five of the Constitution, which protects tribal interests. This comes at a time when the government is allocating large development funds for these areas, many of which are reeling from Maoist insurgency.

“There is a need to evolve a mechanism for the governor … in scheduled areas to monitor and ensure implementation (of constitutional provisions) in letter and spirit. So that governors may play an oversight role in the matter,” states the report sent in June last year and seen by Down To Earth.

The Commission, a constitutional body, sends an annual report to the President on the state of affairs in tribal areas notified under Schedule Five.

According to sources, the President, who also enjoys special powers in Schedule Five areas, has sent the report to the tribal affairs ministry. It should have been placed in Parliament after a review by the ministry. But the ministry, due to reasons known to it best, did not do so. “We did not table it in Parliament due to complex procedures and nonavailability of a Hindi version of the report,” A K Dubey, joint secretary of the ministry, says. He does not elaborate“complex procedures”.

Since its inception in 2004, the Commission has sent five annual reports to the President. Except for the first one, no report has yet been tabled in Parliament.

Review all laws

The latest report indicates constant failure of governors in overseeing developments in Schedule Five areas.

The most important responsibility of the governor is to ensure that the special panchayati raj law for tribal areas, known as PESA—Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act—is implemented effectively and any law that contradicts it is put aside. Through a notification, a governor can annul, restrict or modify state and Centre’s regulations without seeking the opinion of the Council of Ministers headed by the chief minister.

Governors’ reports rarely mention poor governance, insurgency or displacement

However, according to B D Sharma, the last commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, “All the laws are automatically applicable until the governor does not want to implement or amend as per the need of the Fifth Schedule areas.” As governors fail to perform this duty, general laws have automatically been applicable to tribal areas, often leading to conflicts. 

The confidential report has recommended a review of all laws for their adaptation in Scheduled Areas. Every year the governor is supposed to send a TACs conducted meetings till December 2012. Senior journalist B G Verghese, who has written extensively on the issue, says sarcastically that it is mutely accepted by the Government of India that the governor in the Fifth Schedule, meant to be a “governor-in-council”, is acting on the aid and advice of his council.

The confidential report has recommended a review of all laws for their adaptation in Scheduled Areas. Every year the governor is supposed to send a report to the President on the state of affairs and his/her interventions.

The commission has suggested that the ministry of tribal affairs should issue a uniform format for preparation and submission of governor’s report. The format should have a provision for review of Union and state laws and their compatibility with the constitutional provisions safeguarding tribal interests. It should also have a specification for listing steps taken to protect the constitutional rights of tribals.

In reviewing laws, governors can consult the Tribes Advisory Councils (TACs) constituted by the states with tribal areas. In the current financial year, four states out of the 11 that have TACs conducted meetings till December 2012. Senior journalist B G Verghese, who has written extensively on the issue, says sarcastically that it is mutely accepted by the Government of India that the governor in the Fifth Schedule, meant to be a “governor-in-council”, is acting on

the aid and advice of his council.

The confidential report has recommended making TACs more accountable. The advisory councils should be reconstituted regularly and meet at least twice a year, says the report.

Out of focus

Governors’ role in Schedule Five areas has been under scrutiny ever since the enactment of PESA. It gained urgency in the recent past with large-scale industrialisation triggering conflicts in several tribal areas.

Governors are not only irregular in sending annual reports to the President (see map), but also evasive on the subjects these reports are meant to address. R R Prasad, director of the National Institute of Rural Development, has analysed such reports. According to him, none of these reports talks about burning issues like displacement, poor governance and insurgency.

“The reports are hardly objective assessments as required by the law. Largely, they read like a laundry list of physical targets and financial allocations under various schemes as reported by the state government’s department,” says Prasad. “It is time a more stringent system is put in place so that the annual report truly reflects the condition of tribes in these areas.”

There is no proper record of the annual reports submitted to the President. Non-profit Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative sought records on governors’ reports between 1990 and 2008 through the right-to-information route. But the tribal affairs ministry furnished reports dating from only 2001, citing the reason that the ministry was created in October 1999.

This is not the first time government’s own wing underscored governors’ negligence in tribal areas. In 2008 and 2011, during governors’ meetings in Delhi, the then president requested them to look into their roles in tribal areas more seriously. In April 2012, the Central government for the first time issued a directive to a governor in respect to his constitutional duty in Scheduled Areas. V Kishore Chandra Deo, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj, asked the governor of Andhra Pradesh to cancel the memorandum of understanding signed for bauxite mining in the state’s Scheduled areas. The governor, however, ignored the directive. The Commission’s report has officially raised an issue that has been simmering for some time now.
The Contradictions 

This report of the NCST brings into focus the impracticability of implementing the Fifth Schedule which is basically a reformulation of the overtly paternalistic attitude towards tribals of the British Colonialists. Actually the real covert intention of the British in introducing an isolationist policy for the tribal areas in the Government of India Act of 1935 was to provide the tribals with a platform to challenge the hegemony of the Indian National Congress in the Freedom Movement and so weaken it. That is why while giving some semblance of autonomy they deliberately worded the law vaguely so that there was considerable ambiguity. The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution too carries over this ambiguity and combined with the reluctance of the Union and State Governments to give autonomy to tribals the implementation has been more in the breach.
Governance in tribal areas is now at a premium due to the conflicts that are emerging and the pressures from below are creating a milieu for the implementation of the Fifth Schedule. In fact in a bold effort one social activist from Chhattisgarh, B K Manish, has launched a legal battle through the courts to get the paramountcy of the Governor and the Tribes Advisory Council for the administration of Scheduled Tribal Areas established. However, given the weakness of the tribals in the Indian political economy and the trend among most tribal leaders in the mainstream political parties to participate in the loot of their community rather than promote communitarian tribal self rule the movement for grassroots tribal autonomy is not gaining strength as much as it should.